Olowu Stool: Obasanjo, Monarch Dragged to Court

Posted by admin Headlines, Olusegun Obasanjo (1976-79, 99-07), Presidency Saturday, July 16th, 2011

One of the contenders for the Olowu chieftaincy stool, Prince Olutayo Fadairo, has filed a legal action against the incumbent monarch, Oba Olusanya Dosunmu, before a high court in Abeokuta, Ogun State, asking the court to stop Dosunmu from parading himself as the Olowu of Owu, Abeokuta.
The chieftaincy dispute in the Owu Kingdom, the home stead of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, occurred six years after the royal stool of Olowu of Owu, Abeokuta, was filled by the kingmakers.

The plaintiff named Obasanjo, who is also the Balogun of Owu; Ogun State governor Ibikunle Amosun; the state attorney-general and commissioner for justice; commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs; and Secretary of Abeokuta North local government area as co-defendants to the suit.
The claimant had also joined Chief S.O. Olaifa, Chief O.O. Oshungboye, Chief S. Ogunlolu, Chief Adisa Adewolu and M. Ola Yusuf as co-defendants to the matter.

In a writ of summons dated June 22 and filed by his lawyer, A. A. Isiolaotan, Fadairo is asking the court to declare that the selection of Oba Dosunmu on July 3, 2005 by kingmakers was unlawful, illegal, null and void.
Fadairo had also claimed that the kingmakers had initially appointed him as the new Olowu on August 9, 2004, in line with the consent judgment of the State High Court dated July 21, 2004.

He, however, added that any other purported meeting and selection by the kingmakers was in total contravention of the age-old tradition and custom of Owu and the Chiefs Law, Cap 20 of the Laws of Ogun State, 1978, and therefore illegal.
The claimant is further asking the court to hold that, with his selection as Olowu, the kingmakers had become functus officio, thus denying them the requisite locus standi to hold any other selection meeting including the one of July 3, 2004, where Dosunmu was selected.
Fadairo is also asking the court to declare as wrongful and illegal the purported approval given to the selection of Oba Dosunmu on July 4, 2005, by the State Executive Council.

He is therefore asking the court to set aside the selection or appointment of Dosunmu as the Olowu of Owu by the defendants as well as the statutory approval given by the Executive Council of Ogun State.
The claimant is further seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining the other defendants and their agents from recognising or dealing with Dosunmu as the Olowu of Owu, Abeokuta.

The nomination of a new Olowu of Owu in 2005 had generated crisis in the state, following a alleged surreptitious scheming by some interest groups and influential personalities.wp_posts