By TUNDE BUSARI
Yesterday, I signed off on a note that later placed me beside a certified seer who is venerated for his gift to see tomorrow today. I wrote: “Oba Ogunjobi should better be ready for a major engagement; in the next few days, public will get to read and see more of allegations and copies of petitions long submitted by his victims who are now emboldened to speak out because when a big trouble wrestles you to the floor, little ones would compound the problem.”
Before I went to bed last night, two major allegations had surfaced, both of which nailed him. He was alleged to have supervised the assaults of an Islamic cleric and a pastor inside his palace, inferring that he has more than Pa Abraham Areola on the list of his victims, and also implying that he has more cases to answer after Areola unless his victims decide to emphatise with him.
Two days in Ilaro means he is an ordinary noise maker, after all. Noise makers don’t have teeth to bite. All they have is barking and disturbing the neighbourhood. Anyway, Plato, the ancient Greece Philosopher, a student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, had long said it that only “an empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greater babblers.”
The idiot that joined him to beat a man of his father’s age and that fool that slapped the septuagenarian have fled to different directions. Who born monkey? The duo are not the dove that sticks to its owner till the owner’s last breath. If you’re lucky to be back to that stool, you should be a born again and surprise those of us who have given up hope on you based on your leadership deficiency.
Such noise makers lack simple prerequisite to provide leadership to a group of few individuals, let alone an association or a community of diversities. They build around them friends who will hail them to high heaven and tell them only what they love to hear until they push them to their avoidable grave like tortoise did to the all-conquering elephant in the book of JF Odunjo.
I shall continue to make reference to the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi because he was an institution. Even his critics can’t controvert this claim if he is assessed fairly and dispassionately. Of course, he was not flawless. No. But that is not strong enough to deny him his rightful status as a genuine Yoruba traditional ruler to be so called at highest level where world leaders converge.
One afternoon, I met him in his office with his staff. There was an internal issue being sorted out. I calmly got myself seated. The meeting was rounded off in no time, and everyone dispersed. The attendants had not reached their duty posts when Baba turned to me and said he knew the truth of the matter but most of them were not telling him because “they didn’t want to offend me despite the fact that I always tell them to say and stand by truth, no matter how difficult.”
He expatiated, “This is one of the problems I live with in this palace. This is what presidents and governors live with. Their advisers won’t tell them the truth they need to know the right thing to do in their eight years. But in our own case, we live with these lies till we join our ancestors.” The wisdom from this conversation and which Baba shared with me was that a leader should always upgrade his capacity to always be ahead of his aides so that when they’re flatering him with smiling words, he knows.
Have you seen former President Olusegun Obasanjo dancing and smiling at the same time? His face is always a contrast to his moving feet because he knows that unseen evils hide behind pleasure. A leader should not be carried away by exaggerated praise and worship to the extent that he loses his head, throws a punch to a wrong cheek, chants a curse on a wrong head, lands in police station, court room and finally inside a correctional centre.
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It’s not that N5 million is too difficult to raise to secure the bail. I guess what is behind it is more than N5 million. Oba Ogunjobi hopefully is back to his right senses now to know that one in his shoes is not better than a boy afflicted with Chickenpox because Chickenpox is contagious. The idiot that joined him to beat a man of his father’s age and that fool that slapped the septuagenarian have fled to different directions. Who born monkey? The duo are not the dove that sticks to its owner till the owner’s last breath. If you’re lucky to be back to that stool, you should be a born again and surprise those of us who have given up hope on you based on your leadership deficiency.
