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Monarchs need to display more decorum, dignity, Oba (Prof) Matemilola

 The Olowu of Owu, Oba (Prof ) Saka Matemilola was crowned as the 14th Olowu of Owu in Ogun State by Governor Dapo Abiodun yesterday. In this interview with BIYI ADEGOROYE shortly before his coronation, he spoke about his background and plans to development his kingdom

 

Congratulations, your Royal Majesty on your coronation as Olowu. What qualities do you think actually prepared you for this throne?

 

Thank you very much.

 

There are a number of things really and one of them is the public service which I have been involved in when I was very young, doing things for people; doing things because I want to see smiles on people’s faces; because I believe this is the right thing to do and I have done this a lot both in my private and organizational levels and beyond the call of duty.

So that is one of them really. The other being the fact that when I was leaving Nigeria when I was very young, one of the things that made me return in 1996 was because I believe that there was no amount of public service I could do out there in the U.K. that would touch my people. I was not focused on being Olowu at a time, rather, I was focused on my people.

So that was why I left where I was in the university in the U.K. and since then I have been engaged in public service, including lecturing pro bono at the university, supporting education and health.

 

The key thing I have focused on was public service.

What striking message do you think your coronation will bring to Owu Kingdom and Yoruba land in general?

I think service goes beyond the Yoruba race, especially for those who have things to offer. One significant thing I want to say is that when you are in public service, you need to focus on your people.

You can do a lot to the whole world which is great and fantastic, but when you do it closer home, you make much more impact.

In my case, I thought I have done quite a bit, and rightly so.

And I thought I had retired just cruising along in terms of public service. But when I took on this role, it made me feel that I have not done enough, maybe because my people have not been touched sufficiently the way I would have loved them to be. So for me, it seems I am just beginning my public service.

My message generally is that people who have that public service mindset need to start from home. That is when it will make the most significant impact.

What areas of public service do you intend to go into during your reign?

Before now, I had focused my attention on education and health, but now it is about unity, because there is nothing you can achieve in this kind of role without unity. Hence, the number one thing is to ensure unity of the people. It is only when you have a united people that you can then have unity of purpose.

You can then co-own whatever you intend to deliver, because when your followers identify with this cause, it becomes easy for them to work with you to deliver those goals. Capacity development is very vital. So when you want to develop people, capacity building comes first.

 

So when the people are developed, those people will support in developing the economy, infrastructure and the rest. So the first thing is to develop capacity, and you may say due to my background, because if you don’t develop the people, you just build roads and rail, which is fantastic, but without the awareness, knowledge, the extent to which you can touch people’s lives will be limited.

 

Oba Matemilola So it is the people first, after that you have unity of purpose and ensure the people have the right education, including market women, whom you held to develop their businesses and by doing so the economy and other things in the city.

And I am not talking about Abeokuta by the way, but the whole of Owu land- which is far beyond Ogun State and as a matter of fact, beyond Nigeria. You may not know, there is Owu in Benin Republic and other parts of the sub-region. It is about coming together to ensure we co-develop ourselves, the economy and the rest.

A lot of people would wonder that somebody who is highly educated and exposed to Western world is still in tune with the traditions of his people. What message do you have for those who think that what you are doing now is barbaric?

If you don’t know yourself, where you are coming from, then what is your identity?

When you say you are somebody from somewhere, that somewhere has a history and culture that make your people what they are, and that is your pride.

For me as an Owu man, it is about how Owu evolved its history and heritage. That is my pride. That is what I identify with. And it will be surprising to me for people to say knowing and identifying with one’s background is not something to be proud of.

So it is very important to understand where you are coming from. That is the only way you can identify with your people and that will be a motivation to actually help to do things in your community.

 

If you don’t have the background, then where is the pride? For instance, look at the people who want to leave or cut off their roots from Nigeria. Most of the time it is because they do not know who they are, they don’t know their origin or their heritage. That is why they want to leave and become a slave of another person. Where you are going to was developed by people; people made you want to go there.

What are you doing to ensure that where you came from is also developed to that level? And make people come to that place.

In view of the fact that the major role of traditional rulers is preservation of culture and tradition, how do you intend to tackle the issue of cultural imperialism during your reign?

It is all about mindset really.

You see, when you get to that, from time immemorial, human beings like to dominate. And when people are conquered, the conquered people always look up to those who conquered them. It is a natural thing for a lot of people. But for people who actually appreciate their culture, their heritage, it is always the other way round.

And I think it is one of the reasons why some people would say I want to be like the Europeans because they don’t appreciate where they came from. People should be proud of their own heritage.

So what we are going to do, which is what we are doing already, is to go back into our history, this is what we are, these are our cultures and make it available to the whole world. For example, when Oodua was sending out his ground child, Ajibosun, he said each of those people have good governance, administration. The instruction was ‘go and establish a kingdom for me.’

And in addition, certain individuals who accompanied him played different roles. So even till we came to this area and the Egba were here with us, we were working together until the Europeans came and did all they did. And again, it goes to the mindset I mentioned earlier where the conqueror imposed their culture on the conquered, that was the only way they could dominate.

They make you feel that they are much better than you are, or superior to you, but it is up to us to say, ‘no, you are not. ‘We just have to keep our heads up, develop ourselves and make sure that we do now allow those imperialists to destroy our culture.

By God’s grace, and all my people are behind me on this, we intend to bring back the beauty of our culture and heritage to make our children proud of who they are. We are already doing it by the way.

 

How do you intend to transit from scholarship to monarchy?

I don’t see it as a transition in that sense. It is about the mindset. When I was in academia, by the way, I straddled both the academia and the industrial sector, where I was then, I was a captain of industry, and when you occupied that role, it was about how you utilize it to deliver on your mandate. Long before thinking about ascending the throne of Olowu, I was already thinking about how the administration would be, what does this role involve? What do I need to do to deliver?

So since that race started in January, I had already prepared my mind. In fact, my agenda was already done. The day I actually indicated the interest, I already had a programme. I have a profile, which contains the details of what I intend to do. Those are the key things- not too many of them- just about five points. So the mindset is what is the role about? What do I need to deliver to ensure that people feel the impact of my reign as soon as possible.

And we are doing that already.

Given your background, you are a manager of resources, and it is on record that Owu sons and daughters are doing well all over the world.  How do you intend to mobilize them for the development of your kingdom?

Fantastic. You see, they say success begets success. The number of people who identify with Owu is tremendous. But you see, you need an enabling environment to enable them to come home.

So because of what has happened in the last few months, and the kind of things they have seen around, they are already coming out. What we are doing is to identify clusters, or cells of people in different parts of the world, Europe, the U.K., America, Canada, North America, South America and even in Asia as well and for them to identify other sons and daughters with the view to collecting them back home. God willing, after the coronation, I am opening up in a few weeks, we will do a tour of different parts of the world.

That will also help us to mobilize and galvanize them to key into the Owu agenda. I am aware of a lot of them that are successful. We want them to come back home to identify with what we are doing here.

How do you see the absence of constitutional roles for traditional rulers who yet have to relate with political office holders and the likes?

 

It is unfortunate that the role of traditional institutions has been relegated. I think that it is a shame how things are now, but for the traditional rulers who have shown decorum, dignity, making themselves respectable and truly representing their people, the connection with government officials is always there. They leverage but not depend on those in government.

In the last one and half months, some political representatives at the level of the Senate, House of Representatives, state assembly and local government have already identified with us.

We are speaking to them on developmental issues and that is what we need to do. What happens is that every single need of the people will first come to the palace, despite the fact that we don’t have the resources to do such a thing.

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