The Oluwo of Iwoland, Oba Abdurasheed Akanbi, for inside interview with Femi Makinde share em experience before and after em sit upon throne of em forefathers.
He also yan on how Iwoland take exist and how e be taboo for anybody to kill any parrots.
He also yan say because of em religion em dey above all idols.
Read part of the interview:
How did Iwo come into existence?
The history of Iwoland had been badly distorted until God put me on the throne and used me to amend the distortions. You have to dig deep into the root before you know the history of Iwo Kingdom and to know who the Oluwo is. Anybody can become a pastor or an alfa but not everybody can become a king. Where is the crown of Iwo from? Iwo is actually from Ife. The crown of Iwo is from the first female that ever became a king in the whole of Yorubaland and the entire West Africa.
What was her name?
Her name was Luwo Gbagida. She was the only woman that ever became the Ooni of Ife. Her history is so unique because there was no respect for women at all when she became the Ooni. She was the greatest woman in history at that time. Where did she get her crown from? She got her crown from her father’s lineage, which is the House of Oduduwa. Oduduwa was her great, great grandfather and if she got her crown from her father’s lineage and her great, great grandfather was Oduduwa, then where is the Oluwo’s crown from? Then that means Oluwo’s crown is from Oduduwa because the crown that was given to Telu, the son of the female Ooni, was from Oduduwa. Telu can be said to be a child of a chief in Ife but the crown that was given to him was from Oduduwa.
Telu was the only son of Luwo Gbagida. His mother (Luwo Gbagida) was the one that gave her the crown and told him to take the crown to the land where the only creature that speaks besides human beings could be found. The only creature that ‘speaks’ apart from humans is the parrot.
Is it a taboo to kill parrots in Iwoland?
We don’t kill parrots in Iwoland. Iwo is called the land of the parrots. We tame them and look after them.
Is it a taboo?
It will be a taboo to kill a parrot. Why will you even say you want to kill a parrot? It is inhuman to do that. Another thing is that you must know that the crown of Iwo is from the House of Oduduwa. It was a distorted history before I came and they said the crown was from Obaloran. Obaloran had no crown. In Ife, all the chiefs under the Ooni at that time had what was called ‘Ooro’. That was what they put on their heads. All the baales in Ife at that time did not have crown, they had the Ooro. It was the Ooni Sijuwade, who upgraded them to the status of Obas. It wasn’t so from the beginning.
Luwo Gbagida, after she had ascended the throne, asked one chief, Obaloran, to have sex with her and that was how she gave birth to Telu. Telu was his only son. The woman suffered the agony of releasing her only male child to go and establish another town. There was no bicycle or vehicle then and she did not give Telu any description of how to get to where he would find the land of the parrots. She just told him to keep on going until he would come to the place. She was losing her only male child, Telu and Telu was also losing his mother because they knew they might never see again. So where is the origin of her crown? Remember that Luwo Gbagida was an Ooni at that time and it means that Oluwo is a prince of Ife. The Orangun is a prince from Ife; the Alaafin is a prince from Ife, the Owa is a prince from Ife, the Onisabe, Onipopo, Ajero, Alaketu are all princes from Ife and Oluwo is also a prince from Ife. Oluwo was given a crown by the authority from Ife.
Not all kings are natural kings. Some people somewhere say Baale of Iwo but Oluwo has never been a Baale at anytime. He has a natural crown from inception. All the Obas with natural crowns in the whole of Yorubaland cannot be more than 10.
You always speak against idol worshiping, are you saying that you were not made to perform some rituals or rites before you ascended the throne?
Ninu ikoko dudu ni eko funfun ti n jade (the white pap is prepared from the black pot). But once the pap is out of the black pot, does it have anything to do with the black pot again? You can’t eat the black pot but you can eat the white pap. Let me tell you, Prophet Ibrahim known as Abraham came out of an idol worshiping background. Jesus Christ was born into a background of people worshiping idols. Look at it, all the kings after Solomon turned against God and worshiped idols. That is why you see in the Bible that God punished the Israelites by allowing their enemies to take them into captivity anytime they worshiped idols. God used the Chaldeans, the Assyrians to punish them. So, it was Mary, who gave birth to Jesus and who gave birth to Mary and what were her parents doing then?
To be specific, were you made to perform some rites or rituals?
There were some rites they would ask you to perform. But there were some I told them I could not perform because they were against my religious belief. There were some rites that did not conform with my religion and I did not perform those ones. Whether you perform the rites or not, the day the government announces you as the king, that is settled. That is why God made me the king, there are some things that we need to sieve out of our rich culture.
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