- As Olabode George, Tajudeen Olanrewaju, others demand the removal of Shade Tinubu
Look around you. From the Lagoon to the Ocean, from Ifako-Ijaiye to the depths of Epe, from Ikorodu to the ancestral beginning of Isale- Eko, our Lagos is still much troubled, largely distorted, orphaned and stripped by alien hands.
We had used the passage of Justice Isiaka Ishola Oluwa, a veritable Lagos icon, on May 9, 2020, to rouse our people and remind them about the sacredness of our Lagosian heritage and about the imperatives to stop the erosion of our traditions and demand from the tools of power to rectify the glaring wrongs, where indigenes are trampled upon and now elbowed out of participating in the governance of their state.
This much still remains our mission. This much still defines the summative purity of our ideals, about the continuity of the Lagosian journey and the need to protect the inalienable rights of the indigenes upon their own native soil.
Once you erode a people’s tradition, you destroy their ancestral beginning and verities.
Among so many erosions of the Lagosian traditional balance, we address presently the issue of Iya Ọlọja title. One cannot discuss the issue of Iya Ọlọja without mentioning Ọba Eshugbayi Eleko, the son of Ọba Dosunmu who reigned from 1901-1925 and from 1931-1932 when he joined his ancestors.
It was Ọba Eshugbayi who was popularly known as Eleko of Eko who installed the first Baba Ọlọja of Lagos in the person of Chief Faṣẹkẹ Olukolu according to the tradition and the practices of our ancestors. Olukolu, who hailed from Okepopo, was a prominent grassroots trader and merchant whose charisma, whose generosity and whose tactful brilliance in settling disputes among local traders naturally endeared him to all the merchants. His choice as the market leader or the Chairman of the Parakọyi by Oba Eshugbayi in 1901 was celebrated all across Lagos. Olukolu was also made the first native member of the Lagos Central Council to represent the interests and the needs of the market women and men.
The importance and the significance of the emergence of Olukolu here is that he was appointed by a noble king whose attainments were well established for his relentless protection of the rights of the indigenes against the intrusion of the colonial administrators .Each time the colonial intruders assaulted the rights of the natives, Eshugbayi dragged them to court and won several victories against the interlopers.
Today we are confronted with new usurpers, with new impostors, running amok in our midst, destroying the normative sacredness of our heritage.
Native Lagosians are well aware that since Olukolu first mounted the seat of Baba Ọlọja, the subsequent holders of that exalted position were equally prominent, well known women merchants and traders whose fame in mercantile enterprise went far beyond the shores of Lagos, reaching into the furthest reaches of what eventually became Nigeria and far into the foreign shores. Notable among these women were Madam Pelewura and Alhaja Alaṣọ Oke of Olowogbowo-Ọffin origin.
Madam Pelewura and Alhaja Alaṣọ Oke were women of substantial means and industry who treasured hard work, selflessness, amassing great wealth through sheer industrial enterprise and boundless vision. They both traded variously in beads, gold, leather,fabrics, salt, pepper, horses household hardwares and many other items they could lay their hands on. They were also philanthropists, building mosques, churches, donating to orphanages, neighborhood associations, schools and many other institutions.
In essence, the Iya Ọlọja were extraordinary women of hard earned wealth, whose prominence were bolstered by demonstrated entrepreneurial restlessness.
Alhaja Mogaji who came later after these legendary women
did not come close to their pre-eminence .
Alhaja Mogaji who deviated from these prominent women hailed from Ọṣun state. She started trading by renting clothes to women in the late sixties for a fee around Massey hospital very close to Branco street on Lagos island, before she strayed into partisan politics which eroded the traditional leadership of the leader of the Parakọyi.
As a matter of fact Alhaja
Mogaji was not the rightful and the legitimate person to occupy the position of Iya Ọlọja. Alhaja Muftiat Dosunmu was the most senior person that should have occupied that position. The last child of Salawu Ado Dosunmu, she had led the market women for decades at Balogun , Ita-Kọsẹ , Amuwo, Okokomaiko and various other markets as a prominent seller of imported fabrics and many exotic accessories in Lagos. But with Bola Tinubu as the Governor, he reversed the order and imposed his adopted mother as the leader of the market women. This is where the crass intervention of politics destroyed the purity of our tradition.
The imposition of Shade Tinubu, the daughter of Bola Tinubu, is the tragic encore that began with Alhaja Mogaji. It is impossible to fathom. It is a brazen, reckless intrusion of the ways of our ancestors. It is a savaging of our heritage.
Shade Tinubu lacks the gravitas, the dignity, the cultural presence, the traditional demeanor and the observable piety and magnificence of an Iya Ọlọja. She should be an errand; a courier for the leader of the Parakoyi. Nothing more.
And in truth, Shade Tinubu also usurped the position of Alhaja Shẹkẹtẹ who was the direct in line to the leadership of Iya Ọlọja after Alhaja Mọgaji had also pushed aside Alhaja Muftiat Dosunmu through the instrumentality of Bola Tinubu.
Unknown to the good old norms of the leaders of the Parakọyi, Shade Tinubu shuts down markets with cruel impulse, imposing punitive levies on poor traders, through hired hands; harassing the poor pepper seller, the road side corn roaster, the fish seller, the abject widow merely surviving on the neighborhood kiosk.
This is wrong, wicked, unfair and unjust.
Shade Tinubu is not the fit and proper person for the exalted seat of the Iya Ọlọja of Lagos. She neither has a kiosk nor a stall. She is neither a merchant nor a trader. She has no knowledge of running a market nor is she qualified or fit to lead a complex, vibrant, traditional organization that is as old as our ancestral ways.
From Alaba Arago to Mile 2, Orile, Festac, Oshodi, Aswani, Ladipo, Isolo, Itire, Odo-Eran, Aguda, Tejuosho, Bariga, Computer Village, Ikeja, Ipodo, Owode-Onirin, Agege, Egbeda, Mushin, Ojuwoye, Ereko, Yaba, Tejuisho, Oyingbo,Itafaji, Ebute-Ero, Sangross, Iponri., Balogun, Oke-Arin, Kota -Ariyo, Apọgbọn Ẹhingbẹti and hundreds of markets across Lagos – all these traditional centers of trade and commerce generate a conservative figure of over 10 billion naira every week .
Now, what percentage of this income goes to Shade Tinubu everyday, every week, every month and every year? How much tax does she pay? The answer is blowing in the wind?
This is not fair. This is not just.
Shade Tinubu goes around the markets with a platoon of police and armed thugs. She recently shut down the Computer Village simply because the traders chose a leader she did not like. Is this fair? Is this just? Is this the way the Parakoyi of old treated their members? Obviously not!
Shade Tinubu must be removed now to give way to the rightful person who is well hewn in our customs and practices to occupy this very important position. Politics must never be allowed to destroy our tradition. This is our position. This is our resolve.
Chief Olabode George, CON, FNSE, Atọna Oodua of Yorubaland, Leader of Ọmọ Eko Pataki
General Tajudeen Olanrewaju rtd, ndc, psc+, DSS, Former GOC, Third Armored Division, Trustee, Ọmọ Eko Pataki
Mr Gbadebo Dallass, Msc Former MD NERFUND, Trustee, Ọmọ Eko Pataki