In this piece, LAOLU AFOLABI chronicles the extraordinary journey of Oba Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja as he stands on the brink of becoming the 44th Olubadan of Ibadanland, tracing his path from humble beginnings in a remote village, through academic excellence, business success, political turbulence, and a resilient rise through Ibadan’s revered chieftaincy system

On Monday, July 7, 2025, Ibadan, Oyo State, woke to the passing of the 43rd Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Owolabi Olakulehin. Just two days earlier, the nonagenarian had celebrated his 90th birthday and was preparing to celebrate his first coronation anniversary on July 12. With his transition formally announced, the royal drummers — custodians of Ibadan’s age?old succession ritual — moved their beats to the home of the next man in line. Oba Olakulehin came from the Balogun (military) line, and the crown now shifts to the Egbe Agba (civil) line. At its summit stands Oba Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, Otun Olubadan and—by tradition—the Olubadan?in?waiting.

From the dust-caked compounds of Ibadan’s traditional quarters to the gilded chambers of the Olubadan-in-Council, Oba Ladoja has walked a path few have dared — or been destined — to tread. His ascent from Mogaji (family head) to Otun Olubadan, the penultimate step before becoming the Olubadan of Ibadanland, is not just a personal odyssey, but a testimony to the resilience of Ibadan’s centuries-old chieftaincy system, where merit, seniority, and community service count more than lineage alone.

Ladoja’s background

His odyssey from a remote village birth to the threshold of the revered Olubadan stool is an epic of grit, grace, and providence. Born on September 25, 1944, in Gambari, a rural village near Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Ladoja entered a world far removed from the prestige he commands today. “My mother said the whole village named me,” he recalled. The Yoruba communal tradition played out in full: tubers of yam, a gifted fat cow, pestles pounding yam in celebration, and Qur’anic verses whispered over a newborn swaddled in herbs.

“I was born into communal abundance, not wealth,” he said. Despite early brilliance, Ladoja dropped out of Ibadan Boys High School in Form Four. “My parents couldn’t pay the boarding fees,” he said plainly in an interview. He re-entered school a year later, thanks to his father’s modest income as a clerk and a postal order payment plan. “I got admitted back. And I never forgot the principal who gave me that chance,” he said.

When Olivet Heights in Oyo released entrance results for its Higher School Certificate programme, Ladoja came first. His reputation preceded him. “The principal said he couldn’t deny the best student admission — even if the class had to expand from 25 to 26,” Ladoja recalled.

His brilliance secured him two regional scholarships. One came through the Western Region; the other — by pure serendipity — from a chance encounter at the Ministry of Education. “I stopped by to check if I could still submit my results. The permanent secretary told me the US list was closed, but Belgium had just come in,” he said.

And that was how Ladoja, who once feigned illness as a boy just to enjoy rare rice and chicken meals, found himself in Belgium studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Liège, Belgium (1966–1972). He also turned down a job at Cocoa Research Institute to teach at his alma mater, a decision shaped by a father’s advice to stay close to education.

On his return, he was employed in Total Nigeria, an oil company, where he worked for 13 years in various positions before entering private business in 1985. His business interests include shipping, manufacturing, banking, agriculture and transportation.

Political journey

Ladoja was elected to the Senate of Nigeria in 1993, during the short-lived Nigerian Third Republic. He was elected on the platform of the Social Democratic Party. He was elected governor of Oyo State in April 2003 on the Peoples Democratic Party platform, having defeated incumbent Governor Lam Adesina and took office on May 29, 2003. He was supported by Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu, a PDP power broker in the state and an Ibadan high chief. By August 2004, Ladoja and Adedibu were locked in a fierce struggle over the political control of Oyo State. On January 12, 2006, Ladoja was impeached by Oyo State legislators and forced out of office. His deputy, Adebayo Alao-Akala (now late), was sworn in as the new governor. On November 1, 2006, the Appeal Court in Ibadan declared the impeachment null and illegal, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision on December 11, 2006.

With his reinstatement, Ladoja officially resumed office on December 12, 2006. He, however, failed to win the PDP nomination for a second term and backed the candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party in the 2007 election, Senator Abiola Ajimobi. Ajimobi, however, recontested in 2011 and won under the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria.

After the 2007 election, Ladoja’s attempts to return to the Agodi Government House were unsuccessful. He was the governorship candidate for Accord in the 2011 and 2015 elections but lost to Ajimobi, who he once endorsed in 2007. In 2017, he merged Accord into the PDP and later moved to the new coalition party, the African Democratic Congress, in 2018. Ladoja again left for the Zenith Labour Party (in December 2018.

After the Presidential and National Assembly elections in 2019, Ladoja led the coalition that collapsed the structure of Sarafadeen Alli, and Femi Lanlehin, among others, for eventual winner, Seyi Makinde of the PDP.

Ibadan’s next king

Every journey to the Olubadan throne begins with becoming a Mogaji — the head of one’s extended family compound. For Ladoja, this came in the 1980s when he was installed as the Mogaji of the Ladoja family of Arusa Compound, Isale-Osi, Ibadan. The area is now popularly called Born Photo, one of Ibadan’s ancient commercial and spiritual centres.

Ladoja became Jagun Olubadan on October 1, 1993. He was installed by the famous Olubadan Yesufu Oloyede Asanike.

After his promotion to Jagun Olubadan, the very first rung on the Egbe Agba line, which marked his formal entry into the chieftaincy hierarchy, it became a gradual but steady climb up the ranks — Ajia, Bada, Ashipa, Ekerin, Asipa, and so on — with each title carrying greater responsibility within Ibadan’s traditional administration. The Olubadan succession is rotated through two lines: the Egbe Agba (civil) and Balogun (military) lines. This system is unique to Ibadan, a meritocratic climb from Jagun (the entry-level chieftaincy) to the peak. There are 22 rungs in total, and movement depends on the demise or promotion of senior chiefs ahead.

The first step for a prospective aspirant is to emerge Mogaji of his family, in what is known as the family head. Then, the struggle begins to emerge as Jagun on either line of Otun or Balogun. For the Otun line, where Ladoja belongs, the nomenclature is shorter by one step compared to the Balogun line. The movement is from Jagun Olubadan – Ajia – Bada – Aare Onibon – Gbonnka – Aare Egbe Omo-Oota – Lagunna – Aare Ago – Ayingun – Asaju – Ikolaba – Aare Alasa – Agba Akin – Ekefa – Maye – Abese – Ekarun Olubadan – Ekerin Olubadan – Ashipa Olubadan – Osi Olubadan – Otun Olubadan and eventually Olubadan.

In 2021, Ladoja was formally elevated to the position of Otun Olubadan, the second-in-command to the Olubadan and the highest-ranking chief on the Egbe Agba line. He thus became the most senior of the Ibadan civil chiefs, which placed him next in line to become the Olubadan.

As Otun Olubadan, Ladoja not only attended key meetings of the Olubadan-in-Council but also played an influential advisory role. In this capacity, he convened the Olubadan-in-Council meeting where the late Olubadan, Oba Olakulehin, was ratified and the report sent to the Oyo State Government.

Controversies

Ladoja courted many controversies in his journey to the Olubadan throne. In 2017 when the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi elevated 21 obas in Ibadan, Ladoja stood alone with the then Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji. His belief in the dignity and structure of the Ibadan chieftaincy system made him an outspoken critic of the attempt to tamper with its succession process at the time. He challenged the late governor to court.

When the incumbent, Governor Seyi Makinde, reinvented the same law and re-crowned the monarchs, Ladoja, now a lone voice, stood away again. For Ladoja, “I only want to adorn one crown and that is the Olubadan crown.” He also said, “My journey on the Olubadan line is not about politics. It is a matter of tradition, identity, and service.”

He maintained that Ibadan’s chieftaincy system must not be politicised or commercialised. “Ibadan does not need multiple kings,” he argued, insisting that the hierarchical order that allows a Mogaji to one day become Olubadan is one of the city’s most democratic and egalitarian legacies.

At the coronation of the late Olubadan, Oba Owolabi Olakulehin on July 12, 2024, the government published a gazette of the new law, mandating it for all Ibadan high chiefs to accept obaship before their eventual promotion.

Section 4 of the amendment, titled “New Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration,” replaced “the most Senior (High) Chief in that Line” with “the most Senior Beaded Crown Oba in that Line.”

Section 4 of the new law states: “The person who may be proposed as a candidate by the Line whose turn it is to fill a vacancy in the office of the Olubadan shall be the most Senior Beaded Crown Oba in that Line.”

Sensing the danger ahead, Ibadan elders rose to the occasion, met with Ladoja and prevailed on him to take the beaded crown. Announcing his readiness to accept the beaded crown at a radio programme in Ibadan in August 2024, Ladoja said various Ibadan indigenes and non-indigenes had pressured him to accept the beaded crown to facilitate his ascension to the throne when the time came. He, however, did not lose focus on his main target. Like the “Emilokan” of Nigerian politics, President Bola Tinubu, Ladoja declared on the radio programme: “By the grace of God, I will become Olubadan. God has been merciful to me. My blood pressure has been stable. Anyone God destined to become Olubadan will become Olubadan. No matter the obstacles placed in their way. I’m ready to accept Ibadan’s ceremonial beaded crown if it’s the wish of God and the good people of Ibadanland. Only God knows who becomes Olubadan. I know by the special grace of God, I will become Olubadan.”

On August 12, 2024, the late Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Owolabi Olakulehin, in his first official duty after his coronation, crowned Ladoja as an Ibadan oba.

Awaiting destiny

With the passing of each monarch, Ibadan’s chieftaincy line advances — a quiet reminder of time and fate. Having passed through nearly all 22 steps, Ladoja, as the Otun Olubadan, has just one final step to take. Now that the throne has become vacant and given the succession pattern of the Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration, it is almost certain that history will call his name.

When asked what he would do if he became Olubadan, Ladoja had said, “Leadership, to me, has always been about service, not status. If it is the will of God that I become Olubadan, I will serve with all my heart.”

From Jagun Olubadan on October 1, 1993, to becoming Olubadan-in-waiting, 32 years after and nearing 82 years old, Ladoja, when eventually crowned, would bring to the Olubadan stool not only age and wisdom but also experience from the corridors of power and the trenches of tradition. For Ibadan, it would be a crowning not just of a man who rose from the dusty paths of Gambari village — but of a legacy built on excellence, against all odds. (PUNCH)