The unwholesome correctional treatment unleashed on a section of Oyo State Obas by the former president Obasanjo at a commissioning event in Iseyin over the weekend is no longer news, but the ominous silence of the affected Obas over the incident is what both the indigenes and the settlers cannot fathom. The reasons, this online newspaper is set to unveil.
Investigations revealed that immediately after the last elections, Governor Seyi Makinde was said not to be happy with the results of the elections in certain areas of the state. Despite his victory, sources explained that the Governor still felt shortchanged in terms of votes returned from a particular zone and therefore believed that the Obas didn’t do enough, the result is the cold relationship between the Governor a section of the Obas.
The Governor’s speech at the event, according to sources, confirmed this state of affairs. Some of the Obas perceived to have done well enough to the satisfaction of the governor were compensated with foreign trips immediately after the last elections, which also generated bad blood amongst the Obas themselves.
Also, some royal fathers interviewed by this newspaper said that a few of them, say like about ten, who sat within the view of the ex-president and the governor actually stood up as a matter of protocol when both and their entourage stormed the venue, well behind the scheduled time, which prevented the Governor from moving round the venue to greet the audience as was his normal practice. While the rest of them, about thirty five were tucked away in a conner , and oblivious of what was going on, for which they were also unhappy.
The ex-president himself was said to be nursing grudges against some Obas for various alleged reasons, ranging from personal to denial of farmlands, such that the Royal fathers have remained sharply divided that it was almost impossible for them to take a common position on what hit them, hence the silence. A meeting that was supposed to hold yesterday in Ibadan had to be cancelled, our source revealed.
A source also confided in dejoymedia.online that, those Kabiyesis’ obedience to the sacrilegious order and their “iroko’s silence” since then, is, however, not borne out of cowardice, but as royal fathers, they refused to be angered into spoiling the day for the Governor and the good people of Oke-ogun and Oyo State in general.
Moreso, since several elder statemen within and outside the State have pleaded with them to exhibit the fatherly virtue embedded in royalty, coupled with the fact that their subjects in various groups and associations have spoken and reacted on their behalf.
In the light of the foregoing, they’re invoking the ancestral spirits to forgive the ex-president as their son, relying on yoruba proverb that says “omo eni ki i buru ka fi f’ekun paje”( literally- one doesn’t push a rascally son to the tiger to devour for its meal).
