Bashorun gaaa history

A Brief History Of Bashorun Gaa

A good Yoruba man, the story of Bashorun Gaa of the old Oyo Kingdom is not new; for the sake of those that are not familiar with the story, I shall briefly tell it.

Bashorun Gaa of sad memory was the head of ‘Oyomesi’, the legislative arm of the kingdom, but he was so extra-ordinarily powerful with supernatural powers of fetish. History has it that Gaa had the power to change from human-being to any wild animal of his choice.

Intoxicated with awesome power, Gaa was removing and installing kings at will. He would reel out orders side by side with the king and any king that wanted to assert his authority would be dealt with by Gaa’s Army.

There was a time a king in Oyo was said to have beheaded his father-in-law for the ‘mouth diarrhoea’ committed by his daughter, the wife of the tyrant king. Cashing in on the wrongdoing, Gaa, in conjunction with other kingmakers, forced the monarch to the evil forest to embark on the journey of no return. In order to appease Gaa, the new king thereafter gave his precious daughter in marriage to Gaa, but when Gaa was in need of an animal called ‘Agbonrin’ (deer) and he couldn’t’ find one on time, he ordered that the daughter of a king who bore the similar name, Agbonrin be slaughtered instead, and that climaxed his atrocities.

A petition in form of a plea was filed by Alaafin, the great king before the powerful Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) known as ‘Generalismo’ Aare Ona Kakanfo. There was a civil strife between the two powerful men, but Gaa caved in by decoy. He changed to an inanimate object in a bid to escape the wrath of the people he had traumatised.

THE CRUSHING OF GAA AND THE OLD SYSTEM

Aare Onakankanfo through his mystical power, uncovered the decoy, reverted Gaa back to a human being and disarmed him completely. The Generalissimo handed Gaa back to Alaafin for appropriate sanction and the king who was still bitter about the misconduct and abuse of office and power of Gaa,