(By Sulaiman Salaw-udeen) – The Many Female “Kings”
of Ekiti
Yoruba
tradition precludes princesses from becoming kings, but many of them have been
installed regents or stop-gap kings in many towns and cities across Southwest
Nigeria.
Like the
conventional monarchs, they often come decked in traditional Agbada, Buba and
Sokoto and wear round-headed caps festooned in attractive designs. They wield
the familiar royal horsetail and are normally graced with obeisance by humble
and adoring subjects who call them ‘Kabiyesi’, a Yoruba word for ‘Unquestionable’.
But their often
rotund faces and other feminine features do always set them apart from the male
world which their looks and their relations with male chiefs gave them away as.
They are females and are fleeting occupiers of the exalted throne of a
traditional ruler or Oba across towns and communities in Ekiti. They carry the
common title of regents.
