Contrary to all the gists making the rounds in the last few weeks about the possible reason(s) for the crash of Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi’s marriage and why Ooni’s ex-Oloori, Wuraola, who has now changed her name to Queen Zynab was sent packing from the palace in Ile Ife, City People has found out that it was the Oloori herself that actually took off, when she increasingly found it so difficult to continue to cope as Ooni Ogunwusi’s wife. In this report, one of our Correspondents who has kept an eye on the palace since the Ooni became King 2 years ago reveals the many mistakes she made in the 17 months they were married.
As you read this, Oloori Wuraola, the estranged wife of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Yeye Ogunwusi is in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates cooling off. That was where she spent her Sallah holiday. That was what her Timeline showed, over the weekend when we checked her Instagram page. The page which she calls The Official Page of Her Highness Queen Zaynab-Otiti Obanor describes her as someone who is into providing aid for women and children across the world. “Wishing Everyone A Happy & Peaceful Eid Al Adha” was her message “May the joys that come with this season continue to abide with us all, as we celebrate each other in remembrance of so many blessings from Allah!
Like she wrote in her Official Statement last week, Oloori Wuraola has moved on from the marriage and she is back as a single girl. She has dumped her Ogunwusi surname. She has also dumped her Wuraola name which the Ooni gave her, when he got married to him 17 months ago. Wuraola is Ooni’s late mums name. He named her after his mum....
But all that is history now, as Oloori Wuraola has closed that chapter of her life. The only anger she nurses now is the negative allegations of Infidelity and Infertility heaped on her as being possible reasons for her exit from the marriage. It was to correct this image that she issued an official statement last week. But insiders at the palace have come out to give reasons why the 17 month marriage crashed. According to them, the fact that Oloori Wuraola was not properly groomed on her role as the Oloori of such a big and important Oba in Yorubaland, was a big issue in the marriage, plus the fact that she was also not accommodating and trusting of the many people she met around Kabiyeesi”, explained an insider. “She was jealous of the women who came to see Kabiyeesi,” explained a palace source. “She was also afraid that the Kabiyeesi was likely to take a 2nd and possibly a 3rd wife. So she saw every pretty lady around Kabiyeesi as a potential 2nd wife”...
That perhaps explains why early this year she gave a lot of women marching orders and many women stopped going to Ife to see Kabiyeesi for fear of the Oloori. There was also the allegation that she didn’t show sufficient respect for her husband both privately and publicly. Kabiyeesi’s aides reveal how on several occasions the Oloori got angry and agitated and the Kabiyeesi had to overlook her excesses. They cited a recent example when she got angry in London, last March, when the Ooni travelled to the UK to see the Queen.City People gathered that she had a disagreement with the Ooni and her behaviour got the Ooni visibly angry.
Palace sources say the pretty Oloori has temper issues which atimes got really bad. City People was told how when she gets angry many of the aides around her usually leave her alone to cool down. What was also an issue for her was the closeness of her husband to his 3 sisters. Said an insider, “throughout the 17 month relationship, she saw the sisters as a threat to her marriage, because Kabiyeesi listens to them a lot. Although the 3 sisters-Princess Folashade, Adesola and Adebimpe embraced her, after Kabiyeesi told them his decision to marry Oloori Wuraola, she felt uncomfortable with them, moreso their relocation from Lagos where they are based to Ile-Ife to support their brother, the King”.
City People gathered that unknown to many, the marriage has been having problems for months with the constant threats of the Oloori wanting to pull out. There are also those who revealed that the royal marriage had issues from day one because of their irreconciliable differences. Many have also wondered the attraction the Ooni had for Oloori Wuraola. This is because of their different nature. Many saw her as a flamboyant celebrity lady who found the sedate life in the palace boring. What brought about all these feeling was the stories that hit the social media just before they got married. Also, her set of friends are popular big babes.
Once the news broke then that the Ooni was going to take Zynab as wife, the social media was agog with all sorts of stories about his bride to be. Some of these stories were brought to the attention of the Ooni then who just came on the throne a few months before. But Ooni didn’t mind. He told all those who cared to listen that he would go ahead, more so Ifa had revealed to him that the lady he would marry will come to the palace by herself. Ifa’s prediction was that the person Ooni would marry will walk into the palace and a few days after the prediction, the new Oloori walked in to see the Ooni and he felt, truly, she must be the one. Why was there a need for the Ooni to take a wife you may ask? City People can reveal that the need for Ooni to take a wife was after his ex-wife, Adebukola had been rude to him a few years back before he became Ooni. They had issues and she out of annoyance, disrespected the Ooni, and the Ogunwusi family decided that she would have to be replaced. Although she attended the 1 week coronation of Ooni she was sidelined after the coronation rites and the search for a new bride began. “That marriage was already over before the Ooni was called to contest for Oba and Bukky never supported the Ooni then”, revealed a Palace source.
It was only after he emerged that she came out wanting to be Oloori”. The new Ooni, conscious of the need for him to have a wife decided to put the issue of Oloori behind him as fast as possible, which explains why he didn’t fault Wuraola when he met her despite all the stories. At the time she came on the scene there were other women who were being considered for the role of Oloori. But so many of those around Kabiyeesi were shocked when he announced to them he had decided to marry Wura, a Benin girl. The fact that she was Benin didn’t go down well with a few people who would have preferred Ooni to marry an Ife girl. But the Ooni didn’t see anything wrong in that. He explained in an interview he granted The SUN. He was asked: Critics have faulted your taking a Benin woman for a wife. They say there are enough Yoruba damsels to warm the royal bed of the spiritual head the custodian of Yoruba culture other than a “foreigner”. What is your reaction, Your Royal Majesty?
And his answer: “It is another display of ignorance of people. Benin and Ife have so many ties and affinities. We are blood-related and that is the truth. One may be trying to claim supremacy over the other, I really don’t care about that. We are one in the presence of God. But the truth is that my Oloori has her root in Ife here, from Oluyari compound in Ile-Ife. They migrated to settle down in Benin for bronze casting. So, she is back at home. Her forebears left Ife to start bronze casting in Benin and after teaching and learning bronze casting, they came back to Ife to rejoin their families. So, they still have blood cousins and relations in Ife. So, you now understand why we are one and together”. And so the marriage took place. No sooner did she come in that she began to have issues with her new life as Ooni’s wife. Once she came in, she introduced her new rules. An insider revealed how she sidelined a few of those around Kabiyeesi who ushered her in. She took absolute control of the palace and exercised authority. She became uncomfortable with all the women she saw in the palace and became wary of the females who came to see her hubby..
Moreso when she began to hear stories of an impending new bride coming in.
What did also not help the Oloori is her temperament. Though she looks gentle and easy going, insiders in the palace revealed how she often got angry and once she gets angry everyone leaves her alone. Before she finally took a walk, City People gathered that she had made attempts from late last year to pack out because she just couldn’t cope. She attempted to leave in January and the last straw was March when Ooni visited UK with Oloori and they had a misunderstanding. It was whilst this was happening that she got angry and did a few things which many saw as gross misconduct to Kabiyeesi.
City People gathered that contrary to many gists that have been making the rounds, the Ooni showed her love. One of Ooni’s aides told City People how Kabiyeesi showered her with material gifts and love. He took her everywhere he went on to tell her how he wanted her to complement him. So in love with her was Kabiyeesi that he built her a befitting apartment in the Palace but she couldn’t move in till she left.
Some friends of the Oloori explained to City People that what worsened the marital crisis was the fact that Oloori may have had an exaggerated picture of the kind of marriage she was going into. Though she loved the reality of living like a queen and having the prefix before her name, she came in only to find that the Ooni was not as stupendously rich and free with money as she had expected. She found life in the palace to be boring and it was not as rosy as she pictured it to be. She also didn’t find her new life in the palace funny. She was no longer free to move around like before and hang out with her old friends. But by the time the marriage became troubled the Oloori began to frequent Lagos and used to stay at the New Eko Hotel Signature which is very expensive. She had a permanent suite reserved for her there paid for by Kabiyeesi.
A lot of people around Kabiyeesi didn’t like the idea of the Oloori frequenting Lagos and staying at Eko Hotel for weeks with Ooni’s cars with royal inignia parked at the foyer of the hotel.
The fact that the Oloori couldn’t get pregnant for the 17 months she was married did not go down well with some of those around Kabiyeesi. This is also a sore point for the Oloori, explained a friend, “because she would have loved to give Kabiyeesi a son at least to cement their marriage”. She also didn’t find funny the allegation of Infidelity levelled against her in the social media. That was why she had to quickly issue an offiicial statement denying the allegation of Infertility and Infidelity. In her statement she said “there is absolutely no truth to the media circulated lies of Infidelity and Infertility on my end”. Why has the Palace not responded? Why has the Ooni kept quiet? City People knows why.
City People gathered that its because of the age long tradition that the Palace need not respond to every single rumour and the Ooni too need not wash his linen in public. It is also to protect the institution from such a needless controversy. Why have the 3 sisters remained quiet also? An insider revealed its because they are too shocked at the turn of events because for the 17 months Oloori was their brothers wife, they took her in like a sister and they just can’t imagine the Oloori dragging them into her marital crisis as being the cause of the breakup.
City People also gathered from the palace that it is absolutely false that the Ooni physically or verbally abused her.
On the allegation making the round that she wasn’t allowed to pack her things especially her Golden bed, a close associate of the Ooni at the Ife palace explained that the whole truth about the bed was that Kabiyeesi has a furniture maker in the palace and the guys names is Lanre Olafimihan. He was the person in charge of Essential Furniture from his Inagbe Grand Resort in Lagos owned by the Ooni. “On ascension to the throne, Kabiyeesi moved the workshop to the palace to produce all the furniture needed at the palace”. “So all the furniture in the palace was made by Mr. Lanre Olafimihan. Incidentally Zynab didn’t like the bed made for her, then Mr. Lanre was given a new design by Zynab. The bed in question was hand crafted by the Palace furniture maker”..
“So, we don’t know where she got the idea that she paid $25k for a bed made by her husbands employee. How could anyone also have claimed in the social media that Ooni’s sisters prevented her from removing her $25k bed?. This was at the same time the sisters were in far away Abuja for a family wedding, including Kabiyeesi. So, please tell me: how can someone be in Abuja and at the same time prevent her from moving her things in the palace? These are the same sisters who haven’t even been to Ife in over a year”. Many people at the palace feel that the London incident last March made Ooni’s, associates to dislike the Oloori. The allegation is that when the Ooni traveled to the UK last March, the Oloori was confrontational with her husband simply because she could not stand the sight of another woman with Kabiyeesi. According to an insider, can you imagine it, many people came to pay their respect, and she started giving them attitude, especially ladies? The insider revealed the incident that happened at Intercontinental Hotel 02, Greenwich, England which led to the Ooni paying £1,500 as damages in the hotel”
Why did Kabiyeesi shut her out of the palace, City People Magazine asked? “Nobody shut her out. Kabiyeesi didn’t shut her out. Kabiyeesi usually avoids having any exchange with her because it often gets messy.”City People gathered that after the Ooni ascended the throne, as it’s customary, he decided to build a new apartment for her in the palace. In doing this, he simply wanted to correct what should have been from the beginning, by moving her into her newly built apartment in the palace.
But we hear the Oloori saw this as a way of quietly sidelining her in the scheme of things. Insiders say she saw this as a way of preparing grounds for a new Oloori to come in. “She always comes to Lagos and when she comes she stays at Eko Hotel” Right now, a lot of elderly men at the palace in Ife are angry at what they call the disrespect Oloori Wuraola has accorded the throne by not only walking out, but by publicly announcing her exit. An elder at the palace says the Ooni has taken the Oloori’s exit in good faith...
An elder at the palace says the Ooni has taken the Oloori’s exit in good faith. “Its even better the way she went about it. You know in Yoruba land, Obas never divorce. So, its actually better because she is the one that walked away”. “I can tell you that the whole crisis is about this lady not wanting Ooni to marry again. She does not want the Ooni to pick a new wife. In Yorubaland the wife of a revered king like the Ooni shouldn’t say she walked away. But she has done just that. That goes to shows she’s not fit for that position. Even if she walks away she doesn’t need to say a word, or the things she’s saying. She clearly lacks respect for culture and tradition. She has not properly represented Edo Kingdom well”.
