By 'Gbenga Bankole
A first class traditional ruler in Ekiti State, the Obalufon Alayemore, the Alaaye of Efon Alaaye, Oba (Dr.) Emmanuel Adesanya Aladejare, Agunsoye II has explained how his grandfather surrender his magical power to Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola.
The Monarch explained this recently in an interview with The Nation.
He explained that; "Apostle Babalola came to Efon when Agunsoye I, my grandfather, was the Alaaye and when they started the crusade at Ilesa, message got to my father on the throne, Agunsoye I. My father invited Babalola due to the miraculous work God used him to do. So Babalola came here, he came to Efon and when he came, there was a storey building there, that was the first story building in Efon which was built by my father. So, my father now decided to house him there and that was where they were doing the prayer vigils and so on and so forth.
"Prior to that time, my grandfather had the power to turn to a lion, to turn to an elephant and so on and so forth. But he decided to be baptised and he surrendered all the magical powers he had; he was baptised and given the name Solomon. He encouraged other members of the community who had such powers also to surrender them and these were burnt. That’s why today you will find so many churches in this town and Baba prayed for Efon Alaaye and we believed that part of the prayers Baba said is coming to pass.
"When you look at the topography of Efon, it was through the grace of God and the industry of our people that we are able to reach the level of development we have now. Ordinarily when you have a topography that is on the hill and then when you now look at the location of Efon within Ekiti State, you will see that we are in a corner.
"So we are not really in a position to compete with others for particular amenities. For example, when we were fighting for the creation of Ekiti State, it will be an illusion or a wishful thinking for me to say I want to be capital. When the agitation for the capital (among the big towns) was to scatter the project, I was the one who saved the day when I said all right, we have to look at centrality and what happened at the end of it was why everybody wanted the capital was because they were thinking of what benefit they will derive. And I told them that we had prepared a blueprint for the development of the state when it was created and that as far as that is concerned, we must use what we called even spread of amenities. That was the argument I advanced on that day to really save the day; that was why we have Ekiti State today. I did not ask for the state capital because I know what is right, I know what is wrong, so there was no point pressing for what you cannot attain because of the location."