Time to have our own traditional council is now —Awori High Chief

As a traditional High Chief of Aworiland, can you let us into the structure of your traditional council and your office in the Olota-in-Council?

I am the Seriki of Ota and Awori land and that makes me a High Chief. There are two types of chiefs in Ota land; the Osugbo and administrative chiefs. I belong to the group of administrative chiefs and the closest chief to the Olota. I basically function as the Chief of Staff to the Olota and by virtue of my position I also serve as the spokesman of the Olota in Council. The chieftaincy title is a lineage thing because my grandfather was also a past Seriki of Ota.

With the coming of Governor Dapo Abiodun’s administration Awori people had the hope that the marginalization they had been complaining about was going to end. Over seven months later, has it been addressed?

Yes, to some reasonable extent. Governor Dapo Abiodun has shown that he is really committed to addressing some of the grievances we have had against successive governments in Ogun State. Basically, our complaint has been that of marginalisation in terms of having adequate representation in the government and of course the shame of our infrastructural decay. Our roads are very bad despite being home to the largest number of companies contributing to the economy of the state.

We thank God we now have a listening governor who started by picking one of us, Mrs Noimot Salako-Oyedele as his deputy. The governor, within this short time has also been helping to reclaim some of the roads that connected us to Lagos State which have for long been in a state of disrepair and in a matter of weeks these roads will be commissioned. We are trusting God that the governor will still do much more for us.

Recently, Ota people protested against the continuous subjugation of their oba under the Egba Traditional Council asking for the constitution of an Awori Traditional Council for its traditional rulers. Can you tell us more about this agitation?

Well, maybe because Awori people are very welcoming and seem to be calm in the face of provocation, we have for some time been taken for fools and a set of people who could not stand up for their rich cultural heritage and the Olota stool that is over 500 years old. Our people are however saying enough is enough because if you say that what you want to do is tie up the tail of tiger with that of the dog, you are only inviting acrimony.

For no just cause, Awori people were split into two. One side was lumped with Yewa Traditional Council while the other is under Egba Traditional Council. Does that mean Awori people can’t stand on their own? These are people with distinct cultural heritage. We don’t speak same dialect with the Egba or the Yewa. We are totally different from one another. Did you ever hear of Alake of Egba land coming here to be part of our traditional rites? He won’t because he doesn’t know what we are doing here.

Lumping us together with Egba Traditional Council is like putting the Ijaw and Igbo together; it can’t work. This is a forceful marriage and its dissolution is now and that is why I am begging the governor and the Ogun executive council to please act fast to address this error. We need our freedom now. When they want to use us, they will say Yewa/Awori, but after using us they will say there is nothing like Yewa/Awori?

We are really sitting on a keg of gunpowder. Our people are tired of being imprisoned. They are saying this embarrassment must stop. How can somebody fly over six local governments, leave his domain and come here to impose an oba or baale on the Awori people? We can’t take it anymore. Historically, we are by far ahead of the Egbas with the Olota stool that is over 500 years older than theirs. Time to have our own Traditional Council is now.

What has been the position of law over this issue?

We have over 40 Supreme Court judgments on land matters giving credence to the fact that Awori people own this land and by implication should administer what belongs to them or how can I go to Ijeun or Lafenwa now and be selling their land because I have lived long in that area?

There was this report that during the recently celebrated Armed Forces Remembrance Day at Abeokuta, some traditional rulers from Yewa Traditional Council kicked against the choice of the Olota to lay the wreath on behalf of the Olu of Ilaro. Can you shed more light on this?

What actually happened was that the Chief of Staff to the governor, Alhaji Shuaib Salisu beckoned on the Olota of Ota, Oba (Prof) Obalanlege to lay the wreath on behalf of Olu of Ilaro who was not at the programme. The Chief of Staff had thought that the Olota was the highest ranking oba among the traditional rulers that were seated there and indeed, he is because his stool is over 500 years old but some traditional rulers from Yewa kicked against this and the Abepa of Joga Orile was picked to lay the wreath. Can you now see the problem? Yet some Awori traditional rulers are under the Yewa Traditional Council but the Olota can’t stand in for them. We never thought that many were aware of this shabby treatment meted to our Kabiyesi. So, now there is no Yewa/Awori when Olota is to represent the Olu of Ilaro, yet you call us Yewa/Awori when you want to deceive us. We are Awori nation and very proud of our heritage. The governor must stand up to be counted and help us address this anomaly. Our people are very angry and the youth in Awori land are becoming very restive. We have been calming their frayed nerves but for how long, we don’t know.

Some are of the view that all these things have been gazetted and that except a bill is sponsored to reconsider the status quo, things may remain the same?

It is all lies. It is a total misrepresentation of the law and the 1952 gazette that created Egba Divisional Council. This gazette was very explicit on the members of this division and the districts under it. No doubt it was a big council but Ota wasn’t included. Ota had its separate district council and was at no time under Egba council. It was the Olota that was the head of this council. Meanwhile, the prerogative to create the traditional council does not lie in any edict but in the governor.

So nobody can tell us what is not. You see, this is what the Egba had been using against us; they thought we didn’t know but we knew everything. It is said that the narrative was always in favour of the hunter until the lion also learnt how to read, write and speak. So the hunter can’t afford to be telling the villagers any fantastic stories of how he dealt with the lion because the lion that can now read, write and speak and he will say ‘Oga, please what you said never happened, you only manufactured them.’

Now we have a professor of Mass Communication as the Olota; we can’t stomach this embarrassment again. Enough of these terrible lies of Ota people being subservient to the Egba. We earnestly plead with the governor to act fast. Do you know how big Ota is? Do you know that part of Akute is Ota? We have a court judgment to that effect. This is not to talk of Awori land that spreads as far as Isheri and many other places. The time for Awori Traditional Council is now and the governor should, please, not waste time on this anymore.