ABSTRACT
When Sijuwade became Ooni of Ife in December 1980 he
inherited an ongoing dispute over supremacy between the Obas of Yoruba land. In
1967 crisis had been resolved when Chief Obafemi Awolowo was chosen as the
leader of the Yoruba. In 1976 the Governor of Oyo State, General David Jemibewon,
had decreed that the Ooni of Ife would be the permanent chairman of the St te
Council of Obas and Chiefs.
Other Obas led by the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi said the position should rotate. The dispute calmed down when Osun State was
carved out of Oyo State in August 1991, but ill will persisted. In January 2009
Sijuwade was quoted as saying that Oba
Adeyemi was ruling a dead empire (the Oyo Empire,
which collapsed in 1793). Adeyemi responded by citing "absurdities"
in Sijuwade's statements and saying the Ooni is not in tune with
his own history. Adeyemi, Permanent Chairman of the Oyo State Council of Obas
and Chiefs, was conspicuously absent from a meeting of Yoruba leaders in April
2011.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Front page
Certification
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Table of Contents
Abstract
CHAPTER ONE:
INTRODUCTION
1. 1 Background of the Study
1.2 Historical Background
1.3 Aims and Objectives
1.4 Significant of Study
1.5 Literature Review
1.6 Methodology
1.7 District, Divisional and Provincial
1.8 Definition of Terms
References
CHAPTER TWO:
IFE - OYO RELATIONS IN THE 19TH CENTURY
2. 1 Historical Background of Ile- Ife
2.2 Historical Background of Oyo
2.3 Socio - Political Relations of lIe-Ife and Oyo
2.4 Economic Relations of Ile- Ife and Oyo
2.5 Political Relations of Ile-Ife and Oyo
References
CHAPTER THREE:
POLITICS AND POWER RELATIONS IN THE COLONIAL ERA OF YORUBALAND
3. 1 Pre-Colonial Power Relations
3.2 Colonial Power Relations in Yoruba land
3.3 Decolonization and Power Relations in Yoruba land
References
CHAPER FOUR:
POST-INDEPENDENCE PERSPECTIVE 1960 - 1991
4.1 Coasts
4.2 Magnitude and Consequences
4.3 Challenges and Prospects
References
CHAPTER FIVE:
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5. 1 Conclusions
5.2 Recommendations
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF
THE STUDY
The Yoruba land was usually referred to as southwest.
In Nigerian geo-political zone. It comprises modern state of Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo,
Osun, Oyo and Lagos State. In addition, a considerable number of Yoruba people
also inhabit a substantial part of Kwara, and southeastern part of the Republic
of Benin (former Dahomey) and were also one of the major ethnic group in modern
Nigeria.
All these areas are referred to form what was known
as Yoruba country before the European partition of Africa, The area lies
roughly between latitudes 60 and 90 North and longitude 20
- 30 and 60 31 east with an estimated area of about
161,300 square kilometers.
This part of the country presents generally two
district features namely; the forest and the plains. The former comprising
southern and eastern zones, while the later comprises the North central and
western portion. The area constituted a thick forest but the rivers and the
streams are dependent upon the annual rains. There are few high mountains in
the North and West of this area, but in the. East, the prevailing aspect is
high rangers of mountains.
On the political level, the political unit which
government is' based in all the Yoruba kingdoms is the town, each kingdom
consists of many towns, but this do not mean that there are many independent
governments in each kingdoms. The only thing is that the government of the
capital serves as the central government units. Notwithstanding this unequal,
the unique system of government is monarchical, as towns in the central or
local level are headed by an Oba or King, who is entitled to wear a crown. As
head of the government the king is regarded as a divine ruler and head of Army,
he has-absolute powers.
Enclosed with this geo-political are towns like Ife
and Oyo. These are very salient towns in the study of the Yoruba history. The former
are situated in the central portion of the Yoruba land and headed by a King Oba
known as "Ooni" titular head while the later is situated in the
Northern part of the area and headed by Alaafin African titular head. These two
towns form the bases of this research.
1.2 HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
In writing the early history of the Yoruba, one has
to rely entirely on non-written sources of which oral tradition is very
salient, this hitherto collected and popularized present different
contradictory information about the origin of the people. This can be
supplemented with archeological finding and linguistic research, and with
inference drawn from the results of ethnological mapping of present day
cultures and socio-political organizations.
According to the oral tradition which has various versions, one
of' the resources tells us that in the beginning when the world was only a mass
of water, God sent Oduduwa from heaven to create the earth and the human race.
Oduduwa descend with his lieutenants and handed of Ile-ife, where he
accomplished his task. Thus by this tradition, Ile-ife was asserted as the
cradle not for the Yoruba but also of all mankind.
On the other hand, there is a body of tradition which
claims that the Yoruba migrated to their present abode from Mecca under the
leadership of Oduduwa as a result of a political crisis in Arabia after the
rise of Islam. Some scholars have examined the details of this' version and
concluded that, while it was possible that the Yoruba had contact with Mecca or
other parts of Arabia before they migrated, their real place of origin
was either Egypt or Nubia. In any case, they too did not deny that Oduduwa was
the leader of the migrants but making use of etymological considerations is
purely unscientific in historical context.
Therefore, the fundamentalist approach can be ruled
out on the ground of incompatibility with modern sequence, as the Middle
Eastern question is not authentic. Bat in the case of archeological findings in
relation to origin of the Yoruba “two implication can be credited to this,
first, that there have been considerable populations seem to have been
physically and culturally continuous with the present day inhabitant”.
At this juncture however, it is pertinent to examine
whether the people whom Oduduwa met at Ile-ife were Yoruba speaking or not in
this connection, linguistic evidence is a better supplement to archeological
findings as it’s crucial to our reconstructions of the history of Yoruba. In
classifying African Languages in general and West African in particular,
renowned scholars of linguistics have placed-the Yoruba Language among the Kwara
group in the Niger Congo family of languages. Beside
through the use of glottochronology, linguistic have been able to assert that
Yoruba, Edo, Igbo began to evolve as separate languages from a common percentage
about four thousand years ago; and that Yoruba had evolved as a distinct
language, at least about two or three thousand years ago.
Sequel to this linguistic evidence, therefore, the
Yoruba speaking' people had inhabited West Africa before the advent of
education. This depicts that it was not Oduduwa's group that introduce the
Yoruba Language.
Rather, if Oduduwa was a migrant then he and his
followers became absorbed into their existing Yoruba group and adopted their
language.
Assuming that Oduduwa was a migrant, his place of
migration was in all probability somewhere in the neighborhood of Ile-ife where
Yoruba or a related language was spoken and not Mecca or Egypt.
This suggestion is based on the fact that his name
sounds more like a Yoruba name than Arabic or Egyptian name. At any rate
whether Oduduwa was a migrant or a political adventure, his advent was a
significant milestone in the history of the Yoruba people. "Thus he became
the head of the lot. His seven princes and princess namely; Olowo of Owu
(Princess), Princess of Alaketu of Ketu, Prince of Benin" Orogun of Ila,
Onisabe of sabe, Olupopo of Popo and last Oranyan the king of Oyo. All these
left Ife at different times for various reasons to found their own dynasties this
made Oduduwa the original head of people as well as' the spiritual leader while
his descendants became effective political authorities in their various
territories.
1.3 AIMS
AND OBJECTIVES
The reason for me to choose this controversial issue
as the area of my research is simply because of the public and press
controversies cum debates the leadership supremacy has provoked, of which no
concrete answer has been reached concerning "who is the supreme head of
the Yoruba between ife and Oyo". Although many interested. Writers have
been contributing either for or against them.
In this respect therefore, I think the origin of this
issue should be traced and an answers should be found to it.
1.4 SIGNIFICANT OF
STUDY
The significant of this study is to answer the question
that who is really supreme between Ife and Oyo in regard of Yoruba leadership.
1.5 LITERATURE REVIEW
The study of the Yoruba land empire has been written
by different scholars. But little has been said about the leadership supremacy
in Yoruba land. This is to say that this study has been neglected and in this
respect the work therefore set to study some related work on relationship
between Ife and Oyo before and after colonial era.
Since most of the books written by the scholars did
not treated the leadership supremacy in Yoruba land as a separate issue.
However, the research intends to use the article
written by Chief Odofin of Ife and Chief Orunto of Oyo and some report found at
the National Achiever. Since National Achievers has the basic information about
the relations of the two cities.
1.6 METHODOLOGY
In writing the early Yoruba history one must consult
the primary source which is oral history and visiting some historical places so
in order to analyses the data collected for this I will rely on primary sources
which is oral, history report found at National archives and some secondary
materials.
Historians of the Yoruba land such as Ajayi,
Ayandele, Akintoye, Biobaku, Awo and a host of others have failed to give a
little space for who is supreme between Ife and Oyo with regard to leadership
claims in their writings.
With the exception of articles written by Chief Raji
Badmus, the Orunto of Oyo and Chief Fabunmi, Odole of Ife, including individual
comments in the Newspapers and magazines, all other sources of materials for
this dissertation comes from oral traditions and materials from the National
Archives.
Though, oral tradition as a source of historical data
presents problems. There is the problem of inaccuracy. Oral tradition as we all
knows is history material being spoken rather than written word. There are·
distortions falsifications, repetitions and corruptions in tradition. The
search for and the indication of variants and identification of corruption,
show the way in which the tradition has been handed down from time immemorial;
and the very variations distortions and corruptions themselves are important
because they show the way in which historical event have been interpreted from
one generation to another.
However, oral tradition passes through a more human
potentially more emotional channel of communication written records; historian
records them a living individual. In order to overcome such problems of subjectivity,
the historian has to seek information' from and the other of various
individuals, as many as possible and from all walks of life. In some cases, the
information themselves are not sure of dates and facts, some we’re not alive to
witness the events, while those who witnessed them might have forgotten certain
facts. These are some of the problems which one encounter in oral tradition.
In spite of all these limitations, I have to depend
largely on oral tradition to write this project. I interviewed mostly elders,
important title holders which I was directed to by both Alaafin of Oyo and Ooni
of Ife; and they well informed me of the historical events of their' respective
areas. Majority of those I interviewed are not versed in English and therefore
I spoke to them in Yoruba. All my interviews in general were faithfully
recorded on the cassette - player and subsequently translated into English. I
asked several questions to elicit as much information as possible. Others were
primary sources which I got from the National Archives, Ibadan. The chief
Archivist granted me every opportunity to look at various provincial papers on
Oyo and Ife. There papers are the most useful of the written sources. For they
contain direct records; kept by the Administrative Officers of the Native
Administrative Affairs in Oyo and Ife-Ilesha area. Besides, they are as
detailed as possible, being contributed to' by the officials at various levels;
1.7 DISTRICT,
DIVISIONAL AND PROVINCIAL
The one classified as Oyo Proof. Files under which
matter related to both Oyo and Ife are compiled. The materials mostly used in
this work came from files under Oyo Proof. I, Oyo Proof 2/4. Oyo Proof 3 Oyo
Proof 4 and Oyo Proof 6.
1.
Daily Sketch November 2nd, 1980 Pg. 18
2.
Daily Sketch December 26th, 1980 Pg. 20
3.
Daily Sketch December 1st, 1980 Pg. 21
4.
Nigerian Tribune December 30th, 1980 Pg. 15
5.
Nigerian Tribune December 12th, 1981 Pg. 11
6.
Sunday Concord May 27th, 1984 Pg. 19
7.
Sunday Concord June 3rd, 1984 Pg. 21
8.
Sunday Concord June 10th -, 1984 Pg. 17
9.
Sunday Concord June 17th, 1984 Pg. 9
10.
Sunday Concord June 24th, 1984 Pg. 18
11.
Sunday Concord June 31st, 1984 Pg. 18
1.8 Definition of
Terms
Leader: Person that leads
and followed by other. Supreme: highest in authority or rank. Supremacy: being supreme
Yoruba: a major ethnic
group dominated or leaving southwest of Nigeria. South west, one of Nigeria six
geo-political zone.
Power: ability to do or act
Relations: the way in which
one thing is connected to another. Oba: Titular head of kingdom
Ice: Sacred town in Yoruba Land
Oyo: Town in Yoruba land.
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