Barely a week after a riot erupted in Ikere Ekiti over the destruction of a billboard bearing his portrait, the Olukere, Oba Ganiyu Obasoyin, has declared that nobody can take his domain from him.
He said his stool was the first in Ikere and cannot be obliterated by anyone, no matter how highly placed. According to him, he is the owner of the land and “a tenant cannot chase away the landlord from his property.”
DAILY POST recalls that hell was let loose last week Wednesday when some youths of the community accused Governor Ayo Fayose and his security aides of destroying the Olukere’s billboard installed in Odo Oja area of the town to mark last year’s Olosunta Festival. But reacting to the development, Obasoyin on Wednesday while addressing his subjects at the celebration of this year’s Osooro Festival to mark the beginning of the new planting season in the community said: “I want to assure you, my subjects that nobody can take my land from me. We won’t allow outsiders to foment trouble here but we are for peace and we will work towards peace but the Olukere owns the land.
“I am your symbol here and I am the face of the Ikere royalty; this is our home, this is my home. Nobody can take my father’s house from me because Olukere is the owner of Ikere land.”
The Olukere used the occasion to offer royal blessings for Ikere farmers, peaceful coexistence of indigenes of the town, Ekiti State and Nigeria as a whole.
Chiefs, women and representatives of different age groups accompanied the Olukere to the farm to perform his first major traditional assignment for the new planting season.
There were four heaps in which yams were planted at the farm. They represented the three sections of the town-Okekere, Odo Oja and Uro while the fourth heap was for the the Olukere.
Speaking on the significance of the Osooro, Obasoyin said: “This is the beginning of our planting season because we are farmers and my father, Oloje launched us into farming and that is what we have been doing.
“This is not about ritual or religion but a tradition that is as old as Ikere kingdom,” he said.
Osooro festival is usually performed with the contributions of yam tubers by indigenes from across the sections of the town.
Traditional songs and gongs rented the air as the Olukere family members and chiefs danced from the farm through the town to the palace.
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