Yoruba Leaders Urge Alaafin, Ooni To End Dispute

Appeal has gone to the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade by the Yoruba Leaders of Thought (Egbe Ilosiwaju Yoruba) to put an immediate end to the recent misunderstanding between them.

The two traditional rulers reopened age-long rivalry between the two prominent Yoruba monarchs last week when the Alaafin faulted Ooni over his decision to confer a Yoruba-wide title on a businessman, Prince Dotun Sanusi.

The National Leader of the group, Prince Tajudeen Olusi called on Osun State Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke and his Oyo State counterpart, Engr Seyi Makinde to initiate an “immediate ceasefire between our revered royal fathers and their supporters”.

Olusi, in a statement titled: “Time to sheath the sword,” which was made available in Ado Ekiti on Sunday by the National Secretary, Bayo Aina, appealed to the South-West Council of Obas “to have a standing committee that will act to nip similar schism in the bud in future before they detract from the honour and awe that we hold our traditional rulers.

“If such protocols already exist, this channel should be utilised more in the future to prevent a repeat of this current embarrassment.”

He added that the group were distraught that at a time when every hand should be on deck to support and ensure unquestionable success of one of the most illustrious Yoruba leaders and son, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the President of Nigeria, “some of our foremost leaders at various levels are more or less fuelling this fire.”

They lamented the painful damage that the current distraction, characterised by the digging up of centuries-old accounts to ridicule or lionise one party or the other, is causing Yoruba people globally.

Olusi said, “Rather than using such narratives for the purpose of forging unity and a sense of pride among our people, narratives that can help us in fulfilling our manifest destiny as a leading group among the Black race, historical narratives have been weaponised into a tool to promote discord and resentment.”

Olusi decried as saddening that many of the leaders were taking sides in a narrative that has no capacity to transform the current struggles of the Yoruba people in Nigeria into a resounding victory over the existing technological and developmental gap between the nation and the rest of the world.