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| High Chief Jimoh Aliu aka Aworo |
Chief Jimoh Aliu (MFR) aka Aworo is a movie
legend in Nigeria. He is one of the last soldiers of the olden day’s theatre
industry in Nigeria. He started acting in 1956 when Nigeria was yet to discover
what is today described as Nollywood.
The Oke-Imesis, Ekiti State (South West Nigeria) born actor is today a Cultural
Ambassador in Yoruba Land after 60 years on stage as writer, director, producer
and actor. An old soldier in the Nigerian Army, Chief Aliu is an encyclopedia of arts. Aworo who is famous for his several TV series of the 80s and 90s
e.g. Arelu, Yanponyanrin and Fopomoyo
is one celebrity that is a reporter’s delight any day any time.; always full of
wits, drama, oriki, native intelligence, wisdom and strength that cannot be
compared with anything.
this fourth episode of his historic encounter with your Africa’s Number
1 Celebrity Encounter blog, Asabeafrika
inside a Lagos 3 Star Hotel suite, Chief
Jimoh Aliu, 82 who was on his way to America for a special movie project
spoke about the recent crisis between Oba of Lagos, HRM Oba Rilwan Osuolale Akiolu (Olowo Eko) and His Imperial Majesty, Ooni
Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi (Ojaja II) the Ooni of Ile Ife. Aworo who is deep
in Yoruba mythology gave a deep interpretation to what happened to Oba of Lagos
after the historic public shunning of the Ooni. Enjoy the excerpts.
Recently two famous royal fathers in
the person of Oba Rilwan Osuolale Akiolu
the Oba of Lagos and the Ooni of Ile-Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi
had a public clash where the Ooni
allegedly came late to a public event in Lagos and Oba Akiolu who was already seated refused to honor Ooni’s greetings. The action of Oba of Lagos lead to public condemnation and 7 days later, fire
caugth the papace of Oba Akiolu. As
the Oba Asa, what do you think was
responsible for the mysterious fire?
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| The Ooni of Ife and Arole Oodua, Oba Babatunde Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi (Ojaja II) |
Thank you
very much, Kabiyesi, Ooni Risa, Ojaja I greet you. The handsome king and only mighty one of Ile-Ife, the ancestral town of the Yorubas and the craddle of our great
civilization. I greet you. I greet you. I greet you. I greet all royal fathers
and royal chiefs of Ile-Ife, I greet
you all (Went into panegyrics of Ile-Ife
as cradle of Yoruba civilization). You see the question you asked me, it is a
very sensitive question. The way I see what happened to him (Oba of Lagos)
there is something Oodua (The ancestors of the Yorubas) want to prove
to everyone. There is something Eledua
the first king of civilization wanted to prove with what happened. I am talking
of the Great Creator of the heavens and the earth, He has his unique purpose
for that action and if that didn’t happen, we wont have a lot of secret unraveled. I hope you know a lot of kings don’t even have the details of their
own history. A lot of kings that became kings in their domain lacked knowledge
of their kingship heritage.
of their ancestors?
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| Oba Rilwan Osuolale Akiolu….Has started seeing drama since he ignored Ooni at a Public Event? |
even know the deep history. You will notice that when this accident happened,
you started hearing all the stories you never heard before, on both first class
Obas, those in the second class cadre
and those in the third class. Everything started coming out and falling in
pieces. Some even started saying ‘haa,
so, I am like this, I am not even up to this etc’; that is exactly what God wanted to do with that experience.
Let me tell you a story to back this fact up; two children were playing in the
sunny weather one day and as they were playing, they started singing “A
kii p’agun, a kii j’egun, a kii f’igun b’ori”
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| The GDA meets the Oba Asa, High Chief Jimoh Aliu aka Aworo |
(We don’t kill the
vulture bird, we don’t eat the vulture bird and we don’t offer sacrifice with
the vulture bird). But one old man came out and said ‘ah, ah, we can kill the vulture bird. In fact we can eat and even use
it for sacrifice’. “Haa, Baba, don’t
say that again” people tried to
caution him. But he said ‘Ok, I will kill
the vulture, I will eat the vulture and I will make sacrifice with the vulture
bird’. They said ‘ok, you can do it if it is good with you’. And Baba
went inside his closet, got a chicken (Not vulture bird) killed the fowl,
cooked and ate it and buried the remnant in the soil. He later came out to the
public (including the kids) and he said ‘I
have killed vulture o, I have even
eaten and made sacrifice with it’ and the people exclaimed ‘Haa, you committed sacrilege’. The next
day, the elderly man died. You know the man didn’t actually consumed vulture
bird. He ate only chicken but in the mouth of the multitude lies the power of
life and death (Enu Aiye l’ebo).
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| Chief Jimoh Aliu to Asabeafrika….’No Oba will ever ridicule Ooni of Ife and go scoot free’ |
the owner of the air and everyone that is carrying a word or two about the act
(by Oba Akiolu to Ooni of Ife) are the ones behind the calamities that befell
the Oba of Lagos. It is not the Ooni of
Ife. But those who are saying things left, right and center, those
exclamations and words of concern has turned to authority and gone into the wind
to act as a mitigating force. Those principalities of the Yoruba land want to put authority into the word and let the world
know that ‘haaaa, there is a something to
fear about the royal heritage of
Ile-Ife—the source. Now, let me
tell you this secret, this new Ooni
that came to power, Kabiyesi,
starting from my father the late Ooni Adesoji Aderemi, my father the
late Okunade
Sijuade, he is my father and the present occupant is equally my father.
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| Chief Jimoh Aliu to Asabeafrika…’If you look at the Ooni critically, you will see that he is the re-incarnate of Oduduwa’ |
But this present Ooni, if you stay
far away and look at him critically, if he is speaking and you are looking at
him, you will be looking and his resemblance will suddenly strike you as if he
is that Oduduwa who died thousands of
years back. It is as if he is the one God just returned to us. No matter how
long he talks, you wont be bored. Even if you are hungry, you wont feel it. You
won’t know where he is picking those words from. He will always fascinate you,
he will always make you happy. All the time I go to his palace, I sit down and
watch him. I keep watching and watching the kind of people that come to see him
and how he inspires them. Someone came like two months ago, that person just
manufactured a small plane.
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| The GDA engages the High Chief |
Yes,
airplane. He wanted to fly the plane around but he was afraid to do so. So he
came to see the Ooni to say ‘Sir, I just manufacture an aeroplane o but
I am afraid to fly it around, I want you to give me your royal blessing’.
This person is a Yoruba man who came
from a far distance. They said Ooni
looked looked at him and laughed and he uttered one statement ‘Oti seese’ (It is possible). And that
is what Kabiyesi will say to you from
now till tomorrow. He will say ‘Oti
seese’. He said it was then he boarded the aeroplane and flew with it all
over the world.
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| The Chief with the GDA |
He said he has never seen that kind of aunthority before in his
life because he just said to himself,
‘let me try it and bring it here and he brought it and he was blessed’. He
even brought the picture of the aircraft to show the world. So that is
authority and if this Ooni is
blessing his subjects, the moment he hold his staff and he hits the ground
first, second and third time and he now points the staff at you, every positive
thing he says to you will manifest. So, it is not when the person God gives
authority curses or talk out, Ooni is
not someone you can get mad with, he is not someone you can curse, he is not
someone you can backbite. In my earlier talk with you when we started this
interview,
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| “Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi is a peculiar being”–Chief Jimoh Aliu |
I told you that there are some specially made human beings endowed
with peculiar grace (Akanda Eledumare);
is he not a king who is forty-something years of age and we of age 80,
90 will get to him and prostrate? you have to prostrate not until you are told
to do so. But in his humble stride, he will keep telling you, ‘please, I am not the one you are
prostrating for o. I am not the one o’. But that position God put him, he
is not someone you can envy or be jealous of. He is a special human being. You
only need to go to his palace and go get prayers from him. He is not somebody
that any king can sit in his palace and pour abuses on, that King will run
into big crisis and he (Ooni) will be begging that ‘Please o, I don’t have grudges against him o, please spare him o’ (Just like he said in Oba of Lagos’
case). But what about the principalities?
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| Oba Asa, High Chief Jimoh Aliu aka Aworo |
The principalities has taken offense.
The Principalities have issued a repercussion immediately. I was so happy when
some eminent personalities took the case on and intervened to settle the crisis
between the two royal fathers. They have settled it. But the settlement will
not stop the reality of the the repercussion, that at so-so time, millions
people all over the world were privy to see the outcome of an action like this.
God is only trying to let us begin to respect what He has given to us. That is just the case with the issue between
Oba of Lagos and the Ooni of Ife.
Chief Jimoh Aliu on Asabe Afrika TV on Youtube by typing GbengaDanAsabe and
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