On Yayi, Let the Facts Speak

Critics question Adeola’s ancestry; supporters demand proof. Kunle Somorin argues claims require evidence, urging transparency, due process and facts over political theatre.

There are moments in politics when a controversy becomes so inflated that the only sensible response is to puncture it with the cold air of facts. The latest attempt to reopen the question of Senator Olamilekan Adeola’s Yewa identity is one of those moments.

Ambassador Folake Marcus-Bello, former Nigerian Ambassador to Malawi and a prominent figure in the Peoples Democratic Party, has again declared that Adeola is not from Yewa. She speaks with the confidence of someone who claims to possess documentary evidence to settle the matter. If that is so, nobody should be more eager than those of us who care about Ogun to see the evidence.

This is not an appeal to shield Adeola from scrutiny. Quite the contrary. A man seeking to govern a state of nearly six million people should expect his past, credentials, antecedents and even ancestry to be examined. Public office is not a monastery, and candidates do not enjoy immunity from questions.

But those who make serious allegations carry a corresponding obligation: assertion must graduate into evidence. In a democracy, one does not win an argument merely by announcing that one has documents. One produces them and allows them to be tested.

Marcus-Bello insists Adeola is not Yewa. Very well. From where, then? If the contention is that he is from Ekiti State, which part? Which town? Which local government? Which family? Which compound? Who are the ancestors? What traditional authority recognises that lineage? What record establishes it?

When was the alleged migration from Ekiti to Ogun made? Who witnessed it? Where is the family history that supports the alternative account? These are not hostile questions. They are the natural questions that follow from such an allegation.

Yet the alternative genealogy remains strangely imprecise. A genealogy cannot be established by negation. If a man is said not to belong to Family A, the serious question is which Family B he belongs to. Otherwise, what we have is insinuation, not history.

Marcus-Bello reportedly referred to her late father’s burial programme, claiming it contains Adeola’s oríkì and progeny. If so, let the record speak. Publish the relevant page or pages. Allow those versed in Yewa genealogy to interpret it. If there is a book containing allegations, identify the specific passage and sources. There is no virtue in keeping evidence under wraps while demanding that the accused disprove what has not been shown. That is not how serious historical inquiry works. Nor is it how consequential political allegations should be handled.

It is also important to separate unrelated claims. A defective party primary, assuming one occurred, does not establish a false genealogy. A disputed genealogy does not establish that a primary was invalid. Each allegation must carry its own evidence.

The temptation to fuse the two is understandable in partisan politics. Once a candidate is presented as simultaneously an illegitimate nominee and an illegitimate indigene, the public is encouraged to regard the entire candidacy as suspect. But the law, history and common sense require a more disciplined approach.

In Yoruba society, ancestry is not abstraction. It is carried in family memory, oríkì, compounds, lineage, community recognition and the testimony of custodians of history. Traditional rulers are guardians of that inheritance. But cultural recognition and legal qualification are not identical.

A chieftaincy title is not a court judgment; an oríkì is not an affidavit; a burial programme is not, by itself, a judicial declaration of eligibility.

That distinction cuts both ways. If Adeola has been publicly recognised within Yewaland and received traditional honours, those who say such recognition is fraudulent must explain why. Which institutions were deceived? What information was presented? Did custodians of Yewa history object? Have any withdrawn recognition? If not, why should an unproduced document mentioned on television outweigh years of communal recognition?