Ika was such a young student that he sat apart from the sixteen apostles of Ifá. He sacrificed a goat to Eshú and a ram to his Ifá — and Eshú convinced Orunmila that he was worthy: that is how he became one of the sixteen Olodù.
In heaven, Ika Meyi was called Ikere Iyansi and was a powerful Awó with many followers, but he was originally a very young student (odù) of Orunmila: he sat with the apprentices and not with the fifteen Olodù, the apostles of Ifá.
When he was getting ready to come to earth, he went to see a priest called Ukoro Gbagburu Wamu Awo Eji, who told him to sacrifice a goat to Eshú and a ram to his Ifá. Once the sacrifice was made, Eshú went before Orunmila and told him that Ikere Iyansi was skilled and experienced enough to be an Olodù — that the gray-haired students were below him.
Orunmila allowed him to leave the group of students and move up to the apostles: that is how Ika Meyi became one of the sixteen Olodù of Ifá. But when he reached the world he found that, because he was young in the line of Ifá, the other Olodù did not acknowledge him and paid little attention to what he said; he had money problems and had no wife and no children. His greatness would come later, by the road of generosity.