Stakeholders on Monday expressed divergent views on the new Chieftaincy Law recently signed into law by Ogun Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun.
They spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abeokuta.
Abiodun had on Jan. 11 signed into law the Bill: “Obas, Chiefs, Council of Obas and Traditional Council Law of Ogun State, Bill 2021,”.
It aims at respecting human dignity and promoting of modernity in the installation and burial of the traditional rulers.
The law also empowers families of the traditional rulers to determine the mode of burial when death occurs.
Commenting, Apostle David Otaru, the Chairman, Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) in Ogun, described the new law as “a good development”.
Otaru expressed joy that the traditional rulers of Christian faith would henceforth be buried in accordance with the doctrinal values of the religion.
The cleric expressed optimism that spirit-filled individuals would begin to show up and indicate interest in serving their people through the traditional system.
He said there were many Christians from various royal families who shy away from the Obaship institution, because of the the stories they heard concerning the installation and burial rites of traditional rulers.
“The world is revolving and we have to be dynamic, and so we need to move with the change.
“Nobody is trying to undermine traditional beliefs, but things have to change.
“Ogun is the Gateway State and we must live to lead so that every other state can follow.
“This is a good development because the gospel actually started from Ogun before it spread to all other states; so we should continue to blaze the trail.
“Being an oba should not be a source of burden to the people or family members of the traditional rulers,” Otaru said.
Also, Alhaji Kamaldeen Akintunde, the Secretary-General, Ogun Muslim Council, said that the new law would abate the installation and burial rites of traditional rulers, which he said, had hitherto been shrouded in mystery.
Akintunde said that the development would give room for faith-inclined individuals, willing to serve their towns and communities through traditional systems and institutions, to express interests.
“The law will also allow for family involvement in the burial process of the traditional leaders upon their demise,” the secretary-general said.
Akintunde commended the governor and the state legislature for their diligence and bold stance.
He, also lauded the stakeholders for “maintaining sanity” throughout the stages of the Bill at the state House of Assembly.
In his reactions, Mr Kamil Abolade, the Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Abeokuta branch, said the governor had acted within the ambit of the law as the chieftaincy affairs fall within the residual list.
Abolade said that the Ogun Customary Law gave the traditional worshipers the right to install and bury traditional rulers.
He explained that the new law had evolved in response to the calls for the recognition of the fundamental human rights of the traditional rulers to be buried according to their religion.
Abolade said that the law has not eroded the Yoruba culture.
“Whatever practice or culture that is not fair and against natural justice, equity and good conscience, cannot stand.”
The chairman, who agreed that the traditionalists reserved the right to contest the law in the court, foreclosed their chance of success.
He said: “the Nigeria Constitution recognizes the right of its citizens, including the obas, to belong to any association of their choices.
“The fact that a person becomes an oba does not mean he has relinquished his rights under the Constitution.”
Also, the Methodist Archbishop of Ogun, Archbishop Adegbemi Adewale, who holds a Doctorate Degree in African Law, said: “Every day, the law evolves and new things come into being.
“This law seeks to improve on the previous existing Western Nigeria Lawson which there have been ambiguities as it relates to how our traditional rulers should be buried.
“It states emphatically that the families of the deceased obas should have a say on how they are buried.
“Henceforth, it now allows the families to determine how obas will be interred and, of course, without prejudice to the traditional rites that are meant to be performed by the Customary Laws.
“What the law is saying is that it is no longer feasible for a group of people to say that they reserve exclusive rights to the body of an oba who is the ruler of the whole people.
“While preserving the right that the Ogun Customary Law has given to the traditionalists to conduct or observe traditional rites in the burial of an oba, the new Law has made it illegal for them to mutilate the bodies.”
He explained that the Law in
Section 55 (2), stated that the traditional ruler should be buried according to the tradition and culture of the land but that the body should not be subjected to any mutilation or cannibalisation.
Adewale said that Section 55(1) provides that anyone who disturbs the funeral rights of a traditional ruler is guilty of an offence and liable to 12 months imprisonment.
He said the Law should not generate any controversy, adding that it had only re-affirm what the Customary and the Criminal Laws of Ogun had previously provided.
“Sections 242 and 319 of the Criminal Laws of Ogun prohibits mutilation of bodies and human rituals.
“Even, the traditional worshipers are now saying that they no longer engage in mutilation of bodies.
“Moreover, a four-day burial ceremony could be arranged for the deceased during which the parties choose days.
“The traditionalists can perform their rites during the agreed days and then, return the body to the family intact for interment according to the religion of the traditional ruler.
“I think the problem is that every group wants to lay claim to their members.
“If you’re a Christian and you are an oba, the Christians will want to identify with you and if he is a Muslim, the Muslim community will want him to come for Friday prayers and identify with them as an oba.
“The traditionalists too want to identify with the oba as their member, while on earth, but I think if the obas whom they claimed to be their members denying them publicly, I think they should look inward.
“Moreover, the fact that one becomes an oba does not automatically make him a member of the traditional worshippers,” Adewale said.
According to the cleric, mutilation of bodies is unscriptural, because the Bible considers the body as the temple of the Lord.
Adewale, supporting the new law, said that every religion reserved the right to preserve the bodies of its adherents for proper burial.
In his remarks, Revd. Tolulope Taiwo, the Chief Press Secretary, to the Chairman of the Ogun chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), also lauded the governor for assenting to the Bill.
Taiwo expressed satisfaction at the process of the passage of the bill, saying, “when it was sent to the House of Assembly, it was thrown open for public hearing and stakeholders presented papers and expressed their views”.
“The only thing that is dynamic in life is change, including our traditions,” he said.
Taiwo described the old process as “unscriptural”, adding, “the belief of many people is that traditional burials are very fetish”.
According to him, the scripture has given us a lot of facts about the burial of Kings. Some were buried by their fathers, some were buried in places where their people can identify them.
He said, “How will somebody die and the family members will have no say over the burial of their loved ones?
In a contrary view, some traditionalists, kicked against the law which they described as “an instrument capable of eroding an important aspect of Yoruba tradition.
In his views, Chief Ifasola Opeodu, the Oluwo of Iperu and Vice-Chairman of Osugbo Remo Parapo, said that the law would be challenged in law court.
Opeodu said: “A dead man has no right under the law; becoming a king is not by force and that on no account should either a Christian or a Muslim
bury an Oba.
“What we are saying is that Obaship institution is optional, we are not forcing anybody to come there.
“We are not saying that they should not bury Obas, but our argument is that how can they now say Christians and Muslims should come and be burying Obas, our traditional heads?
“If there is anything that they don’t want during their burials, they should say it, traditionalists must be the ones to bury Obas, not Christians or Muslims.
“This is an infringement on the rights of the traditional worshippers who reserve the right, under the state Customary Law, to install and bury traditional rulers.
“Why don’t they say that Christians or Muslims should be the ones to install the traditional rulers,?”
Also, Oba Olufemi Ogunleye, Towulade of Akinale in Ewekoro Local Government area of Ogun, said that the Law would stop the criminal act of dismembering the body of a dead traditional ruler.
Also, Mr Yinka Folarin, the National Secretary, Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), said that the law aligned with the realities of the modern times.
Folarin said that the new law affirmed and restored the fundamental human rights of the traditional rulers, particularly, in the area of their right to religion.
He said the traditionalists also reserved the right to contest the law in court, adding that the court would put the arguments over the law to rest.
Mrs Korede Oyeronke, a Trader at Kuto Market, Abeokuta, opposed what she described as “unnecessary intervention of Ogun Government in obaship matter in the state”.
Oyeronke said that provisions of the new Law run contrary to the recognition, installation and more importantly, the burial of an oba in Yorubaland.
According to her, in Yorubaland, obas were installed through the traditional process and not in accordance with the Christian or Islamic tenets.
“They are told of what will become of their remains after death. They normally tell them of what happened to their predecessors and that the same thing will happen to them.
“These kings were not forced to go through traditional rites. They knew it and never questioned the process. So, if that is the case, why did the government say otherwise in the name of civilisation?
“Whoever wishes to be king in
Yorubaland and ready to dance to the tune of the traditionalists should be allowed to go through the normal process while alive or in death.
“The reason for prolonged obaship tussle among the candidates in Yorubaland is because they feel good with the setting and all that are associated with being a king.
“This is an unnecessary interference by the state government and it is not right,” she said.
Commenting, Mr Oluwagbemileke Ogunrombi, the President, National Association of Ogun State Students (NAOSS), frowned at ” the ceding of burial rites to the families of traditional rulers”.
Ogunrombi said: “The complete beauty of obaship institution lies in its sacredness.
“Traditional thrones are sacred seats and as such, many of what it entails cannot be discussed in the public.
“Historically and religiously, we can trace the smooth running and governance of societies to the mutual and symbiotic relationship among their leaders (Obas and Baales), governments and other demographic entities with their respective gods.
“The development is an unnecessary interference in the existing installation and burial rites of traditional rulers and it is capable of engedering troubles in our peaceful societies.
“The government should rather spell out the terms of engagement concerning kingship, so that interested candidates can prepare the minds of their family members on the terms when they accept to be kings.
“This law is not comfortable and agreeable, let us revert to status quo.”
Another stakeholder, Mrs Fawziyah Adeniyi, also a politician, described the development as a necessary intervention.
Adeniyi said: “It is important to eliminate the barbaric process of burying an oba in Yorubaland.
“We often hear of how the bodies of the dead traditional rulers were dismembered under the guise of burial rites.
“I know the traditional rulers in these modern times do not want to go through that because they are mostly Christians and Muslims who understand that there is a life after death, where one gives account of his deeds on earth.
“This is why they have run to the government to help them out of the bondage and I commend the governor for his prompt intervention.”(NAN)
