A traditionalist, Oba Adetoyese Olakisan, on Sunday said the corpse of late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, should not have been displayed outside for people to see before he was buried.
The PUNCH reports Olakisan, who is Oluaye Oba Ogboni Agbaye, during an interview, as saying that since the monarch was neither installed in a church nor a mosque, but was made an Oba through traditional procedures, the same should have been adopted for his burial to avoid negative repercussions.
He also expressed concern about the death in a succession of many prominent traditional rulers in Yorubaland, even though he admitted many of the monarchs that died in the recent past in some Yoruba-speaking states were old.
He, however, insisted that the monarchs were not old to remain on the throne if certain things were done according to the traditions of the Yoruba people.
He warned against surrendering Yoruba traditional religion to the domination of foreign religions to avoid negative aftermath.
“During the installation of the Oba, he was not installed in church or mosque. A process was followed before his installation. How his corpse was displayed outside during a prayer session by some Islamic clerics is against the tradition. It is a taboo.
“So many Obas are passing on. These are Obas that were installed in a proper Yoruba way. These monarchs that died were not too old to remain alive. They are Obas. They should live long.
“We have allowed foreign religion to dominate our own traditional religion. We didn’t start as Muslim or Christian. We all started as traditionalists. We should return to our traditional ways of handling certain situations,” Olakisan concluded.
