A former Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof Wande Abimbola, who is also the Awise Awo Agbaye, has berated a traditional ruler in Osun State, the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi, for abandoning the Yoruba tradition.
In a telephone interview with The PUNCH, Abimbola, said anybody who did not support the Yoruba traditional practices, should not aspire to be an oba.
He added that it was hypocrisy for traditional rulers to oppose Yoruba culture and tradition.
The Oluwo, upon enthronement, led a campaign against Yoruba gods such as Ogun, Sango, Obatala, Osun etc whom he called powerless and retrogressive idols.
Also, Akanbi had vehemently condemned certain trado-cultural practices such as festive celebrations in worship of all Yoruba gods.
But speaking in Yoruba, Abimbola, who criticised the Oluwo, said, “… ki won ba wa agbo ile tutu,…; meaning. They should give him some herbal concoction. ”
When asked if he did not mind his criticism of the Oluwo to be in print, Abimbola said, “There’s nothing Oluwo can do to me…”
Abimbola, the first PhD graduate of the University of Lagos, and OAU VC between 1982 and 1990, said a lot of Yoruba monarchs were misfits, desecrating various traditional stools.
He bemoaned the number of Yoruba traditional rulers, describing it as unwieldy and one of the reasons why riffraffs had been enthroned across Yoruba land.
The holder of a Doctorate of Philosophy degree in Yoruba Literature said, “The main thing is that do we want our obaship institution to be wiped out or sustained? The way the institution is being run leaves much to be desired.
“Yoruba traditional rulers are too many. They are over 10,000. So, there are no checks and balances to control their excesses. Some communities have between 30 and 40 obas. Many of them who parade themselves as obas today were baales or heads of farmsteads. Kingship in the land has been so bastardised that some of them don’t even mind being kings over just their houses alone.
“Ooni Adesoji Aderemi said there are only 17 kings in Yoruba land. We must stop and ask ourselves if we want to continue with kingship or not. Having this large number of kings is too much, and it has turned the whole thing into a comedy. Let us reduce their number so that they can be controllable.”
Abimbola also bemoaned what he described as shoddy treatment Yoruba rulers received in the hands of government.
