By Segun Olatunji
Royal social media beef is fast going out of hand, and it’s time for a serious intervention.
Despite the fact that contemporary Nigerian landscape is replete with existential crises – economic volatility, infrastructure deficits and systemic inflation, if you have spent any time on Nigerian Facebook, Twitter or TikTok lately, you are likely to have stumbled on the absolute circus that is the ongoing royal proxy war. In one corner, we have the Ọọni of Ile-Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, minding his own business, hosting ancient cultural festivals, oblivious to the ranting, blissfully unaware of the strident yelling and incessant complaints. In the other corner is a virulent, vituperative and aggressively loud army of keyboard mercenaries allegedly fighting on behalf of the Oba of Benin (Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Ewuare II) and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Akeem Owoade, respectively.
A highly coordinated, aggressively vocal network of digital mercenaries – allegedly operating under the tacit or explicit patronage of both reverred monarchs – has transformed the internet into an ideological battleground.
The primary target? The Ọọni of Ile-Ife. The objective? To wage a relentless, unprovoked proxy war of historical revisionism and aesthetic gatekeeping against the ancient Ife throne. The weapon of choice? Aggressive historical revisionism and fabrications, dark lies, unprovoked insults and premium digital trenches behaviour.
To be entirely honest, this senseless proxy war needs to stop! The Oba of Benin and the Alaafin of Oyo need to immediately recall their alleged social media attack dogs because these bloggers are not defending royal honour. Rather, they are dragging centuries-old crowns through the mud of internet comment sections and bringing pure embarrassment to the two respected thrones.
While these internet mercenaries believe they are executing a masterful defence of royal prestige, the analytical reality is entirely contradictory. This digital offensive does not project power; it broadcasts profound institutional insecurity. The Oba of Benin and the Alaafin of Oyo must immediately order a cessation of hostilities, if only to save their crowns from the agonising second-hand embarrassments generated by their own alleged social media rats.
*Anatomy of the Virtual Social Media Royal Mercenaries*
In the pre-colonial era, monarchs dispatched emissaries, war generals and diplomats to assert hegemony. Sadly, in contemporary digital economy, palaces apparently rely on professional identity-theft enthusiasts, weed-induced and hallucinatory aggregators.
The funniest part of this entire online civil war is that the actual monarchs are not sitting in their palaces typing these unhinged rants. Instead, the heavy lifting is being done by this bizarre network of influencers, aggregators and professional sycophants!
Leading the charge are some intriguing cast of characters. At the forefront is one Adedayo Victor (Real name: Osazee Omoregbe) – the crown jewel of this digital circus and undisputed master of the digital masquerade. This is an Edo blogger operating under various heavy Yoruba aliases, desperately masquerading as “a son of the soil” just to throw stones at the Ọọni’s palace; using different Facebook accounts with fake Yoruba identities. He presents the fascinating psychological study of an Edo blogger hiding behind borrowed Yoruba pseudonyms just to grant a veneer of internal dissent to his anti-Ife diatribes. This digital identity crisis is peak comedy.
There’s also one Ezomo Kakadu, a hyper-aggressive commentator who treats historical debates like a wrestling match organised in a village square for prospective suitors competing for the hand of the only daughter of its traditional ruler in marriage. His analytical framework consists primarily of caps-lock outrage and treating medieval migration patterns like an ongoing sports rivalry.
There’s also the anonymous auxiliary grid, a cluster of algorithmic aggregators running dozens of auxiliary accounts with profile images of stolen 14th-century artifacts, tweeting with the grammatical stability of a broken rocking chair to mask a complete lack of modern rhetorical sophistication.
These internet mercenaries wake up every single day, log onto the internet, and unleash violence. They spend hours trying to prove whose ancestor was more important in the year 1300 AD. It is a masterclass in misplaced priorities by jobless folks.
The strategic failure here is glaring. When an Edo blogger must literally construct a fictional Yoruba persona just to give his anti-Ooni theories legal legs, the intellectual bankruptcy of the entire enterprise is exposed. It is the geopolitical equivalent of a spy infiltrating Aso Rock Presidential Villa while wearing a name tag shouting, “I’m definitely not a spy!”
*Comedy of the Edo-Yoruba Catfish*
Let’s examine the character of Osazee Omoregbe for a second. Imagine being so deeply committed to internet trolling that you change your digital identity from Osazee Omoregbe to “Adedayo Victor.” That is not just blogging; that is undercover espionage. Why the disguise, though? If the Benin historical narrative is so bulletproof, why do you need to wear Yoruba agbada and kembe to validate your arguments?
The crowns of Benin and Oyo are far too heavy and far too sacred to be worn by internet trolls looking for traffic and engagement revenue. Allow the Ọọni of Ile-Ife to build his estates and myriads of other business ventures in peace. Let Benin preserve its peerless artistic legacy without the stain of internet catfights as being instigated by the likes of Osazee Omoregbe and Ezomo Kakadu. Let Oyo rebuild and project its magnificent imperial history with dignity rather than hiring a non-indigene masquerading as Yoruba to fight its “cause” on social media. Let both crowns regain their dignity by logging off. The digital age requires a level of sophistication that your current crop of uninformed and ill-educated bloggers is utterly lacking
When “Adedayo Victor” types out a 4,000-word manifesto explaining why Ile-Ife is historically subordinate to Benin, everyone can see the Benin bronze fingerprints all over the keyboard. It is the digital equivalent of a spy wearing a fake mustache that keeps falling off into his “aha emu” (local cup made from calabash) while trying to gulp some palm wine.
This catfishing dynamic completely ruins the credibility of the argument. It makes the entire Benin support system look desperate, sneaky and profoundly obsessed with the Ọọni. If the palace of the Oba of Benin wanted to project an aura of supreme, unbothered majesty, having Osazee-turned-Adedayo throwing digital tantrums on Facebook is definitely not the right way to go.
To fully appreciate the absurdity of this ongoing digital war, one must analyse the stark divergence in operational focus between the palace of Ile-Ife and its vocal detractors in Benin and Oyo.
While the Ọọni of Ile-Ife, Oba Ogunwusi operates like a modern corporate executive – leveraging cultural capital into real estate, modern corporate business ventures, tech funding and international visibility – his royal peers’ online mercenaries operate like underemployed historians trapped in a temporal loop. They treat social media platforms designed for monetisation and network building as digital trenches to litigate who was senior to whom at the apogee of the defunct old Oyo and Benin ’empires’
The reality check: here is a hard truth for the Benin and Oyo bloggers: It is 2026, and nobody is checking for 14th-century hierarchy when paying rent and children’s school fees.
The average Nigerian is currently battling hyper-inflation, trying to figure out electricity tariffs, or looking for a visa to “japa” out of the country. Nobody—absolutely nobody outside of these specific Facebook echo chambers—cares about who gave birth to whom between Oduduwa and Oranmiyan.
From a public relations perspective, the fundamental flaw of this cyber-campaign is that it violates the first rule of sovereign majesty. True supremacy is quiet.
When the Benin and Oyo online mercenaries launch daily, systematic attacks against the Ọọni, they’re not diminishing his status; they’re centering him as the focal point of their entire existence, making him the cynosure of all eyes across the world. The constant barrage of insults regarding his modern style, his public accessibility and his cultural initiatives reveals an underlying anxiety. It signals to the public that the palaces of Benin and Oyo are deeply, pathologically bothered by House of Oduduwa’s ability to dominate the contemporary media narrative.
When characters like Ezomo Kakadu and his cohorts start screaming into the void about who has the “original” crown, they look like people who have completely lost touch with reality, runaway patients from Yaba Left and Aro. The Ọọni of Ife is busy launching real estate projects, partnering with international tech hubs, and maintaining a highly visible, modern public relations machine. Whether you like his style or not, he understands the modern corporate world.
By allowing characters like Osazee Omoregbe (always masquerading as Adedayo Victor) and Ezomo Kakadu to position themselves as the frontline defenders of the Oyo and Benin thrones, the monarchs have effectively outsourced their institutional branding to internet trolls and social media mercenaries. Consequently, these ancient and sacred dynasties are being reduced to mere content fodder for gossip blogs chasing engagement metrics.
There’s no doubt that the bloggers defending Benin, in particular, are stuck in a time loop, acting like if they tweet hard enough, the British will return the remaining stolen bronzes out of sheer intimidation. It’s funny they and their Oyo cohorts are fighting ancient battles on a medium designed for dance trends and cat videos. It’s exhausting, and frankly, it makes both thrones look incredibly petty.
*Edo and Oyo Bloggers Actually Humiliating Their Own Kings*
The supreme irony of this entire situation is that these bloggers believe they are doing a public service. They think they are the vanguard of royal prestige. In reality, they are doing the exact opposite. They are attracting and bringing deep insults and public shame to the exact institutions they claim to protect.
When a blogger under the banner of the Benin Kingdom or Oyo Kingdom spends all day insulting the Ọọni of Ile-Ife, it doesn’t make the Oba of Benin or the Alaafin of Oyo look powerful. In actual fact, it makes them look insecure. It signals to the world that both palaces are deeply bothered by whatever is happening in the House of Oduduwa.
True royalty does not send internet trolls to fight its battles. True royalty does not care about Facebook likes or Twitter engagement metrics. By allowing these ill-educated and shameless bloggers to claim they speak for the palaces, the Oyo and Benin institutions are letting internet trolls define their brand. And right now, that brand is bitter, backward-looking and obsessed with social media drama.
Benin and Oyo ancestors didn’t build empires so their 21st-century descendants could look ridiculous in the social media comment section. The historical superiority of a throne cannot be validated by lie-filled viral Facebook posts, TikTok edit or an anonymous X tweet.
*A Polite Call to Order for the Royal Palaces*
Your Royal Majesties, Omo N’Oba N’Edo and the Alaafin of Oyo, it is time to clear the courtyards. It is time to issue royal decrees telling these digital sycophants and mercenaries to stand down. It’s time Your Majesties issued an absolute, unconditional digital ceasefire by enforcing corporate dissociation. The two palaces must publicly declare that these independent bloggers do not possess the royal mandates to speak on historical matters. Your Majesties must also take urgent steps to de-escalate the catfishing by Osazee Omoregbe by compelling him to retire his notorious fake “Adedayo Victor” persona, step out of the Yoruba cultural wardrobe and apply his energy to something more economically viable. Fake Adedayo Victor must be told to reclaim his government name, embrace his inner Osazee, and find a more productive hobby — perhaps pottery or joining the Igun Street guild in Benin to learn the art of bronze-casting.
Your Majesties must also elevate the Discourse. If history must be debated, it should occur within peer-reviewed academic journals, not under the comment sections of social media platforms inspired by the beer parlour stories, fabrications and peppersoup joint tales told as “Edo and Oyo histories” in somewhat idiotic and imbecilitic manners in drinking joints across Benin City and Oyo town.
Your Royal Majesties in Benin and Oyo, recall your social media hirelings and mercenaries. The Ọọni of Ife is not going to stop being the Ọọni, the Arole Oduduwa, because Osazee Omoregbe made an angry TikTok video based on his usual pathological, dark lies and fabrications. The Ọọni will continue to host ancient festivals, build modern housing estates, establish corporate business empires and attract media spotlight, regardless of how many angry manifestos are written by bloggers like Omoregbe and Ezomo Kakadu. The historical debates will never be settled by people who use the word “fraudster” in every third sentence. All this fighting does is reduce grand, sacred African institutions into cheap content for jobless bloggers hungry for clicks.
The crowns of Benin and Oyo are far too heavy and far too sacred to be worn by internet trolls looking for traffic and engagement revenue. Allow the Ọọni of Ile-Ife to build his estates and myriads of other business ventures in peace. Let Benin preserve its peerless artistic legacy without the stain of internet catfights as being instigated by the likes of Osazee Omoregbe and Ezomo Kakadu. Let Oyo rebuild and project its magnificent imperial history with dignity rather than hiring a non-indigene masquerading as Yoruba to fight its “cause” on social media. Let both crowns regain their dignity by logging off. The digital age requires a level of sophistication that your current crop of uninformed and ill-educated bloggers is utterly lacking.
Log off, your Majesties! Tell your boys, too, to log off. The internet is tired, and quite frankly, the ancestors are embarrassed.
. Olatunji, a Journalist, Political/Crisis Communication Strategist, writes from Akure, Ondo State
