On October 8, 2025, Sulaiman Ajilara Ajobiewe turned seventy, marking seven decades of a life devoted to preserving what many Yoruba have abandoned, the oriki, the praise poetry that maps ancestral lineage and cultural identity. Born in 1955 in Ila Orangun, Osun State, Ajobiewe represents a generation caught between the waning influence of traditional knowledge systems and the rising tide of Western modernity. Yet, unlike many of his peers who pursued conventional education and white-collar careers, Ajobiewe chose a path less traveled, one that would eventually position him before presidents, governors, and traditional rulers, not as a supplicant, but as a cultural authority whose knowledge commanded respect and substantial financial reward.

The Classroom That Never Held Him

Ajobiewe’s formal education tells the story of a mind restless within the confines of Western-style schooling. He spent ten years in primary school, an extended period that revealed not intellectual deficiency but rather a fundamental misalignment between institutional learning and his innate calling. His father, skilled in ijala (hunters’ chants) and egungun (masquerade) performances, provided an alternative education—one rooted in oral traditions, rhythmic memory, and the intricate genealogies of Yoruba families. While his classmates struggled with arithmetic and English composition, young Sulaiman absorbed the cadences of his father’s chants, the historical narratives embedded in praise songs, and the social power of performance.

When he finally left primary school, it was not in defeat but in pursuit of a different kind of knowledge. He apprenticed as a baker, a profession that would paradoxically become his graduate school in Yoruba cultural studies. The bakery was never his destination; it was his vehicle.

The Baker’s Pilgrimage

Between kneading dough and tending ovens, Ajobiewe embarked on what can only be described as a self-designed doctoral program in Yoruba oral literature. He deliberately sought employment in bakeries across Yorubaland, Osogbo, Abeokuta, Okuku, Ijebu Ode, Ibadan, always requesting the night shift. This strategic choice freed his days for cultural research. He would wander through towns, seeking out elders playing ayo, the traditional Yoruba board game, and those known for their knowledge of local history and customs.

His methodology was brilliant in its simplicity: he traded bread for knowledge. Fresh loaves from the bakery became his currency, and in exchange, the custodians of oral tradition opened their repositories of stories, genealogies, and the unique oriki of different lineages. By the time he settled in Lagos, his twenty-second place of residence, Ajobiewe had compiled and become a mental encyclopedia. He had learned not from textbooks but from the very people whose histories he would later recount.

“There was no major town in Yorubaland that I did not live in order to learn one thing or the other about their history.”

This was education in its truest sense, immersive, experiential, and driven by an insatiable curiosity about his people’s past.

From Theatre to Center Stage

Ajobiewe’s formal entry into performance began at age seven in 1962, when he joined his brother Olu Olaiya’s traveling theatre group. The troupe toured Western Nigeria, and young Sulaiman became its secret weapon. His brother would place him on stage, and the child would deliver praise songs for prominent figures in the audience. The spectacle of such mastery in one so young captivated audiences, who would spray him with money and dance in celebration. Among his fellow performers were Brothers Olaniyi and Lasisi, but he, who was the youngest member, often stole the show.

The theatre groups of that era served as his performance laboratory. He honed his skills as a chanter, actor, and dancer, learning how to command attention, modulate his voice for dramatic effect, and read his audience’s emotional temperature. These were not merely artistic skills; they were survival skills for an oral poet whose livelihood would depend on his ability to move powerful people to generosity.

His big break into mainstream visibility came in 1979 when he joined Feyikogbon, a popular Yoruba television series on NTA Channel 7 Lagos. The program ran for over thirteen years, and Ajobiewe’s performances introduced millions of viewers to the power of oriki. He also appeared on other programs like Fokomoyo, Ajaka Oko, and Oduduwa, gradually building a reputation that transcended regional boundaries. Later, his appearance in Nigeria’s first custard television commercial for Checkers Custard, alongside actress Toyin Abraham-Ajeyemi, brought his cultural artistry to an even broader audience.

The President Nearly Wept

Ajobiewe’s career is punctuated by moments that demonstrate the profound psychological power of oriki. Perhaps none is more illustrative than his encounter with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. During Obasanjo’s official visit to Ogun State when Chief Olusegun Osoba was governor, Ajobiewe was recruited to perform. As he chanted Obasanjo’s family praise poetry, citing the president’s pedigree and ancestral roots, something remarkable happened:

“He held his head in his hands and stared at me. His eyes were misty, ready to shed tears.”

This moment—a president, one of Nigeria’s most powerful men, emotionally overwhelmed by the recounting of his lineage—reveals the essence of what Ajobiewe does. He doesn’t merely recite names; he reconnects people to something primal and profound, something that formal education and political power cannot provide. Obasanjo gave him forty thousand naira that day, announcing publicly that Ajobiewe was the first artiste he would give money to. This from a man famously described as having a “tight fist.

The list of Nigeria’s elite who have been moved by Ajobiewe’s performances reads like a who’s who of contemporary Yoruba leadership: Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Chief Mike Adenuga, Baba Subomi Balogun, Governor Aregbesola, Ooni Sijuade, Oba Ogunwusi of Ife, and traditional rulers from Kwara State where many believed Yoruba poetry wouldn’t be appreciated. In one remarkable instance, a lawyer in Ibadan who had never met Ajobiewe invited him to his office and presented him with a check for two million naira, simply to encourage his cultural preservation work.
But beyond the tears and the money, something else happened that day and on many other occasions—something that reveals the therapeutic power of oriki. His performances have served as instruments of reconciliation. On separate occasions, individuals seeking forgiveness from Obasanjo and Tinubu engaged Ajobiewe’s services. After praising these leaders and rekindling their connection to ancestral pride, he would request clemency for the offenders and receive it.
An account of such scenario played out in one of his performances where Obasanjo was present. He began his performance, weaving through Obasanjo’s ancestral lines, reconnecting the former president to his roots. Then, at the right moment, when Obasanjo’s defenses were down, when he was swimming in the memories of his forefathers, Ajobiewe made his move:

“When it got to some certain stage I told him I needed a favour and I said he should please forgive so so so and so person. He now said where is he? I now called the man who knelt down for Baba Obasanjo who immediately forgave him.”

A grudge that might have lasted years dissolved in minutes, not through lawyers or mediators or formal apologies, but through the power of oriki reconnecting a man to his heritage. The same thing happened with Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu—someone needed forgiveness, Ajobiewe performed the oriki, and clemency was granted.

This is the therapeutic dimension of oriki that many people don’t understand. When you hear your praise poetry, when someone recounts your lineage and the great deeds of your ancestors, something shifts inside you. You remember that you are part of something larger than your current anger or grievance. You remember the values your forefathers stood for, the dignity of your lineage. In that moment of connection, forgiveness becomes easier, reconciliation becomes possible.

Through Ajobiewe, oriki heals rifts and mends broken relationships. He turned it into a form of cultural therapy, using ancestral memory to soften hardened hearts and bridge divides.

Classrooms Need Oriki

Ajobiewe mastered the deep history and cultural memory of the Yoruba people. While others were getting degrees in economics, law, and engineering, he was getting a different kind of education informally. He was learning the genealogies of families, the historical conquests of towns, the praise names that connect people to their ancestors. And it turns out, this knowledge is valuable. Very valuable.

“My father put me in school, but I was not bright enough, because I spent 10 years in primary school before I left to learn bakery.”

When Ajobiewe says he wasn’t “bright enough” for school, what he’s really describing is a mind that works differently. His intelligence might not be built for memorizing or solving algebraic equations, but his mind was structured for remembering hundreds of family lineages, for weaving historical narratives into performance, for understanding the emotional power of connecting people to their roots. That’s not lack of intelligence; that’s a different kind of brilliance altogether.

The tragedy isn’t that Ajobiewe succeeded without formal education, it is that our formal education system failed to recognize and nurture the kind of genius he possessed. What if, instead of dismissing students like young Sulaiman as “not bright enough,” our schools had channels for teaching oriki, ijala, and other Yoruba oral traditions alongside mathematics and English?

Consider a Nigerian curriculum where children learn their family’s oriki as seriously as they learn their multiplication tables. Where reciting your ancestral praise poetry is as important as reciting the national anthem. Where mastering the historical genealogies of Yoruba towns earns you credits just like passing a history exam. Where traditional oral poets and chanters visit schools regularly, not as entertainers for cultural day celebrations, but as teachers whose knowledge is examined and graded.

While this is not about replacing formal education with traditional practices, instead, it is about enriching our schools with the cultural knowledge that connects young people to their heritage. A child who can solve quadratic equations and recite their oriki is better equipped for life than one who can only do the former. A graduate who understands both computer programming and ijala poetry carries forward two forms of intelligence, not just one.

Traditional knowledge systems like oriki contain sophisticated memory techniques, historical documentation, conflict resolution mechanisms, and identity frameworks that complement rather than contradict formal education. Ajobiewe’s ability to remember and recite hundreds of family genealogies demonstrates memory skills that would benefit any student. His understanding of how praise poetry can soften hearts and resolve conflicts shows emotional intelligence that business schools try to teach in leadership courses. His seven-decade commitment to documenting Yoruba history through oral poetry is type of research methodology.

So when we celebrate Ajobiewe’s success, we shouldn’t just marvel at how far he came without formal degrees. We should question why our formal education system doesn’t include what he knows. We should ask ourselves: how many other Ajobiewes have we lost because our schools had no room for their particular brilliance? How much cultural knowledge has died with elders because we told young people that only what they learn in Western-style classrooms matters?

The man who makes presidents cry, who receives two-million-naira checks from lawyers, who gets recommended by governors, this man’s knowledge should be in our textbooks, taught in our schools. Not as a replacement for formal education, but as an essential complement to it.

Oriki Still Matters Today

.Many Yoruba people today don’t know their oriki. They can recite their email addresses, their bank account numbers, their social media handles, but ask them about their family’s praise poetry and you get blank stares. This is not just about forgetting some old tradition; it’s about losing the very thing that tells you who you are and where you come from.

“Anybody who forgets his root can be compared with that who has no heritage.”

There’s this ongoing debate about who is a true Lagosian, with some people claiming Lagos is “no man’s land” where anyone can claim ownership. Now imagine if every Lagosian, whether their family has been there for ten generations or just arrived, actually knew and could recite their oriki. The confusion would disappear immediately. Your oriki tells exactly where your people come from, which town, which lineage, what migrations your ancestors made. It’s like having a genealogical GPS encoded in poetry.

But Western education and foreign religions came and told us that our traditional practices were primitive and backward. Thus, breeding a generation of what Ajobiewe might call cultural orphans. People with Yoruba names who can’t tell you what those names mean. People who live in Yoruba towns but can’t trace their family line back three generations.

This is not about rejecting modernity or progress. You can be a software engineer and still know your oriki. You can be a medical doctor and still understand where your people come from. You can practice Christianity or Islam and still honour the cultural heritage that existed long before these religions arrived in Yorubaland. Ajobiewe himself is a practicing Muslim who has never confused his religious faith with his cultural identity.

For every ogidi omo Yoruba, this should be a wake-up call. Learn your oriki. Teach it to your children. Write it down if you must, though traditionally it lives in memory and voice. Because in a country as diverse and complex as Nigeria, where ethnic tensions and disputes over land and belonging are constant, your oriki is not just poetry. It’s your map, your history, your identity card that no government issued and no government can revoke.

When settlers in Lagos or Ibadan or any Yoruba town try to erase history or claim what isn’t theirs, the person who knows their oriki stands on solid ground. They can say with certainty: “This is who my people are, this is where we came from, this is our history.” No amount of political maneuvering can change that.

As Sulaiman Ajilara Ajobiewe celebrates his seventieth birthday, his life tells us several important things. First, that education comes in many forms and the kind taught in classrooms isn’t the only kind that matters. Second, that traditional knowledge, when mastered with excellence, commands respect and reward even in modern Nigeria. Third, knowing where you come from helps you understand who you are in the present.

Baba Ajobiewe’s seven-decade mission to preserve and promote oriki offers us all a challenge: What are we doing to protect our cultural heritage? What are we teaching our children about where they come from? In a Nigeria where identity questions spark conflicts and where many feel rootless in rapidly changing cities, perhaps the answer has been there all along, encoded in rhythmic verse of our Oriki, waiting for us to remember.