Best Man for The Job: Oba Obateru

Best Man for The Job: Oba Obateru

Akinruntan Becomes Chairman, Council of Obas
The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is a monarchy. It is impossible to have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must, therefore, pass to the heir instantaneously. Even in the age of the democratic system, Kings are still seen as important in society.
Councils are created for Kings, and one of them is chosen to be the head.

Just as ordinary patients would be in a quandary were the doctors in charge of their health to be in disagreement. In the same vein, if a ruckus emerges among kings, what’s to be done by their collective subjects? Fortunately, no such tiff is going to happen among the council of respected Yoruba Obas.
No thanks to his glowing reputation and status as an embodiment of cultural and kingly virtues, His Royal Highness, Frederick Obateru Akinrutan emerged as the undisputed choice.

A few days ago, Oba Obateru Akinruntan emerged as the new Chairman of the Council of Obas in Ondo State. Everyone is pleased about his victory. His wealth of experience will make him the most successful Chairman that has ever been nominated. Until 2009 when he ascended the throne of Olugbo Kingdom, he was regarded as a successful businessman. He is an oil magnate and founder of Obat Oil, one of Nigeria’s largest and leading privately-held oil companies.
Oba Obateru Akinruntan, the traditional ruler of the Ugbo Kingdom, a town in Ilaje Local Government is married with children. In 1981, Obateru established Obat Oil.

Today, across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, the company has more than 50 gas stations. Obat oil owns one of the largest tank farms in Africa, a modern storage facility able to store 65 million litres of petroleum products.
Oba Obateru loves his kingdom. His reasons are valid for doing so. The Ugbo-Ilaje, a sub-ethnic group of the larger Yoruba culture who presently occupy the country’s western coastline of the Atlantic ocean with fishing as the mainstay of their economic activities, have been confirmed by various historical sources and through living traditions to be the original inhabitants of Ile-Ife who had been living in the ancient community centuries before the arrival of Oduduwa and his people from the East.

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