It is about 14 days since a major face-off between the Oluwo of Iwo, Oba Abdulrosheed Akanbi, and League of Imams and Alfas, a body of Islamic clerics in the Southwest and the South-south states of Edo and Delta was averted, following the apprehension that greeted the plan by the Oluwo to install the founder of Jamaa’t Taawunil Muslimeen, Said Molaasan, as the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland.
The League of Imams and Alfas saw this as an affront and a ploy by Oba Akanbi to usurp their powers. Consequently, the league approached the Osun State High Court and Justice Sikiru Oke granted the prayer filed by their lawyer, Barrister Kazeem Odedeji, asking it to halt Oluwo’s plan to install a Grand Mufti for Yorubaland.
Up until some days before a truce was reached, the Iwo monarch had insisted on going ahead with the ceremony.
In fact, preparations were said to be already at a crescendo with reports claiming that tents had been erected at the Oluwo’s palace in preparation for the installation.
Before then, an Islamic cleric in Iwo, Khalifat Asiru Adio Imran who incidentally was a known Oluwo’s friend before the face off, had also obtained a judgment delivered by Justice Kola Adegoke of Osun State High Court declaring that Oluwo had no power to appoint any Islamic title holder for the Iwo Central Mosque.
The League had also written to all the obas in Yorubaland to put them on notice that the Oluwo was on an alleged mission to rewrite Yoruba history by solely appointing the Grand Mufti for Yorubaland.
The League also based its opposition against the Oluwo’s move on the premise that three or four such appointments in the past were done by them. These include the honorary titles bestowed on Alhaji Wahab Folawiyo as the Baba Adinni of Yorubaland and later the Baba Adinni of Nigeria; the late MKO Abiola as the Baba Adinni of Yorubaland; Arisekola Alao as the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland; Asiwaju Khamis Olatunde Badmus as Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland, Chief Yekini Adeojo as the Seriki Musulumi of Yorubaland and Chief Mrs Sahkinah Adekolani as the Iya Adinni Musulumi of Yorubaland and the last occupant of the post of Grand Mufti of Yorubaland who died two months ago, Sheik Hamzat Hussein was installed by League.
Hence, they argued, it was the first time a monarch would be appointing an Islamic title holder for the entire Yorubaland.
An insider said since the position in dispute is reserved for highly cerebral individuals and there are about eight or ten professors of Islamic Studies in the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin alone, they could have picked any of them, except that those in the academia usually avoid such appointments.
The source said: “In Saudi Arabia, when a judgment is made for somebody to be executed, it is the Grand Mufti that signs the execution paper. If he fails to sign, nobody would dare do that.
“He would look at the judgment to see whether it is in alignment with the Islamic doctrines.” were made before a middle point position was taken on the controversial issue and the tension generated by the appointment was doused.
The Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland, Alhaji Kamis Olatunde Badmus, one of the people who brokered the peace deal, told The Nation that the agreement would not have been reached but for the cooperation the Oluwo exhibited in the matter.
The Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland dismissed the alleged apprehension in certain quarters, saying the matter was not as serious as people thought.
“The League of Alfas and Imams came to me and said they wanted to see the governor and tell him that the Oluwo does not have the power to confer, install or turban anyone as the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland, saying that the power resides in them and they have been exercising it for the past 30 years.”
In a veil support of the League, Asiwaju Musulumi explained that there are two categories of Islamic titles in Yorubaland, one of which is exclusively reserved for the religious leaders who are very versed in the Islamic religion, and the Mufti of Yorubaland happened to be one of them. “It should be for people who understand and can interpret the Quran. If there is any crisis anywhere, they are the ones that are supposed to go there and interpret what the Quran says.And they must be a revered and knowledgeable personality acceptable to all and sundry.”
In respect of this, according to him, the League felt Oluwo would be overreaching his bounds in trying to do that.
“They saw the governor and made a formal presentation to him. At that meeting, the governor said he would liaise with me and find a way out of it. The Commissioner of Police and the Director of SSS were there.”
He added that the Commissioner of Police called him and the Oluwo to resolve the matter.
He said: “I went with the Chief Imam of Osun and it was made known to the Oluwo that he had no power to confer that title on anybody, and if it was to be a traditional title, that can be within the purview of Oluwo.
“I also echoed it that the League of Imams had already installed three in the past, one in Osun, one in Oyo and the other one in Ogun. The one that died was in Osun here.”
He recalled that while with the Commissioner of Police, the Oluwo put up several arguments claiming that his forefathers were the first Muslim Oba. “But the question is if your forefathers were the first Muslim Obas, is it in the declaration that every Muslim Oba must be the one to assume the leadership of Muslims in Yorubaland?”
During the meeting, the Oluwo was also said to have claimed that the first mosque was built in Iwo. But the Asiwaju Musulumi also faulted the claim, insisting that the first mosque was built in Oyo Ile, and it was about 105 years later that a mosque was built in Iwo.
The Asiwaju Mususlumi, the representative of the League and the Oluwo then resolved at the CP’s office to find an end to the imbroglio.
He said: “I told him (Oluwo) you are an Oba, don’t be involved in Islamic matters. He said that was what he inherited. But at the end of the day, in the presence of everybody, he said he agreed and he was going to send his delegate to me the following Wednesday.
“On Wednesday (the following day), his people came and said we should allow this one to go but the next one is one that they are not going to dabble into. I said no, don’t play with our intelligence.
“I said the League of Imams would not take this. I told the delegates that Kabiyesi wouldn’t have given you this mandate.”
It was said that while the CP and the Director of SSS were finding a way out of the logjam, the Oluwo backed down a day before the installation and put a call through to the Asiwaju of Musulumi, saying that he had acceded to the request to stop the installation of the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland, and would instead install the Grand Mufti of Iwoland.
The League was said to have reluctantly agreed to the new position of the Oluwo, though he met some resistance even after dropping the idea of installing the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland because the League observed that the invitation he sent out read ‘Grand Mufti of Yorubaland’.
Before then, the League of Imams had approached the court, to say that there shouldn’t be anything like that.
Asiwaju commended the Oluwo for taking a good stance by not allowing the installation to be done in his palace. He said: “Why I respect Oluwo is that he did not allow the so-called installation to happen in his palace. If the Oluwo had made his palace available, allowing the installation to go on, it would not have been in his interest to disobey the court order. He did well by not allowing this.
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“The governor made sure we found a solution to this. The major point is that Oluwo did well in the first instance by not installing the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland. Though we made him understand that if anything happens in the palace, they would say Oluwo disobeyed the court order.
Oluwo backs down
Staying true to his word, speaking through his media aide, Ibrahim, the Oluwo said there was no installation of the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland today because court had stopped Oluwo.
He said the Oluwo was not part of the acclaimed installation. What they did in the palace was to feed the less privileged. “They have said we should not install him. The palace was not part of his acclaimed installation.
“If the place wants to confer the title, it will take place in the palace. There was nothing like that in the palace, what we had in the palace was the usual feeding of the orphans and the vulnerable, they all came to the palace to eat as usual custom of the Oluwo. If we were part of the process it would have taken place in the palace.
Truce at last
The Asiwaju Musulumi of Yorubaland commended the governor, the Commissioner of Police, the DSS and the Oluwo for allowing the matter to go the way it did.
According to the Asiwaju Musulumi, “maturity played a lot of role in dousing this tension because the police did not over react. There was no major presence of police in Iwo on that day.
“Because of what had gone underground, we were able to douse the tension and I think the League of Imams was happy with that.”
In a release, the President General of the Association, Sheik Jamiu Kewulere, thanked Governor Gboyega Oyetola, the Osun State Commissioner of Police, the Director of State Security Services, all other state security agencies in the state and the Oluwo of Iwo for “their positive efforts in forestalling what probably could have reduced Osun State and the entire Yoruba land to a jungle of religious crises and such that might have further tensed security lapses in the country if Oluwo had gone ahead and made available his palace for the purported installation of the self-styled Mufti of Yoruba land.”
The release further appreciates all the Obas in the entire Yorubaland for their patience and moral support for the League.
Not yet uhuru
While the League of Imams and Yorubaland have shifted grounds by allowing the Oluwo to appoint a Grand Mufti in Iwo, there are Islamic groups who are still kicking against the installation of Daood Imran Malaasan as the Grand Mufti of Iwoland.
Khalifat Asiru Adio Imran, speaking to The Nation, insisted that the Oluwo does not have the power to appoint anybody in Islamic religion.
“He can’t equate himself with the emir. We’ve had a Christian as the Oluwo. Oba Samuel Omotoso was a Christian. If it were to be statutory for all the Oluwos to be Muslims, probably, he could be excused.
“Oluwo wears a crown. Those emirs he compares himself with are alfas. Former Emir of Kano is an alfa and has a degree in Islamic Studies. I challenged him in court over this.
Imran said there is a constitution at the central mosque that guides the activities of Islamic clerics.
He insisted that the Oluwo had no power to appoint the Grand Mufti of Iwoland, but because the League just wanted to honour him, they allowed that to pass. “He does not deserve it. Unfortunately, most of the alfas in Iwo right now are cowards,” Imran said.
He admitted that they were friends but his bid to correct the Oluwo that he had no power to remove the Bashorun of Musulumi in Iwo caused friction between them.
“I said look, this is a religious appointment, not a traditional appointment. It is only the person you appointed in your palace that you can remove, not an alfa.”
He said the Oluwo is a traditional ruler and not a religious one, adding: “That is what the law says. Religion is not part of it.”
According to Imran, if the Oluwo had gone ahead with his move to install the Grand Mufti of Yorubaland, it would have met with serious protests. An Iwo based Islamic group, Taawunu Health Initiative also said that it rejected the appointment of Molaasan.
According to the group, the decision was based on the fact that Malaasan lacks the major requisite, which is knowledge, to give verdict on Islamic matters.
They also accused him of having “no respect for the Shari’a which he is imposing himself to be speaking for.”
They accused him of shunning the invitation of the Sharia panel.
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