The Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji, has warned members of the Olubadan-in-Council parading themselves as Ibadan obas against desecration of the customs and traditions of the city.
The Olubadan through his letter titled, ‘Re-Our grievances,’ dated February 5, was reacting to a letter dated January 26 in which the aggrieved Ibadan high chiefs and baales expressed their displeasure at the treatment being meted out to them by the monarch.
Adetunji said the affected high chiefs should revert to the tradition of the people, warning that acting otherwise would attract grave consequences.
The letter read in part, “We read extracts from your letter of January 27 on newspaper pages before receiving it at 2.45pm on February 3 from Kamoru Liasu, Secretary to the Olubadan-in-Council. If you have a teachable spirit, putting a letter meant for the Olubadan in the public domain before it eventually gets to him is indicative of your tacit lack of royal etiquette.
“As if this was not enough, you had the impudence of writing this same letter on Ibadan the Oba-in-Council letterhead. The so-called Ibadan Oba-in-Council is not known to law, how much or less our custom and tradition.
“Even in the contents of your letter, you referred to yourselves as members of the Olubadan-in-Council. This shows absurdity unbecoming of high chiefs of Ibadanland.
“We should not have dignified you with a reply if not for your fruitless but desperate effort to absolve yourselves from the damage you collaborated with the immediate past administration of Senator Abiola Ajimobi to inflict on our traditional patrimony.”
The statement added, “When we said the other time that our battle is over, some of you who were so obsessed with unlawful use of obaship title and illegal wearing of crowns and coronets could not read between the lines. At the stroke of the pen, somebody created a crisis situation in our chieftaincy system. By the same token, somebody created sanity and normalcy has returned.
“As the Olubadan of Ibadanland, I do not carry out the statutory duties of high chiefs nor obstruct anybody from performing his duties, but when we send out invitations for meetings, it is you who choose which ones to attend or not. As nature does not allow a vacuum, life continues. But it is the same invitation that we extend to you that we also extend to other high chiefs such as Osi Olubadan, Ekerin Olubadan, Ekerin Balogun, Ekarun Balogun and Iyalode who did not sign your letter of grievances. Thankfully, more and more people are beginning to repent.”
Efforts to get reactions from the affected high chiefs were unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report.