Sunday Igboho, the fly

By Oladeinde Olawoyin

He has landed on the most sensitive part of Nigeria’s genitals.

He wanted to fly, but he eventually became a fly. Sunday Igboho sneaked into Cotonou with a secret plan to fly to Germany, but, accidentally, he landed on the most sensitive part of Nigeria’s genitals. What do our elders say about a fly that perches on the scrotum? Caution.

In July, weeks after he was declared wanted by Nigeria’s secret police, Sunday Adeyemo a.k.a Sunday Igboho was arrested by the Beninese police while trying to travel to Germany, and then transferred to the Cotonou Criminal Brigade. He has since remained in Benin, his fate hanging in the balance.

In the turbulent years of the Yoruba fratricidal wars, dubbed the era of revolution, brain and brawn separated men who survived or died in the numerous battles for crowns and kingdoms across the Yoruba country. Amid sounds of gunfire, kingdoms were founded and wiped off, warriors birthed and put to the sword, hamlets built and razed to the ground. From the ruins of wars, heroes emerged as villains, and villains strutted around as heroes. Many who made names were thrown up by a blend of myth and might, especially from military cities like Ibadan, Ijaye, and Abeokuta.

Enter Ogedengbe, Ogunmola, Ibikunle, Odenlo, Kurunmi, Sodeke, Aole, Fabunmi, etc. Like the Oduduwa era before it, the Yoruba have since moved past the revolutionary era.

But in the first half of 2021, some towns and villages in Yorubaland fell into the hands of marauders and murderous gunmen. The people screamed and cried for help. It was as though they had been transported yet again to the revolutionary era when carcasses of humans littered the streets in a barbaric show of force. But this time, they reasoned, the war wasn’t fratricidal. In some places, especially in Oyo, survival became a matter of utmost savagery. Those who went to farm had their heads plucked off whimsically, and women who went to the stream returned with tales of carnal violence.

The hotbed of the crisis was the Oke-Ogun region, where the streets of Igangan in the heart of Ibarapaland flowed with the blood of innocent souls.

In December 2020, a known philanthropist and influential employer of labour, Dr Fatai Aborode, was murdered in cold blood. The murder, at the time, was just one of many other tales of deadly attacks and incidents of rape in the town, including the massacre of 20 people in June 2021.

Meanwhile, in almost all of the narratives surrounding the criminal attacks in Igangan, as in other parts of Yorubaland, “Fulani herdsmen” appeared prominently as alleged masterminds. In the minds of many who weren’t witnesses to the crimes in those villages, including me, it was not as though some criminal elements of Yoruba descent couldn’t have been behind some of the evil acts. After all, crime has no ethnicity, as investigations into the late Aborode’s murder would later suggest. But at the height of the killings, many were genuinely worried about the laissez faire reactions of the Oyo State Government and, more ominously, the do-nothing posture of the Federal Government, headed by the insouciant Muhammadu Buhari.

In some ways, Igboho embodies these contradictions, appearing as both hero and villain in equal measure. So, when he hugged media headlines and threatened to sack marauding herders from Yorubaland, many observers took his interventions with practiced caution: His inflammatory rhetoric was dangerous because of its dire consequences, still an urgent intervention was necessary because of the carnage, which the government had failed to arrest.

As such, those who saw through the folly of campaigns and conspiracy theories premised on claims of “ethnic cleansing” sweeping across villages and cities in Oke-Ogun, could do little or nothing to keep peoples’ anger in check, in the face of the clear absence of governance.

When the din got to its crescendo, a certain Sunday Igboho emerged from the rubble, threatening fire and brimstone. He would move through crowds of angry indigenes, appeal to their emotional needs, assure them of safety, and threaten to sack the invaders maiming and raping “awon anti ati broda wa” (our aunts and brothers) from “Ori Ile Baba wa” (our fathers’ land). Given the scale of criminality, and near-total collapse of governance in the region, he became an instant hero among the people, understandably so, and began to enjoy a cult followership, like a true revolutionary.

Yet up until he was thrust forward by the vacuum of governance, Igboho was no revolutionary, at least in the estimation of many. He was, at best, an irritant, a ready-made weapon of political violence in the hands of the highest bidder.

In that sense, he was no Yoruba hero in the mould of Awo, or Ajasin, or Adesanya, or Ige. He possessed not Awo’s moral stature, nor Ajasin’s sagely wisdom, or Adesanya’s principled doggedness, or Ige’s oratory prowess. Even though all of these leaders didn’t enjoy unanimous support among the Yoruba in their times, Igboho wasn’t even any close to them in terms of respectability and charisma.

Yet, when the marauding men came, it was in Igboho’s direction that the people looked. And so, Igboho’s story reflects yet again why all heroes aren’t necessarily heroic in the eyes of all.

Awo, bar Oduduwa, remains the most important leader of the Yoruba race. But the same revered sage, among a significant section of Igbos, remains an ‘ethnic jingoist’, who starved innocent children to death during the civil war. Achebe even claimed that Awo was “driven by an overriding ambition for power…” Ojukwu, who, at the height of the progrom up North, faced the challenge of shouldering the burden of Ndigbo, was widely considered a ‘beastly war monger’ in songs among folks in the North. Ahmadu Bello, whose death Northerners still lament till today whenever issues of leadership failure comes up, remains a ‘rabid Igbo hater’ in the minds of some Igbo compatriots. Even Zik, who once loomed large across the African horizon, ended up as the ‘Owelle of Onitsha’.

Yet, they are all heroes, these men.

In some ways, Igboho embodies these contradictions, appearing as both hero and villain in equal measure. So, when he hugged media headlines and threatened to sack marauding herders from Yorubaland, many observers took his interventions with practiced caution: His inflammatory rhetoric was dangerous because of its dire consequences, still an urgent intervention was necessary because of the carnage, which the government had failed to arrest.

…Igboho’s excesses notwithstanding, how the nation treats him matters in conversations around Nigeria’s march towards peace and development, as well as discourses around the twin concepts of justice and equity, in the context of its treatment of “repentant” Boko Haram members, “bandits” and their apologists. And in this case, it matters not what the government does behind the camera; perception is stronger than reality.

But Igboho, ever brash and restless, failed to keep his excesses at bay. Led on by excitable profiteers like Olayemi Koiki, the philistine who failed in his desire to hide his commercial intent under some phantom “media agitation”, Igboho became a castrated bulldog, barking at almost everyone in sight. His “Yoruba Nation” self determination agenda, about which he has no ideological clarity nor depth of vision, collided with a more popular campaign to install peace in troubled parts of Yorubaland. He would only have it his way or the highway; anyone, including kings, who expressed reservations about secession became a ‘traitor’ that must be “dealt with”.

He mimics Ojo Agunbambaru, one of the surviving sons of Bashorun Gaa, who escaped to the Bariba country, at the massacre of Gaa’s children under Abiodun. Agunbambaru indiscriminately slaughtered Oyo chiefs and threatened the Onikoyi, two major flaws that weakened his strength. It was plausible that if Ojo had acted with prudence, he would have succeeded in his mission, and wouldn’t have been deserted at the most critical moment.

Like Agunbambaru, by the time Igboho was nabbed in Cotonou, he had cursed and abused almost everyone who mattered, thus alienating so many people from himself. And, as such, when his ordeal began, and there were claims of vindictiveness on the part of Nigerian government, many paid little or no attention.

Still, Igboho’s excesses notwithstanding, how the nation treats him matters in conversations around Nigeria’s march towards peace and development, as well as discourses around the twin concepts of justice and equity, in the context of its treatment of “repentant” Boko Haram members, “bandits” and their apologists. And in this case, it matters not what the government does behind the camera; perception is stronger than reality.

For one, although he isn’t Nnamdi Kanu, whose voice envelopes government’s directive on the streets of Igboland, Igboho remains a hero in the hearts of many, especially in Igangan and environs, where the people now enjoy relative safety. As such, whatever happens to him and his presumed followers (like the so-called ‘Babalawo’ that was so unfairly punished for months, despite having no strong connection with Igboho) would have ripple effects, at least, on how the people view the state which failed to protect them, yet chose to punish their “hero”. Given the near-helpless posture of the government on present insecurity matters nationwide, it appears better to ply a less turbulent route.

Again, any discerning observer could see through the sombre, penitent direction of Igboho’s recent interventions. Of course it could be a decoy, given his present condition, but then it could as well be genuine.

In all, as in Kanu’s, a political solution could be thrown into the mix, with compromise reached from both sides. What’s not in doubt is that brawn and vindictiveness aren’t the solutions to the Igboho conundrum. He may have been demystified as the braggart that he is, but he remains a fly on the most delicate part of Nigeria’s phallus. And, most importantly, until the government delivers on good, inclusive governance that guarantees safety and equity in distribution of democratic dividends, it’s only a matter of time before another Igboho emerges from the trenches. Caution.

Oladeinde Olawoyin (Twitter: @Ola_deinde)