Ibadan And Its 12 Kings | By Lasisi Olagunju

Ibadan as the successor-city to the power and glory of Old Oyo is never tired of being in the news. Eleven High Chiefs became oba in Ibadan last Friday. A similar event was held in the same place for the same purpose in August 2017 – six years ago. The 2017 mass coronation unraveled soon after it was done. That it failed with the last government and is successful with the incumbent is a testament to two factors: approach and lessons taught by history. In Ile-Ife in 2009, it was the Ooni who granted and gave the crowns to the chiefs – with the approval of the governor. In Ibadan in 2017, the governor did the crowning directly; the reigning Olubadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji, kicked and told Governor Abiola Ajimobi that it would be an exercise in futility for the governor to crown Ibadan chiefs and Baales without the consent of the Olubadan. And it was. In 2023, the reigning Olubadan, Oba Lekan Balogun, wrote to Governor Seyi Makinde, seeking approval to crown his chiefs.

The Olubadan got the approval and did the crowning of his chiefs himself on Friday, 7 July, 2023. Unlike what we saw in 2017, the sea of Ibadan has been remarkably calm.

The peace of the twig is the peace of the bird. When chiefs fight the king, the town feels the tremor. The late Olubadan Adetunji saw the coronation of his chiefs by Ajimobi in 2017 as a rebellion, a direct assault on his paramountcy in Ibadan. With the backing of the state government, the High Chiefs actually rebelled; they stopped attending meetings and functions. The ‘rebellion’ endured till there was a change of government in May 2019. Such a ‘rebellion’ wasn’t a new thing in Ibadan. In 1936, Ibadan chiefs waged a ceaseless war against Olubadan Okunola Abass Aleshinloye. They stopped attending meetings where their lord presided. The colonial government responded by not giving them their monthly allowance because “they did not work.” That did not deter them. On one occasion, the chiefs appeared before the Resident without Olubadan and the white man asked them: “Have you ever seen a man who cuts off his head and still walks on the road without his head? They answered: ‘We’ve never seen such’. He then said to them: ‘Do not ever return to me without the Olubadan (i.e. your head) coming with you.’” (See Isaac Ogunbiyi and Stefan Reichmuth’s ‘Arabic Papers from the Olubadan Chancery I: A Rebellion of the Ibadan Chieftains’; 1997 on page 118).