Kayode Fasua
The Oba-elect of Ikeja, Alhaji Samsondeen Adeleye, at the weekend, expressed worry that four years after his selection by the community’s kingmakers, the state government is yet to install him.
Addressing journalists in his Ipodo, Ikeja home, Adeleye said, “Based on overwhelming evidence before the state government that all the five members of the Body of Kingmakers in the community sent my name to the Ikeja Local Government as Oba-elect in December 2014, I wonder why, four years on, nothing has been done about it.”
The kingmakers were at the period headed by a former deputy governor of Lagos State, the late Alhaji Rafiu Jafojo.
Lamenting the scenario, Adeleye said, “I personally appeal to the state governor, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode, to take the bull by the horn and act out his conscience on this matter, by calling for all the files relating to Obaship position in Ikeja and see if I have not said the truth.
“This is particularly so because a Yoruba adage says, ‘If you stay for too long on expended feaces, you will be assailed by different species of houseflies’.
“In the last four years, detractors, once they observe that nothing is being done on what the community’s kingmakers had long concluded, have started raising other people to show interest in becoming the Oba of Ikeja.”
This scenario, according to him, resulted in a recent move by some people for a new selection process, “in which the Ifa oracle will be consulted again, for the third time, if I’m the right choice for the throne.”
“After all, when the process began in 2014, the Ifa oracle spoke in my favour, both here in Lagos and later in Ile-Ife (Osun State) which is the source of creation.”
He vowed that he would not be dismayed by any form of intimidation and attempts by certain moneybags in the community “to pervert the statement of the Ifa oracle and install their surrogate as Oba of Ikeja.”
Ikeja has been without a monarch since October 2014, following the passage of the Olu of Ikeja, Oba Rauf Matemi, Amore 1.
Meanwhile, prominent leaders in Ikeja also at the weekend appealed to the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the Ojaja 11, to promptly wade into the impasse created by the delay in the installation of a traditional ruler for the community.
The leaders, under the aegis of Gbobaniyi Royal Association of Ikejaland, said while it was clear that the appointment of an Oba in Ikeja is an entirely a Lagos State affair, it had become crucial to involve the Ooni, “being the custodian of customs and tradition in Yorubaland.”
In a petition to the Ile-Ife monarch, signed by its President, Chief Babatunde Alaran, and Secretary, Mr. Olugbenga Soremi, the elite group said the Ikeja kingmakers had since four years ago appointed a monarch for Ikeja but that some mischief-makers had refused to let the will of the kingmakers come to pass.
They urged the Ooni to rally other traditional rulers in Awori Land of Ogun and Lagos States and prevail on stakeholders to make way for the installation of an Oba in Ikeja.
Pleading for the intervention of the royal father, the Gbobaniyi Royal Association said Adeleye, the Oba-elect, had since completed all the traditional norms, scrutiny and rites needed to become the new Olu, which prompted the kingmakers to recommend him to the state government, through the local council, for installation.
“We humbly request your immediate intervention into the matter with the Lagos State Government, so as to halt raging but unnecessary insinuations, speculations and hearsay within the kingdom.”
