Ooni vs Alaafin: Lawyer challenges Alaafin’s claim, says Supreme Court never bestowed supremacy rights on him
Pelumi Olajengbesi, an Abuja-based lawyer, has asserted that no Supreme Court judgment makes the Alaafin of Oyo’s throne the ultimate decision-maker on pan-Yoruba affairs.
Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the Ooni of Ife, and Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade, the Alaafin of Oyo, have ignited a heated discussion on social media after the former recently bestowed the Okanlomo of Yorubaland chieftaincy title on Engineer Dotun Sanusi, a prominent Ibadan businessman.
The Oyo paramount ruler, who saw the move as an affront to his authority, gave the Ooni a 48-hour ultimatum to revoke the chieftaincy title or face severe consequences.
Moses Olafare, spokesperson for the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, had earlier provided insight into the monarch’s decision to refrain from responding to the 48-hour ultimatum issued by the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade, concerning the title conferred upon a prominent Ibadan-based business mogul, Dotun Sanusi. Olafare revealed in a Facebook post on Tuesday that Oba Ogunwusi had instructed him to disregard the revered Oyo monarch. According to Olafare, the Ooni will not dignify what he termed “undignifyable” with an official response, instead leaving the matter to the public court of opinion
But in a statement posted on his Facebook page on Tuesday, the Abuja lawyer described the Alaafin’s threat as wholly gratuitous and constitutionally unsound.
He argued that “beyond its surface provocation, the Alaafin’s order constitutes an impermissible assault on the very foundation of Yoruba heritage and seeks to revive a jurisdictional contest which neither law nor history sustains.”
“The Ooni of Ife acted squarely within his lawful, ancestral, and cultural prerogatives. These prerogatives are sui generis, inherent, and incapable of usurpation by any other stool. They are not the product of conquest or temporal power but derive from the very normative foundation of Yoruba civilization,” Olajengbesi said.
“Every student of Yoruba history knows tradition and scholarship unanimously affirm Ile-Ife as the cradle of existence of the Yoruba people, the primordial seat where Oduduwa, progenitor of the race, laid the foundation of legitimacy from which all kingdoms, including Oyo, derived their authority.”
He stressed that as a lawyer who has litigated disputes around chieftaincy law, he could affirm that no statute, Supreme Court judgment, or constitutional instrument vests exclusive pan-Yoruba jurisdiction in the Alaafin.
“The law recognises traditional rulers through state chieftaincy statutes, not residual claims of imperial conquest.
“With the greatest respect, the oft-cited Supreme Court decision that is now exaggerated and purportedly vested authority in the Alaafin must be properly confined to its facts. Judicial pronouncements are case-specific, and no ratio decidendi of that Court has ever declared the Alaafin the sole custodian of Yoruba legitimacy. No statute in any Yoruba-speaking state vests exclusive authority in the Alaafin to confer titles of pan-Yoruba significance, and the Court cannot by judicial fiat extend such jurisdiction,” the lawyer stated.
“The conferment of the title Okanlomo of Oodua on Chief Dotun Sanusi, a distinguished Yoruba entrepreneur and philanthropist, is not a political office or military command. It is a cultural honour, symbolic of fraternity and solidarity. Such honours fall well within the Ooni’s remit as custodian of Yoruba identity,” he added.
Credit: The Punch
