It is one of the lessons that history teaches us. One of the many ways Divinity communicates His greatness and supremacy to humanity. God, through diverse
lessons in our world today reveals his control on the destiny of mankind to the discerning. One of such lessons is the manner of talents and passions he bestows on the different peoples and tribes that traverse different parts of the earth.In Bible history, in I Chronicles 12:32 we learn about the sons of Issachar, a tribe that had an understanding of the times and so thereby gave the nation of Israel direction, telling the leaders what to do at any given time. We also read about the people of Charashim in I Chronicles 4:14 who were expert craftsmen.
And if you are not familiar with the Bible, we can pick a few lessons in our world today. Why do so many football greats come from Brazil? Over generations, Brazilians have shown that the game of football runs in their veins. Yes, there are many other football greats from other nations, but no other nation boasts of the density of football talents from Brazil. Football originated from England, not Brazil, so how come Brazil dominates the game. It is the gift of God to the people of that nation. A gift that has had a significant impact on their economy as many of their sons who would have been impoverished and unsung in life have become wealthy men and a source of inspiration to many youngsters around the world.
What about the Kenyans and Ethiopians and the marathon race? There are about 200 countries in the world today, how come Kenya and Ethiopia, two countries who share a common border dominate the marathon race? The topography of their land gives them the advantage and they have earned a reputation all around the world as horses who run tens of kilometers without wearing out. It is the gift of God to these people. This gift has earned them a name, has put wealth in their hands and has raised role models across the globe from these two African nations.
There are many freedom fighters and politically motivated pan-africanists from different parts of Africa today. These are men who love their motherland; who love Africa; are proud of their black heritage; have excelled in a specific field of human endeavor and have thereby earned worldwide acclaim and international clout. They abound, scattered across different cities in different nations all over Africa, but there is not one singular town that has as many of these men as Abeokuta, a city in southwest Nigeria. Abeokuta, a city established by a warrior called Sodeke in the 1800s is Africa’s land of greatness, the land of distinguished freedom fighters.
How else can you explain the fact that former Head of State and President Olusegun Obasanjo; Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka; distinguished business mogul and statesman late Chief MKO Abiola; late Afro beat icon Fela Anikulapo-kuti; the unusual and fiery servant of God Pastor Tunde Bakare and a host of others all come from the same small town, all descendants of Sodeke.
An examination of these men reveal the same streak – they love their country Nigeria with a passion; they express no fear in the face of oppression or death; they are passionately stubborn in whatever they believe in and will follow it to a logical conclusion whether they are right or wrong; they all excelled with distinction in their chosen careers; they have an unquestionable international clout and are known all over the world for their positive contributions towards Africa and particularly Nigeria.
I am not a fan of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and even though we share the same birthday, I detest his approach to governance. He was a highly incorrigible bigot who hated dissenting opinion; he treated opposition as enmity and tried to run a republic like a kingdom. He was highly selective and vindictive in his anti-corruption campaign and under his reign, the masses of Nigeria saw economic hell in the face of incessant increases in the prices of fuel.
I may not like Obasanjo but that does not obliterate his great and unquestionable destiny. Obasanjo is in my opinion the Nigerian leader with the greatest destiny who has ever lived. A man who has led his country two times and both times he never hassled for the seat but was literally invited to occupy the seat. Now, that is greatness, that is destiny. His character and personality are another issue. He almost literally ended the civil war and has contributed greatly to the unification of Nigeria. He has dined with the high and mighty across the globe; he has walked in the greatest places of the earth; he is a great son of Abeokuta, with the unquestionable trait of fearlessness and greatness.
Professor Wole Soyinka is another son of Abeokuta. A shining star in the field of creative writing and has more clout that any other writer from the African continent being the first of his kin to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1986. And in consistency with the character of the sons of Sodeke, Professor Wole Soyinka has spent his entire life fighting oppression and injustice in Nigeria and across the face of Africa. His speeches and writings have always addressed bad government in Nigeria and Africa. This has gotten him into trouble severally as se has been incarcerated on many occasions. He was forced into voluntary exile during the high-handed reign of late General Sani Abacha. He endured the tear gas during the years of Obasanjo, his kinsman’s presidency. Professor Wole Soyinka, a greatly distinguished son of Abeokuta has spent his entire life fighting bad government, and struggling to enthrone democracy and justice in his nation. He has expressed great boldness and courage in his lifetime and defied the fear of death on many occasions. He is yet another great son of Sodeke, he is a great freedom fighter.
Chief MKO Abiola traversed as a colossus across the business and political landscape of Nigeria in his days. A super-wealthy philanthropist, he rose from a background of nothing to become one of Africa’s wealthiest and greatest sons. He was generous to a fault and many great sons of Nigeria today got an education on his generosity. A man who suffered greatly as a child, his heart was always open to the suffering of the poor. He stood for many great ideals and fought many noble causes. A scathing critic of racism, he advocated for the payment of reparation to Africa by the western world as compensation to the black man for the oppression and indignity of the trans-Atlantic slavery. He ran for the highest seat in Nigeria, and won but the election, adjudged the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s political history, was dishonorably annulled by the then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida. He was jailed for declaring himself President and eventually lost his life in the cause for the realization of his electoral mandate. His death however arguably paved a way for the emergence of the fourth republic in Nigeria with his kinsman General Olusegun Obasanjo, as the beneficiary. Chief MKO Abiola can never be forgotten in Nigeria, he was a great son of Africa, a distinguished son of Sodeke, he was also a fighter, a Pan-African fighter, and even though making money was his business, the trait of greatness in him found him out and made him Nigeria’s real first martyr of democracy.
In his days, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was the weirdest and most unusual man alive. This trait earned him the appellation ‘abami eda’ meaning ‘the weird one’. A son of a clergyman and human rights activist mother, his global fame towers above that of any other son of Abeokuta. In his time, the Head of State of Nigeria was recognized by Fela’s clout. It was reported that a Nigerian Head of State had attended a function in Europe and was asked ‘Oh, you are the president of Fela’s country?’ A distinguished instrumentalist and musician, he dedicated his music and lifetime to the struggle against the oppression of military juntas in Nigeria. He also sang to denounce racism, imperialism and the superimposition of Western culture on the psyche of the black man. He married 27 of his dancers in one day. He smoked marijuana and stubbornly insisted it was good for his health until the Nigerian government left him alone. He fought oppression in the most insecure of conditions. He was badly beaten, brutalized, and his house was raided and razed. His ‘ideological’ mother was killed. He was jailed on many occasions on trumped up charges as well as genuine ones, yet Fela Anikulapo-kuti fought on, he never compromised his stand. He called the names of dictators in his songs and took them on headlong. And even though he sang in local Pidgin and Yoruba, his music was accepted all over the world for the quality of its content and the message it carried. Arguably, Fela remains Africa’s greatest music export to the world. His greatness is unquestionable, he is unprecedented and it is doubtful if anyone will fill his big shoes for many years after him. He was a son of Sodeke, a fierce, fearless and great freedom fighter.
There is yet another son of Sodeke, a direct descendant of the warring Egba progenitor. His mother called him ‘jagun’ (warrior) from the cradle as though she had known he would spend his life fighting. Born with the instinct of the fighter his mother called him and the traits of Sodeke his ancestor, as a child, he fought a friend of his mother who had come to insult her over an unpaid debt. As a young growing lad, he retaliated an unjustified slap from his boss as he worked as a postman in the Lagos post office in the seventies. He abhors corrupt leadership; highly intolerant of oppressive governments, his skinny frame vibrates with raw passion as he takes on wicked and corrupt leaders in Nigeria. He is a man of God of a different mould and an unprecedented occurrence in the Nigerian Christian community. He is an unusual and somewhat strange personality who would never waste an opportunity to denounce bad governance in Nigeria and anywhere in Africa. I mean, what manner of man would go to Kano and declare that the sitting Head of State, General Sani Abacha, the coldest dictator in Nigeria’s history, would be brought home dead in a short while? By the way Kano is the hometown of Abacha. What manner of man would go to Liberia, in the heat of Charles Taylor’s bloody siege on that nation and declare “you Liberians are crazy people for allowing a tailor to be your leader, the next time I come to this nation, he will no longer be your leader.?” He would go to Kenya and scream at the top of his thin sonorous voice, in the midst of Arap Moi’s madness and declare “M-manipulator, O-oppressor, I-intimidator, your candle is put out today!” He would go to South Africa to put out the candle of the bloody and wicked leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. The man is Pastor Tunde Bakare, a true and proud son of Abeokuta; his love for his hometown is conspicuous as he can hardly speak without singing a song from or mentioning his hometown. A fiery man of God in a mould only for himself, he has defied death, oppression, intimidation, incarceration in his time as a freedom fighter in Nigeria and the whole of Africa. He belongs to the order of the liberators as well as the order of the prophetic. He was a thorn in the flesh of former President Obasanjo during the latter’s eight-year administration as civilian president. Pastor Tunde Bakare loves Nigeria with a deep passion and has severally declared that he cannot separate his destiny from the destiny of Nigeria. He is the father of the emerging New Nigeria, and is currently raising a Green Invasion Campaign (GIC), a group of youths who are determined to bring about a positive change in Nigeria. He is truly ‘jagun’, a distinguished son of Sodeke, a son of Abeokuta, and a fearless and endowed freedom fighter. His fame is known throughout the world.
A close look at these men and a host of others shows clearly that God in his divine ways has placed a seed in Abeokuta, in the descendants of Sodeke. It is the seed of greatness. A seed that pushes them to excel in every field of endeavour they pursue. A seed that makes them hate injustice and oppression in every form and guise on the African continent. A seed that makes them defy the fear of death in the pursuit of whatever they believe in. A seed that makes the love of Nigeria and of their continent run in their veins. They are the generation of greatness, the generation of freedom fighters.
A surprising and queer observation however emerges when a proper x-ray of these great destinies is done. Virtually all these great sons of Abeokuta are on one page while President Olusegun Obasanjo stands alone on the other page. Professor Wole Soyinka, Chief MKO Abiola, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and even Pastor Tunde Bakare are all deep critics of Obasanjo’s personality, character and style of governance. Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s grouse with Obasanjo in particular goes even beyond ideological opposition, it leans towards enmity. If charity begins at home, then this calls for a personality check. If all the members of my household disapprove of me and only people from afar appreciate me, then I have some work to do in my primary sphere of influence. The Balogun of Owu should examine this and try, if it is still possible, to correct this strange anomaly. No man can be an island to himself forever. However, the fact remains that Abeokuta has produced sons. The destiny of Abeokuta greatly shaped the destiny of Nigeria. The destiny of Nigeria greatly affects happenings around Africa, the sons of Sodeke have greatness in them, and Abeokuta is Africa’s land of greatness.
