Samuel Oluwaseyi O. Oduyela AB Chief National Hqs 89/90

I have restrained myself from dabbling into this very simple issue turned controversial by the distortion of the history of the two clubs.

When you tell lies repeatedly, it tends to be taken as the truth until its refuted.

I am pained that I must do this, but it is important that I do this as a member of the Kegite Club, University of Ibadan.

It is not a lie that I have friends who are from Obafemi Awolowo University and are also in the club and I don’t want my response to these stories to be an attack but rather as an attempt to set the records straight.

I do not gain anything in presenting what is untrue, I have no agenda behind it but I feel that we should understand that.

The University of Ibadan has never struggled for power with Ife, but we have remained a voice of reason in the club. 

It is a pity that club founded by students for the enjoyment of students has now degenerated to causing animosity and fight for supremacy.

I was a chief of the Club and Abayomi Gbajumo was my contemporary. We reigned together without war. We never had, for a day any argument over what to do and how to do it. Yomi did not lord it over me and I had no reason to challenge him for anything.

One of our stands at the University of Ibadan is that no chief in the club is greater than another chief. A chief is a chief regardless of your Ilya, as a result, no chief can unilaterally suspend or dekeg another chief without the consent of the council of chiefisis. If we need the consent of the council of chiefisis before we can dekeg a Life Senior Fellow, then why should a single chief be given the power to suspend or dekeg a fellow chief?

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the Kegites club. Here is the reason why. When I was picked as the chief elect, I knew the enormous responsibility ahead of me and I was looking for something easy, less stressful that will allow carry out my duties as a chief and not make my academic suffer. So I came up with a topic: Socio-political and religious significance of the Kegites on African Religious belief system in Nigeria.

Thanks to Chief Ojola Ibinu, AB Unilorin 89/90 who took me to late Chief Tony Anor. Chief Anor was a lecturer at the University of Ilorin and a founding member of the Kegites Club UI. He was actually the third chief after Chief Ogun and Kunle Omoni.

It was in Chief Ojola’s presence that Chief Anor told me how Kegite Club UI was founded.

According to him, they came together and brainstormed on how to start an organization that will counter the activities of western-oriented clubs at the University of Ibadan, including the Pyrates confraternity. They came up with different names until they agreed on Kegite Club. Their argument was people in our villages, go to the farm and regardless of family background, they assemble in a gathering to drink from the same gourd of palm wine. Hence the teru dashiki in the palm wine colour and the keg insignia at the back of our regalia. They started the Kegite Club in 1972.

Chief Anor told us, Ojola and I that it was at the 1973 convocation that some students from Ife saw them where they were gyrating and told them that they similar organization in Ife. These group of students agreed to meet and see how they can harmonize the two.

They went to Ife in 1973 and exchanged ideas. It is very easy to now change the narrative and claim that Ife annexed UI and initiated the first UI members in 1973 when the records at the Students Affairs Office of the University of Ibadan showed that the Kegite Club was registered as a student organization in 1972.

At their meeting, UI and Ife agreed to wear what they wear. I asked him and Chief Ojola was there about the titles of World and National headquarters, his explanation was that probably because Ife started their Palm Wine Drinkers Club in 1963, they gave themselves World headquarters. There is no record of where and when the two schools started answering the names.

The University of Ibadan has never answered Palm Wine Drinkers Club, we have always been Kegites Club since 1972. It is Ife that changed its name from Palmwine Drinkers Club to Kegites in 1986/87 Keg year.

All those who have been popping up with a different version of the history of the club have not and never approached the University of Ibadan Kegites Club, they have not visited the Students Affairs Office of the University of Ibadan to verify and they have not produced any record to support their stories.

We know that, after the students of Ife moved to the campus in Ife, the authorities of the school proscribed the club and there was no activity until 1966 when Hezekiah Oluwasanmi became the first indigenous Vice-Chancellor of the then University of Ife. Let me add too that Professor Oluwasanmi was a product of the University of Ibadan who helped to nurture the young University of Ife.

If Tractor was the first Ilya to have a keg of office, why is UI called the National Headquarters? The issuance of Keg became popular when Chief Rufai was the Chief of Ife. He gave them as a symbol, and he gave keg of office to most of the colleges of education.

I have decided to ignore some these distortions because I see them as unnecessary distractions to the real issues plaguing the club, but I feel that I should respond to help in setting the records straight.