What does it mean when a sitting governor stands inside a newly built palace, in front of royal fathers wearing beaded crowns, and threatens to abuse and insult any Oba who does not support him? It means the palace has ceased to be sacred. It has become a podium. That is exactly what happened in Eruwa on September 5, 2026, and it is why the first anniversary of Oba Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja as the 44th Olubadan is more than a celebration. It is a referendum on whether tradition can survive executive arrogance.
Ibadan does not crown an Olubadan every day. The city waits, sometimes for years, for a High Chief to climb the ladder from Jagun to Otun or Balogun. It is a system built on endurance, not inheritance. That is why the first year of Oba Ladoja, who ascended the throne on September 27, 2025, should have been a moment of pure restoration. Instead, it has become a moment of reflection on how much damage political power can do to a sacred institution.
There is no dispute that the Olubadan institution is older than the office that now seeks to control it. It survived the colonial district officer, it survived the military administrator, but it is struggling to survive the modern governor. The method is simple and consistent. Use the law to manufacture Obas, use money to silence them, and use threats to tame those who resist.
We saw the template in 2017. Governor Abiola Ajimobi invoked Sections 10, 12 and 25 of the Chiefs Law and set up the Justice Boade Commission. The outcome was predetermined. Through Gazettes 14 and 15 of August 2017 and Gazette 3 of March 2018, twenty-one High Chiefs and Baales were elevated to wear beaded crowns. In a city that had only one king since 1850, there were suddenly twenty-two. The High Court saw through it. In suit M/317/2017, it declared the exercise unconstitutional, illegal, null and void. The judgement was enforced by a consent judgement in 2019 when Governor Seyi Makinde came in and opted for settlement. For a moment, Ibadan thought sense had returned.
It had not. In 2023, the same objective was achieved through a different route. The Oyo State House of Assembly amended the Chiefs Law. High Chiefs could now wear crowns and still remain eligible for the Olubadan stool. Section 4 of the 1957 Declaration was cleverly altered, replacing most senior High Chief with most senior beaded crown Oba. In substance, what Ajimobi did by gazette, Makinde did by amendment. The effect was identical: a polarised council, Mogajis against High Chiefs, market associations factionalised, and the sanctity of the ladder reduced to a contest of who is loyal to Government House. When Oba Lekan Balogun joined his ancestors in March 2024, his successor Oba Owolabi Olakulehin, already a beaded crown Oba under the new law, became Olubadan. Oba Ladoja, who had resisted for seven years, eventually accepted a crown to protect his own succession. The crown had stopped being a symbol of honour; it had become a political survival kit.
This is why what Governor Makinde said on September 5, 2026, matters so much. At the newly built Eleruwa Palace in Eruwa, during the first coronation anniversary of Oba Samuel Adebayo Adegbola and his own installation as Aare Asoludero of Ibarapaland, the governor abandoned diplomatic language. He told a gathering that included royal fathers that traditional institutions must accept all politicians as their children, but any institution that interferes in politics, we will insult them. If they can cross into politics, we will abuse them. He went further: if you want to play politics, be ready to be treated as a politician. He concluded with a line that has since dominated Ibadan discourse: by next week, I will start getting into the mode to start talking, singing and even abusing people. I will not abuse anyone in the palace, but when I step out, I will abuse them, because that is what we do in politics.
Those words, spoken inside a palace, were not a slip. They were a doctrine. They reveal how far the relationship has deteriorated, from custodian and government to master and servant. The background is well known. As 2027 approaches, Oba Ladoja, in his first year on the throne, is perceived to be sympathetic to the APC and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while Governor Makinde is preparing to run for president on the platform of the Allied Peoples Movement. The throne is being punished for refusing to be a campaign secretariat.
Ibadan is not alone. The same script has played in Kano where an emir was dethroned in an afternoon and four new emirates were created to dilute his authority, only for the action to be reversed four years later, leaving two emirs to one throne. In Rivers, traditional rulers have been suspended for attending a meeting without permission. In several states across the South South and South East, autonomous communities are graded and de-graded not on history but on political loyalty. Everywhere, the mechanism is economic strangulation. Royal stipends are paid through local governments controlled by governors, often owed for months, compelling Obas to queue for what is rightfully theirs. To maintain palaces, some resort to indiscriminate sale of titles. When every street has a king, no one respects the crown. The damage goes beyond culture; it weakens security. In Ibadan, Mogajis and Baales settle most land and family disputes before they reach the police. When they are divided into rival crowns, that alternative dispute system collapses and violence increases.
Ordinary Nigerians see it clearly. Chief Tajudeen Ajibola, Otun Balogun, reminded legislators that the 1957 law made High Chiefs objects of ridicule at public functions until it was abolished. A Mogaji from Ibadan South East, Mogaji Adebowale Aderemi, said the republican system of Ibadan has been turned to a hereditary system by politics. At Oje Market, Alhaja Risikat Olayiwola, the Iya Oje, complained that the proliferation of crowns has brought quarrels over land into every compound, adding that market women no longer know which palace to run to when there is crisis. Chief Mrs Labake Lawal, a former Iyalode of Ibadan North, noted that women traders who sustain the city were never consulted before chieftaincy laws were amended, yet they bear the brunt of the division. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria based in Ibadan, Barrister Mutalubi Ojo Adebayo, noted that Section 25 of the Chiefs Law was never intended to allow a commission to rewrite a declaration.
The hypocrisy is evident. The same constitution that says Obas have no role in governance sends the police commissioner to the palace at midnight when there is a communal crisis. You cannot keep the Oba in the museum as an artefact and expect him to work on the farm as a labourer. Denying them constitutional recognition is a deliberate strategy to keep them useful but powerless. Their silence as a national body has not helped. The National Council of Traditional Rulers, chaired by the Sultan and the Ooni, has watched as junior Obas are threatened without a word. If a governor can stand in a palace in Oyo and threaten to abuse Obas, no throne is safe. The judiciary has been the only defence, as shown when it nullified Ajimobi’s gazettes, but that protection needs to be institutionalised. No declaration should be amended without the concurrence of kingmakers, Mogajis, Baales and Iyalodes. And financial autonomy must be guaranteed through a Traditional Council Trust Fund as a first line charge on the federation account, similar to the judiciary, so that Obas do not have to beg local government chairmen who are appointees of governors.
It must also be said that the palace has not been blameless. Some traditional rulers have traded dignity for contracts, land allocations and front row seats at political rallies. When an Oba lobbies for a share of security votes or becomes a contractor for government, he leaves the throne and enters the arena.
Oba Ladoja brings a rare advantage. He has been both in the arena and now on the throne. Impeached as governor in 2006 and restored by the Supreme Court, he understands executive overreach better than most. He understands the ballot and the beads. One year after his ascension, his challenge is greater than organising a colourful anniversary thanksgiving. It is to lead the restoration of Ibadan’s republican monarchy, where any child from any compound can dream of becoming Olubadan, not because he knows a governor, but because he has served his people with patience. That restoration will only be complete when the law makes it impossible for any governor, present or future, to stand inside a palace and threaten to abuse the custodians of our heritage.
We should protect the throne not because Obas are perfect, but because without them, we lose the last institution that reminds government that power is transient and that legitimacy comes from the people and their history. The governor’s chair is for four or eight years. The Olubadan stool is for eternity. As we celebrate Oba Ladoja’s first year, that is the lesson to take home.
Fẹ́mi Akínṣọlá writes from Ibadan
