Before The Wike- Fubara crisis. 

By Akin Osuntokun 

A Bauole Chief does not see his Successor-Houphouet Boigny 

1 ) Oyo Empire 

Succession crisis in different degrees and manifestations is second nature to human society. One of the more intriguing aspects of the history of the Oyo empire was the ill starred role of Bashorun Gaa. The Alaafin (monarch) was at the pinnacle of the political power configuration of the empire but his monarchical authority was subject to the veto power of a state council comprising the seven leading kingmakers called the Oyomesi. At the head of this council was the Bashorun. In an intricate display of the constitutional regime of checks and balances, “all decisions of the Alafin (King) of Oyo required the approval of his council of chiefs… In former times, a gift of parrot’s eggs from the leader of the council was a sign to the Alafin that his death was desired by the chiefs and the people. Invariably the Alafin complied by taking poison, so the threat of a dread gift was a safeguard against tyrannical rule., the proscription of this custom by the British “dislocated the checks and balances of the old constitution” (Richard Sklar)

Within a timespan of twenty years,1754 to 1774, Bashorun Gaa (the head of the Oyomesi) exercised this power to an infernal extreme. In usurpation and subversion of the inbuilt checks and balances, he fostered the aberration of compelling five reigning Alaafins to commit suicide, one after another. His reign of terror ended with the ascension of Alaafin Abiodun who teamed up with the Aare Ona Kakanfo (the supreme commander of the armed forces) Oyabi, Alaafin Abiodun to cut him down. 

The Bashorun Gaa syndrome magnified the perception of the Oyomesi as a mortal threat to the reign of successor Alaafins. Hence the consequential stipulation that the war generals (the Are ona Kakanfo and the Bashorun) are barred from cohabiting with the Alaafin in the Oyo metropolitan capital. This was in acknowledgement rather than blindness to the reality of the mutual paranoia between the Alaafin and his generals. The syndrome was captured in the Yoruba idiomatic saying that Afobaje l’oba n koko pa (kingmakers are potentially the first target of newly crowned monarchs).

Several Alaafins down the road, Alaafin Atiba (1837-1859), sought the abrogation of the mandatory ritual suicide of a Prince as concomitant burial rite of passage of a dead Alaafin. Arrayed against the will of Atiba, was the insistence of Are ona Kakanfo Kurumi that the requisite ritual death should remain sacrosanct. With the support of the Ibadan army, Kurumi was vanquished in the ensuing Ijaiye war (1861-1863) and the wish of Atiba ultimately prevailed. 

2) The Awolowo/Akintola succession crisis 

Who could have penned the following birthday tribute to Chief Obafemi Awolowo on the occasion of his 50th birthday ceremony? “To Chief Awolowo, passivity is a bane and inaction an anathema. How could it be otherwise to a life which thrives on industry and to a man with fanatical faith in hard work? That was why he made himself a terror to the demagogues and Mountebanks who, with neither a chart nor a rudder, believed that they could steer the Nigerian ship of state to its destination. No pilot has a clearer vision and none a keener sense of mission than Chief Awolowo…a good blend of Gandhi’s philosophy and Nehru’s dynamism”

“In the political changes which took place in Nigeria from 1947 onwards, Dr. Azikiwe has been spasmodic and casual; Sir Ahmadu Bello has been leisurely and care-free; but Awolowo has been constant and calculating…To know Chief Awolowo as a man is to respect him. It has been my pride and pleasure to know him. He is by every standard a genius. His unimpeachable character, his faith in God, his confidence in his fellowmen, his personal devotion to duty and his loyalty…have conspired together to make him a great pillar of strength. He never lets a friend down…”

“As a political leader, Chief Awolowo is miles ahead of his colleagues. His sincerity of purpose, his democratic leadership and inspiring example are yet to be equaled by any of the leaders of other major political parties in the country…Awolowo is the nearest approximation to Mahatma Gandhi. He is a good blend of Gandhi’s philosophy and Nehru’s dynamism and the only hope for democracy in Africa”.

It is difficult to imagine that the author of this endearing eulogy was none other than the first and last Premier of the defunct Western region, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola. Less than three years later the predecessor and successor were at the threshold of a bitter personality war that spiralled into the murder of Akintola and military overthrow of the first republic on January 15th 1966.

My fascination with this theme partly stems from my personal (family) experience. My dad, Chief Oduola Osuntokun, was a Cabinet Minister of the Western Region from 1955 to 1966 straddling the Premiership of both Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Ladoke Akintola. In the bitter factional feud of the Action Group, within the then ruling party in the Western Region in 1962, my dad took sides with Akintola. My full name is Akintola suggesting I was named after the Premier on account of which I was given an early lesson in the politics of demonisation. Adjudged guilty in the popular imagination, the name Akintola became a byword for Yoruba-wide malicious derision.

I pleaded with my parents that I wanted to change my name to Akinjide. They were heedless and dismissive and my dad took to lecturing me on the virtues of the late Premier and how history was not fair to him. Well, victors write the. Don’t they? In the event I took the unilateral decision to effect a change of name-something akin to a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). At the age of six years, I must be the youngest guy to resort to this degree of autonomy.

3) Abiola martyrdom and the ascendance of Tinubu 

For the Yoruba, 1998/1999 was a triumphant interlude in the political history of Nigeria albeit a bittersweet passage. Given his epicurean lifestyle, who could have projected that Chief Moshood Abiola was most capable of rising up to the challenge of political martyrdom. In tandem, I marvelled at the level of sacrifice many non-partisan Yoruba luminaries were prepared to make in the rejection of the annulment of the 1993 presidential election. No less proactive were those of us in the media, especially the op-ed columnists. 

Between 1996 and 1999 there was no work station I desired more than the editorial board of the Guardian newspaper. At the peak of the Guardian pyramid of resistance were Mr Alex Ibru (the publisher) and Mr Lade Bonuola (the Chief Executive). The newspaper had gone through the tribulation of being shut down, an arson attack on its premises and assassination attempt on Ibru.Yet not once did either of the duo express any reservation about the relentless barrage of criticism we piled on the Sani Abacha dictatorship. 

Of groups like Afenifere and the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO (both in and outside Nigeria), it could be said of them that this was their finest hour. In their midst was a certain Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu for whom the Lagos state governorship ticket was ‘rigged’ by Afenifere leaders, in recognition of his pro democracy activism. In an ironic twist of fate, he was central to the successful subversion and belittling of the Afenifere patriarchy. There were rumours to the effect that this grievance fast forwarded the exit of Senator Abraham Adesanya to the great beyond.

4) In the matter concerning the kidney of Fubara 

According to the former keeper of the secrets of Nyesome Wike (turned rebellious protégé in full flight) the 

embattled Governor of Rivers state, Siminalayi Fubara, the rejection of the demand for his kidney was non negotiable. “As a matter of fact, I belong to that school of thought, and if I am the only person that needs to stand on that side of right, I will stand there. I don’t need anybody to stand with me. I cannot give my kidney or liver to anybody, I won’t.”. I do not know the particular details of the kidney transaction but I do know that kidneys come in a pair of two lobes and it is possible to survive on one lobe. So even if the Rivers state governor were to suffer the loss of a lobe, he could still live a full life. Beyond the contention over Fubara’s kidney and in the spirit of full disclosure, I urge the governor, in the spirit of full disclosure, to serve us the other details of his dinner with the devil. 

Quite a number of observers have misread the precedence of the Awolowo/Akintola succession crisis into the Wike/Fubara crisis. My first reaction to this analogy is that the Rivers state case does not rise to the scale and domino effect of the Western Region. Whereas Rivers state is one of 36 states, the Western region was one of three/four regions. For that matter, the federal government was even a tenant of the Western region writ-large. Hence, we are hard put to suggest that Rivers state has the capacity to follow the precedent that snowballed into the violent upheaval that rocked the Western Region in 1964/65 and became precipitous of the January 15th 1966 coup. 

Fubara had no input whatsoever to his ‘election’ as governor other than his instrumentality to the pillage and plunder of the resources of Rivers state for eight years. Not unlike Theodore Oji, who was ‘elected’ governor of Abia state while serving a prison term, Fubara was warehoused in the government house completely insulated from the voters who purportedly voted him into office.  

Beyond the proverbial sympathy that accrues to the perceived underdog, the choice between Wike and Fubara is akin to that between the rock and the hard place. He is the beneficiary of one of the most villainous instances of the grand and crude subversion of the 2023 general election. If Wike was the Satan then his chief acolyte was none other than Fubara. It was the relationship between the thief and the receiver of stolen goods. 

Fanning the embers of their discord is the bottomless wealth of Rivers state and the Ministry of the capital territory and thus the capacity to become a growth industry for endless proxy fighters. It is not in the interest of those milking the crisis for there to be a quick end to the cash cow. If, however, it is possible to have peace and stability in Rivers state without regard to these two protagonists, I would say a pox on both their houses.