By Tunde Odesola
Abimbola’s eyes had seen 999 battles; so, one more battle would not make him go blind. Having survived a milestone of battles, it was natural for Abimbola to deploy his greatest weapon, Ifa, to prosecute the students’ battle that raged during his tenure as vice-chancellor of the University of Ife.
The Babalawo’s eyes had seen many òkun (oceans) and countless òsà (lagoons), so he would not panic at the sight of isún (springs). Wande had fought many wars, yet he remained unbowed, standing on the rock of truth.
In the military years of the 1980s, vice-chancellors of federal universities were statutorily entitled to a first term of four years and, if reappointed, got a three-year second term.
In Abimbola’s seven years of vice-chancellorship (1982-1989), Great Ife witnessed giant strides, such as the purchase of a $1.2bn first-in-Africa accelerator for nuclear research energy and medicine – bought from France in 1986; establishment of 23 linkages with various world-class citadels of knowledge, maintaining peace and tranquility among staff and students, and supporting teaching, research and development.
“The university had a bank account in New York and an office in the UK, manned by whites. When an official of the university visited a university in the UK or our students went for exchange programmes, they– white officials employed by Ife– were the ones who saw to protocols, arranging for hotels, etc. It was a liaison office where those inquiring about our university could go and make inquiries. We had lots of money in the university’s accounts in the UK and New York City.
“But, in line with a Federal Government directive that later emerged and forbade public institutions from running foreign accounts, Education Minister, Prof Jubril Aminu, said we should close down the account and all the money in the account was moved through the education ministry to Federal Government’s account in 1986,” Abimbola said.
In the same year, an external battle spilled over to Great Ife when Ife students, in solidarity with their Ahmadu Bello University colleagues, planned to embark on a protest called Ango-Must-Go.
Agronomy expert, Prof Ango Abdullahi, was the vice-chancellor of ABU, whom protesting students accused of callousness, following an increase in school fees, among many other allegations. Abdullahi had reportedly invited the police to quell a peaceful protest, an authoritarian action, which some newspapers said resulted in the rape, maiming and killing of students and non-students by the police.
A slew of Western press, including BBC, Voice of America, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, etc. reported in 1986 that many lives were lost to the ABU riot, with Nigerian newspapers lamenting, “Abdullahi expressed no regrets inviting the police,” and that he said, “only four people died.”
Currently, Abdullahi is a Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON deleted) and he holds the Magajin Rafin Zazzau traditional title. He is 86 years old.
Abimbola said, “Higher institution students from all over the country had gathered in our university. They wanted to hold the mother of all rallies because some of their colleagues had been killed by the police in ABU, Zaria.
“Security reports showed that the external students were in their thousands and had joined forces with our student population that numbered up to 30,000 because Moore Plantation, Ibadan; Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo; and the Institute of Agriculture, Akure, were part of UNIFE then.
“The students were charging themselves up all through the night, singing, dancing and drinking, preparatory to a grand protest the next morning. The fear of the unknown gripped the university community because nobody could predict what the external students could do, but we know our students were not destructive.
“I consulted Ifa, and Ifa told me what to do. In the middle of the night called óru ògànjó, I did what Ifa told me to do. Subsequently, loud and strange sounds reverberated through the university, sending shivers down the spines of the students who stopped singing and dancing, with the foreign students fleeing the campus as early as 5 a.m., while our students ceased all protest activities and went back to class. I am a lover of freedom of expression and association, but I could not leave the university community at the mercy of the foreign students, who could have wreaked havoc because they did not know the Ife tradition of protest.”
So, I asked Awise Agbaye if African traditional bulletproof could stop AK-47 bullets. “No, it cannot,” Abimbola said. Abimbola’s response was in tandem with the answer given by the Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, whom I had asked the same question some time ago.
In my article, “Can African bulletproof stop AK-47 bullets?”, published in The PUNCH, on January 18, 2021, a former Military Administrator of Lagos State, Brigadier-General Olagunsoye Oyinlola, said no African traditional bulletproof can stop bullets from AK-47 rifle, a position which pan-Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, opposed, saying he had ‘authentic’ African traditional bulletproof that could stop AK-47 bullets. The Ooni, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, also said in a telephone interview with me that ‘ayeta’ could stop bullets from an AK-47.
However, Oyinlola, who fought in the Chadian crisis of the 1980s and (also deleted) led Nigeria’s contingent to the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Somali in the early 1990s, said, “In the dane guns that masqueraders use in deceiving people, it is the gunpowder in them that explodes, they have removed the balls in the guns. As for soldiers missing their target when shooting at armed robbers tied to stakes, you must realise that it is not easy to kill a fellow human being.
“Some of the soldiers are newly recruited. Some shut their eyes and shoot up. There was a time that the officer commanding the shooting had to kick out one of the soldiers because he was closing his eyes and shooting up. If it was ‘ayeta’ that made bullets not penetrate the robbers’ bodies initially, why did they die eventually?”
Despite being armed, Sunday Igboho and some of his men fled when the democratic dictatorship of former President Muhammadu Buhari sent AK47-wielding killers in DSS uniform after him in his Ibadan home at night, following his strident condemnation of the widespread killing of Yoruba farmers by Fulani herdsmen in the South-West. One of Igboho’s men, who had charms all over his body, was killed and his corpse taken away by the killer DSS men.
In an interview with me, Abimbola recalled that French soldiers cut off the charmed bracelets, amulets, gourds and cowries that Nigerian volunteers to WW1 had on their bodies.
Recounting how his father enlisted in WW1, Abimbola said, “ My father was playing ‘ayò olópón’ with six others in Oyo when the town crier came and announced the war. From the ayò game, they all voluntarily went to the palace and were enlisted to fight on the side of France in Cameroon between 1914 and 1916. This was when European allied forces were fighting Germany and taking over Germany-colonised territories worldwide during the fallout of WW1. Germany had colonised portions of Cameroon, which France took over during the war.
“The coalition took back all the African territories controlled by Germany. The countries include Tanganyika, now Tanzania, Rwanda/Burundi, Namibia, Cameroon and Togo. When I went to France in 1986 to purchase the accelerator, I told French authorities that my father fought on the side of France during WW1, they collected my father’s name, and the next day, they came and told me it was true, saying I could apply for French citizenship on account of my father’s participation in the war. But I did not.
“It was my grandfather, Akinsilola, nicknamed Légbejúre (fàdá owó è pa ìjàkùmò), who led Oyo warriors to Ijaye, while Ogunmola led Ibadan warriors to Ijaye during the Ijaye War, and both forces levelled Ijaye. The late Alaaafin, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, used to recite the panegyrics of the Oyo warriors who went to the Ijaye War, affirming my grandfather’s leadership of the Oyo forces. Unfortunately, I did not document the late Alaafin’s account.”
When the Nigerian Civil War broke out, Abimbola’s father and his younger brother, who also fought in WWI, urged Abimbola to enlist for the war.
“I wished to go. But I was writing my PhD thesis then. If I had completed my PhD, maybe I would have gone to the civil war,” he said.
Extolling moderation, humility, contentment and truth as virtues for longevity, Abimbola said he rejected plots of land someone gifted him in Lagos when he was VC, adding that the only house he owned was his father’s house in Oyo, which he remodelled as advised by his father.
Abimbola, who has 17 children, including three sets of twins, revealed that he never attained the only position he struggled to get, which was the governorship of Oyo State.
“1975 was the last time I drove a car. As VC, I had a total of five cooks and stewards, and there were 18 vehicles in the fleet, including a Peugeot 504 and two Mercedes-Benzes. I never rode the Mercedes-Benz because I knew I could not maintain such a lifestyle after my tenure. I only rode the Peugeot. The 18-car fleet was for the operation of our linkages, too,” Awise said.
Concluded.
Written by Tunde Odesola and first published in The PUNCH, on Friday, April 4, 2025.
Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
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