The infinite ability of the Yoruba to adapt is both a blessing and a curse. Yoruba is the most successful of all of Africa’s races as a consequence of their adaptability. The problem is that the Yoruba over the centuries have borrowed so many things from other peoples that it is difficult ofttimes to identify what was truly Yoruba and what was not, whether in terms of words, history, culture or tradition. Falling into this confused milieu is the manufactured ‘feud’ between the Alaafin of Oyo and the OOni of Ife in regard to claim for ‘paramountcy’.
The Yoruba constitution should be the starting point for any serious debate on this matter. Yes, the Yoruba of yore had a constitution; unwritten just like the constitution of Great Britain. According to this constitution, Yorubaland was constituted by different groups – Egba, Ife, Ijesa, Ijebu, Oyo and so on. Each group was urban-based – Abeokuta, Ile Ife, Ilesa, Ijebu Ode, Oyo town as the case may be. Practically all Yoruba urbans were founded in ancient times. Each urban was self-governing and autonomous. But there was a set formula for governance, that is, a governing council with an Oba at the head of it; what could be called the ‘Constitutional Oba’. Each Oba had his own circumscribed domain. No Oba interfered in another Oba’s domain. No Oba was superior to another no matter how big or small the size of his urban. Indeed, that was what made the Yoruba civilisation unique.
The Yoruba of yore called their territory Orile Ede Yoruba, ‘the land of the Yoruba-speaking peoples’. Indeed, that description was used by Alaafin Adeyemi in the treaty that he signed with Queen Victoria on 23 July 1888. The Alaafin in that treaty also mentioned Yoruba groups by name. Chroniclers, colonialists, elites and historians, borrowing from the English language, talk of country, empires, and kingdoms. These English labels distort, neither reflecting nor approximating to what the Yoruba meant by Orile Ede. To the Yoruba of yore, Orile Ede meant the state of being tied together by kinship, not by politics. Orile Ede meant shared origin, language, custom, religion and tradition. Orile Ede meant that the Oba were brothers not rivals as they were in Europe.
The hierarchy of Oba was an invention of the British. In the Old Yoruba, the Alaafin had no Yoruba-wide function, his jurisdiction was local. In the Old Yoruba, the OOni had no Yoruba-wide function, his jurisdiction was local. The British introduced hierarchy as a representative function, not as a jurisdictional function. Alaafin Adeyemi signed the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty as titular head of Yorubaland, a purely formal, non-jurisdictional position. The claim of ‘paramountcy’ by either the Alaafin or the OOni is totally without substance because it has no basis in Yoruba tradition or in Yoruba law.
Neither the Alaafin nor the OOni had the authority or the power to appoint a Yoruba-wide chieftain; indeed, no such positions, including Are Onakakanfo, existed in the Old Yoruba. Describing what happened in Yorubaland between 1820 and 1893 as ‘civil war’ is most certainly an exaggeration; war (defined as armed conflict) is a mistranslation of the old Yoruba word ‘ogun’, which simply meant a disturbance (‘o’ + ‘gun’ = ‘you’ + ‘to disturb’).