February 09, (THEWILL) – The viral video displaying the now suspended conventional ruler of Orile Ifo in Ogun State, Abdulsemiu Ogunjobi, assaulting a 73-year-old man, Areola Abraham, speaks to overwhelming impunity in any respect ranges of authority within the nation at the moment.
The conduct of the standard ruler was not solely demeaning to royalty, but in addition calls into query the method of his elevation to the throne.
Aside from raining abuses on his sufferer who was seen kneeling and prostrating, the ruler’s alternative of phrases displays his character and certainly, taints the very establishment of conventional rulership which he represents.
The next phrases aren’t solely a betrayal of the arrogance and respect his topics have for him, but in addition mud splashed recklessly on conventional establishments within the state: “You’re a traitor who gained’t benefit from the fruits of your labour. You’ll lose your loved ones and evil will befall you. I dare anybody who thinks they’ll defend you to come back out publicly and say it to my face. Go forward and report me to the police when you dare. Should you die, you’ll be buried and nobody will even ask about you…. I’ll put you in jail and I’ve the ability to regulate the police.”
After his sufferer pleaded and prostrated earlier than him, Oba Ogunjobi ought to have restrained himself, significantly when the motion occurred in public glare the place the continuing was more likely to be recorded because it was, certainly, finished within the viral video. If something, a standard ruler ought to concentrate on the duties they’re saddled with as guardian of the individuals’s myths and custom. Sadly, this Oba was too carried away by his vainness to care.
Whereas we applaud the state authorities for rising to the event and instantly clamping a six-month suspension order on the errant ruler, the police for arraigning him for assault, significantly for utilizing his erstwhile police membership to intimidate his hapless sufferer, we name on the standard council within the state to sentence his motion.
In addition to, the motion taken by the state authorities as introduced by Ganiu Hamzat, Ogun commissioner for native authorities and chieftaincy affairs, who mentioned Ogunjobi’s conduct was unbecoming of a standard ruler and so, “he has been stripped of the paraphernalia of the stool of Olorile of Orile-Ifo pending the willpower of his culpability or in any other case within the matter, Ogunjonbi’s colleagues ought to ostracised him from their midst.
We welcome the willpower of the Police Command in Ogun state to launch a separate investigation, given the gravity of the incident, involving human rights violation.
In accordance with Police Public Relations Officer, Police Command Headquarters, Eleweran, Abeokuta, CSP Omolola Odutola, the Commissioner of Police, CP Lanre Ogunlowo, has ordered an intensive and discreet investigation into the matter, and additional gave the reassurance to stick to the rule of regulation and elementary human rights rules within the immediate case.
On this identical degree of human rights violation, we perceive that human proper lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has supplied to take over the case of the sufferer, Areola Abraham. Falana has supplied to press fees in opposition to the suspended monarch for the breach of elementary human rights.
Within the meantime, the suspended Oba Ogunjobi has been remanded in a correctional centre at Ilaro, Ogun State after failing to excellent his bail situation as granted by the Ifo Justice of the Peace Court docket.
Even when he does excellent his bail, he needs to be made to undergo the entire authorized course of involving this incident. Conventional rulers are custodians of the peoples’ customs. And their closest heroes or heroines. Anybody of them that disregards this onerous job and turns into a bully should be restrained by remedial sanctions.
