CONFUSION: Ooni, Awujalè, Alake, Olubadan, Soun, Others Absent, As Alaafin Installed K1 As Mayegun

There are wild confusion on Saturday when the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III installed the Mayegun of Yorubaland, Alh. Wasiu Ayinde Marshal Kwam I and have many prominents and first class Obas absent.

Many people have been asking and looking for who will enlighten them on whether Alaafin of Oyo Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III has the singular authority to choose and install a single individual as a Cheif in the Yorubaland without consulting other direct Oodua descendants. The question have been linking to why those first class and prominent kings failed to show up for the coronation of the Mayegun of Yorubaland. 

Historically, as Dotun Oyeniyi cited in one of his critics on the conferred Mayegun tittle on King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal, In April 1991, The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi 111 sought an urgent audience with the then military governor of the old Oyo State, Col Abdulkareem Adisa. The Ooni, Oba Adeyemi told the governor, was about to distort history and must be stopped. What history? Adisa asked. The planned installation of Chief Tom Ikimi as the Akinrogun of Yorubaland by Ooni Okunade Sijuade had no historical basis in Yoruba land, the Alaafin told Adisa. No Oba in the entire Yorubaland had a power to install any chief over the entire Yorubaland. Only the Aare Ona Kakanfo could be so installed and only I, the Alaafin had the power to do so, he further said."

The Governor rolled into action immediately and the late Ooni made a last-minute change. Tom Ikimi was no longer to be installed the Akinrogun of Yorubaland but that of Ife. The Alaafin, basking in his 'victory' further stated that Akinrogun was an Egba title which should have nothing to do with Ife. 

Almost three decades down the line, the Alaafin plans to do exactly the same thing he stood against in 1991 - to install K1, Wasiu Ayinde as the Mayegun of Yorubaland instead of Mayegun of Oyo. A title which, like the purported Akinrogun of Yorubaland, had no historical basis but a blatant fabrication, and distortion of history. And not just that, one of K1’s friends who accompanied him on pre-installation visit to the Alaafin added a new one. After becoming the Mayegun, K1 must never prostrate or stoop in deference to any Oba again, he said. Alaafin does not make anyone a chief for that person to bow before any other Oba in Yorubaland again, he concluded. Such sublime heights of unrestrained ridicule of the Yoruba’s culture and system.

Then, the question is, who have the singular authority and power to install a single individual for a title for the whole of Yorubaland?