By Seye Olumide and Rotimi Agboluaje (Ibadan)

Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), yesterday, berated former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, for ordering Oke-Ogun monarchs to stand up and sit down at an event organised by the Oyo State Government in Iseyin, Oyo State.

In a statement made available to The Guardian in Ibadan by its Secretary-General, Chief Oladipo Oyewole, the elders described the action as an open disdain for the stools, saying that it is a denigration of the status of Yoruba traditional leaders and a direct affront on the people’s culture, norms and values.

It read: “It is sacrilegious to brazenly and unabashedly ridicule second-in-command to the deity (Igbakeji Orisha).

The highly cherished heritage and cultural values of the Yoruba people must be respected by all and sundry.

“It is a desecration of the revered Yoruba stools and open opprobrium of progenitors of Oduduwa. It is demeaning and belittling.

“As elders of the respected people of Yoruba, we have the sacred duty to protect our culture, values, norms and traditions. We, therefore, caution the Owu chief to weigh his utterances.’’

The elders demanded that the former President apologise to the monarchs.

BUT another elite group, Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum (YRLF), has said Obasanjo committed no crime by asking the kings to stand and sit.

Speaking with The Guardian, the President of the forum, Akin Malaolu, said: “The forum is worried about the misinterpretation of the actions of Chief Obasanjo in Iseyin, when he ordered sitting traditional rulers to stand up for a national authority at the occasion.”

He said: “What history has not taught to those who considered the ex-president’s action as a taboo because their understanding of a national authority in power is low and it cannot be undermined by traditional rulers.

“History gave us the events of the past and the present, which explained the demarcation between the national and the traditional.

By national authority, the society at large is expected to respect the rule of law, which gives authority to the governors to install, upgrade, pay salaries and allowances as well as provide security as explained and guaranteed by the existing constitution of the Republic. The authority of a national government is of higher significance to the authority of the Oba or Emir, hence they could be dethroned or sent into exile.

“Those who saw Obasanjo’s intervention at the Iseyin forum should have been more circumspect in their releases of the video because the traditional leaders at the occasion realised their compound insult on the governor of the Oyo State by rising to give respect to whom respect is due.

“We must be guided by the traditional rules, that when a king is far from his domain and without his stool and not in his Palace, then both which are symbols of his authority cannot be used at the Iseyin occasion.

A king is a king if he is in his own palace or on his own stool.

The kings on that occasion at Iseyin, were invited by the Governor and such a provider to all they enjoyed as traditional leaders deserves the respect from the kings.”

-Guardian