The Yoruba (and the Greeks) invented democracy 

The earliest Europeans to write about the Yoruba noticed the striking similarities in the political organisation of the Yoruba Empire and Ancient Greece. Both were not single monolithic empire but a collection of autonomous, independent, self-governing city-states, for example, Ife and Oyo in Yorubaland, and Athens and Sparta in Greece. Both shared a unified identity; Yoruba in one case, Hellenic on the other. Both were acephalous rejecting a single, unified empire. Both did not tolerate absolute power; their monarchies were fettered with democratic checks in the forms of civic participation and law-making councils, such as, the Yoruba Oyomesi and the Greek Gerousia. Loyalty to one’s specific city or town was made central to the social structures and political alliances. Surrounding populations identified with their nearest cities or towns. Remarkably, although thousands of miles apart, and composed of two different races in two different continents, both separately developed the same exact democratic system at the same exact time. The question for us is this: our forefathers invented democracy so why are we practising secondhand versions of it and not the original?

Baasegun (Dr) Olusola Oni, Leader  of the Yoruba Party in the UK (YPUK, www.yorubapartyuk.org