Rọ́nkẹ́ “Mama Owambe”

Rọ́nkẹ́ organised her first hatch-day celebration uninvited, unfunded, and so successfully that the Presidency simply gave her the calendar rather than compete with it. She remembers every citizen's hatch-day, every anniversary of an arrival, and every feud in need of a bench, and she deploys grain and good timing the way Security deploys the roll call. Elder Yèyé Àlàbá, who kept the social advisory going for years, handed over with visible relief and no small pride.

As Minister she made the Reconciliation Bench national policy: quarrelling parties sit in the shade until they have shared at least one handful of grain, and the success rate embarrasses the courts. The First Grain Festival and the Feather Gala are hers, run to the minute and remembered for a season. One flock, many feathers, she says, and she has a seat for every one of them.