By:  Olawunmi Samuel Omo'ba Anikinaiya

This response is written with due respect to tradition, scholarship, and the sincerity of those who have contributed to the ongoing discourse on the Awujale throne's succession. However, it must be clearly stated that the central thesis advanced in “The Awujale Stool: Fusengbuwa Ruling House and Significant Facts 3” written by Adekunle Adenuga—namely, that eligibility to the Awujale of Ijebuland throne is essentially mono-hereditary, revolving primarily around the progeny of the last occupant—is historically, customarily, and doctrinally flawed.

The Awujale stool has never operated as a mono-lineal inheritance. Rather, it is multi-hereditary, regulated by the long-established Idi-Igi (root-tree) principle, under which all recognized branches descending from a Ruling House ancestor constitute co-equal hereditary rights holders. Any interpretation that subordinates this principle misrepresents Ijebu customary law and distorts the intent of the 1959 Declaration.

1. The Fundamental Error: Conflating Ranking with Exclusivity

The piece repeatedly argues that the ruling house functions merely as a “buffer” or “reservoir” to be accessed only when the direct progeny of the last king fails. The piece argument rests on a false equivalence between ranking and exclusive entitlement.

The Idi-Igi principle recognizes:

One root ancestor (igi), and

Multiple legitimate branches (Idi-igi), each retaining a permanent and inheritable right to contest when it is the turn of their ruling house.

To suggest that non-descendants of the last Awujale are merely “alternatives” is to import a modern, nuclear-family logic into a pre-colonial, lineage-based institution where it does not belong. The piece author would admit that Awujale Ajuwakale from same Fusengbuwa Ruling House was the last Awujale from that house, when Jadiara, Oba Fusengbuwa's father, son of Awujale Owa Otutubiosun, specifically Awujale Ajuwakale' brother became the Awujale of Ijebuland.

2. Idi-Igi, Not Primogeniture, Is the Governing Custom

The argument places excessive weight on primogeniture as the defining custom of the Awujale stool. This is historically inaccurate.

Primogeniture in Ijebu kingship was conditional, not absolute. It operated within a lineage, but never displaced the wider Idi-Igi framework. The consistent historical pattern shows that succession moved across brothers, across branches, and across generations, without extinguishing any branch’s hereditary status. If primogeniture were absolute, Oba Ademolu and Oba Ogunnaike would be anomalies. If mono-hereditary logic were correct, their branches would have permanently lost eligibility thereafter. Yet history proves the opposite. Their emergence reinforces—not weakens—the multi-hereditary nature of the stool, a legitimate inalienable right derived from their patriarch. 

3. Historical Practice Contradicts Mono-Hereditary Claims

The very historical examples cited in the piece undermine its conclusion.

a. Sibling Successions Were Not “Emergency Deviations”

The appointments of:

Oba Ademolu (Anikilaya line), and

Oba Ogunnaike (Fidipote line),

were not aberrations reluctantly tolerated. They were valid customary outcomes under Idi-Igi, recognizing that kingship inheres in the lineage, not in a single nuclear household.

a. Had the stool been mono-hereditary, the moment succession passed to a sibling, the logic of exclusivity would collapse. Instead, the stool continued seamlessly, proving that multiple branches held concurrent rights.

b. The Tunwase example does not prove exclusivity, the claim that Fusengbuwa lineage became mono-hereditary because Oba Tunwase allegedly had no surviving siblings is speculative and legally irrelevant. Customary rights are not extinguished by mortality contingencies. The absence of a living sibling at a point in time does not convert a lineage-based throne into a single-line inheritance for eternity. Idi-Igi recognizes branches, not individuals. 

While Awujale Adenuga Folagbade descendants cannot be stopped from advancing arguments to further their exclusivity interests, they must realize that the Awujale throne is not a recent institution, that anyone's opinion could influence. It is an institution backed by history, tradition and custom. The attention of the piece author is hereby invited to a 15th February, 1929 letter written by the Resident, Ijebu Ode to the Secretary of the Southern Provinces, where he confirmed that "It was the sons of Awujale Ademuyewo Fidipote that were eligible to the throne under Fidipote Ruling House". He gave the names of the six children of Awujale Fidipote including Adeona and Alli Ogunnaike.

4. The 1959 Declaration Does Not Create Mono-Hereditary Rights

The 1959 Declaration is repeatedly described in the piece under review as an “almighty” or “grund” document. This characterization itself is problematic. The Declaration did not create new customs,

did not abolish Idi-Igi, did not vest kingship in the progeny of the last king from a Ruling House. Rather, it:

i. Recognized four ruling houses, each multi-branch in composition

ii. Affirmed rotation among houses, not families

iii. Used the phrase “member of the ruling house” deliberately, not “child of the last king”. 

The attempt to read exclusivity into Clause 3(b) by elevating “progeny of the last king” above all other members is an interpretive overreach. The clause establishes order of consideration, not restriction of rights. If the Declaration intended mono-heredity, it would have expressly states so. It would have redefined ruling houses as nuclear families. It did neither.

5. Idi-Igi as the correct units for the Fusengbuwa Ruling House

Within the Fusengbuwa ruling house itself, there are multiple legitimate branches descending from Oba Fusengbuwa, each branch constitutes an Idi-Igi unit with hereditary standing. To argue that only one sub-branch (for example, Tunwase 'n Adenuga → Folagbade) retains effective rights is to disinherit other Fusengbuwa descendants without customary or legal authority. That position is neither traditional nor equitable, and it is precisely what Idi-Igi was designed to prevent.

6. On Government Cancellation and Process Irregularities

The cancellation of a nomination process by government authorities cannot be retroactively used to validate a mono-hereditary theory. Administrative intervention speaks to procedure, not to customary substance. Customary law is not rewritten by ministerial dissatisfaction, nor does governmental caution equate to endorsement of a particular genealogical ideology. Courts have consistently held that custom precedes declaration, not the other way around.

7. Misconception of a Ruling House for a Royal Family: 

The Adenuga Folagbade family are neither a Ruling House nor a unit within the Fusengbuwa Ruling House. They are a sub-unit under Adesimbo Tunwase, one of the eight lineages within the Fusengbuwa Ruling House. 

A Ruling House refers to a specific lineage or family branch, within a larger royal or chieftaincy system, that is traditionally entitled to provide candidates for a throne or leadership position, ensuring succession through established custom, often rotating among several such houses. Members of a Ruling House are direct descendants of a common ancestor, in the  current contest, Awujale Fusengbuwa, qualified by birth to be considered for chieftaincy.

8. Illegitimate Claims:

While the Adenuga Folagbade family have the freedom to promote themselves, it is inappropriate to circulate false information particularly on subjects they know next to nothing about. The Fusengbuwa Ruling House and the Anikinaiya Ruling Houses, like the other two Ruling Houses reserve the exclusive right to present their history, ancestry and lineages, which they have done at different times. Generally acknowledged historical facts and the position of the Ruling Houses and the entire House of the Awujale contradict the speculations contained in the piece under review.

The Adenuga Folagbade family not unmindful that it is Fusengbuwa Ruling House's turn, not Adenuga or Adesimbo, can explore the following options:

- Persuade Adesimbo lineage to forego their royal heritage for them.

- Formally forfeit Fusengbuwa membership and apply for a new Ruling House.

- Be ready to give up royal heritage if govt rejects their claims.

Conclusion

Kingship is lineage-based, not household-based. The Awujale stool is multi-hereditary, not mono-hereditary. It is governed by Idi-Igi, not nuclear primogeniture. It is rotational among houses, competitive within branches.

Any attempt to recast it as the near-exclusive preserve of the last occupant’s progeny is a modern reconstruction for self-serving interests unsupported by history, custom, or the 1959 Declaration. Ijebu kingship has endured precisely because it disperses entitlement across lineages, preventing absolutism and preserving collective legitimacy.

Ijebu Ronu. Kingship is indeed divine—but divine institutions endure only when their earthly custodians resist the temptation to narrow what tradition has kept broad.