THE LATEST HISTORY OF THE YORUBAS (1)

As a secondary school student, I loved history and it was my best subject. I first read Samuel Johnson’s, A History of the Yorubas in 1980 when I was in form 4. It was so detailed that I wondered if any other writer could deal with the subject better. I was proved wrong on Thursday, April 22, 2010, (30 years later) at the launching of another book with the same title, ‘The History of the Yorubas’ written by Ekiti born, United States-based erudite History Professor, Adebanji Akintoye at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan. The event was organized by the Yoruba Academy, an organisation whose sole objective is the restoration of Yoruba culture and core values of integrity, hard work and good virtues. The Yoruba Academy is the brainchild of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG). The book launch was the first official assignment of the Academy which has prominent sons and daughters as trustees.   The reviewer of the book, Associate Professor Wale Adebanwi, did a good job of drawing the point of departure between Johnson’s book and Akintoye’s latest researched history of the Yorubas especially in the area of the origin of the Yorubas which is as diverse as the background and the orientation of the authors. 

He pointed out that many attempts to write the history of the Yorubas were made by many scholars and non scholars alike after Johnson but none was able to do justice to the subject like Johnson did. Those who tried to write Yoruba history included the late sage Obafemi Awolowo who died before he could complete the task. Adebanwi explained that Professor Akintoye did not only write history but he made history by being the first indigenous author to write a comprehensive and well researched history of the Yorubas and gave us the opportunity to be part of the historical enterprise, after Johnson’s work written as far back as 1921. Though it took Akintoye 3 decades to put the book together, Johnson’s book was the foundation text on which he built his work. However, Akintoye’s book is a radical point of departure from Johnson’s in many respects. 

Adebanwi explained that Akintoye’s book laid emphasis on the Ifecentric approach in Yoruba history with emphasis on the role of other Eastern Yorubas like the Ekitis, Ondos and Ijesas which is silent in Johnson’s work that centered around Oyo Yoruba. With cultural lucidity and grounded narrative of an orator, the writer made a comprehensive account of Yoruba history. Akintoye’s work, like Johnson’s, confirmed that Ibadan is the centre of Yoruba modern History from the 1830s but did not dramatize the (mis) fortune of Ibadan like Johnson and that the Yoruba identity was invented in the late 19th century. Another contentious issue addressed by Akintoye’s book is the different claims of where Yoruba’s originated from. Where Johnson avoids the creation myth that positions Ife as the sacred locus of Oduduwa’s original decent and the orirun (creation-source), Akintoye, justifiably, restores Ile-Ife to its proper place as “ibi ojumo ti mon wa’ye” (where the dawn emerges).  While the author dismisses claims by previous authors concerning Yoruba origin from different locations like Egypt, an ancient kingdom of Meroe in Eastern Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the Lamurudu connection, Akintoye maintained that Oduduwa was born on the soil of Yorubaland. As an academic, he provides an empirical evidential narrative to buttress his claim. He re-articulates Oduduwa’s centrality in Ile Ife. Akintoye pondered on how Oduduwa, a latecomer to Ife socio-political and economic life, emerged as the dominant individual who later became the King and progenitor of the Yoruba race. Prof. Akintoye takes this magnificent story from the earliest times through the concrete and mythical founding narrative of Oduduwa, through the evolution of the Yoruba identity, through the age of iron smelting in Western Sudan which inaugurated a new era of great economic and social transformations, to the evolution of the elu pattern of settlement from about 1000 AD. He uses all these to explain how the Yoruba constantly revised and renewed their culture through the reconciliation of cultural beliefs and practices with new encounters. 

One of the main purposes of Akintoye in writing this book is to emphasize and "prove" the "immortality", or "timelessness", of common Yoruba identity and its constancy through several centuries, despite mutations and contestations - including internecine wars, constant migration, and the colonial experience. Yet, and some might see this as a contradiction, the author insists that “immemoriality”, what the Yoruba call "igba iwa se", is grounded in memory and the “timelessness” can be understood within the Gregorian calendar. He conceptualizes the trajectory of the Yorubas and situates it in such perspectives as the internecine wars, political circumstances and the cultural identity and communality. The author dismisses the claim that common Yoruba identity that we have known in recent times is a recent invention. He argued that very strong group or national consciousness pervaded all aspects of Yoruba civilization” throughout history. Akintoye took on many historical factors like the European incursion and invasion of many parts of Yorubaland, the triumph of Islam and the invasion of Ilorin by the Fulani Jihadists and the internecine warfare. Adebanwi told the audience that Akintoye in his book discussed the emergence of modern Yoruba nationalism that sought to reconcile the "modern” Yoruba with both the cruel and the ennobling legacies of the past. It was in the 19^th century that Yorubaland changed forever. Yoruba people surrendered the past in that century and embraced the future. Akintoye calls it "a great century of change, transformation and progress."

•To be continued next Wednesday.