About two weeks ago, Dr. Doyin Odebowale, aka High Priest, celebrated another triumph over some “bastards and idiots” at the University of Ibadan. Comrade Femi Aborisade led the team that worsted the premier University the fourth time at the Courts on issues relating to Odebowale`s many struggles against a rotten system and debased society.
If you rely on stories around, you would miss him in any gathering. You would ordinarily wish to see a man with a larger than life shape or ego. You will expect to see a man who is always looking for attention. You may even be on the look out for an ” ata wewe” ( short men and hungry looking like Cacius). High Priest is a self effacing man. He does not sit at the front row of any event, he ordinarily does not seek attention. He abhors the gathering of politicians and “noise makers”. He sits far away from the crowd in any event except if the ocassion demands that he be there to intervene on critical points or to push a point of view.
He hardly introduces discussions neither does he leads it if it is not intended so. I guess this is a strategy to rate the intellect, understanding or the ideological view point of the people at the gathering. He however does not run away from a fight even though he would not initiate one. Dr. Odebowale is a clear example of who a gentleman should be. He has no secret but secretively clothes his strong points on pulslating air of evassiveness. You dare, just dare!
Doyin Odebowale is a man who could say with affirmation that ” the struggle is my life”. Except for those who could understand him, what he has gone through, where he is coming from and those he has related with, High Priest is a walking Volcano. You will think he is always angry but this could be as a result of his frustration with the crude and debasement of society as it were. To him, a man must do the right thing at all times. To him, it is wrong to always put society at your mercy.
Some say he is crazy or the ” mad dog” of Akeredolu from Ijebu land. Yes, he is crazy and why not? If he is not crazy, why will he expose his colleagues who are involved in stealling of other people’s intellectual property in the University and refuse to back down despite knowing the consequences? Only a crazy “boy” like Doyin Odebowale will join protests when he has nothing to lose as he has no reason to do so because, what the students were agitating for does not concerm him. He does not pay school fees.
Doyin has demonstrated this many times over in his life and in the last five years in Ondo State. For much as I know and saying for the uptenth time, High Priest is not a politician or card caring member of any Party including the government under which he serves. He never attends political meetings or campaigns. To him 99.9% of politicians are hypocrites, thieves and hustlers. They only peddle empty political influence that cannot win elections. No matter how highly placed you are, you dare not cross his path. On many issues he has been at logger heads with party officials and appointees of the government. To him they are not doing enough to help the government except themselves. He has said this to the face of many of the people concerned. To him Akeredolu, the one he calls “Egbon” before he came to Ondo State and has remained “Egbon” till date is his party. He has invited him on the strenght of wanting to serve the people of Ondo State to join him. Doyin does no care about any other thing than to see Aketi succeed in serving the people of Ondo State. He will confront and wrestle with any person or issue at the risk of everything to make Aketi succeed. In doing this, he knows there would be prices to pay. He is constantly blackmailed and insulted. Threatened with bodily harm or death. You will always hear him, ” awon bawo, won o ni were”.
His relationship with late Gani Fawehinmi at an impresionable period moulded his life pattern. His great appetite for intellectualism primed him to be a regular rebel. Only a crazy person will refuse to be bribed by oil cars or motorists or Okada people in Ondo State. Only a man who is crazy by societal standard will do many of the things that Doyin has done in Ondo State. He had taken on the students, he was lied against by labour and market women. He refused to be subjected to the hypocratic hypnotisation and exploitation of the foreign religions. He has openly and constantly affirmed his afinity to the African religious practice.
To say that Dr. Doyin Odebowale is not liked or he is hated by some people is to state the obvious. Here is a man who does not care whether you like him or not. If you are doing the right thing, he gives you the respect and support. He does not look for friends or the approval ratings of many people. To him, ” I am not in popularity contest with any bastard, they can as well keep their fraudulent and dubious approval”.
As a student Union activist he is at the edge of the puritanist bridge. You must be above board.There was this story of a class mate of his who was assisted to become the the President of the Faculty. Unfortunately he embezzled the funds of the Faculty, Doyin led the struggle to make him pay to the last kobo. During the fuel scarcity imbroglo in 2017, some marketers were told that the guy who had become a Senoir police officer serving in Akure could be a conduit to bribe Doyin. The man told them plainly that it would be the greatest mistake of their life. They stopped. The rest is history
Who is Doyin Odebowale?
Like Wole Soyinka, he is an Ijebu man but a Prince. Again, while Wole Soyinka’s forebears migrated to Egba where he eventually became an an Egba man for there he was born, from which he coined “Ijegba”, Doyin’s parents remained Ijebu but lived and died in Lagos. At a very young age, he showed extensive and extraordinarily ability of brilliance and scholarship. No doubt, from his undergraduate days and doctoral studies he was a Leventis Scholar.
Aside finishing top of his set at Ibadan, his record still stands in Ibadan till date of having the highest grade for doctorate studies. His romance with rebellion against institutional and established innanities in our society was accentuated by his romance with Fela, Gani Fawehinmi, and by extension Akeredolu and Femi Falana. This might have pushed him to go into the legal profession after gaining his doctorate degree. At the top of the ladder was Gani who believed every societal contradiction could be resolved with the law and in the courtroom. He also, taught his adherents that alligning with corrupt individuals at any level was a debasement of ones humanity. Doyin accepted this as a truth.
That Comrade Femi Aborisade handled his matter pro bono ( free of charge) will no doubt suggest that he has a strong affinity with the Gani Fawehinmi School of Thought, Fawehinminism. This concept is established on Courage in the face of Tyrany, Incoruptibility, Rule of Law, Social and Economic Justice and the use of Law (Court) as an instrument of Social Change. For a man who had a Phd in Classics, he speaks Latin, Spanish, French and Greek with ease. His understanding of human existence, history and mythology of the Europen civilization must have accentuated his preference for the African religious pantheon.
I have known Dr. Odebowale for over two decades when we were running the streets against the military governments of Babangida and Abacha. His pedigree as a radical opposition figure and an untainted purist made some people within the pro-democracy movement to tag him an ” anarchist” or modern day Malcom X. His position is that it is wrong for you to collaborate with your oppressors or their agents. He maintained that granted that the civilians are bad, they have a license through the ballot box to rule and we have a duty to challenge their excesses. But unlike the military, they are impostors masquerading as reformers. Every of their antics and their collaborators must be exposed and confronted frontally. Doyin’s hand was evident in many of the intellectual and ideological positions of the military era and his numerous engagements was a source of motivating factor for many young activists of the period. He was at the top of the ladder in the intellectual spectrum. Both the human rights and pro democracy movement of the era owes Doyin something.
The appellation “High Priest” did not just come into existence without reason. It was a product of deep reflection and appreciation of the Doyin Odebowale world view and belief system. Again, like Wole Soyinka, he shared the believe that a man is a product of his environment. His spiritual existence cannot be devoid of what brought about him. However, to suplant and transform or replace ones established factual existence with borrowed stories and fables or tales from another man’s land is both morally invalid and fundamentally flawed. Going further, creating a superior air of existence about these foreign models above what can be seen or annotated in ones physical environment is mendacious.
To young Doyin, the contradiction of religious rites and beliefs or the absence of a pure haven in the foreign religious organisations towards the growth and development of the black race making it a less of the human whole. in actual fact, there exist no purity in them and contradicts his point of relationship with his maker.
For instance, if the two world rejigions would support slavery, colonialism, apartheid, corruption by African leaders, gay and lesbianism, religious bigotry, racial discrimination, child marriage, prostitution, prosperity preachers, lack of respect for elders, almajiri etc as accepted modes and practices in Chistianity and Islam, then something must be impure or untrue about these religion. Also, the acceptance of certain individuals in this religions as gateway to the Sacred throne of God or entance to the hereafter at the refusal to accept, Ogun, Sango and other black personalities as respectable enough for such affirmation is contradictory. He rejects the notion that the white God is superior to the black God.
No doubt, Doyin subscribes to the fact that the African man has a right to believe or belong to any cultural Society where he can openly express his believe. Hence, Doyin is a strong member of the Osugbo Cult. He carries the signature and emblem of it in his heart and his action. He expresses it in his day to day activity in the way he relates in society. Like all African cultural associations, it exemplifies, truth, honesty, love of community, hardwork and togetherness. It places purity of heart and action above purity of acts and deeds.
To Doyin, a man is only useful when he is here and his actions are only windows to behold or reject for the edification of the good of society. The notion of heaven or hell fire is willful thought and a fraudulent escape from reality. A man is relevant when he affects society positively when still alife. The moment he drops dead he becomes food to the maggots and manure to plants. Any thought of rosy heaven and painful hell is pure arrant nonsense.
For him, how do you rate leaders who steal, maim and defraud the people of their hard earned resources to fester their own ends and also claim as religious leaders. How do you rate church leaders who support evils? To him, a subscription to the values of Ogboni, Awopa or Osugbo or worship of Ogun, Sango or Oya are akin to virtual expression of self which should not be taken as satanism or devilishiness
So, if I die nko ?
Odebowale does not owe no one any apology to where he ends up when he eventually dies. He has taken a decision on that. For him, he has given specific instructions to his children as to the location and spot where he wished to be buried. It must be at the feet of a coconut tree in his compound at Ijebu. No muslim or Christian religious organization is welcomed at his burial. The only group is the Osugbo cult to come and perform the normal rites of passage for him as a member. No unnecessary demand of anything from his children or family as he owes them nothing. No one, whether family or friends should come and display any hypocrisy of shedding tears at his graveside. No unnecessary waste of precious time and resources during his burial and all his instructions must be carried out. His children owns his lifeless body and must deposit it to mother earth as soon as practicable without unnecessary ceremony.
Lets take a look at Doyin Odebowale the High Priest. Radical, brilliant, effusive and compelling writter, consitent fighter, rebel leader and advocate. Precocious intellectial giant, courageous fighter, ebullient personality. Unapologetic traditionalist, political campaigner, human rights activist. An adorable family man, a reliable and resilient Comrade.
To appreciate him more, if a person can be so honoured that he was so close to Gani Fawehinmi that on the death of his father, Gani came with a retinue of aides, he maintained a close relationship with him despite their religious divergence. For instance, Gani was a devout Muslim, Femi Falana is a devout Catholic while Akeredolu is a devout and committed Anglican. These are the three triangles upon which Doyin Odebowale’s world revolve.
If for anything you appreciate or you have any good word for these three people, then you know Dr. Doyin Odebowale too well and you cannot be wrong about how he lives his life. In actual fact, he may not be the Satan some think he is afterall.
