Adejare Quasim Olanrewaju is a son of the late poet, writer, broadcaster and activist, Chief Olanrewaju Adepoju, who died on Sunday, December 10, 2023. In this interview, he tells SAM NWAOKO some of the things he knew about his father and his last wishes.
What are some of the things you easily remember about your father, Chief Olanrewaju Adepoju that you think stood him out?
He was completely dedicated to God. He was very faithful, totally committed to God and he was fearless. The wicked will run when no one pursues them but the righteous are bold like lion. That biblical statement describes my late father, Mas’ud Olanrewaju Adepoju. He didn’t mind the the consequences of telling the truth anywhere he found himself. He believed that when you fail to correct an error, you had committed a sin. It always bothered him that you when you fail to correct someone who committed an error or told lies, you had failed to liberate the person from lack of knowledge. He always countered anyone who failed tell it as it is. He was very loyal to God and destiny. Whatever happened, he took it as an act of God and the God allowed it. He had a pure heart and reaped the fruits of that total commitment and belief in God. Secondly he hated cheating and deceit and lived that true and true. Even before he completely left everything to devote his life to Islam and became a religious leader, his many songs and poetry which the Yoruba call Ewì were pointers to the kind of person he was. He spoke against all kinds of vices and wickedness and in all places, be it in government, in the society or in the practice of religion. He sang so much against dubious religious and political leaders and he also saw various kinds of reactions from many quarters. Several kinds of attempts were made by some religious leaders to keep him quiet or even eliminate him but God kept him from all harm and protected him all through these periods. So, his being a man of truth had its dangerous sides, it was not completely a bed of roses. But God did not allow him to fall into the traps and snares of the wicked ones.
You are saying that attempts were made to shut him up because of his beliefs. Can you let us into some of these or he didn’t inform you about them? Do you have any examples?
There were many like that. There were many because a lot of the people who did those things later came physically to confess their deeds to him and sought forgiveness. Some of them told him that they never experienced it that anyone survived the kind of things they spiritually did to him. I remember that he was a close friend of one former Ooni of Ife. However, when he went deeper into Islam and totally surrendered to the religion, they fell out because he asked the monarch to jettison some things they did. They went their separate ways following that and their friendship crashed. I also saw a traditionalist that came to my father to ask for forgiveness. He confessed that there were 18 or so of them in the same cult and that only four of them were left in their insistent attempt to eliminate him. He claimed that they drowned seven black cows because of my father but all these were ineffective, contrary to what they knew about such things. He said some people were eliminated after drowning just one ram but that they were awed that they had made several attempts even with cows to kill him to no avail. So, he came and said he believed that indeed, God is the greatest and that my father was a special creature.
There was also a popular masquerader in this Ibadan that was known as Ajana. I don’t know if he is still around and I’ve also forgotten the name of his masquerade. He too also made a lot of startling confessions, embraced Islam and insisted that my father should be the one to formally accept him into the Islamic faith. One of the shocking things he said was that during their season, they would need to perform human sacrifice which must be done with a live person. After his confessions, my father raised a band of people who went to his shrine to clear the place. Part of the duty of the prayer team was to properly bury the many skulls they found in the shrine. He said it was important that the dead should rest, hence the befitting burial of the skulls. It was easy to see that the many rituals and charms of that Ajana had obvious effects on him. He was such a frightful person and would be so restless. We saw many of such.
A former Chief Imam in this city (Ibadan) also had an open encounter with my father. Daddy was a Sunni Muslim but he didn’t start out as one. Even before he embraced Sunni Islam, he was known as outspoken and for his uprightness. Having been born in Akufo in Ido Local Government Area of Ibadan, Oyo State, he also knew a lot of things in the both the Islamic religion and our Yoruba cultural beliefs. So, it was very easy for him to differentiate that which was of pure Islamic or even Christian religions from things ungodly. We were at a programme here in Ibadan and both the Chief Imam and my father were also in attendance. My father was not a Sunni by then but the MC of that event was one. After the Chief Imam had spoken, the MC tried to amend some of the pronouncements of the Imam and to make them sound more palatable because some of his pronouncements were considered by many at the gathering to be un-Islamic. The Imam seized the microphone from the MC and scolded him for attempting to twist what he had said. “When were you born? Are you saying I’m not old or knowledgable enough to know exactly what I said…?” he queried. Then the Imam angrily said if he didn’t want the MC to live to the following week, he could do that. That was when my father intervened. He got the microphone and thoroughly reprimanded the MC but didn’t end his intervention there.
What else did he do? He left in annoyance?
No. He openly expressed disappointment at the conduct of the Chief Imam, especially for his death threat to the MC. He told the Imam that he was supposed to be father of all and that what he said was improper as a cleric, a leader and a father. He said it was only the Almighty God that had the powers of life and death and that even he (the Chief Imam) had no guarantee of life. This angered the Imam the more and he turned on my father. He now said it was Olanrewaju Adepoju that would not survive the next seven days. He said it openly to the shock and consternation of the open gathering that year.
It was such a tumultuous period for us. We were worried because there were strong rumours that the Imam was highly diabolical. Many sons of Ibadan and other top Islamic clerics intervened in the matter. At home, we were so scared that each morning, we would go to check on him in his room to ascertain that nothing untoward had happened to him and that he was still alive. While we were worried, he was unfazed. He kept telling us that he was fine. Some Muslim clerics like Alhaji Kunle Sanni rose to quell the raging feud and enlisted the support of the late Alhaji Abdul-Azeez Arisekola Alao to intervene and end the ‘war’ between the Imam and my father. When Alhaji Arisekola Alao called my father, he asked if they should come to the house to settle the rift or if my father would come to his own house. He asked which matter and he was told the one between him and the Chief Imam. My father said: “Ah, even if we are going to discuss that matter it would have to only be after the seven days he had given. Let’s wait till then but please tell him that I haven’t heard from him in any way, not even in my dreams.” My mother and all of us there were just pleading that he should allow the intervention. Until after those seven days, nothing happened on the matter and nothing happened to my father. We were also sure that that Imam must have taken some steps to make good his threat. Interestingly, while those seven days were pending, my father still took his Islamic preaching programmes to the open space at the Family compound of the Ibadan Chief Imam when he was denied the use of the Ibadan Central Mosque. But God manifested Himself, nothing happened to him.
It was only after then that my dad said he would be part of the fence-mending moves initiated by the Ibadan big wigs. That committee sat and quelled the rancour between him and the Chief Imam. To cement the end of the feud, they instructed my dad to visit the Chief Imam at his home to pay homage because he was the head and there must be respect for that office. I went with my father on that visit to the Imam. The Chief Imam-designate of my father’s Islamic group, Alhaji Solahudeen Adebayo Raji of blessed memory, was also in the entourage. In fact, my father had wanted the same Chief Imam of Ibadan to turban his own group’s chief Imam in an expected elaborate ceremony. He received my father and his team well and after the visit, the Chief Imam offered my father and Alhaji Adebayo Raji gifts. The gifts were the three-ply kola nuts. They were beautiful, sizable nuts wrapped in cocoyam leaves.
My father gave me his own gift pack to keep. I kept it in the wardrobe in his room. Early next morning, Sheikh Adebayo Raji came to the house and asked my father if he had received any message. They were talking about this while they walked to his office. I heard my father ask “what message” as they moved on. Soon after, he called out to me and rushed to his office. “The pack I gave you yesterday, where did you keep it?” I told him and he said “go and bring it.” The Sheikh had also brought his own pack. When we opened it the kola nuts had turned to something else. It looked like rough metal balls with oily, messy mass. It looked so very ugly, unlike the beautiful kola nuts we saw the day before. And they were still in the cocoyam leaves! If my father and his Chief Imam were fond of kola nuts, gluttonous or had trusted the Chief Imam, there might have been a twist in their tales.
It was a lesson for the men but it was more of God keeping those who truly believe in Him.
Your father’s boldness wouldn’t have been a completely easy thing because he was arrested on a number of occasions by the military authorities. How were the home, you the children and his wives during those times?
It wasn’t easy. When he released some of his albums, we would panic because we knew they would come after him. There were many times he would be arrested from his office in town and when he fails to return home, that was when we knew that they had taken him away. There were many occasions like that. For instance, he had a serious clash with the late Alaafin, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi. These incidents alone frightened us and he would still make albums in which he would lampoon the government and lambast some people for their atrocities and all. Our mothers sometimes took some of our belongings out to some other places, ready to flee the home because they knew that Baba will not listen to any persuasion and government agents might invade our home. He was always ready for the authorities. He had a bag ready with some vital personal effects packed. He said he would not want to be going in and out to pick clothes, towel, soap, sponge and so on whenever they came. He had a bag ready and I’d just pick my bag and follow them.
What went wrong between him and Alaafin Adeyemi III?
They were really very close. He told us that he had been taken to nearly all the rooms he could at the palace and they shared a lot of beautiful moments together. However, my father would not do anything that negated his beliefs as a Muslim cleric and would always rise in defence of his faith. For the Alaafin saga, Oyo was celebrating Oro Festival that was billed to run for seven days, including Friday when the Muslims would attend Jumat prayers and Sunday, the worship day of Christians. On the Friday, Muslims in the town insisted that they would observe Jumat payers and they gathered at the mosque. The Oro people went to the mosque to drive them from there. The Muslims refused, saying since they were in the mosque, they would pray and go home, that there shouldn’t be a clash of religions since Oro was usually a night thing. The Oro emissaries went to report to the Alaafin what they were told and the Alaafin sent them back to the mosque to tell them specifically that he was the one that instructed them to vacate the mosque for the day. When they still refused, the Oba came by himself to the mosque. Many people were thoroughly beaten at the mosque, including women. Equipment was destroyed and many clerics fled in different directions.
In the evening of that same day, a group of people from that mosque came to the house to report what had happened. They came because they knew Baba and the Alaafin were close friends. He didn’t believe them and he picked his telephone and called the Alaafin by himself to ask if what they had reported about him was true. Soon, we began to hear an altercation between him and the Alaafin and what we heard him tell the Alaafin was that he was wrong and shouldn’t have done what he did. It was a hot exchange.
None of the children seems to be following the footsteps of Baba in the arts. Is this for the fear of the experiences of his spiritual encounters and arrests?
I am in the arts myself. I do a lot of Ewi and we engage in critical analysis of the government and individuals. However, my works are more on YouTube at Adejare Olanrewaju Adepoju. However, it’s not just about the government, vices are everywhere in our society and we must also tell ourselves the truth, not just the government. I did a track to talk about the fact that our society classes only the rich as accomplished people and this is wrong. That is why many young people were murdering their friends and girlfriends for wealth rituals. There’s no respect for knowledge and virtues, we have so much attributed success to wealth only and this is so wrong and harmful.
As much as Chief Adepoju did and with all the pieces of advice and warnings, the society seems to be sinking deeper into immorality. Does it not bother you that people like him might have cried in vain?
We must realise that the way we are is the way our government would be. They are elected from among us and our government is a reflection of who we are as a people. However, not all people are bad, it’s just that there are more bad people than the minute good, and leaders emerge from the majority. If the majority remains the way they are we would continue to have bad people at the helm of affairs. This affects the general society because they are in charge of the institutions. In the developed countries, there are so many bad people too but their institutions are strong enough to take care of their society.
On the many works to straighten the society which Olanrewaju Adepoju did, we will not relent in speaking the truth and charting the right course for the people. There had been people who visited our home to tell us that the works of Baba Adepoju ministered to them in various ways. A from Ijebu Ode said he listened to his work in which he advised that when you make money, use it wisely as early as possible. He said he wasted all his money as a young person and that his farming today was because he listened to Baba to take up farming. We also had a repentant people who attributed their change to listening to the advice in his albums. So, with mor people like that we would have a better society. So, there are impacts but we need more of the likes of Baba.
What were some of his wishes as an individual?
He had quite a few and one of them is that he wants the Yoruba language to be projected more than it is currently being done. He was a major part of the Yoruba Writers Association with people like the late Chief Adebayo Faleti and Professor Akinjogbin, both of blessed memory. He wants us to do more to protect our language and culture. He was also associated with the Egbe Akomolede Yoruba and the Egbe Akewi Yoruba. Things that deal with the beauty of the Yoruba language interested him a lot, because the language is so beautiful. He had long stood against the relegation of the Yoruba language in homes. Our relegation of the language is affecting us in many ways. We could develop our language to use it to teach subjects such as physics, mathematics, chemistry, geography and so on. Many well-to-do countries stick to their languages and this is highly beneficial to them. We should accept and develop our language as a race. Our lack of productivity as a people is also a consequence of the relegation of our mother tongue. I have also sung about this.
My father worked so much for things like this. He also wished to establish a school for the teaching of Yoruba poetry (Ewi) and related Yoruba arts. He had wished there could be people who would translate physics, biology, chemistry etc into the Yoruba language. He had thought there would be a way to bring many of the terms and theories home to our language from the foreign languages.
Did he take steps towards achieving these?
He had thought he would bring other stakeholders on board the dream. He said he had thought someone would come up and say let me handle chemistry or let me work on mathematics and so on. He had proposed to site the institution in his native Akufo (Ido LG, Oyo State) community where his family has land from which he could take a portion to execute his project. He also proposed to establish a radio station that would broadcast in Yoruba. He had wished to do something about the fact that some radio presenters have twisted the language out of shape. He told us about many works of his which he said should be released. When he became old and frail, he asked me to release the works and make them broadcast. One of them is entitled Ede Abinibi. The radio is supposed to be a veritable teaching and learning tool of our language and we must not ruin the opportunity to learn for our children. We should speak pure Yoruba as much as possible.
How many Ewi albums of your father can you remember?
Ah, that should be like 102 and this does not include some works which were special projects for political figures and corporate entities. There are so many pieces of works he had written which are yet to be released. Many of them are not part of the 102.
Are there plans by the family to make these works available, a way of making him and his works more known and thereby immortalise him?
The family has plans but we have found that people who benefitted from him are also interested in what we want to do about his body of works. He was a public figure and he belongs to the public. However, we as the family are looking at a way of harnessing his works and we want to involve the government, Yoruba monarchs, lovers of his works, his fans and his acolytes. It’s not going to be anything religious but about his literary and artistic works.
The family thinks that his books such as Ironu Akewi and Ladepo Omo Adanwo are good enough to be incorporated into the school curriculum in Oyo State. The government can immortalise him through that and at the same time, advance the Yoruba language and culture. Ladepo Omo Adanwo is a play and it was staged back in the days. There’s also another of his publications called S’agba di were. This he made illustrations of for easier comprehension. Then there are his Ewi albums and those yet to be released. One of us even translated his work to English sometime ago and it was well applauded. He entitled it “Enigma of Dreams”. It is on Facebook. Some people had also translated some of Baba’s Ewi into the Russian language and it made him popular in that region.
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