A public analyst, Prince Adeyinka Adeyemi, has insisted that only candidates from the male line of recognised ruling houses are eligible to ascend the throne of the Awujale of Ijebuland, warning that misinformation and “legal adventurism” are fuelling an unnecessary controversy.
In a strongly worded intervention, Adeyemi said the debate over eligibility “should not exist at all,” stressing that the applicable law and declaration governing succession to the Awujale stool are “clear, explicit and settled.”
“By any objective standard, the current debate over eligibility for the throne of the Awujale of Ijebuland should not exist. The law is clear. The declaration is explicit,” he said.
According to Adeyemi, the applicable instrument is the Customary Law Declaration regulating the selection of the Awujale, validly made under Section 4(2) of the Chiefs Law of 1957 and reaffirmed by the Ogun State Chieftaincy Law of 2021.
He dismissed claims that the 2021 law altered succession rules, saying:
“Contrary to popular claims, the 2021 law did not change the declaration. It reinforced it. Those insisting otherwise are either mistaken or deliberately misleading the public.”
The declaration recognises four ruling houses: Gbelegbuwa, Fusengbuwa, Anikinaiya and Fidipote; and fixes the order of rotation as Anikinaiya, Fusengbuwa, Fidipote and Gbelegbuwa.
“No committee, court of public opinion or self-help interpretation can amend this order,” Adeyemi said.
At the heart of the controversy, he noted, is the issue of lineage. The declaration, he stressed, allows only members of the ruling houses of the male line to be proposed as candidates.
“Female-line succession is a last resort, not an alternative pathway,” he said, adding that it is permitted only where no eligible male exists and even then under “strict and narrowly defined conditions.”
He argued that many of those currently jostling for the throne trace their claims through female lines despite the availability of male-line candidates.
“That reality alone disqualifies them under the existing declaration. The law does not bend to ambition,” Adeyemi said.
The analyst also pointed to procedural safeguards in the declaration, explaining that once a vacancy occurs, the local government secretary must announce the next ruling house, which then has 14 days to present a candidate.
“Failure to do so lawfully triggers a move to the next ruling house in rotation. This safeguard ensures order, not chaos,” he said.
He emphasised that the law requires strict adherence to the declaration in force at the time a vacancy occurs- in this case, the existing declaration governing Ijebuland.
Adeyemi cautioned against allowing emotion or pressure politics to override statute and custom.
“Traditional stools derive their authority not only from history but from order, custom codified into law,” he said. “Once sentiment overrides statute, tradition itself is weakened.”
He continued, “The succession debate surrounding the Awujale of Ijebuland has been sharpened by a clear legal and customary position that it is the exclusive turn of the Fusengbuwa ruling house to produce the next monarch, and not Gbelegbuwa or any other ruling house. Under the extant Customary Law Declaration regulating the stool, rotation among the four recognised ruling houses is explicit, and the current phase squarely places the right of nomination with Fusengbuwa.”
He concluded that the path to selecting the next Awujale is already laid out in law.
“The declaration is clear. The law is settled. In matters of the throne, noise must give way to law.”
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