Ooni’s death and burial: A very worrisome trend (I)

The demise and the interment, a few days ago, of the Ife monarch, the Ooni, and the severe disruptions that they brought in their wake, is the second time that I have lived to see the death and burial of a powerful monarch bring such pains, fear, panic, anxiety and economic loss to millions of […]

The demise and the interment, a few days ago, of the Ife monarch, the Ooni, and the severe disruptions that they brought in their wake, is the second time that I have lived to see the death and burial of a powerful monarch bring such pains, fear, panic, anxiety and economic loss to millions of people. The first time, if my memory serves me well, was in 1978 when the then Benin monarch, Oba Akenzua , joined his ancestors and the present Oba Erediuwa was crowned in his stead.
Back in 1978, many non–Benis were compelled to shave their heads as the culture there demands. Millions of others were made to suffer other indignities, supposedly in honour of the dead. Many fled Benin for their ancestral homes for because of rumour that victims of human captives must be procured and buried alive to ‘gracefully’ accompany and serve the dead chief in the netherworld. The anxiety that gripped the land of Benin and environs was palpable. Oba Akenzua’s death caused not a little pain to so many innocent persons who do not bury their kings in the alleged manner the Benis have chosen to bury theirs. I asked then and I ask now in my naivety:  why should millions of innocent persons be made to suffer because a certain group who are steeped in archaic and best discarded tradition decide that their chiefs who sit on demonic thrones have human sacrifices made to appease the gods they serve when they depart this land?
In the Ooni’s case, a curfew was imposed on the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife. Banks, businesses and other socio-economic institutions were forced to close, supposedly in honour of the dead chief. If people are asked to do what is against their will supposedly in honour of the dead, where then lays the honour? When a chief and ones that lived long like Akenzua and Sijuade die, citizens and subjects alike ought to break out in spontaneous celebration and not to cower in fear and trepidation. If people are now forced to fear for their very lives because a powerful chief is dead, how can anyone genuinely honour such dead? I think the only thing to expect from honest persons is to curse the day those people died and were buried.
I know that I am a small ordinary impotent citizen with only a pen as my armour. But I wish to declare here with all the amount of vehemence in me that what took place in 1978 and what has been alleged took place in this glorious year of the Lord 2015 was, if true, barbaric, ungodly, and most unacceptable in a modern society and all such things by any group or cult should henceforth be consigned to the rubbish heap of history where such things properly belong. Such archaic tradition should not have a place in the type of Nigeria some of us want built.
Today, Ife and Benin and any other place should be told that those places have grown beyond the so-called owners of the place or sons of the soil. The outmoded people of Ife and Benin and elsewhere often get away with blue murder because the people they capture and often bury alive are usually the hoi polloi. I am so convinced that not a small war will break out one day when they touch an anointed and not some unfortunate captives, such as itinerant traders and long-distance truck drivers who usually fall victims to such barbaric acts.
I respect honourable traditions that elevate us and teach humanity a thing or two about other people. I feel it is alright if people are allowed their free will to do what is in accordance with their conscience and in consonance with their own tradition to show love for the departed chief of any land and not compelled to obey a tradition they do not know about, much less believe in. I am of the deep conviction that the era of head hunting is truly gone. We should not permit its revival under whatever guise.
If the traditional authorities of a town decide that schools should close shop or subtly warn people to keep indoors, the Nigerian state must demand a satisfactory explanation. They should treat such audacious demands with official indignation and proceed in the belief that murder or other dreadful crime is afoot and move to pre-empt it. That is what a modern state exists to do. The authorities must not shy away from doing this in the name of not offending the sensibilities of certain persons.
Never again should the type of pains the death of powerful chiefs inflicted on people in 1978 and now in 2015 be allowed to take place. Nigeria is working hard to present herself as a democratizing modern economy.  There should be nothing done or say that gives the impression that a national or foreigners’ life or business will be imperilled if a heathen chief dies and must be buried according to so-called custom and tradition.
I would not have complained when in earlier centuries Benin and Ife were the lands of the direct or indirect descendants of Oduduwa. Now they are no more. Thousands of other Nigerians who are not descendants of Oduduwa and foreigners now call Ife and Benin home or a place of business. Whenever any major decision has to be taken concerning those towns and other towns still trapped in barbaric tradition, the factor of their new status must be factored into such decisions. Nobody is forced into this union. Anyone that does not want to consider the feelings and sensibilities of other Nigerians or the demands of a modern society, such a people can opt out and live their primitive lives the way they have freely chosen to live. People should not be coerced, intimidated or brow-beaten to accept what they are not comfortable with or is even injurious to their lives.