CITIZENS COMPASS— The Secretary of the Awujale Afobaje Council, Chief Ayotunde Ola Odulaja, has said that he would not succumb to political manoeuvring, intimidation, an application of power and influence based on the selection process to the revered stool of Awujale and Paramount Ruler of Ijebuland in Ogun State.
He said he would never allow himself to be used against his conscience or the interest of his ancestors.
This was contained in a letter from Odulaja to Otunba Ademorin Aliu Kuye, one of the candidates for the revered stool of the Awujale and Paramount Ruler of Ijebuland, a copy which was sighted by Citizens Compass on Tuesday.
Citizens Compass reported that Kuye was rumoured to be the preferred candidate of the State governor, Dapo Abiodun, but feelers from Ijebu-Ode said Kuye has his lineage to the Fusengbuwa Ruling House through his maternal grandfather and mother.
Recall that the Ogun State Government has suspended the selection process for the Awujale stool citing petitions from various corners as the reason behind the suspension.
However, rumours erupted that the suspension was to allow the state government to impose its preferred candidate on the kingmakers but this has since been debunked.
Findings by Citizens Compass revealed that in terms of land mass, some parts of Lagos State like Epe up to Ikorodu and Obalemde among others historically belongs to Ogun State but were ‘cornered’ by Lagos State though royalties were been paid to the former Awujale who joined his ancestors in July 2025.
As the selection process for the next Awujale began, the Lagos state government was said to have sought for an avenue to discontinue the royalties and the best was to use the federal might to impose a ‘Lagos boy’ as the new Awujale.
On Tuesday, Citizens Compass sighted an exchange of letters between Odulaja and Kuye.
The letter reads:
Attention:
Otunba Ademorin Aliu Kuye
(Otunba Ajana of Ijebu-Ode)
Good morning, my brother, the Otunba Ajana of Ijebu-Ode.
I acknowledge and appreciate your various overtures over the past week, including those made today. I write this message frankly and without hesitation, to clearly express my deep displeasure with the manner in which you have pursued your aspiration to the revered Stool of the Awujale.
You may have observed that I have stopped responding to your calls. This decision is deliberate and based on the following considerations:
1. I no longer have sufficient confidence in the process being advocated to me.
2. The expectations being placed before me are neither reasonable nor acceptable.
3. Your approach reflects an unhealthy level of desperation for a stool that ought to be treated with utmost reverence, restraint, and dignity, not one influenced by power, pressure, or undue interference in the process.
4. Your conduct and disposition during our last conversation, particularly the abrupt termination of the call because I did not agree with your position, was most unpleasant and unbecoming.
5. There are also unresolved concerns regarding your lineage categorisation within your family, which further complicates the matter.
Having carefully considered all of the above, I wish to be unequivocal: please do not contact me again regarding your aspiration to the Stool of the Awujale.
As you are aware, the Government has halted the process, and we must all wait patiently for the lawful process to resume. I am not accustomed to, nor will I submit to, political manoeuvring, intimidation, or the application of power or influence. Let me state this plainly: I will not be influenced, pressured, or cajoled into acting against my conscience or beliefs.
Please do not view this communication as an affront, but rather as a clear statement of principle and personal conviction. I would appreciate it if all calls and messages on this subject cease, and that we continue to relate cordially and respectfully as Chiefs of Ijebu-Ode.
Thank you, and I wish you well in your aspirations.
Chief Ayotunde Ola Odulaja
Lapoekun of Ijebu-Ode
CC:
1.The Executive Governor Of Ogun
2. The Chairman Awujale Afobaje ( Kingmakers council)
3. The Chairman Awujale Interregnum Administration Council.
Kuye’s response to Odulaja reads:
Good morning Chief Odulaja.
I appreciate your response and respect your reservations on this matter. However, I must not allow for the wrong impression or narratives created by your response to persist especially when a personal communication is being copied to others.
These wrong narrations you will kindly allow me to correct with all due respect to you.
1. My approach to this matter is neither desperate nor compulsion but respect for tradition and culture and the need to sustain the integrity of the Awujale stool. If there’s any sense of desperation, it is to prevent the monetisation of our revered throne and desecration of it by charlatans buying vehicles for stakeholders to tilt decisions in their favor. And that’s why it took me a long time to accede to family pressure to contest. If you take the patience to investigate, you’ll hear I told many people before now that I’m not interested in the obaship. I have a tenure in the Parliament till 2027 and I’m not limited by tenure. I even have opportunity of becoming something more but I surrendered all of that to protect our tradition and our throne from scavengers.
2. Your insinuation that I dropped the call on you during our last conversation is completely untrue. You’ll recall that while we were talking, you in fact told me you were going to have a meeting soon. While I was speaking, you said your visitors came in and you have to end the conversation and I respected your situation and you dropped the call from your end. To now tell people I dropped the call on you smears of preconceived animosity against me and I think that’s most unfair.
3. There’s no unresolved concerns about my lineage at all. My maternal grandfather and mother are Fusengbuwa and my father is from Gbelegbuwa. My father’s family house remains till today at Gbelegbuwa/ Gboguja (which I rebuilt some 10 years ago) while my mother’s family house remains at Agunshebi (which I rebuilt 2 years ago) and Ita Ijana. If there’s any unresolved concerns, it’s in the imagination of mischief makers, which kingmakers can independently verify and correct.
4. I never lied about being from female lineage in Funsegbuwa and as a lawyer, I’ve carefully perused the laws and concluded I’m all round qualified to compete.
5. I cannot pretend not to know that some Olori Ebis deliberately misclassified me on the list submitted and highlighted their favored candidates even with wrong classification. Describing a descendant of a female child as Abidagba Okunrin. The Afobajes must rise above board by doing the right thing, verify each candidate/ classifications no matter the time it would take and give us the best Awujale. History beacons on all of us to uphold integrity and not be bought over by pecuniary interests. Afterall we all took the oath of loyalty to the last Awujale and swore not sell the throne to highest bidder.
6. Lastly, my calls to you is out of respect for your office and I promise not to call again as demanded by you. Thank you sir.
Omooba Ademorin Aliu Kuye MHR
Citizens Compass reports that Kuye is a Lagos-based legal practitioner and politician.
