The Court of Appeal (Ibadan Division) will today begin hearing in an appeal filed against the selection and coronation of the Odemo of Isara Remo, Ogun State, Oba Albert Mayungbe.
A co-contestant to the throne, Prince Samuel Odunsi, had dragged the traditional ruler, the secretary, Remo North Local Government, eight chiefs, Ogun State governor, the Commissioner for Local Government in the state as well as the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice to Ogun State High Court, challenging Mayungbe’s selection and coronation.
He said the monarch’s selection was in error because he was an Odi by ancestry. Odi in Isara are those whose ancestral parents did not originate from the town, though they may have mixed with indigenes, including princes and princesses, for centuries.
But the Ogun State High Court sitting in Sagamu dismissed the suit in its judgment delivered on March 29, 2018.
Dissatisfied with the court decision, Prince Odunsi filed an appeal against the judgment at the Court of Appeal, Ibadan, seeking an order setting aside the lower court’s decision.
He filed the appeal in April, 2018, but the suit has not been heard due to one technicality or another, including amendment of appeal notice and responses.
In his eight grounds of appeal, Odunsi argued that the lower court erred in law in formulating and deciding on issues that were not implicated in parties’ pleadings on the custom and tradition of Remo land and those of Isara.
He posited that the lower court erred by according credence to Mayungbe’s evidence and his witnesses at the expense of his own evidence, which he described as ‘incontrovertible’, being the position of the Akarigbo of Remo land. Akarigbo’s letter had described as an ‘unpardonable abomination’ for an Odi to be crowned the Odemo of Isara, a position which he said necessitated his refusal to consent to Mayungbo’s selection.
The appeal also include a ground that the court erred by upholding a claim that one person can double as an Odi and a prince in spite of the evidence before the court.
The grounds also include that the lower court erred by holding that Mayungbe is a member of Erinsiba/Ayoledoye ruling house.
The monarch has also countered Odunsi’s claims in the processes filed by his lawyers.
All parties may be asked to adopt their processes during today’s hearing in order to achieve speedy dispensation of justice.