A first class traditional ruler in Ekiti State, the Obalufon Alayemore, the Alaaye of Efon Alaaye, Oba (Dr.) Emmanuel Adesanya Aladejare, Agunsoye II, ascended the throne in 1991 right from the lecture room where he was teaching Accounting and Finance at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife). His reign has brought development to his kingdom. The monarch, who is championing the production of a book on the history of Efon Kingdom and its link with Ile-Ife, the cradle of Yoruba race, speaks with ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA on how the town was founded, its growth under his watch, the exploits of the founder of The Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), the late Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola, in the community which houses the tomb of the great man of God and the need for constitutional roles for traditional rulers, among others.
YOUR community is preparing some programmes that are expected to take place very soon what are they?
The community intends to launch and present the authentic history of Efon Alaaye from its founding and the title of the book is, Ooni Obalufon Alayemore, the Founder of Efon Alaaye Kingdom. We have constituted a committee, a broad-based committee to prepare for the presentation and we have fixed the presentation of the book for the 4th of November, 2017 at Efon Alaaye Civic Centre here.
What informed the writing of the book?
Efon is one of the ancient kingdoms in Yoruba land and in the first instance, this Alaaye is the first literate Oba in this kingdom and there is no history and nobody finds such history which he could point to. Actually, this has been my objective as the first educated Oba in this kingdom that we have to put this in record and regard it as a legacy. The issue is that we have been doing a lot of developments in this town and we are leaving projects for people but we now want to leave for people coming behind something that they can lay their hands upon. That is the rationale behind it and this project, I have been on it over nine years ago and we have been doing a lot of work on it and it’s just coming to conclusion now. That is why the elaborate preparation for the presentation of the book has been going on.
Some people outside your community describe Efon as the ‘London of Ekiti’ and some attribute this to spirituality and some attribute it to industry. How would you describe the level of development in Efon and what you think about it?
It is a combination of spirituality and the industry of our people; they are forward-looking, you find them all over the world. They always think about the development of Efon wherever they find themselves. For example, if you have two Efon sons, they might not be very close at home but when they meet themselves outside, they become the best of friends. They collectively defend the interests of this community and promote its interest as much as possible.
Some have even reduced it to the influence of Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola whose photograph is here, saying it was because of what he did when he was here that it played a role in bringing the community to the prominence it enjoys. Do you share this and how do you react to it?
I have said earlier that it was a combination of spirituality as well as the industry of our people and probably it may interest you that you talk about Baba Apostle Babalola. He came to Efon when Agunsoye I, my grandfather, was the Alaaye and when they started the crusade at Ilesa, message got to my father on the throne, Agunsoye I; you have his picture in one of the new buildings we have here (in the place). This man (Babalola) was saying Olorun Alaaye, Olorun Alaaye, that this man who was calling the name that was close to his home be invited to Efon. So, they had just finished what I call the annual remembrance of the founding of CAC (Christ Apostolic Church) because the first CAC started here. So the Baba came here, he came to Efon and when he came, there was a storey building there, that was the first story building in Efon which was built by my father. So, my father now decided to house him there and that was where they were doing the prayer vigils and so on and so forth.
Prior to that time, my grandfather had the power to turn to a lion, to turn to an elephant and so on and so forth. But he decided to be baptised and he surrendered all the magical powers he had; he was baptised and given the name Solomon. He encouraged other members of the community who had such powers also to surrender them and these were burnt. That’s why today you will find so many churches in this town and Baba prayed for Efon Alaaye and we believed that part of the prayers Baba said is coming to pass. When you look at the topography of Efon, it was through the grace of God and the industry of our people that we are able to reach the level of development we have now. Ordinarily when you have a topography that is on the hill and then when you now look at the location of Efon within Ekiti State, you will see that we are in a corner.
So we are not really in a position to compete with others for particular amenities. For example, when we were fighting for the creation of Ekiti State, it will be an illusion or a wishful thinking for me to say I want to be capital. When the agitation for the capital (among the big towns) was to scatter the project, I was the one who saved the day when I said all right, we have to look at centrality and what happened at the end of it was why everybody wanted the capital was because they were thinking of what benefit they will derive. And I told them that we had prepared a blueprint for the development of the state when it was created and that as far as that is concerned, we must use what we called even spread of amenities. That was the argument I advanced on that day to really save the day; that was why we have Ekiti State today. I did not ask for the state capital because I know what is right, I know what is wrong, so there was no point pressing for what you cannot attain because of the location.
The book you are about to launch has something to do with history. We want you to expatiate further, what are the historical ties that connect Ile-Ife, the cradle of Yoruba race and Efon Alaaye. In other words, what is the connection between Ile-Ife and Efon Alaaye?
Ile-Ife is the source of the Yoruba, the entire Yoruba nation drew their source from there and moved in different directions and so on and so forth. Oduduwa was the great progenitor of the Yoruba nation and the first Ooni, followed by his surviving eldest son whose name was Obalufon Ogbogbodirin. At the demise of the Obalufon Ogbogbodirin who was the second Ooni, his son, Obalufon Alayemore, became the third Ooni of Ife. During that time, his uncle, Oranyan, was on sojourn in Oyo and on hearing of the demise of his brother, he decided to return to Ife. And to avoid crisis in Ife, Obalufon Alayemore decided to move out along with some nobles, friends, priests and wives. They settled in several directions before finally settling in Efon Alaaye.
When was that?
That was about 1150; the third Ooni of Ife was the one that voluntarily vacated the throne to avert crisis and settled in several places. He put some people who were with him in places where he stayed on his way to this place. As a matter of fact, Efon Alaaye is an amalgam of Obalufon Alayemore, that was the source of Efon Alaaye and he was here for several decades. After the demise of Oranmiyan, the fourth Ooni, Ife elders looked for Obalufon Alayemore; they came back here to persuade him to come back to Ife and he went back to Ife a the fifth Ooni of Ife. Before leaving Efon, he installed his eldest son, Odundun Orogun, as the second Alaaye. Obalufon Alayemore was the first Alaaye, Odundun Orogun was the second Alaaye. As at this point, I am the 46th Alaaye of Efon.
When did your grandfather that interacted with Apostle Babalola come to the throne as Alaaye?
My father came to the throne in January 1917 and passed on in December 1935.
What is your take on the constitutional roles for traditional rulers? We have had many constitutional conferences and many attempts at reframing our Constitution for better governance. One of the issues that crop us is the constitutional roles for traditional rulers because of their position as custodians of people’s culture and closeness to the grassroots. What do you have to say on this?
We have been part of several meetings articulating the case for roles for traditional rulers. When we were in Ondo State, and when I came on board in 1991, there was a conference which led to the convening of a meeting of Obas in Yoruba land in Ibadan. I presented the case for the old Ondo State. We wrote a memo on that which we presented. There was consensus among the traditional institution that there must be constitutional roles for traditional rulers. Before the advent of the Europeans, the Obas had been in governance administering these various kingdoms. As a result of that, they are the custodians of culture and tradition of the people but you can understand why the politicians or the political class are very reticent about this. Probably, they feel the traditional rulers want to compete with them in one way or the other and up to this time, that is why we have been negotiating and negotiating the structure of the country. At each point in time, we have made our views known to the world that as the custodians of the people, we administer these people, they live under us and we interact with them on a daily basis.
In fact, when it comes to the issue of provision of amenities and so on and so forth, it is the Obas that are articulating the needs of their various communities and not the government itself. We now take our turn to articulate these cases before the various governments; so it is an abnormality that no constitutional role has been assigned to traditional rulers. We will continue to articulate this until the right things are done.
What are those things you think Efon should have had by now which are not available in terms of amenities government should provide?
We thank God for the journey so far, the community seems to have been for a long time before the coming of this administration. The local government had been here since 1952 when the Western Region government headed by Chief Obafemi Awolowo was in place. For some reasons during the 1976 local government reforms, the recommendation of the Commission led by one Permanent Secretary in the Western Region then, they took the capital right from here to Aramoko. Our people were so furious about it, you might have been hearing about “a republic within a republic.” People said we are not going to cooperate with the local government, they didn’t participate in the local government election and they didn’t pay tax to the local government.
They (Efon people) were paying the salary of the Oba then and the chiefs; they fought and fought before I came but what we succeeded in getting was a local administration which was still subservient to Ekiti West Local Government at that time. The first thing I did when I came was to articulate the case for an autonomous Efon Local Government. When we were agitating and campaigning for the creation of Ekiti State, I took the Efon Local Government case on board and that was what we took to Abuja and eventually we had Efon Local Government the day Ekiti State was created by the special grace of God. So, the road here from Erinmo, because we used to serve as a gateway for the whole of Ekiti State, starting from Erinmo there through here to Ado-Ekiti. For some reason because of political manoeuvring at that time, because of envy, you are talking of Efon being the ‘Lagos’ or ‘London’ of Ekiti, the administration of Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo directed the road from Ijebu Jesa bursting out at Itawure, now became a cul de sac. When I came on board, that was the problem I faced; in fact, I can’t remember the number of trips I made to Abuja Federal Ministry of Works meeting the President. I called the President (Obasanjo) to come to Efon when he paid his maiden official visit to Ekiti State during the first tenure of Governor Ayo Fayose. He (Obasanjo) came to see things for himself. The journey I made to Abuja cannot be less than 50 times working for the reconstruction of Efon-Erinmo Road. By the special grace of God, in 2009, this was granted and today, you can have a smooth ride from Iwaraja through Erinmo to Efn here. That was one of those things we did at that time.
Before my ascension, we had only one Customary Court here and even before the creation of the local government, I succeeded in getting a Chief Magistrate’s Court in Efon. And after the creation of Ekiti State, I also succeeded in getting a High Court of Justice sited in Efon Alaaye here. Government has tried to help in some regards but if there is nobody to articulate the needs of the community, there is a limit to what government can do and if you are not in government, nobody will remember you. That is the philosophy of people generally and that underscores the reason why traditional rulers should be given constitutional roles. If they are given those roles, there will be a legal constitutional forum where they can articulate the needs of their people rather than talking to the people behind the scene to do this, to do that. That is the kind of thing we are talking about.
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