Traditional worshippers in Ogun State have again warned Muslims, Christians and those they described as “recalcitrant Obas” to steer clear of the burial and installation rites of monarchs in the state.
The traditionalists issued the warning on Wednesday almost three months after the state governor, Dapo Abiodun, signed the new Obaship law in the state.
The law titled “Obas, Chiefs, Council of Obas and Traditional Council Law of Ogun State, 2021,” which Abiodun signed in January, is aimed at “respecting human dignity and promotion of modernity” in the installation and burial of traditional rulers.
The new law grants family members the right to determine the mode of burial of any deceased traditional ruler.
Addressing newsmen in Sagamu on Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Traditional Worshippers Association of Nigeria (Egbe Onisese Parapo), Ogun State chapter, Chief Ifasola Opeodu, argued that the new law allows a deceased monarch to be buried in accordance with the customs and traditions of the land, citing Section 55 (i-v) of the law.
Opeodu submitted that, going by the new law, no traditional ruler “shall be installed or buried by either Muslim or Christian clerics or in accordance with their religion and beliefs.”
He, however, admitted that the particular section of the law which allows family in the burial process of a traditional ruler “appears controversial and created vital lacuna when both family and those that are entitled to observe the traditional rites together on a lifeless body of a demise traditional ruler.”
Opeodu said “Section 55 (i-v) of new Obas and Chiefs Law of Ogun State, 2021, is to preserve the necessary rites as attached to the post of traditional rulers in a given community and the section provides thus: ‘(ii) a traditional ruler shall be entitled to be buried in accordance with the customs and traditions of the land, save however, that his body shall not be subjected to any mutilation or cannibalisation.”
He declared that the era of cannibalisation had been abolished, saying traditional worshippers in the state “are not practising cannibalism and up till this moment, we have not seen any testimony or reliable evidence from Obas or individual to the effect that the Osugbo and the traditional worshippers in Ogun State are eating humans flesh.”
He, therefore, appealed to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), governors and all security operatives to refrain from being used as “agents of destruction” by the “religious cabals and recalcitrant Obas” in the course of implementing the new law as it affects the installation and burial rites of the deceased monarchs.
“In view of the above law which serves as a stern warning to all Muslim and Christian intruders together with the recalcitrant Obas and their sympathisers to stay out of the Obaship installation and burial processes upon the clear reflections in the said new law that Muslims and Christians are not members of the traditional institution,” he added.
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