The Kingship dispute in Offa community may degenerate into communal enmity if not properly handled and resolved. This is the more reason why every concerned Yoruba and indeed Nigerian must seek for a peaceful out-of-court resolution.

The recent judgement of the Appeal Court which dethroned the Olofa of Offa in my opinion is the carelessness of the traditional institution which failed to adopt joint problem solving techniques which is the African means of resolving dispute.

I am of the opinion that, the traditional institution in Offa community had left the issue to last too long without resolving it in a more African way. The result of which is the recent dethroning of the Olofa of Offa, Oba Mufutau Gbadamosi.

It is worthy of note that, a popular Yoruba proverb held that, A ki ti ile ejo de, ka tun se ore. Which means that, we don't return from the court and remain friends. This I believe is a pointer to the negative consequence that may befall Offa community irrespective of the final outcome of the case at the Supreme Court.

Irrespective of who wins the court case, the negativity would never be discontinued if it is allowed to start and the enmity shall last long unless it is prevented now.

Alternative Dispute Resolution, as the name implies, is an alternative method of resolving disputes, in a less formal way.

It has been established that, relationship is mostly valued in this part of the world, but one of the factors that could easily turn a good relationship into a sour one is disputes, particularly when such disputes is to be resolved through court process which is known as litigation.

As earlier noted, there is a popular Yoruba saying that says “we don’t come back from court and still be friends”. This is because, parties in a suit don’t always see themselves as friends even if they are from the same family. This no doubt is as a result of litigation process which does not take into cognisance the relationship of the parties in a suit before delivering judgment based on provisions of laws governing the subject of the disputes.

Contrary to this, there is an alternative method of resolving disputes which do not in any way injure the friendship status of the parties, yet resolved their disputes amicably without any of the parties being seen as the loser or the winner as it is in litigation. This method is known as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and one of the popular form of ADR is mediation. Mediation is a process of dispute resolution focused on effective communication and negotiation skills. The mediator acts as a facilitator assisting the parties in communicating and negotiating more effectively, thereby enhancing their ability to reach a settlement. It is not the mediator's role to adjudicate over the issues in dispute and indeed the mediator has no authority to do so.

Mediator could be an individual, association, cultural group, community elders and so on.

Mediation is not a process to force compromise, although compromise is an element of the process. Each party's limitations are respected and a party is only expected to make a shift in its approach to the problem if it becomes convinced that it is reasonable to do so.

Experts in ADR also maintained that, Alternative Dispute Resolution involves methods of resolving disputes other than through litigation which is a court process. Knowing full well that parties don’t return from court and still remain friends but the practice of ADR has given room for parties to resolve their differences without losing their relationship.

It is my believe that, the on-going dispute in Offa community doesn't just involve the two ruling house in the battle to emerge victorious, it in reality involves the entire community as a whole, and the outcome may likely  instigate members of the community against each other.

If this is the case, I expect that the Offa Community would act swiftly to resolve the on-going dispute in a less formal way amicably to avoid destroying the peaceful relationship between its community.

Abdulrazaq O. Hamza wrote from Ilorin.