Lawyer Pelumi Olajengbesi says no law or Supreme Court ruling vests pan-Yoruba authority in the Alaafin of Oyo, defending the Ooni’s right to confer chieftaincy titles.
An Abuja-based lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi, has dismissed claims that the stool of the Alaafin of Oyo holds exclusive authority over pan-Yoruba affairs, insisting that no Supreme Court judgment supports such a position.
His statement comes amid a heated row between the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Akeem Owoade, following the conferment of the Okanlomo of Yorubaland chieftaincy title on Ibadan businessman, Engineer Dotun Sanusi. The Alaafin had described the action as an affront and issued a 48-hour ultimatum for the Ooni to withdraw the title.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Olajengbesi described the threat as “wholly gratuitous and constitutionally unsound.”
“The Ooni of Ife acted squarely within his lawful, ancestral, and cultural prerogatives,” he said, stressing that such powers are “inherent and incapable of usurpation by any other stool.”
He added: “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.”
The lawyer argued that no statute, constitutional instrument, or Supreme Court judgment vests pan-Yoruba supremacy in the Alaafin. “Judicial pronouncements are case-specific, and no ratio decidendi of that Court has ever declared the Alaafin the sole custodian of Yoruba legitimacy,” he said.
Olajengbesi concluded that the Ooni’s conferment of the title on Sanusi was a cultural honour within his remit as custodian of Yoruba identity.