Supremacy contest: Yoruba obas missing the point

ODUDUWA’S Royal House is on trial again. Its age-old feuding is resuming in earnest after a hiatus of about two decades. It is in the Yoruba nation’s interests that the sleeping dogs must remain permanently in that state.

Since his enthronement in April 2025, the Alaafin of Oyo, Akeem Owoade I, has been engaging in supremacy stunts, ostensibly to assert himself as the supreme oba in Yorubaland and denigrating his colleagues in the process.

The revered monarch must remember: Royalty is a creation of the culture, particularly the law and must subsume itself under constitutional authority. Nigeria became a republic in 1963; the days of monarchical authority and the once far-flung Oyo Empire are long gone.

Even if reverence for traditional stools remains, it is for the preservation of culture, itself buckling under modernisation.

Owoade’s most recent grouse manifested in his refusal to recognise the rotational chairmanship of the Oyo State Council of Obas and Chiefs among the three frontline Oyo State obas.

The council was instituted by Governor Seyi Makinde, but the Alaafin boycotted the inauguration of the Olubadan of Ibadan, Rashidi Ladoja, on 15 January in the state capital as chairman.

While inaugurating the Olubadan, Makinde explained that the rotation option was adopted after due consultations with the Alaafin, the Olubadan and the Soun of Ogbomoso, Gandhi Olaoye.

The agreement provides that the chairmanship be rotated among the trio for a two-year term each, beginning with the Olubadan.

For a state where the Council of Obas and Chiefs has not functioned for 15 years over members’ disagreement over the adoption of a permanent or rotational chairmanship arrangement, this was, to all intents and purposes, supposed to be a big relief. But Owoade would not tolerate that.

The Alaafin denied ever holding a meeting with the governor or either of the two frontline obas. Between this affirmation and denial, the truth is hiding somewhere.

There have been attempts to fuel the rancour on social media. A viral video clip depicted the Alaafin and the Olubadan “snubbing” each other at a public event. Ladoja denies any rift with the Oyo monarch.

In August, five months after ascending the throne, Owoade berated the Ooni of Ife, Enitan Ogunwusi, for installing business mogul Dotun Sanusi as the Okanlomo of Yorubaland, insisting that the Ooni does not have such powers.

The Ooni said he would not dignify Alaafin “with a response but would rather leave the matter in the public court of public opinion as it is already being handled.”

The beef has political and perhaps pecuniary undertones. Shortly after the Ooni installed President Bola Tinubu’s wife, Remi, as the Yeye Gbogbo Ile Oodua on 7 December, the Alaafin installed the President’s son, Seyi, as the Okanlomo of Yorubaland on 17 December.

The supremacy war among Yoruba obas has generated needless rancour among the traditional rulers in the past. It was first between the Alaafin and the Ooni in the Western Region, and later among the obas in the South-West after the region was atomised into six states.

The creation of Osun out of the old Oyo, which saw the Ooni belonging to Osun and Alaafin to Oyo, de-escalated the Alaafin-Ooni royal tension, but shifted it to other obas: the Alaafin versus the Olubadan and other frontline obas.

In Ondo and Osun, the chairmanship tussle has been resolved by rotation among the frontline traditional rulers.

But not for Oyo State. The Alaafin and some of his subjects insist on a permanent chairmanship, while the other frontline obas, the Olubadan, the Soun and others hold on to the rotational option.

In 2007, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala made Lamidi Adeyemi III the permanent chairman of the council. Akala, citing the law, prompted the state assembly to reverse the decision while leaving the office in May 2011. By implication, Makinde’s agreement with the three Obas is an affirmation of the extant law.

Alaafin’s choice of confrontation with constituted authority and denigration of fellow traditional rulers in Yoruba land is at variance with the ethos of the Yoruba culture.

Owoade’s needless battle is a classical reminder of Yoruba traditional rulers’ obsession with power at the expense of service to the people they are crowned to lead.

Such inclinations resulted in the downfall of many obas in the past, as history records.

The Yoruba are beset with myriad issues bordering on the economy, infrastructure and development, as well as threats to security that should consume the attention of their traditional leaders. Contest for supremacy is a distraction they can least afford.

History will record the obas’ contributions, but shall hardly, if ever, remember their contest for supremacy.

As the Olubadan and the Alaafin are feuding over supremacy, bandits and kidnappers are ravaging their territories. In January, suspected bandits killed five forest guards of the National Park Service Office in Oloka in Oriire LGA of Oyo State.

The six states of the South-West, the home of the Yoruba, are under siege. The Yoruba people expect their monarchs to collaborate with the government and galvanise communities to solve the raging insecurity challenges, especially the influx of terrorists into the region.

Engaging in supremacy contests in a democratic government where obas, irrespective of their class and prominence, are creations of the law, paid salaries by respective local government chairmen and subject to removal by the state governor, amounts to holding tenaciously to the power they do not really have.

The traditional leaders should learn from the experience of their predecessors, some of whom were unceremoniously deposed by the government, including the Alaafin, Oba Adeniran Adeyemi II; the Olowo of Owo, Olateru Olagbegi II; the Deji of Akure, Oluwadare Adesina Osupa III; the Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki and the current Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi II, before his eventual reinstatement.

The obas should realise that the Yoruba people have a shared heritage that should be protected and nurtured to further their interests within the polity.

This needless rivalry further diminishes an otherwise sacred institution. It must end.