There is increasing friction between two paramount traditional rulers of Yorubaland and if not quickly handled with care, it could degenerate into something unimaginable.
On Monday, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade, ordered the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, to, within 48 hours, revoke a chieftaincy title conferred on a businessman, Mr Dotun Sanusi.
But the Ooni, in a post by his media aide, Mr Moses Olafare, on Facebook, said he would not dignify the Alaafin with a response.
“My principal has directed me against issuing a press release on the empty threat of the Alawada Babasala. I beg to disappoint you, gentlemen of the press. We can not dignify the undignifyable with an official response. We leave the matter to be handled in the public court of opinion, as it is already being treated,” Mr Olafare wrote on Tuesday.
“Let’s rather focus on narratives that unite us rather than the ones capable of dividing us,” he added.
Oba Owoade had said the decision of Ooni to name the Ibadan-based businessman as the Okanlomo of Yorubaland was an affront to his authority.
“The conferment of chieftaincy title, which bothers on Yorubaland by the Ooni of Ife, is not only an affront to the referred institution of the Alaafin, who is the Titan of Yorubaland and on who holds the exclusive right to confer any chieftaincy title which covers the entire Yorubaland on anyone,” the monarch’s Director of Media and Publicity, Mr Bode Durojaiye, wrote in a statement.
“The Ooni of Ife is behaving as if there is no authority to check and call him to order, and because of that ‘above the law’ syndrome of his. He is in the habit of walking on everybody’s back, including the apex court in the country, the Supreme Court, which had ruled on the exclusive preserve of the Alaafin to confer chieftaincy title that covers the entire Yorubaland on anyone.”
Mr Durojaiye said that the Ooni’s traditional authority is limited to the Oranmiyan Local Government Area, which has now been split into three local governments, viz: Ife Central, Ife North, and Ife South in Ondo State.
“The dictum that nobody is above the law of the land is now being put to a crucial test and the reality of our time makes it very obligatory for the Alaafin to call the Ooni of Ife to order and demand REVOCATION of the so- called OKANLOMO of Yorubaland chieftaincy title conferred on Engineer Dotun Sanusi WITHIN 48 HOURS or face the consequences,” he said.
“The dictum that nobody is above the law of the land is now being put to a crucial test and the reality of our time makes it very obligatory for the Alaafin to call the Ooni of Ife to order and demand REVOCATION of the so-called OKANLOMO of Yorubaland chieftaincy title conferred on Engineer Dotun Sanusi WITHIN 48 HOURS or face the consequences,” the statement read in part.