By Tunde Odesola
(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, July 17, 2026)
Many miles apart, two babies were born to different couples in the twilight and dawn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Eleven years was the age difference between them. On the eighth day after his birth, in the year 1892, the older baby was named Oyinlola Oyewole, just as the younger baby was named Adisa Adeleye Adenle, eight days after his first cry, in 1903.
The blood flowing through their tiny veins bore none of the haemoglobins of common birth. It carried the quiet authority of crowns yet to be worn, sceptres yet to be wielded, and kingdoms yet to be lorded. Ultimately, the elder grew to rule over Okuku, the land of his birth, reigning as Oba Oyewole Olaifa Oyinlola between 1934 and 1960, while the younger mounted the throne of his Osogbo forefathers, ruling as Ataoja Adisa Adeleye Adenle between 1944 and 1976.
Time sculpted both princes into religion-trailblazing monarchs, who converted from Ifa worship to Christianity – the elder taking up the name of the leader of Israel, Moses, and the younger taking up the name of the first prophet of Israel, Samuel. I must reveal that after the elder came into his own, he exchanged his family surname, Oyewole, for his given name, Oyinlola, pushing Oyewole to the middle of his name – Moses Oyewole Oyinlola.
Exhibiting the kingship virtues of nobility, honour and integrity, both kings formed an enviable bond built on trust, respect and dignity. The fire of their friendship radiated far and wide, kindling a love so rare that Yoruba memory immortalised it in a proverb, “Àgbà ló ń wo àgbà, Olókukù ló ń wo Adénlé.” This is how a loose English translation of the proverb looks: Elders look after each other; Olokuku looks after Adenle.
Very soon, the mortar in which the Olokuku-Adenle proverb was pounded, shattered into smithereens when Nigeria abandoned indigenous languages and cultures, to cuddle Western languages and cultures, twisting the beautiful proverb out of context and meaning. Thus, “Àgbà ló ń wo àgbà, Olókukù ló ń wo Adénlé,” became “Àgbà ló ń wo àgbà, Olókukù ló ń wa Adénlé”, meaning: “elders look after each other; Olokuku drives Adenle”.
No! Olokuku never drove Adenle.
Speaking with me on the phone a few days ago, Brigadier-General Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a son of Olokuku Moses Oyewole Oyinlola, said the relationship between the two royal fathers was built on love, trust and mutual respect. Elected Osun State governor between 2003 and 2010, the younger Oyinlola said he read about the exemplary bond between Olokuku Oyinlola and Ataoja Adenle from a diary.
He said, “There was no major event that my father did not write in his diary. He was an excellent diarist, meticulous at note-keeping. It was from his diary that I read in detail how close he was to Oba Adenle. My father maintained a good relationship with all his fellow obas and his subjects.
“According to the diary, there was a plot against Oba Adenle that should be between 1945 and 1948; I’m in Abuja right now – I don’t have the diary with me here. But about that time, Oba Adenle had a problem with his chiefs. He needed to visit the Osun groove on foot, but a thick plot prevented him from doing the trek. And if he didn’t embark on the trek, there would be grave consequences for him. So, he sent for my father,
“That was the time my father came from Okuku and led him to the grove on foot. My father was going in front, and Oba Adenle was coming behind. This and other events in their close relationship were what gave birth to the proverb, “Àgbà ló ń wo àgbà, Olókukù ló ń wo Adénlé.”
Olagunsoye was not done yet. He recalled that Ataoja Adenle was the last human being who saw his father alive before he joined his ancestors. He said, “He was the one with my father when he joined his ancestors. He was with him when my father took his last breath. He came out of the room and said nobody should enter it, and he went to the market and bought ‘aṣọ aran’ (velvet cloth) with which he covered my father.”
As a journalist, I never met Ataoja Adenle, but I met his successor, Oba Iyiola Oyewale Matanmi III. It is to the honour, memories and legacies of Adenle and Matanmi that I dip my quill in ink, using its pointed nib as a blade to incise words of wisdom on the forehead of the incumbent Ataoja, Oba Jimoh Olanipekun. It is in my utmost respect for Osogboland and in defence of its unity that I dare pull the ears of Ataoja Jimoh Olanipekun. A king who decides to tear his own kingdom apart because of political gains is unkingly. An Ataoja who beats the bata of division should have no one sing to his shortsightedness. Obas come, and obas go. Adenle and Matanmi belonged to an era when kingship wasn’t on display in a kingshop, looking for kingchop.
Until he joined his ancestors in 2010, at the age of 75, I was a regular visitor to the palace of Ataoja Matanmi, especially during the annual Osun Osogbo festival when he flagged off the weeklong ceremony at Orita-Gbaemu, where he embarked on a trek called Ìwọ́pópó’ every August.
I love the departed Matanmi, the Ataoja whose name still teaches wisdom for Matanmi means “Don’t deceive me.” Oyewale Matanmi conned nobody, either. He was forthright and straight, like an arrow. For Oba Oyewale Matanmi, education was not an afterthought, an abandoned pathway embarked upon in middle age when the doors of breakthrough in life were closing. As a true prince incubating the unity and development of Osogbo in his heart, Matanmi went to primary and secondary schools, finishing both in flying colours. Afterwards, he pursued higher education at the renowned Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, and Folks Lynch Institute, London, qualifying him as a graduate and associate member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) in Great Britain. He was also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Management.
Throughout his 34-year reign, there was no public outrage against the person or the crown of Ataoja Matanmi, who nurtured the peaceful ground that consolidated the smooth rotation of kinship among Osogbo ruling houses. As a thoroughbred king who was not rushed through ‘Ipebi’ in one night, Matanmi was too decent to be a land grabber or serve as a lapdog in the corridors of power. He understood and respected the boundaries between royal authority and political power, knowing full well the importance of culture and tradition in a developing state capital that carries ancestral history and responsibilities on its shoulders.
Matanmi was not a ‘laulau’ king. He was never high on kaikai, ‘501 brandy’ and goro. He reasoned before he talked. Probably being a seasoned chartered accountant, Matanmi never rolled in the gutter for money. He never called a cow his brother. It was through his involvement that the Osun Osogbo grove was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005 during the Olagunsoye Oyinlola administration. Rats squeaked like rats, birds chirped like birds during the reign of Matanmi,
It is the misbehaviour of the living that makes the heart remember the dead. I remember the no-holds-barred interviews members of the Osun State Correspondents Chapel held with Oba Matanmi and the tumbling of jokes, puns and proverbs from royal lips. If Matanmi weren’t a king, he would have been a wordsmith. Cool, calm and dignified, Matanmi was never erratic.
It is a few weeks to the world-acclaimed Osun Osogbo festival, rats are not squeaking like rats, and birds are no longer chirping like birds; the water of the Osun River is boiling with animosity. Who is muddling up the peace of Osogbo’s river? It is no other person than the king of Osogbo himself, Ataoja Olanipekun.
