By OLA AJAYI

IBADAN—The feud between Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi and Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade over the celebration of Oranyan festival was re-ignited, weekend, as Alaafin said Oranyan was never in any of the four royal lineages of Ile-Ife.

The two leading towns in Yorubaland have been at daggers drawn over which of them has the ancestry right to celebrate Oranyan.

Oba Adeyemi argued that there was no other place central to the celebration of Oranyan festival than his kingdom, Oyo.

“Oranyan, the subject of controversy, once ruled in Oyo and that made him a direct offspring of the legend as against Ile-Ife”, Alaafin said.

Oba Adeyemi, who spoke at the grand finale of the 2013 edition of the festival, contended that there was no way the people of Ile-Ife could claim Oranyan as the Oyo people would do.

He noted that it amounted to sheer falsification of facts for Ile-Ife to claim that Oranyan ever ruled in the ancient town.

Alaafin, however, maintained that other facts that rubbished such claim of Ile Ife was “the disclosure that Oranyan was the second king of Ile-Ife while in another breath, he was said to be the fourth king”, Oba Adeyemi added.

The monarch stated further “without mischief, none of the four ruling houses in Ile-Ife could claim to have been the descendant of Oranyan.

“Whereas, in our case in the ancient Oyo town, Oranyan was our progenitor as one of our founding fathers” the monarch clarified.

Oba Adeyemi said as many places as want to celebrate the legend are welcomed and allowed.

This, he said, would not in anyway diminish from the fact that he was the founder of Oyo Kingdom.