I’m starting this column this week on a joyful note. Why? Yours sincerely was in London last week during which I visited Funmi, the mother of triplets.

My compliments to Remi Oyeyemi. His comments on the recent controversy raised by the classification of Yoruba rulers, made by the Alake of Abeokuta – or Egbaland? – were rather illuminating. He outlined the cause of the different versions of the history of the Yoruba that were offered by those whom he described –perhaps not too charitably – as “every Jick and Jack”. But he also conceded that most people are moved by “patriotism and the love of their immediate source of origin; just wanting to project pride in their own roots.

About a month before, I decided not to celebrate my 50th birthday for some reasons; I just wanted it to pass by like a beautiful yacht at night: unnoticed, and I made this very clear to my wife severally. She never argued. While I felt she was sensitive to my feelings, I also decided to be on my guard just in case she decided to be “mischievous.”

How would anyone expect that, in rural communities where cows are not deities, herds of cattle can march through and destroy farmlands and be spared? And how can anyone parade hundreds of cattle through a Nigeria filled with armed robbers and yet consider cattle rustling as such a crime which unfortunate local inhabitants must pay for with their blood? Human lives are worthless where every other thing is exorbitantly priced . You need not wonder, there is a death penalty for murder but mass murderers are rarely apprehended.

I am told that Ovuodoroye translates roughly to mean ‘everyman with his own greatness’ in Urhobo language. If that is so, then Olorogun Felix Ibru who passed on last week certainly lived up to his name. Ovuodoroye is the native and middle name in Olorogun Felix O. Ibru.