Outgoing administration of Governor Gboyega Oyetola of Osun State is now enmeshed in fraud allegations of siphoning millions of naira from contestants to the vacant royal stool of Aree of Iree, only to ‘backstab’ them afterwards.
The government’s conduit, according sources, is the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Prince Adebayo Adeleke, also known as Banik, who is from the community in Boripe North Local Council Development Area.
Sources in the ancient community recalled that all the 11 aspirants to the vacant stool were asked to pay N500,000 each to the Boripe local council, and N150,000 to the Osun State Government.
They were also reportedly ordered to pay varying amounts of money to cover their three-year tax clearances, respectively.
However, the contestants soon smelt a rat when the state government, having siphoned various sums of money from them, made a volte face by subverting the community’s convention through the appointment of a new female Chief, an Iyalode, to join the Iree kingmakers.
Meanwhile, sources in Iree revealed that it is a taboo for a woman to be a kingmaker as such had never been witnessed in the history of the community.
“What Banik and other people in the Oyetola government are doing is to impose a preferred candidate of the governor as Oba (monarch) of Iree, and they are so desperate that they want the candidate installed before the governor leaves office on November 26”, a community source who craved anonymity owing to the sensitivity of the issue, disclosed.
Another prominent indigene of the community, Mr. Adebayo Afolabi, a prominent lawyer, while rationalising the scenario, described the hurried move to install a monarch by the Oyetola lame-duck administration as a product of desperation.
“We have six members as kingmakers; three from Oke Ogii, one from Isale Asa, one from Oke Aree and one from Oke Eesa, which is the late Eesa’s. If you want to substitute a Chief for Eesa, such Chief should come from Oke Eesa.
“What is the interest of the government in an Iyalode? Are there no Chiefs in Oke Eesa to be used as substitute for the vacant position of Eesa? Is Oke Eesa not qualified in the selection process of an Aree? Why is the government bent on creating crisis in our community? People should know that we are watching all that is happening.
“Judgement was delivered in June but government waited until October this before they started parading Iree with security agents every Friday, to disrupt the meeting of Aree-In-Council. People who were not born between 1972 and1980 when the crisis of Obaship engulfed Iree or people who were outside the community then should not drag us to such terrible period again for their selfish reason. We don’t pray for what is happening in Ikirun now to rear its ugly heads to Iree.
“Why the hurry to install an Aree now? Politicians will come and go, political offices will come and go but tradition remains and should be held sacrosanct. Everyone is writing his history, whatever history that removes peace from one’s community is an unpatriotic act,” Afolabi appraised.
Already, however, other sources revealed that the state government, scared stiff that its preferred candidate to the ancient throne would be rejected by the community and could be liable to being stoned, reportedly held a secret selection meeting at the Boripe LCDA secretariat where six handpicked warrant officers, joined by the new Iyalode, were herded to endorse the governor’s candidate.
All the kingmakers in Iree boycotted the exercise, widely booed as a charade, sources further revealed.
The government also reportedly hoped to install its preferred Iree monarch inside the local council secretariat and make him operate from there till the state’s administration expires on November 26, this year.
Governor Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was defeated by Mr. Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic party in the recently held governorship election.
However, while speaking with journalists recently in Osogbo, the state’s commissioner for chieftaincy affairs, Banik, denied his alleged meddlesomeness in Iree chieftaincy brouhaha.
He also extricated his principal, Governor Oyetola, from any involvement in the imposition plot.