List of rulers of Ife

Another account, but not in tandem with existing evidences, states that Ogun purposely sent all Oduduwa's children on different journeys to effect Yoruba territory expansion.

Whatever the case, after Oduduwa's short reign, Ọbàtálá re-emerged as the king of Ile-Ife and the throne was rotated between Obatala and Obalufon houses until the return of Oranmiyan who briefly interrupted the succession pattern.

For instance, while the first three were said to have been sons of Ooni Lajodogun, certain figures regarded as siblings of Ogboru have either been completely excluded or subsumed.

Since there were no ceremonial recitations of the list of the Oonis (at burial or at crowning), there are in fact several oral traditions that have generated an unusual number of different written transcriptions.

[citation needed] Especially, the Ooni of Ife is often presented as the highest ranked Oba or, even more, as the natural chairman of the Council of Yoruba Chiefs.

But, while poor romanizations of Korean can be fixed by comparing with the hangul/hanja original text, this cannot be done with the Yoruba oral sources of the past.

"[21] Sijuade Olubuse II banned the sale of the Adetunji's book in ife town because it included a story pertaining to his grandfather Adélẹkàn Olúbùse, which he did not want publicized

Yoruba Ife bronze casting of a King, Nigeria c. 1300
Ife bronze casting of a King, dated around twelfth century
Drummers at Ooni's Palace
A picture of an imagined Oduduwa sculpture at the Ooni of Ife palace