Abuja-based human rights lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi, has faulted claims that the Alaafin of Oyo holds exclusive authority over pan-Yoruba affairs, insisting that no Supreme Court judgment confers such sweeping powers on the Oyo monarch.
The controversy follows the recent conferment of the Okanlomo of Yorubaland chieftaincy title on Ibadan business tycoon, Dotun Sanusi, by the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi.
The title sparked outrage from the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Abimbola Owoade, who issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Ooni to withdraw the title or face dire consequences.
Reacting in a statement posted on his Facebook page on Tuesday, Olajengbesi described the Alaafin’s threat as “wholly gratuitous and constitutionally unsound.”
He argued that the Ooni acted strictly within his “lawful, ancestral, and cultural prerogatives,” which, according to him, are “sui generis, inherent, and incapable of usurpation by any other stool.”
“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,” Olajengbesi stated.
The lawyer further noted that as someone who has litigated in chieftaincy disputes, he could confidently affirm that no statute, Supreme Court judgment, or constitutional provision vests exclusive pan-Yoruba jurisdiction in the Alaafin of Oyo.
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He stressed that traditional rulers in Nigeria derive recognition through state chieftaincy laws, not “residual claims of imperial conquest.”
Olajengbesi also dismissed interpretations of a Supreme Court judgment often cited to bolster the Alaafin’s supremacy, clarifying that judicial pronouncements are case-specific and cannot be stretched beyond their facts.
“No ratio decidendi of the court has ever declared the Alaafin the sole custodian of Yoruba legitimacy. No law in any Yoruba-speaking state vests such exclusive powers in the Alaafin,” he maintained.
The lawyer emphasised that the chieftaincy conferred on Chief Sanusi was not a political or military office but a symbolic cultural honour.
“The conferment of the title Okanlomo of Oodua on Chief Dotun Sanusi, a distinguished Yoruba entrepreneur and philanthropist, is a cultural honour symbolic of fraternity and solidarity. Such honours fall well within the Ooni’s remit as custodian of Yoruba identity,” Olajengbesi added.
