Three daughters of the late the Alaye-Aba of Aba, Aiyepe, Ogun State, Oba Rauf Adebayo Raji-Suleimon, have sued the unincorporated Osugbo Society of Ijebuland (known as the Ogboni) over the alleged hijack of the late monarch’s corpse.
In a suit filed at the Federal High Court, in Abeokuta, they are seeking N50 billion against the Osugbo Society.
The claimants, Mrs Aderonke Egunjimi, Mrs Tiwalade Abass and Mrs Adeyemi Joseph, filed the fundamental rights application through their lawyer, Chief Bolaji Ayorinde SAN.
They stated that Raji-Sulaimon was a devoted and practising Muslim in his lifetime, performing pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and had several awards and recognitions by Muslim Societies because of his contributions to the Islamic faith.
They claimed that on January 24, 2021, the family had dug a grave, set up canopies for visitors and concluded funeral arrangements to bury their father according to Islamic rites when the members/representatives of the society forcibly took their father’s corpse away.
In their application, they accused members of the society of infringement on their rights to privacy and family life and depriving their father of a befitting burial.
The applicants are seeking an order of mandatory injunction compelling the society to return the corpse forthwith to their custody at the applicants’ Family House being at No 1, Alaye Aba Street, Aba Quarters, Aiyepe, Ogun State.
The urged the court to declare the conduct and practice of the 1st to 15th unconstitutional, illegal, vexatious, barbaric, obnoxious, immoral and repugnant to the dictates of civil order as enshrined in the constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 2004.
