The late Oba Okunade Sijuwade
Since the word of the Ooni of Ife’s death in London filtered out on July 28th, the handling of the information around his death has revealed a group of people who are completely out of touch with modernity, and has exposed the Yoruba culture to what may be called needless jest.
It started with the feeble denials of Ife’s Royal Traditional Council, insisting that he was “hale and hearty”. This would have been laughable if they weren’t so tragic. In the 21st century, news travels fast and has little regard for traditions. It was August 10th before the death of the Ooni was finally “confirmed” by the chiefs.
The biggest drama was still to come.
“Barbaric and illegal”
The next day, a story came out that the person who should have been buried with the Ooni, known as the “Abobaku” (“One who dies with the king”), had fled. The Abobaku is known in Ife as the “Saarun,” the chief aide to the Ooni of Ife. Apparently, upon the death of the Ooni he serves, the Saarun is buried with him in order to continue his service in the after-life. So the story went.
One of Wole Soyinka’s greatest plays, Death and the King’s Horsemen, uses this concept of Abobaku as its foundation. In the play, set in colonial times, the death of an important king means that his horseman, Elesin, must follow him in order to ease his transition to the after-life.
The colonial district officer named Simon Pilkings prevents Elesin’s suicide, viewing the practice as barbaric and illegal. Elesin himself seemed to waver in his commitment, and his son, returning from Europe on hearing of the king’s death, took his father’s place to restore the family’s honour.
Why pretending?
The news of the Abobaku’s apparent escape started a long debate among Nigeria’s social media community. Like Pilkings in the novel, many denounced this practice as barbaric, old-fashioned and something to be discarded. Some proceeded to make fun of it relentlessly, while others were of the opinion that there was nothing wrong with the practice, insisting that it is the way things have always been.
The only problem with the entire debate was that it was founded on a falsehood. The last Ooni of Ife, Oba Adesoji Aderemi, died in 1980, while his Saarun, Chief Yaya Arasanmi, died a full seven years later. In fact, apart from the Alaafin of Oyo, there is no record of anyone being groomed to die with a king in Yorubaland.
Tradition vs modern world
And yet, the jokes flowed, and Yoruba culture was portrayed as backward. It is another reminder of how bad reporting can go viral in our connected age, and how secrecy in the workings of our institutions, both traditional and modern, can lead to misrepresentations.
It is in the interest of the people who lead those institutions to adjust themselves to modern realities. Their actions are no longer just limited to the immediate environment. They are broadcast around the world in real time.
The information age we exist in today does not permit a lack of transparency, and neither does it permit a situation in which certain traditional practices are beyond question. To deny this reality is to potentially bring our culture into disrepute.
