Ifa Priestess DARES Tradition
By: Jide Iyanda
Erelu Lola Ayonrinde, a former Conservative Party member an mayor in Britain, an a priestess of Ifa, is on a crusade against the practice of sacrificing the remains of kings in her Yoruba homeland.
When Erelu Lola Ayonrinde returned to Nigeria in 2006 after a 32-year spell in the UK, she had a simple mission: to establish a scheme to assist other returnees to the country to resettle properly. But a few years into her coming back home, something happened that changed that course. The Alaye of Ode Remo in Ogun State, Oba Funsho Adeolu, died and his remains cannibalised by traditionalists. Ayonrinde is now neck-deep in a campaign to sanitize the traditional institution in the country, especially in Yoruba land, as it concerns the rites of
passage for dead kings. The late Oba Adeolu, popularly known as “Chief Eleyinmi” in the now rested TV series, Village Headmaster, had encouraged Ayonrinde to return home. Earlier, in 1991, he had bestowed on her the chieftaincy title of Erelu Tunwase of Ode Remo. Ayonrinde, who had actually contemplated returning home all by herself, considered her king’s prodding a clarion call, so home she came. Regrettably however, Oba Adeolu passed on two years later. He died in a London hospital on 21 August 2008, and his body was flown to Nigeria afterwards. But the grisly manner of his burial, more than his demise, according to Ayonrinde, was what traumatized her. The remains of the late king, she claims, were cannibalised, in line with the age-long rituals royals who pass on in Ode Remo are reportedly subjected to by a group of the town’s kingmakers that she also referred to as the Odis. Yet, this was against the instruction of the late Oba Adeolu – a staunch Methodist during his lifetime – that he be buried in line with his Christian faith. Ayonrinde, a former Magistrate in Britain, is now on a mission – an instruction the Ifa priestess curiously claims was given to her by the aggrieved ghost of the late Oba Adeolu – to redress the injustice, and end what she terms the “barbaric, obnoxious and valueless practice”. “He experienced injustice in death, so he’s decided to use me as a medium to highlight the unexplainable practice of subjecting obas to such bizarre form of burial under the disguise of tradition,” she declares.
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Ayonrinde, a very close confidant of the late Oba Adeolu while alive, recalls one of her encounters with the king’s ‘ghost’: “I heard (from him), I saw his ghost physically and I also dreamt; it was so traumatic because the sheer presence of a ghost blew my mind.” She claims to have jottings of some of the instructions he gave her during those mystical encounters. In one instance, he reportedly revealed to her: “When I departed this world, my remains were handed over to the Odis (kingmakers), in whose hands I experienced brutality not in line with God’s expectation on the way remains should be treated. “I consider remains sacred. My body was treated like that of a criminal; they took bits and pieces for their own use. The team swore to secrecy…” Ayonrinde recalled, adding that this is just an extract of some of the shocking revelations the ‘ghost’ gave her.
During the one year anniversary of Oba Adeolu’s death, Ayonrinde launched a campaign: Say No To Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism, an declared that “the body of my kabiyesi (king) was missing and I needed his body to bury as his ghost demanded me to do.” According to the priestess, she brought the issue to the open because she got no response from Ode Remo chiefs, including the Oluwo (chief priest) of the town – who should be in the know – when she went round the town demanding to know the circumstances of Oba Adeolu’s burial and the site of his grave. The truth she has found: the king has no grave; his funeral rites remain a secret; a taboo subject that no one dares speak about, except for her lone vociferous campaign for redress. The crude tradition of mutilating the remains of kings and taking out their hearts to be fed to their successors in Yoruba land, and parts of the country, has been going on for ages now. In fact, the term ‘je oba’ which means ‘to be crowned king,’ in Yoruba, actually literally means to ‘eat the king’. |
During the one year anniversary of Oba Adeolu’s death, Ayonrinde launched a campaign: Say No To Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism, and declared that “the body of my kabiyesi (king) was missing and I needed his body to bury as his ghost demanded me to do.” |
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