The demise of the leader of the Seriki family in the Olubadan chieftaincy line in Ibadanland, High Chief Adebayo Oyediji, has been announced. He died at the age of 92.
He reportedly gave up the ghost in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, at a private hospital in Ibadan after a brief illness.
It can be recalled that Oyediji had contested the Olubadan stool against the present Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Saliu Adetunji.
The popular petroleum merchant, who lives at Monatan area of Iwo Road, Ibadan, instituted several suits in the Oyo High Courts against the State Government and the reigning Olubadan over claim that he and not Oba Adetunji, should have been installed by Governor Abiola Ajimobi after the death of Oba Samuel Odulana Odugade in January 2016.
Oyedeji, had in his arguments, claimed that he was to be the 41st Olubadan of Ibadanland going by his seniority in the Olubadan-in-Council hierarchy.
Late former national chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, High Chief Meredith Adisa Akinloye, was the last Seriki Olubada.
Akinloye died on September 18, 2007 at the age of 91.
Since then, High Chief Oyediji, who was next in rank to Akinloye, had engaged in legal struggles up to the Supreme Court to ensure that the Seriki Line, which was later sidelined, was restored.
Since the demise of Akinloye in 2007, none of the High Chiefs in the Seriki line had been afforded the opportunity to be in the Olubadan chieftaincy line.
Credit: oyoinsight.com
