By Suyi Ayodele
(Published in the Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday, July 8, 2025)
When an elderly supporter of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu tried to start a conversation about the opposition coalition party, African Democratic Congress (ADC), its membership and the ‘betrayal’ by the Acting National Secretary of the party, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, I politely turned down the conversation. Rather, I referred him to one of the lessons we learnt in our days about Ikú (Death) and how he lost the power to kill all princes.
The short story is clear in my head. I cannot remember the exact Ifa verse that speaks to the story, but I know it is derived from Òyèkú Méjì, the second biggest Odù, one of the 16 corpus of Ifá. The story is about the wife of Ikú called Olójòùngbodo and how she sold out her husband.
Worried about how Ikú was going about killing other people’s children, the elders of the community sat down to find a solution to the problem. Ikú had killed all the princes in the land leaving only Ayùnré. Should Ayùnré die, there would be no prince to be crowned Oba, and the kingdom will go into extinction. So, the elders took counsel and concluded that the woman’s pant is the closest item to her way of life, and decided that they would entice Olójòùngbodo, Ikú’s wife.
Early in the morning, the time of the morning my people call ìjímùjí (when one can barely see the lines on one’s palm), they sent some elders to meet Olójòùngbodo with gifts. The woman crawled out of her husband’s bed and met with the elders. She accepted the precious gifts and asked them what they wanted. The elders said they needed to know those food items that were forbidden to Ikú.
Without wasting time, Olójòùngbodo told them that her husband, Ikú, must not eat eku (rat), eja (fish), and a kind of vegetable known as ebòlò (very green with sweet aroma). The elders added more gifts and went away.
A few days later, the community called for a feast. All the elders were invited. Ikú was given a special table. He felt good by the special treatment. Two beautiful virgins were asked to serve him. Ikú savoured the delicacies given to him in the best carved calabashes. He ate, drank enough palm wine, belched and gave the closing remarks. Then he departed. The elders waited.
When the day for Ikú to kill Ayùnré came, the entire town was on edge. Morning came, and afternoon followed. It was dusk and the sun set. Yet nothing happened. The night crept in and there was no wailing from the palace. Prince Ayùnré was hale and hearty. Then another day broke, and the elders rejoiced, the people rolled out the drums; it was a celebration galore. The people rescued their kingdom from the grips of Death. They sustained the throne and the kingship lineage as Ikú could no longer kill the crown prince.
Permit me for reliving my childhood countryside years here. There were many lessons learnt; many of them learnt on the streets. The elders of those years were full of wisdom. They used parables, folktales and proverbs; all elements that combined to sharpen our sense of hermeneutics, to teach us the basic truth about life. The overall effect is that most ‘village boys’ of my era turned out to be streetwise.
Being an ará oko (yokel) -a derogatory term to describe someone from the interior- has its own advantages. In fact, one should be proud to be called an ará ìlú òkè (someone from the countryside). Those from the countryside have an edge over the ‘happening’ boys of the urban centres. One of such is that the storm that will fling the urban man is the one the countryside guy will savour as refreshing wind from the excruciating heat!
I draw inspiration from my native background today to counsel President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the recent happenings in the nation’s political scene. Lasisi Olagunju, while doing a forensic analysis of Zainab Buba Galadima’s interview with Seun Okinbaloye on Saturday, called it a ‘storm’ (see Olagunju’s “From the North, ‘a storm is coming'”, published in the Nigerian Tribune on Monday, July 7, 2025). I see what is coming as being more serious than a storm.
Earlier on Sunday, July 6, 2025, two prolific columnists with the Tribune Titles, Festus Adedayo and Taiwo Adisa (both wrote in Sunday Tribune) dwelt on the same topic using different routes to get to the market of socio-political commentaries. I read Adedayo’s “ADC: Death, Onikoyi and hunter’s pouch”. I juxtaposed it with Adisa’s “APC, ADC, and some unhelpful narratives”, and I added Olagunju’s piece referenced above. Done, I came to Zainab’s conclusion that they “are not good reviews. It is bad; it is really bad.”
Adedayo alluded to ‘Death’ in his headline. I got scared by that name. Death (Ikú), in one of the stories I heard early in life as stated above, was once human, and he is more than the phenomenon that takes people away from the planet earth. Death does more than that; he ends plans, he eclipses people’s visions and aspirations. He is powerful, deadly, vicious, and mean!
But as powerful as Ikú is, he has his flaws, his weaknesses. Death, like most men of power or men-in-power, is also vulnerable. Ancient tradition teaches us that the greatest flaw of Death is his belief that everyone around him loves him and will die for, and with him. How wrong, how shallow Death could be to assume that he cannot be defeated.
Make no mistakes about it. The only Death in Nigeria’s political firmament today is President Tinubu. He is the rallying point for all those who aim to gain political power. He is equally the one-man squad that visits the homes of his enemies with deadly portions. He visited the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and planted seeds of internal destruction there. He went after the Labour Party (LP) and gave them eternal discord. For every seed of wahala Tinubu planted in the opposition, he left enough fertilizer to nourish it. The President has demonstrated, in the last two years, that he has all it takes to ruin the farms of those who share boundaries with him.
But in the last one week, it appears that the owners of the political IOUs are back to collect not only their invested capital but the accruing interests or capital interests. The formation, or rather, the consolidation of the opposition coalition against the re-election bid of Tinubu in 2027 with the coming on board of the ADC last Wednesday appears to be the greatest challenge the Tinubu political dynasty has ever faced in its political odyssey.
The reactions from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and members of the Tinubu’s government to the ADC coalition reminds me of the old man and the leftover pounded yam. The old man, the saying goes, says he is not pained that someone else ate the leftover pounded yam, but he keeps removing his clothes ready for a fight over the same food he calls useless (kòdùn mí, kòdùn mí, àgbàlagbà únbó èwù ní èèmefà nítorí iyán àná). Many of Tinubu’s ‘friends’ who have spoken against the ADC coalition said that the party would amount to nothing. Ironically, they refuse to rest, eat popcorn and lick ice cream! If the coalition is useless, why bother about it?
One of the narratives against the coalition is the aspersions cast on the person of the Acting National Secretary of the ADC, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. Today, Aregbesola is regarded as a betrayer and a Yoruba outcast. In all honesty, no one in his right mind will lift a finger in defence of Aregbesola. He is not alone. I find it appalling that any common man would want to defend any politician given what these locusts have done to our collective wellbeing as a people!
I shared the Ikú story above with the elderly Tinubu man. I told him that Aregbesola should be one of their least worries. Rather, Tinubu and his men should look inwards. How many Aregbesola are in the house? How many Olójòùngbodo are sharing the same bed with the Jagaban? If indeed Aregbesola is a betrayer, can we ask Ikú (Tinubu) what he was doing, and where he was, when his wife crawled out of his bed to meet with the enemies?
Ikú, in Yoruba cosmology, is a very rich deity. This is why they say a kìí wá orí tì nílé Ikú (heads are not in short supply in Ikú’s abode). If that is so, what did Tinubu deny Aregbesola such that the enemies could entice him with gifts to join the coalition? The Ikú fable teaches us that every strongman must pay attention to his household. This is what Tinubu should do instead of listening to the clappers telling him that the coalition is nothing.
Again, Tinubu should also know that it is not every prince that Death can kill. When Tinubu, like Ikú, went after the opposition and decimated them with governors being compelled to join the APC, what did he expect? That the people would sit by and allow him to run Nigeria to a one-party State? What type of strategy is that; one that will leave nothing even for the fowls of the air to glean and eat? When APC was displaying that sense of rapacity for power, did it not expect a reaction from the people? What Tinubu is getting today from the ADC is exactly what the people of yore did when Ikú killed all the princes of the land but one! Our elders are right when they posit that the owner of the hut will not allow it to be pulled down by hostile neighbours.
And if we may go down a bit, what is ADC doing today or going to do tomorrow that the APC did not do in the past? Before Tinubu became the sole proprietor of the APC, did he not betray a whole clan? Where is Afenifere today? Where are the founding fathers of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD)? How did AD die, or who pierced the heart of the party with the long poisonous knife of betrayal? How many former loyalists of President Tinubu are in some nondescript corners today licking their wounds?
It is rather unfortunate that Nigeria is at a stage when the likes of Aregbesola, Rotimi Amaechi, Atiku Abubakar, Nasir el-Rufai and other hawks are the topics of discourse in our political system. That itself is a big shame! But when you have two terrible items to choose from, is it not true that the people will look for the lesser of the evils?
Ask me a million times. I will tell you that the APC and its twin evil brother, the ADC, are leprosy and scabies. And this again, reminds me of one of the songs by the hunters during rites of passage for a departed hunter (Eré ìsípa ode) about leprosy and scabies.
During those dirge possessions, especially when it got dark, the lead chanter would warn that the non-initiates should retire home as the hunters’ masquerade had nothing good to offer. Once the chief chanter raised the song: Èté òhun èyi, abiyamo yàn kàn h’ómo rè (between leprosy and scabies, let mothers choose one for their children), we knew that the time to go home had come.
This is the exact song the political class is singing for Nigerians today. The choices before us as represented by the ruling APC and the coalition ADC, are leprosy and scabies. My elders say the gun births no good child because just as the pellet kills, the bullet kills also. Either APC or ADC, it is the same skin of the cobra; it cannot be used to sew waist amulets (awo oká ni, kò seé rán ìbànté)!
However, one beautiful thing about the ADC to me is the way the David Mark group has left the moribund PDP for the former governor of Rivers State and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FTC), Nyesom Wike. Like my former boss is wont to say the thing sweet my belle!
Now, Wike has the entire PDP to play with. The coalition has solved the problem of the despicable promise to remain in the PDP and work for Tinubu in 2027 for him! What a man, what a character! Since the ADC unveiled its plan on Wednesday last week, Wike has been running here and there like Sisyphus in Hades, bashing, castigating and insulting every leader of the group. Wike, like the proverbial dog with skin rashes, has spoken against the coalition more than the APC Itself. There are no names he has not called those behind the coalition. Yet he says the coalition will fail! Shouldn’t Wike be happy that he has succeeded in taking over the PDP; why is he whining by the nanosecond like a common egbére (goblin)?
This is one of the problems I think President Tinubu should address as he navigates the political terrain ahead of 2027. My late mother, God repose her soul, had a saying: “Ajá tó je omo è, a kìí té òkú tìí (you don’t ask a dog that eats its puppy to guard a corpse). If Tinubu and his supporters are looking for betrayers, let them look inwards. A man who could bring the political party that gave him life to its knees would not blink twice before doing-in a mere generous benefactor like Tinubu. As an elder, the President should know that the house built with spittle will be wrecked by dew!
I recommend that Tinubu should watch the Zainab interview. He should listen to the lady speak directly. The president should not rely on any executive summary of the interview by any of his aides. He has a lot to benefit from it. The material is not the usual stuff from the Villa’s lying band; it is different from what any of the bootlickers around him in Aso Rock can offer
Zainab Buba Galadima warned that 2027 “is going to be the toughest battle he (Tinubu) will ever see. It is going to be the toughest.” I have no point to counter that. The only addition here is that it should not be lost on us that neither the coalition nor the APC is fighting for the welfare of the common man. Looking at the characters in both the APC and the ADC, one will easily conclude that the only unifying factor here is intrigue (rìkísí pa wón pò, wón di òré).
The opera season has opened. Nigerians should just locate the nearest popcorn sellers and ice cream joints, buy bagful and watch the unfolding season films. Then they can decide which one they prefer: the current leprosy or the coming scabies.