Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
In Orin-Ekiti, Ido-Osi Local Government of Ekiti State, things have fallen apart and the centre no longer holds. This is because as majority of the people, kingmakers and the women leaders have rejected a 1999 government gazette mandating the Ajibewa family to produce the new monarch to succeed the late Oba Oluwole Olubunmo.
The Ajibewa, the gazette insists, is third of the other two royal families, Olunbumo and Famokiti, who, according to the kingmakers, have for over 200 years been taking turns at having their candidates installed as successive monarchs. The state government therefore ordered the kingmakers, led by Chief Falua Francis Omodele, to nominate a candidate from the Ajibewa family to fill the vacant Olorin royal stool in line with the extant law as soon as possible.
The directive came through the Deputy Governor, Bisi Egbeyemi, at a meeting with the kingmakers and other community leaders held to solve the four-year-old chieftaincy impasse rocking the town. According to the Special Assistant (Media) to the deputy governor, Odunayo Ogunmola, government said the choice of the next king must be in line with the Olorin Chieftaincy Declaration, Gazette No 2. The gazette further stated that six kingmakers are eligible to nominate Olorin; of these six, three are deceased.
While the three living kingmakers claimed that the community has two ruling houses, Olubunmo and Famokiti, the Olorin Chieftaincy Gazette said there are three ruling houses, including the Ajibewa. Egbeyemi insisted: “Government is bound by the law which recognises Ajibewa as the third ruling house, no one can change it.”
He noted that only kingmakers could appoint a king but government would not allow anyone to violate the existing laws, hence the need to adhere strictly to the position of the Constitution on the matter. He said the law is above every individual and the position of law would be maintained to guide against disaffections across towns and villages.
Stressing that government has no interest in who becomes the next monarch, Egbeyemi warned: “Anybody who violates chieftaincy law in the state by presenting himself for kingship or conducting illegal installation and coronation risks going to jail. The gazette came into being 20 years ago, long before the Kayode Fayemi government.
But in a peaceful protest led by the kingmakers, community leaders and women leaders, the town rejected the dictates of the gazette insisting that the idea of a third royal family “is a fraudulent arrangement to usurp the leadership of the community.”
Falua who is head of the kingmakers, warned government to desist from supporting what he described as a coup against the traditional leadership of the community. He insisted that forcing a man from the family of Ajibewa as monarch on the people would cause serious communal clash, epidemic as well as a pandemonium capable of causing bloodshed and chaos in the town:
“For over 200 years now, we have been having men from only two families, Famokiti and Olubunmo becoming monarchs of this town. It has never ever been three. The two royal families were actually descendants of one man, Oba Olayisade who was the eighth paramount ruler of Orin-Ekiti.
“In 1978, before Justice Adeyinka Morgan, a ruling that confirmed that only the Famokiti and Olubunmo royal houses exist in the kingdom was given. It was documented on the Morgan Chieftaincy Review Commission and we as kingmakers have copies of this. As a. matter of fact, and by hierarchy of succession, the last Olorin was the 16th Olorin of Orin-Ekiti while the first Olorin was Apelua who came from Ile-Ife and was the founder of Orin-Ekiti.
“After the demise of the last Olorin, Oba Oluwole Olubunmo, the next ruling house whose turn is to produce candidate for Orin stool by history, native law and custom of Orin-Ekiti and guided by rotational policy is the Famokiti family.
“In 1978, before the Morgan commission, the Ajibewa family now claiming to have right to the Orin throne and parading itself as belonging to ldimehinsuwon ruling house failed woefully to convince the commission of its relevance, nexus and connection with the Olorin of Orin-Ekiti chieftaincy stool.
“They do not have any past record of any of their family members being a monarch in Orin, neither do they have any single royal paraphernalia to show as evidence of belonging to a ruling house. The only thing we know about them in history is that they belong to the family of the Aworo Ero. Ero is one of the deities of our people. So the family of Ajibewa actually belongs to the Aworo Ero who are priests of Ero deity whose duty to our kingdom is to serve as mediator between the Ero deity and the people of Orin-Ekiti.
“However, we also know of a time, their forbears once pleaded with then Olorin to give them some landed property. The then Olorin in his magnanimity, gave them a piece of land inside the premises of the palace. It is this generosity then that is making them to start laying claim to the throne of Olorin.
“We urge the state government not to bring unprecedented chaos and bloodshed on our soil by upholding a gazette neither the Famokiti or Olubunmo royal families are privy to or accept. And which the people of Orin-Ekiti have vehemently rejected.
“The gazette on which the state government is ordering we kingmakers to install our next Olorin from Ajibewa family was a fraud as it never emanated from a consensus of the people of the town. To the best of our knowledge, signatures of some kingmakers and a regent were forged on the paper used to get the gazette. This is very evident in the irregularities noticed in both the signature and a certain stamp which they claimed was given by the former regent who was never educated let alone understood how to design a stamp or append her signature on any document.”
But a member of the Ajibewa family, Pa Samuel Ajibewa, 77, denied claims that the documents that generated the gazette were forged.
He said that the position of the Morgan commission of 1978 which recognised only two ruling houses of Famokiti and Olubunmo has been canceled in the Gazzette owing to an out of court settlement by the three ruling houses in 1995 which also led to a judgement of the court the same year.
“We had challenged the Morgan commission’s declaration in court when the late Olorin, Oba Oluwole Olubunmo, was to be installed. The crisis had lingered from 1988 till 1998 when the Famokiti and Olubunmo families and the town pleaded with our family to settle out of court with a promise that once the late Oba was installed, the Kabiyesi and kingmakers would sit and make another declaration that would recognize Ajibewa as a third riling house.
“We agreed and the declaration was eventually done with the signature of the late head of kingmakers, Chief Ige Eletin, and other kingmakers. We have documents confirming these claims including the one, which the town wrote to our family on the agreement, which was duly signed and stamped by the then regent of the town, Chief A. Ajayi, who ruled before Oba Oluwole Olubunmo.
“The three royal families of Famokiti, Olubunmo and Ajibewa belonged to one father who was a monarch that most successfully ruled Orin-Ekiti in his time. This was why we have our forbears erected their royal family houses inside the Orin palace and these houses are there up till date.
“Prince Abel Dada Ajibewa, alias Babaeolomo, who was my uncle was a very successful man, a carpenter and business guru. He was a very close confidant of Oba Adekolawolu Olubunmo, during his reign in the late 1960s and they lived in the same palace.
“My uncle was then like a second Oba in the palace but this cordial relationship upset many people then. When the Olorin from Olubunmo then died, my uncle was to succeed him but he couldn’t as he suddenly disappeared and was never seen till date. That affected our chance of getting the throne then.
“Again, Anasin, is a chieftaincy title for women whose are wives of the Oba. Two of these Anasins have come from the Ajibewa family, Anasin is the head of women in the palace she is a royal wife. Any child she bears could be a monarch.
“Because there was no rotation then, they would pick an Anasin from another royal house apart from where the Oba on throne comes from.
When Oluwole Olubunmo was king, the Anasin was from Famokiti family, when Oba Adekolawolu Olubunmo was king the Anasin was from Ajibewa family. If we didn’t come from a royal house why would we have had two Anasin from our family in the history of the town?
“Later in history, the great grandfather of the Ajibewas became a king, he was Oba Adewunmi Ajibewa Idimehinsuwon and ruled for so long.
To also confirm further that the three ruling houses of Famokiti,
Ajibewa and Olubunmo have always been one, our farm settlement in Ijere area of Orin-Ekiti which binds us is still there up till now and has been there for so long. The Ajibewa family house is the biggest in the middle of the palace in Orin-Ekiti till date.”
Prince Moses Olubunmo, who spoke on behalf of the Famokiti and Olubunmo ruling houses, corroborated the kingmakers’ position that a former monarch, Oba Olayisade had two wives who gave to both Famokiti and Olubunmo, saying: “This throne of Orin-Ekiti has since been rotating between these two so that there won’t be injustice on the part of the two sons.”