FIJ
Had events taken a different turn, Rahmon Adedoyin the Osun State-born businessman who was sentenced to death by hanging on Tuesday for murder, would be the current Ooni of Ife. He may not have succeeded, but he wanted to, and he deployed all of his wealth and might to the ambition. He was fairly close.
With about 11 businesses, including universities and polytechnics, in his name, Adedoyin belongs in the Nigerian elite class with adequate money and influence to make the law and its apparatuses do their bidding.
As a powerful and influential personality in Nigeria, he would have felt insulated from condemnation when he was arrested in November 2021, for allegedly having a hand in the death of Timothy Adegoke, an Abuja-based chartered accountant.
Adegoke had travelled to Ile-Ife from his Abuja base on November 5, 2021, to write his MBA exams at the OAU Distance Learning Centre.
When friends and family members no longer heard from the student, two days after he had confirmed his arrival in Ile-Ife to them, he was declared missing. Later, Adegoke’s body was found in a shallow grave at a location very close to Hilton Hotel and Resorts, where he had been accommodated. Hilton Hotel and Resorts belongs to Adedoyin and investigations conducted by the police would later reveal that he was one of the student’s four murderers.
On May 30, and after 18 months of an intense legal battle, Adedoyin and two of his employees who also played a part in the killing, were sentenced to death by hanging in a high court sitting in Osogbo, Osun State.
Roheem, Adedoyin’s son, who also had a hand in Adegoke’s death, has been identified as the fourth murderer. He is, however, still at large.
Video clips of the mood in the court room after Adedoyin’s sentencing was quite an interesting one. The “powerful man” sat on one of the chairs provided for all the defendants in the case, looking stunned.
Unknown to many Nigerians, Adedoyin would actually have been crowned the Ooni of Ife in 2015.
MAYE OF YORUBALAND AND OTHER CHIEFTAINCY TITLES
For his growing influence and business strides, Adedoyin got the chieftaincy title of the Maye of Yorubaland from Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, the late Alaafin of Oyo.
And in Ile-Ife, where he is said to have 70 percent of his investments, including the First Access Microfinance Bank and Hilton Hotels and Suites, the titles of ‘Balogun of Parakin-Eleyele’, and the ‘Maye of Ife’ were conferred on him by the late Ooni Okunade Sijuade.
