By Asiwaju Yinka Fasuyi.
“As the 35 Princes are busy consulting and marketing their respective suitability for the throne, it is advisable that they also create time to prepare their Performance Blueprint for Ijesaland as whoever is thereafter lucky to enjoy the choice of the Ifa would be expected to hit the ground running. The time starts ticking from Day One in Ipebi!”
At a point in time during my early childhood, I lived briefly with my maternal grandfather, a traditional title holder, the Segbua of Egbeidi, Ilesa, Chief Komolafe Farinloye whose duty as one of the Ifa Priests to the Owa Obokun of Ijesaland and who was installed by His Imperial Majesty Oba Iluyomade Aromolaran 1 in 1933 gave me an early insight into the operation, functioning and efficacy of Ifa Oracle as a traditional Yoruba instrument of divination used for guidance, wisdom, and insight into the past, present, and future.
Many times, I witnessed my grandfather in the course of performing his duties, employing his ‘Opon Ifa’ (Divination Tray), ‘Ikin’ (Palm Nuts), ‘Odu’ (Combination of Complex Messages) to diligently, purely, and truthfully serve both the Ilesa Community and his Principal, Kaabiyesi Owa Obokun Adimula through the shrine located at the center of his chieftaincy ‘akodi’ (Chieftaincy House) located in Egbedi Ilesa.
The precision and accuracy of the messages delivered from Ifa on all people and events during this period earned my respect for Ifa as a traditional divine medium of communication between God and His creations. Little wonder, I am also an offspring of Ifa. No wonder, my ancestry is full-blooded Ifa, my grandfather named Fatunwase (abbreviated from Ifatunwase); my maternal grandfather named Farinloye (abbreviated from Ifarinloye); and my father named Fasuyi (abbreviated from Ifasuyi).
I shared the background above to enable my readers appreciate my knowledge and respect for our eminent Ijesa Chiefs who are entrusted with the task of truthfully hearing and communicating with Ifa Oracle on behalf of the bigger and larger Ijesa Community, in the current process of selecting the 41st Owa Obokun Adimula and Paramount Ruler of Ijesaland.
The reliance on Ifa to provide the divine guidance in the selection process is premised on the assumption that there would be more than one candidate interested in the stool of Owa Obokun Adimula. The second assumption following up from the first one is that the relative capacity, capability, potential, aptitude, competence, aura, endowment, and divine blessing of these qualified candidates would also vary from one candidate to the other. Therefore, the consultation with God through the instrument of Ifa Oracle is to seek the divine guidance in the selection of the best candidate from the lots who would be able to deliver the greatest and most positively impactful quantum of dividends of royalty reign to the Ijesa community.
The objective of this article is therefore to avail the 35 contesting candidates (21 from Ajimoko; 6 from Ofokutu; 5 from Fajemisin; and 3 from Arimoro)that have thus far expressed interest in occupying the Ultra-modern Owa Obokun Adimula Palace at Ereja Square, Ilesa of the ingredients that the Ifa Oracle shall be searching for in them in order to pick just ONE of the Princes at the end of the race.
The 25-Menu Agenda drawn on the strength of my experience in office as the first Asiwaju of Ijesaland are the minimum expectations every Ijesa Woman, Man, Young, Old, Poor, Rich, at Home, and in the Diaspora expects from the Bilaro Ruling House-produced 41st Owa Obokun Adimula and Paramount Ruler of Ijesaland.
1. AGENDA ONE
Build Trust and Confidence for Loyal and Faithful Followership by Ijesa people. From the day Ifa speaks, such a nominee has lost his privacy. His conduct in the Palace, in the public, in the Ijesa Community, amongst Traditional Rulers, with Government functionaries, etc shall be followed, monitored, and appraised by his subjects. His conduct will determine the amount of loyalty, respect, and love from Ijesas in Ilare-Ijesa, Iponda, Itagunmodi, Ipetu-ijesa, Ijebu-jesa, Ibodi, Ifewara, Igangan, Owena-Ijesa, Ilesa, Ipole, Ilase, Osu, Iperindo etc to be EARNED from them.
2. AGENDA TWO
Provide Leadership By Example. The declaration of his vision and mission must be guided with self diagnosis by being able to self determine and drive the accomplishment of “What Would I Be Remembered For After My Reign?” He must be willing to provide the leadership in the delivery of what he would like to be remembered for at the end of his reign.
3. AGENDA THREE
Peace and Unity in Ijesaland. Ijesaland has over 150 documented communities making up the kingdom. The unity in Ijesaland is our collective strength which as it is currently in place today has to be maintained and strengthened through proactive measures and mechanism. For the purpose of the spread of development we may be talking of Ijesa Central, Ijesa North, and Ijesa South BUT for the purpose of culture, shared values, spirit, and norms we are all one and should be maintained and strengthened as ONE IJESA.
Our development negotiation with tiers of government especially at State and Federal levels are better realised under the umbrella of ONE IJESA, ONE PEOPLE, ONE DESTINY.
4: AGENDA FOUR
The new Owa Obokun Adimula is coming to occupy a traditional stool, hence, should be a Chief Promoter and Custodian of Ijesa Culture, Traditions, Norms, and Values. His presence and attendance in the over 150 Ijesa communities cultural festivals is highly desirable for identification with the communities and creating a sense of belonging with the communities. This can be scheduled and planned ahead once the roaster of individual community cultural festivals is generated.
5: AGENDA FIVE
Personal Integrity, Character, Pedigree, Records, and Achievements. What a would-be Owa Obokun Adimula does not have in integrity, character, pedigree, and achievements he cannot be expected to offer nor preach same to others. The stool of Owa Obokun Adimula is a revered institution that symbolises our collective values as Ijesa people, hence, he must continually and consistently showcase personal integrity in all his dealings both private and public. His integrity would be an asset to attract investments in Ijesaland.
6: QUALITY REPRESENTATION IN THE COMITY OF LEADING TRADITIONAL RULERS IN NIGERIA
The Owa Obokun Adimula and Paramount Ruler of Ijesaland in the current socioeconomic setting in Nigeria and beyond, apart from being a direct descendant of Oduduwa, is the Chief Ambassador of all Ijesas and should therefore familiarize himself with the History of Ijesaland; Contemporary History of Yoruba; Contemporary History of Traditional Rulers and Institutions in Nigeria; and International Contemporary History so that his contributions at public fora would continually command respect for himself and Ijesaland.
7: SECURING IJESALAND GEOGRAPHICAL AND TERRITORIAL SPACE
Ijesaland is today lucky to be occupying the largest geographical and territorial space in Osun State. But we are currently faced with serious issues of encroachment from Alakowe end, from Ilase route, from Owena Owode axis, and from nearly all our territorial boundaries. The new Owa Obokun Adimula would have to uncompromisingly recover all our lost territorial space and fashion out a sustainable territorial security system for Ijesaland.
8: COMMUNITY LAND PRESERVATION FOR DEVELOPMENT
Continuous and sustainable development is a rational desire of every community but this is only feasible where the key Stakeholders in the land make proactive provisions for the landed properties where such development projects are to be sited. The next Owa Obokun Adimula would as a matter of immediate priority champion the preservation of all the remaining public land assets in Ijesaland for development purposes and put a final stop to indiscriminate community land sales to the detriment of community development projects.
9: PRODUCTIVE DEPLOYMENT OF COMMUNITY BOYZ
Some of our youth that the society fails to cater for are today being deployed to various inhuman usage which are both detrimental to the future of the youth and our communities in Ijesaland. Some of these Youth are deployed into collecting all kinds of levies and charges on people carrying out either personal development or business development. Many prospective developers have lost interest in investing in development activities on the account of this frustration. Our new Imperial Majesty must not only publicly distance himself from such Youth abuse but must go a step further by designing with community Stakeholders measures for redeployment of these able hands into a productive and decent value creating activities in Ijesaland. A successful intervention in this area would steadily promote more investment and development in Ijesaland.
10: MINING FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF IJESALAND
The good news is that Ijesaland is home to the best and highest quality gold in Nigeria.
The great news is that Ijesaland is home to the FIRST and ONLY large-scale Mining Firm in the country.
However, the sad news is that in the almost one decade of mining activities in the Communities, Ijesaland is poorer as there’s absolutely nothing to reflect on the post mining linkages and related Industrialisation benefits to Ijesaland.
The new czar, Owa Obokun Adimula would have to champion the negotiation with the relevant large scale mining firm; Osun State; Federal Government; and several artestinal mining firms operating in all nooks and corner of Ijesaland in optimising on what comes to Ijesaland Community Development as against what goes to individual purses.
And in addition to this, lead the advocacy in putting in place sustainable environmental safeguards to halt the devastating environmental degradation, pollution, and health hazards associated with mining practices in Ijesaland.
11: AGENDA ELEVEN
STATUTORY MEETINGS & ENGAGEMENTS WITH COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS
All the proposed agenda and many more to be added can only be resourcefully realised when the Owa Obokun Adimula engages the Community Stakeholders periodically. There are community engagements to entrust and delegate to the ward chiefs and there are strategic development meetings with key Stakeholders to be initiated by His Imperial Majesty.
And a quarterly meeting is proposed between His Imperial Majesty and all the Traditional Rulers in Ijesaland where only two agenda, namely Development in Ijesaland and Security in Ijesaland, are discussed.
The three levels of meeting would have to be harnessed for effective communication flow in Ijesaland.
12: NON-PARTISANSHIP STATUS OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY
The Owa Obokun Adimula is an institution umbrella where there should be no discrimination on the basis of political party affiliation, religion, gender, class, etc.
For the new Owa Obokun Adimula to earn the popular respect of all and sundry, he should not belong secretly or overtly to any political party. His words and conduct all the time must show him as a father to all parties. Through this approach he would be able to confidently approach any government in power for the attraction of benefits to Ijesaland.
13: REVIVAL OF INTEGRITY, CHARACTER, PEDIGREE, ACHIEVEMENTS, & COMMUNITY VALUE-ADDITION POTENTIALS IN CONFERMENT OF CHIEFTAINCY TITLES
The Chiefs are the immediate representatives of His Imperial Majesty in the day to day relationship with members of the community.
The ability of the Chiefs to effectively and efficiently discharge on this onerous task is a function of trust and confidence that the community members have in the Chiefs.
And the trust and confidence are also primarily determined by the integrity, character, pedigree, and records of achievements of the Chiefs. Achievements here are not necessarily measured in terms of monetary resources but more importantly in terms of stock of goodwill and respect earned in the community by the title holders.
Continuous reorientation and revival of Integrity-driven chieftaincy conferment would go a long way in re-branding the Palace and repositioning it to satisfactorily serve Ijesaland.
Furtherance to this is the need to disemphasise the ‘sales’ of Chieftaincy Titles in Ijesaland but rather confer on candidates based on their respective Value-Addition Potentials and Contributions to Ijesaland.
14: INTRA-COMMUNITY AND INTER-COMMUNITY CONFLICT RESOLUTION MECHANISM
One of the common attributes of human societies is the constant emergence of conflicts and crisis usually emanating from the conflicting interests of the same homogeneous people.
Ijesaland is no doubt a large kingdom of well over 150 communities.
In order to maintain the peace and tranquility among the various communities in Ijesaland the Owa Obokun Adimula would need to put in place a conflict response system which would promptly identify all Intra-Community and Inter-Community Conflicts and Crisis with an objective to nip such in the buds in order to continually guarantee our peace and unity in Ijesaland.
15: DEVELOPMENT OF IJESALAND COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT PLANS
Our In-coming Imperial Majesty would most likely wish to build on the current community-driven development feat in Ijesaland by improving on it with the putting in place a short-term development like 5-Year Plan; midterm development like 10-Year Plan; and a long-term development plan like 20-Year Plan which is all-inclusive of all communities in Ijesaland. Such development plans should adopt a participatory, demand-driven bottom-up approach as against a non-participatory, supply-driven top-bottom approach. This approach will promote Community Ownership of such development plans, projects, and programs and thus become sustainable. This lays the foundation of the first tier of development named Community-Driven Development (CDD).
16: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT SYNERGY STRATEGY WITH THE SIX LGAS IN IJESALAND
With the advent of the recent financial autonomy granted to LGAs in Nigeria, His Imperial Majesty can latch on this opportunity to champion a synergy between the traditional institutions and the LGAs in Ijesaland by drawing timeframe-based sustainable development plans for Ijesaland. This layer therefore becomes the second and complimentary layer to the first tier Community-Driven Development Plans.
17: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY WITH THE STATE GOVERNMENT
This is the third layer of development strategy to be championed by His Imperial Majesty.
The achievements being realised through Community-Driven Projects in addition to those being delivered by the six LGAS in Ijesaland would be used to negotiate State Counterpart Development Plans in Ijesaland.
His Imperial Majesty would further leverage on Ijesa indigenes in the cabinet of the State Government to negotiate development projects presence in Ijesaland.
18: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
With the establishment of effective communication channels with Ijesas indigenes in all positions of authority by His Imperial Majesty, we expect His Imperial Majesty to leverage on these relationships to attract more federal presence in Ijesaland.
Furthermore, His Imperial Majesty would be expected to demand regular performance public reporting from Ijesaland representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives. His Imperial Majesty would be liasing with these representatives to ensure Ijesaland derive maximum benefits from their representation.
19: ILESA WATER PROJECT
The speedy completion of Ilesa Water Project running into decades by the Owa Obokun Adimula championing the resolution of the bottlenecks at both the State and Federal Government levels.
This project can never be abandoned!
20: STRATEGISE FOR HARNESSING IJESA DIASPORANS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Nigeria today earns the bulk of her foreign exchange inflows from the remittances made by Nigerians of different professionals working and living abroad.
It is no gainsaying that Ijesas constitute a sizeable part of this diasporan’s populace which His Imperial Majesty would require to harness with a view to improve on their collective contributions towards the sustainable development of Ijesaland.
There’s need to expand the participation net and volume from this strategic source and which His Imperial Majesty would be required to champion.
21: LOCAL SECURITY NETWORK MECHANISM
The significance and efficacy of Community Policing in responding to effective securing of our environment, life, and property is not in doubt.
Secured Ijesaland is required to guarantee flow of investments, tourism, and regular home coming of our numerous Ijesa Sons and Daughters both across the country and also from outside the country.
Our new Owa Obokun Adimula would need to provide leadership in collaborating with the rest Traditional Rulers in Ijesaland and the various security agencies in the LGAs, State, and Federal towards the realisation of secured Ijesaland at all times.
22: IJESALAND INDUSTRIALISATION PLAN AND STRATEGY
Aside from the large deposit of solid mineral resources found in different communities in Ijesaland, our land is also excellently fertile in supporting Cash Crops and Food Crops. This is in addition to having an enabling ecology for Livestock Development.
His Imperial Majesty would need to champion the collection of data on all available resources in Ijesaland with the objective of assisting him to classify our various communities along their respective areas of comparative advantage with which several cottage industries could be encouraged.
The only major surviving industry in Ijesaland today is the International Brewery Plc established over 50 years ago.
His Imperial Majesty would be happy to be remembered to add minimum of three others, namely one in Ijesa North, one in Ijesa South, and another one in Ijesa Central.
Provision of enabling environment such as land and community security are some of the incentives that could be captured in the Industrialisation Plans to be conceived by His Imperial Majesty.
23: RECOGNITION OF IJESAS IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY
Arising from our historical investments in sustainable human capital development through provision of quality education and trainings to our brethren, it is therefore not a surprise today that Ijesas Daughters and Sons are found in many strategic Ministries, Departments, Agencies in the Public Sector while similarly doing exceptionally well also in the Private Sector of the economy.
His Imperial Majesty would be expected to generate, collate, identify, recognize these individuals of Ijesaland descent while in office through the establishment of communication channels between these individuals and the Palace purely and solely for the promotion and advancement of the good cause of Corporate Ijesaland Community.
24: DOCUMENTATION AND DISSEMINATION OF IJESA HISTORY, CULTURE, AND TRADITIONS
Recent developments and information deficit after the demise of our Imperial Majesty Oba Dr Gabriel Adekunle Aromolaran 11, CFR, LL.D revealed the urgent need to generate, collate, and document facts of history on a regular basis and continuous sharing and dissemination of same to all Stakeholders in Ijesaland with a view to regularly enrich them with their past and present so that they can also have something to bequeath to the future.
His Imperial Majesty would be required to provide the leadership in the commencement of this research project.
25: BASELINE STUDY ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF IJESALAND DEVELOPMENT PROFILE
In order to assist the In-coming Imperial Majesty document his value-addition to Ijesaland and such contributions to be properly documented for history after him, there would be the need for the new Owa Obokun Adimula to carry out a baseline study on all the twenty-four issues listed above in order for him to clearly appraise what he would meeting on ground as at the time of assumption of the throne.
Whatever additions that are created under him can then be captured after his reign.
The difference would now represent what he would be remembered for!
As the 35 Princes are busy consulting and marketing their respective suitability for the throne, it is advisable that they also create time to prepare their Performance Blueprint for Ijesaland as whoever is thereafter lucky to enjoy the choice of the Ifa would be expected to hit the ground running. The time starts ticking from Day One in Ipebi!
Wishing you all best of luck as we await to hear from Ifa!
Asiwaju Olayinka Fasuyi,
The First Asiwaju Of Ijesaland,
Oke Baba Okuta Villa, Ilesa.
12th November, 2024.
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