By Kemi Kasumu, General Editor
The Fusengbuwa Ruling House headship tussle that began five years ago may have settled as the High Court sitting in Ijebu Ode delivered its long dragged ruling on the matter.
The ruling, sighted by The DEFENDER, is neither here nor there as, from all indications, the trial Judge appeared to have made his conclusions based on personal discretion.
Otunba Abdul Lateef Owoyemi, one of the five Claimants.
Rising from the meeting of April 9, 2018 convened to analyse and make take its position on the judgment of Ijebu Ode High Court on the case, the Elders’ Executive Council of the Fusengbuwa Ruling House of Ijebu Ode declared that it had won its case against Chief Subomi Balogun, explaining that the judgment resolved the two major issues in its favour while others it said were resolved in favour of the 1st Defendant (Otunba Subomi Balogun).
In a statement signed by its Secretary, Prince Fasasi Adepoju Bello, the Fusengbuwa Ruling House Elders’ Executive Council made it clear that media reports impressing that Balogun won the case against the claimants representing it in the case were not the complete truth of the outcome of the litigation it instituted against the founder of First City Monument Bank, Otunba Subomi Balogun “over his battle, since April 2013, with the active support of some highly placed authorities, to forcefully takeover and control our Ruling House, the Fusengbuwa Ruling House of the Awujale Dynasty.”
The elders’ council expressed its happiness that the Judge resolved two of the issues for determination in favour of the Fusengbuwa, saying that its major concerns in the area of legitimacy, as princes and princesses of Fusengbuwa, of the five claimants and those they represented, as well as determination as to whether Otunba Subomi Balogun was every authentically elected or appointed as Olori Ebi of the Ruling House, were resolved in favour of its representatives in the case, the claimants.
On the first issue, according to the Ruling House’s statement, “the court disbelieved the unfair, unprecedented and discolorative evidence given by both our Royal Father and Otunba Balogun, alleging that our Ruling House consisted of bastards and descends of escaped convicts, and therefore, we lacked the capacity to institute the suit on behalf of Fusengbuwa Ruling House. But the court held otherwise, and proclaimed us as legitimate princes of the Ruling House, with the capacity to file the instant suit for and in the name of Fusengbuwa Ruling House.”
On the second major issue regarding Balogun’s continued headship of Fusengbuwa Ruling House, the trial Judge, they explained, “brought the 5-year capture of our Ruling House by Otunba Balogun and his powerful sponsors, to an end, through the judgment delivered on 8th March, 2018.”
Continuing on the second issue they said at page 30 of the judgment paper the trial Judge said: “It is a common ground between the two parties that Exhibit Z is the relevant declaration that states the customary law which regulates the appointment of the Awujale of Ijebuland Chieftaincy. Part 5 of the Declaration provides that: “5(1) The Ruling House whose turn it is to provide a candidate shall nominate a family meeting to be summoned by the family head or family heads a candidate or candidates for the Chieftaincy to be presented by the family head or family heads to the Odis”. “The Chieftaincy declaration recognizes plurality of family heads. The first Defendant (Otunba Balogun) under cross examination stated further ‘I am the head of a group of Fusengbuwa Ruling House, this implies that there are heads of other groups. ‘I am head of my own group’ – This means there are different groups and their heads within Fusengbuwa Ruling House, one group cannot query another in their activities so long as it is within their recognized custom.” The trial Judge, according to the statement by the Ruling House, ruled.
The Judge, the statement continued, “went further to declare, at Page 31, that “Evidence led in this case shows that the Claimants are a group of Fusengbuwa Ruling House and that the 1st Defendant (Otunba Balogun) “is the head of another group.” The Court thus granted Otunba Balogun the right to head only his own group, hence, we have regained Fusengbuwa Ruling House from the forceful takeover. We have also retrieved our full powers to conduct our affairs without any interference from Otunba Balogun, or anyone else. This includes the right, whenever Almighty God says it is our family’s turn, to nominate a candidate or candidates, for the Awujale Chieftaincy, for the Kingmakers to consider for possible appointment,” the Ruling House quoted the ruling, sighted by our correspondent, and explained the implications of the court ruling in the statement.
The Elders’ Executive Council took time out in the statement to clarify issues surrounding the campaigns of calumny and misrepresentation before the high court against the royal ancestry of “our Olori Ebi, Otunba Abdul Lateef Adebayo Owoyemi in particular”, explaining that “the stories were in relation to his father’s grandfather, whereas his link to Fusengbuwa Ruling House has never been claimed as through his great grandfather, but through his father’s maternal grandmother, Princess Usenbanke, an Abidagba (born-on-the-throne) daughter of Oba Fusengbuwa.
“It is worthy of note and a matter of joy to all our members in the Ruling House, that this same alleged paternal great grandfather’s disability, had been earlier canvassed in court, and foreclosed by the Nigerian Supreme Court in 2003. In that Judgment delivered on 12th December 2003 in Suit No. SC. 104/1998 (Otunba Abdul Lateef Owoyemi Appellant and Prince Yinusa Oladele Adekoya, Military Administrator of Ogun State and the Secretary Ijebu Ode Local Government) at Page 4, Paragraph 2, Lines 2 to 5, the Judges of the apex court proclaimed that: “It is not in dispute from the various pleadings that both the Plaintiff (Prince Yinusa Oladele Adekoya) and the 3rd Defendant (Otunba Abdul Lateef Adebayo Owoyemi) are Princes from Agbonmagbe Ruling nHouse of the Dagburewe of Idowa Chieftaincy.”
Confident of the justice delivery that have already accrued to them by the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the Fusengbuwa Elders’ Executive Council said in the statement that, “It is our belief that in Nigeria, no ruling of a High Court Judge can overlook, supersede or nullify a prior ruling of the Supreme Court on the same issue. It is also part of the history of our Ruling House that the same born-on-the-throne (Abidagba) Princess Usenbanke Fusengbuwa, was the maternal great grandmother of our Ruling House’s departed Otunba Obalofin, SIR Mobolaji Bank-Anthony of blessed memory, as well as the royal ancestor of the late Chief Justice of Nigeria, His Lordship, Alhaji (Prince) Atanda Fatayi Williams and their siblings.
“Several legal experts who have read the instant Judgment carefully have confirmed to us that at nowhere did the trial judge state that Otunba Lateef Owoyemi is not a member of our Ruling House,” the Fusengbuwa Ruling House concluded as they thanked the judiciary for the time and attention given to their case and also were appreciative of the media for their interest in the ruling house issues, even as they thanked the thousands of Ijebu Ode citizens for their support and ardent prayers throughout the course of “this testy and unprecedented struggle, a fight for truth and for justice, against very powerful takeover strategists, and well known antagonists of our Ruling House”.
