By Sunday Ani
Olowu of Kuta, Oba Hammed Adekunle Makama Oyelude, CON, has urged traditional rulers in Yorubaland to respect the oath of their office.
In statement by his media office on Friday, he urged the Yoruba monarchs to uplift the culture and traditions of their forebears.
Oba Makama, who was reacting to the 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, argued that once a person becomes an Oba through cultural processes, they relinquish their right to reject those traditions, even after death.
He eulogised the judge for his boldness to validate what he has always emphasised, which is that the primary focus of Yoruba Oba should be according 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 Obas, according to the letter of their installation said: “They would be the custodian of culture and tradition and not the other way round as some Obas have jettisoned their primary duty for religion.”
He advised those Obas who are not ready to abide by the dictate of their offices to withdraw from the position and stop causing chaos through unguraded utterances capable of rubbishing the Obaship stool that they represent.
He, however, explained that Obas in Yorubaland are not crowned in the mosque or in the church, but according to the dictate of the tradition and culture which they swore to uphold after their installation and coronation.
He said: ” There’s a dictum in law, which says ” Violenti non fit injuria,” meaning that you cannot complain when the details of what you subscribed to were spelt out 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, said: “The Obas have no 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 to their burial.
According to him, “One cannot become a traditional ruler in accordance with the customs of the land and later reject those same customs. Religious freedom exists under the 1999 Constitution, but once an individual choses to enter a traditional institution, they can not 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 doing so, the individual implicitly agrees to uphold and be governed by the associated traditions, including burial rituals.
He likened rejecting those customs later to attempting to changing the goalpost in the middle of the match.
Some monarchs in Yorubaland have been campaigning against burying traditional rulers according to the traditional rites, while some have deviated from the tradition and culture which they swore to uphold.