Apart from the negative energy, what the incessant face-off between Soun of Ogbomoso, Oba Afolabi Olaoye and the Chief Imam of Ogbomoso, Sheikh Taliat Olushina Ayilara, has done is creating a division not only within the religious communities but also among Indigenes of the ancient town generally.
Of course, it’s a public knowledge that Soun and Sheikh Ayilara had been in a serious supremacy battle for a while now. So bad has the situation degenerated that the embattled Sheikh has approached the court and got a restraining order against Soun and his kingmakers over his purported removal as the Grand Chief Imam of Ogbomoso Land. And Soun despite the court had gone ahead to appoint a new Chief Imam, which he claims is for the palace.…CONTINUE READING
In fact, all efforts to make peace between Oba Olaoye and Ayilara have met a brick wall. Not even the recent intervention by the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor E A Adeboye, where he cautioned Soun to respect other’s interests irrespective of their religion background, seems to have yielded positive results. As parties involved have continued embarass one another at every given opportunity.
While some elders including religious leaders have aligned themselves with Soun, others are supporting Sheikh Ayilara. Ayilara’s actions, to those with Oba Olaoye, are seen as insubordination not only to the monarch but Ogbomoso. Some of these groups who have pinched their tents with Soun include Islamic leaders acting under the auspices of Special Committee on Islamic Affairs in Ogbomoso and League of Imams and Alfas in Ogbomoso. They couldn’t understand why Ayilara would go on social media and be making all kinds of defamatory statements against Oba Olaoye. They therefore warned the embattled Chief Imam to refrain from causing disunity among the people of Ogbomoso land. According to them, those who opposed to Oba Olaoye’s “modern ways” of introducing development to Ogbomoso are hell-bent on truncating his efforts.
Meanwhile, those in the camp of Sheikh Ayilara have accused Oba Olaoye of planning to silent the Islamic community in Ogbomoso. The groups consisting of Registered Trustees of Ogbomoso Muslim Youths Forum, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) and others have raised a serious concern about the ‘purported’ plans of Oba Olaoye to remove Ayilara as Chief Imam of Ogbomoso. They also raised an eyebrow over the query Oba Olaoye said to have served on Ayilara. This was made known in a statement issued and signed by founder and Executive Director of MURIC, Prof. Ishaq Akintola.
It reads, “The Soun of Ogbomoso wants the Chief Imam to take permission before going on pilgrimage to Makkah. This is akin to asking the Chief Imam to come to the palace every morning to take permission before going for salat (prayer) because Muslims go to Makkah to worship Allah and they also observe Salat for the same purpose.
“This is a clear infringement on Allah-given fundamental human rights of the Chief Imam and a violation of Section 38(i)&(ii) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which guarantees freedom of worship. It should be noted that Hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam and it is enshrined in the divine scripture of Islam, the Glorious Qur’an (22:27).
“The most annoying part of the query is where the king commanded the Chief Imam ‘to immediately return to Ogbomoso’ from faraway Saudi Arabia. It is ludicrous, odorous and odoriferous.
“This implies very clearly that Oba Ghandi, a human being, commanded the Chief Imam to abandon the worship of Allah in order to come and pay homage to him in his palace. It is preposterous, sacrilegious and therefore unacceptable.
“It is very strange that the Chief Imam was made to sign an undertaking before his installation. We are deeply disturbed by this because we have no doubt that it came up as a result of lack of mutual understanding. The undertaking was signed as far back as 2021 before Ghandi became king. He is now leveraging on it. MURIC is interested in this particular document.”
On his path, Oba Olaoye, while dismissing the insinuations that the crisis between him and Ayilara is about religion, said: “Soun Ogunlola who founded the throne was a pure traditionalist; he worshipped Ogun deity.
“We Christians and Muslims are just intruding so to say; it originally belonged to the traditional religion worshipers so we should encourage religious harmony,” he said while dismissing the insinuation that the crisis is about religion.
“I have refused to remove him (Chief Imam Teliat) despite him taking me to court. But I told him, ‘You can’t take me to court and be leading me in prayer’, We don’t go to court and become friends. You that took me to court your intention is to win, to win against the Oba, and you call yourself an indigene of this town. Such prayer can’t be answered, I believe.
“I am a Pastor, if I take my member to court will I lead prayer, and such member will say amen?” The monarch further said: “I have been an Alfa (pastor) for 32 years; I believe Imam Teliat was still wearing pants then. That is the truth. And as Christians, we don’t mount the pulpit to abuse a king, I don’t know your religion much but in Christendom, we don’t do that, although some pastors say nonsense too.”
Of course while some want to believe that the crisis between Soun and the Chief Imam of Ogbomoso is all about Christians and Muslims, those in the know informed this Magazine that there is more to it than meets the eyes. They alleged that the genesis of the crisis between the two could be traced to when Oba Olaoye was contesting for the throne.
The then Prince Afolabi Olaoye Ghandi, according to sources, reached out to Sheikh Ayilara for his support as the Chief Imam and a prominent Islamic leader who commands a lot of respect in Ogbomoso and beyond. It was, however, gathered that Ayilara was caught in-between supporting Olaoye, a Christian and other candidates who are Muslims. According to our findings, Muslims carried the larger percentage of the candidates vying for the exalted Soun throne back then. So Ayilara, a source said, decided to stay neutral and watched things panned out naturally. This, we learnt, didn’t go well with Oba Olaoye. “So based on this, it’s expected that they would have issues,” the source added.
There is also an insinuation that the crisis between the Chief Imam of Ogbomoso and Oba Olaoye must have been further fueled by some individuals within the Islamic circle in Ogbomoso who have scores to settle with the embattled Chief Imam.
It was reliably gathered that some Muslims and Islamic leaders are not well pleased with Ayilara’s style of running the affairs of Ogbomoso Central Mosque. As he’s said to be prudent and transparent with finances of the Central Mosque, and only carries the youths along. This, according to our source, is seen in some quarters as a way of undermining the powers of elders who before now are the main decision makers on issues.
-Dare Adeniran, citypeopleonline
