Wife Battery: Deji of Akure suspended
The Deji of Akure, Oba Oluwadare Adesina, who on tuesday desecrated his royal stool by beating his wife black and blue in public, has been suspended. .
The Chairman of the council, Oba Folagbade Olateru-Olagbegi, the Olowo of Owo, who disclosed this in a statement in Akure , said the decision to suspend Oba Adesina from the council was taken after examination of available evidence.
According to the Olowo, the Deji of Akure was suspended after the committee examined all available evidences and materials on the issue, including reports from newspapers, petitions written to the council, the press releases from the Deji and other independent investigations on the issue.
The council observed that the incident was not only an unfortunate one but also strange to the sacred and exalted royal stools in the state.
According to the statement: “The committee condemned in its entirety the attitude of the Deji and dissociates itself from the action.
“That the Deji of Akure is suspended in the interim from the council pending a fuller investigation into the matter and a final position of the state government on it.” Meanwhile, the state Police Command said it has begun a full scale investigation into the street fight. Besides, the Commissioner of Police (CP), Magaji Nasarawa, said he had already received interim report on the incident. The Police spokesperson, Alhaji Adeniran Aremu, said the CP set up a high powered investigation into the matter with a view to getting to the root of the matter.
Aremu said the case was purely a criminal case and not domestic affair as being insinuated in some quarters.
He stated that the case had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), adding that the outcome of the investigation would be made known to the public as soon as it is concluded.
Aremu also disclosed that the command had uncovered a plot by some persons to foment trouble in the state capital.
He therefore warned those planning to cause a breach of public peace or protest in respect of the incident to refrain from doing so, stressing that anyone caught taking laws into his hands would be dealt with decisively.
The embattled Deji for the first time since the show of shame was snatched yesterday opened up on what led to the rift between him and his embattled wife, Bolanle.
He levelled grave accusation against his wife, even as he claimed that the street fight was a frame-up.
He accused his wife and the Prime Minister of Akure, High Chief Folorunsho Davies of being the masterminds .
He said on the fateful day he was alleged to have battered his wife, instructions were given to perform the traditional rites to formally remove her as an Olori (queen) and stop her from dressing in traditional attire of a king's wife.
The monarch who put up the defence in a statement personally signed by him and made available to reporters in Akure, did not state whether he was at the scene of the incident. Oba Adesina said his estranged wife got annoyed when the traditional chiefs were trying to perform the traditional rites on her to strip her off her status.
The attempt to strip her of her status, the monarch said, did not go down well with Olori Bolanle who allegedly joined forces with her four brothers to vandalise the vehicle the palace chiefs rode to her residence.
The statement reads: “On Sunday 30th, of May, instructions were given to perform the traditional rites to formally remove her as Olori, and stop her from dressing like one. This annoyed her as she did not want to be stripped of her status. “She got angry and started breaking the car that conveyed the palace chiefs. Four of her brothers joined in the barbaric display and wanton destruction.”
Oba Adesina explained that the decision to strip her of Olori status became necessary based on her conduct
He accused his estranged wife of colluding with the Prime Minister of Akure, High Chief Folorunsho Davies to publish negative report about him in the media. He described the account which was published by his estranged wife as a figment of her “periodic hallucination.” However, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ) Ondo State chapter has condemned the comment credited to the monarch.
The Chairman of the council, Mr. Dele Atunbi advised the monarch not to drag journalists into the rift between him and his estranged wife, saying the allegation levelled against journalists by the monarch was unfounded and uncomplimentary. “It is wrong for Deji of Akure to drag journalists in Ondo state into the issue. members of the NUJ in Ondo state are journalists of high moral rectitude whose conscience cannot be bought as claimed by Deji,” he said. Meanwhile, the traditional kingmakers have, however, insisted that the Akure monarch's action would be sanctioned.
However, Chief Davies who is also the Lisa of Akure Kingdom has denied the allegation levelled against him by the Deji. “All what he is saying is just to cover up his misdeeds. All what is saying is like the action of a drowning man looking for what to hang on to,” he noted.