A man arrested by the police for killing a traditional ruler in Ekiti State, (Oba) Gbadebo Ogunsakin, has explained the reasons for his actions.

The culprit, Omoniyi Ademola, who had earlier been identified as Sunday, said he was duly nominated to take over from the king.

According to him, it had been a running battle for about four years and in 2017, the throne was eventually declared vacant.

“They brought the crown to my place and they displayed everything. The wife of our house moved to the palace and proclaimed that the Kabiyesi was dead.

“It’s not that I wanted to take over. I was the one that was nominated,” he said while being paraded at the Police headquarters in Ado-Ekiti on Friday.

The Police had accused Ademola of stabbing the monarch to death on Monday (August 20) while he (Ogunsakin) was walking back to his personal residence after a weekly meeting with other chiefs held in his palace.

Ademola, however, claimed that the monarch had attacked him first before he retaliated and he eventually died.

Initially, he was said to have been mentally unstable but the Commissioner of Police, Mr Bello Ahmed while speaking to journalists on Friday dismissed the claim.

He said, “I am not a medical expert to know who is mentally unstable or not. But the fact remains that, how could a lunatic commit murder and run over 100 kilometres from the scene of the incident? So, common sense dictates that he must have known what he was doing to have run from that town to Ado Ekiti”.

The family had also rejected the claim at a ceremony to commence the funeral rites on Thursday.

In an interview with Channels Television, the brother of the deceased, Mike Olowoselu said, “Many things proved that the man is not mad as papers are carrying it. I want to debunk that.

“A mad man cannot kill and be running away to escape. He ran to Ado-Ekiti to where his people live, so I don’t believe he is mad.

“He narrated his story over there, he knows all the schools he passed through and when he graduated, and he didn’t mix things up.

“When the police arrested him, he repeated what he said a day before, so a mad man cannot coordinate things the way he coordinated things”.

The monarch’s son, on the other hand, said the family had decided to wait for the police to conclude their investigations before they can ascertain the reason behind the murder which some have described as mysterious.

He said, “Whatever that has happened we want to credit it to the wish of God. The family will not be too quick to jump into conclusions that some people are interested in the position”.

• Sourced from a Channels TV report

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