This story of Oba Joseph Oloyede would make an interesting read if written into a book by a good writer. In the hands of a skilled filmmaker, it would make box office success.
This is a man who, a few years ago, was strutting around like the cat that got the cream in his hometown in Ipetumodu, Osun State. Every morning in his residence, drummers assembled while chanters delivered his panegyric. He was highly revered by his subjects, not only because he was the Apetu of Ipetumodo, but he was a very generous man. Many benefited from his benevolence, but little did they know that behind his munificence was a man whose fraudulence oozes all around.
His pastimes were pulling the wool over people’s eyes. They were not aware that they had handed the ‘treasury’ of their town to an irredeemable swindler and a shark.
Perhaps if Oloyede had known that the law was about to catch up with him, he would not have made that trip back to the US. But like the saying in America ‘’If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’’
The monarch last Tuesday finally commenced his journey from royalty to a US prison as he was sentenced to more than four years in prison by District Judge Christopher A. Boyko.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio, the monarch was also ordered to “serve three years of supervised release after imprisonment and pay $4,408,543.38 in restitution.”
He also forfeited his Medina home on Foote Road, which he had acquired with proceeds of the scheme, and an additional $96,006.89 in fraud proceeds investigators had seized.
While it is not certain how long it would take the kingmakers in the ancient town of Ipetumodu to search for his successor, it’s undeniable that Oloyede is not coming back to the stool even after serving his jail term.
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