Category: Southwest

A coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Ogun state has commended Governor Dapo Abiodun for his swift decision to suspend the Olorile of Orile-Ifo, Oba Semiu Ogunjobi, for six months after he publicly humiliated a 73-year-old man, Chief Arinola Abraham Love, on a highway.

The CSOs also praised the Ogun state police command for arraigning the embattled monarch on Tuesday on a three-count charge of conspiracy, assault, and conduct likely to cause a breach of peace.

In a statement issued in Abeokuta and signed by the coalition’s chairman, activist lawyer Comrade Solomon Bankole, the group lauded the state government for taking decisive action. 

However, they urged that the case should not be abandoned at the preliminary stage, stressing the need to ensure justice for the victim.

Bankole condemned Oba Ogunjobi’s role in the incident, describing it as an abuse of power. 

He recounted how the monarch allegedly forced the elderly man to kneel before him on the highway while his palace aides physically assaulted him.

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Emphasizing that such behaviour disgraces the status of traditional rulers in the “Káàrò, O ò Jí’re” land, Bankole insisted that suspension alone was insufficient. 

He called for the thorough prosecution of the monarch to serve as a deterrent.

He further stated that Chief Arinola’s dignity had been trampled upon in the eyes of the public and that the only way for the government to prove its commitment to protecting citizens’ rights was to ensure justice for the septuagenarian.

“It beats our imagination to behold the disturbing video of the humiliation carried out on the personality of that 73-year old Chief Arinola, where a supposed custodian of the Yoruba cultural beliefs and norms was seen ranting like someone bitten by a rabies infected dogs”.

“As a Yoruba man to start with, it is not in our culture; it is against our tradition and values to have children physically assaulting the elders, talk talkless of having a traditional rulers supervising such public humiliation of someone old enough to be his father”.

“I have watched and listened to that video which has now gone viral and I must say that it was too horrible and unacceptable in our society”.

“Watching that 73-year-old man helplessly on his kneels, facing a downpour of curses and absorbing a hot slap by a palace slave was a gory sight and a nightmare.

Chief Arinola was indeed, caught at the wrong side of the monarch’s law and so, he was dragged to the floor and dehumanised before the world.

We are indeed, grateful to the finger that recorded that scene and released the clean video, did us a big favour otherwise, the fragile looking Baba would have been successfully humiliated, probably killed and buried without any noise just as Oba Ogunjobi had boasted.

“Ogun CSOs is seriously in support of the steps so far taken by the state government by suspending the power-drunk monarch, the Olorile of Orile Ifo, Oba Abdul-Semiu Ogunjobi who publicly humiliated the septuagenarian, Chief Arinola”.

“It is on this premise that we are also demanding that the boy that slapped him shouldn’t be allowed to return to his wife and children.

Aside his six-month suspension, the king must produce the overzealous boy and other disposable chanting his panegyric while descending on that Baba”.

“We commend the media practitioners in the state for bringing such report to the fore for public discussion as well as other stakeholders who rose up to defend the old man who was publicly assaulted and dehumanised”.

“We are now calling on all the security agencies to make sure that Oba Ogunjobi is prosecuted as this will go a long way at setting the standard for what the traditional institution should be in Ogun State”.