A British educated Nigerian investment banker has become the first globally recognized face of the colorful and ‘drum-beat’ exuberant Ojude Oba festival, in Ogun State – South West Nigeria. But that’s not the sweetest part of the story. Farooq “Dayo” Oreagba, is not just a set of hot brains on horseback.
He was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and beat the cancer after an almost 10-year battle. Clad in the deeply rich royal Aso Oke fabric which the south-west Nigerians are known for, ‘arm laced’ with screaming tattoos that tell the epistle of his life, the childlike freckled faced financial executive rode his stallion ahead of the Oreagba clan, a family whose horse-riding skills have traditionally graced the annual Ojude Oba festival which that began in 1893, before the British drummed up the idea for a nation called today’s Nigeria. Farooq’s grandfather himself led the horse parade passee until his passing in 1967, with his uncle subsequently leading the riding procession, and later another uncle joining from 1984.
Genetics perhaps! Welcoming a tapestry of very successful businessmen and women, professionals and everyday people, the festival honors the paramount ruler of the Ijebu Kingdom known traditionally by the title the [Awujale] – Oba Sikiru Adetona, who himself turned 90 years old just a few weeks ago. The arrival of dignitaries at the day’s carnival is a who’s who of the Ijebu kingdom, whose most notable diaspora son is Bayo Ogunlesi, Chairman and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, a company that owns not just both Gatwick and Edinburg Airports but London City Airport in the United Kingdom, and the Italian Rail service Italo. The parades and groups known locally as the ‘Regbe-Regbes’ are ushered into the Kings presence, sometimes arriving in a colorful array of luxury wheels including Rolls Royce Phantoms, a choreography of car shows that makes the Grammy arrivals look like amateur night indeed, in comparison.
While Brazil has its Rio carnival, Ojude Oba festival has slowly become a dignified and near egalitarian assembly of a people, hewn together by the cultural depth of a kingdom that pre-dates the beginning of the industrial revolution and the first automobile. The Ojude Oba festival is now formally but seemingly poised to take off with a global glare and focus, no thanks and in no small way to the next generation of clan leaders and ‘stallion slayers’ [SS], the likes of a now infamous investment banker, affectionately known as the “Steeze” of the 2024 Ojude Oba Festival. With Dane guns blasted, the shots have now been fired to the beginning of the architecture and planning, for the 2025 edition of the festival now billed to be the biggest since the festival all began a hundred and thirty years ago, in the old Ijebu Kingdom.
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