Seven Months After Selection Was Halted, Fusengbuwa Seeks Judicial Intervention
Questions Mount Over Government’s Grip on Sacred Awujale Stool
The battle for the vacant Awujale stool of Ijebuland has escalated into a full-scale legal confrontation with the Ogun State Government. More than a year after the death of the revered Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona and seven months after the succession process was suspended, the Fusengbuwa Ruling House has dragged Governor Dapo Abiodun and top state officials to court.
In suit number HCJ/149/2026 filed at the Ogun State High Court in Ijebu-Ode, the ruling house is asking the court to determine whether the government had the legal authority to stop the selection process and allegedly facilitate the locking of the Awujale Palace on January 20, 2026.
Named as defendants are Governor Abiodun, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, the Ogun State Executive Council, officials of the Ijebu-Ode Local Government, and members of the Awujale kingmakers.
What began as a routine traditional succession has become a high-stakes test of the boundary between state power and customary authority in Ogun State.
According to Otunba Abdulateef Owoyemi, chairman of the Fusengbuwa Ruling House, the family completed its statutory nomination process within 10 of the 14 days allowed by law. The kingmakers were then expected to finish their role within seven days. Instead, the process was halted following a government directive. The ruling house says it was later confronted with references to petitions and security reports that were never shown to them.
“We cannot wait forever,” said counsel to the ruling house, Otunba Olusegun Otayemi, after Wednesday’s proceedings. He argued that while legitimate delays can occur in traditional successions, a deliberate stoppage of an already commenced statutory process is a different matter entirely. Ijebu-Ode, he insisted, cannot remain without an Awujale indefinitely.
One of the most politically charged questions before the court is whether the Obas and Chiefs Law of Ogun State 2021 empowers the government to halt the nomination or selection of an Awujale “under any guise,” and whether it had the authority to order or facilitate the locking of the palace to prevent the kingmakers from meeting.
The government had earlier defended the suspension, citing petitions, security reports and the need to protect public order and the integrity of the stool. Yet months later, the throne remains empty and the process unresolved.
The controversy intensified after the Fusengbuwa nomination exercise reportedly produced 95 aspirants — 94 princes and one princess — in December 2025. The government first raised procedural concerns, suspended the process, allowed it to resume, and then halted it again in January.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Justice A.A. Omoniyi, sitting as a vacation judge, acknowledged the urgency of the matter but noted that his impending annual vacation prevented him from hearing the case further. He ordered the file returned to the administrative judge for reassignment. The matter was adjourned to September 23, 2026.
For critics, the prolonged vacancy and repeated interventions illustrate excessive governmental involvement in an institution traditionally guided by custom and established law. For the Abiodun administration, the lawsuit offers an opportunity to defend its actions and clarify the legal basis for its interventions.
One fact, however, is no longer in dispute: more than a year after Oba Adetona’s death, the Awujale stool remains vacant. The Fusengbuwa Ruling House says it has waited long enough. And Governor Dapo Abiodun’s government must now explain in court the legal foundation for its role in the stalled succession.
The next chapter will be written in the courtroom.
