By Olayinka Ogunade~
By any objective standard, the current debate over eligibility for the throne of the Awujale of Ijebuland should not exist. The law is clear. The declaration is explicit. Yet misinformation, selective reading of statutes, and what can only be described as legal adventurism have combined to muddy settled custom and settled law.
Let us, therefore, set the record straight…
At the centre of this controversy is the Chiefs Law and the Customary Law Declaration regulating the selection to the Awujale of Ijebuland chieftaincy, a declaration validly made under Section 4(2) of the Chiefs Law of 1957 and reaffirmed by the Ogun State Chieftaincy Law of 2021. Contrary to popular claims, the 2021 law did not alter the declaration. It reinforced it.
Those insisting otherwise are either mistaken or deliberately misleading the public.
What the Declaration Clearly Says
The declaration governing the Awujale stool in Ijebu-Ode establishes five fundamental points.
First, there are four recognised ruling houses:
Gbelegbuwa
Fusengbuwa
Anikinaiya
Fidipote
Second, the order of rotation is fixed and unambiguous:
1. Anikinaiya
2. Fusengbuwa
3. Fidipote
4. Gbelegbuwa
No committee, court of public opinion, or self-help interpretation can amend this order.
Third, and this is the heart of the matter, the declaration is categorical on eligibility.
Only members of the ruling house and of the male line may be proposed as candidates.
The declaration allows recourse to the female line only as an exception, not a right, and only where there is no male to succeed in that family. Even then, strict conditions apply: the mother must be an ‘Abidagba’, a true-born child delivered while the father was on the throne or, failing that, another narrowly defined category.
This is not ambiguous language. It is deliberate, restrictive, and clear.
To put it plainly:
Female-line succession is a last resort, not an alternative pathway.
The Mismatch Between Law and Aspirants
The uncomfortable truth is that the majority of those currently jostling for the throne trace their claims through female lines, despite the availability of male-line candidates within the ruling houses. That reality alone disqualifies them under the existing declaration.
No amount of legal gymnastics can wish away Section 3(a) and 3(b) of the declaration. The law does not bend to ambition.
Process Matters -And the Law Anticipates Delay
The declaration also provides a strict procedure:
The Secretary of the Local Government must formally announce the next ruling house.
That ruling house has 14 days to present its candidate to the Odis.
Failure to do so lawfully triggers a move to the next ruling house in rotation.
This safeguard ensures order, not chaos; continuity, not confusion.
Most importantly, the law is settled on one critical point:
Any declaration in force at the time a vacancy occurs must be followed.
In Ijebu-Ode, the declaration in force is the one cited above, and it remains valid.
The Role of the 2021 Ogun State Law
The Ogun State Chieftaincy Law of 2021 did not rewrite history. It did not abolish male-line succession. It did not introduce new eligibility criteria for the Awujale stool.
What it did was reaffirm existing declarations, including the one governing Ijebuland in Ogun State.
Claims to the contrary are legally unsustainable.
Law Above Sentiment
The succession debate surrounding the Awujale of Ijebuland has been sharpened by a clear legal and customary position that it is the exclusive turn of the Fusengbuwa ruling house to produce the next monarch, and not Gbelegbuwa or any other ruling house.
Under the extant Customary Law Declaration regulating the stool, rotation among the four recognised ruling houses is explicit, and the current phase squarely places the right of nomination with Fusengbuwa.
More critically, the declaration is unambiguous that only candidates from the male lineage are eligible for consideration.
Advocates of female-line claimants are hereby reminded that such arguments run contrary to settled law and tradition, especially when qualified and eligible candidates from the male lineage of the Fusengbuwa house are available. Deviating from this clear framework would amount to a breach of both custom and law, and risk throwing an otherwise straightforward succession process into needless controversy.
Traditional stools derive their authority not only from history but from order, custom codified into law. Once sentiment overrides statute, tradition itself is weakened.
The selection of the Awujale is too important to be reduced to conjecture, misinformation, or pressure politics. The declaration is clear. The law is settled.
The path is known.
In matters of the throne, noise must give way to law.
Dr. Ogunade is a public analyst and writes in from Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.
