Abimbola Owoade (with staff of office) is the new Alaafin of Oyo
Wande Abimbola, a Yoruba language and literature professor and Ifa priest, says Oyo kingmakers were present during the oracle consultation and chose Abimbola Owoade as the new Alaafin.
Abimbola spoke in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune on Saturday.
The process of selecting the new Alaafin of Oyo has been shrouded in controversies in recent years since the former monarch died in 2022.
The Oyomesi, the kingmakers, and Rotimi Makinde, governor of Oyo, have been in a heated dispute over the choice for the ancestral stool.
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Five out of seven Oyomesi members had recommended Luqman Gbadegesin for the role.
But, on January 10, Makinde approved Abimbola Owoade to the stool and presented the staff of office to him three days later — despite pushback from the kingmakers.
Consequently, Gbadegesin, the recommended candidate of a faction of the kingmakers, filed a court case contesting the governor’s action in court and faulted the selection process.
Speaking on the development, Abimbola said the governor asked him to conduct the Ifa consultation for the new Alaafin because “the kingmakers were fighting among themselves”.
He added that it is the tradition to consult Ifa before a monarch is chosen, adding that the kingmakers “were there while we consulted Ifa to choose the best”.
The Ifa priest said he wrote “a 21-page report on the divination process” that chose the new Alaafin, and the kingmakers also “approved” of the choice.
“I was happy and surprised, too, that we could find a governor who says that we should consult Ifa. A year or two ago, we divined and it was so easy to pick someone, anyone — I didn’t want to know the person,” Abimbola said.
“That was how Ifa selected a person. We did it and for a long time, we didn’t hear anything again. Actually, I came home for the marriage of one of my sons in Lagos. When the governor heard that I was around, he said he was just about to send for me again because he was ready, and the kingmakers were fighting among themselves.
“Even in modern times, culture demands that they would ask Ifa also. That may not be the primary method of selection, but they would ask Ifa, and that is our own tradition. Now, it is not the case that the kingmakers were bypassed; they were there while we consulted Ifa to choose the best. The Oyo Mesi were there only they had split into two. And one section took the governor to court; that he must take the candidate they presented. There were five kingmakers. They used to be seven. Two of them had died, remaining five.
“I did not insist on the choice of the candidate, the kingmakers approved him. It turned out that the candidate is a good man when his file was presented. We did the divination a long time ago and as an academic, I wrote a 21-page report on the divination process. When they called me four or five days ago, I asked for the report.
“They said maybe it was with the governor, and things like that. They asked if I remembered the name of number one (the first candidate). “But I wrote a 21-page report!” Then I sent for my wife, with whom I carried out the divination process. She is Iyan’Ifa, too; Iya Ajis’ebo. She fished out a copy of the report. I did not choose the Alaafin, the kingmakers did. Ifa chose the person and they approved him. They expressed satisfaction with the choice.
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“Maybe they had been scrutinising him all this while to find out if he had done something wrong in a previous workplace or committed any kind of wrong before. When they eventually brought his file, it became known that he worked in Canada. This was previously unknown to us. I was happy, and I thanked Ifa. He is a chartered engineer. If we do things the way they are supposed to be done, the outcomes will always be right.”
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