Seriki Olubadan, High Chief Adebayo Oyediji, is dead

Agency ReporterJuly 7, 2018

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The leader of the Seriki in the Olubadan Chieftaincy line in Ibadanland, High Chief Adebayo Oyediji is dead.

He died on Friday in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.

High Chief Oyedeji gave up the ghost at the age of 92 according to family sources.

The nonagenarian, it was learnt, died in a private hospital after a brief illness.

Recalled that Oyediji had instituted several suits in the Oyo High Courts against the State Government and the sitting Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Saliu Akanmu Adetunji over his claim that he and not Oba Saliu Adetunji, should have been installed by Governor Abiola Ajimobi after the death of Oba Samuel Odulana Odugade in January 2016.

Oyedeji, had in his arguments, claimed that he was to be the 41st Olubadan of Ibadanland going by his seniority in the Olubadan-in-Council hierarchy.

Our correspondent gathered that former National Chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), High Chief Meredith Adisa Akinloye, was the last Seriki Olubadan but he could not ascend the throne of Olubadan due to his death on September 18, 2007 at the age of 91.

Since then, High Chief Oyediji, who was next in rank to Akinloye, had engaged in legal struggles up to the Supreme Court to ensure that the Seriki Line, which was later sidelined, was restored.

Since the demise of Akinloye in 2007, none of the High Chiefs in the Seriki line had been afforded the opportunity to be in the Olubadan chieftaincy line.