You Can’t Be an Oba by Tradition and Die by Religion: The Truth Nigeria Must Embrace

 

In a country battling identity crises and chieftaincy conflicts, one truth just echoed from the hallowed voice of Justice Philip Akinside: “Obas must accept traditional burials.” This bold declaration is not just a judicial opinion—it is a cultural wake-up call!

How can a man be enthroned by the gods, guided by ancestral customs, and then want to ditch those same customs in death for a religion he embraced halfway into the throne? This is the dilemma rocking Yoruba land and beyond. When Oba Sikiru Adetona—the revered Awujale of Ijebuland—reportedly said he should be buried strictly by Islamic rites, not traditional ones, he inadvertently sparked a deep constitutional, cultural, and communal debate.

But Justice Akinside made it plain at the 5th Chief Kehinde Sofola Memorial Bar Lecture: once you become an Oba under the customs of your people, you cannot reject those customs—even in death. The installation process, your powers, your titles, your beads, your staff of office—everything is rooted in tradition. Why then should the final rite, the sacred burial, be different?

Obaship is not a contract you twist at will. It's a spiritual pact. It is inherited and sacred. If your appointment as a king is purely traditional, then your burial must be too. You cannot reap the glory of tradition and refuse its burden.

Even our constitution allows freedom of religion—but as Justice Akinside rightly pointed out, once you voluntarily step into the shoes of tradition, you are bound by its rules. You can’t shift goalposts mid-game and cry “freedom” when the same tradition calls for your final honor.

Sadly, this controversy is becoming common among some Obas who claim Christian or Muslim identity but want to enjoy traditional privileges without fully embracing the consequences. That hypocrisy weakens our culture, divides our communities, and dishonors the throne.

The late Chief Kehinde Sofola (SAN), a legal icon remembered at the lecture, stood for the rule of law and integrity. Today, we must uphold that same principle in the face of tradition-versus-religion tensions. Ogun State’s 2021 Obas and Chiefs Law is clear—and if chieftaincy appointments are legal under customary law, then burial must follow the same path.

Let our royal fathers remember this: You cannot wear the crown of the ancestors and reject their rites when the time comes. Either you're fully in—or you're out.

Let the law stand. Let tradition be respected. Let hypocrisy be buried—along with anyone who dares to distort the values of our land.