Ooni’s death, irreparable loss to Oodua race – Gani Adams
The death of Ooni of Ife, His Royal Eminence, Oba Okunade Sijuade, and Olubuse 11, has been described as a monumental and irreparable loss to the Oduduwa race. The National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and Convener of the Oodua Progressives Union (OPU), Otunba Gani Adams, made the remark while reacting to the transition into eternal glory of one of the foremost monarchs in Africa.
According to Otunba Adams, “The enigmatic and wondrous deity of the Yoruba in human form, Oonirisa Olubuse 11 has completed his mission as assigned to him by the owners of the world. He has gloriously relocated to the ancestral abode of his progenitors, to feed them back after a memorable peregrination odyssey on the face of earth and the completion of his assigned role as the tenderer and protector of the ancestral stool of the Yoruba.
“Ooni Olubuse has gone to eternally dine and wine with his ancestors and to give the feedback to those who sent him to tender their stead. “ Speaking further, Otunba Adams added, “The biggest Elephant has transited to the vault. The Iroko tree has disappeared from the forest, not to be seen or heard again, except in dreams, trance and revelation of the corpus! It is sad, but not tragic that he returned home at 85.
“Ooni Olubuse was able, not only to sustain the royal majestic and reverence left behind by his predecessors, but also added colour, panache and cultivated tremendous respect to the stool of Ooni of Ife, the cradle of the world.”
Otunba Adams, who commiserated with the Olubuse Royal family, the seven Elus in Ife, all the chiefs and Yoruba citizens both home and in the Diaspora, remarked that the Ooni’s exit “has created a vacuum which cannot be filled either now or in the near future .He has gone with his aura. There is no way another Olubuse 11 can be created or superimposed.
“He also condoled Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the entire people of Osun for the exit of a remarkable royal father whose sneeze will send cold into the spine of other traditional rulers. Otunba Adams called on all the scions of Oodua to pray for the repose of the soul of the late Oba and use his death as a contact of reunion and re affirmation to the ideals of Oodua, the progenitor of Yoruba.