Oba Yusuf Adeleye, Olubaka of Oka Akoko, Ondo State, was a former police officer, a lawyer and a magistrate before he became the traditional ruler of the town 25 years ago. He spoke with ADEOLA BALOGUN on some of his life experiences
How has it been 25 years on the throne as the Olubaka of Oka?
We thank God for his protection, grace and for the journey so far. Just like any other venture, it has been up and down but the grace of God has seen me through. I left Oka in December 1965 for Lagos when I finished from African Church Grammar School and you can imagine my situation when I had to move back home in December 1987 to live permanently having stayed so long in Lagos. Getting back to Oka, the stack reality of the situation was there in terms of development; there was no road that was motorable and infrastructure were in decay for a town that had no traditional ruler for about 16 years. Even though we had some political leadership, the traditional leadership was not there but, I thank the chiefs and the political leaders; they did their best along the line that they held forte. By the time I left home, we had about two secondary schools but through the efforts of our leaders, the number had increased by the time I came back.
Why was the stool vacant for so long a period; was it as a result of a tussle?
Of course, a lot of things happened although a regent was in place. Immediately after the demise of my predecessor in office, what they put in place was what was in 1957/58 Declaration regarding the stool. We had only one ruling house, Okikan, with five branches, so there were agitations among the members of the ruling family calling for the review of the declaration and after that, we now have nine branches. About 14 of us vied for the stool and by the time the kingmakers met, the decision to zero in on me was unanimous. The moment it was announced and I came home, all other contestants came and paid obeisance at the palace and that was the end of everything.
It means that while you were in Lagos, your mind was at home angling to be oba.
There was nothing like that. I was prepared to face my career and when the members of the family came to talk to me to show my interest in the stool, I told them I was young and that I needed to be very careful with anything associated with traditional setting. But after a lot of persuasion, reluctantly I yielded because I was still not keen. In fact, I was the last person to show interest. It was not as if one knew; I was more interested in facing my career.
Now that you are talking about career, we learnt you were once a police officer and at the same time a magistrate; which one came first?
When I left secondary school in December 1965, I went to Lagos for employment, The issue of unemployment has been on, it did not start today. It’s just that things were better then than they are now. I was staying with my elder brother who was a driver to the then Lagos Island chairman, Alhaji Masha at Fadeyi with the hope that I would get an employment immediately either at a factory or ministry. But after staying for four months and there was nothing, I came to see a brother at the police barrack in Ikeja and he said there was going to be recruitment the following week and asked whether I would be interested in applying. I was recruited as a constable even though I qualified to be taken for a cadet course. The class thing had started in Nigeria for a long time because there were some others who possessed lesser qualifications who were recruited as cadets because of the class of their parents. After six months, I was posted to Apapa but because of the political crisis and the civil war, I was one of the young policemen posted to the police headquarters in Moloney. I was in the open registry department and I was first living at Sangrous police barracks before moving to Ijeh Police Barracks, Obalende. There were other friends who also had school certificates and we organised ourselves to pursue our education. Then two of my classmates were already in the university because they had the opportunity of doing their Higher School Certificate. One was Ambassador Apata who was in the University of Lagos and Professor Borroffice who was in the University of Ibadan. They visited me at Ijeh Barracks and encouraged me to pursue my education instead of ending my career as a recruit. We started reading on our own after closing hours in preparations for HSC examination which went on for about two years. Then three months to the examination, something happened to me. One Mr James, a deputy commissioner of police, accosted me and said I didn’t salute him and he transferred me out. I was posted to the house of AIG Maiduguri and my job was to open the gate when he was going out and when he was coming back and I had more time to study privately on my own unlike when I was in the office where I hardly had the time. Then something happened again, the man who took over from me at the force headquarters failed to handle a signal very well which affected the commissioner in charge then, Adamu Suleiman, when he travelled to Kaduna. He got the signal and put it somewhere thinking that another person would treat it unlike when I would personally handle it because of its importance. The signal was for the purpose of receiving him at the airport and booking his accommodation. The commissioner felt embarrassed when he got to Kaduna and discovered that nobody received him at the airport or booked his accommodation. He became angry and when he came back, he ordered an investigation and he was told that I had been taken out of the post and he ordered that I be brought back. But eventually, I was able to make my papers during the period I was taken out of the force headquarters which afforded me the opportunity to apply for a study leave without pay. I got an admission to study law at the University of Nigeria, Nnsukka but people discouraged me because of the civil war crisis. I said I was going there to study while some people went there to fight war and that nothing would happen to me. Two of us were from the Western Region who got the admission, myself and Chief Lai Awoyede from Ife who later became a commissioner under Chief Bola Ige. I went there as an adventure; my intention was to go there and register with my little savings and then come back after the first term because there was no one to sponsor me. But luckily, the government of the Western Region under General Adebayo introduced bursary to students of the region from which I benefitted. That’s how I was able to go through higher education. During the holidays, I used to work at Bata, Ojota and that is why I always say heaven helps those who help themselves. When I finished, I stayed with my old teacher who had already qualified as a lawyer, Chief Ayodele Apata. Then he was sharing the same house with Atiku Abubakar in Anthony Village as young officers. After I left the Law school, I was called to the bar in 1974. I was sent to Alagbon Close to work in the fraud section. I worked under Chief Sunday Adewusi as a commissioner of police then, a very fine officer and one of the best Inspectors General of Police ever produced by Nigeria.
Which means that despite becoming a lawyer, you still wanted to continue as a police officer; why?
Of course, all the encouragements were there. I was at the Fraud Unit and along the line, FESTAC came with loads of contracts and there were a lot of contract frauds and the police was involved in anti graft duties. As young lawyers in the police, we were busy investigating the cases. Two of us, myself and late SP Dutse were assigned to go to London, Germany, USA to investigate Warner and Warner and Co which took contracts from the Federal Government for FESTAC 77. As police officers, we were taking our salary and as we were travelling out, we were paid estacodes but despite that, Mr. Adewusi, our head, encouraged us more and served as our inspiration. I remember we were to go abroad for two weeks and Dutse went to him that we would leave our families behind and that they should be taken care of. Adewusi did not say he was asking for too much; he gave us the little he had on him as operational funds, just to encourage us. We left for the countries and did our duties and with all the temptations, we knew that we had a duty to perform for our father land. Under Adewusi, as a detective, there was no time I didn’t have enough tickets to any part of the country. Vehicles were made available to travel anywhere in the line of duty and there was enough money to go with and there was no reason to go begging for money from anyone to perform our duties. These are the things lacking in the police today. During our own time, we were well funded and we faced our job diligently because we were adequately catered for. The condition of service then encouraged us to deliver unlike nowadays when you go to a police station and they ask you to go and bring pen and sheets of papers. We had supplies of all our needs from the police store; uniforms, kits, accessories, everything. When people blame the police, it is because of the prevailing situation which was not the case when we started. When I was at the Force CID, a legal department was set up and I was part of it. The unit was to assist the police in their investigation. There are two cases I will always remember when I was at the Force CID, one involved the Federal Government and an American company called Lockheed that made aircraft for the Nigeria Airforce. Under the contract, some of their engineers would come to Nigeria as instructors to train men of the airforce. Nigerian officers went there to bring the aircraft but when they were coming, some of the Lockheed people over there bought weapons to be delivered to their colleagues here in Nigeria but one Nigerian officer innocently accepted to help deliver the luggage without knowing what was inside. But as they were about flying out of the airport in the US, they were accosted and when the luggage was searched, it was discovered that it was weapons and they were arrested. The matter was investigated and I was assigned to prosecute the case. I said the officer that brought the luggage could be considered as innocent because he never knew he was carrying weapons but we said he should have been more diligent. We used him as a prosecuting witness. I was quite young while the chambers of Chief Rotimi Williams and TOS Benson were defending the white men and their company at Ikeja Chief Magistrate under the then Justice Moni Fafiade. I won the case. The decision was that the white men should be deported back to their country to serve their jail terms in order not to strain relations with Nigeria and America. I consider the case to be very memorable, to face two legal giants at my age then and won. The other one involved Chief Gani Fawehinmi during the Ali Must Go crisis at Igbosere Magistrate Court under the same Justice Moni Fafiade. Myself and Alhaji Azizi Waziri, the husband of the former EFCC boss, Mrs. Farida Waziri. Both of us were from the legal department; he was the leading prosecutor and I was following him. Along the line, Chief Fawehinmi raised serious objection against Alhaji Waziri prosecuting the case on the ground that he had once threatened him; that he was not surprised that he was the same person prosecuting him. Waziri went back to the IG office and lodged a complaint that Fawehinmi had accused him and there was no way he could continue with the prosecution. It was then suggested that if that was the case, I should be allowed to take over but when I was told, I said look, don’t you see my tribal marks (which of course looked like that of Chief Fawehinmi)? Because of that case, I became an Ondo man. I said if I went ahead, my family and our house and everything back home would be set on fire. But I was trying to avoid Chief Gani Fawehinmi because it was not true. Alhaji Waziri was asked to carry on and that was how I avoided Chief Fawehinmi. I will not forget those two cases.
So, how did you then venture into the judiciary?
The then chief judge of Lagos State, Justice Adefarasin contacted the IG because then, lawyers were not forthcoming in the judiciary because of what they perceived as poor condition of service. The CJ then asked the IG to kindly release some of the lawyers in the police legal units to serve as magistrates to help decongest the prison. Prison congestion did not start today; it had been there all along. So, as a young man, I decided to venture out for experience when I was requested for and I was seconded for two years to go to serve in the judiciary. When I got to the judiciary, I discovered that it was a different ball game; one was free to dispense justice the way one liked. There was no command structure like in the police where you must obey the last order and nobody bothered you about your decision. You were free to follow your oath of office unlike the command structure where you must carry out the order even when it was not palatable to you. I started as a magistrate Grade 2 and I when I was chief magistrate Grade 1, I had even forgotten that the mandate was for just two years. So I then decided I would not go back to the police because I was enjoying my freedom and able to relate the way I wanted to. I traversed a lot of places from Yaba to Ajegunle, to Badagry, Surulere, Apapa and finally Chief Magistrate Court at Tinubu. I worked under a number of CJs like Adefarasin and Candido-Johnson. Myself and the current CJ of Lagos State, Justice Ayo Philips, we were colleagues at the Law School. I was at Tinubu when the issue of the obaship came in 1987.
Even as a young police constable; was it not possible to remain in the mainstream police force and still make it?
Well, I think I was lucky for the encouragement I got from people like Senator Boroffice to improve myself. Again, I was lucky that I didn’t work in departments that could easily corrupt me as a young policeman; I didn’t work in traffic and the crime branch. These are areas you could easily be tempted. I worked in the administration where I dealt with decent officers who encouraged me to do something in life.
But now when the police is mentioned, it is easily associated with corruption; how do you feel as a former police officer?
It is most unfortunate because the police is the reflection of the society. It is the society that corrupts the system and then the underfunding of the force is another factor. If the police is well funded, perhaps we would not have this kind of situation. If a police constable has to buy his uniform, he has to go and rent a house, then the tendencies are there to be corrupt. In our own time, we were living in the barracks and at that time, for you to buy a bicycle, you must take a bicycle loan. But now, if a constable brings a Mercedes to work, nobody asks him where he got the money to buy it and majority of the men live in towns among all types of men where they are easily influenced. If policemen live in the barracks, you can easily account for them and those they associate with. Government has a lot to do to improve the lots of the police force. They should be provided with barrack accommodation where they can be well monitored after office hours. As at the time we were in the barracks, at times, they won’t allow certain people to come and live with you, not to talk of having people with all sorts of characters. At that time, there was barrack inspection and everything about the living conditions of policemen was adequately supervised. Then there should be a form of security at the end of the service like housing loans so that they don’t begin to hustle unnecessarily because of what they would face in retirement. If all of these are provided, the devotion to duty would be more. In our own days, a typical police division would have a number of vehicles, fingerprint section, photograph section and all sorts of things. So if an accused was caught, they would take his fingerprint before he was taken to court and as soon as the prosecution was concluded, everything about the case was recorded including the fingerprint. If such an accused was arrested in future, it would be possible to identify him. I remember when I was a magistrate, a number of times, same set of accused men were brought before me and I was able to say so so and so had appeared before me but unfortunately, there would be no proper documentation to identify them. But the whole essence of fingerprint and other documentations was to enable the police to plan with a data because it would be impossible to do so without data.
So, if you were asked to propose a memorandum for police reform, what would you recommend?
I would propose that all police men and officers should be provided with barracks accommodation so that they don’t live with all manners of characters outside. They should not live among civilians for proper discipline and monitoring; to know the type of people they associate with. Let the government provide enough barrack accommodation; it would encourage training and retraining of police men. The government should raise the entry point into the police because of the low quality of education in the society today.
What challenges did you face settling down as the oba after so many years in Lagos?
It was daunting but we thank God for his grace. God assisted me in constituting my cabinet and bringing back harmony among various 15 quarters in the town. I visited all the neighbouring communities where my people sojourn as farmers. I visited fellow obas in and outside the state and sought for areas of assistance. I visited Lagos State governor then, Brigadier Raji Rasaki, and all the places I had worked to seek for assistance and support. The condition of the roads in the kingdom was nothing to write home about by the time I got there and with the help of prominent figures, we were able to call the attention of the state government to the development of the town. We embarked on a lot of development projects through the cooperation of my subjects.
But Oka Day has more or less become a major event in the town where all the sons and daughters of the town converge, when did it start?
Oka Day was my own idea. As at that time, all the quarters had a day to celebrate certain festivals like the new yam and other things. But I said there must be a unique thing to bring everybody together in a year so that there would be a point of meeting for the indigenes of the town to celebrate. That was how Oka Day came to being and for more than 15 years now, it has become a major day where it is even recognised nationally as the day Oka sons and daughters celebrate their place of origin. One of the important things that we have realised from Oka Day is the building of a befitting modern palace for the town. Today, the state of the road has improved, thanks to the Petroleum Task Force under Gen Muhammadu Buhari. But we still call on the state government to help in other areas.
Is there pressure to add to your oloris as it is the custom for obas to have many wives?
That was in the day of old. It is no longer the vogue even though my predecessor had about 40. I have only two and I am satisfied with that. I thank God that all my children have university education. They are lucky because I had nobody to give me that but we thank God for everything.
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