By Anote Ajeluorou
Lawyer, playwright and minority political rights activist, Mr. Fred
Agbeyegbe is of Itsekiri stock and has distinguished himself in many fields of
endeavours. He sat with the late Olu for
four hours during his 90-day period of seclusion in 1987 and gives insight into
Itsekiri historical evolution, the coronation process and other salient issues.
Excerpts:
With the coronation of the Olu-elect, a new era seems in the
offing. How ready is the Itsekiri nation to embrace it?
There are times when the old
must pass away and the new must take over. It’s a natural phenomenon, and given
the shortcomings of life itself as made by God and nature, there is never a
perfect situation. The development and growth of nations are a quest that human
beings never stopped seeking. There is always hope that today will be better
than yesterday. To that extent, those of us who are older do not easily embrace
change. When change comes, you find the younger people in society embracing it.
There is hope in that the new Olu is a younger person. The young
people are the ones who would naturally be involved with him; the only set of
old people he would be dealing with are the chiefs that he inherited. In that
respect, it is a new era for the Itsekiri people.
There have been a lot of
inter-ethnic problems between the Itsekiri and their neighbours. How can the
new Olu help sustain the subsisting
peace?
That would be good for the Itsekiri
people and all of those in their immediate surroundings. I don’t think that it
would be necessary, the Itsekiri and their neighbours being at each other’s
throats as you would have in every locality. It is not necessarily because they
are not from the same ethnic group; it is because of human nature. Wherever you
may be, because of scarcity of resource, there is always the need to
inter-fight (if there is a word like that) over the scarce resources of life,
those resources that human beings need to survive, whether it is land, general
resources and so on. We have the examples of the Yoruba, as demonstrated by the
Modakeke and Ile-Ife, which shows that it is not necessarily ethnicity that
brings about such neighbourly quarrels.
Now, for the people in the
Delta fighting, particularly the Ijaw, the Itsekiri, it is more acute there for
reasons other than ordinary neighbourly disagreements. For me, Delta State is
the Eldorado of Nigeria, if only because there is this one resource oil. The
Nigerian authorities have decided that the only resource that is worth pursuing
is the one resource that God naturally God gave them the right for it to be on
their land, but who are not allowed to enjoy it to any extent for that matter
and because it is the bread basket of the nation.
It is my firm belief, and
examples can be given, that it is not in the interest of the unitary Federal
Government of Nigeria that the Itsekiri, the Ijaw and the Urhobo would find
peace, because there is this anticipation that once they do, it would also cost
those powerful authorities who rule over the area, and they cannot suffer the
inconvenience that the peace in that area would bring. On the principles of
divide and rule, the three ethnic groups must forever remain in dispute. The
best example of that was the fight between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri not so
long ago.
Could you give us the historical
background of the Oluship of the
Itsekiri?
As an Itsekiri man, my elders
taught me that the history of Itsekiri land had its origin in Benin. The fact
is that the titles of chiefs in Benin have the same correlation as the chiefs
in Itsekiri, and that is the linkage. That is why in Itsekiri, if you have a
title that is not in tandem with the titles in Benin, it will be known that you
are a modern creation, and that is why in Itsekiri you have what is called Omajaja, Otoloye and you have the royal family. The Omajaja are those people who were there before the son of the Oba of Benin came to rule over them. The
Otoloyes are the chiefs that the descendants
of the chiefs of the Oba of Benin that came with the first Olu of Warri. Then you have the royal family; those are all the new
people that descended from the Olus.
It then means that the coronation
rites of the Itsekiri are similar to that of the Benin since there is the same
ancestral link?
Yes; it does, in every regard.
We have the same titles
There is the story of the
altercation, not long ago, between the Oba
of Benin and the late Olu of Warri.
The Oba of Benin and the Olu of Warri were at a meeting, and he
said that ‘My son here’ (referring to the Olu
of Warri) is well aware of what I’m saying. That is how it goes by
tradition….’ The late Olu retorted by
saying, ‘yes, that is how it goes, but I’m not your son; I’m your senior
brother.’ And, of course, you know how powerful the Oba of Benin is. It didn’t go down well with him at all. But the
late Olu was a lawyer who was talking
law, he was talking history; he was talking ascendency. If the person who left
Benin to found the Itsekiri Oluship was
the first son of the then Oba of
Benin because of a royal plot to kill him, it means that after he left, someone
junior to him on the succession line was the one who became Oba of Benin. Then any new Olu of Warri, tracing through that, is
the senior brother of any new Oba of
Benin. So, to that extent, the Olu
was correct; but to the extent it was the son of the Oba of Benin who went to found Itsekiri Oluship, the Oba was
correct in saying the Olu of Warri is
his son. There was a father-son relationship that went on for a long time, and
there was a senior bother to a junior brother relationships in modern times;
so, both of them were correct.
How does the coronation of a new Olu go?
As the Secretary General of
Delta State Movement that led to its creation as a state, the late Olu was just coming in and he was in
seclusion, and I had to go and brief him about what the state was all about.
So, I spent close to four hours talking with him before his coronation. I did
not do that this time. But of course, the Agbeyegbe went as a family.
What happens during the
coronation?
The Olu-elect is presented by the priests to the generality of the
Itsekiri people in an open ceremony and the swords of his ancestors are on
display. And after the introduction, after all the ceremonies that they have to
perform; talking to their ancestors. You know, those who misunderstand Itsekiri
religion call them ancestors worshippers because they always talk to their
ancestors, but those who understand it better know that they only call upon
their ancestors to intermediate with God. Therefore, the so-called Itsekiri
religion is like the Christian religion, like the Islamic religion. In Islam,
you talk through Mohammed and in Christianity they talk to their God through
Jesus Christ. These are people who intermediate for them. That is what the
Itsekiri people do; they talk to their God about how the new era is about to
come to life. They are about to put the crown on the incoming Olu’s head. Then they will get up with
their arms folded and be directed to where the sons of all past Olus are on display and they will pick
one of the sons to get his title.
If you remember, the late Olu was Atuwatse, and the sword that he picked was that of Atuwatse I. He is named after the sons.
The coincidence was quite impressive because he was a graduate; Atuwatse the first was the first
graduate in Nigerian history. He went to Portugal to study.
Whose sword does he pick?
There are swords of the past Olus that are lying down there. So, if
you pick it, you keep it. Atuwatse II when he picked the sword of Atuwatse I
became Atuwatse II. Now he is gone and the sword goes back there as belonging
to the first and second Atuwatse. The incoming Olu would have to pick his own sword and it will be too incredible
if he picks the same sword. But if by some coincidence he picks the same sword,
he automatically becomes Atuwatse III.
Why are coronations usually held
at Ode-Itsekiri?
That is the homestead of
Itsekiri royal family. The palace from time memorial was at a place called Ijaja
which is next door to where you have the refinery in Epan because that was
where the son of that Oba of Benin landed when he came from Benin with the
first sons of Benin chiefs in his party. That’s why the Olus are buried there at Ijaja. Though he left there and went to a
place called big Warri, which is Itsekiri Odu. The palace in Warri is a newer
version of what is in Itsekiri Odu in performing the coronation and burial of
an Olu on the mainland, they don’t do
any of those in the mainland.
As a playwright you have not
always portrayed the monarchy in glowing light. It isn’t something you
obviously subscribe to, yet you have it as part of your cultural heritage. How
do you deal with this?
In all my upbringing, I have
been a libertarian. My political development has been in the liberal mode. To
that extent, there is some contradiction given my personal view of an Olu or King or Oba. Those of us who have been seeking some amendments in the
Nigerian scene point to the fact that we are supposed to be a Republic. And we
are filled with pockets of monarchy. That is part of the contradiction of our
country. Yet the Federal Government identifies with my traditional ruler.
Yet the Federal Government identifies with my natural ruler. But differently
from all other ethnic nationalities, the Itsekiri and the Benin are at one in
the succession line. It goes through one family lines and it goes through the
eldest son. It doesn’t happen like that elsewhere. In Itsekiri, it is even
worse in that you don’t have the Enogies
represent the Oba of Benin in the
districts, but the Itsekiri don’t have such structure. There’s only one Olu, one ancestry, one ruler, one
monarch. Whatever you are or have, it is in Itsekiriland that you have
everybody keeping quiet once the Olu
has spoken. Of course, what that means is that he doesn’t speak first; every
other person would have spoken, including his advisers; that is why he is
called Afomasin, that party, that
entity or that deity, if you like, after he has spoken nobody dares, nobody
challenges him, nobody has any other thing to say. The loyalty in Itsekiri is
that nobody obeys, everybody believes, nobody dares.
Why isn’t the
son of the late Olu the one being
crowned now? Why is it the brother? Is that the tradition in Itsekiriland?
No, the late Olu was the son of the one that went before him. This one coming in
now is the brother of the late Olu.
It is his elder brother who has passed away. He did not pass it on to the son
because changes in modern times are coming into the system. Otherwise, it would
have gone to the eldest son. When it used to be strictly adhered to, it used be
not just the senior son, but the first son that was born to him after he became
an Olu. In other words, he could have
been there, and his father is sitting on the throne and he is grown enough to
get married and he gets married while his father is still alive, but he
eventually succeeds to the throne. When he is to be succeeded, because he was
married before his father died, and he’d had children before his father died,
his first in life may not necessarily be the Olu, but the son he has after succeeding to the throne as Olu.
What is the
position of women with regard to the throne in Itsekiri? Can they succeed to
the throne?
Historically, Itsekiri are not a matrilineal
people like the Ghanaians and some ethnic groups. Nigeria is largely a
patrilineal society. In Itsekitiland, the importance of women is not diminished
by the fact that they don’t get on the throne. As I remember it, there has never
been a female Olu in
Itsekiriland. But there was one that could have broken, if you can call
it a jinx, that jinx. In the end, she did not make it although she had all the
powers. It nearly happened because there was no son at the time who could have
inherited the throne. It ensured a period of interregnum in Itsekiriland when
there was no Olu for a long time.
So, how was she
schemed out of inheriting her father’s throne?
It was like fate
and the belief, of course, that a woman never becomes the head of an Itsekiri
community; that a woman can never become an Olaraja,
the head of the people. In Itsekiri, the Olu
is the head of all Itsekiri. In itsekiri communities, the Olaraja is the head, the oldest man in the community. It must be a
man. When women are the oldest, the right to leadership falls to a younger man
who is the oldest man around, or the Olaraja,
the leader.
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