By Wale Ojo-Lanre Esq.
In recent times, I have read and listened to extensive commentary on who possesses the right, authority, patent power, or even a supposed “trademark licence” to confer a Yorùbá land chieftaincy title on deserving individuals. Unfortunately, what ought to be a sober intellectual discourse has, in some quarters, degenerated into what can only be described as a “gbá ìgbà ọtí” syndrome—loud, emotional, and ultimately unproductive.
This issue must not be allowed to slide into inter-kingship rivalries or royal rumbles that reduce sacred institutions to public spectacle and turn revered titles—whether of Yorùbá land or Òodùà—into objects of mockery. If care is not taken, those who accepted such honours in good faith may one day regret answering the royal call to service.
The matter therefore deserves to be clinically analysed and carefully dissected, not sensationalised.
The starting point must be clarity. The two foremost traditional monarchs often dragged into this debate are authorities in their own right. Each derives legitimacy from history, ancestry, and acknowledged heritage. Each possesses the authority to confer chieftaincy titles on persons deemed worthy. However—and this is the crucial point—that authority operates within the defined scope of each monarch’s jurisdictional influence.
It is therefore preposterous, superficial, and culturally defective to claim that the Ooni of Ife lacks authority to confer a Yorùbá land chieftaincy title. The issue is not the absence of authority; it is the category and placement of authority.
The Ooni of Ife does not lack authority to give a Yorùbá land chieftaincy title to anybody. On the contrary, his authority is so vast, so ancient, and so civilisational that it must never be mistaken for—or reduced to—the narrow arena of local and jurisdictional chieftaincy administration. This is not sentiment, rivalry, or throne politics. It is history, Ifá logic, and the irreducible order of civilisation.
All serious discourse on Òodùà begins at Ile-Ife. Ife is not merely a town; it is the cradle of Òodùà civilisation. According to Ifá, oral history, and collective memory, Odùduwà did not emerge as a provincial king. He emerged as the progenitor of a civilisation. From him came seven children, and through those children arose kingdoms, political jurisdictions, and eventually what modern scholarship grouped under the linguistic identity called “Yorùbá.” History moves forward, not backward. Ife came first. Odùduwà came next. His children founded kingdoms. Those kingdoms later formed Yorùbá land.
One of those children was Oranyan (Oranmiyan), the warrior-prince whose exploits founded Oyo and whose lineage established dynastic continuity in Benin. Others founded or influenced Ekiti, Ijesa, Ijebu, Ondo, Owo, and allied territories. The implication is unavoidable: Yorùbá land is a political and territorial expression that grew out of Òodùà civilisation; it is not its source. In Ifá logic, ìpilẹ̀—the source—always precedes ìtẹ̀síwájú—expansion. The branch does not outrank the root. As the elders say, a kì í fi ẹ̀ka ju gbòngbò lọ.
Confusion arises when authority is mistaken for jurisdiction. Ifá does not permit such disorder. Across the Odu, the teaching recurs—here rendered in plain logic—that the one who brings forth does not line up with those who were brought forth. The source receives reverence; the offspring handles administration. The foundation does not run errands for the rooms built upon it.
This is precisely why the Ooni of Ife should not issue Yorùbá land chieftaincy titles. Not because he is weak, but because he is foundational. Yorùbá land titles are local, political, and jurisdictional, arising from the kingdoms founded by Odùduwà’s children. They belong to the administrative space of those kingdoms. The Alaafin of Oyo issues Yorùbá land titles not because he is superior to the Ooni, but because Oyo is a branch of Odùduwà’s lineage and his authority is therefore territorial and derivative.
To ask the Ooni to issue Yorùbá land titles is to ask the ancestor to descend into the role of a local administrator. Ifá forbids such inversion. As wisdom cautions, when a father reduces himself to the level of the child, the household collapses. The Ooni’s authority is not lacking; it is simply above that category.
This also explains why Òodùà titles are not for everybody. They are not casual honours, ceremonial decorations, or political souvenirs. Ifá warns—again in paraphrase—that honours without depth invite ridicule and titles without weight invite disorder. Òodùà titles therefore demand reach, civilisational relevance, and ancestral gravity.
Òodùà itself is not confined to geography. Òodùà civilisation exists wherever its products exist—culture, spirituality, philosophy, art, commerce, and memory—across Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, Europe, and beyond. Wherever Òodùà heritage endures, there lies Òodùà territory in the civilisational sense. A title of Òodùà therefore speaks to a global constituency. A Yorùbá land title, however prestigious, speaks to a defined territorial jurisdiction, historically associated with Oyo and allied political spaces.
Yorùbá remains the dominant branch of the global Òodùà race, but it is not the only one. The Òodùà civilisational family includes, among others, the Itsekiri, Edo and Lukumi peoples of the Niger Delta; the Ga of Ghana; the Ewe of Togo, Ghana and Benin; the Anago of Benin and Togo; and the Lucumí of the Caribbean, to mention but a few. There should therefore be no cause for bickering, jealousy, or inter- and intra-kingship squabbles. The fact remains constant: all Yorùbá and other sub-Yorùbá groups, wherever they exist globally, are products of Òodùà, and Ile-Ife is the source.
The analogy is decisive. A federal award covers the entire federation—states and local governments inclusive. A state award operates strictly within the state. Both are valid, but they are not equal. Whoever bears a Yorùbá land title operates within an Oyo-derived jurisdiction. Whoever bears an Òodùà title operates within the global Òodùà civilisational territory, of which Yorùbá is one—albeit the most prominent—section.
The Ooni of Ife does not lack authority. He possesses authority too expansive to be reduced to local chieftaincy administration. Òodùà titles are superior because the source is always greater than the expression. Ile-Ife remains the source and natural capital of the entire Òodùà race. Odùduwà remains the father; the kingdoms remain the children. Ifá has already settled the matter—and Ifá does not argue with chronology.
The source, not the tributaries.
QED.