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The veneration of Owu crown among many Yoruba crowns is justified by its history. OLOWU Ajibosin, great grandchild of Oduduwa, was the first beneficiary of one of the crowns from the legendary Yoruba King in Ile Ife. History recalled that Oduduwa had given one of his crowns, inter vivos, to Ajiboshin, when his mother, Iyunade, brought him to the Palace.
Owu crown has since then become the cultural heritage of Olowu from the first settlement till the present locations of Owu settlements in all Yorubaland .
Owu in Abeokuta arrived in Abeokuta circa 1834, trailing the Egbas who like them had been dispersed from their homesteads by the 1821-1826 intra clannish Yoruba war and found solace in Abeokuta in 1830.
The first Olowu was crowned in Abeokuta in 1855, 10 months after the first Alake was crowned in 1854. Owu has had 13 Olowus in Abeokuta. The Owu people adored their heritage, culture and tradition. Despite the incursion of Westernized religion and the Islamic influence, the Owu remain cultured and sticked to their forefathers faith-based traditional religions founded on truthfulness, trustworthiness and belief in God Almghty. These had been the principles upon which the Owu people live and their nexus with their traditional rulers.
In the last 30 years, however, that Oba Adisa Odeleye (Lagbedu 1) and Oba Adegboyega Dosunmu, ( Amororo Ii) The Owu Palace would appear to have lost all immemorial traditional and cultural trappings as both traditional rulers had evangelised the Palace at the expense of the Owu cultural heritage.
The silence of the Owu people in Abeokuta and districts are louder and getting ready for implosion if the Owu Palace is once infested with foreign religion bigots in the current effort to choose an Olowu in Abeokuta.
The Owu people are now more worried with reports of an Archbishop in the Methodist mission aspiring to wear cassock to Olowu’s Palace as Olowu. Without prejudice to his right as an individual and a Prince in the ruling House, the confusion already set in between culture and religion by previous occupiers of the Palace has reduced the dignity and respect by our traditionalists and majority of Owu rural settings on our Olowu and the Palace.
In other civilized settings,culture exists side by side with religion and one should not be made to overshadow the other especially when it had to do with supplanting the genuine desire of the generality of the people to practice their beliefs and religion without let or hinderance.
The Olowu as father to all has to be liberal and accommodating to all and should not be seen to use the throne to erase age long beliefs,culture and norms of the people especially when such culture are not at variance with established law’s and civil authority of the day.
This should not continue.
The two strong and competent Liberal moslem youths who have equally signified interest in the throne should be considered. This should be done in order to promote religious harmony in Owu kingdom contrary to what the good people of Owu have experienced in the last 30 years when the duo of the late Oba Odeleye and his successor, the late Oba Dosunmu had thrown caution to the wind and hence promoted cultural disharmony in their attempt to evangelize the Olowu institution.
The kingmakers should be circumspect in their decisions.
