When the drama surrounding the death of Oba Sijuade started, it was a real thriller with many denials and allegations making the waves.
But, controversy has always surrounded the monarch and did not just start with his death. A look down history lane would actually reveal that during his lifetime Ooni had always been a controversial man. Though good natured, he had a fair share of disputes, notably with fellow traditional rulers including the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Adeyemi, the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona and even the Ogunsua of Modakeke in his local domain, with whose people he fought years of bloody war.
Supremacy battle with Alaafin
When Sijuwade became Ooni of Ife in December 1980, he inherited a dispute over supremacy among the Obas of Yorubaland. In 1967, a crisis had been resolved when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was chosen as the leader of the Yoruba. In 1976, the Governor of old Oyo State, General David Jemibewon (retd), had decreed that the Ooni of Ife would be the permanent chairman of the State Council of Obas and Chiefs. Other Obas led by the Alaafin said the position should rotate. The dispute calmed when Osun State was carved out of Oyo State in August 1991, but the ill will persisted.
In January 2009, Sijuwade was quoted as saying that Oba Adeyemi was ruling a dead empire (the Oyo Empire, which collapsed in 1793). Adeyemi responded by citing “absurdities” in Sijuwade’s statements and saying the Ooni “is not in tune with his own history”.
Alaafin: “Anybody who does not know his ancestral roots, who does not strive to learn about it and does not learn from those who know will continue to make mistakes and flounder in ignorance. That is part of Ooni’s inadequacies.”
He was not done: “Where is the foundation of Yoruba Language? Oyo State is where the language started. Why are the Modakeke people, not speaking Ife language, and Modakeke is just a stone throw from Ife, why?”
The Alaafin said the Ooni rubbished the Oyo kingdom in 2009 but in 2010 claimed Oranmiyan as his lineage ancestor. “How is it possible to call someone you deny your father?” Alaafin quipped.
Oba Adeyemi, who is currently the Permanent Chairman of the Oyo State Council of Obas and Chiefs, was conspicuously absent from a meeting of Yoruba leaders in April 2010.
In fact, it was believed that one of the chief reasons Osun State was created out of the old Oyo was to resolve the supremacy battle between Alaafin and Ooni. Both monarchs were very powerful as at then and their conflict was escalating and causing conflict amongst Yoruba Obas dividing them into factions, that it became necessary to ensure that the two of them no longer belonged to same state. Each became the chairman of his respective Council of Obas and the dispute abated, but only a little.
Ooni also courted the enmity of the late Olubadan, Oba Daniel Akinbiyi, during the Oyo State Council
of Obas meeting, when he claimed that the location of Ibadan belonged to the Egba people. Olubadan did not take this assertion lightly as he asked the Ooni to name and explain how Ibadan belonged to Egba. It was a huge slap on the face of the Alaafin as the accusation reduced them to being subjects of Egba. Oba Akinbiyi declared that the Ibadans installed two Oonis in the long time when Ibadan was the supreme military lord of Ife.
Towards the end of 2009, a more local dispute between the Ooni, the Awujale of Ijebuland and the Alake of Egbaland was finally resolved. Sijuwade traced the dispute back to a falling out between Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola in the Nigerian First Republic, which had led to a division between the traditional rulers. He noted that the traditional rulers were an important unifying force in the country during the illness of President Umaru Yar’Adua.
In February 2009, Sijuwade helped mediate in a dispute over land ownership between the communities of Ife and Modakeke, resolved in part through the elevation of the Ogunsua of Modakeke as an Oba. The new Oba, Francis Adedoyin, would be under the headship of Ooni.
Culled from The Sun
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