Ikeja Obaship Tussle: Group Cautions against Fresh Selection Process

By Kayode Fasua

Prominent leaders of Ikeja community in Lagos State, have raised the alarm over “a fresh plot” to subvert the four-year-old recommendation of the town’s kingmakers on the choice of the new Olu of Ikeja.

 The leaders, under the aegis of Gbobaniyi Royal Association of Ikejaland, in a statement, expressed concern that the recommendation of Ikeja Body of Kingmakers headed by the late former deputy governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Rafiu Jafojo, was about to be set aside for a new selection process.

The Gbobaniyi Royal Association of Ikejaland is the apex advisory body in the community’s royal circles.

 Expressing the concern in a statement by its President, Chief Babatunde Alaran, and Secretary, Mr. Olugbenga Soremi, the association stated that the Jafojo five-man body of kingmakers had unanimously endorsed Alhaji Samsondeen Adeleye, as the next monarch of Ikeja, and had duly notified the Ikeja local council since December 2014.

Ikeja has been without a traditional ruler since October 2014, when the last Olu of Ikeja, Oba Rauf Matemi, Amore 1, joined his ancestors.

 While urging the Ikeja stakeholders, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Chief Bola Tinubu, to wade in and ensure that the right thing is done, the association described a new selection process as “unjust and disrespectful to the spirits of the late Jafojo and one other kingmaker who have passed on.”

 “Our contention is that, it is not proper that once a chicken died during labour, its un-hatched egg should be thrown away.

 “The mere fact that Jafojo and another of the kingmakers are dead does not make their judgment unsound.

 “During the selection process, all the princes were screened, subjected to traditional rites and were inquired of before the Ifa oracle; only Samsondeen Adeleye emerged tops.

 “His name was thus forwarded to the Ikeja Local Government, which later informed the kingmakers that it had forwarded the name to the appropriate authorities in the state.

 “And all we are expecting now is the final approval from the state government; only to get feelers that some contenders are now emerging afresh and are pulling political strings to achieve their aim,” the association complained.

 It, therefore, urged the chairman of Ikeja Local Government, Alhaji Mojeed Balogun, “not to allow schemers influence his office, as we know the chairman to be an upright man, who is personally unhappy that Ikeja is yet to have a traditional ruler.