INTERVIEW: Traditionalists who tamper with my corpse will join me – Ogun top monarch

PUNCH

The Olubara of Ibaraland in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Oba Jacob Omolade, who turned 90 recently, tells DAUD OLATUNJI his memorable moments having been on the throne for 30 years.

What are you most thankful for at 90?

I was born on May 20, 1933, and I grew up to become what I am today by the grace of the Almighty. I thank God for the fact that He has been magnanimous in showering His blessings on me and I am sincerely grateful. Many of my classmates are dead. We were checking that in a list that was brought here and out of 60 that were admitted during that time, only seven of us are alive now. Just last month, Segun (former President Olusegun Obasanjo) and I went round to see our classmates. 

So many of them were very old and they were surprised that Segun and I embarked on such a journey, because we went to almost the whole of the old Western Region. I was to rest with Segun in Ibadan (Oyo State), but I knew that traditional rulers don’t just leave their domains like that, so I returned to Abeokuta.

What happens when an oba is no more?

In the past when an oba died, his hands and legs were cut off. The occultists would take one of his legs and bury it in one of the roads that lead to the town and the other leg at another road that enters the town, and possibly, the head is buried in the palace. But the government stopped it and said we should stop being barbaric and that we should now allow our obas to be buried according to their religious preference. Looking at how the Alaafin (of Oyo) was buried, I was surprised. He was brought out, the Muslims prayed for him and then he was taken for interment. Such wouldn’t have happened in the past and now things are changing, but we still have cultists among us.

I have told some of my chiefs and warned that anybody who cuts my body when I am gone or plays any foul game on me will follow me. I have been telling them and they know that I am serious about it. When I am dead, I want to be taken to the public cemetery. I have bought the space; the grave has been dug; my wife’s own is not far from my own, so I have dug my own and some of my people have seen it. Some of them know and I have told them to take me to the church and pray for me; whether my prayer will be answered or not is nobody’s problem, because, if I do well on this earth, it will be well with me and I have been telling them that anybody who plays any foul game on me will follow me and I am serious about it. The law (about monarchs’ burial) has been passed and signed. So, I am safe now. That was the handiwork of the Awujale of Ijebu land, myself and two other persons. All the cutting (of human parts) is emptiness. The one that matters is the spirit and the spirit has returned to its creator, all that will remain is a rented dress, not the physical dress. I mean the flesh, which will perish in the ground when the corpse is buried.