Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has been given a grace of three days to apologize over his directive to the traditional rulers in Iseyin, Oyo State.
The ultimatum was issued by the Yoruba Council Worldwide (YCW) who threatened to strip of all chieftaincy titles given to the former president.
DAILY GIST reported that Obasanjo on Friday at a public event in Iseyin, ordered traditional rulers to get up from their seats and greet him and the Oyo State governor.
The former president, who was the guest of Governor Makinde, was in Iseyin to inaugurate the Iseyin Campus of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Renewable Natural Resources of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Iseyin.
Obasanjo had expressed dismay at what he described as the monarchs’ disrespect and disregard for the office of the governor as they remained seated while he and Makinde were being introduced.
He told the monarchs that the Yoruba culture has regard for both age and position, adding that the position and authority of a governor or a president at any event supersedes that of any traditional ruler in attendance.
Soeaking on the development, the President of Yoruba Council Worldwide, Aare Oba Oladotun Hassan, Esq, described Obasanjo’s action as indiscipline and nonchalant. He said Obasanjo’s actions were deceitful and insulted the Yoruba cultural values.
He said: “As the President of Yoruba Council Worldwide, we have come out boldly to condemn this anomalies and devaluation of our culture, which is most embarrassing to the integrity and value of our culture. ”
“We know within the context of what Chief Olusegun Obasanjo said. He might have said it in order to brush his own ego. But to us, we are not going to take it from that, and we are demanding an apology from his person in an open aired press conference within the next three days (to apologise) starting from that yesterday that he committed the act.”
Aare Hassan stated that Obasanjo’s actions sent a bad message to all the royal monarchs in Yorubaland. He urged all the royal monarchs in Yorubaland to rally around in unity and begin to take steps to strengthen traditional institutions in the region.
When asked about the penalty if Obasanjo fails to apologise within the time frame issued to him, Aare Hassan said: “Every Oba has their own diety and spiritual inclination. We’re using this to call their own spiritual inclination to react. “You don’t go to Benin and begin to point at the Oba of Benin with your right finger and tell him to stand up and sit down; that’s very wrong.”
He stated that if Obasanjo fails to do the needful, he should be stripped of all his chieftaincy titles in Yorubaland. Aare Hassan said any Oba that failed to strip Obasanjo of his chieftaincy would be regarded as a betrayal to Yorubaland.
He further stated that Obasanjo should realise that he is no longer the President of Nigeria.
He said: “He (Obasanjo) should be warned that he is no longer the country’s President. There are other ways you can pass your message without telling them and ordering them to stand up and sit down like primary school pupils.”
Speaking during a press conference held at the secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Jabi, Abuja, the President of YCW, Oba Hassan had also called on the former president to apologise to the monarchs.
Hassan said, “The recent weeks have witnessed a barrage of monumental embarrassments, ridicules and brazen abuse of traditional royal Obas and most shocking to grasping with this well-intended orchestrated embarrassments by chief Olusegun Obasanjo who dropped the biggest bombshell taboo in the history of Yoruba land, perhaps most disturbing sacrilege in Iseyin, Oyo State when he addressed arrays of first-class royal fathers and other leading Obas like toddlers or a village headmaster or Army General talking profusely at his foot soldiers in a most depressing, disparaging and disrespectful manner.”
He urged Obasanjo to tender an immediate apology within the next three days or face untold traditional and legal reprisal consequences.
“Furthermore, we shall mobilise all market women, youths, and leaders of thoughts against the Baba Obasanjo for desecrating the Yoruba ancestral cultural heritage, norms, tradition, and values. On this note, we wish to set the records straight that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is no longer the President of Nigeria, and he should stop parading himself deceitfully and impersonating or creating a scenario to command such ill-motivated authority.”
On his part, the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrosheed Adewale Akanbi, Telu I, has also described Obasanjo’s action against traditional rulers in Oyo State as a desecration of Yoruba traditional institution, noting that the Obasanjo cannot do a similar thing to emirs.
Oluwo, in a statement made available to journalists on Saturday in Osogbo by his media aide, Alli Ibraheem, blamed the traditional rulers present at the event for obeying Obasanjo’s order.
The monarch said Obasanjo ought to have shown some respect in dealing with traditional rulers, saying monarchs were God’s representatives on earth, and that such a thing would not happen if he were around.
