Obaship crisis: 95-yr-old ex-regent denies document creating new royal dynasty

A former regent of Orin Ekiti, in the Ido/Osi  local government area of Ekiti State, Princess Ajayi Oladeji, has denied signing any document creating a new royal family under the name Ajibewa. Princess Oladeji said the claim that she signed a document creating a third royal dynasty was not only spurious but a calculated attempt […]

A former regent of Orin Ekiti, in the Ido/Osi  local government area of Ekiti State, Princess Ajayi Oladeji, has denied signing any document creating a new royal family under the name Ajibewa.

Princess Oladeji said the claim that she signed a document creating a third royal dynasty was not only spurious but a calculated attempt to defraud the community.

She maintained that the town had always operated two ruling houses, Olubunmo and Famokiti, for ages.

The people of the town, led by its kingmakers, had protested sometimes ago on an alleged attempt by Governor Kayode Fayemi to pick an Oba-elect from the Ajibewa ruling house.

The governor, according to his deputy, Chief Bisi Egbeyemi, based his action on the White Paper on Morgan Chieftaincy Report of 1995 under the old Ondo State and Ekiti State official gazette of June 3, 1999, which recognized Ajibewa as the third ruling house in the town.

Oladeji, at a town hall meeting organised by the community on Monday, said it was criminal for anybody to have linked her to such a document regarding the Ajibewa family, declaring that doing so would be tantamount to sacrilege and mutilation of the town’s rich history.

She said, “I was a regent in this town two times spanning 25 years. I was here between 1968 and 1974, and from 1980 to 1995. I know the history of this town very well and wouldn’t have signed any document establishing a third dynasty that never existed.

“I know that doing so would mean I want to create crisis for my people. Ajibewa was never a royal family. I can’t even read let alone sign any document as a regent.”

She pleaded with government to discountenance the document and pick a new king from the Famokiti dynasty to replace the late Oba Oluwole Olubunmo.

A kingmaker and Onikare of Orin Ekiti, Chief Bamidele Fasuyi, said the statement made by the former regent had corrected the rumour being peddled around that the town has three ruling houses.

But the patriarch of the Ajibewa family, Prince Samuel Ajibewa, reacting to the development, said, “The old woman the Olubunmo and Famokiti families brought is over 95 years old with a partial stroke and has become so old that she has forgotten she signed the document.

“To say that Orin Ekiti didn’t have a stamp as at 20 years ago is a fallacy and a slap on the faces of many intellectuals produced by the town, bearing in mind that the then monarch, Oba Oluwole Olubunmo, was a respectable accountant.

“All that the Olubunmo and Famokiti are doing now amounts to medicine after death as they ought to have challenged the gazette that directs that a new monarch must come from the Ajibewa family in a law court within 10 years of its production in 1995.

“Having failed to do that after 20 years now, their cries now amount to medicine after death. They should stop wasting Orin-Ekiti community’s money which we have all contributed.

“We urge them to go to court and challenge the gazette if they are sure of all their claims. We advise them as brothers to obey the constituted authority by following the directives of the Deputy Governor, Otunba Bisi Egbeyemi to install the new Olorin from the Ajibewa family.”