From boardroom to the palace
01/13/17, Kayode Soyinka
The Agbogidi Alfred Ugochukwu Achebe narrates his journey to the traditional stool of Obi in this interview with Africa Today's Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Kayode Soyinka.
Africa Today: You have had a most fascinating career in the boardroom and not just in Nigeria but internationally and then all of a sudden to return home to be a traditional ruler in Onitsha. It is a boring sort of experience from where you are coming from? What has been your experience?
Obi of Onitsha: Absolutely not boring at all. In fact, I have not worked as hard. Things keep coming up, issues keep coming up and they are serious issues. Here is a well-documented write-up (pointing to a printed and bounded folder) of a crisis I am trying to settle. The crisis has lasted several years. There is another young man who has been writing a book seeking for sponsorship. This morning I have approved a goodwill message to the Christ the King College Old Boys Association U.S.A chapter for their 20th annual reunion. The palace secretary has been here to discuss the agenda for the week - all the meetings to be called, all the various peace meetings to be held and all that. All in all it has been fascinating and absolutely busy. We are looking at different angles: left the corporate world at the international level in London, going to Australia and New Zealand to address parliamentary committees and going to the European Union to address parliamentary committees and America to speak to members of congress, which actually has been very, very useful in my present situation. One, we are not running an archaic system any more. What we have done is to bring our system to the 21st century. We are applying modern management techniques to address traditional issues and we still hold on to the traditional values very, very strongly. Tradition is not static, culture is not static; we must move with the time, we must change with the time. The experience one has had in the corporate world for 30 years has taught one how to manage these things and more. But I am still connected to the corporate world. I am still the chairman of two or three companies - Unilever Nigeria, Interfax, a subsidiary of SAB Miller, the beer brewing company, and one or two other private companies. I just dropped the chairmanship of Diamond Bank after seven years. So I'm still connected to the corporate world. Of course, at the state and national level, I am much involved in leadership of the traditional institution. I gave a lecture a month ago at the University of Ibadan on the Nigerian traditional institution. Since then I have been able to discuss national issues with the National Council of Traditional Rulers. One is playing a leading role at that level. I am the chairman of the Anambra State Council of Traditional Rulers, a body of full members that are very cerebral, very highly educated with PhDs, respected professors and medical doctors, barristers, etc. We meet once a month and we discuss issues of governance and development and make recommendations to the state government on education, teaching of our vernacular language, teaching of our history, other issues of our culture, security issues and economic development. We have just graduated 70 of our young boys and girls and we are supporting them with loans from the micro-finance banks and they have mentors. They all have their own businesses but the goal is to deepen their skills in their own chosen areas. I had to sign some papers today before the funds can be released to them. Then we take the next 70. These are things we do sitting here. At the end of the week we will start the long vacation tutorial for our students all run and managed by our university students and it's their programme. Besides teaching them two plus two, they are also teaching them followership and leadership. This is besides other programmes like those who don't have a strong WAEC or JAMB. There is no point going to the Vice Chancellor and saying 'please help' if you don't have a strong result. If you do, you are going to end up with a weak degree. But we give them one year booster training. They repeat their JAMB and WAEC and they have better scores, they have confidence in themselves in competing and getting a stronger university degree. It's a whole programme on youth, whole programme on peace building in our community. I can reel off a list where they have had internal strife. There is a whole programme of creating sense of togetherness - whether you live in America or Lagos - we are Onitsha people and in the 21st century - whether you live in London for twenty-something years, you are an Egba man as long as you touch base. Somebody at home has got to be the focal point, to create that focus, and that is my role, that is what the Obi of Onitsha stands for.
Africa Today: There is a conflict on the way we view our leaders in Nigeria and indeed the whole of Africa. We have the modern leaders - the presidents and prime ministers - and yet we still have the traditional rulers - the kings which you represent here. How relevant is this traditional institution? Is it that people value the traditional rulers and institutions more than the modern leaders in today's Africa? How do you place it?
Obi of Onitsha: I don't want to start warfare with anybody (laughing). At my Ibadan lecture, I made the point very clear that the first thing is that people are starting to realise that every Nigerian/African belongs to a traditional community. The traditional ruler is merely the one at the helm of that institution. Every Egba man belongs to the Egba culture that is central to them. You as an Owu man are part and parcel of the Owu Kingdom and (former president Olusegun) Obasanjo too. Obasanjo knew this because he told me that when he gets to his village - remember he is the Balogun of Owu - that he goes to the Olowu and he prostrates and pledges his loyalty and when there are challenges in the community he will have to play his role. To give an example: the succession to the throne of Olubadan - that is the most recent - every Ibadan indigene was involved in the process, in the discussion, planning, ensuring that it was smooth in the celebration - every Ibadan indigene: Dr Omololu Olunloyo, the governor himself who is an omo-Ibadan, Professor Bolanle Awe, Barrister Akintola, who is the voice of the Central Ibadan Community, played a great role. I think it was Akintola who said look at the cabinet of the Olubadan; it is superior to any faculty in terms of the quality of human beings. Mine is the same. So if you think of it in that context, you begin to see a different picture. One of the monarchs, by and large, is the modern urban person who's had some professional exposure and the community is seeking their best and brightest. Look at (former CBN governor Lamido) Sanusi in Kano, the Olu of Warri, who just got on the throne, a well-trained graduate of the University of Benin, the Oni of Ife, a chartered accountant and very brilliant businessman who made his mark in real estate. The collective experiences are therefore brought to bear in the life of that community. I was just telling you about Onitsha, what we do with the youths, in economic development, programmes on drug addiction, etc. For our market women, we got a loan scheme for them. We are working with the government, which is very important. We have become the eyes and ears of government at the local level. We persuade the government to do things in education and other areas; the government does that and it shows the government is working.
Africa Today: So is that the way in which modern government and the traditional institution complement each other in terms of actual governance?
Obi of Onitsha: We are doing well in Anambra State. I don't want to take credit; I have been the chairman of the traditional council for eight years and able to compare. I am truly lucky to have governors that listen to the advice we give and leave the traditional institutions to run its affairs independently. We meet every month and always take up issues. We have little committees working on issues, they make report and so on and recommendations are given and sent to the government. We are working on several issues now - cattle grazing and the alternatives to cattle grazing that will minimise conflict between farmers and cattle herdsmen. We are working on the teaching of the Igbo Language and history in our schools. Security is a constant challenge and government is receptive of our ideas. Next month (August 2016) we have our annual workshop of traditional rulers in Anambra State sponsored by the state government but run by us. Some of us are lecturers; we bring in outside resources to come and lecture us, break in to groups and discuss and issue communiqués. It is part and parcel of governance even though there is no provision in the constitution.
Africa Today: Your role is like that of the civil servant. Governors come and go but the Obi of Onitsha remains on the throne. You have seen governors come and go and since we have been visiting Anambra under this present Governor William Obiano, the phrase we have been hearing on the street is "Willie is Working". What makes this particular governor unique?
Obi of Onitsha: Unique means different. That's how I understand it. He was coming on the back of the former governor Peter Obi within the same political party, which is APGA. From that perspective, his challenge and target is to move governance to the next level. Of course, moving to the next level does not mean slavishly into the next level because you have to apply your own initiative, knowledge and perception to properly move to the next level. As you move to it to the next level you also want to move it to the next direction which has to be positive while bringing in a package of background which somebody has described his as "an accidental politician". Governor Obiano brings a lot of executive capacity to governance; his exposure in Texaco as group internal auditor. As you know, an auditor gets an overview of the entire business, the helicopter perspective of the entire business. He is in that capacity to see the state from that perspective in terms of the various challenges and see them as an integrated package - an environmental challenge there, a medical challenge here - and at the end of the day, he's got to see them as part and parcel of the package of challenges in the state and therefore find solutions that are all encompassing rather than looking at the challenges a little sideways - so the roads are bad you have to go and fix it and having fixed the road you discovered there are no bridges so you build a bridge and after building it you discover its leading to nowhere whereas there is a farmland on the other side where if there is a bridge, the farmers will do more work. Willie has that ability to see governance from a much more integrated perspective. Financial management is very important. Going for efficiency out of the system and I think he has achieved more efficiency with the system. Let me give you a situation where the economy is contracting. There is no rocket science to the thing you have to do. One you reduce your cost and he has done all that - ghost workers, unnecessary expenditure which, of course, the public sector is full of now. He is reducing all that without compromising quality of service. In fact, by reducing cost you have actually improved services. There are a lot of people not doing anything and he has achieved the way for people who can do better. He has also found alternative means to generate IGR (Internally Generated Revenue) and he gives incentives to the civil servant: if you increase IGR by this percentage I will reward you by increasing your salary and he has done that. Within the midst of the economic crunch, he has increased salary by five percent - though symbolic but it meant a lot. He also increased the monthly stipend for the traditional rulers and he is paying salaries regularly. All in all he has this perspective of managing the state. He has a very direct approach to leading; he is hands-on leader. I think he is more of a manager than a politician. That is the advantage he has. Some states have a situation where their governors are dye-in-the-wool politicians and even after the election they don't know the election is over and it's time to go on with governance.
Africa Today: Still fascinating to me, listening to you on your role - I don't want to say new role. You have been here now on the throne close to 15 years. It's unbelievable that I still look at you from your days in Shell in London. If we look at you from that executive corporate image of you that we had we won't even believe that you could be sitting here playing this sort of role. What prepared you for this role? We want you to talk a bit about your lineage - nobody can just wake up one day and become a king, an Obi of Onitsha. The first place I visited when I entered Onitsha was the palace and I could see some statutes of your predecessors. So there is a rich history here. Tell us a bit about yourself, your royal lineage?
Obi of Onitsha: In Onitsha we have a founder of the city-state, Eze Chima, who led the migration from Benin. Then there are the Igala elements he met at the water-front and then crossing over there are the Igbo elements. Onitsha is largely a fusion of Edo, Igala and Igbo and our royalty is largely Edo. So you must be a descendant of Chima, the first king and founder, to get to the throne. Then the Igala royalty became part and parcel of our fusion. The Igala royalty plays more from the maternal side, my grandmother's place - they have the Igala descent. So the Igala royalty is more from the maternal side and they are part of the king-making process but they cannot mount the throne. Then the Igbo side is more of a social organisation, our social system and all that. We have two dynasties under Chima - two of his sons and the monarchy throne rotates between the two. Our predecessor, Okigbewe, belongs to the Okadina dynasty from Agbor, the same side (Nigeria's first president) Nnamdi Azikiwe came from. And we belong to the Aromi dynasty, the same place Ukpabi Asika came from. That's the beginning. To qualify for the throne, you have to be able to trace your patrilineal descent from the time of the founding fathers, which makes it possible that a lot of people qualify. There are other characteristics: your mother has to be from Onitsha and other aspects. In my own case, there were 21 candidates that presented ourselves for screening. Then, of course pedigree, increasing educational qualification, your working experience and the external exposure you had because we are in the 21st century, you must be able to make friends and reach out with the connections you have. Financial standing is not a big issue because we believe that if you come for the Obi of Onitsha, which was how it was in the past, you shed yourself of all personal processions, you depend on the community for your livelihood, your food. Financial standing is not a big criterion but, of course, you don't earn a salary - you are expected to be able to sustain yourself on the throne. It's not the richest person who gets it; in fact, if you are too rich the community is worried about you but you must be able to maintain yourself. In my own case, my patrilineal descent was not an issue. Matrilineally - my mother through her father, the great grandmother on my mother's side through her father - is back to Chima dynasty; though her mother's side again is back to Chima. If I trace two or three generations back then I descend from three or even four monarchs that you saw at the palace. From the perspective of pedigree, there is no dispute. The standard is over and above few of the candidates. One's working experience in Shell, exposure in the world and the managerial experience demonstrated and, of course, the fact that you retired with a relatively comfortable pension even if you didn't earn a lot. Then, of course, with the corporate position one has and as a traditional ruler at the state level you get N130,000 a month, which adds to something. All put together, I think that's what threw me up in the eyes of my people and of the 21 candidates, when the conclave cast their votes. The conclave consists of 25 persons. This can be very difficult especially if the conclave cannot agree on a candidate and, like the Vatican, they keep voting. But on their first ballot, 19 stood up for me, two abstained and the next person who got three votes was my closest cousin. So it was very clear. In terms of preparation, it was going on in life but you didn't realise. Even though we were all born princes, nobody tells you to get ready because it might be you as there were so many princes. In fact, we believe that those who actively crave and prepare themselves were not getting it. We believe that very strongly that the spirits are opposed to anybody craving for that. And in my own case I was persuaded by my kindred group that was promoting my candidacy. They could not talk to me because I was in London. And they said no this guy is too big at the international level to come back here but we need him. If he came out everybody else will stand down. So they spoke to a very good friend of mine, senior to me, somebody I loved and respected so much that if he says stop, I stop; he was a mentor to me. They spoke to him and he called me one morning. I leave for the office at the usual time of 7 O'clock. I will walk to the station in 10 minutes and catch the fast train to Waterloo in London, which is half an hour, then walk across the bridge to my office. I leave my house 7 O'clock and just before 8 O'clock I am in my office. If you call me at 8 you will get me in the office. They called the house after I had left and my wife told them I had left and that they should call me in the office. As I got to the office, booted my computer there was a message from his son in Lagos saying my dad wants to talk to you urgently please call him back; he is at my house and this is the number. Before I could call he called again. I said "what's going on; did anybody die?" He said "no but listen, listen very carefully." I said "go ahead." "I have a very important message from your people and you must not disappoint them: prepare to be the next Obi of Onitsha." I said "who told you?" He said "did you hear me?" I said "yes" and he said "that's the message, don't query me, don't ask me" and he hung up the phone. And a whole lot of other things happened which are conspiracies. A lady then called to say "you have been summoned to come back to Onitsha immediately. At Friday morning 10 O'clock we are waiting at Imeobi." It was Wednesday night. So I must travel from London Thursday, get to Lagos and get a first flight to Warri - thanks to Shell. "Who is this talking?" I asked. "Don't bother," she said. Till today I don't know who she is; it's a mystery voice. But I could not start travelling without checking a few things. And I checked and I got a message back saying "yes, you are wanted and if you have to swim, swim."
There was drama to get to the airport that morning because my passport, that Wednesday night, was with the Dutch embassy in London for my visa renewal. At 8pm I called my secretary. "Where is my passport?" She said "it's with the Dutch embassy, of course. What's the problem?" "I have to go to Nigeria tomorrow morning." She said "that's impossible." Half an hour later she called back, saying "you are flying." I asked: "how am I supposed to travel?" She said she called the Dutch embassy - they have a 24-hour number - and told them I wanted my passport 8am tomorrow morning with or without the visa. I just wanted the passport and I sent a motorcycle to pick up the passport. The fastest way from Woking to Heathrow airport with my passport in my hand was to go back to my office, take a car and start driving to Heathrow following the underground line so that if there is any stoppage, I get off and dive into the underground. At the airport, they had closed check-in at the departure lounge. I said "look, I am only carrying a handbag; I've got a first class ticket." She said - life was easy in those days - "your ticket will get you through security and immigration up to the gate. I am going to call ahead to the departure gate; just go." So a series of events - it was almost as if it was ordained to happen. But before all of that - like I said the preparation was going on in life - you sit down with your father and he talks to you, you sit with your uncle and he talks to you, the same with your grandfather. I met my maternal grandfather but not my paternal grandfather and I was very close to him. He told me about my paternal grandfather who was his good buddy. So you pick up things about the family and were you fit in in the family and all that. And also elements of tradition are natural to any Onitsha boy or girl. Even if you didn't grow up in Onitsha, your parents talk to you and when you come back from school you participate in activities. If it was a woman from this village she will call me a praise name which will automatically tell one which village she comes from. So if a woman calls me Son of Omuezele I know she comes automatically from the Obi Omuezele family, which is my maternal grandmother's side. If she calls me Omuagba I know she comes from the other side, and so on. So you know all these connections because, even as a boy, people meet you on the road and call you praise names. There was a strong feeling I was my grandfather incarnated. My grandfather died in 1939 and I was born in 1941, so they say he has come back to the world. Apparently I never knew but he was a very well respected man, revered, principled. I know my father. My father is very principled and he took and was called by his title - Akune, which literally means your mother's wealth. When you take the Ozo title, you take a name that gives significance. If your mother brought you up, you take a name that gives respect - what you are today is due to the wealth of your mother. The first time I had an inkling I was in secondary school and Okosi had passed away from the other dynasty, so it was our own turn and there was a tussle and the leading candidate who was supported by my father stumbled, something about him being too Catholic and there was a fear that the Catholics were going to hijack the monarchy. Then there was something he did which was a big taboo and he had to withdraw. I was on holidays and my father took me to his bedroom - I don't know why he did it - but he took me to his room and said: "you know Moses Odita is the correct person to be the Obi of Onitsha. He is a fine gentleman, he's well qualified but unfortunately he has stumbled. If I had money, if I had a lump sum of money I would have gone into this contest at this point because Moses Odita was the only person, by pedigree, that I will defer to" - which is basically telling me that our pedigree was very, very high. He said "don't worry, I don't have money." I started crying. He said I should not cry. I was in class one or two in secondary school. I didn't see the import of that until eventually Orejekwe became the king. After Orejekwe then Ofadakwe and it is now coming back to our own dynasty, which is me. So as I grew up under Ofadakwe I began to see how our own side came together, the fact that my own sub-kindred group never produced the king. We always have a contestant but we never had a strategy or game plan until it got to my turn. So you could see there were signs. There were other things too. Somebody had had a dream and revealed to my mother, who told my sisters but never told me. My aunt - the immediate older sister of my father - believed I was her father reincarnated and until she died she called me "my father". While in primary and secondary school she would tap me on my shoulders and say your shoulders should be strong because you are going to carry a lot of load in your life. She always told me: "you are ordained to carry a lot of loads." So all these things come together and then, of course, the process. As for training, I knew enough to get started but every day you learn. The system makes it that way and even to settle a case, by the time you read two stories you get the final truth but you learnt a lot. This case I just received today, there is so much history from various sections. A lot of it I know already, the history, culture, tradition. A lot of customs have been written, in fact under me we have just published the third edition since I came to the throne so there are opportunities to learn.
Africa Today: Do you definitely enjoy it - being the King?
Obi of Onitsha: It is absolutely rewarding. If I had to do it again I will do it again and I think the timing was just perfect. I retired from SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Company) in 1996 then the international division said I wasn't going anywhere, come over to London. After a very busy five years, I said to myself this is becoming a bit routine I needed to move on to something else because if I didn't move on I will get too old. I set up a small, high quality consultancy based on my experience in the last five years. I was based in Lagos with a small office in Abuja and then a representative office in London and New York to provide consultancy to government, to businesses, external relations and intergovernmental affairs and so on. I called a couple of my friends that were retiring from the civil service, permanent secretaries and all that and from the private sector. You can reach out to other people and on part-time basis to provide consultancy. It could have grown big, it could have stayed small but I wasn't looking for a big thing so I gave a notice but they say we weren't discussing it yet. I told them just bear in mind that sooner or later I got to step down. I had made my mark, done everything and so on. Then this thing came up. The timing was right. I came back to Onitsha; Shell retained me for a year on their payroll. I still had my office in Shell Centre in London for the first full year and a half. I came back in May to the next May and then August. For 18 months they kept me and then we signed a consultancy agreement and I became a consultant and that lasted from 2002 up to 2006, another four years. It's actually rewarding and the timing was perfect. If you have an opportunity I recommend you do it. If the Owu people call upon you, you will find it rewarding. I have got my smartphone, have got my iPad, so wherever I am I am in touch with the world, am in with Onitsha and Onitsha is running. I am in touch with my secretary and my chiefs. And the quality of my chiefs - my prime minister when I came on was Chief Ofodile, the former attorney-general of Nigeria and a SAN. He died aged 92 or 93. He was the head of the chiefs which include Dr Obiora, a past president of the West African College of Surgeons. You can't beat that. The new prime minister retired from the DPR (Department of Petroleum Resources) as a deputy director. An engineer, he worked with the refineries and ended up at the DPR. There is Dr Ngozi Okafor, a professor of chemistry and retired deputy vice chancellor of the Benue State University and a former commissioner at the state level. There is a retired commissioner of police and a civil engineer by training. That is the beauty of the diversity we have. The village that has a crisis, there are three chiefs, members of the cabinet but the chiefs are now biased towards their own section. I said three of you get together and resolve this matter. I had to get a colleague of theirs and say you look into it and he's done an excellent work, he's researched the historical background, he's researched the issues on the ground and he's researched how it has come to be and then made proposals on the way forward. That's the kind of quality that we have.
Africa Today: Lastly, I can't come here without asking to be educated and our readers too to be educated about the Ofala festival. It is one festival Onitsha is well known for. I saw a fascinating artwork at the palace of the Obi and the chiefs arriving at the festival. What is the significance of the festival?
Obi of Onitsha: That artwork and another was done by an Onitsha artist. We have quite a whole bunch of nationally and internationally recognised artists beside Ben Enwonwu who is from Onitsha. We have Osekola Osadebe and Okechukwu Odita, who were part of the old Zaria set-up which include Yusuf Grillo, Bruce Onobrakpeya, and Odita. Of course, we have a whole lot of younger ones coming behind them. Ofala was initially the period in the year that the king presented himself to the people. Strictly speaking, in those ancient days, the king was not seen by the ordinary person for a whole year. The Onitsha king is a political head, a military head and a priestly head so he is everything tied into one, the embodiment of the Onitshaness of an Onitsha person. So every Onitsha person attaches and associates himself or herself with the monarchy. And the greatest punishment you can give an Onitsha person or Onitsha people is to say stay apart, just stay apart, don't fraternise with us. Simple but it can be so painful. That is because of how we are closely linked. Everybody, every group, every section lays claims to the monarchy because it is a binding force for the community. In the olden days, the king was mostly isolated in prayers and supplications for the community because in those days, the world-view of our ancestors was limited, very, very limited. An eclipse of the sun or moon was amazing, like a new world. If there was a big, great flood - in fact our ancestors will talk about it, if you live by the river you hear the story of the great flood that happened and everything was wiped off or an attack of locusts or an attack of bees or a year when the rainfall was not as good as it used to be and so the harvest was poor. Now when these "abnormalities" happen or an epidemic, whatever it is - chicken pox or small pox or tuberculosis - hits the village you know in Britain they have their own epidemics, the Black Death and so on, when people just die every day and you don't know what to do. But in our own case, everything is divine. So you go into prayers, go to the afa oracle. The Ifa oracle in Yoruba we call afa; it's the same thing. It all boils down to sacrifices, appeasement of the spirits, prayers and all that. The Obi of Onitsha, in the ancient days, was also the sacrificial slave of the community. He has to offer himself, prayers and take the punishment that he could take, all the suffering, to appease the gods for the wellbeing of the community. To be able to do that, on your coronation, you die a symbolic death so as to be elevated, spiritually, to the next plain, above the community, above your people so that you can be their agent of supplication to our ancestors who are now agents of God. In fact, if you become the Obi of Onitsha and die a symbolic death you are elevated by our ancestors. That was the role of the Obi. As a little boy, we saw Obi Okosi the second - that was around 1947 when we go to the palace after school, during the holidays to play around - walking around the palace compound in meditation all by himself, because sitting down is the worse aspect even for me. For me I go to the hotel to check-in. They say your majesty please have a seat. I tell them no, no, no, I sit down all the time, it's punishment. So I walk around. Only the people who are close to the Obi, his sub-kindred group, the men - not the women -attend to him and who he seeks advice from. They are the eyes and ears to the rest of the town from his own sub-kindred group, because out there, there are conspiracies even against the monarch because we have two dynasties. They protect him and they tell him what's happening out there. He discusses with them and makes decisions and passes it on to them. Then his senior chiefs have access to him. Whenever they come, he is told and they sit with him. They tell him what is happening in town officially and the sub-kindred group tells him unofficially. The senior chiefs will come, talk to him and he says, "I have heard what you said come back tomorrow for an answer." Then he checks with his people and then he decides. Only once a year will he present himself after a period of seclusion. Getting close to the Ofala seclusion and during that time, which still happens till today, he is absolutely bare. He does not take his bath for a week, does not shave, he eats very little food and sleeps on the bare floor. This is literal - he sleeps on the bare floor. This is the most dangerous time because, again, in the past, because he's supposed to eat very little food, today the doctor will check you out and say you have to eat some food. I think, historically, maybe one of my ancestors passed away. So having gone into seclusion and emerge "victorious", victorious against the trials and tribulations and prayed for the community's wellbeing, made atonements for all of past misdeeds in the community, everything that happens around the community, you bare it and pray to God to intervene and to our ancestors - then you now emerge and show yourself to the people that you are still alive, which means that the community is still alive because you symbolise the community and you prayed for our past and prayed for the future. It's a great celebration that the Obi has emerged; it's a new future, a new life for us. Several other sub-processes are tied to it because in the period that you are in seclusion, on the second half of your seclusion, the chiefs celebrate what is called their own Ofala. It is an enactment of a military formation. Historically we have three fronts you have to defend. Those were during the inter-tribal wars, the inter-city wars and all that. And our chiefs, the Obi is the commander-in-chief, at the next level are the field commanders and the lower ones - the generals, the lieutenants, etc. The hierarchy of chiefs is in that manner and also broken into three divisions to defend each of these three fronts.
Their ceremony starts very early in the morning. The most junior chief in that particular formation goes to the next senior, the most immediate. He goes with his musical group and sits on the throne of the senior chief - that is once a year he gets to sits on the throne of the senior chief. He sits on his throne, prays for him, blesses him and tells him the front is secured, that there is no threat. Having told him that, he performs a little ceremony, kills a fowl and all that and then they move together to the next and they repeat the same ceremony until they get to the head of that command. This process is going on in three fronts because there are three defences led by three field generals until by early evening it culminates in the three centres coming together. By that time you can imagine that you start small with one dance group and you go to the next and the next until it becomes a big thing around the town. Then at that point, the goat is slaughtered, the food is cooked. It is a celebration that all our borders are secured and can now inform the Obi in seclusion that he may show himself to the people because in the past there is also a danger that on the day of the Ofala you get attacked by our enemies. The worst thing you can do is just like the bees. The queen bee is defended to the last. If you arrest the queen bee that bee colony is dead. That happens two days to the Ofala. On the third day is the Ofala. On the Ofala day the chiefs arrive by order of hierarchy - the most junior comes first - all in their grandeur and their head gears. They come and they lead me out to be presented to the people. There will be dancing, paying of homage, etc.
All of that is happening during the season of the new yam festival. Some of the villages would have started their own new yam festival - we do it village by village - then the Ofala, then the royal families do their own after the Ofala, then the king does his own. As the ceremony is taking place, no second funeral service can take place. That was what I was telling the young man who wants to do the second burial of his grandmother and father, that the time he has chosen we cannot resolve all the issues. So traditionally it's the king's emergence so to speak, it's the protection of our borders and military boundaries and all that, it's new yam festival, but now in the modern time it is the home-coming for our people wherever they are and they come with their friends. Since I have gotten to the throne, I have had an annual art exhibition. We have been trying to add an annual book exhibition also. Go to YouTube, you can find the art exhibition. If you do a search of the Obi of Onitsha on YouTube you will get the Ofala art exhibition. People come from Ghana, the UK, the Jackson brothers came. This year (2016) we told the (Ghana king) Asantehene and he is coming with former Ghanaian president John Kufuor and a whole delegation from Ghana. I have asked Carol Beckwith, an international photographer who has worked with National Geographic magazine and produced travel books to come and cover it. Goge Africa has covered it for several years courtesy of Globacom who has partnered with us for the past five years. That is the Ofala; it is the time of merriment, it's the happiest time and it takes place in October. There is a small ceremony that takes place in August.
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