Category: Thursday

During the struggle for power in western Nigeria before independence, political affiliation reflected the fault line of the civil wars in Yorubaland. The Oyo people mostly followed the lead of Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu into the NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons), while non-Oyo people in rural Ekiti, Ijesha, Igbomina and Ife voted with the Action Group. In fact the aggressive boisterousness of Adelabu (penkelemesi), sometimes reminded people of the hurly burly days of Oyo domination of Yorubaland. There were however urban areas like Ilesha, Akure, Ondo, Ado-Ekiti and Ikare which largely voted for the NCNC. This may of course be because since 1944, the NCNC had already been planted into the consciousness of the urbanised Yoruba in these towns. The urban areas were also where educational institutions were located and missionary enterprise was at its highest in its impact. Hence, the control and influence of the Obas and traditional institutions were on the wane. This point is important because the Action Group was heavily dependent on the Obas as guardians of the home of Oduduwa. The party itself had sprung out of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa.

Crisis and division in Yoruba politics

Crisis seems to be a second nature in politics. Earlier in the politics of Lagos, the NYM had broken up when in 1941 there was a vacancy in the then legislative council of Nigeria and Earnest Ikoli, an Ijaw wanted to contest and he was backed by most of the important Yoruba leaders in Lagos, including the up and coming Obafemi Awolowo based in Ibadan. Nnamdi Azikiwe and others supported Samuel Akisanya who later became Odemo of Ishara. Azikiwe ironically branded supporters of Ikoli as tribalists. It was a complicated story in which Awolowo would end up being branded a tribalist for supporting an Ijaw man against an Ijebu man who was seen as a proxy of an Ibo man. This was to be the harbinger of future political divisions in Yorubaland.

When the crisis in the Action Group broke out in 1962, it invariably took the form of the Oyo against non-Oyo. This was of course due to the exploitation of history by Chief S. L. Akintola, an Ogbomosho man, who used everything he had to survive a bitter political battle with an Ijebu man. The Ijebu generally attracted hostility to themselves because of their history of blocking for economic reasons, the route to the coast against the Ibadan in the 19th century. Thus, all Ijebu people were seen as closet opponents of the Oyo speaking people. In spite of Awolowo having lived most of his life in Ibadan, he was never totally accepted as an Ibadan man. The same tendency was witnessed during the second republic, when the titans of Ibadan politics like Chief Adisa Akinloye and R. A. Akinjide went against the general trend in Yorubaland of supporting Awolowo and his UPN. This was the continuation of the antagonism between the Awolowo and Akintola factions of Yoruba politics.

This division seems to have continued until recently. Leading figures of the previous ruling party in Nigeria, the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party), in the South- west were mostly remnants of the Akintola tradition in Yoruba politics. In the current dispensation of the fourth republic, those who found their political home in the PDP could be traced to the NPC and NPN, while those in the AD/ACN/APC, can be traced largely to the Action Group and the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The political division and tendency in Yorubaland appears frozen for all times.

The Ilorin and Fulani factors in Yoruba politics

The Akintola tendency is seen in terms of a replay of Yoruba politics of Afonja’s betrayal of the Alaafin, and his own betrayal by Alimi and his son Abdul Salaam. Association with the Fulani regarded as Yoruba’s traditional enemies is seen as betrayal of Yoruba cause and interest. This is because of the 19th century seizure of Ilorin by Abdul Salaam, the son of Sheikh Alimi the Fulani cleric, who came to Ilorin as an itinerant preacher and was tolerated by Afonja the Are Ona Kakanfo of Oyo. Afonja was betrayed when the Muslim ummah in Ilorin, led by Abdul Salaam raised the flag of revolt against Afonja and Oyo, during which Afonja was killed and Ilorin became independent of Oyo and became an emirate under the Sokoto caliphate. The Ilorin episode has not been completely appreciated by historians. First of all, the coming of Muslims to Ilorin and Oyo itself during the 18th century, introduced Islam into the empire which undermined the imperial religion of Sango, which was a deification of the 15th century Alaafin. Many people in the empire were converted to Islam thus releasing them from loyalty to the Alaafin.

The Are Ona Kakanfo Afonja himself may have been a closet Muslim or perhaps he wanted to use the Muslims to bid for the throne himself. He was therefore riding the tiger only to find himself inside it. Some of those who fought with Abdul Salaam were Yoruba generals like Solagberu, who was a Muslim and saw the conflict as a jihad against non-believers. The upshot of the Ilorin episode was that Oyo was destroyed from within by the coming of Islam. Modern Yoruba people, however, see the Ilorin seizure as a humiliation of the Yoruba and any political leader associating with the north was immediately branded another Afonja who allied with foreigners to betray the Alaafin and the Yoruba. This is in spite of the fact that for 16 years, virtually the whole of non-Oyo speaking Yoruba people were fighting against Oyo/Ibadan imperialism in the 19th century. In that fight, the Ekiti Parapo confederacy of the Ekiti, Ijesha, Igbomina, Akoko, and Ife allied themselves with the Ilorin in their resistance against the Oyo/Ibadan forces which were also fighting Ilorin.

The sense of pan Yoruba feeling was not there yet and it did not really develop until the late 1940s. This had to be deliberately nurtured by Chief Awolowo, through the founding of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa in 1947 which metamorphosed into the Action Group in 1951. Before that time, the ethnic horizon of most Yoruba did not go beyond being Ekiti, Ijesha or Ijebu, Owu, Oyo, Igbomina and so on. We can therefore say politics created the pan Yoruba feeling, but ironically, the living history of the Yoruba undermined that pan Yoruba feeling. The result is that until the brief near unanimity of Yoruba support for Chief Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in 1979, Yoruba people have always spoken with several political tongues, thus, reminding one of General Charles de Gaulle’s dismissive description of the French people that if you lock up two of them in a room to form a political party they will come up with three. This is what some have called the curse of politics in Yorubaland. But is it really something to be deprecated in a plural society like Nigeria? Will it not be good for Yoruba people and Nigeria as a whole if we encourage the blooming of a million political flowers in our country? If we all sleep facing the same place, how will we be able to see other directions? There is nothing wrong with Yoruba people coming up with several ideas, options and directions about who to associate with. What we should plead against is violence arising from political differences.

The sore point of Ilorin’s political and administrative but not cultural separation from Yorubaland need not divide people of the same culture and language. Ilorin province, including the great town of Offa, is however still part of Nigeria and whatever boundary separating it from the rest of Yorubaland is mere administrative convenience. It is not as bad as that separating Sabe, Ajase, and Ketu now in the Republic of Benin from the rest of Yorubaland. In recent times, the people of Yoruba tongue there have found it important to visit and associate with the wider Yoruba world of Ogun State. It is surprising that in spite of French colonial assimilationist policy to obliterate the African culture, the Yorubas in Benin have survived and the institution of Obaship has thrived.

Under the current political dispensation in Nigeria, in which political forces in Yoruba land and the north are allied, questions have been asked whether this constitutes a break with the past. What is the difference between the opportunistic politics of Akintola, allying himself with the north to survive and Bola Ahmed Tinubu, allying with Muhammadu Buhari now? They ask. The answer is of course that this alliance was presumably negotiated between apparently equal factions of the political elite. Although, the parochialism if not nepotism, characterising most of President Buhari’s appointments gives one concern. The Yoruba should deprecate this tendency and refuse to participate in it, but only demanding what justly belongs to it. Yoruba people’s concept of “Omoluabi” is a belief in fairness and equity. This will not allow them to collude with the Hausas and Fulanis to corner all appointments and resources, without equitable sharing of them with other ethnic groups in Nigeria.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the government of western Nigeria knew the importance of history in nation-building and therefore established the Yoruba historical scheme under the late Professor Saburi Biobaku, who was sometimes Registrar of University of Ibadan, Secretary to the Government of Western Nigeria, before becoming Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos. Those involved in the Yoruba historical scheme included late Professors J.F. Ade Ajayi, Adeagbo Akinjogbin and others. Much has been done in researching the Yoruba past but more needs to be done. Unfortunately, the governments we have had since the military intervention in Nigeria in 1966 abandoned the study of history. It seems they were determined to build a future on an historical void. Or perhaps, they wanted to have no comparative yardstick against which their regimes could be judged. Thankfully the Buhari administration has in 2016 taken a decision to ensure that history is taught at all levels of education in Nigeria.

The military regime’s apologia was anchored on the need to build a technological and scientific foundation for the future. They were ignorant of the fact that the most technologically advanced countries like the USA, China, Germany, Japan, Great Britain and France have scrupulously preserved their history in well-endowed galleries and museums, as well as funding continuous research into the past and compulsory historical education to build confidence in their people. Knowledge of a glorious past can provide a platform or springboard for take-off for the future. Technological innovation does not depend on the multitude of scientists a country produces, but the effort of a solitary researcher or a group of geniuses, making breakthroughs in inventions or producing knowledge which can be applied to solve problems or to dominate the environment.

It is sad that most Nigerians know very little about their past and young people suffer from cultural disconnect, disorientation and disorder. Those of us who teach young people are worried that our language and culture are dying, and we may in the future have to seek foreign assistance as usual in solving problems that are within our reach. We need to restore the teaching of history and Yoruba language to all primary and secondary schools in all states in the Yoruba area. All schools including private schools must be involved.

Ironically, history still plays a big part in Yoruba modern politics. The struggle for pre-eminence among Yoruba Obas in recent times is a variant of how history is alive in Yorubaland. The Oyo Yoruba up to the 19th century were the dominant power in Yorubaland. In fact the Ekiti, Ijesha, Akoko, Owu, Igbomina, Egba and Ife witnessed a period of Oyo overlordship in their parts of Yorubaland. For a long time, this past history of domination was resented and this played a significant role in their political association. This was particularly the case in the rural areas even though urbanisation to a certain extent undermined the hold of history on the people. The fact that the Yoruba people are the most urbanised people on the African continent is not unconnected with the desire to congregate in fortified and easily defensible communities, believing that there is safety in numbers during the incessant wars that lasted a century from about 1793 to 1893.

When the British came and following their desire to practice the indirect rule system of colonial administration and control which had been hugely successful in the north, they looked for suzerainty comparable with the Sokoto Caliphate. They felt they found it in Oyo and its ruler and they tried to build a new Oyo Empire. They gave the Alaafin more power than he was traditionally used to. The Alaafin might have had power in the past; this was however limited and constrained by delicate checks and balances. Raising taxes in the name of the Alaafin in Oke Ogun in 1916 for example, precipitated rebellion which exposed the British lack of knowledge of the intricate and complex politics of Yorubaland. For long, the Alaafins of Oyo enjoyed primacy in Yorubaland, yet the same British consulted the Ooni when there were disputes about succession to the throne in some parts of Yorubaland.

Throughout the period of British colonial rule in Nigeria, the British dealt with the Obas in in terms of their order of importance to the colonial administration. The Alaafin took the preeminent position as traditional head of the Oyo-speaking people which included Oyo itself, Oke Ogun, Ibadan, Ibarapa, Osun division including Osogbo, Ede, Iwo, Gbongan and larger part of Ife division (Origbo towns and villages). Important rulers of Ijebu, Egba, Ijesha/Ekiti which included Akure and Igbomina were prominently recognised. Bini was treated as a separate but related kingdom. Apart from their utility value, there was no attempt to rank them in any hierarchical order which would have brought them into conflict with traditional politics and history, because what was apparent was not necessarily real and the importance of a ruler was not directly related to the size and economy of its kingdom.

For most part of colonial rule, the British ruled largely by force with little or no consultation with the Africans. This was not surprising as it was the nature of imperialism. The majority of Nigerian people were uneducated. The gentlemen of Lagos who had benefited from colonial education through access to mission schools in Lagos, the most important of which was CMS Grammar School founded in 1859 were few. When Sir Fredrick Lugard came to amalgamate the Northern and Southern protectorates and the colony of Lagos, he derided the Yoruba educated elite in Lagos as “trousered niggers” who sent their laundry every week to Bond Street in London for dry-cleaning. The antagonism between him and the educated elite was mutual because they accused him of what they called “rancorous negrophobism” and authoritarianism. The disconnect and chasm between the ruled and the ruler was unbridgeable.

Events outside Nigeria, particularly the First and the Second World Wars, undermined the colonial regime and the so-called superiority of the white man, with the effect that Nigerians starting from the Yoruba of Lagos, began to demand in the beginning participation in government and later home rule. Nationalist awakening dates back in Yorubaland to the 1880s when Lagos people organised themselves to protest against water rate. Newspapers and broadsheets had proliferated Lagos agitating against one thing or the other. It was therefore not difficult for the educated elite of Lagos after the First World War to demand for self-determination, as was being applied to the subject nationalities of the dissolved Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.

Various political parties, the most important of which were the NNDP (Nigerian National Democratic Party) and the NYM (Nigerian Youth Movement), straddled the period 1919 and 1944 when the biggest and most vibrant nationalist movement-the NCNC (National Convention of Nigeria and the Cameroons) was formed in 1944 and headed by Herbert Macaulay, the grandson of Bishop Ajayi Crowther, the Yoruba boy from Oshoogun enslaved and later educated in Freetown and London before becoming the first black African bishop of the Niger CMS mission. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the American educated Igbo man was the secretary of this nascent political organisation. The Ibo State Union was formed the same year and later became a corporate body in the NCNC and began to play significant roles in the party. Obafemi Awolowo, in reaction to this formed the Egbe Omo Oduduwa in 1947 to rally the Yoruba and to protect their interest. This was in response to the Arthur Richards constitution which divided Nigeria into three regions: namely North with Kaduna as its capital, East with its capital in Enugu and West with Ibadan as its capital.

Awolowo founded the Action Group in 1951, which immediately became the ruling party in the west after an indirect election based on limited franchise. He was later to become premier of the region and to run one of the most successful and forward looking governments in tropical Africa, until he resigned in 1959 with the hope of becoming the Prime Minister after the pre-independence election of 1959. Unfortunately for him this was not to be. His failure was to have ramifications not only for Yorubaland but the entire country. The prominent role of the Yoruba in the political life of Nigeria was second to none at least up to 1944, and this was because since 1886, there were Yoruba lawyers and doctors beginning with the Ijesha Sapara Williamses. Thus, it was natural for them to assume the role of leaders until the whole country began to come together into the mainstream of politics in the 1950s. But as it is commonly said, politics is first local before it becomes national. This was so in Yorubaland.

The Yoruba numbers about 40 million people located in Nigeria in the following states: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Kwara, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kogi, Edo and Delta (not just the Itshekiri of Warri but the Olukumi of Oshimili LGA). They are also in Benin and Togo Republics and their descendants are found in Brazil, other countries in South America Cuba, Trinidad, Tobago and other Caribbean Islands as well as in Sierra Leone. Their culture has survived in the Yoruba diaspora perhaps because of their late coming into the trans-atlantic slave trade, following the collapse of the Oyo Empire towards the end of the 18th century, or because of the strength of the Yoruba culture particularly their religion, which is widely practiced in the Caribbean and South America even by people of European descent.

The Yoruba claim Oduduwa/Olofin as their eponymous ancestor. Oduduwa is variously said to have descended from heaven and landed in Ile-Ife. Other variant, more sensible and credible myth of the Oduduwa story says he came from the East, Baghdad or somewhere in Arabia. He is said to have been the son of Lamurudu (Nimrod) who left his homeland following dispute over religious worship and succession to the throne.

These are myths and myth is not the subject of history. What we can deduce from the myth is that a people of advanced civilisation with working knowledge of iron, displaced possibly Stone Age people living in Ile-Ife, seized the throne and dominated the people. From Ile-Ife, sons of Oduduwa fanned out to found new kingdoms or to overthrow existing rulers in Yorubaland, Bini and related peoples like the Aja and Ga of present day Benin and Ghana republics respectively. This has led to the fact that many rulers in Yorubaland claim descent from Oduduwa. The pre-existing rulers became shadowy kings and priests ministering to the new Oduduwa descendants. We know from the study of archaeology, that Meroe in the present day Sudan was the centre of the diffusion of iron technology to Africa, and perhaps these myths of origin of West African rulers may well be referring to the coming of those who knew how to make iron implements for agriculture and for offense and defence.

The Bayijjidah legend of the Hausa also possibly refers to the same phenomenon of outsiders serving as change agents in Africa’s ancient history. The myth of Oduduwa as the progenitor of the rulers of yorubaland is however not universally subscribed to by all Yoruba people. Awujale, the paramount ruler of the Ijebu people, claim their people came from Waddai which is in present day Chad but was part of the Kanuri dominated Kanem-Borno Empire. This is not as fanciful as it may appear because there is an extant myth among the Kanuri, who say the Yoruba are their cousins who because of their love of money left for the coast in search of the Golden Fleece. Might this myth be referring to the Ijebu who with the Ijesha share the same facial marks with the Kanuri? We know of a certainty that the dynasty in Benin is descended from Oduduwa through his grandson Oranmiyan.

The story is well known and it suffices to say that the Benin people sent to Ile-Ife for a ruler, after having gotten rid of their Ogiso kings and finding republicanism unworkable. Ife obliged them and sent the youngest of the grandsons of Oduduwa. After a while, Oranmiyan fathered a son Eweka but left Benin disillusioned that his subjects were too difficult to control and returned to Ile-Ife. From Ile-Ife, he proceeded to Oyo to establish a new kingdom. In this way, the great kingdoms of Ife, Bini and Oyo that were to play important roles in the history of West Africa were historically linked. The Bini now claim that in fact Oduduwa was a Bini prince who was expelled from Bini, got lost in the bush and later found his way to Ile-Ife and because of his knowledge of herbal medicine was made King by the Ife people. Oranmiyan therefore was more or less their grandson who returned home. This interpretation sounds rather convenient. The reason for this new revisionism in Bini is the assertion of independence and non-subservience to a foreign ruler in the past. What is however important up till today is that the cult/court language in the Bini palace is some kind of old Yoruba and the standard greetings in the palace is “How goes Ife (Uhe)”? The mystery surrounding Ife was further complicated by the late Professor Ade Obayemi, a distinguished Professor of Archaeology, when he said the present Ife may not have been the Ife of historical antiquity. He said he had identified seven existing Ifes and that the Ife of antiquity may well be near the rivers Niger and Benue confluence.

Furthermore and in recent times, the hilly town of Idanre in Ondo state, but which its people call IFEOKE, claims it is the original Ife and that their Oba is acknowledged by the Bini as an elder to Oranmiyan, the founder of their dynasty and they have ancient artefacts to support their claim. Usen which play a prominent role in the coronation of the Obas of Benin share identical dialect with Idanre which further shows that there is a need to examine the role of Idanre (Ireke) in Ife-Benin relation in the past. Professor Alan Ryder in his book Benin and the Europeans, using mostly Portuguese sources claimed that when the Portuguese came to Benin in the 15th century, they were told Benin paid homage to the “Oghene Luhe” North east of Benin. This he felt might be in the same direction suggested by Obayemi. Of course, the Portuguese may not have reported correctly what they were told. Ife Olukotun, located near the area suggested has not yielded any artefacts that could be dated older than those found in Ife that were produced between the ninth and the twelfth centuries. The moat around Ile-Ife, even though most of it has disappeared and the various ancient artefacts found there suggest that the present Ife is the Ife of antiquity. There is much that we do not know and there is room for serious research, because a serious question of the provenance of the founder of ancient Yoruba kingdoms is too important to leave to guess work.

I want to emphasise that the history of dynasties should not be confused with the history of peoples. For example, we all know that the current Hanoverian dynasty in England is from Germany yet this does not mean English people are descended from Germans. Although, I know that the Saxons, a Germanic tribe, had with the angles over run the Celtic people of England in historic times. Oduduwa may be the ancestor of the rulers of Yoruba kingdoms; it does not mean Oduduwa is the ancestor of all Yoruba people. There were people in Ile-Ife and Yorubaland before the coming of Oduduwa. This is why we have chieftaincies like Obalufe, Obatala, which apparently preceded the coming of Oduduwa. Recent disputes in several kingdoms in Akure, Ekiti land and Akoko where there exists two “Kings” in one kingdom, one active, the other passive until recent times, indicate there were autochthonous people in yorubaland before the coming of the Oduduwa party. The struggle between Olukere and Ogoga, Alakure and Deji, Owa Ale and Olukare and to a certain extent Odio and Ewi and the struggle between the Oba of Benin and a chief Ogiamien claiming his ancestors were the rulers of the kingdom before Oranmiyan, are manifestations of the fact that there were not only people but rulers who have now been eclipsed and displaced by much more formidable new comers.