Lagos Assembly set to decide age long kingship tussle soon
The Lagos State House of Assembly has waded into the raging storm in Isheri-Oke Church town in Ikosi-Isheri Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Lagos State, over the kingship stool being contested for the past 18 years.
It would be recalled that The Daily Times reported recently that some community leaders stormed the Governor’s Office and House of Assembly in Ikeja to register their grievances over the controversy surrounding the kingship stool in the last 18 years.
Members of the community, in their hundreds, marched to the House of Assembly and converged in front of the complex chanting solidarity songs.
They said they needed Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to use his good office to ensure that justice prevail.
However, four members of the State House of Assembly namely Hon Bisi Yusuf representing Alimosho Constituency 01, Funmilayo Tejuosho representing Mushin 02, Ibrahim Layode representing Badagry Constituency 01 and Hon Kunle Solaja representing Ikorodu Constituency were present to listen to the two parties contesting the stool.
Lawyer to the Olofin family, who claims ownership of the throne, Lekan Odunsi, described the people’s struggle to have their king installed by the Lagos State government as “long suffering and oppression”.
“Our clients’ long and endless wait, hoping against all hopes seem to have been stretched to its elastic limit,” he said.
Some of the inscriptions on the placards they displayed read: “Governor Ambode give us our right”, “we deserve our crown”, “please stop the injustice and give us our king”, “the kingship belongs to the Olofin family”, “we have waited for too long”, “we don’t need strangers as our oba”, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, stop embarrassing Ambode’s government”.
Odunsi said the state government, in the last 18 years, had consistently refused to consider the yearnings of Isheri-Oke Church notwithstanding intrinsic judicial and historical facts presented before the constituted authorities.
He alleged that a member of the state House of Assembly in connivance with the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Musiliu Folami, was working round the clock in a bid to install a non-indigene of the community to become a king over them.
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He stated that the community was neither desperate nor begging to have their son installed as the Oba, but demanding what rightly belongs to them.
Meanwhile one Chief Albert Bankole, who is presently acting as the traditional ruler of Isheri Church refuted the claims by Odunsi Royal family over ownership of the throne saying no king has ever been installed in the land since inception.
Addressing journalists after the hearing from both parties, leader of the facts finding team set up by the House of Assembly, Hon Bisi Yusuf said, the four member team would report back to the House after which both parties would be summoned again to present their case before the full House which will be presided upon by the Speaker, Hon Mudashiru Obasa.
He however urged the parties to maintain peace within the community until their fate is decided by the House of Assembly.
Esther Taiwo
