By Onozure Dania

ikeja—INDICATIONS have emerged that the Lagos State Government will soon fill the vacant stool of Olu of Ikeja, four years after the last monarch of the community passed on.

Sources close to a closed-door meeting between the chairman of Ikeja Local Government Area, Lagos, Alhaji Mojeed Balogun and core pressure group in Ikeja, the Gbobaniyi Royal Association, weekend, said the council boss informed chiefs and elders of the community “to work towards mending fences, as the state government is set to name a new Oba for Ikeja.”

A source at the meeting said Balogun assured members of the association that laid down tradition and culture of the community would not be set aside in naming the new Oba of Ikeja, stressing that “The kingmakers have done the needful, while the council too had played its role, and we are optimistic that very soon, His Excellency, Governor Akinwumi Ambode, will approve an Oba for Ikeja.”

Earlier at the meeting, according to the source, the President of Gbobaniyi Royal Association, Chief Babatunde Alaran, had informed the council boss that  the Ikeja kingmakers, led by the late former deputy governor of Lagos State, Chief Rafiu Jafojo, had since December 2014, sent  a name  (name withheld)  to the Ikeja local council as the community’s Oba-elect.

The last monarch in Ikeja, Oba Rauf Matemi, Amore 1, he informed, joined his ancestors in October, 2014.

“We are, therefore, urging you, Sir, to pass this message across to our action governor, to act on the recommendation of the kingmakers, as it represents the common will of the community. When the Oba-elect was named by the kingmakers, who the late Chief Jafojo headed, all the five kingmakers endorsed the choice, having ensured strict adherence to thorough screening of all contestants, native rites, and tradition,” Alaran reportedly said.

Meanwhile, the president of Ikeja Youth Development, Alhaji Adeshina Balogun, has also in a statement warned against “undue politicisation of the obaship contest in our community.”