Ooni: Lafogido ruling house stakes claim

The Lafogido Ruling House has described the recognition of the Giesi Royal Family House as the ruling house to produce the next Ooni of Ife, by Osun State Government and Ife kingmakers,  as unfair. Insisting that it was its turn to produce the next Ooni, ‎the family said it is wrong for the state government and kingmakers to declare Giesi as the only ruling house that is qualified to present candidates for the exalted stool.

Addressing journalists in Ile-Ife, the head of Lafogido Ruling House, Sooko Adeleke Adewoyin, accused the state government and kingmakers of ignoring the report of the 1992 Justice Bolarinwa Babalakin Panel of Inquiry into the Ife Chieftaincy. Adewoyin also disclosed that the Lafogido Ruling House has instituted a legal action to stop the selection process pending the determination of the case in the court.

Adewoyin said that Lafogido reigned last as Ooni of Ife in 1930. He lamented that efforts of the Lafogido ruling house in the past to allow the state government and other stakeholders to correct the injustice to the ruling house had been futile.

“In 1992 we made an attempt to call on the government to re-arrange and address the lopsidedness in the ascendancy to the throne of Ooni. Justice Babalakin in his recommendations on the review put it down black and white. He noted that there was conflicting information about the historical background of Lajamisan, that the best thing the government should do is to call all the ruling houses together and address the matter,” he said.

Speaking further, he quoted the recommendation which read in part: “In view of all the researches that have been carried out in the Ife history, when the first declaration on the stool of Ooni was made, there would appear to be an urgent need for all the ruling houses in Ife to meet, discuss and agree on the number of Lajamisan’s children, the outcome of their meeting will dictate weather or not there is a necessity to amend the present Ooni of Ife chieftaincy declaration, the commission therefore recommend to the state government to cause this to be done. That is a document already with the government since 1992, after the 1980 which they are now relying on.

“The Attorney General of the state at that time is still alive and he is Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, now the Asiwaju of Igbajo during the administration of Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke government. He will answer the question of what we have been doing since 1980 because the 1980 edict was hurriedly carried out after the 1976 when an Oba got to the throne. How then can we now rely on the 1980 declaration that has been discredited in 1992 by Justice Babalakin Commission of Inquiry?”

Adewoyin expressed the fear that Lafogido Ruling House might go into extinction if it allows the injustice against it persist. He said they the Lafogido would continue to sensitise the public about the injustice in the interest of the people of Ife and Yoruba, lamenting that the wrong person should not be allowed to occupy the exalted Ooni stool.

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