Disclosure: A part of my root is in the family compound of the late Alaafin Oyo, Oba Siyanbola Onikepe Oladigbolu 1. He ruled from 1911 to 1944. My late father, with my two eldest brothers, had the facial marks peculiar to Oyo princes. This connection should disqualify me from being an umpire in a case involving Alaafin Oyo. But I choose not to give up my right to comment on any matter that’s of interest to me.
Instead, I leave the reader to be the judge of my verdict, for my aim here isn’t to pass judgment about who’s what in relation to who among Yoruba monarchs, rather what cooperation among them signposts for the ethnic group.
It has taken a closer study of the past, in my adulthood, for me to appreciate what the Yoruba stand for, and how proud the ethnic group should be. Reasons for this differ from person to person. For me, the high level of artistic creativity achieved by the Yoruba is what excites. My pride is in the contribution this ethnic group has made to the arts. Ironically, it takes views expressed mostly by non-Yoruba individuals for me to start appreciating the Yoruba’s contribution to artistic creativity in the Nigerian context. Some years back, I was moderating a weekly peer review of literary works (under the umbrella of Abuja Writers’ Forum) when a friend made a comment that got me thinking. He is El-Nathan John, poet, and the 2013 and 2015 Caine Prize nominee. John was critiquing a contributor’s poem when he compared some British poems to the Yoruba oral renditions of Ewi, Rara, Oriki, Ekun Iyawo, and Ijala-Ode. I found this comparison astounding, hearing it for the first time. I grew up listening to Ewi and Rara which women could chant for hours without stuttering. But I never thought of this form of Yoruba artistic creativity as poetry, or considered placing them on the same pedestal with the work of British poets. It took John, (that he’s a northerner who doesn’t speak Yoruba makes it even more astonishing) for me to appreciate what the Yoruba have created, kept, and passed from one generation to the next.
A few years back, a European who was making efforts to sing in Yoruba language was featured on a TV programme. He said he found the Yoruba Language fascinating, that it was tonal, and it readily lent itself to musical notes compared to most languages. His observation had made me to acquire a horde of Yoruba music forms for the purpose of learning deeper usages of Yoruba words. I’m fortunate to have no difficulty grasping the figure of speech used in such music which a foreigner automatically misses. This was because by the age of five I had mastered first the Yoruba alphabet, and by the age of 12 years I had read all the fiction work of the famous Yoruba novelist, D.O. Fagunwa, before I ever read any English Language story book from cover to cover. Also, there was this other time on TV when an elderly Oyo prince told the story of how the praise-singers of a past Alaafin Oyo had creatively made the Sekere musical instrument in order to pass the information to him that his child had died. On another occasion, a foreigner talked about the originality and uniqueness of the Yoruba musical instruments, especially the drums. He said researches conducted had failed to link foreign influence to the creation, the use, and the rhythm of most Yoruba musical instruments in the pre-20th century period. The instruments, he said, were created, put to use and sustained over the centuries exclusively by the Yoruba themselves.
All of that had got me thinking about the contribution of the Yoruba to the arts. The arts should be of interest to me because I’m art-inclined, my prose work and award-winning drama scripts having benefitted from my knowledge of the Yoruba folklore, oral and musical streams of the creative arts. Yoruba’s contribution in these genres have influenced different segments of our national life. For instance, each time band brigades of our armed forces or sports supporters’ clubs perform, they mostly use Yoruba lyrics or English songs. No doubt many factors are responsible for the reason some ethnic groups lose much of their creativity in the arts. Foreign religions that have erroneously discouraged some forms of African art are an example. I’ve taken a close look at some minority ethnic groups especially in the north and noticed how integration into foreign religion has made them to forgo the best of their creative arts. That late Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, the Fuji crooner, once had to sing debunking the claim that music and use of musical instruments could render a person irreligious, is an example of what I refer to. While some tribes lost theirs, the Yoruba maintained much of their artistic creativity across centuries, and across different Yoruba towns too. What was responsible? One main factor was the political stability that Oyo Kingdom provided. The creative art needs a stable environment to thrive.
Oyo Kingdom, with the several towns under it, was a home for warriors. No kingdom could have lasted for about 400 years as Oyo did without a viable army anyway. The 14th to 19th century period was characterised by migration and invasion; empires rose and fell across West Africa as a result. Oyo remained standing until internal discord among the Yoruba enabled outsiders to deliver fatal blows. Then the capital of Oyo Kingdom was moved from the more northerly Oyo-Ile to the present location in Oyo State. Thereafter, warriors in Oyo Kingdom who wanted a platform to display their skills gradually converged on Ibadan in the 19th century. Ibadan, loyal to the Alaafin, became the defender of the Yoruba until the British arrived and declared that only they would own instruments of coercion.
The Yoruba have a saying that even a mad dog recognises its owner. Down the centuries, the Yoruba had an unwritten understanding that no Yoruba town should invade Ile-Ife. None ever did. As a matter of fact, any Alaafin Oyo, his root being traceable to Ile-Ife, would have ensured that a Yoruba town that attacked Ile-Ife did not remain standing. For itself and for most other Yoruba towns, Oyo provided a security umbrella under which trade and the creative arts thrived for centuries. Oyo, the seat of political and military power in Yoruba-dominated areas thus played the role expected of it for as long as it was possible. For this reason, the place of Oyo and its rulers in the history of the Yoruba is established.
Ile-Ife has always been revered as the Source by the Yoruba. Hardly does any Yoruba town fail to trace the root of its founder back to Ile-Ife for obvious reasons. As another Yoruba saying goes, no one uses the head to scrub the floor. The stool of the Ooni of Ife has remained the symbol of where the Yoruba come from. For this reason, the position of Ile-Ife in the history of the Yoruba is established too. Oyo provided military protection for the Yoruba for centuries, Ile-Ife was the acknowledged root in the same period, providing the Yoruba with a proud sense of their root, a much cherished value by this ethnic group. I think this is a neat delineation that should ordinarily attract no disputes. It’s a perspective that Yoruba elders should organise historians and have appropriately emphasised in texts, leaving out issues of rivalry that may have been fuelled by personal disagreements among occupiers of stools, while the monarchs themselves raciously eschew such a tendency. For me, a move away from rivalry was what the visit that the new Ooni of Ife recently paid to other Yoruba monarchs signposted.
The Alaafin Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, received the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, in his palace in Oyo. Other Yoruba monarchs also hosted the Ooni. This is good. It is because getting the ethnic group to be united behind its leaders in every strata of human endeavour for the purpose of moving the South-West geopolitical zone forward is an important task that must be achieved. Cooperation among traditional rulers plays a role in this. As such, I advocate that the cord of contacts and consultations among Yoruba monarchs that has been spread through the recent royal visits should be maintained and strengthened.
PUNCH
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