Alhaji Aliru Momoh, Ikelebe III, the Otaru of Auchi Kingdom in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State, is the vice chairman of the Edo State Council of Traditional Rulers. In this interview, he spoke on his early life, how he became a first class traditional ruler, among other interesting issues.
How would you describe your early days as a prince?
I thank the almighty Allah for giving me the grace to see 86 years on earth. I came into being in November 29, 1934, and it has been a long journey. I just wonder as people think I am still young at 86. I leave that to God who gave me life and personality from the time I started as a child.
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When I was born, my father assembled mallams to pray for me to occupy his throne as a legacy. I occupied the 90th position of his children and about 250 of them lived at the time he died. At the time he passed on, there were some babies in the wombs of their mothers. I think the subject of my life is in the hands of Allah, from the beginning; therefore, I give praises and thanks to him who gave my father the inspiration to do what he did.
You grew up in the palace, what were your experiences?
I was a small boy when my father sent me to live with my grandmother and her husband in Akpekpe, Auchi. I don’t know what he saw, but he felt I should start life outside the palace. I was not the first to be sent out because a good number of his children were sent to mallams to get the knowledge of the Quran.
In 1944, he felt I should go to school, but my mother said I was too small because I had a very tiny structure and could not pass my hand through my head to the ear on the other side to be registered at a government primary school in Auchi. So my father sent me and others to CM School. That was where I started primary school and that was the only school I attended in Nigeria.
What happened afterwards?
I didn’t see the doors to secondary school in Nigeria or anywhere else. I did standard education. I came from a royal family, but who talked about that? I went to school, came back and lived a simple life in all my years in Nigeria and Britain. Till I came back to Nigeria, nobody knew I was a prince.
My mother had other children after me, who ought to be educated, but my father died, so the burden should not be put on her. It was a bit of luck that I went to school when my father wanted me to do so in 1944 because nobody knew he was going to die that year. He died on December 7, 1944, and luckily, he felt and impressed it on my mother that I should go to school. If I had not started school that year, the burden of education would have fallen on my mother. After his death, the person who took over the reign also took over the wealth and became responsible for those who were already in school.
After Standard Six, what happened?
After my primary school in 1951, I was sent to Kaduna. My brother wondered where I was going to teach because I was very small in size. In school then, I was given a special chair and table in class.
Immediately the Standard Six certificate was out, I was sent to my father’s eldest daughter’s husband in Kaduna, who worked at the government catering house in Kaduna. He asked that I should be sent to him. I worked in the catering house as a coffee boy, where I served the colonial masters. We didn’t really have black people coming there.
I served them coffee during breakfast. I also served them lunch and dinner. I was later promoted as an assistant barman. After that, due to one reason or another, the barman left and I took over. I was also given the assignment of supplying bed-sheets and other items to the steward.
I was educating myself and writing RSA examinations from the Metropolitan School, London. That was where I met Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Sardauna of Sokoto, Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe, who were coming for a meeting during the preliminary progression to independence.
One white man known as Mckay was the chief accountant of the Northern Education Department, and he was always the last man to leave the bar. One day, he was anxious to know what I was doing and why I was writing behind the counter. I told him that I was doing an assignment and working for the RSA book keeping examination and taking my courses from the Metropolitan School, London. He was shocked and said that over his dead body would I become an accountant. Maybe he thought I was going to take over his job. I never heard that statement before, so I was shocked because it came from a white man. But that strengthened my zeal to continue what I was doing.
In 1956, l left the catering house to join the Nigerian Breweries in the Northern Region as a storekeeper. I worked with Bala Maila, who was the sales manager.
They also gave me another assignment as they made me a sales representative. To me, they thought I had attained a very high stage because they saw me wearing suits all the time and the general manager was not wearing. They wondered where I got my suits from – whether I ordered them from London. I told them that I had a tailor in Kaduna, who hailed from Togo.
When I joined the Nigerian Breweries, we had a storekeeper and sales representatives, but there were some issues. One day, the general manager, Northern Region, Mr Stamp, went for lunch and didn’t come back till closing time. At that time, we were working to bring the branch to Kaduna.
As I was closing, I discovered that the door opened. As I was closing the door, I also discovered that the safe containing money was open, with the key on it, so I locked it and went to his house to deliver the keys, but his wife said he was sleeping and I delivered the keys to her. I think he must have taken some drinks while having lunch.
After delivering the keys, his vehicle passed me on my way back home, apparently rushing to the office to see if the money he brought from the bank that day was not touched. He was going to pay contractors and workers. After seeing that the money was intact, he called the managing director the following day, saying I must be made the accountant within one year or he would leave the company and go back to Britain. The general manager asked the position I was holding and he said I was a storekeeper.
Meanwhile, as we were talking about becoming an accountant on the recommendation of another British man in the Nigerian Breweries, the man who said over his dead body would I be in that position was being rushed to Britain for medical attention; and he died on the way.
What was your relationship with Tafawa Balewa and Sardauna after meeting them?
Tafawa Balewa was fond of joking with me, as a barman, in Hausa. At that time I didn’t speak Hausa, but I tried to manage what I knew. He said I should not murder the language, and that became his joke for me anytime he came to the catering house, where they had their lunch.
It was also there that I met the Sardauna of Sokoto. They had lunch that day and one of their own, Malik Attah from Okene introduced me to him as a coffee boy. He later got to know that I was a brother to the late Kessington Momoh, who was also a member of the House of Representatives with him at that time.
When I went to the Nigerian Breweries, Bala Maila, the sales manager, also introduced me to him when we went to thank him. We gave him some samples of the drinks we produced at the Kaduna branch of the company. We took a photograph with him. The third time I met him was when he came to inspect the work in progress at the Kaduna factory, and the general manager, Northern Region, said I would serve him tea. He made the tea and I served him.
What about your education?
In 1962 I had obtained my Corporation of Secretary Intermediate Examination Certificate and that qualified me to go for direct entry to the university. At that time, the Nigerian Breweries was preparing to sponsor me to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, but I told them it was too late as I was going for a professional accounting course abroad. I went abroad in 1962. That’s the situation of my education.
Before I travelled abroad in the early part of 1962, the accountant in the finance headquarters of the Nigerian Breweries died and I took over his position. So, between 1952 when I came to Kaduna and 1962 in Lagos when I became the financial accountant of the Nigerian Breweries headquarters (a period of 10 years), my colleagues who went to secondary school were still looking for jobs. I left for the United Kingdom and got my professional certificate to become a professional accountant. I also got my LLB degree in 1976 from the University of London and became a lawyer before I came back to Nigeria
When and how did you come back to Nigeria?
The very time I finished my Law examinations in London, there was an advertisement in the West African magazine, Ches-de Pour International, for the position of a financial comptroller in Nigeria, so I applied. I was appointed the financial comptroller of the company’s branch in Nigeria. That was what brought me back to Nigeria.
In London, I was riding a Jaguar, and after the interview, there was lunch for me and one Mr Baker, who was also recruited as a technical adviser for the company in Nigeria. They told me to eat, but I said I was fasting. They said, “You are fasting when the lunch is for you, or you think we are eating grass.’’
After the lunch in Lacanster Hotel, London, they collected my house address and cleverly came without notice and advised me not to take the car to Nigeria, saying everything had been arranged for me, including a car and steward. They added that there were no roads in Nigeria, including Lagos. They told me that the same position was vacant in Nairobi, Kenya and asked if I would like to go there because they had good roads and weather, and that I would enjoy the place. They said if I liked I could go to Nigeria to see things for myself before going to Nairobi. I told them that I had been away from Nigeria for 15 years and my mother was still alive, so I must go home, whatever the situation may be. I told them I could remember that in 1976, the finance minister in Nigeria said the country had so much money and they didn’t know what to do with it. They said, “We are telling you the fact, they have roads but they are not doing them.’’
So how did you get to the throne as you still had elder brothers?
I told you that my father gathered mallams to pray for me so that I could carry on the legacy of the throne. Before 1996, I was no longer with any company but on my own, prospecting gold in Nigeria. My company, Globmark, was the first private company prospecting gold in Nigeria. We were recognised by the ministry for insisting that the rules must be followed. Then somebody introduced us to the Russian Embassy when their gold expert came to Nigeria. They sent two of them to inspect my gold field in the then Bendel State and they were impressed with the work we had done. So we signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with them.
They were preparing to come to Nigeria when government became aware of the MoU and sent secret agents to investigate what we were doing. The result was that we were legally there.
They wanted to destabilise us, but I got wind of it and went to regularise it in the ministry. The Russians worked with us for three months and were ready for mining before the ministry in charge brought another problem due to greed of officials. They were not ready for us, but they were prepared to take over the gold field from us. As at that time, I was not a traditional ruler, and when I found out that the ministry and the government were dirty, I gave up all the businesses I was running in Nigeria.
The Russians had come three times to sign an MoU with the government, but the Ministry of Mines and Steel at that time said they had a branch that prepared agreement of this nature. And the government came back to say that there could not be a gold mining agreement with expatriates without the federal government taking part in the joint venture. I asked the government to take 10 per cent but prepare the agreement, but they were dilly dallying.
When the Russians who valued the work we did at $3million came the third time, the government was still not prepared. We were still waiting when the Soviet Union was dissolved and the company, which I signed an MoU with, was 100 per cent government-owned on gold. This happened in 1992.
How did you transit from business life to that of a traditional ruler?
I worked for the Nigerian Breweries and other companies, but all of them refused to give me a loan to buy a house or build one. And I was qualified for the loan. They said I refused to accept the yellow Vaseline product manufactured in Britain for Nigerians. But I said what we manufactured in Nigeria was more acceptable to Nigerians.
We reported the matter to the Ministry of Trade and they backed us and stopped the importation of Vaseline products into the country. So when I applied for the loan, they refused to approve. These are some of the things that happened in my business life.
Coming back to the question of the throne, it was the first or second application to become the Otaru of Auchi. Election took place on June 14, 1996 and I had 10 votes while my opponent got two.
The first pronouncement I made when I was crowned Otaru was that light had come to Auchi.
Going back to 1934 when my father asked Mallams to pray for me to inherit his throne, that inheritance included Islam because he introduced the religion to Auchi in 1914. He was a bitter enemy of idols, so in 1914 he rallied round other mallams in the community and went on jihad to destroy idols. At that time, he was not the traditional ruler of Auchi, he was the Daniyan, but five years later, in 1919, he became the Otaru of Auchi. What he did in 1914 was major and critical to the revolution of the community, establishing Islam and destroying idols. That put him on a power level with what Prophet Abraham did in his time when he destroyed his father’s and community’s idols.
Is that the reason you instituted an Auchi Day of prayer?
It is a long challenging issue that came to light. We were celebrating culture on December 7 of every year. That was the day my father died and they decided to remember it because they didn’t know when he was born. So they established the day for celebration. Later, we changed it to January 8. In January 8, 2009, I got a message that instead of celebrating culture in December 7 every year, we should celebrate the almighty Allah. That was how we started celebrating Allah in January 8 every year.
What is your position in politics?
I have become so close to the Quran that from 11pm I will read it and make notes till 5am when the call to pray is made. That is my assignment. Before the advent of Prophet Muhammed (SAW), we had the Jews and Christians – the Torah for the Jews and the Bible for Christians. And there is nowhere in the Bible, Torah or the Quran you would find anywhere they talk about party and politics.
The world has forgotten about God and he is showing that he is most powerful. The people have neglected God; hence we have calamities.
What is your relationship with President Buhari?
Inspiration is the first revelation God gave to man, and the next are dreams and vision, as well as the wall behind the veil giving you instructions and directions. God says no human being speaks directly with him, so I will not say that God is speaking directly with me, except behind the veil and through messengers.
In 1983, I went home to campaign for the late Dr Samuel Ogbemudia to become the governor of Bendel State after he had served as military governor. When the election was coming, Etsako Club 81 in Lagos invited him and Prof Ambrose Alli, who was the governor, to tell us what they were going to do for our people. It was only Ogbemudia that came. We then decided that all of us should go home and campaign in our respective communities for him.
I told my predecessor, A .J. Momoh that I wanted to speak to the people and he called them. I told them the resolution we took in Lagos. When I told them that the Shehu Shagari government would fall within six months, they wondered how it would happen, but five months later, that government was overthrown and Buhari took over power. That was the special link with Buhari. It was through divine inspiration because I didn’t know him before then.
In 1998 when Abacha was the military head of state, he asked if I knew Buhari and I said I saw him in the papers and television, but we never met. He was surprised that I had never met him. That was when he asked me to submit the list of roads I wanted him to construct in Auchi because he served in the community as a military officer and still had a relationship with the people.
On the date he fixed for us to meet, I went with Abu Inu Umoru, the chairman of Setraco Construction Company, who would do the road, but I was at Hilton Hotel (now Transcop) in Abuja, waiting for the appointed time when my phone rang and I was told that Abacha died in the morning.
Also, when Buhari became president, we followed him to Makkah on Umrah. There were five governors and four traditional rulers; myself, former Emir of Kano Muhammed Sanusi, Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu and one other traditional ruler from Zamfara State. One of the governors, I can remember, is now the minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola from Osun State.
They were talking about Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton in the USA election when we followed Buhari. I told them that Trump was going to win the election, but he would have a serious problem after that. They all disagreed with me.
Every day my wife kept asking when Trump’s problem would end, and I told her that it was left for the almighty Allah.
You are over 86 years, yet on Auchi Day you still walk round the city, praising Allah. What is the secret?
I don’t know the secret; all I know is that the almighty Allah says if you remember him always you would be at rest. Remembering Allah keeps the heart at rest, and if your heart is at rest, every part of your body would be at rest.
What God has given me since 1996 when I was crowned and said light had come to Auchi has been a miracle. I keep wondering who I am that God has blessed me this way. I started evaluating myself.
Allah’s signs and symbols are very critical manifestations in human life, and if you want to examine it, Allah will give you the light because he knows your relationship with him through the Quran.
I was asked to convert calendar dates into chapters and verses of the holy Quran; and that is the inspiration. And I started doing that. If you take 1996 as chapter 19, verse 96, which I started with, states, “If you are a believer and work firmly and steadfastly, God will love you. Hadith of that chapter states that if God loves you, he tells Angel Jibrin (Gabriel) to love that man; and he will be announced in heaven that God’s loves such a person. As such, human beings on earth will love that person.
I am the only one in the entire world of mankind that God has given that classification about chapters and verses of the Quran from dates. When you check your date of birth (months and days – the month is the chapter and the day is your verse), you will come to know what God has given to you and where you are. God says if you recite chapter 9 verses 128 and 129, if you have sickness, when you get up and recite it, God will help you to run. That is why you have an 86-year-old man running with 30-year-old on Auchi Day.
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