The Olugbon of Orile-Igbon, Oba Francis Alao, has assured Seyi Makinde that members of the Oyo State Council of Obas and Chiefs will give full support to its newly inaugurated chairman, Rashidi Ladoja.
Alao gave the assurance in a statement released in Ibadan on Sunday, following the governor’s visit to his palace in Orile-Igbon, Surulere Local Government Area, on Friday.
He thanked Makinde for the visit and declared that council members across the five zones of the state, Ibadan, Oyo, Ogbomoso, Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa, were solidly behind the new leadership.
Governor Makinde had on Thursday inaugurated the council after a 15-year hiatus, with Oba Ladoja, the Olubadan of Ibadan, emerging as its first chairman.
However, the Alaafin of Oyo, Abimbola Akeem Owoade, was conspicuously absent from the inauguration held at the House of Chiefs, Parliament Building, Secretariat, Ibadan.
Makinde had explained that the chairmanship of the council would be rotated among the Olubadan, the Alaafin and the Soun of Ogbomoso, adding that the arrangement was agreed at a meeting with the three first-class monarchs.
But a statement issued by the Alaafin’s media aide, Bode Durojaye, faulted the governor’s claim, insisting that no such meeting took place.
“The palace hereby wants to state clearly that there was no time that His Imperial Majesty, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Engineer Abimbola Akeem Owoade I, held any meeting with either the state governor or any of the two traditional rulers mentioned above,” the statement read.
Addressing Makinde during the palace visit, the Olugbon, who is also the deputy chairman of the council, reaffirmed the unity of the traditional institution.
He said, “Your Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde, we appreciate you for coming here. The government has done what is needful on the state Council of Obas and Chiefs. We are in support of the decision.
“The council has now been re-inaugurated, and we have a new chairman in the person of His Excellency, Oba Rashidi Ladoja, the Olubadan of Ibadan. I want to assure Your Excellency that we are all one in the council.
“We are united across the five zones, Ogbomoso, Ibadan, Oyo, Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa. People can say things, but we are members of one united family.”
Alao also urged traditional rulers to embrace contemporary realities, stressing that empires had given way to new governance structures worldwide.
He said, “The world is not static but dynamic in nature. In the past centuries, there were Roman, French and British empires. But today, global power has shifted.
“The system we operate in Nigeria is not monarchy. I implore all traditional rulers to cooperate with the government of the day. There is no perfection in government decisions; what we need is deeper understanding to entrench good governance, security and peaceful coexistence.”
Other traditional rulers who accompanied the Olugbon were the Aresapa of Iresa-Pupa, Aranyin of Iranyin, Olujado of Ijado, and Iba Abogunde Tajudeen Aminullahi.