Ondo residents besiege palace, allege imposition of non-indigene as monarch
By Akintunde Jacobs, Akure
Residents of the Eleyowo Community in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State, have besieged the palace of the Deji of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi over his alleged plan to impose a man on the community as monarch.
The protesters who besieged the monarch’s palace, armed with placards of various inscriptions from the Arijodi/Ologunmolaare family of Eleyowo community, alleged that the Oba Aladelusi had perfected plans to politicise and impose a non-indigene, Femi Oluyole, on them as the Olu of Arijodi.
According to them, the only way to prevent crisis in the community was to suspend any installation of any head.
The inscriptions on the placards included, “Return Femi Oluyole to Ikogosi Ekiti, “Stop imposition of Olu on our community,” “Return your bastard son to Ikogosi Ekiti,” “We don’t want Femi Oluyole as our Olu of Arijodi,” among others.
Addressing journalists, Olugbenga Omolere, the leader of the protesters, said “we have a family land at Alagbaka extension here in Akure with the name Arijodi/Ologunmolaare where Justice Aderemi Adegoroye of the Ondo state High Court gave an order that our family should set up a standing committee that would be in charge of the partitioning, sales, transfer, or any other forms of dealing with the Arijodi/Ologunmolaare family land in such a way as shall affect the right of ownership of any person or group of persons.
“But, we got an information now that there is a process here at the Deji’s palace that they wanted to bring Olu for us and that is why we are here to tell the Deji of Akure that we don’t want Olu for now, we have crisis already in our community so Deji should stop the process so that peace will reign in our community.
“All what we needs now is how peace will reign in our community, not the issues of Olu, we don’t need Olu for now. The person that they wanted to install as Olu is a son to Chief Mrs Taye Ologede and the man is not our family member, the man is from Ikogosi Ekiti. He cannot come from Ekiti and become an Olu here, we have a person already that can be our Olu here.
“We now expect our traditional ruler, the Deji of Akure to use his discretion to suspend any process on this issue till we settle the crisis we have in our community.”
The Deji of Akure, Oba Aladelusi who spoke through his Chief of Staff, Toyin Ogunlade, however, asked the protesters to put their grievances into writing for proper documentation and necessary attention by the monarch.
