The elders and indigenes of Egoro Amede and neighbouring communities in Esan West Local Government Area (LGA) of Edo State, have been thrown into palpable confusion as the Onojie (king) of the Kingdom, His Royal Highness (HRH), Theophilus Osobase II, has abandoned his throne.
Reports said that the Onogie’s abandonment of his throne was ostensibly to avoid an arrest by men of the Nigerian Police Force, from the State Police Command, Benin City.
The royal father has been accused of malicious damage of property belonging to members of the Egoro Amede Community, some of who are over 85 years and said to be the benefactors of the Onogie.
They were said to have, against some odds, assisted him (the Onojie), as a teenager, to ascend his late father’s throne, many years ago.
The said victims of the alleged monarch’s onslaught worked tirelessly with the kingmakers of the kingdom to install him.
Furthermore, the Onojie allegedly collaborated with and instructed a land grabbing syndicate to seize land belonging to the community and destroy their crops.
In a petition to the Edo State Commissioner of Police, dated 22nd December, 2023, by A.O.O. Ekpu, attorney to the Complainants, HRH Osobase, with eleven others from Emaudo community and the agrarian community of Egoro Amede; including, Sunny Omonkhua, Bamidele Taiwo, Samson Omolemen, Chief Sam Oboh and Daniel Irabor, Wesley Olumese, and Barnabas Ifidon were accused of conniving and carrying out massive bulldozing of oil palm trees and other crops in the plantations belonging to members of Egoro Amede community, on the alleged instruction of the Onogie [monarch].
Others alleged to be perpetrators of the crime included Nicholas Alabi Okedi, Aigbiremolen Ikhine, Kelvin Alabi Okedi, Abu Bello and Wesley Olumese.
They allegedly brandished guns and other dangerous weapons and dared members of the community to stop them from bulldozing the said cash crops.
But sources in the Edo Police Command had it that when telephone calls were put through to the Onojie, he asserted that he was far away from his community, prodding the police officers to leave a written invitation (dated 5th January, 2024) to a receiver in his deserted palace, for onward transmission to him.
The Police demanded that he should report with others on the run to the State Command on Tuesday, January 9, 2024.
Sources within the state’s Police Command stated that the Onogie [monarch] could be declared wanted if he failed to honour the invitation on the said date.
In another development that is said to have increased the worries of the embattled Onojie, sources had claimed that his actions of going to bulldoze crops belonging to elders of the community, is with the intent to grab them, whereas a case of land grabbing had earlier been filed at the High Court at Ekpoma and duly served on the HRH Osobase II, who disregarded it and bulldozed the crops, a clear act of contempt of Court.
Born in 1992 about four months after the death of his father, HRH Osobase II, was said to have confronted many obstacles on his path to his father’s throne, following the installation of a regent, who held the forte pending his growing up to a teenager prelude to his enthronement.
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