Olowu of Kuta, HRM Oba Dr Hammed Adekunle Makama Oyelude, CON, Tegbosun lll, has urged traditional rulers in Yorubaland to respect the oath of their office.
According to the statement issued by his media office on Friday in Kuta, Olowu Makama enjoined Yoruba Obas to uplift the culture and traditions of our forebears.
Oba Makama was reacting to a statement credited to Justice Phillips Akinside of the Ogun State High Court, that traditional rulers must accept the burial rites and customs of the institutions they voluntarily joined, arguing that once a person becomes an Oba through cultural processes, they relinquish the right to reject those traditions, even after death.
Oba Makama appreciated the judge for his boldness and validation of what he has always emphasized that the primary focus of a Yoruba Oba should be to the dictate of the instrument of his office.
The monarch, who is also a custodian of culture and tradition, has said times without numbers that the primary focus of an Oba, according to the letter of their installation, should be solely their role as custodians of culture and tradition. However , the revered monarch stressed, some Obas have jettisoned their primary duty for religion.
Oba Makama remarked that “those Obas who are not ready to abide by the dictate of their offices should rather withdraw from Obaship and stop causing chaos through unguarded utterances capable of rubbishing Obaship stool they represent.
He, however, explained that Obas in Yorubaland are not crowned in mosque nor church but according to the dictate of the tradition and culture which they swore to uphold after their installation and coronation.
Oba Makama noted: “There’s a dictum in law, which says ‘Violenti non fit injuria’ which simply translates to the fact that you cannot complain once the details of what you’re subscribing to has been spelt to you beforehand.”
Justice Akinside, who was the keynote speaker at the fifth Chief Kehinde Sofola Memorial Bar Lecture, organised by the Nigerian Bar Association, Sagamu branch on Wednesday declared that; “Obas have no right, not even legal right, to change the tradition they have voluntarily come into.”
He explained that the same customs that guide the selection, nomination, and installation of an Oba should equally apply in their burial.
According to him, “One cannot become a traditional ruler in accordance with the customs of the land and later reject the same customs. Religious freedom exists under the 1999 constitution, but once an individual chooses to enter a traditional institution, they cannot claim an infringement of that freedom when the rites of that institution apply.”
Justice Akinside argued that, accepting the role of an Oba is a voluntary act, and by so doing, the individual implicitly agrees to uphold and be governed by the associated traditions, including burial rituals.
He said that rejecting those customs is akin to attempting to “change the goalpost in the middle of the match.”
It would be recalled that some Obas in Yorubaland have been campaigning against burying traditional rulers according to the customs and rites, while some have deviated from the tradition and culture which they swore to uphold.
