Newly crowned Oloworo of Oworonshoki, Lagos, Oba Babatunde Saliu (Elebo II) speaks on his enthronement, the process that led to his emergence and why those who contested with him should forget the past and join hands with him to develop the town. By Gboyega Alaka

T’S 21 days since you ascended the throne as new Oloworo, how do you feel?

I feel great, I feel excited, because my kingdom has been peaceful, calm; and business activities have been going on well. Also there is no criminality, no fighting and everybody is happy.

Tradition demands that we celebrate certain days of ascending the throne, like the third day (Ita), the seventh day (Ije), the ninth day (Isan), 14th day (Erinla) and the 21st day that we are celebrating today. They all have their symbolic significance.

Your royal family is a large one and we hear that some people are not okay with your emergence; how do you hope to sort that out?

I think people have been misinformed, and I do tell journalists to always try to balance information that they get. If someone tells you a place is not peaceful, it is your duty to go and verify that information before passing it out. If you go round the whole of Oworonshoki and Kosofe at large, you will see how happy the people are – whether Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa. One person out of a million people cannot say the whole town should stand still because he is not satisfied. The Yoruba, the Igbo and the Hausa are al happy and calm. I’m glad you said my family is a large one, so that means I didn’t make myself king. I went through the normal process of selection. We have seven kingmakers; then I had four people (who voted for me), the other person had two, and one person was neutral. So what are we talking about. Go and make your investigation in the community; before you become king, you will have series of meetings. We have elders of Oworonshoki; it was a unanimous decision among them. Not even one person was against my selection as Oba of Oworonshoki. Even the youths. And we had meetings among the Saliu children, because we have only one ruling house in Oworonshoki, which is the Bashiru Oloruntoyin Saliu Ruling House. Not Salami Ogejo or Alagbe. And this simply implies that it is only the children of Bashiru Oloruntoyin Saliu that can become king. And in our declaration, it is properly stated that whoever is to be king must be literate, must be educated, because that is what our father cherished most. And he gave us everything to ensure that we had that education to the best of our ability.

What should your subjects in Oworonshoki expect now that you have become king?

They should expect full development. I have the experience, I have the intellectual capacity and the connections needed to bring development to the town. So, they should expect nothing less than development. Give us a few years and you would see the kind of transformation that will come to Oworonshoki In sha Allah. For those who are aggrieved because there is no way everyone in the town will be in support of one oba, the palace is open. We have stretched out our hands of fellowship. We’ll take everybody back and together we can build this community, this kingdom. Developing Oworonshoki Kingdom is supposed to be a collective responsibility.