Chieftaincy Dispute: Supreme Court Didn’t Make Alaafin Sole Custodian Of Yoruba Heritage, Lawyer Backs Ooni

Abuja-based lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi, has stated that no judgement of the Supreme Court makes the stool of the Alaafin of Oyo the ultimate decider on pan-Yoruba affairs.

LEADERSHIP reports that the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade, have sparked intense debate on social media following the Ooni’s recent conferment of the Okanlomo Oodua chieftaincy title on Ibadan business magnate, Engineer Dotun Sanusi. Although the title was erroneously reported as ‘Okanlomo of Yorubaland’.

Viewing the gesture as a challenge to his authority on Monday, the Alaafin issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Ooni to withdraw the title or face dire consequences.

However, in a statement posted on his Facebook handle on Tuesday, the Osun State-born lawyer described the Alaafin’s threat as wholly gratuitous and constitutionally unsound.

According to him, “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.”

Olajengbesi noted that as a lawyer who has litigated disputes around chieftaincy law, he could affirm that no statute, Supreme Court judgement, or constitutional instrument vests exclusive pan-Yoruba jurisdiction in the Alaafin of Oyo.

“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.