There is a masquerade in my ancestral neighborhood of Olowogbowo (the stirring pivot of Lagosian commerce) which is revered in traditional awe and embraced in full unifying adumbration by everyone regardless of the preachment of faith.
Adińīmōdò is a symbol of stubborn determination; a resolute encore of a traditional solidity of spirit, bold and unyielding before the intruding emblems encroaching upon the sacredness of the neighborhood.
Adińīmōdò is at once an herald and a protective spirit , an invincible guide and shepherd, defined in an omnipresent majesty hovering upon the neighborhood in prescient knowingness.
He is our arbiter with the torch ; the unrestrained, irresistible and immovable force halting the straying of evil .
Hence his celebratory adulation as he sweeps and weaves and vaults in furious paces and erupts in volcanic rage and gaiety in controlled godly majesty across Olowogbowo:
“Adińīmōdò to di baba wọn mọle
Irin ja, a fi irin so
Ilẹkẹ ja towu idi ẹ
A le ni iwaju
obọ lẹhin”
Loosely translated:
“Adińīmōdò that banishes them all to the cordon of the River
He is chained but breaks the chain
The beads are broken with the thread
Even as they chase him ,
He chases them too in reversed fury.”
Adińīmōdò is the representative deity of audacious restlessness, the bold icon of defiance; strong in will like the Tennysonian Ulysses, an unyielding corpus of energy and dignifying stamina, ultimately resolved to pursue the just cause, indifferent to the searing challenges of the oppositional front, absorbed in protective mastery of the furies of the moment .
Adińīmōdò perches in all seeing glare; distant and yet proximate, glowering and pacific, revolving in the pronounced orbits of the unfailing gods, glowing in contradictory images to protect the ancestral realm of Olowogbowo.
The moral here is about the unbowed spirit. The stubborn, insistent Will in the pursuit of the good cause. It is not about the human perfection . It is not about the unflawed essence of man.
No. It is about the tenacious indivisible swelling in puristic purpose , the dwelling in unchangeable fate, firm and steady, strong and triumphant, striving forevermore until the evil is defeated and the ancestral holy light shines upon the realm.
Do you not see this reference in the moral of Bola Ahmed Tinubu who now resides in heroic largeness despite the buffetings of fate ? Of course Tinubu is not Adińīmōdò. No one can be in the sameness of the immortal gods. But man can be referenced in some certain illustrations of the immortals.
Truth be told, there is something ennobling about a man whose cause is just , whose truth is certain , whose focus is unshaken, thorough and devout, stern and steady in the marshaling of the great mission.
Despite the implosive temptings of desperate provocateurs, Tinubu resides still in a calm unbelievable resolve, pronounced in absolute assured energy to defy and grapple, to resist and muster an uncommon courage against the implacable enemies within.
Like Adińīmōdò, Tinubu does not withdraw into wheedling prostration, pleading extenuating circumstances amid the laager of enfolding foes.
No. As he is tied, he breaks the chains. As he is halted, he shatters the cordon. As he is fettered , he severs the lock, mocking the adversarial intrusions with the similitude of the badgering ram: savage and fierce, possessed in unyielding animation that rattles and almost contumacious , unyielding on the righteous path.
It is true: Victory is never earned in the broken visages of the weaklings. No. It is wrought in the furnace of iron. It is achieved in the bruising severities and the tempests of adversarial fate.
Ultimate triumph resides in not giving up, in not shedding tears, in not breaking down before the foe in contemptible , groveling helplessness.
Victory inheres in moving on , in pushing forward with bravura , no matter what, through the withering lashes of animadversion, through the harsh buffetings of conspiratorial dagger. That’s what makes a man. That’s what defines a fighter with a good cause.
Behold we are now in the final stretch to define who we are and what we want for the greater good of Nigeria. Asiwaju is enfolded in a unifying national identity. He embraces all.
Tinubu is the true Nigerian Unifier, the one who embraces all, cultivating the best and the brightest regardless of ethnic provenance or sectarian identity, bold and audacious, unyielding and firm through the dark passages and the bright days.
And like Tennysonian Ulysses, Tinubu is now “a part of all he has met. Strong in will ,
To Strive,
To seek
But never to yield”
The ringing leit motif of Bola Tinubu is the legion of people he has vaulted into incredible heights , giving everyone the possibility to rise to the fullest pursuit of his abilities . That‘s perhaps is his greatest strength: the cultivation of merit without bias.
This Saturday is the Nigerian inflection point, our defining moment in these challenging journeys.
*Prince Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu
Oloriekun of Olowogbowo
Apesinọla Ọkọlaba Ẹkun
Director -General
The Patriots Roundtable
