A legal practitioner, Pelumi Olajengbesi, has faulted the reported ultimatum issued by the Alaafin of Oyo to the Ooni of Ife over the conferment of a chieftaincy title on businessman, Chief Dotun Sanusi.
Olajengbesi described the move as “constitutionally unsound” and an attempt to challenge the cultural and historical foundation of Yoruba heritage.
According to him, the Ooni acted within his ancestral and traditional rights by bestowing the title Okanlomo of Oodua on Sanusi. He argued that the Ife monarch remains the custodian of Yoruba identity and legitimacy, drawing his authority from Oduduwa as the progenitor of the race.
The lawyer further maintained that no law, Supreme Court judgment, or chieftaincy statute in Nigeria grants the Alaafin exclusive pan-Yoruba authority to override the Ooni’s powers.
“From colonial times to the present, successive governments have recognized the Ooni as a monarch of pan-Yoruba stature,” Olajengbesi said, adding that history consistently affirms Ile-Ife as the cradle of Yoruba civilization.
He stressed that the title given to Sanusi, a respected entrepreneur and philanthropist, is cultural and symbolic, not political, and therefore lies within the prerogative of the Ooni.
Olajengbesi concluded that the Ooni’s authority is “timeless, indivisible, and unimpeachable,” urging stakeholders not to reduce Yoruba identity to political rivalries.
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