“We Don’t Have To Forget Where We Are Coming From In Life” – Ooni Of Ife

Ooni of Ife Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi has further urged Nigerians to do away with vanity, telling a story of how he stays close to the masses.

He “developed a concept to live like the common man,” he wrote, by visiting people who lived under bridges, riding commercial motorcycles, and taking molue to wherever he was visiting in Lagos.

He wanted to continue with the idea after ascending the throne, he wrote, but the elders rejected the idea.

However, he came up with a new idea of buying roasted plantain (boli) and fried yam (dundu) from the roadside, he wrote, “because we don’t have to forget where we are coming from in life.” He wrote:

There Was a time I Boarded the BRT Bus In Lagos. The Reason Is Very Simple; I am Quite Passionate About Mankind, So I Developed a Concept to live like the Common Man Atleast Once Every Month Because I Believe We Did Not Come Into this World With Anything.

I Would Drop Everything I Have to live like An Average Man Struggling In life. I Would Visit People Under the Bridge, Ride On a Motorcycle And Board a ‘Molue’ to Wherever I Was Going In Lagos. It Was Very Stressful But those times Were My Best Moments In life Because I Got to Relate With the Real People. I Saw their Sufferings And Felt their Plights.

When I Ascended the throne, I Requested the Elders to Grant Me the Opportunity to Continue the Concept, but they Did Not Agree, So I Coined a New One that Would Go In line With the throne, Which Is Stopping My Convoy Whenever I get to a Particular Open Place With Moderate Crowd And Buy ‘Boli’ (Roasted Plantain) And ‘Dundu’ And Other Basic Food Items Because We Don’t Have to Forget Where We Are Coming From In life.

Which Position Are you that Nobody Has Never Been In life? When you Serve Mankind, you Serve God. Our People Have Disconnected From the Less-Privileged And the Downtrodden.

Each time I Stop, the People Are Always Happy And My Security Men Are Usually Afraid And they Caution Me to Get Into the Car But I Always Make them Realise that I Cannot Be Harmed By these People. They Are Just Excited And I am Always Happy to Be In their Midst. At times, I Would Not Come Out of the Car.

But Most times, I Do Get Out to Shake People’s Hands and I would Buy From them What they’re Selling And Pay them Higher than What they Have Sold.

I Will Be Sick if I Am Not With the Common People; It Has Always Been My Lifestyle.