Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
The suspended kingmakers of Orin Ekiti, Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State have threatened to take legal action against Governor Kayode Fayemi, if their suspension is not reversed.
The embattled kingmakers described their suspension and subsequent appointment of warrant chiefs by government for the task of selecting a new Olorin, as a desecration of the tradition of the town.
The selection of a new Olorin has been dogged with crisis caused by insistence of a section of the town and chiefs that the town has only two ruling houses, Olubunmo and Famokiti, and rejected the third one called Ajibewa, saying the Ajibewa family was created by government with the aim of imposing a candidate on them.
The suspended chiefs passed a vote of no confidence on the appointment of warrant chiefs, describing them as political tools coming to destabilise the town.
The Olorin position became vacant following the demise of Oba Oluwole Olubunmo, in 2015.
Addressing newsmen in Ado-Ekiti yesterday, the Onikare of Orin Ekiti, Chief Bamidele Fasuyi and Eletin, Chief Francis Falua, alleged that they only heard about their suspension on radio, which they described as illegal, null and void in the face of the law.
Chief Fasuyi, who spoke on behalf of the chiefs, accused the government of acting like a “mafia” in the handling of the Obaship tussle in the town, by allegedly sidelining those that matter and pivotal to the selection of Oba.
He alleged that the government and Ajibewa family are bribing the town’s people to be on their side.
He said it was not true that the kingmakers neglected their duty on selecting a new Olorin since 2015 when Oba Oluwole Olubunmo passed on. But that government’s insistence on foisting a family not recognised by the town’s obaship history, had delayed the process.
Demanding that government allow the people of the town choose their next monarch, Fasuyi said: “Soldiers and policemen just invaded our town, particularly the palace and Apelua hall where we revered as sacred places. They forcefully went there and took away some of the paraphernalia relating to installation of Oba in Orin.
“In fact, just take a look at the calibre of warrant chiefs they brought, they were riffraff and nonentities.
“At the demise of Olorin in 2015, the local government wrote to us and requested that we select someone from Ajibewa ruling house, basing it on a gazette generated in 1998 under Navy Capt Atanda Yusuf.”