{"id":364596,"date":"2025-10-26T17:32:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T16:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.withinnigeria.com\/news\/?p=364596"},"modified":"2025-10-26T17:32:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T16:32:48","slug":"a-governors-single-day-coronation-of-21-obas-ajimobi-olubadan-rift-and-the-battle-for-ibadans-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.withinnigeria.com\/news\/2025\/10\/26\/a-governors-single-day-coronation-of-21-obas-ajimobi-olubadan-rift-and-the-battle-for-ibadans-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"A Governor\u2019s single-day coronation of 21 Obas: Ajimobi\u2013Olubadan rift and the battle for Ibadan\u2019s Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"
The drums started before sunrise. From the lower hills of Bere to the winding roads of Beere, Ibadan was awake \u2014 restless, half proud, half perplexed. That morning, Mapo Hall gleamed under the August sun like an ancestral witness dressed for judgment. Red carpets rolled over ancient stones; banners flapped in the wind, announcing the \u201cInstallation of 21 New Obas in Ibadanland.\u201d The city that once wore one crown now prepared to host twenty-two.<\/p>\n
But the most important seat in the hall \u2014 the Olubadan\u2019s seat \u2014 was empty.<\/p>\n
As the Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, arrived with his entourage, the crowd stood. Cameras clicked, horses neighed, and the sound of bata drums clashed with modern microphones. Ajimobi smiled \u2014 a politician\u2019s smile, half charisma, half defiance. His agbada shimmered gold, the color of power, and his red cap tilted slightly forward like a signal of intent.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t just attending history. He was rewriting it.<\/p>\nAbiola Ajimobi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
At that moment, Ibadan stood suspended between two worlds \u2014 the world of ancient hierarchy and the world of state ambition. The governor had come to crown kings. The Olubadan had chosen to stay in his palace.<\/p>\n
In Yoruba cosmology, absence can be louder than presence. The Olubadan\u2019s silence that day became the city\u2019s echo for years to come.<\/p>\n
The City of Crowns: Ibadan\u2019s Fragile Order<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Long before the British drew borders or governors wore agbadas, Ibadan was a warrior city \u2014 a refuge for broken empires and exiled princes. Founded in the early 19th century after the fall of the old Oyo Empire, the city was less a kingdom than a coalition of warlords. Its rulers were not born into power; they ascended through courage, strategy, and seniority.<\/p>\n
Ibadan\u2019s monarchy was built on meritocracy, not royal blood. The Olubadan\u2019s stool was the city\u2019s social ladder \u2014 a long, deliberate climb through the ranks of Mogaji, Jagun, Balogun, Otun, until the crown rested on the head of the most senior high chief. It could take decades. But every chief knew his place in the queue. There were no shortcuts. No rival thrones.<\/p>\n
That structure was Ibadan\u2019s pride \u2014 a rare blend of democracy within monarchy. One king. Two lines of succession. No confusion.<\/p>\n
To be Olubadan was not to be the richest or loudest. It was to be the city\u2019s moral compass, the keeper of ancestral discipline. For generations, Ibadan\u2019s stability came from that sacred simplicity \u2014 one city, one king, one voice.<\/p>\n
Then came the governor who believed tradition could be \u201cupgraded.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Governor Who Wanted to Reform a Kingdom<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Abiola Ajimobi had always seen himself as more than a politician. Before politics, he was a technocrat \u2014 managing director at National Oil and Chemical Marketing Company, a man who admired structure, systems, and reform. When he became Oyo State\u2019s first two-term governor in 2011, he carried that corporate instinct into governance. Efficiency mattered to him. So did legacy.<\/p>\n
By 2016, Ajimobi had begun to see Ibadan\u2019s chieftaincy system as outdated \u2014 an old structure too rigid for modern realities. High chiefs who had served the city for decades often died before ascending the throne. The system, in his view, needed renewal.<\/p>\n
In March 2017, a judicial panel headed by retired Justice Akintunde Boade was inaugurated to review the 1957 Ibadan Chieftaincy Declaration. The recommendations were bold: recognize 21 high chiefs and baales as Obas \u2014 each with his own beaded crown, each retaining allegiance to the Olubadan. The governor approved it.<\/p>\n
To Ajimobi, this was modernization. To Ibadan\u2019s traditionalists, it was sacrilege.<\/p>\n
He wanted to create a network of crowned sub-monarchs who could represent development interests across Ibadanland. It was, politically, an efficient way to decentralize loyalty and consolidate influence. But culturally, it struck at the heart of Ibadan\u2019s delicate hierarchy.<\/p>\n
No one dared to multiply crowns in a city where the number had always been one.<\/p>\n
The Olubadan\u2019s Refusal<\/strong><\/h4>\n
At Popoyemoja Palace, the Olubadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji, sat quietly in his armchair that August morning, refusing to attend the coronation. He had reigned barely a year, yet his sense of guardianship over tradition was unwavering.<\/p>\nLate Oluibadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji,<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
For the aged monarch, the governor\u2019s decision was not reform \u2014 it was rebellion. To multiply crowns was to scatter heritage. To share authority was to diminish it. The Olubadan believed that history was being altered without the consent of its custodians.<\/p>\n
As the crowd gathered at Mapo, Oba Saliu remained in his palace, surrounded by chiefs loyal to him, their expressions somber. Outside, his subjects debated. Some called him stubborn; others called him noble. But he never raised his voice. He didn\u2019t need to. His silence was both protest and prophecy.<\/p>\n
When the ceremony ended, the governor declared that \u201cIbadan will never remain the same again.\u201d The Olubadan, in private, replied that \u201cIbadan will always remain what it has been \u2014 one king, one throne.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Coronation at Mapo Hall<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Mapo Hall that day resembled an open theatre of Yoruba destiny. One by one, 21 high chiefs and baales stepped forward, dressed in new royal robes, as the governor handed them their staff of office. The air smelled of power and perfume; the drums beat with uneasy excitement.<\/p>\n
Photographs captured the moment \u2014 Ajimobi standing tall among kings, smiling, his expression suggesting victory. Behind him, the new Obas adjusted their beaded crowns awkwardly, as if aware that they were wearing a controversy, not a coronation.<\/p>\n
The symbolism was heavy. \nA governor \u2014 an elected official \u2014 had become the maker of kings.<\/p>\n
To his supporters, Ajimobi\u2019s move was visionary: a bridge between ancient authority and modern administration. To critics, it was an assault on Ibadan\u2019s identity \u2014 the governor had worn the language of tradition to serve the machinery of politics.<\/p>\nAjimobi ‘s 21 Obas coronation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The absence of the Olubadan at the event became its most striking headline. The seat reserved for him stood untouched throughout the ceremony, like a ghost of the old order watching the new one emerge.<\/p>\n
The Aftermath: Lawsuits and Loyalties<\/strong><\/h4>\n
In the months that followed, Ibadan became a city of parallel crowns.<\/p>\n
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