The ancient Yoruba government. Is it fit for the 21st century? - Baasegun Clubhouse 11.02.22

The ancient Yoruba were the most urbanised Africans of precolonial times.
·      They formed kingdoms of various sizes each with a capital city (Ilu) and its environs, and a monarch (Ọba).
·      The capital city was regarded as the epicentre of not only the kingdom but of the entire universe, the birthplace of gods and humans alike and the core of the kingdom’s identity.
·      The Yoruba urban centres were permanent and based on farming rather than on industrialisation.
·      The pattern was traditional not acculturation as in Europe.
·      Important distinction: Yoruba urbanisation was based on agriculture; Europe urbanisation was based on industries.
 
Evidence of the existence of ancient Yoruba urban centres abound.
·      1485 - d’Aveiro on his visit to Benin City learnt about a powerful city further in the interior (Ile Ifẹ) where the Benin monarch was crowned.
·      1505 - Pereira mentioned in his writings the large city of Geebuu (Ijẹbu Ode).
·      1698 - Bosman identified Old Ọyọ as responsible for the invasion of Arder (Dahomey).
·      1729 - D’Anville added the city of Oudobo (Ondo) to his map.
·      Clapperton documented his visits from 1825 to Katunga (Old Ọyọ) and other Yoruba cities.
 
The percentage of the Yoruba peoples living in large urban centres in those ancient times was comparable to that in the European nations.
·      Bascom calculated the index of urbanisation in Yorubaland in 1931 to be between that of the USA and Canada, and the distribution of population in Yoruba urban centres to be comparable to that in France.
·      In 1931, the population density in Lagos was 58,000/sq. mile whilst that of Ogbomọṣọ was 43,000/sq. mile.
 
What system of government did the Yoruba develop to cope with this urbanisation?
Two things were sacred to the ancient Yoruba - family and home
·      When a person misbehaves, the Yoruba would ask: ‘Nibo loti jawa, to lokun lọ́run?’ meaning ‘Where did you stray from without a leash?’
·      The leash was what tied the Yoruba person to the land
·      The leash was the family and the home
 
To the ancient Yoruba, family meant lineage (Idile)
·      ‘Idile’ was not ‘nuclear family’ of father-mother-child, it was much more
·      ‘Idile’ was not ‘extended family’ of relatives (Ẹ́bi), it was much more
 
In the ancient times, persons of the same lineage lived together in one courtyard (Agbo).
·      The ancient Yoruba called the arrangement ‘Agboile’
·      A sort of ‘courtyard family’. A family cooperative
·      The typical ‘Agboile’ contained more than one ‘nuclear family’ and more than one generation
·      Each ‘Agboile’ was autonomous from another, but similarly governed
·      There was a hierarchy of ages, a hierarchy of responsibilities, and a hierarchy of power
·      The progenitor (Baale) was the family’s judicial officer, negotiator, and representative
·      He was often titled (Oloye)
 
To the ancient Yoruba, home (Ile) was a dwelling place not a working place
·      Home was where you lived life
·      Where you communed with family
·      Where you brought up children
·      Where you worshiped your God
 
To the ancient Yoruba, ‘ile labọ́ simi oko’ meaning ‘home is the place you come to rest’
·      So, the ancient Yoruba separated their place of work from their place of dwelling.
·      ‘Oko’ did not mean just the farm, it also meant the marketplace (Ọja), the place of exchange, where you bought and sold goods and services
·      ‘Oko’ was thus another place to regulate
 
The marketplace was organised into ‘commodity’ (Ẹ́ru) districts
·      Each ‘Ẹ́ru’ district had its own conventions, rules, and elected or selected leadership
·      The leader of an ‘Ẹ́ru’ district was the judicial officer, negotiator, and representative
·      The farmers too had their own union or cooperative with their own leadership structure
·      All these workplace leaders or Olori were often titled (Oloye)
 
All the Oloye were constituted into a ruling council.
 
Next, the ancient Yoruba devised a separate and distinct system of selecting the supreme authority that they called the Oba.
·      The Ibadan use an escalator system to select the Oba so that any male born in Ibadan potentially could become the Olubadan if he joined one of two lines
·      Others use a rotation system between ruling houses, each in turn producing the Oba
·      Unlike the European monarchy, there is no succession in the Yoruba monarchy
·      At the death of the Oba, the stool moves from one to another family
 
·      The Oba and the Council of Oloye formed the government (Ijoba)
·      In other words, there were two arms to the Yoruba government - the Oba and the Council
 
The word ‘Ijoba’ reveals the power relationship between the two arms of government
·      Ijọ́bá is a compound word of 2 parts: Ijọ́ + bá
·      Ijọ́ = Council; bá = to meet
·      In other words, the Council of Oloye was the parliament that made and unmade laws and policies.
·      The Yoruba government was a ‘Constitutional Oba’
·      There was the Oba or monarch, whose power was curtailed by institutional means.
·      The Oba promulgated the wishes of the Oloye Council
 
The inbuilt democratisation of the ‘Constitutional Oba’ is obvious
·      Governance was bottom up with mass participation through the Council of Oloye
·      There was a general expression of the sovereign will of the people
·      It was not possible for the Ọba to become an autocrat or even a ruler
 
The Yoruba ‘Constitutional Oba’ system is fit for the 21st century since the UK uses the same system.
·      If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for us
·      The UK has operated a ‘Constitutional Monarchy’ system of government since 1688. It comprises of a monarch and a parliament.
·      The parliament rules and limits the power of the monarch.
·      The ancient Yoruba ‘Constitutional Ọba’ system of government has identical principles and structures. It too comprised of a monarch, the Ọba, and a parliament, the Council of Oloye, that ruled and limited the power of the Ọba.
 
So, what do we need to change, if anything?
The UK system differs from the Yoruba system in 2 ways:
·      one, the UK system applies to a whole country whereas the Yoruba system applied to the Ilu or ‘city states’;
·      two, UK parliamentarians are elected whereas Yoruba Oloye were ordained by convention, custom, history and tradition.
 
The Ilu in ancient Yorubaland was a ‘city state’, a defined geographical territory with its own sovereignty and its own government and capital city.
·      Each Ilu was autonomous; each had its own independent ‘Constitutional Oba’ government
·      Interestingly, the Ilu coincided with dialect
·      Egba, Oyo, Ife, Ijebu, Ijesa, Osogbo, Ogbomosho, Ekiti, Ondo etc were all city states, sometimes called kingdoms.
 
There was however a Yoruba Empire which had Oyo as its centre.
·      The different Ilu were tied to this centre by means of an ethnic confederation
·      Each Ilu was autonomous, but the Ilu came together or collaborated as necessary as for example when they drove the Fulani out of Ilorin.
·      The Yoruba Empire was a two-tier government - local and central.
·      This two-tier system is easily reproduced in this 21st century
 
The first tier of government (Igbimọ) would be led by the Ọba.
·      The government would comprise of one Ọba and a Council.
·      The Council would comprise of Oloye selected as usual by tradition (no more than 10 of them) and 24 other elected councillors or whatever number was adequate to constitute working committees for the Ilu.
·      Councillors would be directly elected on personal cognisance for a 5-year term, with no person entitled to more than one term in his lifetime. There would be no political parties.
·      The Ọba would chair the Council whilst Committee chairmen would form a Board of Council responsible for running the council and overseeing ‘bye-laws’ passed by the Council.
·      The Igbimọ tier of government would be responsible for all aspects of live except immigration, external and internal security, transport, monetary system and civil and criminal law.
 
The second tier of government (Apejọ), the Yoruba Confederation would be a Central Legislature comprising of members nominated to it by each Igbimọ.
·      The Igbimọ would select one member amongst its ranks, by secret ballot, to represent the locality at the Central legislature.
·      The legislature in turn would appoint amongst its ranks, by secret ballot, Head of Legislature (Asiwaju) and Secretaries of State (Akọwe), to head various departments of state.
·      Each appointee would have a 3-year term with no person entitled to more than one term in his lifetime.
 
There would be no central or written constitution.
·      The Igbimọ would make ‘bye laws’ whilst the Apejọ would make ‘confederacy’ laws as required.
·      All citizens would be supreme above all else and have the right to directly decide on all and every policy matters.
·      Each citizen would have the right to propose an amendment or addition to the system of governance to be decided by a referendum.
·      Councillors and Legislatures would be parttime and be reimbursed expenses only.
·      There would be no professional politicians.
 
In British Policy in Nigeria (1937), Lord Lugard wrote: ‘The Yorubas, who number over three million, and are among the most intelligent of African peoples, form a distinct group. They are keen traders travelling widely throughout West Africa, and are unique in the extent of their urbanization…The Yorubas have preserved their democratic institutions practically intact, and have known what to select from foreign models.’
 
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