It is a testament to both their charisma and the wonder they project when you come upon them in private or public places that His Royal Highness, Oba Adedapo Tejuosho, Osile of Oke-Ona, Abeokuta’s wives inspire your awe and admiration.
The trio comprising Olori (Queen) Omolara, Yetunde and Olabisi, continually parade themselves with irreproachable seemliness, honor and élan emblematic of their husband’s high traditional office and crown. Watching the trio from a distance exerts a wondrous reaction from the looker.
Meeting them in person is even more intriguing and educative than meeting many other high society socialites.
When you see the Tejuoso queens in person, all the deep-seated warnings and punditry about the perils of polygamy and how it ruins the lives of almost every individual involved in it begin to dissipate like margarine in the Saharan sun.
The Tejuoso queens effortlessly repudiate every negative and widespread notion of polygamy, remoulding thoughts and re-enlightening minds to reconsider long-held notions about polygamy. You could be forgiven for thinking that the three queens of the Ogun State monarch are blood sisters. And that is because they indeed, carry on like siblings.
They attend every high profile social occasion dressed in similar and very expensive attires and jewelry. Like identical triplets, they mingle and groove with unparalleled earthiness and poise which gives you the feeling that you are in the presence of royalty and at once an unusual trio amidst the hordes of Nigeria’s super upper class.
But as a sociopolitical phenomenon, they are a three-for-one package, members of a joint matrimony and sisterhood that continually dispels the threat of rancor even as they share the same bed.
Other questions bordering on whether their public display of love and unity is a performance, a mere ruse, are promptly dismissed by an answer that they unity and affection they display publicly doesn’t amount to a quarter of the love and harmony by which they relate at home.
Left to the three, they are all the King’s favourite as Oba Tejuoso exhibits no preference for one Olori over the others. Theirs is, by all accounts, one of those complementary marriages in which not the two parts but four parts come together to form an even stronger bond as a whole.
Family is very important to the queens, and they absolutely rely on each other to create that stable home life. Subsequently, they have become such a normal, close-knit family, it’s almost abnormal.