Steer clear of traditional ruler’s selection process, Elebuibon warns politicians 

A foremost Ifa priest, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, has expressed displeasure over the bastardisation of the traditional institutions by politicians.

He warned politicians to steer clear of selection process of traditional rulers, lamenting that indiscriminate removal of kings is alien and ungodly.

Speaking on the News Point platform of the correspondents’ chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Osogbo, Osun state, Elebuibon called for deserved recognition and respect for traditional rulers. 

“It’s not the duty of politicians to participate in the selection process of traditional rulers. It is subjecting the traditional institutions to ridicule for politicians to intervene in the process.

“Politicians are rubbishing our monarchs. A politician removed Lamido Sanusi and another one returned it. They are removing monarchs at will and installing them at will. Politicians have spoilt the traditional institutions.

“The whites are not joking with their monarchs like us. The Queen of England is in a separate and respected place. That is how our politicians should respect traditional rulers. They make the monarchs irrelevant. That is why the monarchs are running after them because they know that politicians can remove them or deny them their salary.

“I want to say it that it is not the duty of politicians to select monarchs. The kingmakers are there. The herbalists are there. It is civilisation that subjected monarchs to approval of the governor. It is not a good thing. 

“A local government chairman will tell monarch that he should appear at the secretariat tomorrow and he must come. They ridicule the stool. They will be running after politicians. It is a bad thing that should not involve politics,” Elebuibon said.