Obafemi Awolowo and the Making of Remo: The Local Politics of a Nigerian Nationalist 9781474471336

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International African Library 40 General Editors: J. D. Y. Peel, Suzette Heald and Deborah James

Obafemi Awolowo and the Making of Remo The International African Library is a major monograph series from the International African Institute. Theoretically informed ethnographies, and studies of social relations ‘on the ground’ which are sensitive to local cultural forms, have long been central to the Institute’s publications programme. The IAL maintains this strength and extends it into new areas of contemporary concern, both practical and intellectual. It includes works focused on the linkages between local, national and global levels of society; writings on political economy and power; studies at the interface of the socio-cultural and the environmental; analyses of the roles of religion, cosmology and ritual in social organisation; and historical studies, especially those of a social, cultural or interdisciplinary character.

Titles in the series: 1 Sandra T. Barnes Patrons and power: creating a political community in metropolitan Lagos 2 Jane I. Guyer (ed.) Feeding African cities: essays in social history 3 Paul Spencer The Maasai of Matapato: a study of rituals of rebellion 4 Johan Pottier Migrants no more: settlement and survival in Mambwe villages, Zambia 5 Gunther Schlee Identities on the move: clanship and pastoralism in northern Kenya 6 Suzette Heald Controlling anger: the sociology of Gisu violence 7 Karin Barber I could speak until tomorrow: oriki, women and the past in a Yoruba town 8 Richard Fardon Between God, the dead and the wild: Chamba interpretations of religion and ritual 9 Richard Werbner Tears of the dead: the social biography of an African family 10 Colin Murray Black Mountain: land, class and power in the eastern Orange Free State, 1880s to 1980s 11 J. S. Eades Strangers and traders: Yoruba migrants, markets and the state in northern Ghana 12 Isaac Ncube Mazonde Ranching and enterprise in eastern Botswana: a case study of black and white farmers 13 Melissa Leach Rainforest relations: gender and resource use among the Mende of Gola, Sierra Leone 14 Tom Forrest The advance of African capital: the growth of Nigerian private enterprise 15 C. Bawa Yamba Permanent pilgrims: the role of pilgrimage in the lives of West African Muslims in Sudan 16 Graham Furniss Poetry, prose and popular culture in Hausa 17 Philip Burnham The politics of cultural difference in northern Cameroon 18 Jane I. Guyer An African niche economy: farming to feed Ibadan, 1968–88 19 A. Fiona D. Mackenzie Land, ecology and resistance in Kenya, 1880–1952 20 David Maxwell Christians and chiefs in Zimbabwe: a social history of the Hwesa people c. 1870s–1990s

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21 Birgit Meyer Translating the devil: religion and modernity among the Ewe in Ghana 22 Deborah James Songs of the women migrants: performance and identity in South Africa 23 Christopher O. Davis Death in abeyance: illness and therapy among the Tabwa of Central Africa 24 Janet Bujra Serving Class: masculinity and the feminisation of domestic service in Tanzania 25 T. C. McCaskie Asante identities: history and modernity in an African village 1850–1950 26 Harri Englund From war to peace on the Mozambique–Malawi borderland 27 Anthony Simpson ‘Half-London’ in Zambia: contested identities in a Catholic mission school 28 Elisha Renne Population and progress in a Yoruba   town 29 Belinda Bozzoli Theatres of struggle and the end of apartheid 30 R. M. Dilley Islamic and caste knowledge practices among Haalpulaar’en in Senegal: between mosque and termite mound 31 Colin Murray and Peter Sanders Medicine murder in colonial Lesotho: the anatomy of a moral crisis 32 Benjamin F. Soares Islam and the prayer economy: history and authority in a Malian town 33 Carola Lentz Ethnicity and the making of history in northern Ghana 34 David Pratten The man-leopard murders: history and society in colonial Nigeria 35 Kai Kresse Philosophising in Mombasa: knowledge, Islam and intellectual practice on the Swahili coast 36 Ferdinand de Jong Masquerades of modernity: power and secrecy in Casamance, Senegal 37 Charles Gore Art, performance and ritual in Benin City 38 Ramon Sarró The politics of religious change on the Upper Guinea Coast: iconoclasm done and undone 39 Ben Jones Beyond the state in rural Uganda 40 Insa Nolte Obafemi Awolowo and the making of Remo: the local politics of a Nigerian nationalist

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo the local politics of a nigerial nationalist

insa nolte

edinb u rgh u ni v ersity press for the International African Institute, London

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For my parents Gesa and Hans-Heinrich Nolte

© Insa Nolte, 2009 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in Plantin by Koinonia, Bury, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library isbn

978 0 7486 3895 6 (hardback)

The right of Insa Nolte to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. For other publications of the International African Institute, please visit their web site at www.internationalafricaninstitute.org

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1 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations List of maps, tables and illustrations

viii x xii

1

1 3 7 11 14 17 20 25 29

Remo and Awolowo Popular participation in the making of Remo Popular participation in local-level politics Remo politics before Awolowo Awolowo as a product and a producer of Remo politics Local support as the basis of political success Awolowo in national politics The myth and legacy of Awolowo Outlook

2 The Institutions of Precolonial Remo Obas and olójàs The Òsùgbó and Orò associations Agemo, Èlúkú and other òrìsà Groups based on joint residence and descent: quarters (itún)   and families (ilé) Participation and cooperation in the Rémo Métàlélógbòn Conclusion

32 33 40 50

3 The Rise of Sagamu The end of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn The foundation of Sagamu Confederate towns in other parts of Ijebu Sagamu relations with the British Opposition to Sagamu’s dominance

75 75 81 86 88 92

4 Remo’s Struggle for Independence Christianity and historical rivalry The high colonial educated elite

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58 64 73

96 98 102

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

The struggle for independence from Ijebu-Ode, 1916–33 Early nationalist leaders: Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel   Akinsanya The crisis of legitimacy in Ijebu-Ode and Remo independence,   1933–8

107 111 114

5 Nationalist Politics and the Integration of Traditional Politics and Party Rivalry under Obafemi Awolowo Early nationalist politics in Remo Installing a nationalist oba Gàrí politics and women’s political mobilisation The Máàjéóbàjé rebellion and Awolowo’s entry into Remo politics The Egbé Omo Odùduwà The introduction of competitive party politics Sabo and its integration into Remo party politics The integration of traditional and party politics

120 120 124 127 129 134 137 141 148

6

153 154 157 159 162 167 170 172

Remo United, Ikenne Divided A political marriage Filling the throne of Ikenne, 1949–50 The struggle for the throne of Ofin, 1952 The unification of Remo behind the Action Group Why Ikenne has no oba today The rise of Idotun Popular consent and the remaking of community

7 Ethno-Regional Politics and Popular Rebellion in Remo Awolowo’s trial and imprisonment The NNDP struggle for Remo Popular political mobilisation and the Orò association The 1965 regional elections and afterwards Orò in Sabo and in Remo The sacralisation of Awolowo in everyday life

175 176 181 185 189 193 195

8 Self-Reliance, Development and Civic Pride in Remo The consolidation of Y   oruba politics under military rule The 1979 elections Opposition to state authoritarianism The 1983 elections and Awolowo’s retirement Competitive giving and destruction Awolowo and the invention of Ereke Day Community development festivals

198 199 202 204 208 210 214 220

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contents

vii

9 After Awolowo Military rule and a pro-Awolowo Akàrígbò Remo vigilantes and the Oodua People’s Congress The rise of Oodua organisations Gender and indigeneity in an embattled Remo The end of opposition politics Transformations of Awolowo’s political legacy

229 229 233 237 239 245 250

Conclusion

257

Notes Bibliography Index

263 289 307

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1 AcknowledgEments

Many individuals and institutions contributed to the making of this book, and I am grateful to all of them. I carried out much of the research for this book while based at the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham as a graduate student, during which time I was supported by the School of Historical Studies and the Evangelisches Studienwerk Villigst. Thanks to the generosity of Tony Kirk-Greene, I was able to continue my research as the Kirk-Greene Junior Research Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, before returning to the Centre of   West African Studies as a member of staff. Librarians and academics at Olabisi Onabanjo University (formerly Ogun State University), the University of Ibadan, the National Archives in Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly the University of Ife) and the Herskovitz Library at Northwestern University provided invaluable support at various times. After detailed and knowledgeable discussions, Graham Norrie improved the book’s illustrations and Henry and Louise Buglass produced its maps. In Remo and Nigeria, my research would have been impossible without the help, patience and forbearance of many people, including Macaulay Adekoya, Sanya Adekoya, Christopher Bähr, Remi Beyioku, Doyin Faniyi, Juwon Opayemi, Josephine Ogazi, Stanley Okafor, Omobolaji Olarinmoye, Oladipo Olubomehin and Esther Virgens. The late Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, HRH Sunday Olufunso Adeolu, together with his wife Olorì Folasade Adeolu, introduced me to many Remo rulers and chiefs, and I am grateful for his valuable advice and generous hospitality. Sadly, he passed away unexpectedly before this book was published. HRH Dr Adedayo Olusino Adekoya, the Oba Àmérò of Ile-Ife, and Olorì Funmilola Adekoya taught me many songs, proverbs and practices referred to in this book and provided me with a happy home whenever I was based in Remo. Above all, I am grateful to the Yèyé Oòduà of Ile-Ife and Ìyálóde of Remoland, Dr Hannah Awolowo, CON, for her general support of my work and for granting me access to her late husband’s files. I have also benefited from the advice and encouragement of many friends and colleagues in the UK and elsewhere during the time I worked on this book. In particular, I would like to thank Wale Adebanwi, Aderemi Ajala, Sola

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acknowledgements

ix

Ajibade, Lynne Brydon, Stewart Brown, Josephine Carr, Reginald ClineCole, Kate Meagher, Raufu Mustapha, Rita Nnodim, Olukoya Ogen, Ayo Onatola, David Pratten, Keith Shear, Axel Harneit-Sievers, Kate Skinner and Charles Ukeje for their help. The exceptional work of Karin Barber, Paulo de Moraes Farias, Tom McCaskie and J. D. Y. Peel has influenced and shaped my own aspirations, and I am grateful for their generous support during the writing of this book. All of them have read and commented on successive drafts of the manuscript over many years, contributed practical suggestions regarding the organisation of the text and, in Karin Baber’s case, improved the translations from the Yoruba. Without them, this book would not exist. Finally, I thank my family, and in particular my grandmothers Margret Nolte and Gesina Merrem, my aunt Renate Simon and my father HansHeinrich Nolte for their support over the past years. It is to my father and to the memory of my late mother that this book is dedicated. My husband Simon Green patiently advised and encouraged me throughout the work on this book. Without our children Anna (Omowunmi), Thomas (Taiwo) and Edward (Kehinde), the book might have been completed much earlier, but, written by a different person, it would have been a different book.

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1 list of abbreviations

AD ADO AG CMS COSEG FEDECO GNPP HRW IDA IITA IRA IRPU IRTPA ITPA LMWA NADECO NCNC NEPU NNDP NNPC NPC NPP NPN NURTW NUYD NWU NYM ODC OGBC OLF ONPIC OPC

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Alliance for Democracy Assistant District Officer Action Group Church Missionary Society Coalition of Oodua Self-Determination Groups Federal Electoral Commission Greater Nigerian People’s Party Human Rights Watch Ikenne Development Association International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Irish Republican Army Ijebu Remo Progressive Union Ijebu-Remo Taxpayers’ Association Ibadan Taxpayers’ Association Lagos Market Women’s Association National Democratic Coalition National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (from 1962 the National Council for Nigerian Citizens) Northern Elements Progressive Union Nigerian National Democratic Party Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Northern People’s Congress Nigerian People’s Party National Party of Nigeria National Union of Road Transport Workers Nigerian Union of Young Democrats Nigerian Women’s Union Nigerian Youth Movement Ode Remo Development Council Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation Oodua Liberation Front Oodua Nation’s People’s International Council Oodua People’s Congress

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list of abbreviations

xi

OYM Oodua Youth Movement PDP People’s Democratic Party PRP People’s Redemption Party ROF Reformed Ogboni Fraternity SCSC Sagamu Conference of Social Clubs SDP Social Democratic Party UAC United Africa Company UNPO Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation UPGA United Progressive Grand Alliance UPN Unity Party of Nigeria WACA West African Court of Appeal WAFF West African Frontier Force WAPCO West African Portland Cement Company WMMS Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society YCE Yoruba Council of Elders

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1 list of maps, tables and ­illustrations

maps

1 2 3 4 5 6

The Remo towns and their neighbours, c.1800 Ijebu and its neighbours, c.1800 The Remo towns and their neighbours, c.1880 The Remo towns in Ikorodu District, 1898–1913 Sagamu today Remo today

66 76 82 97 143 188

tables

5.1 Results of the first electoral stage in Remo, 13 August 1951, during the Western regional elections 8.1 Names of some community development festivals in Remo

139 221

illustrations

Remo Obas: Oba Sunday Olufunso Adeolu, the Aláyé Odè of   Ode Remo, outside his palace Remo Obas: Oba Solomon Adekoya, the Alárá of Ilara, in his palace An Ilédì (Òsùgbó house) Female Òsùgbó member Agemo outing Obanta head (Ilara) Egúngún masquerade Sign in Sotubo indicating Orile Ijagba Women preparing food for a family meeting Ifá initiation Symbol of Sagamu Entrance to Sabo market Meat sellers at Sabo market Our Saviour’s Church, Ikenne Ereke Day programme Ereke Day programme, activities Sagamu Day Programme Sagamu Day Programme, aims and achievements

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35 37 41 44 51 55 56 62 64 70 87 144 145 211 216 218 223 224

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list of maps, tables and illustrations

Kara lorry park Car mechanics at Mosimi depot Starlight (Sagamu) Entrance to Akàrígbò’s palace (after 2003 attacks) Obafemi Awolowo Memorial programme Obafemi Awolowo Memorial programme, order of service

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xiii

240 241 242 248 253 254

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1 Remo and Awolowo

The story of this book presents the interplay of two themes. The first theme is the historical process by which a particular and distinctive region of Yorubaland – Remo – has been continuously formed and re-formed as a political community over the past two centuries. The narrative focuses on the importance of popular consent and political participation in this process, and it privileges the often tumultuous events of the last seventy years. Here the second theme comes in, namely the crucial role played in Remo politics of its most notable citizen, Obafemi Awolowo (1909–87), who was also a leading figure of pan-Yoruba politics over many decades and one of Nigeria’s most important statesmen. Awolowo was equally a product and a producer of Remo politics. Situated between Lagos and Ibadan, Remo is a place both known and unknown to most of the people travelling between those cities. A modernday traveller along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway may notice Remo’s gently undulating landscape of cassava leaf green, studded with oil palm and kolanut trees. In uneven intervals, smaller roads, where hawkers sell provisions and mechanics offer their services, branch from the main road. There, people drop off from commercial vehicles and cars turn away from the expressway to disappear into a rural landscape of towns and villages, which are, in this part of Nigeria, inevitably headed by traditional rulers1 and chiefs. However, as those who turn towards Remo know, the rural location of its settlements does not indicate the backwardness or even oppression an urbanite might suspect. Instead, life in the Remo towns and villages is characterised by widespread and everyday participation in its economic, political and social affairs. This participatory element in Remo politics is linked in many ways both to Awolowo’s career and his legacy. Below, a general overview of Remo’s political history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries highlights the importance of popular participation in the making of Remo as a political community, and it illustrates how crucially Awolowo’s ability to mobilise political commitment at different institutional levels contributed to the establishment of Remo’s postcolonial social and political order. A closer look at the dynamics of the history of local politics, and at Awolowo’s role in this process during the twentieth century, suggests that the importance of popular consent created contra-

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

dictory dynamics in the political process. At certain junctures popularly established support for an individual or organisation created room for patronage politics, manipulation and even violence, but strong grassroots engagement in politics equally contained important participatory elements, in which the legitimacy of power was assessed through widely shared experiences and ideas. These more democratic elements of local politics have been underemphasised in existing studies of Yoruba and other local-level African politics. One reason for the continuing importance of participatory elements in Remo politics was its relative distance from the cataclysmic events that transformed and centralised many other Yoruba communities during the nineteenth century. Because local leaders and intellectuals remained of continuing significance in Remo’s complex political dynamics, literacy and other appropriations of European skills and ideas were not only useful in managing local relations with the encroaching colonial state, but also created an advantage for those participating in Remo’s robust and self-confident internal debates. Reflecting the assertion both of enlightenment values and existing political traditions in Remo political discourse, the young Obafemi Awolowo developed his political agenda by asserting both his criticism of European rule in Africa and the value of local cultural and political practice, even where it was in need of reform. Drawing on his own transformative political successes in Remo during the 1950s, Awolowo’s triumph at the level of regional politics during the run-up to independence owed much to his embeddedness in local politics. At the same time, his own growing ideological and political prominence in wider politics, continuing after independence in 1960, enabled Awolowo to further entrench his vision of Remo. As this book’s interest in Awolowo is focused on his engagement with Remo politics and the complex relationship between local, ethno-regional and national politics, I also provide an overview of Awolowo’s career at the national level and his most important political rivals in the introduction. As the dominant Yoruba politician, but unable to capture power at the level of the central government, Awolowo became Nigeria’s leading politician of the opposition until his death in 1987. In this position, he was increasingly identified with the frequently conflated representation both of Yoruba ethno-regional interests and of a more general politics of development and redistribution. But because of his early administrative successes and his limited experience with political power at the national level, Awolowo also remained a man who could inspire an idealistic following where others had been proved wrong by events.This constellation has encouraged the creation of myths about Awolowo’s abilities and destiny, which took on particular salience during the years of oppressive military dictatorship in the 1990s. Although the ideological significance of Awolowo’s political legacy has since diminished, his mythical legacy remains constitutive of debates on Yoruba

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remo and awolowo

3

politics and – here I return to the first concern of the book – for Remo’s political identity. While it is difficult for a historian of Remo not to be sympathetic to Awolowo, it is clear that, like most successful politicians, Awolowo was a complex and sometimes contradictory person. He was motivated by a strong sense of historical mission that could appear overpowering to those who did not share it. As a personally principled man, Awolowo established himself as a leader of intellectual and physical determination in Nigerian politics. However, while these qualities were admired as signs of his integrity, rectitude and virtue by his followers, they appeared rigid, uncompromising and frequently calculated to his opponents. But whatever one’s view about Obafemi Awolowo is, he remains a cardinal point of reference in Nigerian political debates. popular par ticipation in the making of remo

A strong democratic element already characterised the government of the Remo towns in the nineteenth century. In the Yoruba-speaking commun­ ities of  West Africa, most towns were headed by a ruler or oba, who was advised by and had to cooperate with powerful leaders or chiefs, including representatives of sectional interests based on shared descent, residence, occupation or worship (Atanda 1980: 19). In Remo, as in many other Yoruba towns, the authority of rulers was further balanced by powerful civic associations2 with a broad-based membership. In the nineteenth century, the most powerful of these associations was the Òsùgbó (Ògbóni outside of Ijebu and Remo), and in many towns it not only formulated and executed local law, it could also dethrone or execute an unpopular ruler. As the Òsùgbó’s basic membership was open to freeborn men and women from early adulthood (Fadipe 1970: 244), it guaranteed that a large section of the population participated in decision-making. A similar relationship between overlapping and possibly competitive authoritarian and participatory structures of power also characterised wider relations of power in Remo. Remo was a political community conceived of in the plural, and its traditional oríkì, or praise name, is Rémo Métàlélógbòn, the thirty-three Remo [towns]. The Remo towns belonged to the Ijebu kingdom, and the kingdom’s capital Ijebu-Ode had the final say in all matters concerning the kingdom’s external relations. At the same time, many decisions concerning the Remo towns as a group were made in a parliamentary manner, and town representatives discussed local concerns at regular regional assemblies. As a result, the rulers and leaders of Ijebu and Remo depended not only on the authority of their office but also on their ability to win and maintain popular support within a range of participatory institutions. By the second half of the nineteenth century, rifts between the political interests of Remo and Ijebu-Ode began to appear, and the Remo towns

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

used the wealth derived from their control of the increasingly important Lagos-Ibadan trade route to further their independence from Ijebu-Ode under the leadership of the town Ofin. Ijebu-Ode eventually decided to block trade with Ibadan, and as popular opinion about this policy divided the Remo towns, a local war resulted, which was won by Ijebu-Ode and its allied Remo faction in 1864. Despite Ijebu-Ode’s victory, however, Remo’s de facto independence from Ijebu-Ode continued to grow because Ofin convinced several other Remo towns to move into a central settlement. With the support of several important Remo towns, the confederate settlement Sagamu was founded in 1872. Remo’s growing independence from IjebuOde went hand in hand with an internal political centralisation. Although cooperation among the towns within Sagamu was based on the regional assemblies of the past, Ofin’s authority vis-à-vis the other towns continued to increase as Sagamu became the political and economic centre of Remo. Through a careful management by Ofin and Sagamu leaders of relations with Ijebu-Ode and British Lagos, Remo was recognised as an independent polity after the British military defeat of Ijebu-Ode in 1892. The historical success of Ofin’s leadership in Remo thus reflected the ability of its leaders to engage productively with the outside world as well as their ability to inspire cooperation and support from the other towns. However, not all Remo towns had joined Sagamu, and since they were both marginalised from regional decision-making and exempted from the pressures of a centralised settlement, these towns preserved older, more egalitarian political traditions as well as historical links to Ijebu-Ode. The incomplete degree of local centralisation – and the colonial assumption that only centralised polities could be administered efficiently – meant that after the introduction of Indirect Rule in 1918, Remo was again administratively subordinated to Ijebu-Ode. Ofin’s ruler Akàrígbò Adedoyin led the Remo struggle against the political and financial marginalisation inherent in this set-up and generated strong support for Remo independence from Ijebu-Ode. However, Akàrígbò Adedoyin linked the effort for Remo independence to his own recognition as Remo’s paramount ruler, and it was this aspect of his politics that generated local resistance. Demands linking independence from Ijebu-Ode to more egalitarian relations in Remo were made especially in the northern Remo towns, and were supported by early nationalist leaders like Samuel Akinsanya. Despite this internal dissent, the colonial government granted Remo greater independence and recognised the Akàrígbò as the paramount ruler of Remo in 1938. But although Adedoyin was able to use his new powers as a paramount ruler to coerce some of his erstwhile critics into supporting him, he was widely perceived as an autocrat because his power was based on the colonial state rather than on the support of the people and towns over which he claimed authority. It was Obafemi Awolowo who was eventually able to create popular

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remo and awolowo

5

support for Ofin’s paramountcy, and to heal the rift that had divided Remo politics since the mid-nineteenth century. Awolowo did this by privileging the political views of those who had felt marginalised. Throughout the 1940s, Akàrígbò Adedoyin had supported the nationalist organisation and later political party, the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC; from 1962 the National Council for Nigerian Citizens). As decolonisation drew nearer, Awolowo therefore concentrated the political activities of his own, more recently founded party, the Action Group (AG), on the towns outside Sagamu, successful translating historical disagreement into party political rivalry. After Adedoyin’s death in 1952, Awolowo put his weight behind the installation of AG member Moses Awolesi as Ofin’s new Akàrígbò. This intervention transformed local resentment of Ofin into consent, as the outlying Remo towns increasingly perceived Ofin’s traditional ruler as representing their party political views. The widespread support for Akàrígbò Awolesi in the towns that had hitherto defied Ofin’s claims to leadership in turn led to the embrace of the AG in Ofin. One of the reasons for the success of this political intervention was that it managed to resolve not only local concerns about the role of Ofin within Remo, but also confirmed local views about Remo’s relations to the outside world, and especially its rivalry with NCNC-supporting Ibadan. Drawing on local traditions of leadership based both on internal cooperation and a shared view of outside relations, Awolowo mobilised popular consent for Remo’s internal hierarchy and was able to unite Remo. In addition to the mobilisation of backing for Awolowo through the traditional hierarchy in Remo and elsewhere, the institutionalisation of popular support through Remo’s precolonial civic associations, which had been disempowered under colonial rule, became important in the early postcolonial years. In the years after Nigeria’s political independence in 1960, struggles over the politics and leadership of the AG led to Awolowo’s imprisonment and the emergence of a victorious faction allied to the national government. This faction, eventually standing for election as the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), attempted to win the support of local leaders throughout western Nigeria with the help of material incentives and political intimidation. In Remo, the attempts by the NNDP to penetrate local politics were unsuccessful. Popular youthled associations, often drawing on precolonial civic traditions related to the Òsùgbó, were passionately loyal to Awolowo. The actions of the revitalised civic ­associations ensured that leaders who ignored popular wishes were punished, and that grassroots political and moral opposition to the government prevailed. Through grassroots mobilisation, Awolowo became – even while in prison – not only the most important leader in Remo but also a representative of its moral integrity. Throughout his political career at the level of national and Yoruba

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

politics, Awolowo continued to support political mobilisation at the grassroots and eventually contributed to the institutionalisation of a new type of civic association within the Remo towns. In response to the lack of popular participation during the latter years of military rule in 1966–79 as well as his failure to capture power at the national level during Nigeria’s Second Republic (1979–83), Awolowo increasingly represented a politics that was concerned with the needs and concerns of communities at the grassroots. Awolowo encouraged the expansion of local development associations that institutionalised the civic commitment of wealthy and successful citizens in Remo, and he even promoted the creation of annual community development festivals. From the late 1970s onwards, community development festivals in Remo structured the periodic return and civic commitment of a growing number of migrants and organised mutually beneficial exchanges between local leaders and their followers. Drawing on older traditions of civic commitment, these institutions were also aimed at development that was independent of the state. To many Remo citizens, the privately achieved forms of local development in their hometowns proved the superiority of Awolowo’s redistributive values over those espoused by their national leaders. Reaffirming the townspeople’s joint commitment to their polity, community development festivals celebrated Remo as a place of alternative citizenship based not only on popular political participation and consent, but also on shared principles of redistribution. After Awolowo’s death in 1987, his widow Hannah remained an icon of Remo’s unity in opposition to the forceful interventions of national government. Thus, in 1990, her support and leadership made possible the enthronement of Akàrígbò Michael Sonariwo, which was crucial to the continued, often secret, cooperation of Remo civic associations and organisations that organised local resistance to government intervention. But after the end of Nigeria’s second period of military rule (1983–99) and the election of the Yoruba-speaker President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, Remo’s political unity in opposition to the central government began to collapse. This process was helped by the fact that the opposition party claiming to represent Awolowo’s political legacy, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), alienated not only many ordinary citizens but even Hannah Awolowo herself. Eventually, Remo citizens accepted the engineered 2003 victory of the government party in Remo both because the central government had become much more acceptable and because it had by then been legitimised explicitly or implicitly by the Awolowo family. As a growing number of politicians and local leaders is able to appropriate the Awolowo legacy, a contradictory political process has been set in motion: while Awolowo’s distinct historical contribution to Remo’s traditional hierarchy and its civic associations is gradually subjected to emergent local interests, his name is increasingly claimed by everyone.

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p o p u l a r p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n l o c a l - l e ve l p o l i t i c s

By telling the story of Remo politics, and of Obafemi Awolowo’s role in its affairs, this book also engages with wider debates about Yoruba and other African local-level politics. The main thrust of my argument is that popular participation in local politics creates inconsistent political spaces and opportunities. In many cases, a local politics based on grassroots mobilisation, especially if this takes place through non-public links and institutions, creates room for manipulation, patronage and violence. At the same time, however, the possibility of popular participation in decision-making contains central democratic elements that allow participants to express views about the legitimacy of their leaders and enable them to express ideological and moral points of view. These democratic elements have been underemphasised in studies both of traditional Yoruba politics and of the colonial and postcolonial Nigerian and African state. Reflecting the importance of authoritarian structures for the functioning of the colonial and postcolonial state as well as ideological biases towards highly centralised African societies, Yoruba polities have mostly been described in terms of their more authoritarian structures of power, creating a corresponding historical silence (Trouillot 1995) about more cooperative and participative models of power. In the study of larger Yoruba polities, much scholarly emphasis has been placed on the exceptional role of the capital city, which is frequently taken to represent the polity it controls.3 This tendency has been strengthened by the scholarly focus on the great empires of Oyo and Ibadan, which oversaw many lesser towns through imperial representatives and where representatives of subordinate towns were responsible both to provincial heads and to patron chiefs in the capital. However, as Eades (1980) points out, not all Yoruba-speaking polities were centralised to the same degree. While in smaller kingdoms like Ijebu, Ijesa and Ife some chiefs of the capital usually bore the responsibility of communication with outlying towns or groups of towns, the authority of individual towns did not usually extend over a large area in Ekiti, Igbomina and especially Okun, where even the institution of obaship was much less significant than elsewhere. The strong focus both of scholarly historiography and local histories emanating from major Yoruba towns on the discussion of inter-town relations either as the relations between capitals or as the links between the centre and the polity’s subordinate parts has also frequently overshadowed possible investigations into more participatory forms of political cooperation. Thus structures facilitating agreement and joint decision-making between provincial towns or small polities have rarely been the subject of serious study (exceptions include Biobaku ([1957] 1991), although they undoubtedly existed. While the political memory of such more egalitarian practices may in many cases have been transformed by later developments,

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they were widely spread and formed the basis for successful political action in different parts of the Yoruba-speaking region. Thus, in the eighteenth century, the Egba towns, then a southern province of the Oyo Empire, based a successful rebellion on a system of confederal cooperation and agreement. In the nineteenth century, political alliances like the Ekiti confederacy resisted the expansion of Ibadan’s military might. As this book illustrates, the Ijebu and Remo towns were, for most of the nineteenth century, closely controlled by the capital Ijebu-Ode. But at the same time, these towns cooperated – and competed with each other for local leadership – in groups that jointly debated and regulated matters of shared interest. The complex interaction of hierarchical and more egalitarian principles in Ijebu and Remo reflects a political legacy that is both more sophisticated than traditional accounts of the region have implied (Ayandele 1983, 1992) and that also suggests new fields of inquiry for the historiography of other Yoruba polities. Equally importantly, Obafemi Awolowo’s success in mobilising both principles in Remo and Yorubaland as a whole implies that the multiplicity of Yoruba political traditions – both authoritarian and democratic – remain an important repository for the production of contemporary politics in southwest Nigeria. The oversight of participatory principles in Yoruba political traditions also extends to the discussion of town politics, and many traditional Yoruba polities have been described primarily in terms of their formal political structures, usually with a focus on hierarchical institutions including historical obaship and chiefly authority. This tendency has been strengthened by a recent scholarly focus on the resurgence of chieftaincy in Yoruba and wider African politics (Rathbone 2000; Vaughan 2000; Nolte 2002; Watson 2003; Oomen 2005). However, the historical importance of more democratic political institutions, such as the Ògbóni (or, in Remo, Òsùgbó) civic association, has also been acknowledged. It was especially prominent in southern Yoruba-speaking communities (Biobaku [1957] 1991; Lloyd 1971, 1973), although it existed in other polities as well (Frobenius 1912; MortonWilliams 1960). Surprisingly, almost no scholarly attention has been paid to the fact that, like chieftaincy, the Ògbóni or Òsùgbó has taken on different modern forms such as the Christian-inspired Reformed Ogboni Fraternity (ROF) and the more traditional Ogboni Aborigine or Ogboni Aboriginal Society. These organisations have not only spread to almost all Yoruba towns and cities but also to other parts of Nigeria and Africa as well as Europe and North America. The success of these organisations illustrates that there is genuine desire for participatory institutions at the level of popular community politics. But beyond the realm of institutions that are clearly geared towards the political, the importance of wider political participation in local power struggles is confirmed by studies of a wide range of historical and contem-

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porary Yoruba polities. Peel (1983) has pointed out that the constitution of lineages, compounds, quarters and other institutions within formal political structures in Ijesa was fluid and contested, and that it depended on and reflected both popular participation and consent. In a number of towns embedded in the divergent political traditions of Ekiti, Igbomina, Ondo and Oyo, popular opinion has also been represented through institutions that tend to be perceived as primarily cultural or spiritual, such as groups of traditional, Muslim or Christian worshippers and holders of ritual office (Olupona 1991; Apter 1992; Matory 1994; Pemberton and Afolayan 1996). Frequently, popular views have been expressed through associations representing particular social groups, including market women, local professionals, youth or the educated (Apter 1987; Nolte 2004). Independently of the interests of corporate and other social groups, Barber (1991) has emphasised the importance of the oral literary genre of oríkì praise poetry in the historical creation of legitimacy and authority, thus illustrating both the political nature of everyday cultural production and the multiplicity of sources of political power. These examples illustrate that a narrow definition of the political disregards the fact that in Yoruba communities, and undoubtedly in other African societies too, the authority of individual actors and institutions is embedded in the practices and ideologies of everyday life or, as Barnes (1977: 28) put it, in ‘the ongoing encounters and exchanges of the daily social routine’. As a result of their embeddedness in everyday life, popular engagements with power can take a wide range of forms. Even those institutions and habitual forms of cultural practice that are not primarily geared towards political power hold the potential for political representation. Attempting to naturalise their ambitions in everyday life, power-holders therefore attempt to embed their own views of the polity into as many local practices and forms of knowledge as possible. If a political narrative reflects widespread consent, dissenting practices and views are frequently suppressed or marginalised. But although the existence of one dominant political narrative or practice may be imposed on any community for some time, its legitimacy is experienced through its confirmation in the many realms of everyday knowledge and experience. This logic is clearly illustrated by the difference between Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s and Obafemi Awolowo’s attempts to unite Remo politically. Adedoyin imposed unity through administrative structures, which continued to create dissent because they contradicted the ambitions of the outlying towns to be recognised as participants in, rather than subjects of, local politics. Meanwhile, Awolowo fostered unity by creating a political constellation that confirmed both the ambitions of the outlying towns and Ofin’s desire to be recognised as Remo’s paramount town. As the comparison of the two unification processes also suggests, successful local power-holders often overcome local disagreement through

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the introduction of new political institutions. Moreover, the appropriation or creation of different institutions helps them to draw on support in different sections and spheres of society. This dynamic is clearly reflected by the involvement in, and creation of, local institutions by Obafemi Awolowo throughout his life, ranging from chieftaincy to traditional and modern civic associations. So while the creation of consensus reduces publicly discussed forms of knowledge and practice, it rarely reduces the number of groups and institutions involved in the political process. In united communities, institutional and ideological heterogeneity continues to exist or even expand when consent is created, albeit with a lower degree of overall dissent. As a result, those who attempt to influence local politics must have a solid social base on which they can draw in order to create new or politicise existing institutions. In the process of creating consent and unity, the shared origins and the economic well-being of supporters are extremely important and typically expressed through patron–client relationships (Barnes 1986). Especially where leaders have access to political power beyond the locality, political strategies reflect the clientelist nature of traditional Yoruba politics and the (post-)colonial state, where those with access to the dominant institution use their position to favour their communities, and their communities in turn support them (Joseph, R. 1987). But as this book illustrates, clientelism alone does not explain the success or failure of politicians, and communities sometimes bitterly reject the imposition of leadership even if in return for favours from a higher level. Thus Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s success in setting himself up as Remo’s paramount ruler continued to be opposed by many Remo citizens during his lifetime, despite the financial and political advantages linked to this development. Beyond clientelism, the importance of personal convictions and concerns about morality, honour and truth in the political process must be emphasised. Like participants in the political process elsewhere, Remo citizens have supported decisions by their leaders and representatives, not only because they expected them to be beneficial but also because they considered them to be right. Challenging common explanations of African politics that focus only on material gain and ‘primordial’ solidarities of ethnicity and religion, I will show that local politics and discourses about legitimacy cannot be understood without an appreciation of the power of conviction. The political history of Remo illustrates that its citizens have, at several points in time, made political decisions on the basis of their ideological and moral concerns, even to the detriment of their economic and other ambitions. Remo’s popular and institutionalised commitment to Awolowo from the 1950s onwards created such widespread support for the rejection of potential patronage by the central government that suspected collaborators in such patron–client ties often suffered bitter punishments.

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The fate of Awolowo’s opponents demonstrates that popular participation in Remo politics was frequently accompanied by a high degree of violence. Such violence was often motivated by a sense of oppression or even tyranny perpetrated by those in control of or associated with official structures of authority, and it might be understood as a response to structural violence (Galtung 1969).4 However, political violence was often also of emblematic importance and, for example, the destruction of the property of those community members associated with the local enemy undermined not only their capability to further engage in politics, but also their standing in the community. In many cases, the destruction of the livelihoods of local men and women both punished them for their political views and excluded them from other aspects of local life. The use of violence against local outsiders also suggests that grassroots mobilisation remains closely linked with the drawing and redrawing of community boundaries. The redrawing of community boundaries was often associated with interests closely linked to gender and age. For example, the systematic inclusion especially of women into the Methodist church contributed to the shape and form of Remo’s early and high colonial politics and the increasing acceptance of Akàrígbò Adedoyin. Later, Remo’s adoption of nationalist politics was linked to the organisation of two such groups: after the initial politicisation of young, educated and mostly male Remo migrants in the 1930s and 1940s in protest of racial discrimination, the opposition by local women to fixed prices for female-controlled agricultural products during the Second World War embedded anti-colonial critique in Remo’s everyday understandings of politics. In the more recent struggles over local political control during the 1990s, the material and moral ambitions of young men – centred on women’s behaviour – shaped conflicts between local insiders and outsiders. Thus, although local politics were, with the notable exception of Hannah Awolowo, dominated by older male leaders, participation in the political process was popular also in the sense that it could represent the interests of more marginal or subaltern groups. r e m o p o l i t i c s b e f o r e awo l owo

During the nineteenth century, the pressures created by the southern expansion of Jihadist influence from Sokoto, the collapse of the Oyo Empire and the intensification of European interests along the West African coast led to frequent warfare among Yoruba-speaking and other West African communities. Many old Yoruba settlements were destroyed and their citizens turned into refugees, who resettled in increasingly large towns which were completely transformed by this development. While several Remo towns were destroyed in the 1860s as a result of internal conflict, they were, due to their location within the relatively stable Ijebu kingdom, neither forced to resettle outside their original territory nor overwhelmed by refugees.

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Slightly later, Remo leaders carefully managed the region’s exemption from the Anglo-Ijebu war of 1892 and the harsh policies that characterised the first years of colonial rule in Ijebu-Ode. Because of Remo’s dissociation from the main violent conflicts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the region experienced a historical continuity that was unusual for many Yoruba (and indeed many other West African) communities and which had important consequences for its political culture. As a result of Remo’s relative distance from outside intervention, attempts at political reform during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were often locally initiated and needed to take into account existing political institutions and processes. Thus the foundation of Sagamu, one of the important transformative events in Remo’s internal politics, was neither based on force nor the existence of a large refugee community, but on the consent of participating towns (and the people that constituted them). Although the creation of Sagamu centralised Remo’s politics, older participatory and cooperative traditions continued to be upheld within the communities that had joined Sagamu, and perhaps even more so in the towns that refused to resettle in Sagamu. As local political practice after the foundation of Sagamu contained, but also transcended, the focus on a political centre, heterogeneous practices and forms of discourse created an extremely sophisticated environment in which power continued to be based both on force and on persuasion. As a result, local struggles for power were deeply rooted in the access to and understanding of local discourses, and in local leaders’ rhetorical and intellectual skills, which adapted and transformed these discourses in the light of wider historical events. Thus by the late nineteenth century Remo’s leaders were both power-holders and organic intellectuals who structured and reformulated popular debates. In this atmosphere, Western education and literacy were quickly understood as important instruments of power not only vis-à-vis the encroaching British but also in relations with Ijebu-Ode. The Remo descendant and Methodist convert Ademuyiwa Haastrup was able to draw on these resources to negotiate Remo’s inclusion in the British Empire on favourable terms. Administered from Lagos as Ikorodu District, Remo successfully continued its precolonial assertion of independence from Ijebu-Ode. Widespread popular willingness to embrace difference from Ijebu-Ode shaped Remo’s experience of conversion: Islam was linked to the trading communities both in Ijebu-Ode and Sagamu, and had played an important role in Ijebu-Ode’s politics ever since the conversion of Balógun Kuku. In contrast, Christian converts dominated leadership roles, and especially obaship, in Remo. When Remo was administratively resubordinated to Ijebu-Ode in 1918, its local elites were of course aware of older ties of spiritual allegiance to the Ijebu capital, but such ties were now overlaid with religious difference. The predominance of Christians in Remo’s colonial elite also created differences

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between Ijebu and Remo in allegiance, intellectual outlook and orientation within Yorubaland and, increasingly, Nigeria. Here, political transformation was linked to the creation of individual consent in habitual form: by the time of Remo’s administrative independence from Ijebu-Ode in 1938, even the important opponents of Remo independence were literate Christians with, frequently, closer spiritual, intellectual and professional ties to the Christian elites of Lagos and Abeokuta than to Ijebu-Ode. In local politics, then, the material and the ideological were rarely separable, and both mundane and spiritual concerns not only reflected but also structured views of the community and its relations with the outside world. The increasing engagement of Remo leaders with the intellectual, spiritual and political debates associated with British rule further contributed to the sophistication of Remo’s political and intellectual landscape, and it affected local politics in a range of ways. Frequently, their ability to influence powerful outsiders, and in particular colonial representatives, enabled educated men to obtain positions of great influence for themselves in the Native Administration. Thus Christopher William Adedoyin, one of the first Methodist converts in Ofin in Sagamu, also became one of the most influential Remo obas when he was installed as the Akàrígbò (1916– 51). Similarly, the slightly younger Gabriel Onafowokan, an early Anglican convert from Ikenne, in 1929 became the first Nigerian treasurer of the Ijebu Native Administration and an important leader of Ijebu and Remo politics. However, as local politics remained flexible and relied on the leadership of those committed to the community, a reversal of the process in which Remo citizens appropriated literacy and English was also possible: after his arrival in Remo in 1921, the British-born Methodist Circuit Superintendent William Frederick Mellor participated so successfully in local debates that he became an important power-broker in the 1930s and 1940s. The atmosphere of innovative thought and vision created by Remo’s rapid embrace of literacy did not only lead to the emergence of a generation of provincial power-brokers, it also saw the emergence of a range of local intellectuals who were not afraid to subvert the dominant political debates. This included the production of enduring and widely accessible reflections on the creation and legitimation of local relations of power in local histories. Thus the history of Remo by David Onadele Epega from Ode Remo, Iwe Itan Ijebu ati Ilu Miran5 ([1919] 1934), supported the local opposition to Remo independence under the paramountcy of the Akàrígbò. On a smaller scale, I. A. Ifekoya’s Iwe Itan Ilu Isara (Ijebu Remo)6 (1929) substantiated claims that the charismatic union leader Samuel Akinsanya had no rights to the Isara throne, as did Abel Ogunsimbo’s Akiyesi Nipa Fifi Oba Je Lati Igbati Alaiye Ti Da Ni Ilu Ikenne7 (1949), in opposition to the Ikenne candidate Gilbert Awomuti, who was backed by Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo.

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Taking a principled stand even in the face of overwhelming odds, all three historians expressed their disdain of perceived coercion in the locality and represented the enlightened intellectual independence stimulated by the growth of literacy in the local context. This stubborn insistence on moral and intellectual principle even in the face of overwhelming odds would influence and shape the political strategies of Remo’s next generation of local leaders – including Obafemi Awolowo – not only in local struggles over the nature of Remo’s traditional politics, but also in the growing political space in which nationalist politics took place. awo l owo a s a p r o d u c t a n d a p r o d u c e r o f remo politics

Like the overwhelming majority of power-holders in Remo during the twentieth century, Awolowo was born into a family of early Christian converts. Nevertheless, he only succeeded in joining Remo’s educated and political elite against significant odds. Born in 1909 to a Christian family in Ikenne, Awolowo lost his father at the age of eleven. He struggled to complete his education, working in a range of menial jobs to support himself and raise school fees. As a very bright student, he was admitted to Wesley College Ibadan in 1927, but left a year later to work in a variety of educational, administrative and entrepreneurial jobs in order to raise money for a university education. Even at this early stage of his life, and despite his insecure financial status, Awolowo demonstrated a strong determination not to shun confrontation with those in authority if he thought he was right. For example, Awolowo was appalled by the ‘fagging’ system in Wesley College, where younger students of the college were assigned as ‘fags’, i.e. servants, to older students who could command them at will. As the leader of the students’ protest against the injustices associated with the system, Awolowo at times even came to see himself as a crusader on behalf of his beliefs (Awolowo 1960: 53–4). Awolowo’s resentment of discrimination and inequality influenced his politics and ambitions as a nationalist politician. After his marriage to Hannah Idowu Dideolu Adelana, the daughter of a respected leader of Ikenne’s Anglican Church in 1937, Awolowo was temporarily subdued by a business collapse. However, he quickly recovered and demonstrated his political abilities both in Ikenne, where he successfully represented the interests of Hannah’s family in a dispute with the local leader Gabriel Onafowokan, and in nationalist politics in Ibadan, where he played a leading role in the principal nationalist organisation of the day, the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), as well as the growing union movement. Along with other provincial politicians, including his fellow Remo man Samuel Akinsanya, Obafemi Awolowo challenged the position of the Lagos-based political elite by advocating a nationalist politics based on mass mobili-

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sation in the provinces. Keenly attuned to the political significance of local ideology and practice beyond Lagos, Awolowo combined demands for an Africanisation of the colonial state with a validation, albeit at the cost of democratisation, of local political institutions such as chieftaincy and obaship. After a period of success in his economic and political projects and with his wife’s assistance, Awolowo left Nigeria to study law in London in 1944, where he participated in the activities of the Fabian Society and, like other Remo and international intellectuals, produced a book on Nigeria. Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947) was quickly recognised as the most important and impressive view of Nigeria’s future political development produced by a nationalist politician. In a thoughtful analysis of colonial rule and local government, Awolowo challenged British-inspired ideas about the difficulties constituted by Nigeria’s heterogeneity. Where other nationalist leaders saw the imperative of overcoming tribalism to create a unified nation, Awolowo drew both on his understanding of the emergence of ethnic nations in Europe and the existing phenomenon of Y   oruba cultural nationalism to turn this argument around: Nigeria must recognise that it did not constitute one but many nations, including the Yoruba, each with its own historical trajectory (Awolowo 1947: 47–54). Transforming his intellectual analysis into practice, Awolowo played the leading role in the foundation of the pan-Yoruba cultural organisation Egbé Omo Odùduwà.8 After completing his studies, Awolowo left the UK in 1947 to establish a legal practice in Ibadan and to return to his political career. In Nigeria, he continued to remain involved both in local and national politics, and he took over the leadership of a local protest organisation in Remo while also establishing his own newspaper, the Nigerian Tribune, and following his pan-Yoruba ambitions. In 1951 he used the contacts established through the Egbé Omo Odùduwà to establish the Action Group (AG), a political party that challenged the then dominant National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC; from 1962 the National Council for Nigerian Citizens), which had been founded after his departure for England under the leadership of the much admired Nnamdi Azikiwe. In the early 1950s the AG played an important role in the consensual political unification of Remo through the assimilation of traditional rivalry into party politics, which created important local support for Awolowo. Reflecting his continuing engagement with Remo politics, Awolowo’s success in the creation of Remo unity also informed his repeated attempts to overcome historical rivalry, both in communal politics in other parts of Nigeria and at the level of Yoruba politics. However, Awolowo was less successful at the regional level, as the Western Region by then constituted one of three administrative regions in a federal Nigeria, and ‘pockets’ of NCNC-voting groups and communities remained strong. Yet for most of the 1950s, the AG won the majority of

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votes in the Western Region,9 and Awolowo became the first premier of the Western Region in 1954.10 Through the AG, Awolowo reproduced and adapted his historical and practical understanding of Remo politics for a wider audience. Committed to a wide range of reforms, the AG reflected both Remo and wider contemporary visions of progress by advocating the introduction of free education and important infrastructural projects. Based on a prudent and for the most part transparent administration of public finances, the AG also presided over the electrification and modernisation of many local communities, including most Remo towns. Awolowo’s strong affirmation of Christianderived enlightenment values, though not necessarily European or Lagosian norms, reflected the intellectual milieu from which he had emerged. At the same time, his validation and democratisation of traditional political hierarchies, and his growing emphasis on popular participation at the grassroots, illustrated his awareness that the creation of popular consent was not only a requirement of modern democracies but also one of older local political discourses. Awolowo’s early political success confirmed and entrenched his vision of Remo in an enduring way. Throughout the 1950s, Awolowo and his party were supported by a wide range of sometimes overlapping elite and, increasingly, popular institutions. As a result, a multiplicity of institutions mutually reinforced support for the local hierarchy and pro-Awolowo politics. Equally importantly, Awolowo’s sceptical reception in some communities where Remo migrants felt disadvantaged, such as Ibadan, meant that many local citizens expressed their disagreement with these communities by supporting him. This political logic remained relevant even after Remo rivalry with other Yoruba communities became less significant, because for much of the 1980s and 1990s exclusion was felt to emanate from a central government perceived as corrupt and unenlightened, and Remo’s support for Awolowo made sense as both a rejection and a critical assessment of those in power. For several decades, Remo backing for Awolowo reflected the life experiences and ambitions of its citizens and clearly located them within Nigeria’s economic and ideological landscape. Awolowo’s success in linking political dynamics in Remo with those at the regional and national level illustrates the growing importance of patronage networks in Nigerian politics, in which local support for successful politicians was exchanged for their consideration of the locality in regional or national decision-making. However, other aspects of the political relationship between the local and the regional or national are equally important, and Awolowo’s straddling of social and political engagement at different levels or within different communities also reflects the fact that political middlemen were frequently able to gain a new understanding of local problems and to address such problems imaginatively through recourse to their wider

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field of knowledge and experience (Barber and de Moraes Farias 1990; Barnes 1990). As Awolowo’s career illustrates, his understanding of Remo’s political dynamics, and his success in achieving its unification, had a significant impact on his wider political ambitions and strategies, and at the same time his experiences at the level of regional and national politics shaped his vision for and impact on Remo. local suppor t as the basis of political success

Beyond the material and intellectual benefits of linking wider political ambitions with local political support, a comparison of Awolowo’s career with that of other politicians within the Western Region suggests that local support was not only instrumental for a successful political career at higher levels because it provided the required votes. When political competition turned bitter or even violent, local support also provided a degree of protection against the interventions of opponents. This was particularly true when local backing was embedded in the existing structures of administration, popular mobilisation and participation, and institutionalised and thus naturalised in local forms of interaction and problem-solving. One of Awolowo’s most prominent opponents during the 1950s was the Ibadan-based politician Adegoke Adelabu. Unlike Awolowo, Adelabu had not completed a university degree, and he was of a gregarious and even extravagant nature that made him very popular in his community. After several years at the fringes of Ibadan’s traditional politics, Adelabu’s rise to national politics was based on the success of his own political party, the Ibadan Tax Payers’ Association (ITPA) or Mábolájé, founded in 1953 to protest against the AG’s tax increases to finance its planned expansion of educational and health provision. Reflecting the logic of local and regional political competition, the ITPA was allied to the NCNC. As ITPA Leader, Adelabu was able to mobilise different groups of Ibadan voters against the dominant AG, equally denouncing the ‘tribal’ nature of the governing party and drawing on older rivalries between Ibadan and Ijebu (and Remo). After a resounding local election success in 1954, Adelabu took over control of the Ibadan District Council, and following the federal elections later that year, he was made a Federal Minister of Natural Resources and Social Services in 1955, the same year he also took on the NCNC National VicePresidency. Thus, by the mid-1950s, Adelabu not only controlled the then biggest Yoruba city and capital of the Western Region, but had also established himself at the highest level of national politics. While Adelabu posed an important challenge to Awolowo’s attempts to speak for and unite the Western Region, he also remained vulnerable both to the Action Group’s control of the regional government and to the factional and fluid nature of Ibadan politics, which enabled the AG to maintain links with Ibadan leaders willing to undermine Adelabu. After a

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number of complaints about Adelabu’s chairmanship of the Ibadan District Council, the AG was able to chip away at his achievements by instituting a politically motivated Commission of Inquiry into his and the council’s conduct, which eventually forced Adelabu to stand down both from his local position of power and his ministerial post. As the leader of the opposition in the Western Region from 1956, Adelabu spent much of his energy on trying to get Awolowo subjected to the same scrutiny he had endured,11 and consistently though unsuccessfully demanded that the British set up a Commission of Inquiry into the conduct of Awolowo and the AG. Adelabu died in March 1958, before the local elections which would probably have seen him back in control of Ibadan’s District Council.12 Yet after Adelabu’s death, and especially after 1959, support for his party and the NCNC declined dramatically (Post and Jenkins 1973). While it is impossible to speculate about Adelabu’s future career had he lived, it seems that despite his dominance in Ibadan politics, the fluid nature of his support in Ibadan enabled the AG both to damage his career in 1956 and to undermine his political legacy after his death. Adelabu’s struggle with Awolowo suggests the importance of organised local support not only as a basis for political backing and intellectual inspiration, but also as a stronghold against popular or official accusations of malfeasance and corruption. While Adelabu was vulnerable to such accusations because he was unable to control his local opponents, Awolowo remained untouched by Adelabu’s. Unlike Adelabu, Awolowo was not only able to rely on his practice as a very conscientious administrator, but also on local support built up and embedded in Remo’s traditional politics since the early 1950s. Thus Adelabu was unable to procure any evidence of ­maladministration by Awolowo either from his AG colleagues or from Awolowo’s local opponents in Remo, although Awolowo’s local adversary Gabriel Onafowokan was probably in contact with him at the time.13 Local support structures were also important for the political success of Awolowo’s close allies in the Western Region. Building his support in a political environment almost as factional as Ibadan, Awolowo’s party deputy Samuel Ladoke Akintola spent much of the 1950s expanding his support base in the traditionally pro-NCNC Oshun Division north of Ibadan. Like Awolowo, Akintola was able to translate his personal appeal into the backing of local chiefs, obas, lineage heads and other professional and religious groups. By 1960, when Awolowo left the Premiership of the Western Region to Akintola to move to the National Assembly as the leader of the opposition, support for Akintola was well established in his home area. The subsequent struggle between Akintola and Awolowo over the control of the AG and politics in the Western Region illustrates the ongoing importance of local support for political leaders during the 1960s. In 1962, Awolowo attempted to undermine Akintola not only by making

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his position within the AG untenable, but also by subverting his opponent’s local base by planning a tour in Oshun Division (Tinubu 2001: 98–108). In response, Akintola, with help from the central government, outmanoeuvred Awolowo and subjected him to a questionable political trial and eventually imprisonment. However, demonstrating the strength of Remo support for Awolowo, no successful allegation against Awolowo was based on the provision of relevant documents by his local opponents.14 Nevertheless, Awolowo’s enemies also attempted to taint his reputation by claiming that he had behaved improperly with regard to his area of origin. Allegations of impropriety centring on Awolowo’s investment, through the Western Region Development Corporation, in the Remo Rubber Estate in his hometown Ikenne played an important role in turning fellow AG supporters against him and justifying his imprisonment in 1963 for treasonable felony.15 Through the life of one of Awolowo’s closest and lifelong allies, Michael Adekunle Ajasin, local structures of support also played an important role for Awolowo’s political legacy beyond Remo. Ajasin hailed from the important eastern Yoruba town of Owo, and he relied throughout the 1950s on a close alliance of local intellectuals, business interests and support from his powerful cousin, the Olóòwó Olateru Olagbegi II, to build up support for Awolowo in eastern Yorubaland. After Olagbegi joined Awolowo’s rival Akintola in 1962, his reign met strong local opposition, and he was suspended from the throne in 1966. Succeeded by a pro-Awolowo Olóòwó, Adekola Ogunoye, Ajasin continued to work closely with a range of traditional and modern institutions to support Awolowo and his political legacy.16 A prudent administrator like Awolowo, Ajasin not only maintained support for Awolowo in eastern Yorubaland during the 1980s, but he also stood for a pro-Awolowo politics as part of wider human rights. As a leader of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), established after the annulled elections of 1993, Ajasin continued to represent both local and national commitment to democracy while upholding Awolowo’s legacy until his own death in 1996 (Ajasin 2003). In conclusion, throughout the 1950s, and in many cases far beyond this period, the nature of local political support generated by politicians in the Western Region influenced their chances of success in regional politics. Beyond being a by-product of clientelist politics and a source and destination of political innovation, locally embedded structures of support provided a degree of protection from the harshly competitive political climate of the time. Politicians like Adelabu, whose local power base remained fluid or uninstitutionalised, were more vulnerable than others to interference from their opponents at the next higher level of administration and control. In this sense, Awolowo’s close and continuing engagement with Remo politics was not only an indicator of the expanding political, civic and moral ties

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between the politician and his home area, it was also an important basis for Awolowo’s success at the level of regional and national politics. awo l owo i n n a t i o n a l p o l i t i c s

As the first premier of Nigeria’s Western Region in the 1950s, Awolowo continues to be compared with Ahmadu Bello and Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first premiers of Nigeria’s Northern and Eastern Regions respectively. After independence in 1960, both Azikiwe and Bello were able to establish themselves as important power-holders at the federal level while Awolowo was relegated to the opposition. Representing a political vision that might be described as occupying a middle ground between Bello’s and Azikiwe’s, Awolowo’s party, the AG, found itself increasingly under pressure from both sides and eventually broke apart. Awolowo found himself on the losing side of this process too, and his personal suffering as well as his identification with ethnic and social equity contributed to a growing myth about his personality and destiny. This development probably contributed to Awolowo’s lifelong relegation to the opposition at the level of national politics, but it also helped to significantly expand his popular support base, which was further strengthened by the fact that Awolowo was not associated with the failures of any elected central governments. Both Azikiwe and Bello were men roughly of Awolowo’s generation, and like him they were strongly influenced by the restrictions and opportunities associated with local relations of power under British rule during their formative years. Born in 1910, Ahmadu Bello grew up as an important member of the northern Nigerian Hausa-speaking aristocracy while also benefiting from the educational options provided by the British government. After attending Katsina College, Bello worked first as a teacher and later as a member of the Native Administration. After a failed attempt to become Sultan of Sokoto in 1938, Bello became the Sardauna, an adviser at the Sokoto court, and soon emerged as a modern political leader. His primary political concern was not the immediate removal of British overrule, although he ultimately welcomed it, but the creation of an alliance between the native aristocracy, the urban mercantile class and the younger educated elements to prevent the domination of the North by more educated Southerners once Nigeria attained independence (Bello 1962). Like Awolowo’s Action Group, Bello’s party, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), was a political party that had emerged from a cultural association and was strongly focused on affirming a local identity. However, unlike the AG, the NPC was not focused on ethno-nationalist discourse but rather on the historic and, to a large degree, religious unity of the North (Paden 1986: 155–9). Bello’s vision for the North reflected his close embeddedness in aristocratic politics and especially his position as a member of Sokoto’s ruling lineage, and as a result he supported a slow pace of reform

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at the local level in which traditional authority remained central to local and regional government structures. As a result, Bello did not join his southern rivals in the struggle for power at the federal level and was perfectly content to let his close but in many ways junior political ally, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, act as Nigeria’s prime minister (Bello 1962: 208–27). Thus Bello, like Awolowo, supported the creation of a weak central power, albeit for very different reasons. Committed to a politics of compromise and conciliation, Bello was often taken aback by the more confrontational styles of southern Nigerian politicians. Bello was particularly affronted by the frequently defiant rhetoric of Obafemi Awolowo, perhaps especially so because of the religious and cultural affinities of many Yoruba groups with northern Nigeria. When Awolowo gave up his premiership to contest the national elections in preparation for Independence in 1960, Bello found the new premier of the Western Region, Ladoke Akintola, much more congenial. Unlike Awolowo, Akintola spoke Hausa fluently17 and, though himself a Christian, had his political base in a part of Yorubaland dominated by Islam. Akintola was also, much like Bello, a politician whose career had relied on compromise. Believing that a political alliance between North and West would ultimately contribute to Nigeria’s national integration and unity, Bello and Akintola prepared to include the Action Group, which had been in opposition to an NPC-NCNC alliance, into the central government. But Awolowo felt that Akintola had sold out the AG’s ideals of reform in a bid for central power, and this negotiation ultimately led to the split and eventual collapse of the AG and to Awolowo’s imprisonment in 1963. Providing backing for Akintola’s politics, Bello ensured that Akintola remained in charge of an increasingly divided Western Region until he, Bello, Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and others associated with Bello’s socially conservative politics were murdered in Nigeria’s first military coup in 1966. While Awolowo and Bello clearly disliked each other, their relationship was not subject to the feelings of personal betrayal that characterised the relationship of Azikiwe and Awolowo, whose joint history in Nigerian politics spanned a half-century from the late 1930s to Awolowo’s death in 1987. Born into a prominent Onitsha family in 1904,18 Azikiwe was the most cosmopolitan Nigerian leader of his generation. Following the itinerary of his civil servant father, and in pursuance of education, he spent his childhood and youth in northern, eastern and western Nigeria. Fluent in English as well as Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa, Azikiwe was accepted into the Nigerian civil service in 1921 but eventually succeeded in establishing himself in the United States. After studying at several American universities, Azikiwe had obtained an undergraduate and two graduate degrees by the mid-1930s (Azikiwe 1970: 1–182). Azikiwe’s American experience provided him with a more radical political

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perspective than Awolowo and Bello, and for him the fight against colonial domination was linked to wider struggles against political, social and intellectual forms of racial discrimination. Consequently, Azikiwe shared the belief of Awolowo and other progressives of his generation in the techno­ logies of enlightenment but rejected Awolowo’s and Bello’s revalidation of precolonial identities. Thus Azikiwe envisioned a meritocratic Nigeria in which individuals’ educational and other achievements would determine their influence. But to some degree, the pan-Nigerian ambition in Azikiwe’s politics also reflected his cultural roots as an Igbo and member of the Eastern Region’s ethnic majority. Precolonial Igbo society had been more oriented towards individual achievement than most groups in western or northern Nigeria, and Igbo-speakers had embraced education with exceptional enthusiasm. In the Western Region, the perception of the value of education differed greatly according to locality, and highly literate communities in Lagos and, more recently, Remo contrasted with parts of the country where educational opportunities were not taken up with the same zeal.19 After his return from the USA, a visit to London and a period of work in Ghana in 1937, Azikiwe joined the NYM, the nationalist movement of the day, and published its views in his newspaper, the West African Pilot. When a rival newspaper, the Lagos Daily Service, was established in 1938, Azikiwe, however, began to seek political support outside the NYM. In 1941, Azikiwe announced his resignation from the NYM, and many Igbo members followed him. But while Awolowo and most Yoruba-speakers sided with the NYM, a number of leaders from Ijebu and Remo, including the later oba of the Remo town Isara, Samuel Akinsaya, also left the organisation, suggesting that at this stage ethnic and economic rivalry were also refracted by factors such as local factionalism and a shared position in ­Nigeria’s educational landscape. In 1944, Azikiwe attempted to revive nationalist politics through the new organisation of the NCNC. However, the national focus of this organisation conflicted with its organisational structure, which relied to a large degree on the leadership of the pan-ethnic Ibo [Igbo] Federal Union. After Awolowo’s return from the UK, unease over the dual position of Igbo intellectuals in the NCNC enabled him to establish the Action Group in the Western Region. Soon, both Azikiwe and Awolowo encouraged the factional mobilisation of political identities through their own parties, while at the same time asserting that this was simply a response to the ‘tribal’ interests of their rival. During the 1950s, Azikiwe’s unequivocal focus on Nigeria as a whole was reflected in his commitment to negotiations with the NPC, despite the great ideological gulf between the two parties. Azikiwe’s accommodating style eventually enabled him to choose between the AG and the NPC as coalition partners, and to Awolowo’s great dismay, Azikiwe preferred a coalition with the NPC. He became the country’s first Nigerian Governor-

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General in 1960.20 However, Azikiwe’s concurrent lack of commitment to the creation of local structures of support also forced him to abandon his constituency in the capital Lagos in 1953, albeit to be eventually elected as the premier of the Eastern Region in 1954. In a development reminiscent of Adelabu’s problems in Ibadan, Azikiwe’s inability to maintain political unity in the politics of his home town Onitsha enabled his rivals to accuse him of corruption in 1956, an allegation that led to the Foster-Sutton public inquiry, and which did much to damage his personal reputation outside his core area of support. Further rifts within the NCNC affected Azikiwe in 1958, when prominent party members demanded his resignation as party leader in response to a range of concerns including the failure of a programme of universal free education in the Eastern Region, which had been successful under Awolowo in the West. Yet despite these problems, Azikiwe maintained his position as the NCNC’s leader, and it is perhaps in his career that the importance of power at the national level for the generation and maintenance of regional and local support during this period is most obvious. But while the difficulties encountered by Azikiwe did not undermine his control of Eastern Nigeria, they certainly contributed to the NCNC’s loss of power in the West. By 1960, the defining difference between Awolowo and his political rivals was that he failed to retain a viable base for political action. While Bello remained entrenched at the regional level, and Azikiwe moved from the Eastern Region’s premiership to the office of the Governor-General, Awolowo had given up his premiership to contest the national elections, but after negotiations with the NCNC failed, he moved to Lagos only as the leader of the opposition. Attempting to maintain control of the Western Region and his party, Awolowo increasingly came into conflict with the new Premier Akintola, whom he perceived as subverting both Awolowo’s authority and the ideals of the party. As Akintola seemed to move towards a more socially conservative politics, Awolowo increasingly identified with and represented his own past successes as part of a redistributive and socially reformist agenda. Drawing on the support of personal allies with strong local support bases, Awolowo engaged in a protracted struggle with Akintola, but without sustained support at the level of regional and national politics, he was eventually outmanoeuvred. After a politically motivated trial in which several of his erstwhile supporters turned on him, Awolowo was imprisoned for treasonable felony in 1963, and the subsequent years were characterised by increasing levels of violence in Remo and many other Yoruba communities. In a military coup in 1966, Awolowo’s main opponents Akintola and Ahmadu Bello were murdered. Meanwhile, after a counter-coup later the same year, the new head of state Yakubu Gowon released Awolowo from prison and gave him what would be his only opportunity to participate

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actively in decision-making at the national level. As Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner of Finance, Awolowo managed the nation’s economy during the Civil War against the former Eastern Region then claiming independence as the Republic of Biafra. Awolowo’s participation in national politics at this time was bitterly resented by many Igbo speakers, who had hoped he would be an ally against what they now perceived as the North’s overwhelming power, and who had expected him to support a break-up of the federation along regional lines. However, although the contracting economy made life difficult for ordinary Nigerians, Awolowo was also able to expand his basis of popular support in the West, both due to the solid nature of his support in Remo and his influence in the central government. Thus Awolowo did not lose Remo support despite the strong sympathy in his home area for Biafra (and an analogous state in the Western Region), and he successfully negotiated with the military government on behalf of the predominantly Ibadan-based farmers who had risen in the Àgbékòyà rebellion to protest against rising taxes. Although Awolowo later resigned from the central government over Gowon’s reluctance to return to civilian rule, his political profile remained high and he was universally regarded as the foremost Yoruba politician. From this position of strength, and increasingly associated with a redistributive politics that addressed growing corruption and inequality, Awolowo re-entered party politics as the leader of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in 1979, when the nation finally returned to civilian rule. When the most successful candidate, the Northerner Shehu Shagari, was unable to satisfy the constitutional requirements for his election as president, close runnerup Awolowo expected a new or a run-off election in which he would be able to attract most of the previous votes for the least successful candidate, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and win the presidency.21 The declaration of the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) in August that Shehu Shagari was the winner of the elections22 was met with dismay in both the Azikiwe and Awolowo camps. However, perhaps reflecting both longer-held grudges and recent Igbo resentment of Awolowo’s stand against Biafra,23 eventually Azikiwe’s party24 allied itself with the northern-based successor to the NPC, the NPN.25 As in the First Republic, Awolowo had hoped for an alliance with Azikiwe but found himself and his party in opposition at the national level. Unlike in the 1960s, Awolowo’s power in the Second Republic was based on the control of party and local support structures in several states, most of which were located in the former Western Region. Confronted with a national government that did little to devolve the state’s tight central grip on the allocation of Nigeria’s substantial oil revenue, Awolowo criticised the increasing fiscal centralisation of Nigeria and encouraged alternative forms of social solidarity and development. In Remo, this engagement contributed

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to the rise of development associations and festivals, which instituted the civic commitment of wealthier citizens to their towns and played an increasingly important role in providing educational and health-related opportunities to Remo citizens. But while Remo and many other Yoruba localities remained united in their support for Awolowo, he was unable to control generational rivalries within the party. Before the 1983 elections, several of his younger allies crossed the carpet to join the party in control of the central government, and some of them successfully mobilised local support in opposition to Awolowo.26 When the intervention of the central government led to a distortion of electoral results in 1983, violence similar to the uprisings at the end of the First Republic shook many Yoruba communities, and as in the First Republic, the regime succumbed to a military coup in December 1983. Having again failed in his ambition to win the office of the head of state, Awolowo, then seventy-four years old, retired from national politics to Ikenne. Continuing his involvement in local politics and providing advice to his many contemporary and younger visitors, he died in 1987, nine years before his lifelong rival Nnamdi Azikiwe. He was survived by his widow Hannah, who dedicated her remaining life to maintaining his memory, myth and legacy. t h e my t h a n d l e g a c y o f awo l owo

While Awolowo was a resourceful and imaginative politician throughout his career, early popular notions of his extraordinary destiny can be traced back to his imprisonment in 1963. After Awolowo’s political and administrative successes as the Western Region’s first premier during the 1950s, his sudden downfall contrasted extremely sharply with his earlier achievements, and many of his followers and admirers could only understand it as the result of malevolent interventions. When Awolowo’s political demise was aggravated by personal suffering through the loss of his oldest son Segun in the same year, his ordeal appeared to be too great to be ordinary. Many narratives imbued his affliction with historical and religious meaning by drawing on religious and cultural archetypes, but perhaps the most important political implications were inherent in references to pan-Yoruba traditions. Entrenching Awolowo’s role as a leader of Y   oruba politics, he was seen by some as representing a ‘second Oduduwa’, alluding to the mythical founder of Yoruba (and all) civilization in the town of Ile-Ife. In this context, Awolowo’s suffering represented both personal history and ethno-national political fate. In his pamphlet The Faults of the Yorubas, a contemporary political commentator explained the link between myth and contemporary politics and its implications for the immediate future: The imprisonment of Chief Obafemi Awolowo depicts the banishment of Oduduwa from Ife [the town Ile-Ife]. Ife, the seat of our ancestor,

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made intrigues against Oduduwa; and Oduduwa went into exile. His sin then was that he was too popular – more popular than those who were more advanced in years than himself. After the Oduduwa exile, prosperity eluded Ife and people consulted the Ifa Oracle.   The Oracle directed that unless Oduduwa was … begged to come back to Ife, there would be no serenity, there would be no prosperity, famine would continue unabated, and all manners of ill luck would permeate the whole land. (Mosanya undated [probably 1960s]: 22) Fears of general ill luck derived from Awolowo’s maltreatment were at least partly confirmed by developments under the Akintola government. During his time as the premier of the Western Region, Awolowo had presided over the introduction of free primary education and reasonably high agricultural incomes from the Regional Marketing Boards. But by the time Akintola came to power, his government had to reduce both cocoa producer prices and school subsidies. In retrospect, many people now perceived Awolowo as a good leader, even if they had not thought so while he was in power. Fears that Awolowo’s persecution would bring suffering on them personally, or on the Yoruba as a whole, may have contributed to the political radicalisation of his followers in Remo and elsewhere, which eventually led to various forms of violent protest against Akintola, and which was only ended by the military coup that also led to the death of Awolowo’s main adversaries in 1966. The fact that his prison experience also transformed Awolowo into a more spiritual man further contributed to his increasing association with non-worldly insights and powers. In books published after his trial, Awolowo commented on administrative, constitutional and other political concerns of the day, and advocated federal, democratic and redistributive politics. At the same time, he discussed his views on matters philosophical and spiritual. He advocated a suppression of the ego for the benefit of the soul in a regime he referred to as ‘mental magnitude’, and strongly advocated the development of self-discipline and self-conquest, sexual continence, abstention from alcohol and tobacco and the conquest of greed and fear both for the individual and the greater good (Awolowo 1966, 1968, 1970, 1977). Such ideas, as well as rumours of his own self-discipline and abstention, impressed his followers and inspired a range of stories, rumours and publications expanding both popular and elite perceptions of Awolowo’s insights, commonly referred to as Awoism (Omoboriowo 1982). A debate about the deeper meanings of Awoism continues up to this day among Yoruba intellectuals (Makinde 2002). Beyond his writing, Awolowo’s administrative successes in the Western Region and under the Gowon government confirmed to believers that he had been endowed not only with the abilities but also with the mythical destiny to lead Nigeria to great things. Such sentiments frequently trans-

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lated into popular rumours. For example, in the run-up to the presidential elections in 1979, many Yoruba-speakers were dazed and delighted to see Awolowo on the moon, which they took as a sign of his espousal by cosmic forces. Awolowo’s opponents clearly feared and detested the powers attributed to him, and he was in turn bitterly rebuked for desecrating the heavenly spheres (Sekoni 1997: 142). For those who had ‘seen’ Awolowo, and who believed that he was robbed of an electoral victory in 1979, the potential consequences for Nigeria seemed dire. After Awolowo’s failure to win the 1983 elections and the eventual failure of the Second Republic, former Senator Lai Joseph commented: Perhaps, the political [and] socioeconomic malaise with which Nigerians have been plagued since independence is the appropriate curse and penalty for Nigerians collectively refusing to choose a leader of Awolowo’s qualities … (Joseph, L. 1987: 16) Stories of Awolowo’s supernatural abilities, linked to his perceived destiny as a leader rejected by his people, grew further during his retirement and especially after his death in 1987, when, in an expression of collective grief, thousands of Nigerians travelled long distances to sign condolence registers in major cities and in his house in Ikenne. The expressions ‘Eternal Spirit’ and ‘The Late Sage’ with which sections of the Yoruba press have routinely referred to Awolowo since his death, or, as some would have it, ‘cosmic elevation’, illustrate that the posthumous worship of Awolowo is linked to popular perceptions of his supernatural powers. At the same time, his contribution to a particularly Yoruba politics is evoked by references to ‘Papa Awo’ and of course the ‘Oduduwa of our Time’ which illustrate that Obafemi Awolowo is not primarily celebrated as the secular founder of the modern Yoruba nation, but as a spiritual ancestor who restored rather than created unity among his people. As the ethno-national dimension of Awolowo’s legacy remains significant even for those who clearly understand Awolowo’s contribution primarily in terms of his ambitions for social reform, it also continues to inspire distrust and distaste among non-Yoruba Nigerians. The blunt assessment of Awolowo, in the face of widespread mourning after his death, as nothing more than a ‘tribal leader’ by Nigeria’s prominent author Chinua Achebe was a case in point (open letter reprinted in Joseph, L. 1987: 22–3). At the same time, Awolowo’s standing as a ‘second founder’ of the Yoruba nation created its own political dynamics, which have been encouraged by his widow Hannah and some of his children. During most of the years of military rule from 1983 to 1999, which were characterised by increasing political oppression and marginalisation of Yoruba interests, Awolowo’s posthumous birthday celebrations in Ikenne, held every year since 1987 on 6 March, constituted a refuge for those in opposition to the central

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government. During this period, Awolowo continued to represent not only Yoruba unity but also moral and political integrity in the face of government oppression. Since the return to civilian rule under the Yoruba-speaking President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999–2007), Awolowo’s posthumous birthday celebrations and other events in Ikenne have also become a popular venue for politicians and leaders who cooperate closely with the central government. While this development suggests that important aspects of Awolowo’s political and administrative legacy have lost importance as Yoruba-speakers have felt more represented at the level of national politics, it also illustrates the continued significance of Awolowo’s ethno-nationalist credentials for those seeking political support in Western Nigeria. While this process is affected by local and personal rivalries and some powerful Yoruba leaders have never travelled to Ikenne, the growing appropriation of Awolowo outside the circle of his close political disciples suggests that his legacy is increasingly that of an ethno-national ancestor, who is owned, like Oduduwa, by every member of the ethnic nation. For Remo, Awolowo plays an even more significant foundational or ancestral role than for the Yoruba nation as a whole, because the local commitment to Awolowo and his legacy confirm Remo’s assertion of independence. While the attempts by local intellectuals to establish the independence of a united Remo polity in the nineteenth century are limited by the existence of reliable written evidence that suggests a more complex picture, Remo’s support of Awolowo has demonstrated both its independence and unity, and makes it possible to project its existence into the past before written sources.27 Establishing Remo’s enduring existence as an independent polity in this manner, Awolowo has become a contemporary founder of Remo. Moreover, his local political legacy is closely entwined with Remo’s traditional hierarchy, and the nature of many of its modern and traditional popular institutions. As a result, any mention of the historicity of the political innovations linked to Awolowo could be understood as subverting the present social and political order. As a result of Awolowo’s importance for Remo, a large hiatus exists between his status as the mythical founder of Remo and his life as a man and historical agent. This makes a detailed and free discussion of his politics in Remo difficult, and creates a silence in which Awolowo’s historical achievements are naturalised not only as the rightful form of Remo’s political present, but also its past. Therefore, Awolowo’s local political transformations and innovations are rarely mentioned and, if asked about his greatest contribution, even historically knowledgeable Remo citizens might not think to refer to his comprehensive unification of Remo’s traditional, popular and party politics. Instead, Awolowo’s – more distinctly modern and developmental – provision of widespread access to electricity, water

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and education is often mentioned as his most important contribution to the locality. The silence about Awolowo’s historical achievements in Remo is, of course, also political. It wards off potential critics of Awolowo, who might attempt to use information about his involvement in Remo politics in order to sabotage his personal reputation and, by implication, the status of Remo as his home region. Perhaps more importantly, it also deflects the desire to alter the established hierarchies by local malcontents. In this sense, the silence about Awolowo represents Remo’s ideology of power: it is, like Awolowo himself, at the heart of Remo’s political identity, as well as its social and political order, and it has enabled this order to continue to exist independently of the man Awolowo since his demise. Accordingly, the making of contemporary Remo is doubly the result of Awolowo’s politics: it has its origins in his historical interventions, and it owes its persistence at least partly to the myth deriving from his legacy at the level of national and ethno-regional politics. But as on the national level, the end of the period of oppressive military rule following the Second Republic in 1999 has meant that Awolowo’s political inheritance in Remo is subject to wider appropriations. It is beyond the scope of this book to analyse or even describe in detail the many directions of such recent transformations, but it is notable that overall, those advocating changes in local relations of power do not openly challenge the historical legacy of Awolowo. Thus, while Awolowo’s political legacy becomes subject to the pressures of the present, his mythical importance for Remo is not subverted. The myth of Awolowo, meanwhile, also lives on in other ways: Remo citizens frequently bless one another with direct or indirect reference to him, and his presence in local histories, masquerades, songs and other performances continues to be developed and expanded to increasingly resemble – depending on the context – that of a deity, saint or a common ancestor. outlook

This introduction has outlined how the making and remaking of Remo as a political community over the past two centuries has relied both on popular participation and the creation of consent by local leaders. In the past seventy years, this process has both influenced and been transformed by the politics of Obafemi Awolowo, Remo’s most prominent and important leader to date at the ethno-regional and national level. Overall, the book’s chapters examine these themes in a manner that reflects the flow of time, primarily in order to avoid the risk of reducing an understanding of historical events to symptoms or outcomes of the functioning and contradictions inherent in social institutions (Peel 1984: 14–15). But while a focus on structure may be misread as simply setting the scene

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for social change, one of the main arguments of the book is that even before the establishment of the colonial and postcolonial state, popular participation in Remo politics was rooted in a dynamic in which a wide range of institutions and associations can potentially be politicised. To illustrate this point, the next chapter focuses on the political anatomy of the Remo towns during the nineteenth century, thus privileging the social anatomy of institutions over the explanation of historical processes. The primary concern of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the historically embedded functioning of Remo’s main political, ritual and social institutions in different contexts and over time, in order to explain both the enduring nature of important political dynamics and the changing historical debates and struggles surrounding and appropriating them. Chapter 3 explores Remo’s responses to the wider conflicts affecting the region during the nineteenth century, which include the break-up of the Remo federation and the foundation of the current Remo capital Sagamu. The overall effect of this development was a hierarchisation that reduced spaces for local participation, but which also increased Remo’s political autonomy vis-à-vis its former overlord Ijebu-Ode. When the British recognised Sagamu, its leading town Ofin and its ruler, the Akàrígbò, as Remo’s central institutions in 1894, they further confirmed these trends. But, as Chapter 4 illustrates, colonial rule also created opportunities for participation in local affairs, and the widespread adoption of Christianity in Remo both increased consent for the dominant role of Ofin and Sagamu, which were privileged in local church hierarchies, and for Remo’s separation from Ijebu-Ode. It was in this atmosphere that the young Obafemi Awolowo entered Remo politics. Chapter 5 focuses on the growing pull of nationalist politics in the 1940s and 1950s, which saw a great expansion of political participation in Remo. Aware of Ofin’s historical struggle vis-à-vis other Remo towns, Awolowo used his own political party to revalidate rather than overcome local political rivalries. But while discontent based on historical rivalries became an important resource for political mobilisation, Chapter 6 demonstrates that the association of party politics with local rivalries was a productive and innovative dynamic, which ultimately enabled Awolowo to overcome Remo’s factionalism. Yet although this process was centred on Awolowo’s agency and leadership, its success depended on popular consent and the community’s view of itself. Chapter 7 focuses on the importance for Awolowo, and party politics in general, of popular mobilisation beyond the traditional hierarchy or historical rivalries, and it examines the entrenchment of party political support in Remo’s grassroots associations during the 1960s. When Awolowo was tried and eventually imprisoned, local civic associations organised and structured resistance to the central government they held responsible for this turn of events. As a result of such popular mobilisation,

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Awolowo’s physical absence from Remo confirmed his symbolical centrality to its politics. Awolowo’s participation in military and civilian politics after his release from prison is the subject of Chapter 8. After Awolowo failed to win the elections at the national level despite growing political support for his redistributive rhetoric, he turned increasingly towards the assertion of selfreliance and civic duty outside the realm of the state government. This included the fostering and support of development associations in Remo, whose activities reflected both a growing local disillusionment with the state and the attempt to pull the region up through institutionalised self-help and communal solidarity. Chapter 9 examines the continuing presence of Awolowo in Remo politics after his death in 1987. During the period of military rule that followed his demise, popular participation in local politics was centred on the political legacy of Obafemi Awolowo. However, after the return to civilian rule in 1999, the political cohesion in Remo declined. No longer held together by opposition to the military, local unity both at the grassroots and within the traditional hierarchy has been under pressure, and Obafemi Awolowo’s widow Hannah has enabled politicians of the party in power to appropriate her late husband’s name. Thus even though Awolowo’s anti-government views have lost importance for local politics, his pan-Yoruba legacy continues to be of symbolic and mythical importance.

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2 the institutions of Precolonial remo

Throughout the nineteenth century, popular participation and consent were constitutive of the politics of the Remo towns, because, simply put, a town had the greatest chance of being a prosperous and politically influential community if it was able to attract people and to incorporate and represent them in a manner that appealed to all involved. Where individuals and groups felt dissatisfied with the conditions under which they had to participate in town life, they could either attempt to redefine the boundaries of the community or, in the worst case, leave the towns where they had settled to found or join another settlement. Towns were shaped by the centrifugal and centripetal dynamics involving their constituent groups (Renne 2003) as well as by the ongoing struggles over the nature and shape of the town’s community itself. Rather than agglomerations defined by social and economic differentiation, they were primary loci for the creation of communities.1 Because towns were principally based on the consent of the groups and individuals that comprised them, the nature of their community remained the object of ongoing attempts to control, dominate and reinterpret the institutions, narratives and practices that represented the town. While agreement created unity, disagreement – often expressed through the perpetuation or revalidation of historical conflict – could radically divide communities. Frequently the boundaries of the community were defined differently at different levels, and while a town might be united by one or more of its dominant institutions, it might also be divided at the level of others. In the worst case, a town could collapse if its inhabitants no longer had an imperative to maintain their unity. However, because of the importance of human consent for the making of a community, towns could also survive physical destruction and resettlement as long as the townspeople held on to their ideal existence. In reflection of these dynamics, the participation of large groups of townspeople in town politics ensured that any sectional interests were heard and that binding agreements could be reached among competing groups within the town. Because the growth or decline of a town affected the life chances and perceptions of all the townspeople, it is important to understand the limitations of structural approaches that link specific institutions with particular

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dynamics. Most frequently, the way in which institutions were politicised in specific struggles depended on the way in which they were embedded into the lives of particular groups and individuals. This phenomenon is reflected in the relevant historical and political discourses: while the oba’s claim to represent the town as a whole remains paramount in traditional and contemporary narratives, similar claims are also frequently found, sometimes in submerged form, in the civic institutions that enabled the participation of large numbers of townspeople in politics, such as the Òsùgbó and Orò associations, among followers of certain òrìsà (deities), and, in some localities, also among the groups constituted by joint origin or residence. Conversely, the multiplicity of these groups allowed the expression of differing views on legitimacy and the community.Thus the vibrant civic and associational life of the Remo towns not only structured popular participation in local struggles but also socialised individuals into the predominant political debates.2 While all major town institutions were also part of wider networks that linked different communities through shared history, knowledge or practice, participatory elements also underlay the political identity of Remo as a group or federation of towns. By the nineteenth century, the Rémo Métàlélógbòn or 33 Remo [towns] existed both as a district of the Ijebu kingdom ruled from Ijebu-Ode and as a group of towns able to make autonomous decisions affecting their internal politics. Meeting in regular assemblies, town representatives resolved local disputes and discussed questions of general concern. Here, too, the influence of individual participants in the Remo federation was subject to historical change. The structures of governance, cooperation and competition, as well as the nature of the community itself, informed and were subject to historical and political debates about the Remo federation. Fissures, disagreements and struggles for power changed the nature of the community: while the core group membership of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn was fairly stable, individual towns could and did change their political alliances within the federation, and it is possible that individual towns even changed their membership of the federation by joining another group of towns instead. obas and olójàs

Like nearly all towns in the Yoruba-speaking areas, Remo towns were ruled either by an oba or an uncrowned ruler (olójà3 or baálè) before British rule. On the basis of families (ilé, here also ìdílé), compounds or quarters as well as other important institutions in the town, civic representatives or chiefs (olóyè) were elected to advise and assist the oba. Throughout the Ijebu kingdom – as among the Egba towns – the authority of the rulers was further balanced by a powerful representative town association, called Ògbóni among the Egba and Òsùgbó in the towns of Ijebu and Remo. Although obaship in Remo long predates the nineteenth century, the scarcity of earlier written

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sources makes is difficult to assess what role was played by town rulers before this period. However, in the wars of the nineteenth century, many towns were affected by the rise of the military in their societies (Adediran 1987: 66), and it is likely that in Remo, as elsewhere, power shifted from the rulers towards civic leaders and town associations. An oba or olójà drew his authority from his association with the foundation or reorganisation of the town in the wake of the century-long expansion of a civilisation derived from the Yoruba sacred centre of Ile-Ife. In the majority of towns, only descendants of the founder or first ruler of the town could become the town’s oba or olójà. However, as the attempts to reconstruct Remo history through oral histories (ìtàn) collected in the early twentieth century illustrate, at the same time, different, often contradictory town histories existed in different oral genres and within lineage-, residence- or occupation-based groups within the town. Therefore it is likely that in the past as well as the present, the ruler’s historical legitimacy was the subject of debate, and that the well-being of the town – as judged by its citizens – was taken to confirm or undermine not only his personal legitimacy, but also that of his family and his representation of the town’s history. For example, in the recent past the widely perceived personal illegitimacy of Awùjalè Daniel Adesanya of Ijebu-Ode (1933–59) destabilised the historical links of many Remo towns with Ijebu-Ode and indirectly empowered the movement for Remo independence. If a town was ruled by a crowned ruler or oba, it was known as a town which had its own crown (ìlú aládé). Ijebu and Remo towns with an oba (ìlú aládé) had a distinctive group of palace servants called Òdì.4 Court officials of different ranks, the Òdì wielded considerable at the Awùjalè’s palace. Said to be of slave and stranger origin, they were directors of ceremony and ritual as well as personal carers for the oba. Other obas of Ijebu and Remo towns had Òdì as well, but they possessed fewer grades than the Awùjalè. Lower ranks of Òdì included Ìrèwòré and Àgùnrìn (Abraham 1958: 291; Fadipe 1970: 203). A crown not only increased the status of its ruler, but gave all the institutions of a town a high degree of independence from those of other towns. This independence was not enjoyed by towns ruled by an olójà, and such towns had to refer to ìlú aládé in some matters. While the expression ìlú aládé connoted power and independence, it also reflected the understanding that it was not only the oba who owned the town, but also the town who owned the oba, or, rather, the crown that made him an oba.While the authority of the oba was understood as crucial to the existence of the town, the relationship of power between oba and town was more complex and entailed strong reciprocal elements. Therefore, if an oba was thought to have committed a crime against the town, including that of being too autocratic, he could be asked to kill himself (sígbá5). If he failed to comply, he could be killed by

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Remo Obas: HRH Oba Sunday Olufunso Adeolu, the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, outside his palace (Photo: Insa Nolte) the spiritual powers of the Òsùgbó (A. O. Osifade and A. Bakare, 17 August 1996). Where different families could claim the headship of the town within a dominant narrative of foundation – either because the lineage of original founder had split into segments or because an overall head of the town had been instituted after a number of earlier rulers came to a compromise – access to the throne often rotated among the different families. Frequently, ascent to the office was further regulated by individual town traditions. In Ijebu-Ode, a male child born after his father ascended the throne (abídàgbà) was a preferred candidate for the throne. The gender of past obas and olójàs is often difficult to ascertain conclusively, but since the late nineteenth century only men have been installed to this office in Ijebu and Remo. However, female obas and olójàs are considered to have been rulers of the kingdom’s capital Ijebu-Ode and the Remo town Iperu, most likely in the eighteenth century or earlier (Adebonojo 1990: 9–11). Once installed, the oba was considered to embody all his predecessors in his persona. The continuity of a royal persona was, and continues to be, ritually constructed through several beliefs and practices. Important among them is the worship and manipulation of the royal crown (adé), which contains and transfers royal power. An oba-elect was prepared for the powerful transformation by the crown before his installation. During this period, he stayed in a secluded space where civic representatives and other

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dignitaries told him about his persona’s particular rights and obligations, about the histories of the town and about the behaviour expected from him. Without this knowledge, the candidate could not become the ruler, because he would not know how to embody him. Eventually, the oba-elect must also allow his predecessor to become one with him physically and eat part of his predecessor’s body. As it was assumed that this custom had been practised since the death of the first incumbent, an oba was believed to have ingested all his predecessors (Nolte 2002: 380–2).6 After the installation, an oba had to adopt the life of his persona, and as Barber (1991: 51) has observed, he usually spoke of all his predecessors as ‘I’. His activities were strictly regulated by rules and precedents in the lives of his predecessors. In many towns, the oba even had to give up his personal name once he was installed and adopt a royal name. As the incumbent’s persona embodied both dead and living persons, he must never be observed performing mundane activities such as eating or drinking, and when he died this death was not to be described as ìkú, like the death of an ordinary mortal, but as ìwàjà.7 Shielded from the stare of his townspeople, the oba rarely appeared in public, and if he did, he would be robed and wearing a beaded crown the fringe of which hid his face (Ayandele 1970a: 233). The oba’s remoteness from the minor squabbles of everyday life and his adoption of a royal persona enabled the oba not only to represent the town to itself but also with regard to others. One important way in which the oba related and linked his town to other towns was through the imagined descent and origin of his persona. In narratives of migration and town foundation, most Yoruba obas eventually trace their descent from Oduduwa, the mythical founder of Yoruba (and human) civilisation in the first town of Ile-Ife, and assert their contemporary status, as well as that of their towns, through the social relations of their persona in the mythical past. In the context of Ijebu and Remo politics, the migration of an oba from another town or under the leadership of another ruler indicates the seniority of this ‘earlier’ town or ruler, and frequently it suggests past and present political alliances. In public discourse, the historical relations of obas therefore do not only create mutual legitimacy but they also constitute a layer of relations between different royal personas in which their past social relations are understood to explain or comment on the present. However, the group relationships constituted by narratives involving royal personas are sometimes inconsistent as well as subject to change. Histories of royal migrations focusing on the Ijebu kingdom recount several waves of migrations to Ijebu-Ode.8 In the early twentieth century, many Remo obas claimed to be part of the historical narrative surrounding the capital and its foundation, usually suggesting that they left the capital to found or take over the Remo towns where they were based.9 While these histories clearly link

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Remo Obas: HRH Oba Solomon Adekoya, the Alárá of Ilara, in his palace (Photo: Insa Nolte) the history of royal personas to relations of power within the Ijebu kingdom, other Remo obas claimed to have established themselves in Remo independently of this joint migration.10 Interestingly, by the 1930s and 1940s, the obas who considered themselves the representatives of a common migration tended to confirm the Akàrígbò of Ofin as a leader of the Remo migration, and by implication as Remo’s rightful paramount ruler, while the obas with individual histories of origin were reluctant to accept this position until the 1950s. More recent royal histories have increasingly suggested that all Remo obas established themselves as the result of direct migrations from Ile-Ife.11 Their projection into the past of a Remo originally independent of Ijebu reflects contemporary and widely shared aspirations. The histories of royal personas also create links that run parallel to clearly demarcated alliances or political struggles. Thus some Remo rulers have insisted that they were neither linked to the Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode nor to the Akàrígbò of Ofin. Rulers of the Remo towns Akaka, Emuren and Ogijo have traditions of political and spiritual allegiance to the Àjàlóòr un of Ijebu-Ife, and suggest that the Awùjalè is a leader whose power eclipsed that of an older ruler (Adebonojo 1990: 40). More recently, only the oba of Emuren, a very old Remo town that has been geographically and politically marginalised in the twentieth century, has maintained his allegiance to the Àjàlóòr un as a master narrative of his existence. However, even the rulers of towns central to Remo politics possess histories that take them outside the

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dominant local struggles. Thus the ruler of the central market town Iperu claims to have migrated from Oyo, while the oba of the small but historically important Remo town of Ilara claims to be related both to the obas of Aramoko in Ekiti and those of other towns in Ondo, Yewa and Oyo.12 Because the actions of obas were frequently perceived and narrated as the generalised ‘form and destiny’ of the societies they represent (Sahlins 1985: xi), their interactions also explained and condensed historical events. In this way the historical conflict between two Remo towns, Epe and Ofin, was represented in 1935 by the British intelligence officer Abell as a conflict between the obas of the towns: The Alara and the Elepe were two powerful chiefs in Remo at this time [the first half of the nineteenth century]. At a play one evening, the Elepe put on a beaded crown with veil, such as is now only worn by an Oba; this was an affront to the Akarigbo. The Offin [sic] people, Offin being the Akarigbo’s town, who were present at the play were annoyed and forcibly snatched the crown from the Elepe’s head. The Elepe was asked for an explanation by the Akarigbo. No apology was made and the Akarigbo [was] defied. The villages of Makun, Iperu, Ogere, Ode [Remo] and Ipara joined Epe. Makun was the biggest village in the area and the other forces concentrated their forces there. The Akarigbo sent to the Awujale and the Alake for help. Makun sent to Ibadan for assistance.13 But in the Remo towns, the actions of obas were also always a proposition of order and meaning designed not only to engage with the maze of historical accounts surrounding inter-town relations, but also to relate to the claims of different groups or individuals within the town. Thus, while this history locates the reasons for Epe’s loss of power within Remo in the Elépè’s playful provocation of the Akàrígbò in the run-up to a local war in the 1860s, other historical narratives condense this event differently. While Abell’s version is widely accepted in Ofin, Segun Sodiya (3 March 1998), a member of the Ofin royal family personally committed to good relations among Remo towns, explained that the Akàrígbò stole the Elépè’s crown while the Elépè was sleeping. Unlike the version recorded by Abell, Sodiya thereby implied that the Elépè’s claim to past leadership was valid. Yet at the same time he asserted that with Epe’s crown, Epe’s power had irrevocably passed to Ofin. Thus every condensation of history into royal agency engages with other historical arguments, revaluing the past with a view towards the present and future social order. As a result, royal behaviour was and remains highly political and subject to multiple interpretations and appropriations. The obas’ highly symbolic role in and for their towns not only necessitated their remoteness from ordinary life, it also had implications for their relationship to power. According to the Remo historian David Onadele

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Epega, obas in the Remo towns were also removed from the execution of important functions of governance: Ise awon oba fun ilu: – Ise awon oba ni lati ma da awon agbagba ilu ni oye. Bi awon ilu ti o wa labe re [oba] ba ni ija ti kose pari re fun ara won, won a ko wa si odo re. Bi ija ba wa larin awon agba Osugbo, &c. Oba ni iyo pari re. Ni oruko oba ni a nranse si ilu miran. Ni oruko re ni a nse ofin fun ilu. Oba ni a gba owo ibode fun. Oba soro ri nigba laelae, Oba ki jade ni pataki. (Epega [1919] 1934: 27) The responsibilities of obas in their towns: – It was the responsibility of obas to confer titles on senior people in the town. If towns under the oba’s authority had quarrels they could not resolve amicably among themselves, they would bring the cases to his place. If there were differences between the elders of the Òsùgbó etc., the oba would settle them. It was in the name of the oba that they sent messengers to other towns. It was in his name that the law of a town was formulated. It was for the oba that we collected money at the town gates. It was hard to set eyes on the oba in the old days, it is important to realise that the oba never went out. Epega describes the oba as a symbolically central character for the life of the town, who would create social distinctions by bestowing honour on individuals through their installation as civic representatives or chiefs and settle disputes among community leaders, including members of the representative town association, the Òsùgbó, and subordinate communities. The oba could do this in particular because, once installed, he was widely seen as removed from factional politics and considered the ‘head’ of all political and religious associations. Yet in a number of respects, the oba was a rather abstract personification of a town and its government, and he did not control the town’s government. Instead, the townspeople collected tolls and duties, communicated with other towns and formulated the law of the town in his name. The oba’s distance from the actual government of his town was further increased when, in reflection of the demographic upheavals following the collapse of Oyo and the steady expansion of British interests, warriors and traders became increasingly dominant in local politics during the nineteenth century. As respect for the royal institution deteriorated, obas unable to unite a divided community often fell victim to factional struggles. In 1861, when the Remo towns were divided over the decision by Ijebu-Ode to block trade with Ibadan, the citizens of the northern Remo towns killed the messengers of the kingdom’s ruler, the Awùjalè, sent to reconcile the warring factions. The Aláyé Odè Soloye of Ode Remo, who had wanted to reconcile his town with Ijebu-Ode was murdered by his townspeople. By the second half on the nineteenth century, the rise of the warrior elite had

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greatly affected obaship in Remo, and anecdotal evidence suggests that very often individuals who were offered the crown would try to escape their fate. Local histories point to different ways in which the Remo towns dealt with the changes of the nineteenth century. While larger towns such as Ofin and Iperu retained their rulers, many smaller towns gave up obaship, especially if they were part of larger communities or if they resettled after destruction in a local war. Thus, after the death of its ruler in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, the Remo town Idotun did not install a new oba when it resettled in Ikenne. Similarly, the town Iraye, long settled within Ode Remo, did not install a successor after its oba died following disagreements with his townspeople in the first half of the nineteenth century. Other towns, such as Eposo, Idarika and Idena, which were destroyed by the Egba in the 1830s or 1860s and resettled as quarters in Ode Remo (Eposo) and Iperu (Idarika and Idena), also ceased to install rulers, as did some of the towns that resettled in Sagamu in the 1870s. Other towns continued to have rulers, but these rulers acted as civic war leaders. For example, in Ipara, the rulership of the town was passed on to the Balógun or leader of the army for some time, while in Isara, the Odemo Odukogbe became his town’s army commander during the 1861–4 war (Epega [1919] 1934: 21–3). the òsùgbó and orò associations

Reflecting old civic traditions and probably also representing the new power of the ascendant warrior aristocracy, in nineteenth-century Remo towns the day-to-day operation of government was carried out by civic executives, associations and, most importantly, the representative town assembly, the Òsùgbó. The Òsùgbó of each town was – just like each obaship – shaped by different historical influences and precedents, and drum-beats for the various Òsùgbós in Remo and beyond continue to differ even today. However, there were many parallels between the Òsùgbó in Ijebu and Remo and the Egba Ògbóni, which has been described as the civic court and the town executive (Lloyd, 1971: 28) or even as ‘the real rulers of the town’ (Biobaku [1957] 1991: 5–6). The different names for this representative town association do not appear to be clearly demarcated. Thus Epega ([1919] 1934: 27) describes the individual members of the Remo Òsùgbó as Ògbóni. On the other hand, a number of sources refer to an Òsùgbó ‘guild’ in the senior ranks of the nineteenth-century Egba Ògbóni, which was in charge of the secret, male-only Orò association (Abraham 1958: 585; Fadipe 1970: 245; Lucas 1948: 121). In Remo, members of the Òsùgbó met every sixteen calendar days in a special house called Ilédì (called Ulédì in Remo), which was usually situated so that it would face the main marketplace – a place that is reserved for the oba’s palace in many other towns in the Yoruba-speaking area (Ojo 1966).

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An Ilédì (Òsùgbó house) (Photo: Insa Nolte) The Òsùgbó consisted of the town’s important civic representatives as well as other trustworthy and senior men and women who had taken an oath to validate a covenant in which they agreed to put the public interest above their own. Ordinary Òsùgbó deliberations could be attended by all men of the town, as well as by women who had demonstrated their interest and dedication by undergoing an initiation and taking an introductory oath. In their regular meetings, the Òsùgbó members would deliberate on town affairs and also judge crimes against the town (Epega [1919] 1934: 27; Onasanya and Oduyale undated [probably 1990s]: 17; Osindeinde et al. 1980: 13). Attempting to represent and unite all sections of the town, the Òsùgbó often refers to itself as ìlú or the town itself. As explained above, the degree of an Òsùgbó’s independence from that of neighbouring towns, and therefore the content of its jurisdiction, was also linked to the status of the town’s ruler. Ode Remo’s Òsùgbó leaders Osifade and Bakare (17 August 1996) suggested that the possession of a crown gave the town the right to take the lives of criminals, and that towns headed by a mere olójà could only execute the death penalty after they had been granted permission by an ìlú aládé. However, while several Remo towns claim to have owned a crown in the late nineteenth century, Abell reports that on the eve of colonial rule, Remo had only three Òsùgbós which could adjudicate serious criminal cases such as murder.14 These were based in Iperu, Ode Remo and Ofin, with Ode Remo and Iperu dispensing judgement in northern Remo, and Ofin in other towns. The discrepancy between the

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claims to crowns and the right to execute probably reflects historical projections, but it also suggests that the link between a town’s obaship and its Òsùgbó’s right to execute criminals may not always have been direct. The powers of individual Òsùgbós also changed over time as relations between and within towns shifted. Certainly the death penalty was also awarded, at least in certain circumstances or during certain periods, in some of the other Remo towns. For example, in Makun, the only son of Ewùsì Inanuwa was found by the town’s Òsùgbó to have committed adultery. As the oba had only one male child, he wanted to spare his son’s life, but the Òsùgbó eventually executed his son. To punish the town, the Ewùsì buried the town’s beaded crown in a secret place, depriving his townspeople of the status of ìlú aládé at some stage before his death in 1852. Although the crown was replaced by the Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode during the reign of Ewùsì Soyombo Agunloye II (1882–1919), the town excluded Inanuwa’s descendants from the throne and no member of the Inanuwa family was installed until 1976 (Ayodele 2004: 17–18, 58). This narrative not only illustrates the power of the Òsùgbó vis-à-vis the oba, but also gives an insight into the way in which struggles between the two main institutions of the town could be structured. According to histories and ritual knowledge emanating from the Òsùgbó, which propose an alternative to the dominant narratives which establish obaship as the central and foundational institution of towns, the Òsùgbó claims a different form of legitimacy than the oba. Whereas obaship relies on legitimacy through the recourse to and institutionalisation of historical achievement, the central point of the Òsùgbó’s political discourse is that it represents the town as based on a social contract: There must be an Òsùgbó before one can say there is a town. A new Òsùgbó will be founded by people in an established place. They will meet regularly and must have taken an oath of understanding to work together towards the formation of a new settlement. They will choose a political head, the Olúwo. The Apènà is the head of the house. When the Òsùgbó moves to a new settlement, it is an Òsùgbó of its own. When the town grows, it may ask for a prince from another town. That is why the king [oba] is always a stranger. But having an oba makes a town independent. (Oba Adedayo Adekoya 13 February 1998). Because of the way oba and Òsùgbó were geared towards each other, it was rare that an oba visited the Òsùgbó in person, and such a visit must usually have been accompanied by sacrifices. On the occasions that a ruler entered the Òsùgbó as the nominal head of all associations in the town, he could join in the discussion only on the understanding that he would be treated simply as a member. While in the palace, the oba had the last word on any matter discussed and the head of the Òsùgbó had the last word on any

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matter discussed within the association (Odunlami 2001: 48).15 The head of the Remo Òsùgbó was usually the Olúwo (called Olíwo in Remo), although in many Ijebu towns he was considered second to the Olúrin (Adebonojo 1990: 35). The Olúwo was the custodian of the covenant that had brought the town into existence. Therefore he would also take over the regency of most towns during interregnums. The Apènà (called Apènò in Remo)16 was the Òsùgbó’s speaker and messenger and second to the Olúwo in most Remo towns, though according to Onasanya and Oduyale (undated [probably 1990s]: 17), he was considered the head of the Òsùgbó in Ilisan.Within the Òsùgbó, he was the custodian of all the instruments that were originally used to found the settlement including the edan (called edon in Remo). The edan is a staff of office consisting of joint images of a man and woman. Signifying an original division of labour, the edan represents the community as based on the complementarity and cooperation of men and women. As a symbol of the community, the edan is often translated as ‘mace’. If a crime was committed or an act occurred over which the Òsùgbó claimed jurisdiction, such as a member’s death, the edan was taken to the place or people involved to signify the Òsùgbó’s authority (Adebonojo 1990: 35; Epega [1919] 1934: 27).17 An important inner circle of the Òsùgbó was constituted by the Ìwàrèfà (called Ìghàrèfà18 in Remo). Often – as with chieftaincy titles, every town had its own Òsùgbó hierarchy although many hierarchies closely resembled each other – this group was headed by the Olótùú Ìwàrèfà. A group of six, the Ìwàrèfà would judge particularly difficult or dangerous matters. The six Ìwàrèfà members rarely met all together to deliberate on a case because it was considered easier to come to a conclusion with an odd number of people. Also, in this way it could not be known in advance which members would judge a case, making it even more difficult for interested parties to try to influence the members of the Ìwàrèfà (Epega [1919] 1934: 27; Osindeinde et al. 1980: 14). The Ìwàrèfà consisted of five men and one woman, the Olótùú Erelú, who was also the head of all the women and female titleholders (Erelú) initiated into the Òsùgbó. As in many Yoruba towns, women who held important civic offices in Ijebu and Remo were usually older, i.e. post-menopausal. In some towns, including Ijebu-Ode, the Olótùú Erelú also represented the ruler when he did not attend Òsùgbó meetings (Oguntomisin 2002: 13). Because the Òsùgbó guaranteed the unity of the town’s people rather than its location, all Remo towns were at least theoretically mobile. As long as members of the town actively participated in Òsùgbó affairs, they confirmed the town’s existence in their regular meetings. Beyond the realm of human interaction, the Òsùgbó possessed symbolic and magical objects that were believed by its members to signify the town’s community and original pact. If a group of townspeople decided to leave their settlement for any reason,

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Female Òsùgbó member (Photo: Insa Nolte)

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the original covenant could be recreated, and the meeting place of the Òsùgbó, the Ilédì, could be rebuilt as long as the Òsùgbó’s objects had been saved, and as long as the people who constituted the town still agreed to share a community.19 As a comparison of Maps 1 and 3 illustrates (see pages 66 and 82), many Remo towns have moved once or several times. Extremely mobile towns such as Makun and Ilara each have at least two past areas of settlement, locally referred to as homesteads, which they inhabited before the move to their present sites. Towns’ migration histories play an important part in relations with other towns, and often towns that were once neighbours or even co-settlers share chieftaincy titles, civic institutions and deities or òrìsà as well as family and quarter names. In some cases, quarters were created in neighbouring towns by those townspeople who were unwilling to embark on another migration and joined other towns (see below). However, while a functioning Òsùgbó could guarantee the continued existence of a town even over long migrations as long as most of its people were in agreement, disagreement could lead to the destruction of towns from the inside and a break-up of the Òsùgbó. Thus the once influential Remo town of Ogunmogbo broke up due to a disagreement and dispersal of its people, probably during the first half of the nineteenth century.20 During the nineteenth century, the Òsùgbó played an important part in ensuring the continued existence of towns destroyed during local conflicts. In some cases, refugee townspeople moved into existing towns, usually concentrating in a certain quarter of the town, expressing their continued existence as a community through continued geographical proximity. However, even where townspeople from an abandoned settlement settled in many different areas throughout their new ‘host’ town, townspeople could maintain the existence of their old town through regular meetings in their new Òsùgbó. For example, refugees from Eposo settled in several quarters in nearby Ode Remo and did not install an oba for roughly a century. However, they maintained their Òsùgbó and other civic associations and thus their identity as citizens of Eposo. In a similar manner, the towns which joined the new settlement of Sagamu in the latter half of the nineteenth century maintained their status, and are understood by their inhabitants to have remained true to themselves even if they are now quarters of a larger settlement. For the Òsùgbó and Ògbóni associations throughout southern Yorubaland, death duties and burials were an important source of income and social control. Deaths perceived as unnatural, such the deaths of young people, pregnant women and executed criminals, were usually under the control of the Orò, an executive organisation that is frequently described as a spirit or symbol of the ancestors, and which manifests itself through the sound of the bullroarer (ape), a thin piece of wood that is whirred through the air on a string to produce a whining noise. Different legends mention

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Orò as a power against child death, and men use the bullroarer to invoke the deity (òrìsà) of Orò at any time. Orò groves (igbórò) are situated outside the town and open only to members of Orò. While the names of the Remo Orò leaders, indicated by titles such as Onímalè (called Olúmalè in Remo),21 as well as Alághá or Aláhá, were often known, the inner organisation of the Orò association was a secret. Secret knowledge also included the proper playing of the bullroarer and the participation in rituals and ceremonies carried out in the igbórò. Rituals served a number of purposes, including purification, the prevention of catastrophes and the honouring of ancestors.22 The historical narratives of some Remo towns suggest that Orò represented local communities before obaship of the present type was introduced. This claim is structurally similar to analogous claims emanating from the Òsùgbó, but often also points to communities below the level of the towns now represented by Òsùgbós. Thus the settlement of the Remo town Ilisan was attacked and burnt down during the reign of its ruler Olófin Ladejobi, probably in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The town subsequently moved to a new settlement called Iworu, whose inhabitants welcomed them but who maintained their spiritual superiority as the sole ‘owners’ of the local Orò Liworu association for at least two generations. A later Olófin built another Orò grove because he believed the Iworu people were undermining his power. The creation of the second Orò grove, which required two human sacrifices, was hotly disputed between the communities, and before the first consecration the Iworu people stole the intended sacrifices. The second time, everything went smoothly and the Liworu monopoly was broken (Onasanya and Oduyale undated [probably 1990s]: 9–13). Today, the early conflict between the oba of Ilisan and the Orò of Iworu is re-enacted during the installation of each new Olófin. When he reaches the Iworu quarter, the robe which he received in the Ilédì of Ilisan is taken off him and sent back. Also, Orò leaders of Liworu have the privilege of keeping their heads covered before the oba. In Ilisan, competing Orò associations represent the town as simultaneously divided and united. Orò’s structural opposition to obaship and its association with an earlier community evoke the relationship between Òsùgbó and oba. However, in Ilisan the competing Orò of Iworu and Ilisan are also linked to an original community and that of the oba respectively, obscuring the direct link between Òsùgbó and Orò by also associating the powers of rulership (oba) and town (Òsùgbó) with different quarters of the town, each represented by their own Orò. Reflecting a local politics concerned with the creation of consent at many levels, the actions of Orò and other civic associations conflate, shift and overlap with each other and those of residential and descent groups. Refracted through associational activity, the tentative creation of consenting or competing groups is also frequently gendered, though rarely to the complete exclusion of one sex. For example, although

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the Liworu quarter’s special status in Ilisan is strongly linked to the maleonly Orò, it is also represented in other contexts of ritual display which emphasise women’s agency: any Ilisan Egúngún masquerade that enters the Iworu quarter is unrobed by women. The way in which the gender relationship structures and symbolises the community is a central theme in Orò practice. Apart from criminals, Orò also persecuted àje, often translated as witches and usually referring to women whose destructive powers were feared.23 For this and other reasons, several authors have suggested that Orò is an institution directed against women, and that it threatens or scares them in order to keep them away from secret activities. Ellis ([1894] 1966: 110) and Farrow (1926: 68, 74) have pointed out that the association has at times made use of its right to kill women who violated the taboo which prevents them from setting eyes on Orò.24 Fadipe (1970: 249–50) and Dennett ([1910] 1968: 37) have suggested that Orò was used to prevent women from witnessing executions. Suggesting that Orò reflects an association of women with individual rather than communal interests, Drewal has argued that an important reason for the secrecy surrounding Orò’s executive functions is also to protect the association’s members from social pressure and retribution (1989: 143). However, the assumption that men are more accepting of social control than women does not always hold true, and frequently Orò outings after shocking events are aimed at preventing townspeople of both sexes from displaying excessive grief or anger (Flynn 1997: 98). In order to gain a deeper understanding of the role of gender in the creation of consent and harmony in the community by Orò, it is useful to turn to local debates which suggest that Orò attempts to control women not because they are external to the community but because they have the power to guarantee or undermine its success. Most married women spend the first decades of marriage living with their husbands’ families, and their unwillingness to keep complaints about their husbands and in-laws to themselves can lead to disputes between families, quarters and towns (Flynn 1997: 128–9). When individual women decide to make the personal political, they not only embarrass those who have offended them, but they also undermine the legitimacy of the institutions – including families themselves – that should provide the framework for resolving such disputes.25 Beyond the structurally difficult positions especially of young wives, Orò acknowledges women as the keepers of everyday secrets and thus as the guardians of a wide range of social and spiritual relationships that create the community (Opefeyitimi 1994). Recognising that no political project can succeed if women do not actively and consciously separate the private from the public, Orò reminds women that they must not use their power to undermine popular consent. The taboo that prevents women from seeing Orò does not exclude them from the politics surrounding Orò outings and activities. In some towns

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outside Remo, women are involved in the announcement or heralding of Orò,26 although they must not set sight on the bullroarer or the masquerade. In Remo, women praise and give sacrifices to Orò through emissaries, and they contribute to Orò celebrations in numerous ways. Participating in the Orò festival by welcoming and feeding Orò and its singers, women are an integral part of all Orò celebrations. Women who object to a particular Orò outing may refuse to listen to and applaud the songs, they may not invite, pay or bless the singers, or they may provide bad or inappropriate food and drink for them. In the case of a wider dispute involving Orò, a group of women may undermine Orò by leaving town for the duration of its outing. Finally, as a violent conflict involving Orò in Sagamu in 1999 illustrates in Chapter 9, the violence ascribed to a woman’s direct gaze at Orò also gives women the power to expose and humiliate Orò by looking at it, albeit at the risk of their lives.27 Thus women hold the key to Orò’s success: an outing is only judged to have gone well if no woman has shown her displeasure with the community or the association by subverting the Orò (Abiodun Fakunmodu, 18 September 1996). Orò appears to have been the only civic men’s association responsible for the execution of criminals in Egba areas, where, after a judgement by the Ògbóni, the Orò executors (àwòrò) would lead the condemned to the igbóró to behead them at night. Non-initiands would find out about the execution of the judgements because the heads and clothes of the dead (er ú Orò) were hung on trees (see picture in Farrow 1926: 72–3) or near city walls to warn thieves and other evil-doers that Orò would carry them away. However, in most Remo towns Orò shared the power to punish offenders with the more senior Èlúkú association (see below).28 In some towns, Èlúkú was responsible for the actual execution of offenders, also by beheading, whereas in others it punished only certain crimes. While Èlúkú was associated with the town’s elders and power-holders, Orò – in whose annual festival and outings all townsmen could normally participate – represented an element of youth or juniority.29 A contemporary Remo proverb both associates Orò with those of lower or junior status and with great public appeal (Oba Adedayo Adekoya, 6 August 2002): Erú n; s’Orò, omo mbise. Slaves are doing Orò, [freeborn] children are begging to do it [to join]. The increasingly unequal distribution of authority during the nineteenth century between the oba on the one hand and the town associations, headed by the Òsùgbó and Orò, on the other hand, is illustrated in the reports of early missionaries and converts to Christianity in Remo, which confirm Orò as a powerful civic institution executing the will of the Òsùgbó even against that of the oba or ruler.30

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Thus, in 1878, a party led by Revd James Johnson, who was himself of Remo origin, visited Joseph Oyegunsen, one of the earliest Christian converts in the Remo town of Iperu. Johnson’s party received a very friendly welcome from the ruler of Iperu. Apart from inviting them to pray at the palace, he offered them some land for a mission station. However, due to a widespread suspicion of the British within the Ijebu kingdom, Johnson’s presence was not at all welcomed by the townspeople. He was soon summoned before the Òsùgbó and accused by the elders of threatening the town with forty days and nights of rain.31 Johnson had no choice but to leave as the ruler could not protect his group against the ‘Orò revenge’ threatened by the Òsùgbó of Iperu, and when in 1882 the ruler of Iperu suddenly died, Orò expelled the local converts to Christianity from the town as well.32 In neighbouring Ode Remo, Christian convert Jacob Osindero, father of the historian Epega, was driven out of the town with his family by Orò in 1886, a year after his conversion. Before colonial rule, Orò also opposed the nascent Muslim community in Remo, suggesting that at this stage the association, and presumably most townspeople, perceived monotheism generally as a threat to the community, irrespective of who supported it. In almost direct contrast with the early Christian link with local rulers and leaders, the early origins of Islam in Remo were associated with slavery. In 1878, Iperu only had one freeborn Muslim, and the general attitude towards this faith seems to have been one of disdain.33 In most towns, slaves were allowed to clear and use an open space as prayer ground and mosque, although no celebrations and Friday services were permitted until the late 1880s. The call to prayer was considered to mock the Orò sound (ajá Orò), and in several towns, Muslim converts who had dared to call out for prayer were killed by Orò (Gbadamosi 1978: 90–1). Although Islam increasingly became the religion of the wealthy traders and chiefs in the capital Ijebu-Ode, both Islam and Christianity only gained popularity in Remo after the British defeat of Ijebu in 1892. Both Orò and the Òsùgbó were primarily geared towards the administration and control of town life, but, like the institution of obaship, they were also involved in the creation of links between communities on a larger scale. However, rather than drawing on mythical history or the personification of important events, the Òsùgbó drew on the forms of political power on which it relied at the town level, namely the organisation of popular participation in response to the day-to-day events that affected the community beyond the town. By the early nineteenth century, town representatives, usually from the Òsùgbó, were also actively involved in promoting participatory cooperation among the Remo towns. Before 1864, this cooperation was institutionalised in regular meetings of the Remo towns as the Rémo Métàlélógbòn or 33 Remo [towns] in Idarika near Iperu, where town representatives came together to discuss matters of mutual interest. More coherent than royal

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histories of origin and interaction, and confirmed by regular practice, the cooperation of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn was truly constitutive of the Remo federation. agemo, èlúkú and other òrìsà

Apart from Orò and the Òsùgbó, other civic associations which deeply engaged with the authority and legitimacy of the oba and his representation of the town existed in most towns. Most important among these associations was the Agemo society. Throughout Ijebu and Remo, Agemo is associated with the earliest settlers and settlements of the towns that exist today. Based on the Agemo association’s claims to have existed before the foundation of the town and the titles Olójà, meaning uncrowned ruler or market owner, and Alásè, meaning owner of the shrine, also an epithet for an oba, for the Agemo leaders in Ijebu and Remo respectively,34 Ogunba (1967: 14, 15) has suggested that the Agemo was the main organisational feature of the first known settlers in Remo before the political reform emanating from Ile-Ife. While this is indeed possible, the features referred to by Ogunba also parallel the structural relationships between the oba, the Òsùgbó and Orò, in which the representation and control of the town, or sometimes sections of the town, are a central concern. Agemo is particularly associated with the Ijebu kingdom, and it is, like other civic institutions, involved in the creation of community and its boundaries above the town level. Within the territory of the old Ijebu kingdom, Agemo is, apart from the assemblies of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn, one of the associations that demarcates the boundary between Ijebu and Remo. For the kingdom’s towns close to Ijebu-Ode, the annual Agemo festival takes place in IjebuOde, where the ruler or Awùjalè acts as a conqueror’s descendant while the Agemo leaders represent an original population.35 Among the participating Ijebu towns, representation at the festival reflects internal differentiation, and at present, the Agemo leaders of sixteen communities travel there to dance, while others take part in the festival without dancing. During the procession of the Agemo leaders and their followers to Ijebu-Ode, female worshippers and bystanders must traditionally take care not to ‘see’ the priest. Illustrating the greater symbolic distance of the Remo towns from IjebuOde, every Remo town celebrates the local Agemo festival independently of Ijebu-Ode. As there is no Remo-wide Agemo festival, this means that a particular constellation of Agemo masks and rituals is specific to each town. However, there is a structural agreement among the Remo towns in that all of them recognise (and usually possess) two distinct categories of Agemo masks: the Olírè, a group of tall, broad, raffia-clad dancing masks widely perceived as moving smoothly (òfíyòwò) and often approachable by women, as well as the Àsà, which are broader masquerades that often produce an

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Agemo outing (Photo: Insa Nolte) extraordinary display and are considered to be very powerful and fierce. For example, the Àsà mask Ajóféyìgbó publicly gives birth to smaller masks, while Oníwùrìwú, which is distinguished by feathers, often ends the display and clears the ground from the dangers left behind by other masks, chasing away women and children who come too close to it in the process. While many towns are linked by sharing specific Agemo masks and rituals, the historical depth, or its discursive use, of political fissures and alliances in the Remo towns is reflected in the multiplicity and heterogeneity of Agemo practice. In most Remo towns, the Agemo festival includes the ‘outings’ of several Agemo masks, all distinguished by the display of mats rather than cloth. No town ‘owns’ all Agemo, and their hierarchy may vary from one town to the next. Different Agemo are considered to be distinct spiritual beings: they are of different sizes and have different songs which accompany their outings. Depending on the towns’ individual histories, male and female worshippers as well as the towns’ rulers and chiefs have different roles in the festivals. In many Remo towns, women may see most Agemo outings, although they must often uncover their heads or even upper bodies to show their respect during such encounters. In some towns, including Sonyindo, Agemo also has female priests called Alásè Obìnrin. But as in Ijebu-Ode, many Agemo festivals in Remo include a reversal of roles in which the rulers and masquerades participate in encounters that suggest the ‘earlier’ authority of

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Agemo before the arrival or establishment of obaship. As in encounters with the Òsùgbó and Orò, the oba takes on a role of structural opposition to the association in which he acts as the descendant of a conqueror or dependant, or sometimes, depending on context and interpretation, both. Mirroring the Òsùgbó’s link to Orò, Agemo is also associated with a senior spirit of communal ancestry and morality.36 In the case of Agemo, this spirit is called Èlúkú and is widely believed to have originated in the town Iraye. One of the best guarded civic associations in Remo, Èlúkú, must not be seen by anyone but male initiands although it is, unlike Orò, frequently regarded as a female deity.37 Although the Agemo association continues to be constituted by initiation and oath, membership and the permission to see Èlúkú are often reserved for very few senior members of families with a claim to having been among the earliest settlers in Remo. Today Èlúkú is widely perceived as more powerful spiritually than Orò, which is reflected in its evocation of the power of the leopard in the popular imagination. However, although Èlúkú chastens those who displease it, it is rarely involved in popular politics in the same way as Orò. Èlúkú burial practice, which involves the wrapping and drying of the deceased in raffia mats, evokes the appearance of the Agemo masquerades.38 However, on another level, Agemo practice itself can resemble that of Orò. Importantly, women also have the power to protest and threaten exposure in relation to Agemo. Thus, Ogunba (1967: 400–1) reports that the women of Ode Remo protested against a planned move of the town by coming out at the annual festival of Agemo Ferewá and registering their dissent through song. According to Ogunba, the tumult the women sparked off was tremendous. Although many people had already built houses in the proposed site, the community capitulated to the women’s demands. The influential song is remembered to this day: Ferewá dé yún o Ferewá dé yún o Ferewá dé yún Agérige o Ó yée re Ferewá has arrived from coming and going [will no longer migrate] Ferewá has arrived from coming and going [will no longer migrate] Ferewá has arrived from coming and going [will no longer migrate] to Agege That is all (Ogunba 1967: 401) As in Orò practice, the different powers of the oba and Agemo are also sometimes linked to the aspirations of different communities, both above and below the town level. For example, today the town of Ode Remo includes the older town of Iraye as both a quarter and an independent town, and

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the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo is widely recognised as politically senior to the N:lokú of Iraye. However, alluding to narratives that refer to Iraye’s age and suggest a reversal of relationships,39 during the town’s Agemo festival the Aláyé Odè has to provide one of the sacrificial he-goats as well as food and drink for the Agemo members and their supporters, while the N:lokú of Iraye receives part of the sacrifice.40 As suggested by Agemo’s refraction of the relationship between Iraye and Ode Remo, Agemo is closely linked to the history of many Remo towns and quarters. This is particularly evident in the narratives surrounding individual Agemo. Thus the break-up of an early, probably pre-nineteenth century, joint settlement of the Remo towns Ilisan, Ikenne and Emuren near the river Uren was precipitated when Emuren’s Agemo Èmùrèn (as with many Olírè masks, this name indicates the mask’s claim to be a ‘ruler’ of the town) was exposed in a joint celebration and the town subsequently moved to Ijede, Iddo island and finally to its present site in southern Remo (Taiwo 1979: 1–2; Soriyan 1991: 19–20). Probably in reflection of Emuren’s many migrations as well as its age, a large number of Remo towns possess an Agemo Èmùrèn, whose role often represents the status of the family or residential group associated with it. But different Agemo do not simply represent communities’ historical relationships, they also represent the continuing interpretation and revaluation of these relationships in the present. As the incident with Agemo Èmùrèn illustrates, the treatment or behaviour of Agemo in any particular town is understood as the treatment of the towns or communities associated with it, and depending on the context it may thus impact on relationships between different sections of the town or even on relationships between towns. The exposure or privileging of an Agemo mask associated with a particular town or group can be understood as the humiliation or honouring of that town or group. If publicised, such an incident can lead to recriminations and hostilities as well as to closer relationships and alliances. Thus, like the relationships between rulers’ personas and the regular meetings of the Osùgbó and other town representatives, Agemo enables towns, as well as groups within towns, to negotiate their relationships with each other through the fluid interpretation of different levels of symbolic action. The focus on the representation and unity of the town represented in different ways by the oba and the Osùgbó and Agemo associations was also present in other institutions in Remo. Frequently, institutions that rose to political power were associated with the worship and celebration of local deities (òrìsà), pointing to the inherent political importance of the spiritual – and vice versa – in Remo, and Yoruba, politics. For example, Òrìsà Balùfòn only plays a minor political role in most Remo towns, where it is associated with the display of beauty and wealth by women. Wearing the newest aso òkè (woven cloth) designs and baring their chests or, today, their bare

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shoulders, the female followers of Balùfòn use the festivals to show off their beads, hairstyles and sometimes their daughters to the community, praising the òrìsà for giving women the powers to enrich the community through industriousness, beauty and reproduction. Male worshippers of Balùfòn also dance, but stay outside the circle formed by the women (Soriyan 1991: 67–8). However, the role of òrìsà Balùfòn in the town Sonyindo illustrates the great variation among the ritual calendars, hierarchies and gendered forms of politicised public display in the Remo towns. Depending on their relevance within the town, powerful roles could be taken on by groups of only minor importance elsewhere. Closely associated with both Igbein (an Egba town now in Abeokuta) and Sonyindo (now in Sagamu), Balùfòn is described as the mother of the Òdòfin, the ruler of Sonyindo. Because of jealousy, she was sent into exile in Ijebu-Ode, where she turned into black water. Meanwhile, Sonyindo suffered from numerous diseases, which only disappeared when the town worshipped Balùfòn as an òrìsà in a way which involved an act of contrition and a sacrifice by the oba, who submits to the ‘parental’ authority of the òrìsà. This submission is re-enacted every year during Sonyindo’s Balùfòn festival. Confirming the ritual importance of Balùfòn for the town, the chief priest of the Balùfòn grove in Sonyindo bears the title Olúmalè, usually one of the highest Orò or, less frequently, Èlúkú titles. In the past, the three chiefs of Sonyindo involved in Balùfòn’s propitiation carried much ritual weight and had ritual power very similar to that of the oba, so that meetings between them and the king, like meetings between oba, Òsùgbó and Agemo in many other towns, had to be carefully monitored and accompanied by sacrifices.41 The present-day practice of Balùfòn in Ilara illustrates that traditional institutions, including òrìsà, continued to play an important role in the transformation of local political practice during the twentieth century. Before Sonyindo’s move to Sagamu in the latter half of the nineteenth century, the town was situated near an earlier settlement site of Ilara, and it is likely that Balùfòn worship spread to nearby Ilara through everyday interactions. However, it has only become prominent in Ilara during the twentieth century, after a concerted British and missionary campaign in the 1920s and 1930s against the òrìsà Olúwayé, also frequently called Sònpònnón, whose devotees were suspected of spreading smallpox.42 Olúwayé has, on the surface, disappeared from public worship in most Remo communities. However, in Ilara, a link of Balùfòn and Olúwayé has enabled a survival of the threatened deity while simultaneously transferring much of its power to Balùfòn. During the Balùfòn festival, Ilara’s oba and a female priest move in a procession to a shrine associated with the local òrìsà Líder ù. The woman carries an ancient bronze head, called Oban;ta like one of the mythical founders of the Ijebu kingdom, to the shrine, which is known to belong to Líder ù’s husband

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Obanta head (Ilara) (Photo: Insa Nolte)

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Egúngún masquerade (Photo: Insa Nolte) Olúwayé. (Oba S. Adekoya, 8 March 1998). Thus, apart from Balùfòn, her festival in Ilara also celebrates Olúwayé and Líder ù, thus both merging with and covering an important royal festival linked to an òrìsà suppressed by the colonial state. In addition to the above, a number of other òrìsà were important in the cycle of royal festivals in different Remo towns. These included widely known òrìsà such as Ògún, Èsù, Òsun and Sàngó43 as well as òrìsà linked to Ijebu-Ode. These include Osi, associated with the worship of royal skulls from all over the former Ijebu kingdom in Ijebu-Ode by the Awùjalè, and Jabajábá, an òrìsà similarly associated with the propitiation of royal skulls – usually also called osi – within many towns. Many Remo towns keep their rulers’ earliest skulls in Ijebu-Ode and later ones in a special place within the town’s spiritual infrastructure, and Osi and Jabajábá have joint ‘outings’ and celebrations in many towns.44 More locally based òrìsà included the deity Olúweri, which is linked to the river Uren that runs through northern Remo and Ijebu. In his memoirs, Obafemi Awolowo remembers that even in the early twentieth century, when he was a child, most people held the fish of the river Uren to be sacred and did not catch them. Attempts of early Christians in Ikenne, to whom Awolowo’s father belonged, to catch the fish led to violent conflict not only with the priests of Olúweri but with the leading chiefs of the town in 1905 (Awolowo 1960: 2–5). However, òrìsà did not only merge, link or collude with other òrìsà to

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reflect changing relations of power within and outside the town, they also influenced political practice more directly. For example, òrìsà Líder ù (linked to Olúwayé and Balùfòn in Ilara) was introduced to the town Ode Remo from Ilara by the woman Iyingbola who married into Larufi compound. During the second half of the nineteenth century, one of Iyingbola’s female descendants, Asetun, became an important and wealthy woman. Asetun had perpetuated the worship of Líder ù in Ode Remo, and eventually planted pairs of her òrìsà’s trees near the oba’s palace and on the marketplace. Later, she accepted a chieftaincy title and became the Òtun;ba Der ù. Due to Asetun’s prominence, Òtun;ba Der ù is an important title in Ode Remo today, and Líder ù worship has become prominent. However, it is mainly associated with traditional chieftaincy installations (The Community News 1996). By the mid-nineteenth century the Egúngún masquerade was also prominent in many Remo towns. Individual family histories suggest that the Egúngún in existence by the early nineteenth century reflected local links to the Egba towns west of Remo. However, it is likely the masquerade only came to greater prominence later in the nineteenth century, when the Oyo refugees settling in Remo brought their Egúngún with them, and today many of the most popular Remo Egúngún speak in an Oyo dialect (Ojo 1976; Babayemi 1980: 28). Evoking individual ancestors and figures of importance, Egúngún masquerades are usually worn by young men who compete for valour and the most beautiful costumes on behalf of their families. Oyo historian Babayemi (1980: 41–3) points out that although the Egúngún festival encourages competition among families, it also facilitates the self-perception among the participating youths as the joint bearers of responsibility for the community. In Remo, families, quarters and towns may be in control of Egúngún performance, and Egúngún outings both confirm and challenge the relationships within and between communities at different levels. Some towns, such as Makun and Batoro, have never allowed Egúngún performance, irrespective of family traditions.45 In towns where certain quarters had a strong corporate identity, such as in Ilisan’s Iworu quarter, the Egúngún of other sections of the town were banned, and the transgression of quarter boundaries by masquerades from other parts of the town was understood as violent aggression. Where Egúngún has acted in a primarily political way in the twentieth century, for example through boundary transgressions or the embarrassment of local leaders or party candidates, such actions were usually tied to a divergence of interest expressed as a conflict between towns and town quarters, not families.46 Thus disputes between the towns Makun and Ofin, now both quarters of Sagamu, have often involved Egúngún incursions from Ofin to Makun. While the multitude of layers of political authority extant in the Remo

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towns today suggests that towns were able to assimilate new practices and integrate them into their ritual and politics over time, this process was probably not always peaceful. Thus the popular conversion to Christianity and, to a lesser degree, Islam from the late nineteenth century onwards led to a number of violent conflicts. Muslims and Christians clashed with important town associations, including the oba, the Òsùgbó and important town chiefs in several Remo towns both before and after the introduction of colonial rule. But after the first two decades of colonial rule, the local desire to assimilate and include into town politics different forms of power may have contributed to the adaptation of Christianity to local conditions and methods of dealing with the spiritual (Peel 1968). House burials, naming ceremonies, the ritual use of pepper, fish and kola, and drumming were integrated into the practices of the mission churches. Other churches, starting with the African church and the ‘prayer’ churches founded from the 1920s onwards, adapted Christianity to local practices like polygamy, female priesthood and the spiritual aspects of the fight against disease. The productive cultural and intellectual environment created by the introduction of literacy and monotheism into Remo not only led to an Africanisation of Christian beliefs and practices, it also engendered changes in local traditional practice. For example, the great success of the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity (ROF) in Remo was a sign that Christian groups emulated town associations like the Òsùgbó. The ROF had been founded in 1914 by the Anglican Reverend T. A. J. Ogunbiyi in Lagos. A member of the Òsùgbó in Lagos, Ogunbiyi believed that Christians would benefit from an organisation which enforced solidarity like the Òsùgbó.47 Ogunbiyi’s idea was very successful, and ROF enclaves, complete with officers who held Òsùgbó-style titles, spread to Remo in the 1930s and 1940s. The ROF never replaced the original Òsùgbó, but constituted another layer of ‘traditional’ organisation that existed in competition and collaboration with other interest groups. Similarly, the explicitly traditional Ogboni Aboriginal Society,48 geared towards promoting understanding and contacts among traditional worshippers beyond the more strictly defined boundaries of the local Òsùgbó, thrived. groups based on joint residence and descent: quarters (itún) and families (ilé)

Overlapping with and existing both in response to and as the makers of a town’s civic associations, groups based on residence and descent played an important role in the town. Abstract local explanations usually refer to an ideal political geography in which several ilé make up a quarter or itún, and several itún make up the town (Adekoya 1994).49 Like the communities represented by the town’s associations, and like the towns and communities mobilised by them, families (ilé)50 and quarters (itún) frequently denoted

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groups with fluid boundaries. Families sharing a residence were usually represented as corporate bodies by the oldest male family member, the baálé, whose authority might also include dependants in residence and other family members elsewhere. In closely defined quarters, a quarter ‘head’ or olórítún represented corporate concerns, and he sometimes had his own group of chiefs representing important families or institutions within the quarter. However, in the struggle over the representation of corporate interests within the town, the boundaries between families, quarters and towns was often unstable. As illustrated by examples in this chapter, both families and quarters were also frequently associated with the control of particular institutions and associations. In many Remo settlements, contemporary quarters represent formerly independent towns. Some of these quarters were politically and topographically incorporated into another town. Early examples include the old Remo town Iraye, which became part of Ode Remo early in the nineteenth century. Iraye’s political institutions remained intact during this incorporation. Other quarters whose inhabitants claim town status migrated to other towns after their destruction in the nineteenth century with their Òsùgbó and other town associations. Examples include Idarika and Idena, which moved to Iperu, and Idotun, which moved to Ikenne. A third group of quarters with widely recognised town status is constituted by the towns whose inhabitants moved together to form Sagamu between 1866 and 1872. While several of the towns that became quarters during the nineteenth century existed without rulers for a period of time, they brought their own Òsùgbós and numerous other associations with them to the new settlement. Because of their ownership of these institutions, they perceived themselves, and were perceived by others, as towns in their own right. In this book, these communities are referred to both as towns and quarters depending on the context, but with an emphasis on their town status. While only quarters that possess an Òsùgbó are recognised as towns, smaller, differently constituted (sub-)quarters may play an important role within their towns, making possible the existence of communities within communities almost ad infinitum, often to the level of families (Peel 1983: 222) and below. Thus the town Makun (now a quarter of Sagamu) is constituted by the five main quarters Agbowa, Ojutun, Alara, Emuko and Isote, which are themselves divided into yet smaller sections. Like the new quarters in Sagamu and elsewhere, many older quarters in Remo are associated with group movements from particular settlements. Such quarters usually have histories pointing out that they migrated independently of other parts of the town to their present site, or that they derive from a formerly independent town. Examples include Ikenne’s Idomole quarter, which is linked to a group of migrants from the Awori town Iseri. This quarter also plays a distinctive political role, as Idomole is linked to the

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creation of Ikenne’s first Òsùgbó and asserts control over the town’s Olúwo title. Similarly, Ode Remo’s Kanna quarter is loosely linked to the Líkànnà chieftaincy title and to narratives linking the town to the Egba settlement Ikanna. Reflecting the long migration history of many towns, quarters originally constituted by members of another community, who may have resettled after a conflict with their community of origin or stayed behind when their community of origin decided to move, exist in almost all towns. Thus Ikenne has an Ode and an Oko quarter founded by former residents of Ode Remo and Oko (now in Sagamu) respectively, and both Makun and Isara have an Alara quarter made up originally of Ilara citizens who refused to move with their fellow citizens during different migrations.51 Quarters of migrants often exercise control over land formerly associated with their town of origin, and they may control titles or even dominate important civic associations or masquerades. It is likely that the transformation of the previously independent towns into de facto quarters in Sagamu and Remo’s other towns during the nineteenth century, discussed in the next chapter, was both an imitation and an innovation of older processes of community foundation, break-up and multiplication, which were both the source and the result of a constant competition for power and history at different levels of community. Thus local narratives also suggest that, over time, some formerly independent communities have lost all or most of their civic associations and become mere town quarters. Narratives emanating from Moro quarter in the town Ikenne suggest that the Moro community once had a royal ruler who migrated from Ile-Ife separately from the rest of the town (Soriyan 1991: 34–6). However, today Moro has neither an oba nor an Òsùgbó. It does, however, have an Orò association that stands apart from and regularly competes with the town’s other Orò (Odunlami 1981: 33). In many parts of Remo, the contest over the exact status of communities within a larger settlement is a driving force in local politics. Claims to town status are projected into the past by ambitious local leaders representing their communities with varying degrees of success. The success of such projections not only requires links to the local or state government, but also the ability to mobilise popular support for the creation (or, as internal discourse would have it, revival) of the most important town associations, including, primarily, the Òsùgbó, but also Orò, obaship and other groups. The successful repression of the creation of new towns in turn requires the ability to prevent the secret meetings that confirm a community’s independence. However, as the increase in the number of local towns is also understood as part of local progress, the tendency has been for quarters of individual Remo towns to successfully gain independent town status throughout the twentieth century. As quarters aspiring to become independent towns sometimes represent

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communities that continue to exist elsewhere, town and community names have been duplicated and indeed multiplied as a result of this process. For example, the former Ilaye quarter of the town Sonyindo in Sagamu, which was recognised as an independent town during the 1990s, was one of eight Ilayes in Sonyindo. Also recognised in the 1990s, the new Sagamu town Agura, formerly a quarter of the town Ofin, shares the name of a famous Egba town (now a quarter in Abeokuta). At the same time, the sheer number of disputes over the status of Remo quarters that aspire to town status suggests that a community’s status is not only subject to contemporary negotiation with the state and grassroots mobilisation, but also to external recognition. External acknowledgement is rarely symmetrical, and depends on many factors. Where local support is strong, it may even involve the projection back in history of a town’s existence. Raniken was recognised as a town with a crowned ruler within Sagamu in the 1990s. Pointing to close links between political community and origin, Raniken emerged within the town Ofin on land held by a family of the same name. Unlike Ilaye and Agura, however, Raniken was also included in a recent publication on Sagamu’s history as one of Sagamu’s founding towns (Onasoga 1989: 6).52 While communities such as towns and quarters are normally envisaged as constituted by a number of families, the case of Raniken suggests that the boundaries between families, quarters and towns are frequently contested. When a settlement is still small and not yet widely known, family disputes over the community can even encompass its name. Thus the Sotubo family claims the rulership over the new mechanics’ village of Sotubo south of Sagamu, which has been built partly on their land. However, in 2004 the Oje royal family of the town Ijagba in Sagamu pointed out that Sotubo was also partly built on their land. Moreover, it was built on almost the same spot where Ijagba had been situated before its move to Sagamu. As the founders of the original Ijagba, speakers of the Oje family claimed that they were automatically the founders of the new settlement on their land, and the current ruler of Ijagba has signposted the disputed settlement with the name of Orile Ijagba (The Western Post 2004b, 2004c). This dispute illustrates not only the potentially political nature even of community names, but also the malleability of boundaries between groups constituted by residence and by descent.53 Several scholars have focused on the social and political structures created by descent among the Yoruba, and Lloyd (1955a) has suggested that Yoruba descent groups are overwhelmingly constituted by segmentary patrilineages, in which members trace their shared origin from a lineage founder. Lineages hold property, land and titles to which individuals may have rights or for which they may compete. When lineage rights are contested, for example during a land or chieftaincy dispute, lineages may divide, often in segments that can be traced to the children of different wives of an ancestor. In some

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Sign in Sotubo indicating Orile Ijagba (Photo: Insa Nolte) communities in the eastern Ondo, Ijebu and Remo polities, individuals can also trace their descent through the patrilineages of female relatives (Lloyd 1966).54 Observation and documentary evidence suggest that individuals in Remo frequently and successfully trace their descent through maternal lines, although in some circumstances such connections tend to be seen as lower in status than a paternal link.55 Despite the undisputed importance of descent in the assertion of individual and group rights within the town, descent is closely intertwined with the idea of shared residence (Barber 1991: 156–67). The Yoruba term ilé, which is locally translated with the equally fluid term family, denotes both a descent group and its compound, where core members of patrilineages or their segments live with their wives, more distant relatives and even lodgers. Depending on circumstances, families or ilé are mobilised in very different ways: while only the members of the family based on descent may be able to compete for chieftaincy titles, all members of a family compound are expected to be exogamous. At the same time, individuals in Remo draw on and mobilise family including their patrilineage, co-residents and a wide range of maternal links to gain access to land, education, business links and other resources. Many people understand their ability to draw on and mobilise the family ties available to them as a reflection of their ­individuality,

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which is indicated by the unique position only they and possibly their full siblings share within the web of relationships that constitutes the town and its relationships to its neighbours. Family ties are both constituted by and constituent of town politics, as well as a range of other concerns, including respect and honour. Their fluidity and dependence on consent is often illustrated by land or chieftaincy disputes. In 1980, Adeilo Adefulu of the Remo town Ilisan was installed as the town’s oba. He was elected as a member of the royal Agaigi family, whose turn it had been to present the royal candidate. However, some of Adefulu’s relatives from the Agaigi family bitterly resented the fact that Adefulu’s son Yemi, who had held a political office between 1979 and 1983, had used his political connections to ensure his father’s installation instead of respectfully awaiting the family’s decision. These members of the Agaigi family now argued that oba Adefulu was only related to the family through his mother, and that he had therefore not been recognised as a member of the family at the time of his ascension to office, invalidating the election. After a drawnout court case, Adefulu’s installation was indeed declared void in 1989. However, after his dethronement, Adefulu was successfully reconciled with the opposing section of the Agaigi family, and they eventually put Adefulu forward as his own successor, arguing that now the maternal link had been recognised an election would be valid. Adefulu was installed for the second time in 1990 and reigned until 1996 (Awoderu 2004: 28–39). The importance of mutual agreement even for membership in descent groups is highlighted by the importance of different forms of social contracts in the construction of family relationships. Fadipe (1970: 118–19) emphasised that kinship could be created through the choice of the parties involved, as in the case of adoption, or through the choice of one group and the tacit acceptance of the other, as in the assimilation of redeemed slaves or other groups that share a residence or interest with the ‘receiving’ family. Finally, everyday conflicts at the family level are resolved through spiritually sanctioned agreements, or oaths, which again point to the recognition that even relationships of descent are only viable if they exist on the basis of collective consent: Whenever [the elders] saw a glimpse of greed or hatred among their children or among the family, the oath system is [sic] adopted …   The Royal Fathers still perform their duties by calling on their Apena or the man competent to perform the oath taking for the people in the palace. The oath takers pay a certain sum of money, and on the fixed date, the oath is taken.   The people are relieved of their fears and unrest of mind about their kinsmen immediately the oath is taken. The oath takers repose confidence in themselves [i.e. each other]. They have free mind to call on one another’s place of abode on visits, they eat with confidence at

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Women preparing food for a family meeting (Photo: Insa Nolte) each other’s residence, the belief that one person will poison or injure each other is out of their minds. (Ayodele 2004: 117–18) While shared origin, like shared residence and interest, constitutes a basis for mobilisation in many towns, shared ties of migration also unite groups from different towns. Expanding through intermarriage, migration and the contextuality of ascriptions of descent, Remo’s powerful families tend to be associated with compounds and quarters in many towns, sometimes even beyond Remo. Thus the family of the business magnate and hotelier S. K. Onafowokan, the current Asíwájú of Remo,56 has branches in Ijebu-Ode and Ijesa (an Ijebu town with strong links to Remo), several towns in Sagamu, Ikenne and Ikorodu (a Remo town which is presently part of Lagos state). The multiplicity of family ties, and the range of locations associated with them, create a matrix in which an individual can attempt to realise her or his success. As an individual can mobilise family links even to establish her- or himself in another town, the very flexibility and contextuality of family ties again confirms the importance of consent in the maintenance and expansion of any community. participation and cooperation in the rémo métàlélógbòn

While the decisions of the rulers in the great metropoles of Oyo, Benin and Ijebu-Ode were of importance to the smaller towns within their sphere of influence, the political landscape of Remo and elsewhere was also

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c­ haracterised by more republican traditions. Emulating the meetings of the Òsùgbó that operated at the town level, town representatives met for regular town assemblies not only in Remo, but also in the Awori and Egba towns to the west of Remo, as well as in the Ijebu towns to their east, and quite possibly beyond. It is therefore very likely that the ascription of political identities in this context depended not only on the great empires, but also on the participation of individual towns and their representatives in fora for the discussion and deliberation of common concerns and interests. On the basis of present knowledge it is impossible to suggest either a beginning in time and space for these assemblies or their exact political scope over time. However, it is likely that by the first half of the nineteenth century, the Remo towns were organised within the Ijebu kingdom as a unity of thirty-three, and called their group the Rémo Métàlélógbòn or 33 Remo [towns]. Despite the confident assertion of the number 33 in the name Rémo Métàlélógbòn, there is no agreement on the exact number and membership of this group and it would seem impossible to reconstruct the names of the ‘original’ thirty-three towns today. While the group may at first have consisted of thirty-three towns, it is likely that, in a society which also valued numbers for their beauty (Verran 2001) the name of Rémo Métàlélógbòn was partly chosen for its aesthetic appeal.57 Reverend David Onadele Epega, one of Remo’s first published historians, describes the Remo town assemblies in detail: Nigba laelae awon Remo a ma se ajo (ipade) nla kan eyiti o nmu awon ilu 33 yi pejo po. Ninu apejo na ni won i ma gbero ohun ti iyo ma mu alafia wa si – Remo li ono ti irubo, ise owo ati ogun pe bi ogun ba de, ki won le ma fi imo sokan. Idarika ni ibiti won yan lati ma pade. (Epega [1919] 1934: 26) In the old days, the Remo people used to organise a certain big assembly or meeting which brought the 33 Remo towns together to convene. At this assembly, they [the towns] would consider the issues that could improve well-being in Remo towns through sacrifice, business activities and war. Also, if a war threatened one of them, they would all know about it. Idarika was the place they chose in order to meet there. Epega portrays the Remo towns as a group that defined itself through institutionalised cooperation and discussion, much like a regional federation. On the basis of shared interests, the towns’ representatives renewed their agreement to cooperate during regular assemblies at Idarika. During these meetings the representatives discussed matters of common concern, including business interests and conflicts as much as spiritual questions. The place of assembly, Idarika, was centrally located near the present Iperu and is indicated on Map 1.

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66

obafemi awolowo and the making of remo Kemta

N

Iporo Ake Ikereku Ijeun

E G B A Isan

Itoro

Erunba

Oko

Ilogbo

Ikanna Ipara Isara Iraye Ilara* Akaka Igbore Ode Remo Eposo Ogunmogbo Idarika Ogere Imo Ijesa Idena R. Iperu O na Irolu Ilisan Igbein Ikenne* Sonyindo Okun-Owa Ofin Ipoji Batoro Ijokun Oko Odo Layanra Epe Ijagba* Afo Odo Lowu1 Latawa Ilakan Makun* Aba Ode Lemo 2

Itori

REMO

Ijebu-Ode Idowa

R. Ib u

Ogijo 2

IJEBU R.

R . Og

O ru wu

un

Iseri

Emuren*

Ikosi

Ejinrin

Ikorodu

Epe

AWORI THE REMO TOWNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS, c.1800 Latawa Lagos

Remo town or settlement

*

Highly mobile town - this is one of several settlements occupied in the 18th/19th century

1

Odo Lowu was founded by refugees from Owu c.1821

2

Ode Lemo and Ogijo were probably founded in the 19th century 0

*

30

kilometres

Map 1 The Remo towns and their neighbours, c.1800 (Source: Author’s research)

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In the Ijebu kingdom, the Rémo Métàlélógbòn group of towns existed side by side with other, similar federated assemblies.58 Ijebu historian Badejo Adebonojo (1990: 75) maintains that while the Remo towns met in Idarika, the settlements east of Remo had a number of assembly places. He suggests that meetings were held in Jobore for the northeastern Ijebu towns up to and including the communities that make up Ijebu-Igbo. Like Remo, these towns claim a past semi-independent status within Ijebu today (Odunlami 2001: 52, 56). Other meetings were held in Imapako for the southern lagoon towns near Epe-Ijebu, in Mogunpa (Imogupa) for the towns in the Alekun area east of present-day Remo and in Imusin for a large number of small towns east of Ijebu-Ode and down to Makun Omi and Iwopin in the area known today as Ijebu Waterside.59 Although there were several assembly venues throughout the Ijebu kingdom, the most important meeting place was Imowo (Imowu), centrally located between Ijebu-Ode, Ijebu-Igbo and Ijebu-Ife. Adebonojo (1990: 75) describes Imowo as ibi àpérò àgbájopò, a place of assembly of a united group of people. West and northwest of Remo, the Awori and Egba groups of towns were organised in a similar manner. Thus the Awori towns held a monthly assembly at Ojukotopo near Ijanikin to discuss disputes within the group as well as to negotiate and confirm boundaries (Ajetunmobi 2003: 43). Biobaku equally describes the Gbagura, Oke-Ona and Alake groups as ‘provincial federations’ who were in charge of a number of internal concerns although their external relations depended, until the successful Egba rebellion of the 1770s, on imperial Oyo. After the revolt, the Egba towns were also responsible for their own military defence both against Dahomey and Oyo (Biobaku [1957] 1991: 3–10). According to Biobaku, the hierarchy among the Egba towns was fairly flat and authority was shared: These provincial federations … appear to be the result of compromises whereby, if one town supplied one aspect of authority, another provided another aspect. (Biobaku [1957] 1991: 7) Unlike in Ijebu and Remo, where the towns of assembly had no role of political leadership, Biobaku suggests that among the Egba Gbagura, Oke-Ona and Alake, the towns of assembly – Iddo, Oko and Ake respectively – had the role of capitals. Consequently, the rulers and civic institutions of these towns were also the arbiters of conflict between towns in the group ([1957] 1991: 3–4, 7–8). It is likely that this process reflected an internal stratification that followed the end of (Old) Oyo’s dominance over the Egba towns. In Ijebu and Remo, the towns of assembly did not take on this role. While the Remo town of assembly, Idarika, never became a Remo capital, neither was the assembly place moved to Ofin, which had emerged as the leading Remo town by the nineteenth century. It is likely that this lack of centralisation reflected Ijebu-Ode’s ongoing political and spiritual

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

control over the different assemblies: in Remo, the Kakan'fò, one of IjebuOde’s important officials based in the capital’s west-facing Ikanigbo quarter, was responsible for ensuring that the Remo towns were kept informed of and continued to support imperial policy (Ayantuga 1965: 54). Thus the dominant role played by Ijebu-Ode in Remo affairs until the second half of the nineteenth century may have delayed local stratification. Despite the importance of outside control for local centralisation, most of the internal dynamics of town federations, including leadership, appear to have been influenced by internal factors. For example, the Egba town Kesi was at one time the dominant town in the Egba Alake (then Agbeyin) group, but later its position was taken over by Ake with the help of its omo ìyá or maternal sibling [towns] Kemta, Ijeun, Iporo and Itoku (Biobaku [1957] 1991: 3–4). Ake is recognised as the Egba Alake capital today. Similarly, and mirroring local narratives of royal agency, a number of Remo histories suggest that the town Ofin, established firmly as the Remo capital today, probably took over as the leading town in Remo some time after the assemblies had been first held. According to Epega, Ofin took over the headship from Epe after an even earlier change of leadership within the group: Awon ara Ogunmogbo li o ti ko nje olori ipada na. Sugbon nitoripe won feran lati ma si kakiri ju bani won, ki lo tan ni ilu gbogbo ti won ntedo, ipo na bo lowo won nitori ainirepo. Nigbose ipo olori ajo (ipade) Remo wa bo si owo ara Epe. 1. Won fi ara Ofin se Ibikeji. 2. Ara Ilara ibiketa. 3. Ara Ogunmogbo ibikerin: Won je asipa. Ara Ilisan ibikarun &c.  Awon ara Epe je eniyon onipele inkan kin pe su won. Apa ni ara Ofin npe won: nitorina awon ara Ofin ji jadu won si gba ipo ekini lowo awon ara Epe. (Epega [1919] 1934: 26–7) Ogunmogbo people were to be in charge of the [town] assemblies. However, because they were in disagreement among themselves, they scattered the town they had founded, and their position slipped away from them because of their discord. Afterwards, the Epe people assumed the position of presiding over the Remo meetings. The Ofin were put in second position, and the Ilara were in third place. Ogunmogbo held the fourth place; they were Asípa [responsible for informing others, locally translated as ‘secretary’]. The fifth place was given to Ilisan people.   The Epe people were of mild character and quickly got tired. The Ofin people taunted them: therefore the Ofin people fought them and won the first place from Epe people.

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The text suggests that, as in the Egba federations, authority was shared among the Remo towns in a complex network of alliances, and that the internal autonomy of the Remo group of towns allowed for a degree of stratification and competition within and through the assembly. However, the exact status of individual towns was probably always disputed. While some local historians re-evaluate the past in the light of the present and insist that Ofin must always have been the leading town in Remo, many find Epega’s ranking of the Remo towns incomplete or incorrect, and individual historians or groups in possession of history often put forward versions which increase the past glory of their town. Thus Oba Solomon Adekoya, the Alárá of Ilara, claims that Ilara was once the ‘first’ town in Remo, and that it let Epe share in the leadership of Remo before Ofin took over from both towns (8 March 1998). The importance of Ilara in early Remo history is confirmed by Onasanya and Oduyale (undated [probably 1990s]: 6, 14) and Oba Idowu Onadeko, the Odemo of Isara, although Onadeko suggests that Ilara was a junior ally to Isara (13 March 1998). However, even among powerful supporters of Ofin’s claims to past leadership, there is a general agreement about the fact that both Epe and Ilara were important early settlements in Remo. Apart from the representatives of towns in the assemblies of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn, members of other civic associations also attended regional assemblies to coordinate their decisions. Of particular importance were the Pàm'pá and the Lópèérèè associations, concerned with trade and warfare respectively. Throughout the Ijebu kingdom, the Pàm'pá functioned as an association of traders, although Ayandele (1970a: 235) suggests that its officials were initially in charge of defence and military matters.60 In most Remo towns, the Pàm'pá’s leaders were the Jagun, Akogun and Asípa, and they could sit with the Ìwàrèfà as judges on matters and crimes concerning commerce. Among the Remo towns, the Pàm'pá controlled market prices and settled market disputes as well as organising and coordinating public labour for work on roads, public buildings and town walls.61 Perhaps reflecting the prominence of the northern Remo towns in trade during the nineteenth century, Epega ([1919] 1934: 27) suggests that Ode Remo and Makun held a joint headship position of the Pàm'pá, while Isara and Iperu also held important positions. Town communities were also brought together in cooperation by the professional associations usually known as Egbé,62 some of which were also organised at the level of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn. Examples include the Egbé Babaláwo, or association of Ifá diviners, which according to Iyaláwo Bose Abatan (22 August 2002) had its centre in Ijagba (now in Sagamu). In particular young people were expected to contribute to their communities’ development and defence, both at the town level and beyond. Unlike in Ijebu-Ode, where age grades or Régbérégbé had great political influence,63

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

Ifá initiation (Photo: Insa Nolte) in Remo, such contributions were made through the warriors’ association, the Lópèérèè.64 Throughout Remo, all young men had to join the Lópèérèè and were banished from their towns if they refused to do so. The titles of the Lópèérèè reflect Oyo influence on this association, but unlike in Oyo, the leader or Balógun was not chosen by the ruler but elected by the association’s members. After his election he then awarded lower titles such as Sér íkí, Badà and Kakan'fò to his deputies. By the nineteenth century, the Oyo-derived female title Ìyálóde65 also existed in several Remo towns, and was often given to a woman whose wealth derived from and supported warfare. Confirming Ofin’s leadership position among the Remo towns, Abell suggests that Ofin was the leading town in the Remo Lópèérèè society.66 The disagreements over the status of individual towns within the Rémo Métàlélógbòn not only reflect the lines of conflict within the alliance but also illustrate, refracted through current and historical struggles, the importance of the federation for the towns that constituted it. But while competition characterised the relationships of many towns, others avoided competition by considering themselves omo ìyá or maternal siblings. Similar to the construction of equality among the leading Egba Alake towns, Ode Remo and Makun had the same status in all meetings at Idarika (Epega [1919] 1934: 27). Oba Ayoola Sonoiki, the Elépòsò of Eposo, also suggested that in the past Eposo and Ilisan were of the same rank, and that representatives of both towns used to make joint sacrifices whenever a new market was opened in Remo (5 March 1998). Through debate, cooperation and rivalry

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with other towns, individual towns negotiated their power within the group while at the same time confirming their identity as part of the group vis-àvis other towns. Similarly, struggles over the relationship between neighbouring federations of towns illustrate the importance of town assemblies as a political institution. Like the histories of individual towns, local knowledge about the assemblies often reflects both the projection of the present in the past and contemporary ambitions expressed as historical knowledge. Thus the Remo historian Epega noted that the assemblies in Imowo (Ijebu) and Idarika (Remo) were of similar status ([1919] 1934: 38). However, Ijebu historians have tended to describe Imowo as a general, annual assembly place for the entire kingdom, which was attended by representatives from both the Ijebu groups and the Remo federation (Adebonojo 1990: 75; Abiodun 2001: 128). Also, although the group membership of individual towns was constant for the majority of towns, it was not irrevocable. While the contested nature of local history makes it difficult to identify all towns whose allegiance changed in the past, there are some examples of changed affiliation. Among the Egba federations, the Egba Agura town Ilugun reportedly joined the Oke-Ona group after the title of its ruler was suppressed by Iddo (Biobaku [1957] 1991: 7). Similarly, the Remo towns of Ikorodu, Imota and Igbogbo became ‘Lagos’ towns after their inclusion into the Colony of Lagos during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As colonial boundaries often served as the basis for the creation of administrative units of the postcolonial state, these towns form part of Lagos state today. While these towns continue to stress their past within the Ijebu kingdom, I am not aware of any past or present popular movements to rejoin Remo or Ogun state within these communities.67 According to many Remo histories, several towns in the immediate east of Remo, including Ijesa, Agbowa and Okun-Owa – called Itakete in Remo narratives68 – were eastern Remo towns in the past.69 Remo claims to the towns of Odogbolu and Aiyepe are rarer (Ijebu Remo Historical Almanac 1933, quoted in Joshua 1989: 1). According to histories which include some or all of these towns in Remo’s past, the River Ona, also called Okomayan, east of Okun-Owa constituted the boundary between Ijebu and Remo until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, after which the boundary was redrawn to include these towns in Ijebu. The reason given for the reorientation of the purported former Remo towns in question include a disagreement between Ofin and the historically important town Okun-Owa over the nature of Remo’s internal hierarchy.70 The escalation of this conflict may in turn be linked to the population influx into the area east of Remo after the destruction of the nearby Owu kingdom in the 1820s. However, despite the strong historical links of some settlements in eastern

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

Ijebu to Remo, and irrespective of pro-Remo sentiments in parts of OkunOwa, Agbowa and Odogbolu, Remo claims to the towns immediately east of the contemporary Remo–Ijebu boundary are disputed even within Remo.71 The Remo historian Odunlami has argued that the pro-Remo sentiments in the eastern Ijebu towns are created entirely by family and other ties, and he has pointed out that a number of words are used in these towns which identify them more closely as Ijebu than as Remo. As several Agemo priests from the eastern Ijebu towns participate in Ijebu-Ode’s annual festival, the towns also clearly belong to Ijebu-Ode’s ritual sphere of influence (Babatunde A. Odunlami, 24 August 2005).72 Moreover, as the locally dominant town Okun-Owa was an important point of migration for the founders of many Remo towns, claims that it was once a Remo town may simply reflect ongoing attempts in Remo to sever historical links with Ijebu-Ode. However, the towns of Ilakan and Afo, now part of the new, eastern Ijebu settlement of Aiyepe, have been confirmed by the Aiyepe historian Oduye (1987: 15) as having close historical ties with Remo.73 Yet today, the colonial boundary drawn between Ijebu and Remo, which continues to demarcate the two areas, identifies Okun-Owa and the other towns discussed clearly as Ijebu towns.74 I did not come across any official town histories referring to a change of allegiance between an Egba or Awori group and Remo or vice versa, but unofficial forms of knowledge and practice, as well as past geographical proximity, suggest that boundaries especially between the Egba and Remo federations might have been fluid in the past. As Map 1 illustrates (see page 66), the Remo town Makun was at one time settled deep within what is today considered historical Egba Alake territory. Meanwhile, numerous Ijebu and Remo traditions claim Oko, the capital of the Egba Oke-Ona towns, as an original Ijebu settlement and later a Remo town. However, Oko’s historical role among the Egba Oke-Ona towns is undisputed and these claims are strongly rejected by present-day representatives of Oko.75 Moreover, many Egba and Remo towns continue to have quarters, titles and lineages as well as institutions and even – often suppressed or marginalised – town histories that point to close links with the ‘other’ side. It is therefore possible that some towns with a history of settlement and resettlement along the Egba– Remo boundary had close relations with more than one group of towns in the past. However, the groups of towns along the Egba–Remo boundary were unstable in more than one way, and solidarity among the Egba towns was quickly replaced in the early nineteenth century by a determined struggle of individual towns to participate in local wars at the expense of others, a process that contributed to the destruction of many towns until the confederate town of Abeokuta was founded (Biobaku [1957] 1991: 13–14). In Remo, the federation assemblies continued during the first half of the nine-

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teenth century, but, as the next chapter demonstrates, the wider regional conflict increasingly divided the towns from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. Eventually, the town of Idarika, the place of assembly for Remo, was destroyed in 1864. As Epega and other historians affirm that no meetings of the Remo towns took place after the destruction of Idarika (Epega [1919] 1934: 26; Macaulay Adekoya, 12 November 1996), it is likely that decisionmaking in the Remo assembly came to an end during this decade. conclusion

As illustrated above, by the nineteenth century the Remo towns were made up of a large number of overlapping institutions, including most importantly the ruler or oba and his chiefs, the Osùgbó, Orò, Agemo and Èlúkú associations and a number of other, often òrìsà-based, professional or residential groups as well as families, all of which were capable of focusing and mobilising political participation. Depending on the general circumstances and the kind of participation they mobilised, these institutions could either represent the town as united, or they could play an important role in the creation of communal boundaries and divisions below, or even at, the town level. Despite their great heterogeneity, most of these institutions, associations and groups legitimised their activities through narratives and practices alluding to the foundation and moral order of the town along locally accepted patterns. In a variety of histories and encounters, including those between oba and Osùgbó and other associations, but also in relationships between civic associations such as Orò and Èlúkú, the formally less powerful institution would claim to represent the community as an earlier, parental or autochthonous power. This pattern may reflect the particular nature of human settlement and political reform in Remo up to the nineteenth century, where different waves of immigration over centuries contributed to an ever-increasing complexity and multilayeredness of the towns’ institutions, in which obaship was the latest innovation (Ogunba 1967). However, a similar form of discourse has also been widely described – though usually with an exclusive focus on the ruler’s ritual encounters with other groups in the town – in discussions of ritual reversals of established political authority in Yoruba towns beyond Remo (Olupona 1991; Apter 1992; Pemberton and Afolayan 1996). In other West African towns too, ritual reversals of seniority, in which those with greater formal authority acknowledged the importance of others for the creation and well-being of the community, played an important part in local politics (see Parker 2000). Such ritual reversals of authority – and the explanations surrounding them – should not be understood as essentialist expressions of a complex philosophy of power in which belief and ritual practice enjoy a ‘privileged hermeticism’ that was ‘of but not truly in the remainder of historical experience’ (McCaskie 1995: 103). In all manner

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obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

of ways, the encounters and narratives that structured ritual reversals were both active interpretations of historical struggles and templates for contemporary conflicts. They constituted a grammar of conflict in which those holding political power were reminded of and confronted with the limitations of their office and the need for consent from the community. As this chapter has illustrated, Remo’s grammar of conflict was also a template for success in the maintenance of the community itself. Where the groups within a town or a larger community were able to agree on decisions in a way that created widespread consent, the community’s continued existence was not threatened. However, where a community was unable to maintain its own unity, the power of its dissenting groups could, in the worst case, undermine authority itself by destroying its basis, i.e. the community. Where, as in the case of Ogunmogbo and other less important Remo settlements, a town collapsed because of irreconcilable differences between its constituent groups, it could disappear completely. More frequently, the failure to create unity within the community resulted in its diminution. As the trajectories of the senior and formerly powerful towns of Ilara and Emuren respectively illustrate, when groups repeatedly left a town, for example during long migrations, their communities – and by extension their rulers and associations – lost influence and power vis-à-vis other towns. The existence of Ilara quarters and Agemo Èmùrèn masquerades in many other Remo towns suggests that their loss was the gain of other towns whose ritual complexity and population increased. However, if the existing grammar of conflict pointed to the imperative of popular consent as a basis for the cohesion and ultimately the power of a community vis-à-vis others, it also created silences about the opportunities arising from the transformation of a community. Today, the histories of individual quarters of families point to reasons for their out-migration, but cannot cover the changes following their leave-taking. At the level of town histories, narratives often reflect an ideal of growth and expansion as well as unanimity, and while they frequently refer to the changes associated with the influx of important groups, it is virtually impossible to gain historical information about the power shifts following a major population loss. However, historical evidence from Remo suggests that the break-up and subsequent transformation of a community also contained important opportunities. As the next chapter illustrates, internal disagreements within the Remo federation led to its fragmentation and reduction in size, but they were also instrumental in the rise of Ofin as Remo’s central town.

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3 the rise of sagamu

The collapse of the Remo federation reflected increasing divisions of local interests and ambitions, but these were in turn heavily influenced by the wider politics that affected both the Ijebu kingdom as a whole and Remo in particular in the nineteenth century. the end of the rémo métàlélógbòn

For several centuries, the political alliances of the Ijebu kingdom had fluctuated between the great empires of Benin and Oyo, locating the kingdom at the boundary of the region’s great political alliances. As one of the significant coastal powers in the Bight of Benin, the Ijebu kingdom had derived its wealth primarily from the tight control and taxation of passing trade, and it had held an entrepôt trading position at the crossroads of east–west and north–south trade routes. By the early nineteenth century, Benin’s influence in Ijebu had waned, and the Oyo Empire soon came under growing pressure from the expanding Sokoto Caliphate. As war led to the destruction of many northern Oyo towns including the capital (Old) Oyo, refugees moved south, where many of them were eventually sold as slaves.1 When the kingdom of Ife was believed to have allowed the sale of Oyo slaves in its markets, Oyo’s ally Owu, located to the northeast of Ijebu, mounted a punishing expedition against the Ife settlement Apomu, a market town frequented by many Ijebu traders. While Ife waited for an opportunity to take revenge, a dispute between traders in Apomu escalated into fighting in which the Owu intervened and many Ijebu traders lost their lives. Ijebu now allied itself to Ife, and their joint armies attacked Owu, where they were soon joined by a further wave of refugees from Oyo. In the resulting siege, Ijebu was able to introduce the use of firearms, obtained through its close contact with European traders. Eventually, the combined forces of Ife, Ijebu and some refugee Oyo armies destroyed Owu by or before 18252 (Johnson [1921] 1976: 206–9). After the destruction of Owu, the allies pursued the fleeing Owu southwestwards into Egba territory, although a number of Owu refugees also found refuge within the Ijebu kingdom, and in particular in several of the towns around Okun-Owa. Solidarity among the Egba towns was undermined by the appearance of the allied forces and the economic ­opportunities

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EGUN

Porte Novo

Ilaro

Lagos

REMO

Ofin

Ake

Ijebu-Ife

OWU

Ila

ONDO

Ondo

IJESA Owo

ITSEKIRI

Benin

BENIN

Kabba

OKUN

NUPE

kilometres

15

nue R. Be

Name of polity or distinctive group

IFE 0

Name of town

Ile-Ife

Boundary of Nigeria, contemporary

Approximate boundary of Ijebu, c.1800

IJEBU AND ITS NEIGHBOURS, c.1800

OWO

Aramoko Ado

EKITI

IGBOMINA

Ilesa

IFE

Ile-Ife

Osogbo

Ogbomoso

Ilorin

(Old) Oyo

IJEBU

IjebuOde

EGBA

OYO

Bight of Benin

Badagri

AWORI

R.

bu

Iseri

EGBADO (now YEWA)

Ketu

KETU

Iganna

Saki

R. I

Map 2 Ijebu and its neighbours, c.1800 (Sources: Johnson ([1921] 1976) and author’s research)

FON

Abomey

Sabe

SABE

BORGU

n

O gu

N

s un R. O

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iger

R. N

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their presence afforded, especially through the slave trade. Taking advantage of this, sections of the allied army successfully destroyed and looted the Egba towns of Ikija, Kesi, Emere, Ijemo and Itoko. They were later invited to settle in the northern Remo town of Ipara, which hoped to benefit from the trade in slaves, provisions and weapons associated with the presence of the warriors. From Ipara, the soldiers spread out to the neighbouring Remo towns of Ode Remo, Isara, Iperu, Ogere and Makun,3 from where they undertook raids on other Egba towns to the west of Remo and destroyed Igbore, Igbein, Iporo, Erunwon, Oba, Itesi, Imo, Ikereku and Itoku. After the destruction of many Alake and Oke-Ona towns, the allied armies moved further north and began to raid the Egba Gbagura towns. In c.1829, the majority of the allied troops, as well as a great number of Egba refugees, made the small Gbagura town of Ibadan their war camp and eventually settled there. When the larger part of the allied army moved northwards to Ibadan, a number of Oyo refugees and warriors remained in the northern Remo towns of Ipara, Ode Remo, Isara, Iperu, Ogere and Makun, from where they controlled the trade from Lagos to the north and in particular to Ibadan, which soon developed into a powerful settlement of warriors. In these Remo towns, as well as in nearby Akaka, Ogere and Iperu, the population influx brought growing political and economic power. The Oyo immigrants not only had wide connections useful for trade, but they also helped to destroy – and prevent from resettlement – the small Egba towns situated slightly west of the trade route through Remo, which would compete for trade profits and tolls with Remo. Moreover, they accumulated wealth through the sale of the captured Egba as slaves, which helped them to establish themselves as traders in weapons, powder and other commodities. Until today, many of these heroes are remembered in the towns in question, and many important local Egúngún masquerades, often speaking in Oyo dialect to this day, are attributed to them. As the Lagos-Ibadan trade gained in importance vis-à-vis the route from the lagoon harbours via Ijebu-Ode to the north, trading wealth was increasingly realised in Remo and not in the Ijebu capital. It was therefore in the interest of Ijebu-Ode to control this new locus of power by strengthening its own links with the northern Remo towns. Privileged links between the capital Ijebu-Ode and a small number of Remo towns would weaken both Ofin, the leading town of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn, and the Remo federation as a whole, and this in turn would prevent attempts by Ofin or the Remo to keep the trade wealth created locally in Remo and demand greater independence from Ijebu-Ode. At the same time, strong ties between Ijebu-Ode and the pro-Ibadan northern Remo towns supported the military alliance between Ijebu-Ode and Ibadan, and helped to ensure that the profits from the trade were kept within the Ijebu system of distribution. In this way,

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Ijebu-Ode remained the chief recipient of taxes and tolls realised in the kingdom, even after the foundation and rise of Ibadan reduced the amount of trade directly controlled by the capital. While the attacks upon the Egba towns from northern Remo had created wealth, they also made Remo vulnerable. Around 1830, a large number of Egba refugees, who found themselves victimised in Ibadan, founded the city of Abeokuta. In 1832,4 the allied armies established in northern Remo went to Egbaland for another raid, but this time they were heavily defeated. Encouraged by their success, the Egba retaliated and successfully invaded Remo in 1835–6, destroying at least twelve towns before the Remo armies drove them back.5 Several of these settlements were not rebuilt and their people and institutions moved to other towns, but the towns of Ipara, Makun, Iperu, Ikorodu and Ofin were rebuilt after their destruction.6 This catastrophe not only undermined the influence of Ijebu-Ode, which had been unable to protect the Remo towns, but also engendered a significant loss of power and prestige for Ofin. While the citizens of the northern Remo towns were able to protect their most important town institutions, the Egba captured Ofin’s oba, the Akàrígbò. Mocking his status, they took him to Abeokuta, where they exhibited him with a basket on his head, thus not only disrespecting the customary seclusion of the oba, but also exposing his persona and, by implication, the town of Ofin itself to ridicule by a parody of his sacred crown.7 Moreover, while the citizens of the northern Remo towns had enough wealth to rebuild their towns quickly, Ofin’s greater distance from the Lagos-Ibadan trade route meant that it took much longer to recover from the attack. By the mid-1950s, a number of northern Remo towns openly repudiated Ofin’s authority. Thus in 1854 Anglican missionaries Hinderer and Irving of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) were challenged repeatedly during a journey from Ibadan to Ofin. The people of Ode Remo refused the Akàrígbò’s guests passage and shelter at first, and only let them pass after the Balógun of Ipara interceded on Ofin’s (or perhaps Ibadan’s) behalf. In Iperu, Hinderer and Irving were allowed passage but the ruler refused to meet them, claiming he was ‘at the farm’, a clear slight to their status.8 All the same, the missionaries noted the generally excellent repair of roads, fields, town walls and construction work in northern Remo, which Irving thought to be of much better quality than the infrastructure in Ibadan or Abeokuta at the time.9 However, they also noted that Ofin was much smaller than Ipara, Ode Remo or Iperu, and that the appearance and resources of the Akàrígbò were much less significant than they had expected. With a mixture of candour and disappointment, Hinderer reported: We reached Ofin the capital – our usual avenue road was less good as we approached it & the crumbled walls & tower of the gate together with the miserable half starved gate keeper & his old wife foretold that

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Ofin was none the better for being the capital of Remo – but when we had entered & passed the king’s palace which is certainly the worst hut in the place there could be no shadow of a doubt of it.10 At the time of this visit, relationships between the northern Remo towns and Ofin and the rest of Remo were further strained by the fact that the alliance between Ijebu-Ode and Ibadan, which had allowed the northern towns to prosper, was coming to an end. Increasingly worried by Ibadan’s military exploits, Ijebu-Ode had begun to seek an accord with Abeokuta in 1852. Soon, the two states settled earlier grievances and agreed on a joint strategy to prevent Ibadan’s further expansion. This was possible in particular because Abeokuta controlled the north–south trade routes west of Remo. To limit Ibadan’s stock of weapons, Abeokuta and Ijebu-Ode decided to close the trade routes under their control to starve Ibadan of supplies. By 1860, Ibadan’s military expansion had reached the Ekiti towns and war with the important military city of Ijaye, which had hitherto constituted a check on Ibadan’s power, was imminent. To support Ijaye against Ibadan, Ijebu-Ode and Abeokuta closed all trade routes from Lagos to Ibadan. This decision, designed to prevent the rise of a regional hegemony which could dominate the coastal areas of Yorubaland that included Abeokuta, Remo and Ijebu, was supported by the majority of Remo towns. Disillusioned with Ijebu-Ode’s protection and Ofin’s leadership in the Remo federation, however, the northern Remo towns did not see the need to halt Ibadan’s rise. Their sympathies were strengthened by the fact that in many of these towns, the leading citizens had close links to Ibadan, and the communities had benefited significantly from the trade with Ibadan. A delegation from these towns petitioned Ijebu-Ode to reconsider its decision. After this was denied, they continued to sell guns and powder to Ibadan, especially when it became obvious in early 1861 that the IbadanIjaye war would drag on for some time (Olubomehin 2001: 11–12). At first the conflict between the northern Remo towns on the one hand and Ijebu-Ode and Ofin on the other only led to local skirmishes in Remo. Sure of the support of several other towns, Ofin resumed a leading role in local politics and challenged weapons traders at the Iperu market. In retaliation, troops from Akaka, Isara, Ipara and Ode Remo went to attack Ofin but were successfully driven back. After this failed attack, the leaders of the northern towns assembled at their most important market town, Makun, and announced their non-­ cooperation with both Ofin and Ijebu-Ode. At this time, the northern towns were supported by Ogere and Iperu, the latter also an important market town, who shared their interest in keeping trade routes open. When the attempts by other Remo towns to intervene and negotiate an agreement were unsuccessful, Ijebu-Ode attempted to negotiate with the rebels. Hoping to revive the close relations with the northern towns that Ijebu-

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Ode had built up in the early decades of the century, the Awùjalè sent forty royal messengers to the rebel camp at Makun. However, now committed to supporting Ibadan, the angry rebels killed all forty messengers of the Awùjalè (Ayantuga 1965: 128–9). The rebel towns’ loyalty to Ibadan also meant that their participation in the weapons trade in the northern Remo towns continued and made a significant contribution to Ibadan’s victory over Ijaye and its Egba and Ijebu allies in early 1862. To avenge both the murder of his messengers and Ijebu’s military defeat in Ijaye, the Awùjalè invited the Ijebu and Egba armies to Remo, and the northern towns appealed for help from their ally Ibadan. However, Ibadan’s support for its northern Remo allies was inadequate. Abell suggests that the force sent by Ibadan was simply too small, implying that Remo was not high on Ibadan’s list of priorities at this time.11 According to Johnson ([1921] 1976: 356–7), Ibadan’s Balógun Ibikunle was on his deathbed, and the army found it hard to find supplies. Epega ([1919] 1934: 22) simply maintained that the Ibadan army came too late. Whatever the reasons for Ibadan’s insufficient response, it suffered an important defeat at the hands of the Egba army, and in May or June 1862 Makun was destroyed. The Makun refugees and many warriors and traders of the other northern Remo towns then assembled at Ode Remo, where they continued their lucrative trade and prepared for further war. According to Ajayi and Smith (1964: 20), between July 1862 and the end of 1864 arms worth about £23,000 were imported to Lagos and smuggled through Remo to Ibadan. In September 1863, the rebel forces at Ode Remo were joined by the reinforced Ibadan army and later by an army from Ikorodu, which had, until then, been a close ally of Ofin but supported the trade with Ibadan due to its strategic location.12 A Remo rebel war camp was set up at Okerekere, a location close to both Isara and Ode Remo. Pointing to disagreement even in the capital over the right policy towards Ibadan, and perhaps explaining the confidence of the rebel towns in the face of formidable opposition, local historians have asserted that the rebels were also supported by groups from Ijebu-Ode opposed to the then Awùjalè (Epega ([1919] 1934: 22). Meanwhile the Egba army made quarters at Kutuje, a site near Iperu, and the armies raised by Ijebu-Ode as well as Ofin and the southern Remo towns camped at Ilisan. As a result, the rebel towns had to fight on two fronts. While Ipara remained Ibadan’s strongest ally (Johnson [1921] 1976: 256; de Veer and O’Hear 1994: 262), the resolve of the other northern towns began to crumble under the pressure of reconciling a war against Ijebu-Ode with the fact that within Remo, their authority derived at least partly from their close ties with Ijebu-Ode and particularly the Awùjalè. As a result of such considerations, and perhaps relying too strongly on the importance of royal traditions, the Aláyé Odè Soloye of Ode Remo made an attempt to settle the rift with his ‘father’ in Ijebu-Ode. Although Soloye was killed

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upon his return from Ijebu-Ode, this event points to the doubts that were harboured over the rebellion even in one of its centres. In Iperu and Ogere, public opinion was also strongly divided, and both towns eventually decided that they would not fight against the Awùjalè (Epega [1919] 1934: 22). By August 1864, a large number of settlements – not only in northern Remo – had been besieged or destroyed, and the rebel towns accepted defeat. By the end of the war, Remo was significantly reduced. Overall, the war had resulted in a great loss of population through death and enslavement, and after the escape of many warriors to Ibadan the defeated towns resettled only slowly. But equally importantly, the transformations of Remo’s political landscape that led to the war had contributed to a geographical reduction in size. While the northern towns remained clearly associated with Remo, even if only by military defeat, Remo had lost territory and communities elsewhere. As Chapter 2 has illustrated, more research is needed on the historical politics and allegiances of the towns to the east of present-day Remo, but it appears that some of these towns, such as Abo (now in Aiyepe) were destroyed during the 1860–5 conflicts. It is therefore possible that some settlements in the area were still identified as Remo at this stage, at least by outsiders. More importantly economically, Ikorodu and a number of smaller towns along the lagoon were removed by the British from Ijebu and Remo influence in 1865 and, although they still identified themselves as Ijebu or Remo towns, became part of the Lagos Protectorate.13 Drawing on the links to the northern towns that it had earlier nurtured, Ijebu-Ode now took even more direct control of the northern Remo trade route. For this reason, the Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode stationed his son Adekoya in Ode Remo (Johnson [1921] 1976: 568). However, despite the renewed involvement of Ijebu-Ode in the politics of the northern towns, the 1860–5 war had confirmed Ofin’s politics and, by extension, its position as the leading town in Remo, by subduing Ofin’s rivals or removing them from Remo’s internal politics. Thus the war had significantly reduced the economic and political power of the northern Remo towns that had questioned Ofin’s leadership, and it had also confirmed as Ijebu some towns that might have challenged Ofin’s status within Remo. Finally, by excising the increasingly important harbour town of Ikorodu and the coastal strip from Remo, the British also ensured that Ofin entered the postwar period without an economic or political rival. the foundation of sagamu

Making the most of this opportunity, Ofin’s leaders did all they could to rebuild Remo under its leadership. The assembly place of the Remo federation at Idarika had been destroyed during the war, and although Idarika moved to the nearby town of Iperu, no attempts were made to revive the Rémo Métàlélógbòn meetings. Instead, perhaps with a view to the successful

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N to Ibadan [c.1829 1]

ABEOKUTA [c.1831]

E G B A

Ipara Isara Ode Remo

Akaka

Ogere

AGO-IWOYE [1830s]

Ilara Iperu Ilisan

Ijesa

Irolu Ikenne

SAGAMU [1872]

R. O na

Okun-Owa ODOGBOLU [1850s]

Ijokun

Ijebu-Ode

AIYEPE [1872]

Idowa

Ode Lemo

REMO

R. Ib u

Ogijo

IJEBU R.

R . Og

O ru wu

un

Iseri

Emuren

R

Ikosi

Ejinrin

Ikorodu

Epe

AWORI THE REMO TOWNS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS, c.1880 Latawa Lagos

Remo town or settlement

SAGAMU Confederate town and approximate date of foundation [1872] Ibadan existed before 1829 but was transformed by the influx 1 of warriors in that year 0

*

30

kilometres

Map 3  The Remo towns and their neighbours, c. 1880 (Source: Author’s ­research)

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transformation of Egba politics in Abeokuta, Ofin initiated a different kind of local cooperation. Based on shared residence in central Remo as well as shared decision-making, Akàrígbò Oduname Igimisoje of Ofin invited all Remo towns to come together in a joint or confederate settlement called Sagamu. After the destruction of so many towns during the war, this idea found widespread support and between 1866 and 1872 several towns came together to form a big, centralised settlement called Sagamu, which became the capital of Remo. The foundation of Sagamu drew strongly on local historical traditions of making communities, in which towns were understood as the result of popular participation and agreement, and in which centralisation involved the asymmetrical incorporation of smaller communities into a larger one. However, it seems that in the past, this process was not only much more small-scale and gradual but also usually involved a greater loss of autonomy for the constituent communities. As illustrated in Chapter 2, town quarters with some claim to former autonomy have often retained some civic associations or titles but also acknowledged local rulers – and joined existing Òsùgbós – in order to participate fully in town affairs. Meanwhile in Sagamu, the constituent towns’ Òsùgbós and rulers continued to function while another layer of administration – probably both derived on the basis of ad hoc decisions and the assembly traditions of the Rémo Métàlélógbòn – was superimposed. In a manner reminiscent of the synoikismos of the ancient world, where the citizens of existing poleis agreed on a system of administrative and executive power-sharing, Sagamu was constituted following the negotiated understanding of existing towns. Drawing on techniques from the Remo assemblies, the founders of Sagamu created institutions for the participation of all its constitutent towns and their citizens. As many Sagamu citizens continued to farm on the land they had worked while resident in their last settlement, regular meeting days were instituted, on which matters of general importance were discussed. As for the meetings of town and regular assemblies, intervals of sixteen calendar days (locally referred to as seventeen days) provided the structure for joint decision-making. Farm dwellers came to Sagamu every sixteen calendar days for such meetings (ìpàdé), with the first sixteen days constituting the converging period for smaller meetings (ìpàdé kékeré), and the following sixteen days leading to important meetings (èkún ìpàdé) (Ayodele 2004: 52–3). Thus, while each town would retain control over its internal affairs, representatives from all of Sagamu’s towns would regularly discuss matters that affected them as part of the larger confederation. Because the towns that came together to found Sagamu continue to be important political units, their identification is a matter of both historical and political importance. According to Epega ([1919] 1934: 18–24) Sagamu was founded by ten towns, namely Ado, Batoro, Epe, Ibido, Ijagba, Ijokun,

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Makun, Ofin, Oko and Sonyindo. A. F. Abell, the author of the 1935 Intelligence Report on Remo, reports that Sagamu was constituted by twelve towns; by then the towns of Ipoji and Latawa were also recognised by the colonial government as independent towns in Sagamu.14 In the 1990s, Igbepa, originally an independent community near one of Makun’s past settlements, whose people had joined Makun during subsequent migrations, was recognised as a town with a crowned ruler within Sagamu and several recent publications on Sagamu’s history have included it as one of Sagamu’s founding towns (Mamora 1991: 5). Onasoga (1989: 6) even lists fourteen founding towns, including the above and the recently recognised town Raniken. The steadily increasing number of Sagamu’s constituent and founding towns suggests that the confederate nature of Sagamu is less a matter of historical reinterpretation than an ongoing process of inclusion. This process illustrates both the continuing evaluation of the past in the light of the present and the ongoing importance of even retrospective perceptions of participation and consent. In a manner reminiscent of the knowledge emanating from different town institutions, communities that represent significant groups and interests are linked to the foundation of the community, and their support is thus both implied and acknowledged as important. Conversely, political struggles over Sagamu’s internal hierarchy are linked to debates about the nature of their participation in the creation of the community. This process is best illustrated by local debates about the roles played by Ofin and Makun, the two most powerful quarters, in the making of Sagamu. Sagamu was dominated by Ofin and its allies, and Makun was the only former rebel town that joined the settlement. As Makun’s prewar settlement in Agbele near Iperu had been destroyed and occupied by the Egba in 1862, townspeople from Makun were also among the first settlers in the new confederate town.15 As a result of this, some authors have recently suggested that Makun – rather than Ofin – was the leading force behind the creation of Sagamu (Olubomehin 2002: 21; Ayodele 2004: 37–8). Possible reasons for the contemporary revalidation of Makun’s contribution to Sagamu include not only Makun’s contemporary and historical importance in making Sagamu a success, but also the structure of political opportunity within Remo since the return to civilian rule. Makun’s claim to the foundation of Sagamu reflects the widespread perception that: Eni a bá l’ábà ni bàbá abà. Whoever is met in a settlement is the father of all the inhabitants, i.e. the first person(s) present in a settlement is (are) its founder(s). However, while Makun may have been the first town to complete the move to Sagamu, the town was founded on Ofin initiative. Most of Sagamu – with

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the exception of Makun and a few smaller communities – was originally built on land that belonged to Ofin, suggesting that Ofin attracted most of the other, smaller communities. Ofin’s instrumental role in the making of Sagamu is also confirmed by the fact that its representatives undertook the political negotiations with Ijebu-Ode over Sagamu’s existence, which delayed Ofin’s move to Sagamu. When representatives of Ofin first approached the Awùjalè to ask for his blessing of the project in the mid-1860s, he rejected the idea and threatened any joint settlement with destruction at the hands of Ijebu-Ode (Epega [1919] 1934: 18). Ofin’s idea of a joint settlement had widespread support, and when several communities moved onto the land donated by Ofin towards this project, the Awùjalè found that he could not prevent the creation of Sagamu. Moreover, the military leaders and youth groups of Ijebu-Ode became increasingly discontent over the continued embargo on trade with Ibadan and were unwilling to engage in another war in Remo. As a result of these growing divisions within Ijebu-Ode, the Awùjalè had to concentrate his political energies on the capital and could no longer prevent the foundation of Sagamu. However, now the Akàrígbò refused to move to the new settlement. Reasons for this are difficult to discern, but it is possible that Ofin wanted to punish the Awùjalè for his earlier interference and, in the light of widespread support for Sagamu in Remo, mobilise other Remo towns against Ijebu-Ode. Whatever his reasons for refusing to move, he was eventually compelled by Ijebu-Ode to do so. Ofin’s move to Sagamu was completed in 1872 and settled Remo–Ijebu relations for the time being. The claims by both Ofin and Makun to have been instrumental in the foundation of Sagamu reflect the relations of power between these two most powerful constituent parts of the town. Other factors also suggest that Sagamu’s success strongly relied on diplomatic skills and the creation of consent among all quarters. Thus, to create unity and support for the project of a centralised Remo capital among its constituent (and other) towns, the name of the new town was derived from Òrìsà-gun-àmù-ewà,16 a reference to a shrine close to the nearby river Ibu that did not privilege any town. And if Ofin had taken the political initiative in the founding of Sagamu, Makun provided the economic power. Because Makun had been an important market town even before the move, and because it settled in Sagamu early, it controlled Sagamu’s most important market. Originally the market was called Obu Makun, but it is presently known as Falawo market (it was called Falawo in past settlements of Makun). It may have been in recognition of this situation that after Ofin’s arrival in Sagamu, representatives of the two quarters arranged the marriage of a daughter of Akàrígbò Igimisoje to Soleghe Olukokun, the then Ewùsì of Makun, to cement relations between the former political rivals. Sagamu’s constituent towns also recognised the special roles of both

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Makun and Ofin by assigning to each of them a third of the town’s income and responsibilities, with the other towns sharing the remaining third. However, as most of the other towns have tended to support Ofin, this has often meant that Ofin could claim to represent two-thirds of the town versus Makun’s one-third (Ayodele 2004: 34, 45–50). While both sides have struggled to expand their sphere of influence, and have occasionally succeeded for short periods of time, the general agreement to share power in the relation of roughly 2:1 or 1:1:1 has continued to underlie local political decisions throughout the colonial and postcolonial periods. In 2004, Makun held five political wards against Ofin and the other towns’ ten wards. c o n f e d e r a t e t ow n s i n o t h e r p a r t s o f i j e b u

The making of Sagamu reflected wider forces, and in particular the fact that in response to the constant threat of war and slavery, large settlements, usually created by migrants and refugees from a number of towns, emerged in many parts of Yorubaland during the nineteenth century. The organisation of these new settlements often reflected circumstance as well as real existing relations of power. Thus, in the new warrior cities of Ibadan and Ijaye, settlement was organised around the compounds of great warriors. Other new towns, including the Egba and Egbado towns of Abeokuta and Oke-Odan respectively, were also created through the agreement of formerly independent towns, which had been damaged by war and thereafter agreed to settle together. In addition, many existing towns acquired new communities of migrants as their population came to include refugees. For example, the Oyo towns of Ogbomoso, Osogbo, Saki and Ikirun all accepted large numbers of refugees, who settled in quarters according to their town of origin (Oguntomisin 1981). Yet while Sagamu emulated the new and enlarged towns created by the wars of the nineteenth century, it differed from many of them in important ways. Unlike Ibadan and Abeokuta, it was founded not out of necessity but on the basis of negotiation and consent.17 Sagamu was, from its inception, based on an agreement of its confederate towns. East and northeast of Sagamu, other confederate settlements were founded consensually by Ijebu and, possibly, former Remo towns during this period. As no comprehensive study of this phenomenon has been carried out to date, the following towns are only examples. The present-day town of Ago-Iwoye was founded by several towns in the 1830s, after the withdrawal of the Egba armies from the area.18 Ijebu-Igbo was similarly constituted by five towns (Oduwobi 2000: 249–50).19 Odogbolu was created in the 1850s when eight towns in the vicinity agreed to settle together (Ogunremi and Adeniji 1989: 9–10).20 Aiyepe was founded in 1872 by six constituting towns (Oduye 1987: 1).21 Imusin east of Ijebu-Ode was founded by almost fifty small Idoko communities that previously held joint town meetings (Oduwobi 2000: 250). The internal arrangements of these towns reflected

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Symbol of Sagamu (Photo: Insa Nolte) different political realities and preferences: Aiyepe’s town assemblies were made up of Òsùgbó representatives while in the other settlements constituent towns were normally represented by their rulers.22 Perhaps as a result of such different original emphases, but also in response to political struggles that defined town politics during the twentieth century, processes of centralisation within these towns have been dissimilar. Aiyepe does not have an overall ruler and is governed by a council of elders whose chair rotates equally among all communities. In Odogbolu, AgoIwoye and Imusin, a new overall obaship title has emerged in the twentieth century, which rotates among Odogbolu’s three dominant quarters, all of Ago-Iwoye’s constituent quarters and between the sections of Imusin made up of formerly northern and southern Idoko towns. Meanwhile, in IjebuIgbo, the title associated with the dominant Okesopin quarter has been recognised as that of the town’s overall traditional ruler. While concerns about external security played an important role in the creation of these confederate towns, local histories suggest that, much like Sagamu, their foundation also reflected economic and political concerns (Ogunremi and Adeniji 1989: 10). However, more detailed research into the nineteenth-century history of the Ijebu kingdom, both the capital and the kingdom’s many medium-sized and smaller towns, is needed to determine

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the exact struggles which contributed to their making. In my view it is likely that the emergence of these and other confederate towns in Ijebu and Remo reflected not only a shared cooperative tradition and the indirect impact of a mostly external war, but also changes in the internal dynamics of the Ijebu kingdom. It is possible that during the nineteenth century Ijebu-Ode’s control over the kingdom’s population shifted due to several factors, including the changing trade routes linked to the rise of Ibadan, the influx of refugees from Oyo and Owu to northern Remo and the area around Okun-Owa respectively, and the rising importance of the Ijebu army, whose successful warrior-traders returned to their hometowns after participation in the regional wars outside the Ijebu kingdom. The changes in local security and the distribution of wealth and power associated with these shifts may have meant that internal trade routes became less secure while local leaders or groups outside the capital could amass greater influence. This process would have undermined Ijebu-Ode’s spiritual and physical legitimacy, and local leaders aspiring to fill power vacuums might have looked towards expanding their sphere of influence, both in their vicinity and vis-à-vis the capital, by creating confederate towns. At the same time, confederate towns would have appealed to ordinary townspeople as well because of their greater ability to provide protection for traders and their markets. On the basis of this conjecture, it is possible to suggest that although the nineteenth century looked like an era of ‘splendid isolation’ (Ayandele 1983) for outside observers of Ijebu and Remo politics, it was in fact a period of internal struggle, in which the emergence of confederate towns reflected concurrent processes of local centralisation and critical engagement with the capital Ijebu-Ode. sagamu relations with the br itish

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Remo’s struggle for independence from Ijebu-Ode received strong support from the British, both in recognition of Britain’s strategic interests vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode and in response to the successful lobbying by Ofin representatives on behalf of Remo. In the early 1850s, Consul Campbell of Lagos first established contact with the Akàrígbò of Ofin over the Kosoko affair. Kosoko, a descendant of Osinloye and contender for the Lagos throne, had been ousted by the British in favour of his cousin Akitoye. Kosoko then moved to Epe-Ijebu, from where he continued to control much of the coastal trade in palm oil and slaves. Kosoko’s power base consisted not just of his wealth, but also of the support of the Awùjalè, to whom he was related (Smith 1969: 8). In an effort to undermine Ijebu-Ode’s power before a military attack on Kosoko in 1853, Campbell, who had heard that the Akàrígbò was a leading Ijebu chief outside Ijebu-Ode, sent presents to him (Oguntomisin 1983: 76–80).

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According to Ofin sources, the Akàrígbò also signed a treaty with Campbell in March 1854, in which he promised to ensure the suppression of the slave trade and to encourage missionary work in Remo (Olubomehin 2001: 16–17).23 Despite strong anti-British feelings both in Ijebu-Ode and many Remo towns, Ofin maintained communication with the British, and especially with Christian missionaries, over the following decades. In 1855, the Akàrígbò welcomed Anglican (CMS) missionaries Hinderer and Irving despite strong opposition from some other Remo towns such as Ode Remo.24 Despite Ijebu-Ode’s ban on missionaries within the kingdom at that time, the Akàrígbò suggested that he could be a mediator between the Europeans and Ijebu-Ode and further demonstrated his goodwill towards the British by allowing a lay preacher to live in Ofin. The fact that the man was forbidden to preach both by the local Òsùgbó and in neighbouring towns was another matter.25 From the 1850s onwards, Ofin’s careful maintenance of diplomatic relations with the British allowed the Akàrígbò and his allies to further the distinct impression that Remo was independent of Ijebu, and that the Akàrígbò was able to speak for all of Remo (Ayandele 1992: 43–4, 123–6; Okafor 1981: 19–21). In the decades following the formal British annexation of Lagos in 1861, the notion of an independent Remo suited those keen to subvert both Ijebu-Ode’s hold on free trade and its ban on Christian missions, and it appears to have inspired missionaries in particular. Despite repressive conditions for local converts until the 1890s and the extreme restriction of missionary activity, Ofin’s successful projection of a Remo attitude sympathetic towards Christianity not only contributed greatly to its recognition as independent from Ijebu-Ode but became a self-fulfilling prophecy. The charismatic Anglican missionary James Johnson, born the son of a recaptured Ijebu princess in Sierra Leone and one of the leaders of the strongly anti-racist Breadfruit Church in Lagos, became an important CMS mediator between Lagos, Ijebu and Remo. Johnson strongly believed that despite their initial resistance to Christianity, Ijebu and Remo would eventually prove very fertile grounds for evangelisation. Demonstrating his commitment to this mission, Johnson visited Remo several times from the 1870s onwards to encourage a small number of Christian converts in Iperu under the difficult circumstances created by Ijebu-Ode’s sanctions. Between 1886 and 1893, Johnson was also a member of the Legislative Council in Lagos, where he represented the interests of the people of the Lagos ‘hinterland’, including Remo. Johnson also advised the Akàrígbò on obtaining a treaty independent of Ijebu with the British in 1894, and eventually became the Superintendent of Remo (Ayandele 1970b: 119–20, 210–19). Encouraging the Akàrígbò and his advisers to develop Sagamu economically as well as spiritually, Johnson reflected the enlightenment values of

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many missionaries of his generation. He secured Governor Moloney’s support for the building of a palm oil market in Sagamu, which would establish Sagamu as a centre for the trade in palm oil and foodstuffs for Lagos. Seeking to expand their trading community, Ofin representatives then invited Seidu Olowu, a rich Lagosian Muslim, and other influential traders from Lagos to trade in Sagamu. In 1888, the Akàrígbò opened Obada market, which soon became the dominant regional market in palm produce (Agiri 1974: 475). The close economic cooperation between Sagamu and Lagos suggests that Ofin intensified relations with Britain during this period, which in turn further strengthened its position vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode. While a penalty payment was demanded by Ijebu-Ode for the unsanctioned creation of Obada market, the capital could not enforce its closure. As Ijebu-Ode struggled with increasing internal conflict,26 Sagamu prospered politically and economically. Apart from the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS), the Methodist church also played an important role in ensuring that Remo’s insertion into the encroaching sphere of British power reflected Ofin and Sagamu interests. James Pythagoras (later Ademuyiwa) Haastrup was, unlike Johnson, not a descendant of recaptured slaves, but ruptured family ties also played a role in his adoption of Christianity. Haastrup was born in 1863 to an Ifá diviner and a mother who worshipped Òsun. Adopted by Wesleyan Methodists and educated in Lagos, he set up as a merchant and auctioneer as well as becoming a zealous lay preacher. Connected to the obaship of Ofin through his birth parents, Haastrup convinced the Akàrígbò that British rule and Christianity could bring Remo independence and progress, and he also became a spokesman for Ofin and Remo interests to the British Colonial Office. When the ongoing conflict between the Lagos administration and the Ijebu capital over Ijebu-Ode’s resistance to free trade escalated in the 1880s, Haastrup continually emphasised Remo’s support for Britain, creating the impression that once the Akàrígbò had British support, Ijebu-Ode would lose all authority in Remo (Ayandele 1992: 16–17; Oduwobi 2004: 38–9). The conflict between Ijebu-Ode and the British finally led to war in 1892. When Lagos dispatched a military expedition against Ijebu, Haastrup quickly travelled to Sagamu to impress on the Akàrígbò the inevitability of Ijebu’s defeat and to warn him and the Ofin chiefs not to send the Remo troops to support the Ijebu forces.27 Instead, Haastrup suggested that a Remo delegation should be sent to the Ijebu–Remo boundary to welcome the British forces should they return to Lagos that way, and another to Lagos to appear before Governor Carter, the instigator of the Ijebu campaign, to assure him that the Remo people wanted to maintain good relations with the government. This advice exempted the Remo towns from being dragged into the defeat of Ijebu, and it spared them the treatment reserved

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for the major Ijebu towns, where many civic institutions, including the Òsùgbó house (Ilédì) of the capital, were destroyed. Equally importantly, certainly from Haastrup’s point of view, the return of the victorious British troops to Lagos via Sagamu impressed upon Remo citizens the extent of Britain’s military power and convinced many local leaders that it was time to reconsider the local opposition to Christian missionary work (Paulsen 1972: 106–7). Haastrup also ensured that the British recognised the Akàrígbò as Remo’s sovereign. Thus, when Carter wanted to bring the coastal strip of Ijebu under Lagos administration, Haastrup insisted to the Colonial Office that only the Akàrígbò could cede the strip’s Remo towns, despite the fact that the most important town under consideration, Ikorodu, had been under Lagos influence since 1865.28 After an intervention from the Colonial Office, Carter travelled to Sagamu in August 1894, where Akàrígbò Oyebajo Torungbuwa (1891–1915) and a number of Ofin chiefs signed the declaration of the British Protectorate over Remo and a deed of cession for Remo’s coastal strip, then renamed Ikorodu District. However, Carter’s dealings with Remo were not only the result of successful lobbying by Haastrup and consecutive Akàrígbòs, but also reflected British plans for Ijebu. Carter was determined to reduce the political influence of the Awùjalè and his supporters. In Ijebu-Ode itself, Carter ensured that power and influence were transferred from the palace to prominent Muslims and Christians. Outside of Ijebu-Ode, Carter quietly encouraged the rulers of the bigger towns to act independently of the capital (Ayandele 1992: 42–6). As Remo’s independence from Ijebu-Ode reflected both local ambitions and British interests, the Protectorate of Remo was included in Ikorodu District – and administered from the Colony of Lagos – in 1898. At the same time, the powers of successive Awùjalè both over the capital and over the outlying districts of the kingdom were closely controlled and circumscribed throughout the first two decades of colonial rule.29 As Sagamu remained the capital for the Remo towns, many of the institutions of the new colonial administration were based there, including a ‘Hausa’ regiment, so called because it consisted mostly of freed slaves of northern Nigerian origin. While several of Sagamu’s leaders were originally displeased with the conduct of the regiment, the central location of the new governmental institutions, including a government prison and a police station as well as facilities for a visiting Commissioner and Medical Officer, confirmed Sagamu’s centrality to Remo. The location of these institutions in Sagamu, where they remained subject to some influence from local leaders, not only limited Ikorodu’s potential to undermine Sagamu’s centrality in Remo, it also further empowered the capital vis-à-vis the other Remo towns.

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o p p o s i t i o n t o s a g a m u ’s d o m i n a n c e

If the foundation of Sagamu created closer cooperation among its participating towns and ensured Remo’s continuing importance in local trade networks despite the changes introduced by British rule, it also deepened the rift between the new confederated capital and the outlying towns. As most of the towns that had joined Sagamu had been Ofin’s allies, and Makun was the only former rebel town to join, local political trajectories and forms of knowledge influenced the way in which members of the outlying towns responded to the rise of Sagamu. However, as the traditionally pro-Ofin towns of Ilisan, Irolu and Ikenne also refused to join the new settlement in Sagamu, the dichotomy between the outlying towns and Sagamu only partially overlapped with the old rebel identities of the northern Remo towns and the new capital. Thus the difference between the new capital and its outlying towns reinforced, reflected and transformed historical rivalries between Ofin and the rebel towns, which were in turn linked to different interpretations of the past. Demographically, the unwillingness of many towns to join Sagamu resulted in a range of small-scale processes of centralisation in the second half of the nineteenth century, suggesting that the creation of more compact towns was a general trend of the times. In the former rebel stronghold of northern Remo, those communities intent on settling in a bigger settlement moved to other northern Remo towns. Thus the communities of Idarika and Idena moved to Iperu, Eposo settled in Ode Remo, which already included the communities of Iraye and the majority of Ogunmogbo, and the citizens of Are, divided like Ogunmogbo during an earlier period, settled in Ode Remo and nearby Isara. Illustrating the struggles associated with such moves, a large number of Ipara people also moved to Ode Remo, but because the leader of their Òsùgbó, the Olúwo, refused to follow them, they eventually moved back to Ipara in 1890 (Epega [1919] 1934: 29). As the smaller processes of centralisation in northern Remo strengthened especially Ode Remo and Iperu, both participants in the rebellion (although Iperu had been much more moderate than Ode Remo), these towns continued to emphasise their historical importance and independence from Sagamu. For a number of reasons, the attitudes towards Christianity in the former rebel towns were more complex than in Ofin, where the official willingness to engage with Christian agents contrasted with the non-existence of a Christian community until 1892. As most of the rebel towns had been home to important trading communities, and as most of them had also been physically destroyed, many of their citizens had lived in other towns at least for some years, either to trade or as temporary refugees. In the course of such stays in Abeokuta or Lagos, several citizens of outlying towns had converted to Christianity, and by the 1870s, a few converts had returned to Remo and started to proselytise in their hometowns. The converts’ activities

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were sometimes successful, even to the point of reaching local chiefs and rulers, but they were generally powerfully opposed by the local Òsùgbós, especially if they attracted visits by missionaries. The widespread opposition to Christian activity in these towns may have reflected loyalty to Ijebu-Ode and opposition to Ofin’s close links with individual missionaries, but as it reached its apex in the 1880s, i.e. after the 1860s conflicts and the foundation of Sagamu in the following decade, it is likely that it also reflected attempts by the Òsùgbós both to assert their towns’ self-sufficiency and autonomy and to prevent further divisions in the community. The first known Remo convert, the tailor and cloth-trader Joseph Oyegunsen from Iperu, was converted in Abeokuta as early as 1862 and returned to Iperu in 1866, where he taught some young men to read the Bible. In 1878, CMS missionary James Johnson, who visited Joseph Oyegunsen in Iperu, was accused of being a spy by the Òsùgbó and expelled from the town.30 In 1882, the oba, a younger man friendly towards Christianity, died, and both the converts and the Iperu chief Bisuga, who had championed the converts’ cause, had to flee Iperu (Awopeju 1979: 132). The first convert from Ode Remo, another trader, Ezekiel Adejumo, was baptised by CMS agents in Abeokuta in 1881. Back in Ode Remo he converted Jacob Osindero, formerly respected for his knowledge of Ifá divination and charm-production, who preached his new religion openly. However, the Christians of Ode Remo were driven out of the town in March 1886 during an Orò outing. With Christian friends from Iperu they went to Abeokuta, but came back later in the year. In 1889, their leader Osindero’s house was destroyed by Orò. In Ipara, Methodist missionaries were told directly in 1880 that while they would have been welcome some years previously, they would have to wait until tension between pro-Ijebu and pro-Ibadan camps in the community subsided (Paulsen 1972: 89–90).31 In both Iperu and Ode Remo, the Òsùgbós not only exerted strict control over local religious practice, they also continued to make independent decisions as they had done during the days of the Remo assemblies. It appears that the former rebel towns’ insistence on their autonomy from Sagamu created tensions in particular between Ode Remo and Sagamu, although the growing economic and political independence of Ikorodu from Ofin also created friction. After the 1892 defeat, and clearly in order to subjugate Ikorodu and Ode Remo rather than to defend them as part of his realm, Akàrígbò Oyebajo Torungbuwa informed Major Madden, a participant in the Ijebu campaign, that Ode Remo and Ikorodu had committed several crimes against British (and Sagamu) interests. After his discussions in Sagamu, Madden noted: The King [Akàrígbò] complained chiefly of Ode [Remo], about 12 miles from this half way to Ibadan [sic]; the people there stop all trade passing. He would like us to open the road and burn Ode …

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  Ikorodu used to belong to him, but they have lately been paying tribute to Jebu Ode [Ijebu-Ode], and will not let and trade pass this way [to Sagamu]. He will be glad to see Ikorodu burnt down [emphasis added].32 While the Akàrígbò was unable to extend his authority to the outlying former rebel towns without British help, he could not prevent the continued intervention of Ijebu-Ode in local politics either. Thus, after the 1892 defeat of Ijebu-Ode, some towns arrogated to themselves the right to execute criminals without reference to the higher authority responsible for them, and where Ijebu-Ode’s authority was undermined by such attempts at asserting autonomy, it punished offenders quickly: when Ikenne’s Òsùgbó asserted its town’s independence by executing a convict without Ijebu-Ode’s permission, a punitive expedition from the capital razed down the town’s Òsùgbó house (Ilédì). Governor Carter began to realise that he had misunderstood relations of power in Remo. When he travelled to Sagamu in 1894 to sign the treaties ceding Ikorodu and accepting British protection for Remo, he stayed overnight in the Remo town of Emuren, whose representatives assured him that they had nothing to do with the Akàrígbò. Carter consequently signed an independent cession treaty with Emuren, then a community of about 500 people (Oduwobi 2004: 39–44). But as Carter returned to Lagos along the same route and did not stay in the northern Remo towns, he did not at this stage become aware of their historical claims to independence from Sagamu. It is of course impossible to guess whether such information would have made a difference to British policy towards Remo, but a Resident of Ijebu Province, H. M Brice Smith, argued four decades later: I suggest that the British Authorities knew little or nothing of the history of the towns on the mainland in 1894 or of their traditional relations one to another. If the Akarigbo of Ofin was strictly within his rights in ceding his District without the assent of the Awujale (which I do not admit) it would have been equally right for the Chiefs of Iperu, Ode-Remo, Ishara [Isara] and other towns to cede theirs without the authority of the Akarigbo.33 At the time, however, Carter responded to the difficulties encountered in asserting British control over Remo by supporting the creation of the centralised and independent polity he had hoped to find when he defeated Ijebu-Ode and signed the Remo treaty. When he realised, with some dismay, that the Akàrígbò’s power over the other Remo towns was weak, he advised him to use the government’s ‘Hausa’ soldiers stationed in Sagamu to expand his authority.34 Even where the Akàrígbò did not intervene directly, the coercive power of the colonial state quickly established that colonial rule was a reality even in the outlying towns. When several of them ignored

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the imposition of colonial control and their Òsùgbós continued to execute their own judgements, the colonial government intervened with force. For example, when a thief was convicted and executed by the civic institutions of Ode Remo in 1902, the then oba of the town, Aláyé Odè Osinloye, was convicted of a murder charge at Sagamu court and forced to pay a £150 fine (Epega [1919] 1934: 30). Local discontent with the colonial state was also asserted through the revalidation of historical narratives and practices that aimed to reduce Ofin’s status through reference to older leading towns in Remo. A number of Remo towns mobilised leadership traditions from the Rémo Métàlélógbòn for their purpose and asserted that Epe’s claim to Remo leadership was older than Ofin’s and should therefore take precedence. However, in 1902 the Óòni of Ile-Ife, recognised by the British as an important arbiter in matters concerning traditional knowledge and history, confirmed Akàrígbò Oyebajo Torungbuwa’s claim that he was the only paramount ruler of Remo.35 As a result, the British further subjugated the outlying towns to the agreements and decisions taken by the Akàrígbò. But although the opposition of the outlying towns to the centralisation of Remo within the early colonial order was overwhelmingly unsuccessful, it continued to play an important role in local political debates. Remo’s incomplete centralisation during the latter half of the nineteenth century points to the ongoing significance of participation and consent in local politics despite the rising importance of colonial intervention. Reflecting the increasing importance of Remo’s new capital Sagamu, its representatives and middlemen were not only able to impress upon the British Remo’s loose attachment to the Ijebu kingdom but also to assert Ofin’s authority over the rest of Remo. While this development led to the hierarchisation and rationalisation of Remo’s structures of power in line with colonial objectives of governance, it also ensured that the growing asymmetry in local participatory structures was further entrenched: while the Akàrígbò, Ofin’s representatives and the representatives of towns in Sagamu were able to play a relatively active part in the creation of the local colonial order through access to the local administration, the outlying Remo towns were, to a large degree, punished for the exercise of autonomous decision-making. As a result, consent for the new political order was relatively strong in Sagamu, but much lower in the outlying towns. While the colonial state could confirm the Akàrígbò’s political authority over the rest of Remo through its control of superior military power and the establishment of colonial institutions, it could not in itself create consent for this development.

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4 remo’s struggle for independence

After the establishment of colonial rule, popular views on political participation in Remo were transformed by conversion to the world religions. Remo citizens converted both to Christianity and Islam, but it was the adoption of Christianity that created a consciously modern and educated political elite throughout Remo. As the members of this elite shared new practices and concerns, some of the differences between the Remo towns were transcended by shared religious adherence. Due to the staunch support of the local Methodist church for a Remo centred on Ofin and Sagamu, many Christians also got used to church hierarchies that privileged Ofin. As a result, the original resistance to Remo’s administration from Ofin was reduced in several outlying and even former rebel towns. This process was helped by the fact that the administration of Remo separate from Ijebu-Ode after 1894, and especially from 1898 to 1913, was widely perceived as an official recognition that Remo had surpassed the old capital. Convinced of the power of the new religion and its technologies, members of the educated elite understood Christianity as crucial not only to Remo’s educational success but also to its growing prosperity and demographic expansion, particularly vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode. The process of local integration through consent based on shared religious practice was, however, refracted by the resurgence of historical disagreements in response to the interventions of the colonial state. Conflict over the role of Ofin and the Akàrígbò in Remo resurfaced from 1914 onwards in response to Remo’s administrative resubordination to Ijebu-Ode in the preparation for the introduction of Indirect Rule to Nigeria in 1918. In this process, the state centralised what would become Ijebu-Ode Division in 1915 (Ijebu Province from 1921), and greatly reduced the overall space for local participation in Remo by removing state infrastructure from Sagamu to Ijebu-Ode. The political and economic disadvantages deriving from this development were keenly felt throughout Remo and caused significant discontent. As a result, many Remo citizens supported the efforts by Akàrígbò William Christopher Adedoyin (1916–52) to claim administrative independence for Remo by further centralising the polity under his own paramountcy, which achieved success in 1938. At the same time, representatives especially of the

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THE REMO TOWNS IN IKORODU DISTRICT, 1898-1913

N

Ikorodu District boundary Settlement Lagos-Abeokuta-Ibadan-Kano railway

Ilara 0

30

to Ibadan

kilometres

Abeokuta

Isan

Ipara Isara Ode Remo

Owode Ogere

Ago-Iwoye R. O na

Ilara Iperu

Irolu

Ijesa

Ilisan Ikenne

Okun-Owa

Sagamu Odogbolu

Ijebu-Ode

Aiyepe

I K O R O D U

Idowa

Ode Lemo bu

R. I

Ogijo

Emuren

R.

R . Og

ru wu

un

O

Iseri

Ikosi Ikorodu

Ejinrin

Ikeja

Mushin

Lagos Lagoon Lagos

Map 4  The Remo towns in Ikorodu District, 1898–1913 (Sources: Oduwobi (2004: 203) and author’s research)

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outlying and former rebel towns opposed this plan because they feared that the Akàrígbò’s ambitions would increase local control and reduce specific forms of political agency that had survived outside Sagamu. But although the administrative reorganisation of 1938 did not overcome the existing divide among the Remo towns, the emergence of an increasingly homogenous local elite meant that opposition to this process was much less vigorous than it had been in the late nineteenth century. As both religion and the colonial state emerged as important factors in the creation of consent for Remo’s colonial identity, a close relationship between the spiritual and the mundane continued to be reflected in local politics. c h r i s t i a n i t y a n d h i s t o r i c a l r i va l r y

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, conversion to both world religions transformed the former Ijebu kingdom. Trading communities in most Ijebu and Remo towns were increasingly associated with Islam, and IjebuOde in particular was dominated by the Muslim convert and power-broker Balógun Kuku. After 1892 Christianity was also enthusiastically adopted in both communities, and an educated elite, in close contact with others in Lagos, Abeokuta and elsewhere, emerged throughout Ijebu. Peel has pointed out that Christian enthusiasm in both Ijebu and Remo focused very largely on literacy, reading and schools as well as on the Scriptures. Its early adherents tended to be young men who foresaw both the need to engage with the representatives of the colonial order in their own way and to prepare for their inheritance of positions of power (1977: 130–2). However, the ability of Christians to transform local politics depended not only on their ability to engage with the colonial state, but also on the recognition of these abilities by their contemporaries. Overall, both Remo’s ambitions for independence and its flatter political hierarchies enabled its Christian converts to play a much greater role than in Ijebu-Ode. Ofin’s good relations with Christian missionaries throughout the nineteenth century reflected the communal rivalry between Remo and the Ijebu heartland, and its privileging of Christian missionaries in the early colonial years set the tone for Remo’s colonial elite. At the same time, in the fiercely independent yet relatively small Remo towns, and especially the towns outside Sagamu, the ability of Christians to engage with the colonial state on its own terms was recognised and rewarded much more quickly than in Ijebu-Ode.1 As a result, new chiefs and obas were usually Christians. Thus, by the early decades of the twentieth century, Remo’s political elite was, with the exception of some (Muslim) Sagamu-based traders and older (Traditionalist) chiefs and obas, Christian.2 Overall, the emergence of a Christian political elite not only introduced a new and widely shared layer of cultural modernity to the Remo mix of cultural and political resources, it also added to the cultural and political

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difference between Ijebu and Remo. As foreshadowed by the engagement of both Anglican and Methodist intermediaries on behalf of Remo before 1892, missionaries of these two churches were instrumental in establishing Christianity and literacy in Remo. Paulsen (1972: 191) has suggested that a gentleman’s agreement between the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) originally restricted Anglican activity to the Ijebu heartland and Methodist engagement to Remo, but if such an agreement existed, it did not last for long. By the turn of the century, successful Anglican and Methodist congregations existed in almost all Remo towns. However, while the Anglican Church spread through both Ijebu and Remo and centred many of its activities on IjebuOde, Methodism was strongly associated with the agenda of Remo’s selfassertion vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode. The early success of Methodism in Remo illustrates the ease with which local innovators could link religious discourses to communal ambitions and in this way draw on new forms of spiritual engagement for political purposes. At the same time, the quick spread of Methodism was a reflection of the deeply personal ambitions of Ademuyiwa Haastrup, who had been instrumental in preventing the inclusion of Remo into Ijebu-Ode’s defeat by the British in 1892. Committed to bringing Methodism to Remo, Haastrup not only convinced the WMMS to expand its activities to Remo, he also sponsored two local agents for almost a year until funds were made available in 1893. Haastrup continued to commit at least £100 per annum to employing additional local agents after that date. Responding to local demands for Christian education, Haastrup also paid for the running of the first school in Sagamu, which he started in a house built by himself in Ofin, and which soon attracted forty to fifty pupils under the teacher A. V. Williams (Paulsen 1972: 108–9, 116). Haastrup’s commitment to Ofin and Remo politics was well received, and both the Balógun of Ofin and Akàrígbò Oyebajo Torungbuwa supported his endeavours financially and through personal endorsement. Services and meetings of converts were held in the Balógun’s house, Haastrup’s own house and the Akàrígbò’s court, and the Akàrígbò even built a Methodist chapel in Ofin. When the chapel was half-finished, strong rains washed away most of the already erected mud walls and rumour began to spread that this event reflected the anger of the local deities. In quick response, and confirming the strength of his support both for Haastrup in person and Methodism in general, Akàrígbò Torungbuwa ordered not only that the chapel be rebuilt by communal labour but threatened to tear down any house whose inhabitants refused to support the project (Paulsen 1972: 116). Both Haastrup’s and the Akàrígbò’s engagement with Christianity illustrate the self-confidence and open-mindedness of local responses to Christianity. Apart from providing material and political support for Haastrup,

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Akàrígbò Torungbuwa attended services regularly and publicly asserted his personal belief in the truth of Christian teachings. However, as a polygamist, he never became a full communicant.3 Combining local and Christian practice from the opposite starting point, Haastrup joined Ofin’s Òsùgbó and accepted a local chieftaincy title (Ayodele 2004: 260), despite the fact that the rituals associated with such institutions required him to participate in forms of traditional practice that were, at the time, bitterly opposed by many Christians outside Remo. Haastrup’s success in Ofin was inspiring to others nearby, and the mission soon received land in Makun and Sonyindo (both in Sagamu) for the building of churches and schools. But in the outlying Remo towns, and especially in the former rebel towns, people were more sceptical at first. In Iperu and Ode Remo, where a strong Anglican presence had already been established, Methodism was at first perceived as a means of subjugating the towns to the Akàrígbò, and the mission had to contend with strong opposition both from the rulers and the public. In Ode Remo, Methodist agents were refused permission to build a church both in 1892 and 1893. Early misgivings about extending Methodism to Ode Remo even existed in Sagamu, and the Akàrígbò advised agents not to go there as the people were his enemies (Paulsen 1972: 119–27). Finally, the mission acquired land for a church in Ode Remo, but it was felt that the church was built too closely to the site of the Ilé Erinkina, the house where the Osi (skulls) of the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo were kept. In July 1900, the Remo warriors’ association or Lópèérèè destroyed the church. The Aláyé Odè and some elders were almost immediately summoned to Lagos where they were punished (Epega [1919] 1934: 30). The mission was eventually given a different plot of land. Despite these early setbacks, Haastrup was eventually able to carve out an important place for Methodism in the outlying Remo towns. Understanding that he himself was associated too closely with Ofin, Haastrup abstained from personal involvement in the mission work in Ode Remo and Iperu and instead recruited a charismatic local figure, W. A. or ‘Daddy’ Thompson, a former Sierra Leonean policeman, as an agent.Thompson had returned to Lagos after his conversion and was a noted trumpet player with an eye for display. Working in Ode Remo, Iperu,4 and even extending his activities to towns east of Sagamu, Thompson not only spread knowledge of the Bible and literacy, he also appealed to local traditions of public worship and display by providing uniforms, training up young men to play brass band music and organising regular concerts and parades in the towns where he worked. While Thompson’s bold approach also led to conflict, including the threat of ejection by the ruler of Ikenne in 1898, he remained sure of the support of both Ofin and the colonial government,5 and a successful Methodist community was eventually established in Ode Remo, Iperu and neighbouring towns by the early 1900s.6

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As Methodism was increasingly closely associated with the majority of Remo towns and clearly centred on Sagamu and Ofin, it became less attractive to other communities. Thus Methodism took off only very slowly in Ikorodu,7 and it certainly remained unacceptable even among Christians in Ijebu-Ode, where Methodism was not established until the 1920s (Paulsen 1972: 115–17; Ogundipe undated [probably 1995]: 20–1). It is possible that a combination of shared resentment of Ijebu-Ode and older local ties between Remo and the towns to its immediate east contributed to the success of Methodism in Ago-Iwoye as well as in nearby Odogbolu and Ijesa.8 Pointing to the strong political association of Methodism with Remo ambitions at that time, this development was opposed by the Anglican community of Ago-Iwoye, and led to several conflicts in which Ijebu-Ode, perhaps not surprisingly, tended to intervene in support of the Anglicans. By the early 1900s, most Remo Christians were either Anglicans or Methodists, with the Anglicans probably in a majority due to the better financial position of the CMS (Paulsen 1972: 194). However, Methodism was clearly the more politicised religion in terms of Remo’s ambitions for recognition and autonomy. Supported both by the WMMS and with the help of Haastrup’s personal resources, Methodism reflected Haastrup’s ambitions for and commitment to his hometown Ofin, the support he was able to mobilise in Sagamu with the help of the Akàrígbò and other local chiefs, and his successful overcoming of rivalries between several important outlying towns and Ofin. In turn, reactions to Methodism in other large settlements of the former Ijebu kingdom were adverse, and Sagamu – rather than Ijebu-Ode or even the more easily accessible Ikorodu – eventually became the headquarters of the new Ijebu Circuit. Both politically and symbolically, this development confirmed not only Remo’s independence from Ijebu-Ode but it also suggested, certainly to Remo Methodists, that Sagamu had clearly overtaken the Ijebu capital. Despite the importance of Christianity, and especially Methodism, in early colonial Remo, the belief by Remo citizens that relationships between Ijebu-Ode and Remo had been reversed was not only based on religious difference but also on the economic prosperity that followed the foundation of Sagamu. Sagamu’s rapid adoption of industrial cassava and palm oil production had turned the town into an important provider of agricultural goods for Lagos.9 At the same time, Remo’s growing production of kolanut, destined for consumption in northern Nigeria, had attracted a sizeable migrant community to Sagamu that traded kolanut for meat and other northern Nigerian products. The expansion of Remo’s economy had resulted in the physical growth of Sagamu, which was soon to eclipse Ijebu-Ode.10 This reversal of fortunes was satisfying to all Remo citizens – Muslims, Traditionalists and Christians – who had previously smarted from

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being called ègurè11 or, as they perceived it, ‘country bumpkins’ by citizens of the capital. As a result of these changes, many Remo citizens had come to understand Remo’s administrative separation from Ijebu-Ode and its subsequent administration from Lagos as the official confirmation of Remo’s new status. However, colonial policy changed after the amalgamation of the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914. In the course of administrative reorganisations concerned with these changes and preparing for the introduction of Indirect Rule in 1918, the main part of Remo was removed from Ikorodu and incorporated into Ijebu-Ode Division (Ijebu Province from 1921) within boundaries that have remained fairly stable until the present. As the Remo towns along the coastal strip originally claimed by Carter remained part of Lagos, the administrative change also confirmed the Akàrígbò’s formal cession of Ikorodu to the British. The remaining Remo towns not only lost their administrative independence and close relations with Lagos, but they were also faced with the introduction of direct taxation, a measure not considered for Lagos at the time, administered from Ijebu-Ode. Widespread indignance over this transformation – as it was understood – from a progressive into a backward part of the country and attempts to resolve the situation influenced the debates and politics of Remo’s overwhelmingly Christian political elite until the late 1930s. the high colonial educated elite

Remo’s commitment to Christianity and literacy did not only reflect local ambitions vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode, it was also aimed at the wider world. Converts and pupils at the new mission schools embraced literacy and ‘book knowledge’ with an enthusiasm that distinguished them from learners in most other Yoruba communities. By 1900, at least one, often two (Anglican and Methodist) or more primary schools had been established in most Remo towns, and this number continued to expand. The earnest commitment of Remo students to the new forms of knowledge offered by the church is illustrated not only in the number of local schools but also in the performance of local students. This was often linked to communal rivalry: in 1909, the District Commissioner began to hold a yearly examination of local pupils in Ijebu-Ode in which Remo students could participate. They usually took great pride in taking all or the great majority of the first ten places. Like I. A. Ifekoya from Isara, who came third in the 1909 examination and later became a published author and important chief in his hometown, outstanding students often became local leaders and intellectuals. Perhaps because of their association with Remo self-assertion, pupils from local Methodist schools often did particularly well vis-à-vis others. This was also true in the wider educational landscape of Nigerian Methodism. In a national competition in 1927, the best results of Methodist

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Standard 5 pupils were from (in order of ranking) the Remo towns of Ode Remo, Iperu and Sagamu, the Ijebu town of Ago-Iwoye and the Remo town of Ogere. With good results from almost all local primaries, many students from Remo furthered their education in training institutions, colleges and even secondary schools in Lagos, Abeokuta and Ijebu-Ode. Although such institutions were eventually established in Sagamu from the 1930s onwards under the leadership of the Akàrígbò and Methodist Superintendent F. W. Mellor, the local demand for secondary education outstripped supply until self-help efforts during the 1970s and 1980s provided adequate secondary education. The enthusiastic local embrace of mission education created a pool of highly educated men and women, many of whom were able to establish careers far beyond the boundaries of their home areas. Thus, both the CMS and the WMMS benefited greatly from their investment in local education and drew strongly on Ijebu and Remo for their own African staff.12 Confident of their own intellectual and spiritual knowledge, Ijebu and Remo Christians also played an important role in the Africanisation of Christianity and in the visions for and establishment of independent African churches, most prominently the Church of the Lord (Aláàdúrà), the headquarters of which remain based in the Remo town of Ogere (Turner 1967). But of course not all educated Remo citizens sought to work in explicitly Christian fields, and many local Christian lives continued to be deeply rooted both in polygynous family structures and in local traditional practice. At the same time, habitually and contemporarily Christian preferences and understandings – including the emphasis on Enlightenment values like education and progress – often strongly influenced their private and public ambitions. As there were few opportunities for educated workers in Ijebu and Remo, the majority of the newly educated generation moved to the nearby cities of Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan, where they embarked on teaching, administrative and business careers. But although a career outside Remo was often the only way in which educated Remo citizens could make use of their new skills, literacy and administrative ability also became important assets for those staying in or, more frequently, returning to Remo. Drawing on their experiences outside Remo to increase both local status and their own intellectual and political repertoire, literate Remo citizens were not only able to represent local interests in an acceptable way to the colonial state but also to engage with local traditions in a productive and innovative way. Frequently admired for their courage and high standards, literate men and, less frequently, women often became local leaders and intellectuals. As such leaders were honoured with chieftaincy and rulership positions, Christianity and literacy not only became an important asset for local chiefs and rulers in Remo, they also became a basis for a shared cultural politics. For the politics of Remo’s educated elite, the accession to the throne

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of Ofin by William Christopher Adedoyin in 1916 was of great importance. Born in 1878, Adedoyin was a member of Sagamu’s Anoko ruling family and a great-grandson of Akàrígbò Igimisoje, who had initiated the foundation of Sagamu. Adedoyin grew up in Etun-Iraye, a farming village south of Sagamu, where he assisted his mother in trading foodstuffs to Lagos. Aware of the advantages of literacy through his experiences in Lagos, Adedoyin attended Wesley College Sagamu from 1894 to 1896 and completed his primary education at Wesley College in Lagos in 1899. After a short tailoring apprenticeship in Lagos, he sought other work to be able to purchase a sewing machine. From 1900 to 1902, he worked as a clerk and assistant to the West African public intellectual Christopher Sapara Williams, who in 1889 had been the first African barrister to establish a private law practice in Lagos. He later became a member of the Legislative Council in Lagos and introduced Adedoyin to many members of the Lagos elite.13 Out of admiration for his patron, Adedoyin adopted the name Christopher William (Joshua 1989: 14–17). After his work for Christopher Sapara Williams, Christopher William Adedoyin – now nicknamed Ade Chris – returned to Sagamu in 1903 to settle down as a tailor. His knowledge of  Western and Lagos dress styles was valued for its modernity, and Adedoyin soon became one of Sagamu’s most fashionable tailors. Apart from designing fashion, Adedoyin also farmed pigs and kolanuts in villages south of Sagamu, and he worked as a public letter writer. From 1905, he acted as a clerk to Akàrígbò Oyebajo Torungbuwa and, after his dethronement for alleged corruption, also developed close links to Akàrígbò Awolesi Erinwole (1915–16). His closeness to the throne and his understanding of British concerns helped to develop his astute political insight further. Despite considerable support for the exiled Oyebajo Torungbuwa14 and strong rivalry from his brother Adeniyi Pabiekun after Awolesi Erinwole’s death in 1916,15 Adedoyin managed to be installed as Akàrígbò. Although he was on probation for a year, Adedoyin quickly won support both in Sagamu and in the colonial administration, not least because of his commitment to policies locally understood to reflect the ideals of enlightenment and progress. He consolidated Remo’s position as an important producer for the Lagos and inland markets by advancing the building of motorable roads from Sagamu, first to Ikorodu and the lagoon, and later to the west and north (Joshua 1989: 18–41), and he was strongly committed to the development of local educational opportunities and the building of schools. Perhaps most importantly, Adedoyin dedicated himself to achieving official recognition for Remo’s independence from Ijebu-Ode under his, and Ofin’s, leadership. According to him and his supporters, the administrative subordination of Remo to Ijebu-Ode was oppressive because Ofin’s historically leading position in Remo meant that it was a capital of the same

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status as Ijebu-Ode, and his own status as Remo’s paramount ruler was similar to that of the Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode. Like some of his predecessors, Adedoyin was supported in his ambitions by the local Methodist church. Born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1891, Reverend William Frederick Mellor was more than a decade younger than Adedoyin and moved to Remo with his wife Cecilia in 1922 as the Superintendent of the Remo circuit of the Methodist church.16 On the basis of a shared passion for education and the expansion of public infrastructure,17 as well as a joint commitment to Remo politics, a close friendship developed between the Mellors and Adedoyin. After the early death of Cecilia, Mellor remained in Sagamu, where he learnt to speak Yoruba fluently and, like Haastrup before him, eventually joined the Òsùgbó. Again, like Haastrup, in 1937 Mellor was also made an honorary chief in Ofin.18 Despite a late posting outside Remo,19 Mellor, like many Remo migrants, returned after his retirement and was buried in Sagamu after his death in 1977.20 Continuing the tradition established by Ademuyiwa Haastrup of strong Methodist support for a Remo centred on Ofin and Sagamu, Mellor worked closely with Akàrígbò Adedoyin throughout his life, not only to improve the provision of Remo with schools and infrastructure but also to legitimise Remo independence from Ijebu-Ode. While politics in Ofin were closely concerned with the organisation of Remo opposition to Ijebu-Ode, before the 1930s few literate Remo leaders from the outlying towns saw the assertion of Remo independence as important. Among them was Gabriel Onafowokan from Ikenne, born in 1890 to Isaac Onafowokan Odubote and his wife Aborisade, early Christian converts from Remo who lived in Erunwon in Ake, Abeokuta, until the 1892 defeat of Ijebu.21 Upon their return to Ikenne, their son Gabriel was educated in Anglican primary and secondary institutions in Ikenne, Abeokuta and Lagos,22 before he applied for the post of court interpreter for the Ijebu Native Administration, which by then included Remo. In 1929, after some years of responsibility for keeping the court accounts and collecting revenue, Onafowokan became the first local citizen to hold the post of Treasurer in the Ijebu Native Administration (Oyesanya 1992: 8–18). Educated and well connected, Onafowokan held one of the highest paid jobs open to non-Europeans in Ijebu Province and was a powerful politician in Ijebu-Ode as well as Remo. Illustrating the many ways in which local Christians asserted the legitimacy of local traditions, Onafowokan was married to at least six women in Ikenne, Sagamu, Ijebu-Ode and elsewhere, and he was committed at the same time to ensuring at least the primary education of his many children. Onafowokan’s status in Ijebu-Ode was undermined, however, by the 1933 installation of Awùjalè Adesanya, and eventually he too began to support Remo’s administrative independence from Ijebu-Ode.

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Representing the endurance of political traditions from the Remo federation especially in the former rebel towns, the historian David Onadele Epega of Ode Remo did not share the support of the majority of the educated elite for Remo independence. Born in 1881, only three years after Akàrígbò Adedoyin, Epega was the son of one of Remo’s earliest converts to Christianity, Jacob Osindero. Educated in Ijebu-Ode, Lagos and Memorial Grammar School Abeokuta, Epega became, like Adedoyin, a modern tailor before returning to Ode Remo, where he founded the private Lahusi Grammar School (Adebajo forthcoming: 3). Like many others, he was able to transform his knowledge into material wealth, and his family was among the first to own a bicycle and to roof their house with corrugated iron. However, Epega was not in thrall to Western attitudes and became, after a dispute with the Anglican Church, the founder of the African Church in his hometown Ode Remo, which remains the seat of its Remo Archdeaconry (Odumuyiwa 1987: 93). From 1900 onwards, Epega also studied local medicine and Ifá divination before he established the Imole Oluwa Institute, a debating and later publishing house dedicated to local and traditional knowledge and history. Epega wrote a number of books on local history, medicine, traditional religious practice and Ifá divination, which he published himself.23 Epega’s Iwe Itan Ijebu ati Ilu Miran, first written and published by the Imole Oluwa Institute in 1919, remains the most comprehensive written source on the Remo federation and its participative traditions to date.24 Epega’s direct and indirect opposition to the movement for Remo independence from Ijebu-Ode was reflected in an updated version of Iwe Itan Ijebu ati Ilu Miran in 1934, which made him powerful local enemies. It was widely felt at the time that Epega’s historical knowledge of local cooperative traditions would discredit the claim for Remo independence, which relied on the assertion that the town Ofin and its ruler, the Akàrígbò, had always held undisputed authority over all of Remo. Consequently, Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin and his supporters tried – unsuccessfully – to prevent the re-publication of his book.25 In return, Epega admonished his opponents: Lati tu asiri awon ti ntan awon Oyinbo ti nse akoso ilu (Political Officer). ([1919] 1934: 4) We aim at exposing the secrets of those who are deceiving the Europeans who administer the town [land, polity] (Political Officers). A close look at the lives of Remo’s intellectual and political leaders up to the late 1930s reveals an interesting dichotomy between the wider, and very coherent, cultural politics of the local elite and the ongoing local disagreements over Remo’s centralisation and independence. Thus, although Epega’s and Adedoyin’s representations of the past differed greatly, they, like their contemporaries, engaged passionately with a modern reinterpre-

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tation of historical knowledge and power. This concern with power was, in turn, intricately linked to their religious practices: while both Adedoyin and Mellor were Methodists, their reluctant supporters and opponents tended to belong to other denominations. As Peel has suggested (2002), local struggles for power were bound up with appropriations of Christianity and literacy in both a more general and a more intimate way as well, as members of Remo’s educated elite relied on Christianity and what was then still very much ‘its’ technology of writing both in framing their private life choices and in projecting their identities in the public sphere. In this sense, Christianity provided the space for a tentative integration of Remo’s local leadership despite its factional divisions. the str uggle for independence from ijebu-ode,

1916–33

Once installed, Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin proved to be a resourceful politician in the campaign to reassert Remo independence from Ijebu-Ode. After making his case to the rulers of all major Remo towns, he sent a widely supported petition to the Governor, Sir Hugh Clifford, in 1922.26 This petition, signed by almost all important Remo rulers, primarily reflected a strong sense of betrayal by the colonial power. Local rulers and leaders had originally agreed to the separation from Lagos because they were promised greater political autonomy and infrastructural development, including the continued presence of a District Officer in Sagamu, an improved road between Sagamu and Lagos (via Ikorodu), a new prison and, most importantly in the context of Remo’s growing – and taxpaying – economy, a local treasury. But none of these promises had been kept, and as the administrative capacity of Ijebu-Ode was built up, the presence of the local state in Sagamu was reduced, often to the disadvantage of the locality. For example, when the District Officer formerly stationed at Sagamu was removed, the government’s ‘Hausa’ soldiers, first stationed in Sagamu by Governor Carter, were felt to behave with impunity. Most importantly, the petition pointed out that the amalgamation of the treasuries of Remo and the rest of Ijebu was bitterly unfair. Financially, Remo’s incorporation into Ijebu Province was entirely to the advantage of the latter: in 1922, £5,109 was raised in Remo as revenue, but the Native Administration in Ijebu-Ode agreed only to spend £1,984 there.27 Thus under the new dispensation, in one year more than £3,000 raised from taxes in Remo subsidised the infrastructural development of Ijebu-Ode and the Ijebu heartland.28 As a result, the administrative reorganisation did not only disappoint hopes of material improvement but led to an actual decline in local well-being. As the local administration was widely perceived as oppressive, consent for the Akàrígbò’s campaign for an independent Remo was widespread,

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although, as Epega’s view from Ode Remo indicates, not universal.When the 1922 petition was denied,29 Adedoyin continued to pursue Remo’s administrative separation from Ijebu-Ode in various ways. Aware that his journeys to Ijebu-Ode for administrative purposes symbolically confirmed the Ijebu capital’s claims of authority over Remo, Adedoyin avoided ­travelling to meetings in Ijebu-Ode as much as he could. However, instead of creating support for his point of view, such behaviour simply antagonised those who held power over him and inspired the dislike of a number of District Officers stationed in Ijebu-Ode. The Ijebu Province Annual Report of 1923 notes: The AKARIGBO of SHAGAMU, Head of the Western District, takes a keen interest in his district and would be really useful to the Administration if he could be persuaded to work with the Awujale and Council; this he is most unwilling to do, his one idea being to dissociate himself from JEBU-ODE, and have a separate administration for the REMO country. He never attends a Council meeting if he can possibly avoid doing so.30 When attendance at a meeting was unavoidable, Adedoyin drew on all the resources available to him to assert his own status, which in turn angered the Awùjalè. In 1924 the Awùjalè complained that Adedoyin’s dress eclipsed his own and sent the Akàrígbò back from a meeting to change his clothes (Oyesanya 1992: 24). In 1925, undoubtedly both in response to this ­humiliation and to protest against Remo’s continuing financial subsidising of Ijebu-Ode, Adedoyin was held responsible for the loss of a travelling safe at Sagamu containing £126 of tax money.31 An annual report of the time describes Adedoyin as ‘weak and vain’, and comments rather dismissively that: The AKARIGBO of SHAGAMU appears to consider himself of more importance than he really is. He still heads his letter ‘His Royal Highness’ Office’ and ‘Royal Office’ and always seems to have a grievance of some sort.32 However, relations between Akàrígbò Adedoyin and the British improved when the Methodist Superintendent Reverend William Frederick Mellor, in Remo since 1922, became increasingly involved in Remo politics. A diplomatic and well-liked man, Mellor made a point of establishing good relationships with the various chiefs and obas, with the result that a significant number of Remo rulers became Methodists. By the early 1930s, the list of Remo’s Methodist obas included not only Akàrígbò Adedoyin, but also Abraham Okupe, the Alápér u of Iperu; Michael Asaye, the Ewùsì of Makun; the Alárá of Ilara; Joseph Ade Adeosin, the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo; and even D. M. Osiyemi, the ruler of Ago-Iwoye (Paulsen 1972: 154). This process reinforced the drawing of the outlying towns into a Methodist

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Remo centred on Ofin and Sagamu that had been started by Haastrup. As Methodism associated itself with the power of obaship more generally, Mellor even conducted a Christian coronation of Adedoyin, which was widely attended. As political authority in Remo depended both on elite and popular support, Mellor’s commitment to the mobilisation and education of women also played an important role in the political perception of Akàrígbò Adedoyin outside of Ofin. In 1925, Mellor brought Sister Winifred Shovelton to Remo, where she worked until her retirement in 1950. Shovelton led the vocal Methodist Women’s Fellowship, which was active in many Remo towns to raise funds for girls’ education, and which provided a much larger organisational space for women than the Anglican community did at the time. Shovelton and Mellor eventually set up the first secondary boarding school for girls in Remo, the Sagamu Girls School, in 1934 (Paulsen 1972: 158–9, 234). While this process was not directly aimed at creating consent for the Akàrígbò, the habitual focus of Remo Methodism on Sagamu and Ofin, as well as Mellor’s and Shovelton’s personal support for the Akàrígbò’s ambitions, must have contributed to a growing naturalisation of his aspirations for Remo. Thus, although Methodism was unable to reach beyond its own constituency, it provided a basis for shared politics among important sections of the population and in turn bolstered the Akàrígbò’s political position. Finally, but no less importantly, Mellor used his British origin to gain privileged access to colonial officers and to discuss his (and Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s) ambitions for Remo. In particular, Mellor developed a cordial relationship with the Resident and anthropologist Percy Amaury Talbot, who was posted to Ijebu between November 1927 and May 1929.33 As a result of Mellor’s representations, Talbot set aside several thousand pounds which were used to build water tanks and culverts in Remo and to erect a Native Administration Police Quarters in Sagamu. An old existing building was renovated to serve as a Post Office, and a mail runner was employed for contact with the Ikorodu post every fourteen days (Ayodele 2004: 68). In 1928, Resident Talbot even recommended to the Lieutenant Governor Southern Provinces that Remo should be made a Sub-District on the basis that this would support the decentralisation of the province.34 While Talbot’s recommendations were not immediately successful, the arrival of Donald Cameron as Governor of Nigeria in 1931 was a further positive sign for the Akàrígbò. Cameron had written a pamphlet entitled Tanganyika Territory: Native Administration Memoranda, in which he discussed his views on local government institutions and suggested a readjustment of boundaries so as to conform to ‘tribal’ divisions (para. 56). According to him, the jurisdiction of a Native Administration should normally be the area of the tribal lands of the people subordinate to it (para.

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57). In accordance with Cameron’s views, an Assistant District Officer was posted to Sagamu,35 and in 1932, four representatives from Remo were added to the Advisory Board to the Awùjalè.36 These representatives were co-opted into the Central Council from 1934 and included the Remo leaders Chief G. I. Delo-Dosunmu and E. A. Sokoya from Sagamu as well as J. A. Adesanya and M. S. Sowole from the northern Remo towns of Iperu and Ipara respectively. Pleased with the success of his drive to ensure a better representation for Remo, Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin is reported to have remarked confidently in 1933: It is well-known that if you humbug Government often enough you will get what you want.37 In the same year, the Akàrígbò submitted another petition for Remo independence from Ijebu-Ode.38 This petition, too, was rejected by Resident H. M. Brice-Smith, who nevertheless suggested that the rulers of the various Remo towns be heard in this matter. Brice-Smith thought the hearing should take place in the presence of both the Awùjalè and the Akàrígbò because he suspected the petition to be part of a scheme of self-aggrandisement by the Akàrígbò and hoped that public embarrassment would end the matter once and for all.39 In the course of the subsequent investigation, histories of the origin of Remo towns were collected, and in an intelligence report subsequently written on Remo, the limited historical authority of the Akàrígbò over the outlying towns was confirmed.40 However, concerns over the fairness of the allocation of infrastructure and tax revenue had engendered support for similar demands for independence elsewhere in Ijebu Province, including Ijebu-Igbo and even AgoIwoye. In response to these developments, several administrative officers suggested that the popularity of the Akàrígbò’s aspirations reflected the low degree of local opportunities for political participation at the grassroots. Consequently, greater access to the local state would undermine support for his aspirations.41 Some of the proposals emanating from this debate were implemented, and in 1935 Remo acquired town councils, a district council and the desired Sagamu Appeal Court. However, by that time the debate over the traditional power relations in Remo and its relationship to IjebuOde had become an integral part of local political disputes, and these were further invigorated by the expansion of state infrastructure which increased the possibilities of political access and participation. Parallel to this development, the rise of a new generation of the local elite, which linked local and nationalist politics to a previously unknown degree, also increased the participation in local affairs of non-local constituencies, including both Remo migrants and the reading public.

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e a r l y n a t i o n a l i s t l e a d e r s : o b a f e m i awo l owo a n d s a m u e l a k i n s a ny a

In their struggles over the centralisation and unity of Remo on the one hand and the appropriation and transformation of ‘mission Christianity and its agencies’ (Peel 2002: 139) on the other, Remo’s educated elite was joined in the late 1930s and 1940s by young nationalist leaders like Samuel Akinsanya and Obafemi Awolowo. The cultural politics of this generation are explored by Wole Soyinka in his novel Ìsarà: A Voyage Around ‘Essay’ ([1989] 1991), which relates the political struggles of the youthful educated elite of the Remo town Isara in the early 1940s. Soyinka called this group of friends the ex-Ilés, an Anglo-Yoruba pun that alludes to the fact that their missionderived education shaped their experiences in Lagos, Ibadan or elsewhere, far beyond the opportunities provided by the trade or other links associated with family (ilé). But at the same time, the new roads and improved lines of communication established by the colonial state enabled them to experience their physical ‘exile’ from Remo as a new form of engagement with local structures of power. Able to cross the distance between the urban centres and their Remo hometowns much more frequently than earlier migrants, early nationalist leaders from Remo were instrumental in creating, beyond the interests of the colonial state, connections between local and wider debates. Both Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Akinsanya’s early lives reflect these dynamics. Born in 1909, Obafemi Awolowo was the son of one of the earliest Christian converts in Ikenne, David Sopolu Awolowo. David Sopolu, himself the son of the Olótùú Ìwàrèfà or head of the Ìwàrèfà judges in the Òsùgbó of Ikenne, had joined the Anglican Church in Ikenne in 1896. He was a courageous convert who was not afraid of challenging traditional beliefs, and during a smallpox epidemic in 1920, David Sopolu ridiculed the worshippers of Olúwayé or Sònpònnón, the deity associated with smallpox, by destroying their objects of worship. However, he was later killed by the disease, and Awolowo’s mother and her children were left destitute. As his father’s siblings inherited most of his father’s property, Awolowo’s mother returned to her parents’ house while he lived with his uncles. His uncles did not, however, support Awolowo’s educational ambitions but sent him to work on their farms (Awolowo 1960: 1–34). Determined to obtain further schooling, Awolowo left his hometown Ikenne to stay with his grandmother in Abeokuta in 1921. As it was difficult for the young Obafemi to marshal his relatives’ financial support for his plans, he attempted to raise school fees by working as a road construction worker, firewood seller, water carrier, house servant and assistant to a public letter writer among others. Eventually, he was admitted to Wesley College, Ibadan, in 1927. However, he was appalled by the college’s ‘fagging’ system, which meant that, in line with contemporary British educational practices,

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younger students of the college were assigned as servants to older students. A leader of the protest against the injustices associated with the system, Awolowo was respected by his peers for his advocacy on their behalf. Awolowo left the college after his first year to work as a trainee teacher and, like like many of his contemporaries, he became engaged in nationalist politics. In 1929 he moved to Lagos for better paid work as a typist, and continued to improve his education by reading voraciously as well as teaching himself Latin. He eventually returned to Wesley College, Ibadan in 1932 to work as the college clerk, and left in 1934 to join the Nigerian Daily Times as a journalist. Trying to raise money for a law degree from the UK, and later also to repay the debts from a business collapse in early 1938, Awolowo also worked as a money lender, transporter and produce buyer (Awolowo 1960: 35–101). By most accounts, Awolowo was a proud and principled man who did not tolerate what he perceived as injustice and was certainly not prepared to make baseless promises or profess sentiments he did not feel.While Awolowo continues to be admired for his steadfastness today, it did not always make life easy for him. For example, when Awolowo asked the wealthy Ijebu-Ode merchant and NYM leader Timothy Odutola to finance his UK law degree, he framed his request as a business proposition. Refusing to acknowledge his position as a hard-up young man from a small Remo town when he was addressing one of the most prominent citizens of Ijebu-Ode, Awolowo’s letter was astonishingly irreverent and, perhaps not surprisingly, unsuccessful. It ended with a précis both of his proposal and his own sense of merit: You have my request before you, and the reasons why I make the request. It is left to you to decide whether it is worth your while to take the risk of helping me in the manner outlined above or not. (Awolowo 1960: 106) Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Akinsanya began to work together during the 1930s, when both were part of a group of politically interested young men keen to differentiate themselves from the older generation of politicians based in Lagos. Akinsanya’s rise within the nationalist movement had begun in 1923, when he was one of the founders of the Lagos-based Study Circle which sponsored literary discussions and political debates. Counting prominent Lagosians like H. A. Subair, R. A. Coker, Olatunji Caxton-Martins and Adetokunbo Ademola among its members, the Study Circle had later transformed itself into a political group. Meanwhile, Akinsanya had also built a political base as a leader of the Nigerian Motor Transport Union. Unlike Awolowo, Akinsanya was a flamboyant character who displayed his education theatrically. In his autobiography, Obafemi Awolowo describes Akinsanya’s talent for public performance:

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He was a crowd-puller and a tub-thumping orator, with a sense of the dramatic. Whenever he was going to address a mass meeting, he would carry tomes and tomes of books in his armpits, and might even hire young persons to help him to carry those he was unable to carry himself … More often than not, he never made a single reference to the books.   But on his entry into the hall with all these documentary impediments, he automatically evoked thunderous and prolonged applause, with shouts of ‘Saki!’ ‘General Saki!’ (Awolowo 1960: 149) In 1934, both Akinsanya and Awolowo were founding members of the new Lagos Youth Movement (Nigerian Youth Movement, or NYM, in 1936), of which Akinsanya became the general secretary. The NYM challenged established parties like the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), which had confined itself to Lagos (Coleman 1965: 216–18). Under Akinsanya’s and Awolowo’s leadership, the NYM took nationalist politics to Remo in 1936, and by 1937 branches of the Nigerian Youth Movement were established in several towns outside Lagos. In Remo, the NYM not only criticised the politics of the disputed Awùjalè Adesanya of Ijebu-Ode, but also publicised the debate about his legitimacy widely in Lagos and other parts of Southern Nigeria. In this way, the NYM – and nationalist politics generally – both imported wider political arguments into local debates and popularised local struggles. However, the NYM did not directly engage with the struggles dividing Remo, and in particular not with Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s demand for administrative independence from Ijebu-Ode. This institutional silence is probably linked to the different views on the matter taken by Awolowo and Akinsanya: while Awolowo avoided public involvement in the matter, Akinsanya opposed the Akàrígbò’s ambition for his paramountcy over Remo, which would be established if Remo became independent of Ijebu-Ode. But even though Awolowo and the NYM did not intervene in the debate on Remo independence, Akinsanya was able to use the techniques of the nationalist movement, including the publication of newspaper articles as well as meetings and public speeches both in Remo and Lagos, to mobilise large numbers of Remo citizens and migrants to participate in the debates. Rephrasing Epega’s historical arguments, Akinsanya argued that, in view of Remo’s political history which already contained strong participatory traditions, the paramountcy by the Akàrígbò would be undemocratic. Akinsanya’s attempts to convince Sagamu politician G. I. Delo-Dosunmu of his views in 1933, though eventually unsuccessful, illustrate his concerns over grassroots participation: I am not prepared anymore to be party in doing anything that would place such a chief in a position which is likely to … make him the sole arbiter of all matters affecting the interests of … [the] people.42

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Akinsanya’s argument clearly reflects the rhetoric of enlightenment, demo­ cracy and participation associated strongly with the emerging nationalist movement in Lagos, Ibadan and elsewhere. But the fact that his views were not shared by Awolowo suggests that they also reflected an important degree of local positionality. Isara had, after all, been a close ally of Ode Remo and other rebel towns in the nineteenth century, and had thus held on to federal traditions of local participation to a much higher degree than other outlying towns and especially the towns in Sagamu. But perhaps most importantly, Akinsanya’s opponents, including Akàrígbò Adedoyin, were as educated and modern in their ambitions as the NYM leader himself. Illustrating the general cultural politics of the colonial Remo elite, his opponents even shared his rhetorical concern over local oppression and disenfranchisement – only for them, the threat emanated from Ijebu-Ode rather than Ofin. the cr isis of leg itimac y in ijebu-ode and remo i­ n d e p e n d e n c e , 1933–8

Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin’s claims for Ofin’s past as the capital of Remo and his own status as Remo’s paramount ruler reflected not only his personal and communal ambitions, but also the political logic of Indirect Rule. As the colonial administration recognised local claims to power based on precolonial hierarchies but accorded little recognition to participatory traditions, the latter could not legitimise Remo’s claim to independence. While the influence of precolonial civic institutions had been reduced in the early years of colonial rule, traditionally legitimised rulers now controlled the administration – including the police, the courts and taxation as well as the treasury – to a degree that exceeded their earlier control of public affairs. Moreover, the colonial state implied that the link between traditional status and territory must be one of hierarchical control. As administrative power in Nigeria became dependent on the state’s recognition of traditional status, political competition over access to structures of local control was fought, at least in part, as a contest over traditional status. For colonial subjects in Ijebu and Remo, recognised traditional status remained the most visible way in which access to the state apparatus could be negotiated. Thus traditional status became a state ideology not in the sense of a conscious formulation, but in the sense of a charter for the competition over power – albeit one in which local knowledge and legitimacy continued to play an important role (Nolte 2002). This process created a powerful disadvantage for the opponents of Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s ambition to become Remo’s paramount ruler, because they had to argue against the historical momentum created both by Remo’s struggle against Ijebu-Ode’s dominance in the nineteenth century and by the politics of conversion that had begun to deepen the existing divide since the establishment of colonial rule. As Epega, Akinsanya and their supporters were

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forced to reiterate their towns’ historical subordination to Ijebu-Ode to make their cases against Adedoyin, their position was further undermined by the installation of Awùjalè Adesanya in Ijebu-Ode. During his Residency in Ijebu Province (1927–9), Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s sympathiser P. A. Talbot had, almost certainly involuntarily, helped to prepare the ground for the subversion of Ijebu-Ode’s legitimacy in Remo. Impressed with the achievements of educated rulers in Remo and elsewhere, Talbot’s concern had been the opening of the Awùjalèship to educated candidates, and in particular to the members of the related Gbelegbuwa and Odubela families who had joined the literate elite of Ijebu-Ode. Both families had once been intimately connected to the Awùjalèship, but due to the Ijebu-Ode tradition which requires the Awùjalè to have been born while his father wore the crown (abídàgbà),43 both families had ceased to have a right to the throne.44 Meanwhile, Ijebu-Ode’s particular rule of succession had consistently thrown up Awùjalès with whom the British found cooperation difficult. After a particularly bitter conflict with Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga, who was deposed in February 1929 over allegations of extortion and the abuse of his power, Talbot granted a petition for the restitution of the Gbelegbuwa family, which was officially approved in 1930 (Ayandele 1992: 97–105). When Awùjalè Adenuga’s successor Ali Ogunnaike died in 1933, Daniel Otubusin, one of the petitioners of 1929, campaigned for the throne. However, public opinion in Ijebu-Ode was opposed to Otubusin not only because he had not been born while his father was on the throne,45 but also because the other ruling families felt that his installation would undermine the established rotation of office among the town’s royal families.46 Finally, Daniel Otubusin was only related to Awùjalè Gbelegbuwa (c.1760–90) through the maternal line, and his own family was bitterly divided over his candidature. At the same time, public support for a return of the dethroned ex-Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga (1925–9) was strong. For these reasons, Otubusin sought to gain supporters from outside Ijebu-Ode and courted the rulers of the other major towns in Ijebu Province (Oduwobi 2004: 90–4). Otubusin’s advances were well received by Akàrígbò Christopher Adedoyin and Reverend Mellor, who both befriended and publicly supported him. Their support for Otubusin reflected, at least in Mellor’s case, support for a fellow Christian in a predominantly Muslim environ­ment. However, it was also strategic: if Otubusin was enthroned, the strong opposition in Ijebu-Ode would make it difficult for this Awùjalè to concentrate on Remo affairs, certainly in the first years of his reign. Also, Otubusin’s installation would further narrow the political options available to those Remo leaders opposed to the Akàrígbò’s ambitions: if they rejected the Akàrígbò’s authority in favour of the Awùjalè’s, they declared their allegiance to an Awùjalè who was widely considered an impostor. Thus, when Otubusin was installed as

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Awùjalè under the name of Daniel Adesanya in November 1933, Akàrígbò Adedoyin had taken an important step towards Remo independence. As the Akàrígbò became deeply involved in the politics of Ijebu-Ode, Remo leaders opposed to Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s ambitions in turn gave their support to the ex-Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga (1925–9). In the hope of seeing Adenuga reinstalled and averting a crisis of legitimacy in IjebuOde, Samuel Akinsanya facilitated the publication of the views of Awùjalè Adesanya’s opponents in the Lagos newspapers, especially the Daily Times. When the Lagos-based politicians Sir Adeyemo Alakija and Sir Kitoye Ajasa also began to publicly support ex-Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga, the political temperature in Ijebu-Ode continued to rise. It was further increased by the public opposition to Awùjalè Adesanya by one of his most important administrators, the Ijebu Province Native Treasurer Gabriel Onafowokan from Ikenne. Onafowokan was a relative of the ex-Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga,47 and he feared that for this reason Adesanya would undermine him both personally and professionally. On 20 October 1934, during an official visit of the Lieutenant Governor to Ijebu-Ode, Awùjalè Adesanya was shot. Although he did not die, he lost his right arm. His attacker, Yesufu Idimota, was a vocal supporter of ex-Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga and could be linked to a group of Ijebu and Remo leaders, of which several were arrested. Among them was Gabriel Onafowokan from Ikenne, who was eventually accused of having visited an Ifá diviner in the Remo town of Irolu with the aim of destroying Adedoyin, of attending conspiratorial meetings and of having originally owned the pistol that was later found with Idimota. The prosecution succeeded in building up a strong case against Onafowokan, and he was sentenced to prison. Later it emerged that some of the evidence was false and that those who had testified against Onafowokan had done so out of envy and personal ambition, thus the West African Court of Appeal acquitted Onafowokan and other suspects (Oyesanya 1992: 31–2). However, although Onafowokan and his co-accused were restored to their posts, their public arrest had been humiliating and had undermined their political influence. Thus the Akàrígbò’s most vocal opponents were doubly undermined. Not only were those who claimed close ties to Ijebu-Ode now saddled with an Awùjalè widely considered as illegitimate, but local attempts to remove Adesanya had also been very publicly defeated. After the demoralisation of his opponents through Awùjalè Adesanya’s installation, Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin mobilised his own ties to Lagos and its legal community to challenge the colonial state itself. In January 1936, the Secretary to the Colonial Government in Lagos received a letter from Sir William Neville Geary,48 Barrister-at-Law, in which the claims of the Akàrígbò and his councillors for a separate administration were put forward. Sir William argued that if the cession treaty of 1894

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between ‘His Majesty King Akarigbo’ and Governor Carter, as well as the proclamation of full sovereignty over the ceded territory by Carter, was not valid, then British rule in Remo had no legal justification. If, however, the treaty was valid, then the Akàrígbò could not have been subordinate to the Awùjalè.49 Governor Bourdillon immediately reacted to the Akàrígbò’s legal threat and personally visited Remo. An informal recognition of his claims meant that the Akàrígbò was invited to attend the first Conference of Paramount Rulers in Oyo in early 1936. In August 1937, a Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justice H. M. Martindale, was set up. It carried out an exhaustive review of colonial documentation and heard numerous witnesses. However, although many Remo rulers – often hoping for an increase of their stipends once Remo ceased to subsidise Ijebu-Ode – favoured Remo’s administrative independence, many citizens of the outlying Remo towns, and especially the former rebel towns, resented the fact that the Akàrígbò’s campaign for Remo independence was based on his claim to paramountcy in Remo. Letters questioning the basis of the Akàrígbò’s authority were sent to the Chief Commissioner in Enugu from Ode Remo, Iperu, Ogere, Makun and Ilisan in late 1936 and early 1937.50 Despite strong representations on behalf of Ijebu-Ode by David Onadele Epega and Samuel Akinsanya,51 the Awùjalè’s perceived illegitimacy undermined him throughout the inquiry. However, Awùjalè Adesanya did not give up without a fight, and he not only denied the historical claims put forward by the Akàrígbò but also pointed out that if the Akàrígbò’s treaty rights should be granted, then so should those of Emuren, the small southern Remo town which had been granted its own treaty by Carter on his way to Sagamu in 1894. Unfortunately for Ijebu-Ode and Emuren, the Awùjalè’s evocation of principle swayed neither the verdict nor popular views on his legitimacy. Such views contributed considerably to the fact that both during and after the Martindale Inquiry, several outlying towns provided enthusiastic support for the Akàrígbò, while even former rebel Remo towns eventually acquiesced in the claims that the Akàrígbò was Remo’s paramount ruler. After all, it was difficult to muster sympathy or even support for such an unpopular Awùjalè. Under the circumstances, Ijebu-Ode could not even rely on the support in this matter of the Óòni of Ile-Ife, whom the British increasingly used to legitimise their local administration in the Yoruba-speaking part of Nigeria. In 1894, the Óòni had defined the relationship between the Awùjalè and the Akàrígbò as that between the elder and the younger brother. However, the Awùjalè’s argument that this metaphor implied that the Akàrígbò had always been subordinate to him was now undermined by his successor. Although the Óòni had put forward the same argument in 1933, in 1937 he implied that the metaphor referred to a basic equality of status as both brothers

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came from the same family (Oduwobi 2004: 118). Eventually, reflecting both popular opinion in most of Remo and the long political campaign by Akàrígbò Adedoyin, the Martindale Commission came to the conclusion that the 1894 treaty signed by the Akàrígbò was still valid. Confirming the legitimacy of the colonial state through the local traditional hierarchy, the Martindale Inquiry recommended that the Remo area should be administered independently from the rest of Ijebu, and it recognised the Akàrígbò-in-Council as the Native Authority for the Remo Native Administration. On 1 April 1938, Remo became a fully independent District within Ijebu Province.52 A District Officer, R. T. Minne, was stationed near the Akàrígbò’s palace in Sagamu, where the meetings of the Native Administration Council were held. Most importantly, Remo obtained its own treasury, although it retained some financial responsibility towards IjebuOde. To assuage Ijebu anger over its considerable loss of income from Remo, which was widely perceived as a sleight to the Awùjalè, Remo continued to pay £400 annually as a contribution to his stipend.53 Remo’s long struggle for independence illustrated that the transformation and reinterpretation of historical rivalries in Remo during the first four decades of the twentieth century were linked to two main factors, namely the local organisation of the colonial state and the appropriation of ­Christianity. Overall the state contributed to the further centralisation of Remo, and although this process was partially reversed while Remo was administered from Ijebu-Ode, it was eventually reinforced when the Akàrígbò was recognised as Remo’s paramount ruler in 1938. While the state could restructure and hierarchise local communities, it was unable to create consent for this process. Even when local hierarchies were flattened overall, as happened with Ijebu-Ode’s loss of control over Remo, the hierarchical nature of the colonial state and its reliance on traditional authority at the expense of participatory institutions only allowed for a relative increase of local participation.54 Thus, despite the overall economic and political advantages of Remo independence, its subsequently centralised local administration also brought political control more closely to the grassroots. However, the emergence of a relatively homogenous and self-confident local elite at least reduced the level of local discontent with this process. ­Christianity had not only increased the cultural and political differences between Remo and Ijebu-Ode, but had also given rise to a cultural politics shared by converts from formerly warring factions of Remo. Yet despite the fact that conversion to Christianity in Remo clearly supported the central­isation desired by the colonial administration, an interpretation of Christianity as a colonial ideology would be too narrow. Although the conversion of Remo to Christianity, especially by the Methodist Church, was carried out with a clear political ambition, and although the courts consistently supported Christians in conflicts with traditional practitioners

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and civic associations, conversion remained very much a process dominated by local concerns. Christianity and literacy enabled people both to aspire to political or intellectual leadership positions and to engage with the changing economic and political environment in Remo and beyond. As important habitual forms of knowledge and practice associated with Christianity in Remo centred on Sagamu and the Akàrígbò, it was not the religion’s link with the state but people’s participation in and appropriation of Christian activities that reduced discontent with Remo’s new hierarchy among important sections of the population. The reduction of local discontent with Ofin’s new role due to widespread participation in local Christianity and especially Methodism refutes notions of a colonial state in which power and knowledge are exclusively controlled from above or even by the local institutions of the state. Cruise O’Brien (2003) has suggested that the people’s voice often takes on a quasi-democratic religious form in which followers invest great power(s) in spiritual leaders but, at the same time, remain aware that they can change their allegiance. But despite the undisputedly important role of the church in creating a relatively unregimented space for local discourse in Remo during the high colonial period, and despite the importance of a local Christianity for the creation of tentative consent for a more hierarchical Remo, the impact of religion on popular opinion was very uneven. As Christianity was only one religion of the area, and as its political impact was most noticeable among the educated elite, important groups of Remo citizens were left out of this process. Because of the limited reach of Christianity in a religiously divided community, it would take the introduction of electoral politics to truly overcome and transform local traditional rivalries in Remo. The rise of nationalist politics after Remo’s independence under Samuel Akinsanya and Obafemi Awolowo would not only build on the cultural politics of the local Christian elite, it would also transcend its religious specificity and in this manner moderate and secularise its local importance.

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5 nationalist politics and the ­integration of traditional politics and party rivalry under obafemi awolowo early nationalist politics in remo

By the early 1930s, the nationalist movement in Nigeria still reflected the initial engagement of old elite families, mostly based in Lagos, with Christianity and literacy. Therefore the movement was still predominantly cosmopolitan in origin. However, growing numbers of the provincial educated community – including substantial numbers of migrants from Ijebu and Remo – began to insert themselves into cosmopolitan nationalist politics while maintaining ties to their home communities. Dissatisfied with the established political leadership in Lagos represented by the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), a group of ambitious nationalist leaders founded the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM) in 1936. The NYM’s founding members included two young men of Remo origin, namely the journalist, businessman and aspiring lawyer Obafemi Awolowo from Ikenne and the union leader and later oba Samuel Akinsanya, who had been involved in the political struggle in Ijebu-Ode over the legitimacy of Awùjalè Daniel Adesanya in 1933 and 1934. During this conflict, Samuel Akinsanya had collaborated with Timothy Odutola, who was one of Ijebu-Ode’s wealthiest men and bitterly opposed to Awùjalè Adesanya.1 As soon as the Nigerian Youth Movement was founded in 1936, Odutola became its Ijebu president. As the earlier opposition to Adesanya had referred to tradition and – concerned with abídàgbà rules and the internal divisions among Ijebu-Ode’s royal families – opposed an educated Awùjalè, Odutola’s support for the NYM allowed him to redefine this struggle. Appropriating the claim for modernity on which the British had based their support for Awùjalè Adesanya, NYM leader Odutola now represented himself as part of the modern and educated elite who fought against an outmoded traditional ruler. On several occasions, Odutola publicly humiliated the Awùjalè by accusing him of being backward, and in 1938, Odutola even rebuked the Awùjalè in front of the Resident for not being punctual.2 It has been suggested that the Yoruba traditional elite was initially wary of the political aims of the nationalist politicians (Sklar 1963: 481), and

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this observation certainly applied to Ijebu-Ode. However, as in Lagos itself, the expansion of nationalist politics was only successful where it engaged with local struggles and contests, and where these remained centred on communal competition, locality played an important role in structuring elite and popular attitudes towards the nationalist movement. The complex relationship between Ijebu and Remo contributed to the fact that in 1936 the Remo obas generally welcomed the expansion of the NYM to Remo. In August 1936, a Remo branch of the NYM was founded in the Methodist school at Sagamu under the patronage of Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin. The NYM’s vice patrons included a number of prominent Remo rulers, such as the Alákènnéé of Ikenne, the Olófin of Ilisan, the Alápér u of Iperu, the Alárá of Ilara, the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, the Elépè of Epe, the Ewùsì of Makun, the Odemo of Isara, the Olóògèrè of Ogere and the Onípará of Ipara as well as the Methodist Circuit Superintendent Reverend William Frederick Mellor (The Ijebu Weekly News, 22 August 1936). In some respects, the unity of the Remo rulers with regard to the NYM, clearly associated with a critique of Ijebu-Ode, was surprising at the time. While most Remo obas were strongly opposed to Awùjalè Adesanya, Akàrígbò Adedoyin had long acted as a public friend and supporter of Adesanya, albeit with his own political ambition – Remo independence and Ofin paramountcy – in mind. At the same time, the Akàrígbò’s political paramountcy was opposed by several communities represented by the obas of former rebel towns who reiterated their close ties to the capital. In this complex situation, it is possible that these rivalries did not find expression in the traditional elites’ response to the NYM because they cancelled each other out: while the Akàrígbò was a personal friend of Awùjalè Adesanya, he wanted administrative independence from Ijebu-Ode, and while his opponents preferred Ijebu-Ode’s overlordship to Ofin’s, they rejected Awùjalè Adesanya. However, despite the continuing importance of locality in responses to wider politics, it is also likely that local divisions seemed perhaps less relevant to the participating rulers than the increasing local importance of migrants involved in nationalist politics. The expansion of the NYM beyond Lagos reflected important social and demographic changes of which the Remo rulers became particularly aware when migrants and their leaders, like Samuel Akinsanya, mobilised public opinion over Remo’s claims to independence. Under British rule, obaship had become an institution through which state power could be accessed. However, as the labour migration of educated Remo indigenes to Lagos and Ibadan increased,3 royal and chiefly positions of power were not the only means by which enterprising Remo citizens could establish themselves. Migrant associations were founded in most cities of migrants’ destination, and through patronage networks and sponsors of other peoples’ migration and education, migrant leaders could become powerful political brokers

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in their cities of residence as well as their hometowns. As many migrants engaged with anti-colonial and ‘youth’ movements in their cities of residence, it is likely that in 1936 the obas’ patronage of the NYM was also aimed at capturing the political potential of these migrants.The Remo rulers’ collective patronage of the NYM thus also acknowledged the influence of the educated and politicised migrants in their hometowns, and it may in some cases even have been an attempt to draw their towns’ migrants to the palaces in order to make them allies rather than opponents. Of course, as the background and life story of Akàrígbò Adedoyin illustrate, many Remo obas were educated men themselves. Since the early decades of the century, many of those who had been elected to the throne had returned to their hometowns from migrant careers as tailors, clerks, teachers, policemen or even civil servants or professionals (Aronson 1970: 305). Reflecting this shared experience, some of Remo’s rulers may have been sceptical about the nationalists’ critique of traditional authority in Ijebu-Ode, but they also tended to agree with the NYM’s critique of the racism that narrowed the educational and economic opportunities of Nigerians within the colonial state. Overall, the NYM’s support for greater educational opportunities and its protests against pre-war and wartime restrictions enjoyed widespread support throughout Remo. The importance of the educated and migrant elite for the expansion of the NYM into Ijebu and Remo illustrates that, in contrast to Mamdani’s (1996: 18) suggestion, the demands for traditional legitimacy and civic rights were not confined to rural and urban areas respectively. Instead, they were closely entwined with each other through personal and communal relationships as well as social development. As both the traditional and the nationalist realms of Nigerian politics were capable of framing demands and critiques of the colonial state, they did not necessarily contradict each other. While the expansion of the NYM to Ijebu-Ode led to a period of confrontation between nationalist and traditional politics, the NYM in Remo did not in any active way interfere with the Native Administration. Instead, it criticised the colonial government as well as Ijebu-Ode by giving voice to local political, educational and economic aspirations. As the role of the NYM in Remo illustrates, the nationalist and traditional ‘counter-discourses of constitutional entitlement’ (Comaroff 2002: 129) could support and legitimate each other as long as the state appeared as the ultimate arbiter of political demands. Thus, although the Remo obas’ power depended on the colonial administration criticised by the NYM, their support for the NYM was not contradictory at the time. Beyond the concerns of the educated rulers and migrants, the expansion of the NYM from Lagos to Remo reflected the economic concerns of important sections of the population. Thanks to the active roles of Samuel Akinsanya and Obafemi Awolowo in the nationalist movement, the NYM

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continued to represent such interests during the prewar years. Under Akinsanya’s leadership, the NYM coordinated a strike of the Nigerian Motor Transport Union in 1937 against higher registration fees for those mostly African-owned trucks competing with the railway lines. Although Remo was bypassed by the railway, many of its lorry-owners were affected by the higher fees. Once the network of motorable roads in Remo had been expanded, many Remo entrepreneurs had invested in the road transport business to expand their economic flexibility as produce buyers in the trade of locally produced palm and cassava products for the Lagos markets. Many Remo entrepreneurs also established themselves as produce buyers in places further north, such as Ibadan, from where they brought their wares to Lagos. On trips between most of these destinations, Remo-owned trucks were considered to compete with the railway lines and owners had to pay higher fees (Awolowo 1960: 126). As the Second World War approached and eventually affected the British Empire, the NYM and its related movements also reflected popular, and frequently ambivalent, views on Nigeria’s place in international politics. By the outbreak of the war, most of the numerous German trading firms that operated in Nigeria had left the country. As many German firms had, in the absence of political clout, been more lenient with their credit facilities to African middlemen than British ones, no particular hatred existed for Germans (Coleman 1965: 187). In fact, during his time in Lagos, even Obafemi Awolowo had been employed by the German firm J. W. Jaeckel & Co. At the same time, wartime limitations and price rises affected large sections of the population and created opposition to the colonial government, some of which was articulated by the NYM. In 1940, when palm produce exports – one of Remo’s major export items – were banned from the Western Provinces, the NYM also successfully protested to the Governor, Sir Bernard Bourdillon, and achieved a lifting of the ban shortly afterwards (Awolowo 1960: 130). Between 1939 and 1942 the cost of living rose by up to 75 per cent in many places. As a result of this process, many sectors of the population became unionised, and the spread of the union movement, in which both Awolowo and Akinsanya had also been involved, further contributed to the nationalist critique of the colonial order. When in 1943 the Nigerian Trades Union Congress4 was inaugurated, Awolowo also took on the editorship of its quarterly bulletin, the Nigerian Worker (Coleman 1965: 256). But despite the close links between nationalists and the union movement, by 1944, when Awolowo left for the UK to obtain his law degree, the NYM was deep in decline. This decline was closely tied to Remo politics, because it both reflected and informed Samuel Akinsanya’s political ambitions.

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installing a nationalist oba: odemo samuel ­a k i n s a ny a

In 1941, both the Nigerian Motor Transport Union leader Samuel Akinsanya and the then president of the NYM, Ernest Ikoli, wanted to contest a by-election to the Lagos Legislative Council as NYM representatives. At a general meeting of the Lagos branch of the NYM, Akinsanya had the support of the majority with 108 votes against sixty for Ikoli and thirty-seven for another candidate. However, after meeting to consider these nominations, the Central Executive Committee of the NYM selected Ikoli. Akinsanya reportedly congratulated Ikoli, but later announced that he would stand against him (Awolowo 1960: 147). His unwillingness to acquiesce in the committee’s decision led to an intensification of rivalry between Nnamdi Azikiwe and Akinsanya on the one hand and Obafemi Awolowo and Ikoli on the other, and eventually contributed to the division of the nationalist movement along ethnic lines. However, the politicisation of ethnic background was only one aspect of the conflict.5 After his return from the USA and Ghana in 1937, Azikiwe had founded the newspaper West African Pilot, which soon became the newspaper of the nationalist movement. However, in June 1938, Ikoli became editor of the Lagos Daily Service, which claimed to be the official organ of the movement. Consequently Azikiwe began to seek political support outside the NYM, especially among Igbo associations and unions. When Akinsanya lost the 1941 by-election to Ikoli, Azikiwe announced his resignation from the NYM and many Igbo members followed him (Coleman 1965: 227). When Azikiwe left the NYM, a large number of members from Ijebu and Remo followed, which suggests that, like Igbos, nationalists from Ijebu and Remo occupied a difficult position within the movement. This position was linked to the persistent claim to Lagos politics by the descendants of the old Lagosian elite, both vis-à-vis the increasing number of provincial Yorubaspeakers (often from Ijebu and Remo) and members of other ethnic groups (especially Igbos) in Lagos. By the early 1940s, the new Lagosians had forced members of the old elite, who had previously often simply assumed leadership positions in the nationalist movement, to compete for these positions, causing resentment and prejudice (Zachernuk 2000: 134). In the case of migrants from Ijebu and Remo, such prejudice was directed at their presumed rural origin. In many Yoruba communities, origin from a less urbanised area continues to be a source of low prestige, and migrants to Lagos from areas like Remo were considered to be unenlightened or ‘farm people’ (ará oko) by the urban citizens. For the nationalist leaders from outside Lagos, a validation of obaship and chieftaincy in their hometowns was therefore much more than a pragmatic recognition that, within the Native Administration system, obaship conferred on its holders a considerable degree of power. Conversant with

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historical political discourse, provincial nationalists were also aware that obaship established the independence of a town and thus conferred an identity as ‘town people’ (ará ìlú) on a town’s citizens (Oloko 1984: 23). While many cosmopolitan Nigerian intellectuals and outside observers at the time were of the opinion that, as Nigeria became a modern nation, traditional authority would lose in importance or even disappear (Lloyd 1955b; Crowder and Ikime 1970), obaship and chieftaincy had at least symbolic importance for provincial nationalist leaders who associated it with claims to urbanity and civilisation (Nolte 2003). In the light of the wider cultural politics of the nationalist movement, Akinsanya’s historical decision to contest the vacant throne of the Odemo of Isara after the death of the previous Odemo Onabajo Poke (1915–41) and only a few months after he lost the by-election to Ikoli was a decision which reflected ethnic as well as economic and social tensions within the NYM. At the same time, his expansion of the nationalist struggle into Remo traditional politics was an attempt to legitimate his opposition to the colonial manipulation and hierarchisation of communities through the traditional sphere without rejecting obaship per se. In 1933 Akinsanya had been one of the opponents of the installation of Awùjalè Daniel Adesanya, and in 1937 he had been one of the chief mobilisers against Remo independence from Ijebu-Ode and the paramountcy of Akàrígbò Adedoyin. But irrespective of Akinsanya’s engagement with Lagos politics, his past engagement in Ijebu and Remo had helped his opponents to forge a powerful alliance against his candidacy. His adversaries included his townsmen I. A. Ifekoya, a published historian of Isara history and the Olísà of Isara, as well as J. S. Erinle, the headmaster of St Saviour’s Secondary School in IjebuOde and an elected member of the Remo Native Administration Council since 1938.6 While Ifekoya and Erinle had supported Remo independence under the Akàrígbò, Akinsanya had antagonised both the Awùjalè and the Akàrígbò. Moreover, Akinsanya had also alienated the majority of Remo’s other traditional rulers, including the rulers of Isara’s northern allies of Ode Remo, Ipara and Iperu. Valuing Remo self-government more highly than their individual autonomy from the Akàrígbò, these obas had supported Remo independence against the resistance of large sections of their towns. As local discontent over Adedoyin’s authoritarian powers began to increase in the 1940s, many of these obas were not keen to revisit the disputes of 1937–8 and consequently opposed Akinsanya’s candidacy. Instead, they supported Akinsanya’s opponent, J. S. Erinle.7 Akinsanya’s opponents were not only in control of the Ijebu and Remo administrations, but also had the tacit support of E. R. Ward, the District Officer at the time. Consequently they were, despite overwhelming popular support for Akinsanya, able to draw out the process of his recognition by two years. Akinsanya was only acknowledged by the government in 1943 after a

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prolonged, bitter struggle in Isara and beyond, and only after the intervention of senior colonial administrators, including Chief Commissioner Whiteley.8 Even after Akinsanya’s recognition by Whiteley in 1943, the Akàrígbò as well as his Isara-based ally Olísà Ifekoya remained Akinsanya’s sworn political enemies. Both men were involved in numerous further attempts to discredit and dethrone Akinsanya during the late 1940s, eventually leading to Akinsanya’s suspension for misrule and his later reinstallation after a law suit against senior members of the colonial government.9 Akinsanya’s personal courage and commitment in the face of an almost overpowering opposition has been described elsewhere,10 and despite a number of local conflicts, he remained on the throne until his demise in 1985. However, while Akinsanya still struggled to establish himself on Isara’s throne, he himself relied on authoritarian traditions within the colonial administration in order to establish his position vis-à-vis that of his local opponents. Drawing on local histories of Isara’s past greatness as well as allegations of corruption against neighbouring traditional rulers, Akinsanya successfully asserted his town’s independence from neighbouring Ode Remo, which won him much admiration in Isara. Confronted with the opposition of so many of his fellow traditional rulers, as well as established members of the local elite, Akinsanya’s struggles often manifested themselves as financial difficulties. In response to these pressures, he also attempted to increase his status by claiming Isara’s paramountcy over the nearby community of Orile Oko, which had sprung up on the old settlement site of the Egba Oke-Ona capital Oko. If this attempt had been successful, the establishment of Isara’s paramountcy over Orile Oko would have been financially rewarding, because the ruler’s stipends reflected the tax assessment of the communities under their control.11 Overall, Odemo Akinsanya’s installation in Isara had a complex effect on local politics. Despite the widespread opposition to his enthronement from many local obas on political grounds, it further confirmed the trend by which Remo towns chose leading members of the local educated elite to represent them vis-à-vis other towns and in the local administration. In terms of local discourses, Akinsanya’s installation and its aftermath countered popular struggles against the hierarchisation of Remo politics. Both his political marginalisation and his own mobilisation of authoritarian traditions in response to his marginalisation undermined his earlier attempts to reconstruct traditional authority in Remo along more democratic lines. At the same time, Akinsanya’s public identity centred more on the nationalist and union movement than on the self-consciously Christian politics that had characterised the Remo elite and its local assimilation during the previous decades. As Akinsanya owed his career to Christianity and education, and as his values reflected the general ethos of enlightenment associated with Christianity in Remo and beyond, this apparent contra-

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diction did not constitute an ideological challenge to the local dominance of Christianity. Instead, it reflected the ongoing generalisation of the cultural politics of enlightenment in the nationalist movement as well as within Remo. However, it may have been Akinsanya’s personal exclusion from the local elite that enabled him to become a supporter and spokesperson for a different kind of grassroots politics during the 1940s. gà r í p o l i t i c s a n d wo m e n ’ s p o l i t i c a l m o b i l i s a t i o n

Britain passed some of its economic burden during the Second World War (1939–45) to its colonies. Throughout the war, a sizeable section of the male Nigerian population was enlisted in the West African Frontier Force (WAFF), putting pressure on local production. At the same time, the colonial state attempted to control prices for a number of consumer goods in order to prevent urban unrest. Especially targeted by wartime price controls was a fermented cassava product called gàrí, which had become an important and female-dominated cottage industry in Remo. After the development of a fermentation process to remove the prussic acid content of local cassava plants, women had responded to the growing demand for cheap foodstuffs in the nearby cities by improving the efficiency of the gàrí production process. Groups of women divided the stages of labour in gàrí production, and individuals often specialised in the peeling, grating, desiccating, fermenting and frying stages that formed part of the overall process. As the grating of the raw tubers was particularly timeconsuming, a special grater was devised for industrial production, on which skilled graters would grind two tubers at the same time, using both hands. Other technological improvements saved labour or time. For example, it was soon discovered that the addition of lemon juice or a local leaf could shorten the necessary fermentation time for grated cassava from three or more days to just one day, giving the otherwise rather tasteless crumbs a distinct and delicious tart taste which identified them as having originated from Ijebu or Remo. Some producers also took to leaving half-fried gàrí to dry off in the sun, thus saving on oil and fuel (Okuseinde forthcoming: 2–5). Less expensive to produce than yams or rice, gàrí had become both a staple in Remo itself and an important local export to Lagos, Ibadan and Abeokuta. Gàrí is not only inexpensive but also extremely easy to prepare for consumption. Added to hot water and stirred, it turns into a thick starchy paste to complement vegetable, meat or fish stews, and added to cold water, it can be consumed with sweet or savoury condiments. A low-cost convenience food, gàrí was indispensable for urban bachelors as well as for the less well-off and the poor. But as a result of price rises during the war, gàrí prices in Lagos – the most profitable market for Remo – were put under government control in February 1941. To retain their profit, some Remo

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traders turned towards Ibadan while others withdrew from the trade beyond Remo. However, most traders with an established network of contacts in Lagos continued to trade clandestinely to avoid the price controls. To avoid the price control wardens who attempted to trip up traders, gàrí sales increasingly relied on kinship and hometown ties, and a number of Ijebu and Remo citizens moved to Lagos to act as middlemen and women of the now clandestine trade. Many of them settled along the stretch of land between the former Remo town of Ikorodu and the Yaba railway depot – which had attracted many earlier migrants – in areas such as Ketu, Onipanu, Somolu and Bariga (Osifodunrin forthcoming). By October 1943, gàrí sold for twice as much as its fixed price and prices were still rising.12 In response to continued trade between Remo and Lagos, the Lagos Control Board started buying gàrí directly from the local purchasers of the United Africa Company (UAC). It then sold the gàrí at special markets, called ‘Pullen markets’ after the Controller of Native Foodstuffs, Captain A. P. Pullen. The gàrí export from Remo to Lagos was regulated by the Remo Native Administration under the Akàrígbò. However, as both traders and other local businesspeople – including many obas who were part of the Native Administration – applied for and granted themselves export permits, the UAC found it difficult to fulfil its quota, and by January 1944, permits could only be granted once the quota had been met. To control exports, a police post was established in Ogijo village on the Remo border with Lagos, and eventually the Akàrígbò and other Remo rulers were held responsible for ensuring that a certain amount of gàrí was sold to the UAC from their towns. The struggle to avoid government control of the gàrí trade politicised many Remo women, including those who belonged to Remo’s Muslim population or who had not benefited from education. To avoid police controls, gàrí traders devised new routes through the bush to Lagos, and some of them even developed sophisticated systems that allowed them to travel safely at night. While the UAC was rarely able to obtain its full quota in Remo, some policemen and obas collected a percentage of gàrí exports from the women, which they would sell on to the UAC if pressurised but which they otherwise exported to Lagos on their own account (Okuseinde forthcoming: 6–11). The politicisation of Remo’s gàrí traders also led to open confrontation, and in 1943 Remo and Ijebu women blocked the Sagamu road to Lagos and removed all gàrí on official transport to Lagos to show their opposition to the fixed price scheme. The Remo traders also sought wider political alliances that reflected their own non-elite status within Remo politics. Initially, they cooperated with Madam Alimotu Pelewura, the leader of the Lagos Market Women’s Association (LMWA). A Muslim and trader herself, Pelewura was an executive board member of the Nigerian Union of Young Democrats (NUYD),

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a radical offshoot of the old Lagos party NNDP, and a powerful voice in the Lagos women’s protest against the government’s attempts to increase the taxation of women during the war years (Johnson 1982). Following Pelewura’s example of open protest, the Remo gàrí traders repeatedly complained to the obas, and especially the Akàrígbò as the head of the Native Administration. Possibly because no clear leadership had emerged among the local women themselves, they also invited Pelewura in 1945 to represent them during a meeting with the Assistant District Officer (ADO) in Sagamu. Pelewura sent nine representatives to go with the Remo women, but despite being confronted with an impressive group of Remo and Lagos traders, the ADO refused to engage in a meaningful discussion and the women returned without a result (Okuseinde forthcoming: 11–15). After Pelewura’s failure to help the gàrí traders be heard by the local state, Remo women found another, more local champion of their cause in Odemo Akinsanya. Akinsanya’s support for the gàrí traders not only showed up other local rulers who had failed to speak up on behalf of the women or even benefited from the government regulations, but also further strengthened the inclusion of grassroots voices and local concerns in the local nationalist movement. In view of the predominance of Christian support for the nationalist movement, the fact that Muslim and Traditionalist women were affected and mobilised by gàrí politics as much as Christians contributed to a more balanced representation both of the sexes and of religions among local supporters and producers of nationalist politics. When gàrí price controls ended shortly after the war, the widespread participation of Remo women in protests against the colonial state and its Native Administration had not only complemented the earlier nationalist activities associated mainly with male migrants, it had also contributed to the overall rise and legitimation of nationalist sentiment. t h e m á à j é  ó b à j é  r e b e l l i o n a n d awo l owo ’ s e n t r y into remo politics

The increase in popular support for nationalist politics in Remo was echoed by a rise in the temperature of nationalist debates throughout the country. Many Nigerian political leaders had been inspired by Churchill’s ‘Atlantic Charter’ of 14 August 1941, in which he had confirmed ‘the rights of all peoples to chose the form of government under which they will live’, and were appalled when he later asserted that this provision did not apply to nonEuropeans (Coleman 1965: 232). Often inspired by official discourses on German and Japanese forms of expansion and domination, Nigerian politicians began to question local structures of power in the name of a nationalist politics which both appropriated and resisted British and European claims to modernity and enlightenment. After the end of the war, the widespread publication of German mass murders within and outside of concentration

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camps was not only perceived as justification of the war, but also as proof that claims to European superiority were plainly false. Obafemi Awolowo summarised this argument at the time: It was all very well in those days [of our forefathers] to enlarge triumphantly upon British magnanimity in emancipating Africans from slavery, rescuing them from the ‘horrors’ of tribal wars and the heinousness of cannibalism or human sacrifice, and above all in bringing civilization to them. Events during the past thirty years, not to mention those in European history down the ages, have knocked the bottom out of these arguments. (Awolowo 1947: 18) The radicalisation of nationalist politics after 1945 was not only directed at the colonial administration but also at the traditional rulers who represented the colonial state at the local level. A critique of traditional rulers’ powers appealed to the growing group of nationalists who believed that local government should no longer be dominated by those deriving their legitimacy only from their titles, and it also mobilised those who felt disadvantaged by particular policies, such as trade and price controls and taxation. Reflecting increasing communication links as well as the widespread mobilisation of women in response to wartime restrictions, Funmilayo RansomeKuti, a member of Abeokuta’s old Christian elite, played an important role in the emergence of grassroots criticism of the Native Authority system in Remo. Mrs Ransome-Kuti had family and professional ties to Ijebu and Remo, and she had taught and organised a women’s group from a base in IjebuOde in the late 1920s and early 1930s. After her return to Abeokuta in 1932, she founded the Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU), which expanded her politics to include adult education classes for market women. In 1947, the NWU challenged the Aláké of Abeokuta. It opposed the fact that although women paid taxes they had no political representation and it demanded that the power of Abeokuta’s most senior traditional ruler, the Aláké, in the Native Administration System be reduced (Sklar 1963: 251). The women’s protests consisted of refusals to pay the tax but also violent mass demonstrations which challenged the Aláké in particular and male dominance in politics in general. Holding vigil in front of the palace, the women’s songs publicly accused the Aláké of being a thief13 and embarrassed him by threatening to expose the power of female reproductive organs (Johnson 1982: 152). From 1948, the NWU was supported by an organisation called Máàjéóbàjé,14 which was headed by Ransome-Kuti’s husband and which also called for a reduction of men’s head tax from 8 to 5 shillings (Ijebu Weekly Echo, 20 December 1947). The groups’ activities were crowned by success when the Aláké went into exile in 1948. After Ransome-Kuti’s success and the exile of the Aláké, the Akàrígbò

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and other Remo chiefs, rulers and obas, who constituted the majority of the members of the Native Administration Council, were worried about a spread of the agitation, and particularly about a potentially humiliating political confrontation with women’s groups (African Echo, 27 November 1948). To appease the women, they therefore decided to abolish the flat rate tax on women altogether. However, to compensate for the expected losses in revenue, they increased the male tax rate per head, which was already higher in Ijebu and Remo than in Abeokuta Province, from 10 to 15 shillings. As many migrants continued to pay tax in their hometowns, both resident and migrant taxpayers were outraged. In imitation of Abeokuta politics, Máàjéóbàjé societies were founded throughout the province to protest against the new flat tax rate for men. In response to riots in several Remo towns, the Native Administration Councils in Ijebu and Remo, aiming to prevent a spread of the agitation to other towns, prohibited meetings and processions of more than ten people, and declared the Máàjéóbàjé illegal. The local Máàjéóbàjé groups now began to seek closer cooperation with the more experienced nationalist politicians in Lagos, Ibadan and Abeokuta. In December 1948 they approached the young barrister Obafemi Awolowo to represent them. Though Awolowo was at that time far less popular in the nationalist movement than his former ally Samuel Akinsanya, yet still the seasoned Remo politician G. I. DeloDosunmu, who had taken on the leadership of the Máàjéóbàjé movement in 1948, asked Awolowo to become the secretary of the association and to support its struggle against the additional tax imposed by the Native Administration Council, in December 1948. Awolowo had prospered as a food contractor for the army during the war, earned a correspondence degree of Bachelor of Commerce from the University of London, and eventually fulfilled his dream of going to London to read law in 1944. He was called to the bar in November 1946 and, upon his return to Nigeria, set up a successful legal practice in Ibadan.15 With a pedigree of political activism, a prestigious overseas degree and a wellreceived book to his name, Awolowo was in an ideal position to re-enter Remo politics. Unlike Akinsanya, Awolowo had refused to get involved in the 1937–8 dispute over Remo’s administrative separation from Ijebu and had thereby avoided making enemies. Moreover, in Path to Nigerian Freedom, he had provided a detailed analysis of the outdated Native Authority system of local government. Instead of a local government dominated by traditional rulers – and despite the fact that, at least in Remo, many of these rulers were educated – Awolowo envisaged a local government controlled by the educated, irrespective of their traditional status. His analysis of the position of traditional rulers as a structural rather than an individual problem goes beyond simplistic analyses pitting traditionalists versus the educated, but it is also remarkable for its elitist presumption:

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[The masses] bestir themselves politically only when they are severely oppressed. Even in such event, they invariably ascribe the cause of the oppression to the evil nature of the individual Chiefs. Their educated countrymen know better. They ascribe the cause to the excess of powers vested in the Chiefs, and they more often than not turn out to be right. (Awolowo 1947: 63) While Awolowo’s references to the uneducated ‘masses’ reflected contemporary Western discourses on Africa, it also pointed to the importance of educational achievement for his own life and politics. In reflection of the belief in enlightenment values embedded in Remo’s cultural politics, Awolowo’s endurance of personal hardship and racist discrimination during his years in London, and the normative rules for access to important institutions of the colonial state once racial discrimination was removed, Awolowo clearly understood education as the clearest indicator of political ability. While Awolowo’s implicit disdain for the uneducated masses at this stage of his life was frequently perceived as arrogance and even conceit in communities where education had not been embraced widely, it was not interpreted like this in Remo. The main reason for this was that since the 1930s, Remo Muslims and even Traditionalists16 had adopted education as a value and ambition. Local Muslim groups especially had mobilised funds for the building of a Muslim school in Sagamu, which was opened in 1942, and other schools quickly followed. Like in many parts of southwest Nigeria, Remo’s Muslim schools were frequently linked to the Ansar-uddeen association, which reflected Muslim aspirations to modernity and education (Reichmuth 1996). Although on the whole, Remo Muslims and Traditionalists continued to have a lower educational status than Christians for several decades, education had become so generalised in Remo that most Remo citizens, irrespective of faith, considered themselves educated and, compared with the rest of Nigeria, as part of a national elite. In this sense, Awolowo’s emphasis on the value of education was seen by Máàjéóbàjé leaders and members not as an appeal to class and religious cleavages but as a means to overcome them. Awolowo accepted the Máàjéóbàjé offer on the condition that the group give up their grievances over the increased tax as well as their complaints about the Akàrígbò’s authoritarian control of local funds. To the anger of many Remo citizens, the Akàrígbò had earmarked £500 for certain development projects, including two adjoining halls to the Akàrígbò’s palace and the fencing of the police station and the prison yard without calling for tenders from contractors.17 Awolowo’s conditions were based on a complex set of beliefs and hopes. An extremely principled man, Awolowo clearly felt that paying taxes was the civic duty of every Nigerian citizen able to do so (Ayandele 1992: 322). Why he did not want to engage with the Akàrígbò’s

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use of public funds is less clear, but it is possible that he was reluctant to make an important enemy at this stage. At the same time, he may also have felt a sense of obligation, because Akàrígbò Adedoyin had supported Awolowo during his earlier business failure.18 The Máàjéóbàjé movement provided the young Obafemi Awolowo with an opportunity to establish himself as a local leader, and his refusal to lead a Máàjéóbàjé attack on Akàrígbò Adedoyin re-centred local political activism. Although the focus of the Máàjéóbàjé protest had originally been directed at the Akàrígbò as the head of Remo’s traditional administration, the local Máàjéóbàjé groups in the northern Remo towns of Ogere and Iperu also protested against their obas. Obas F. Asaye and A. O. Okupe of Ogere and Iperu respectively were still struggling with local conflicts that had come to the fore during the 1937–8 campaign for Remo independence. In both towns, large sections of the population had disagreed with their ruler over his representation of local history and their town’s relations to Ofin. Aware of these dynamics in the former rebel towns, Akàrígbò Adedoyin had supported the Máàjéóbàjé groups in Iperu and Ogere to put pressure on the towns’ obas to turn to Ofin for help and thus accept Ofin’s de facto political supremacy (Lloyd 1955b: 697). Riots had ensued at both Ogere and Iperu, and the conflict in Iperu was so bitterly fought that the Alápér u even had to leave his town to take refuge in Sagamu.19 The triennial elections for the town councils came up shortly after Awolowo had become the Máàjéóbàjé secretary, and he, along with many locals who had been mobilised by the Máàjéóbàjé movement, stood for election. The election, in which the Máàjéóbàjé circumvented its official prohibition by campaigning as the Egbé Omo Ìbílè Ìjèbú Rémo,20 was a success for its candidates, and afterwards many town councils included new, politically radical and nationalist members. In August 1949, the town councils sent their representatives, among them Awolowo, to the Remo Native Administration (Divisional from 1951) Council.21 As a member of this council, Awolowo established his popularity with a generous donation of £10 to the Remo Secondary School (Ayandele 1992: 320–3). Awolowo was able to set himself up as a leading Remo politician when he persuaded the council to repudiate the annual £400 contribution by Remo to the salary of the Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode, which had been a condition of the 1938 administrative separation. Confirming the separation of Ijebu and Remo, this process set in motion the locally very popular elevation of Remo to Divisional status in 1951.22 However, by 1949 Awolowo was still faced with the question of how to resolve the political disagreements at Iperu and Ogere to the satisfaction of all involved, and without undermining his own ambitions for the future.

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t h e e  g b é  o  m o  o d ù d u wà

Despite his criticism of traditional authority in the state administration, Awolowo was not without appreciation of chieftaincy and obaship. In Path to Nigerian Freedom, he had suggested that Nigeria was not yet a nation but contained various cultural-linguistic nationalities, each with its own constitution that had been abused under alien rule. He thought that every such nationality – including the Yoruba – should develop its own political institutions within the framework of a Nigerian federation. Awolowo only referred very generally to Nigeria’s religious divisions, but it is highly likely that, coming from a linguistic group whose members had converted to Christianity and Islam in about equal numbers, he also considered Yoruba nationalism as a positive force that might overcome or prevent social division along religious lines. Beyond Awolowo’s concern with nation-building, his belief in the necessity of a Yoruba nation may also have reflected his experience of ethnic politics and rivalry in the nationalist movement, and especially the powerful support derived by his rival Nnamdi Azikiwe from the Ibo [Igbo] Union, founded in 1936 (Ibo [Igbo] Federal Union in 1944). Drawing on this support, Azikiwe had established a new nationalist organisation in 1944, the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC; from 1962 the National Council for Nigerian Citizens), which at the time dominated nationalist politics. Thus the Egbé was not only an attempt to generate and invent a nation, it also reflected Awolowo’s early learning from and competition with Azikiwe. But whatever Awolowo’s ultimate motivation, his aim to foster the unity of the emergent Yoruba nation required the creation of an ‘imagined community’ of Yoruba-speakers that would, at least potentially, overcome other forms of difference (Anderson 1983). During his stay in London in 1945, Awolowo had been a founding member of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà (Egbé),23 a pan-Yoruba association with the aim to increase the cohesion of the Yoruba nation.24 To clearly define the Yoruba community in postcolonial Nigeria, local and regional rivalries – including those generated and entrenched by differential conversion to the world religions – needed to be overcome by a more general Yoruba identity. Awolowo believed that because Yoruba obas traced the establishment of their crowns to the mythical hero Oduduwa, they could play an important role in creating the modern Yoruba nation. To include and win the support of traditional rulers for this political project, the Egbé’s leaders sent copies of its constitution to important Yoruba obas in Nigeria (Arifalo 1988: 100). After Awolowo’s return from Britain, the Egbé Omo Odùduwà was inaugurated in Nigeria in 1948.25 With a regular monthly publication, the Star of Oduduwaland, and policies that focused on the preservation of Yoruba traditional heritage, the prevention of moral decay and educational expansion, the Egbé quickly

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became an extremely successful organisation whose leaders could call both on widespread membership of the educated and the support of traditional rulers (Arifalo 2001). The Egbé did not only further the spread of ethnonationalist ideas throughout the Western Region and to the less cosmopolitan communities, it also encouraged the increasing identification of cosmopolitan elites, mostly based in Lagos, with local and communal politics. Bola Ige, one of Awolowo’s close allies and political lieutenants, later commented on the conscious identification of members of the cosmopolitan elite with particular polities in his autobiography: Many of them [the members of Lagos’ professional class] were encouraged to return to and be identified with their father’s towns and homes. Bode Thomas and the Akereles went back to Oyo … The Dohertys found their roots in Ijero. Even some so-called ‘Brazilian’ families discovered that they were either Egba or Ijesha. (Ige 1995: 33) Beyond his concerns with the creation of a unified ethno-national political elite, Awolowo’s migrant experience in Ibadan may have generated an appreciation of traditional politics as an important political force to be captured. In Ibadan, where the majority of the population was Muslim and the uptake and expansion of educational opportunities had been much slower than in Remo, Awolowo experienced prejudice against Ijebu and Remo migrants as over-educated, parsimonious and elitist outsiders. Traders and whitecollar workers who had migrated to Ibadan to make a living were habitually accused of exploiting Ibadan by earning a living there but not spending money in return, instead investing in and remitting their wealth to their hometowns (Onabanjo 1984: 215–79). The continuing commitment of Ijebu and Remo migrants to their hometowns was seen in Ibadan as their refusal to join the local community. Refusing to participate in the shared humanity conferred by membership of the Ibadan community, the migrants were potentially not only disloyal but also beyond public morality, causing indigenes to warn each other that Ohun gbogbo nÌjèbú n; se The Ijebu do all sorts of things Popular Ibadan mistrust of immigrants frequently translated into economic and political discrimination, and many Ijebu and Remo citizens who had built houses in Ibadan felt threatened by the attempts of a number of Ibadan leaders to use the system of traditional administration in order to exclude them from landownership and political participation. As an immigrant house-owner himself, Awolowo advised the Native Settlers Union in its struggles against these efforts at expropriation (Sklar 1963: 293), and was also closely aware of other complaints about Ibadan politics, such as

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the struggle for the creation of a separate Division from Ibadan’s Northern District led from 1949 by a young lawyer called Ladoke Akintola. In the manifesto of the Egbé, Awolowo suggested that throughout the Yoruba nation, every Yoruba should be free to acquire landed property, a demand clearly directed at traditional Ibadan. Thus Awolowo’s inclusion of obas and chiefs in the Egbé’s agenda was also a way of establishing control over the area of traditional politics. But perhaps because of its broad appeal, the acceptance of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà in Ibadan was not primarily determined by the historically difficult relations between Ijebu and Ibadan. At least in part, this was also due to Awolowo’s personal commitment, and perhaps the presence of a Christianinfluenced local elite that was familiar with the notion of Yoruba cultural nationalism also contributed to local enthusiasm for the Egbé, despite the Egbé’s ostensible religious neutrality. Whatever the causes, the Ibadan branch of the Egbé was one of the first to be established, and it remained influential throughout the following years. Meanwhile, in Ijebu-Ode, real concerns over Ijebu’s place within a Yoruba nation based on Oduduwa, who does not hold the most prominent place in Ijebu myths of origin,26 perhaps reinforced by bitterness over Remo’s independence, seem to have prevailed at first, and a local branch was only formed in later years. As the success of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà established Awolowo as a political leader to be reckoned with beyond Remo, the Egbé also became a useful tool in Awolowo’s attempts to resolve the intensifying conflict in Ogere and Iperu without giving the impression of alienating traditional rulers. By 1949, commissions of inquiry into the conduct of the Olóògèrè and Alápér u had been set up, and seemed determined to remove these rulers. Refusing any attempt at mediation, the new Ogere Town Council even refused to discuss their grievances over the Olóògèrè with the Chief Commissioner, Sir Chandos,27 who toured Remo at the time. The conflict escalated as the Ogere Town Council was then dissolved for unwillingness to cooperate, and in return a civil action against the Chief Commissioner was taken by the radical councillors. Threats were made by both sides. However, these threats were not substantiated, and the new administration started to work without interruption. This very much surprised the British administrators, who had anticipated continuing difficulties between the new politicians and the traditional rulers.28 The sudden de-escalation of the Ogere conflict was partly due to the fact that it had become obvious that a democratisation of local government structures, modelled on the 1947 Local Government Despatch of the British post-war Labour government, was forthcoming, although most of the local reforms would eventually be carried out by Obafemi Awolowo’s new party, the Action Group, in the 1950s.29 Thus a democratisation of local government based on the reduction in obas’ official powers took the

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wind out of the sails of a politics directed against the traditional authorities. However, as the further resolution of the Máàjéóbàjé conflict illustrated, the conflict’s de-escalation also reflected a rise in Awolowo’s political ambition as decolonisation became imminent. The proximity of a British withdrawal from Nigeria was confirmed by the British agreement to review the constitutional provision for Nigeria. Aware that electoral politics would soon be the key to power, Awolowo became determined to play a major political role in Remo, the Western Region and beyond. In this context, he needed to gain popular support independently of the Akàrígbò. By taking a diplomatic approach to politics in the outlying Remo towns, Awolowo sought to recapture royal backing in Ogere and Iperu through the Egbé Omo Odùduwà. In December 1949, Awolowo organised a peace mission of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà to Remo, which was headed by three historically important obas, the Óòni of Ile-Ife, the Aláàfin of Oyo and the Olówò of Owo. The objective of this mission was to settle the disputes in Ogere and Iperu, now described in Awolowo’s own newspaper, the Nigerian Tribune, as disputes between the townspeople and their obas and no longer as a rebellion against the authoritarian powers of obas over the population (Nigerian Tribune, 23 December 1949). The traditional rulers who mediated on behalf of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà in Ogere and Iperu had neither the historical right nor the obligation to intervene in Remo. Although the Óòni of Ile-Ife had some claim to spiritual seniority over the Remo obas,30 he had not directly intervened in Remo town politics before that date. Neither the Aláàfin of Oyo nor the Olówò of Owo had any traditional claim to involvement in Remo politics. Yet the intervention was a success for all concerned. The three obas of the delegation established themselves as important forces within traditional politics because they facilitated negotiations between parties outside of their territory. The obas of the outlying Remo towns, meanwhile, were seen to have senior allies within the sphere of traditional politics, and were grateful for Awolowo’s hand in their rehabilitation. t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n o f c o m p e t i t i ve p a r t y p o l i t i c s

Awolowo’s ambitions for Remo and beyond were given strong direction by the MacPherson constitution in 1950, which confirmed the creation of three administrative Regions in 1939. In the quasi-federal system created by the MacPherson constitution the parliaments of the Eastern, Northern and Western Regions were given a substantial number of legislative powers. The regional parliaments also received a budget supplement of about a fifth of the central revenue. In response to this arrangement, Awolowo’s first main political aim was to capture power in the Western Region from Nnamdi Azikiwe and the NCNC. Despite the achievements of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà in Remo and its popular success in most Yoruba-speaking

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communities, Awolowo decided against turning the organisation into a political party. Most importantly, such a party would at least indirectly exclude non-Yorubas, and Awolowo was sure that he would be able to win political support beyond the Western Region at some stage. Despite such concerns, when Awolowo became one of the founding members of the new political party Action Group (AG) in 1950,31 his political party drew heavily on the popularity of the Egbé.32 Awolowo’s political control of both the traditionally legitimised Egbé and the more directly political Action Group also enabled him to expand his control of Remo politics. After the intervention of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà in Ogere and Iperu, Awolowo’s ambition was to take on a role in Remo politics that was at least on a par with that of Akàrígbò Adedoyin, still Remo’s foremost political figure. While still in control of local administrative institutions such as the Remo Appeal Court, the Remo Native Administration Council and the police through his ex officio position, Adedoyin had also established very strong connections to nationalist and party politics. By coincidence, Awolowo’s rival and fellow nationalist leader Nnamdi Azikiwe had for a while attended the same Lagos boarding school as Adeleke Adedoyin, a son of the Akàrígbò, and the two men became such close friends that Azikiwe spent some of his holidays in Sagamu (Azikiwe 1970: 23). When Azikiwe founded the NCNC, Adeleke Adedoyin, by then a successful Lagos-based lawyer, had become an important member of what would soon become Nigeria’s leading nationalist political association. In order to challenge the Akàrígbò’s position as Remo’s premier powerbroker, Awolowo appropriated many of the political tactics first adopted by his former friend and ally. In order to rise to Remo’s paramountcy, Adedoyin had profited in particular from the manipulation of the historical alliances of the northern and southern Remo towns. Awolowo now made use of the existing patterns of political competition between the northern and southern Remo towns for the purpose of establishing himself. But unlike Adedoyin, Awolowo would not at this point benefit from a united Remo, and because the NCNC was deeply entrenched in Ofin, he took to revalidating the aspirations of the outlying towns, and especially of the former rebel towns. The Egbé’s intervention in Ogere and Iperu had provided a good start for this project, and Awolowo soon focused both the Egbé’s and the AG’s activities on other outlying towns. Very soon, prominent local leaders of the AG included Awolowo’s former colleague and rival Odemo Samuel Akinsanya and M. S. Sowole from Ipara, like Awolowo a former ally of Akàrígbò Adedoyin. Other early Action Group supporters in Remo were the Ewùsì of Makun, the Ológèrè of Ogere, the Alákènnè-to-be Gilbert Awomuti, the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo and the Alákaka of Akaka (Nigerian Tribune 4 August 1951, 23 August 1951), all representatives of Remo’s outlying towns or, in the case of Makun, a former rebel town. Meanwhile,

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Table 5.1 Results of the first electoral stage in Remo, 13 August 1951, during the Western Regional elections Town*/Quarter (of Sagamu) Ofin (Sagamu) Ijagba (Sagamu) Ilisan (outlying) Irolu (outlying) Ilara (outlying) Ikenne (outlying, hometown of Awolowo) Iperu (outlying, but the Alápér u chose to be a member of the NCNC) Makun (Sagamu, but a former rebel town) Ipara (former rebel town) Isara (former rebel town) Ode Remo (former rebel town) Ogere (former rebel town)

Action Group NCNC –  30% 50% 50% 62% 64%

100% 70% 50% 50% 38% 36%

95% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

5% – – – – –

* The results for some communities were not available Source: Nigerian Tribune, 15 August 1951.

AG support in Ofin and most other towns in Sagamu remained low. The results of the first stage of the Western Regional Elections in 1951, organised through a three-stage electoral college system, demonstrate the success of the translation of local rivalry into party political rivalry. They show a close affiliation of party politics with the conflict between Ofin and Sagamu on one side and the former rebel and outlying Remo towns on the other, with the NCNC dominant in Ofin and most other towns in Sagamu, and the AG capturing significant support in the outlying Remo settlements and dominating the former rebel towns (see Table 5.1). Reflecting Awolowo’s efforts, the northern Remo towns stood behind the Action Group with little opposition except for Iperu, where the NCNC won 5 per cent. The results from Iperu illustrate that the complex and fluid relationship between the oba and his townspeople, centring on the representation of the town, did not automatically translate into a fixed link between the oba’s political affiliation and his subjects’ voting behaviour. Alápér u Abraham Okupe decided in 1950 to support the Akàrígbò’s party, the NCNC. However, Awolowo’s revalidation of the politics of the northern Remo towns had strengthened the position of those Iperu citizens who opposed Ofin’s political dominance. As a result, the overwhelming majority of Oba Okupe’s subjects rejected his political leadership and, like most citizens of former Remo rebel towns, voted for Awolowo’s party. When Oba Okupe had attempted to hold an inaugural meeting of the

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NCNC in his town earlier that year, the meeting had failed for lack of attendance (Nigerian Tribune, 11 May 1951). Iperu’s citizens were more inspired by the newly mobilised opposition to the Akàrígbò than by the positive example set by their town’s ruler, and they eventually told their oba what his politics should be through their participation in the ballot. The Alápér u eventually realised that popular opinion was against him, and he consequently joined the AG on 17 August 1951, only days after the election results were published. He publicly declared his support for AG leaders Awolowo and Sowole, who were standing for election to the Western House of Assembly, and renounced his NCNC membership (Nigerian Tribune, 23 August 1951). Thus the voting results from Iperu confirm that party politics could represent communal ambitions independent of the direct influence of traditional rulers. As party politics provided a new means of expressing popular political views, they also reintroduced participatory elements into traditional politics at the town level. Allowing citizens to express consent (or discontent) with their obas, the introduction of local elections reinforced the precolonial understanding that a ruler could only lead and represent his town if his decisions were based on popular consent. While the election results show that Ofin (Sagamu) unanimously supported the NCNC, they suggest that the outlying Remo towns were more divided. Solid support for the NCNC existed in many rural Remo towns, but it coexisted with a vocal opposition to the Akàrígbò’s control of district politics. Many leaders who had supported Adedoyin’s struggle for Remo independence felt the financial rewards of the administrative reorganisation only benefited Ofin and other towns in Sagamu, but not Ofin’s allied towns outside the capital. Similar anti-Akàrígbò sentiments probably explain part of the votes for the AG in the smaller pro-Ofin quarters of Sagamu, such as Ijagba. In the same way Epe, although not included in Table 5.1, was divided politically between the AG and the NCNC (National Concord, 9 October 1997). Due to Epe’s historical traditions, some of its AG votes may have referred to revalidated historical ressentiment against Ofin’s hegemony. Interestingly, the election results illustrate that in 1951 Awolowo had less political support in his hometown Ikenne than in the northern Remo towns. The fact that the majority of the town supported the NCNC reflects the fact that Ikenne was not a rebel town and had strong historical links with Ofin. Moreover, Awolowo had antagonised the local power-broker and former Ijebu treasurer Gabriel Onafowokan during the struggle over the selection of a new ruler in Ikenne. Thus the 1951 election result suggests that Awolowo’s career in Remo and beyond was not based on a direct ‘son-of-the-soil’ effect, in which those communities to which he belonged supported him simply on the basis of this belonging. Like that of any leader in Remo, Awolowo’s political legitimacy remained linked to his ability to

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capture and represent popular aspirations, to reflect the community’s view of itself and to create consent for his politics. Lloyd (1955b) was one of the earliest commentators on Nigerian party politics to observe that political parties often expanded their reach by attaching themselves to existing political leaders. However, politics in Remo illustrate that this process was neither simple nor uni-directional. While political parties gained legitimacy at the grassroots through their association with certain towns and their rulers or leaders, the leaders themselves also stood to gain or lose legitimacy, depending on whether they were able to represent – within party politics – their towns’ internal and external relationships, ambitions and rivalries to the satisfaction of the townspeople. Local leaders or obas who did not understand this, like the Alápér u of Iperu, learnt in the early elections that, as in precolonial town politics, they could only lead their towns if they knew where their subjects wanted to go. While an oba could mobilise his townspeople to vote for the party he supported, this party must represent popular ambitions. Awolowo’s success in undermining the position of Ofin and inserting his own party into Remo politics also illustrates that as party rivalry drew on the competitive traditions of Yoruba politics, it could be mobilised on the basis of intra- and inter-community rifts, which in Remo were often linked to the historical alliances of towns. However, although party rivalry often reflected enduring political rivalries, Awolowo’s success in appropriating the politics of the outlying Remo towns, and in reversing the Akàrígbò’s attempts to capture these politics, illustrates that popular ambitions were also subject to transformation and change. Like the habitual participation of Remo citizens in new religious and educational practices, or struggles over the local administration, electoral politics created another layer of politics through which groups within a town or in Remo as a whole could reshape and re-envision the community. Because of their democratic and participatory nature, party politics did not only draw on existing individual and communal ambitions, they were also capable of transforming them in a manner unknown during the high-colonial decades. sabo and its integ ration into remo par ty politics

The transformative powers of electoral politics also affected the position of those communities that had been considered as separate from the established Remo towns during the high-colonial period, and in particular the position of Remo’s community of mostly northern Nigerian migrants. Willing and forced migrants from north of the Yoruba-speaking areas had resided in Remo at least since the second half of the nineteenth century, first as slaves and later as members of the government force stationed in Sagamu after 1892 by Governor Carter. However, after the pacification of what was to become Nigeria under British rule, northern Nigerians also moved to

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Remo to trade. Because of the dominance of Hausa-speakers among these migrants, they are often referred to as Hausa even though they included Yoruba-speakers from Ilorin as well as members of other groups. At first, the migrants’ trades were primarily in weaving, trading cattle and teaching the Qu’ran. Later, northern Nigerians also came to dominate the trade in beef-related convenience foods such as spicy roasted pieces of meat, called suya, and the trade in kolanuts, which were grown in Remo for consumption mainly in the North. During the last decade of the nineteenth century, a number of migrants from Ilorin – a northern Yoruba-speaking town under Fulani rule – had come to Sagamu to support and expand the nascent local Muslim community. Many of these migrants were religious specialists and held classes in Arabic and Yoruba to teach converts and their children about the Quran and its interpretation. Women from Ilorin were also involved in the production of aso òkè, a strip-woven cloth that became very popular locally for social events. Mallam Abdul Salami, Alhaji Ibrahim Dende and Alhaji Garuba Ajetunmobi were among the first leaders of this community. In the 1920s, the Ilorin migrants were joined by a group of Hausa long-distance cattle dealers and butchers. Originally from Kano and later resident in Iseri north of Lagos, this group moved to Sagamu after an invitation from the Akàrígbò. Under the leadership of one Mallam Dogo Daura and his wife Maikano, the Kano Hausa migrants set up businesses in beef and beef products and, from the 1940s onwards, in kolanuts (Ayodele 2004: 226–7, 369–70). Like most migrants from Ilorin, the Hausa butchers soon moved to Makun in Sagamu, one of the places where Muslim worship had first been permitted in Remo. There they were, for part of the year, joined by another group of Hausa migrants from Sokoto, who came down south for seasonal, often daily paid labour from November to May. The migrants from Sokoto were hired for agricultural labour as well as for water carriage, mud-building and brick-making. As Ofin had made a strong political commitment to the Methodist Church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is possible that rivalries between Ofin and Makun in Sagamu influenced the fact that the mostly Muslim migrants from northern Nigeria originally had their residences and markets primarily in Makun and the smaller quarters of Sagamu. But at the same time, Akàrígbò Adedoyin of Ofin had been instrumental in bringing the migrants from Iseri to Sagamu, and the early and close association of Islam and northern Nigerian migrants with Makun rather than Ofin may simply reflect a division of labour between Sagamu’s constituent communities. As the migrant community increased in size and economic importance, Akàrígbò Adedoyin came to resent the fact that they were primarily associated with Makun. Also, the migrants traded mostly on Makun’s market,

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Ex pr

Town or settlement within Sagamu

To Iperu, Ibadan

Old centre of Sagamu

0

Ikenne Rubber and Agricultural Plantation

Sa

Approximate boundary of Makun

mu -

Sagamu today

Be

nin

Town or place name

ga

IPOJI

Emuren

To Ikenne, Ijebu-Ode

es sw ay

SAGAMU TODAY

3

SONY IND

kilometres

O

EPE

IBIDO

LA IJA TA G W BA A IJOKUN

Palace Ewusi

MAKUN

R. Ib u

OKO

Sagamu ADO IPOJI

OFIN

Palace Akarigbo

BATORO

To Aiyepe, Ijebu-Ode

To International Market Sagamu

SABO

Market

STARLIGHT

West African Portland Cement Corporation (WAPCO)

Kara lorry park

To Ode Lemo, Lagos

To Emuren, Lagos

N To NNPC depot (Mosimi), Ogijo, Lagos

Map 5 Sagamu today (Source: Author’s research)

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Entrance to Sabo market (Photo: Insa Nolte) which was by then still the biggest market in Sagamu, and therefore most income from their trade went to the Makun community. Adekunle (1990: 23) suggests that Ofin’s desire to reduce Makun’s economic and political importance was the only reason that led to the creation of Sabo. However, it is highly unlikely that the plan would have succeeded without colonial or local support. Reflecting local understandings of the close link between community and residence, but also in line with colonial ideas about residential separation for ‘natives’ and ‘native strangers’, Adedoyin planned to resettle the migrant groups from Kano, Ilorin and elsewhere in a newly created community. As the founder of such a community, the resettlement would give him direct political and economic control over its people and markets. At the same time, the resettlement was much welcomed by the migrants, as it would give them greater independence from local powerholders and the chance to arrange their own forms of organisation and representation. Thus Akàrígbò Adedoyin allocated to the migrants an uncleared plot of land south of Sagamu in 1939, which was, like the settlements for ‘native strangers’ in many other parts of Nigeria, called Sabo. However, the land that Akàrígbò Adedoyin allocated to the new community was neither his own nor under his control as the ruler of Ofin. In his capacity as the paramount ruler of Remo, Adedoyin had allocated to the migrants land that belonged to the town of Ijokun.33 Because Adedoyin

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Meat sellers at Sabo market (Photo: Insa Nolte) offered no compensation to Ijokun, its representatives took the matter to court and a bitter dispute ensued. This was only resolved when members of the migrant community, fully committed to staying in Remo, negotiated the purchase of land with the Ijokun landowners. Having decided to found their community by building a mosque, representatives of the migrant community met with Mr Ilupeju, the representative of the Ijokun landowners, and agreed to pay £900 for a plot on which to build a mosque. In return, the Ijokun families agreed to sell land to members of Sabo as long as an agreement on the price was reached (Ayodele 2004: 336–8). Sabo expanded during the 1940s and 1950s as the trade in kolanuts increased. In the nineteenth century, Cola acuminata, or bitter kola, had been grown in Remo primarily for local consumption. However, from the 1920s onwards, different types of Cola nitida, or sweet kola, were introduced from Agege near Lagos and, later, the Oyo town of Okuku, and became a crop successfully exported to northern Nigeria (Alhaji Haruna Babali Shehu, 26 July 2002). As the export of Cola nitida increased, kolanut plantations spread throughout southern Remo and along the Egba–Remo border. Places that had been abandoned in the late nineteenth century were resettled as new villages, later to become towns, were founded by the kolanut farmers. Sagamu developed into an important kolanut market, and as the trade in kolanuts was mainly in the hands of northern migrants, the

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market for kolanuts – usually farmed by men and processed by women – shifted from Makun to Sabo. Despite the fact that the kolanut price could fluctuate to reflect changes in demand, kolanuts brought wealth to Remo and further elevated Sabo’s economic importance. The wealth created through the kolanut trade turned Sabo into a community of great material and emotional importance for Remo: People from all other areas came along to sell [kolanut] … Sabo rose to a place of importance within the Community. It became … the heart and the soul of the people …   From the forties kolanut farmers started making money. So many houses were built during the peak periods. So many children were sent to school with the kolanut money. So many marriages were contracted with ease for those who had kolanut farms. (Ayodele 2004: 346) As Sabo developed into an economically and politically important settlement, its leaders attempted to fix its boundaries vis-à-vis other communities in ways that had long local traditions. This was perhaps made easier by the fact that Sabo was originally separated from the rest of Sagamu by a stretch of farmland, and a small river continues to prevent an erasure of the boundary even today. In particular, Sabo leaders negotiated that local masquerades such as Orò or Agemo would not visit them, which satisfied the more conservative Muslims as well as the small group of Sabo Christians, whose number had increased as migrants from eastern Nigeria also moved to Sabo as traders and farmhands in the production of palm oil. The negotiations of the Sabo leadership confirm the suggestion that, during this period, the confirmation of cultural distinctiveness was a general trend adopted in particular by Hausa migrants in western Nigeria (Cohen 1966: 33). Most importantly, in local political understanding, the fact that Sabo was not visited by the masquerades from Ofin or Ijokun also gave Sabo a fairly high degree of political autonomy (Ogunjobi 1988: 35). Despite Sabo’s ability to insist on ritual and political boundaries that separated it from Ofin and the rest of Sagamu, Ofin did not fear that Sabo would declare its independence. While local migration histories suggest that in the past, immigrants to Remo could create their own, often independent communities in separate quarters and towns, colonial interventions, and especially the category of the ‘native stranger’, had contributed to less flexible notions of community. At the same time, Sabo was not in a position to become independent in terms of local political debates, because it had no traditional civic representatives or associations. While it is possible that the creation of such institutions would have been opposed by other communities, it was also opposed within Sabo because many non-local Muslims and Christians understood local practice as idolatrous. While similar concerns had been raised by some local converts, they had

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not been successful historically. Reflecting the culturally confident appropriation of Christianity by local groups, many local adherents of the world religions partook in or tolerated local cultural practice by foregrounding its political meaning and traditional value rather than its spiritual implications. By the 1940s, the Christian elite’s control of local politics and educational opportunities was increasingly shared with other groups, and the originally Christian values of enlightenment and progress had been adopted by much wider sections of the community. In the pursuance of these goals, traditional cultural practice had an important place, for example in maintaining the solidarity and unity of religiously heterogeneous descent or residential groups. As the creation of Sabo enabled migrants to reject local cultural practice, it constituted an exception to the wider dynamics of Remo’s cultural politics. In the relationship between Sabo and other Remo settlements, existing – and ongoing – disputes over monotheistic worship began to reflect different forms of belonging. The final reason why Sabo remained without a defined status as an independent quarter of Sagamu, despite the fact that it soon superseded some of the older Remo towns in Sagamu in size and economic importance, was that it had no single representative. Indeed, Akàrígbò Adedoyin had recognised Mallam Dogo Daura, the speaker of the Kano Hausa group involved in the cattle trade and butchery, as the main representative of Sabo. However, other occupational and ethnic groups, such as the Ilorin migrants, did not always feel represented by Daura and had their own unofficial leaders. Within the community, few corporate groups existed, and patron–client relationships formed the major principle of political alignment (Cohen 1966: 26). To come to joint decisions about Sabo, the leaders of its different migrant communities met at the palace of Akàrígbò Adedoyin (Hassan Mohammed, 27 July 2002). Thus the Akàrígbò, as the founder of Sabo and the highest traditional authority of concern to Sabo leaders, had created a settlement that was unevenly represented and continued to depend on him as the ultimate arbiter even of internal disputes. As neither Daura nor any local leaders could mobilise civic associations or other institutions to unite the settlement, Sabo had only one de facto ruler: its founder Akàrígbò Adedoyin. In Sabo, the political importance of Akàrígbò Adedoyin was reflected ideologically, and his paramount position within Remo was not only never doubted but passionately defended. The gratitude especially of the Hausa and Ilorin communities to Adedoyin for creating Sabo translated into fierce political loyalty and commitment to Remo. Members of the migrant community could vote in most elections if they had paid taxes and local rates in Remo for two consecutive years.34 Previously to 1939, local taxes were only paid by a very few migrants, but the foundation of Sabo made a big difference to permanent migrants’ involvement in local politics and

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by the early 1950s a large number of Sabo residents voted as residents of Ofin. When party politics under Awolowo began to reflect local rivalry between the AG in the northern Remo towns and the NCNC in Ofin, Sabo’s support for Adedoyin translated into fervent support for the NCNC (Tokunbo Adedoyin, 5 August 2002). As the introduction of local elections broadened local political participation, party politics offered an opportunity to communities without traditional representation – usually communities of migrants such as Sagamu’s Sabo – to confirm or critique the relations of power in which they were embedded. At the time of its foundation, Sabo was not a part of Remo in important ways because it had no civic associations, and it had no representative recognised by the whole settlement apart from Akàrígbò Adedoyin. However, the introduction of party politics meant that Sabo was given a political voice, and when Sabo residents voted for the NCNC, they clearly confirmed their support for Adedoyin’s authority in Sabo. But because Sabo’s leaders had little interest in joining the historical network of local struggles and rivalries which were negotiated through civic associations and traditional cultural practice, their vote for Adedoyin – although implicitly confirming Adedoyin’s vision of Remo and even Ofin – really only reflected their support for his person. Thus Sabo was slightly dislocated within the local political landscape: where other communities voted in response to a complex set of concerns reflecting popular and private ambitions in the light of local, traditional, regional and national politics, Sabo only voted for one man: Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin. the integ ration of traditional and par ty politics

For several reasons, including Remo’s rivalry with Ijebu-Ode and the importance of migration for its political economy, the relationship between the nationalist movement and traditional authority in Remo began as one of mutual support in the 1930s. However, after the NYM, which had represented economic and educational concerns of Remo citizens, lost importance, the political landscape became more complex. The nationalist leader and later oba of Isara, Samuel Akinsanya, had supported a flatter and more republican hierarchy within Remo in the struggle for Remo independence, and when he wanted to join the ranks of Remo traditional rulers in 1941 he was for this reason faced with such entrenched opposition from the Akàrígbò and others that he himself drew on authoritarian traditions to secure his position. As the relationship between nationalist politics and traditional authority remained fluid, both Samuel Akinsanya and Obafemi Awolowo attempted to capture traditional legitimacy to support their positions. The fluid boundary between nationalist and traditional politics reflected the nature of ­Nigeria’s nationalist movement, in which different social and economic interests

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within the growing educated elite had found expression in a number of economic and political conflicts, some of which led to a mobilisation along lines of social, cultural and geographical origin. In these conflicts, Remo politicians represented a section of provincial intellectuals whose appreciation of traditional authority reflected their experience of alienation in the centres of nationalist politics. As illustrated by the emphasis first placed on obaship by Samuel Akinsanya, for many Yoruba-speaking nationalist leaders of provincial or rural–urban origin, chieftaincy was associated with claims to urbanity and civilisation vis-à-vis their cosmopolitan colleagues and rivals from old Christian and Lagos-based families. For Ijebu and Remo migrants in Ibadan, such as Awolowo, involvement in the chieftaincy politics of their home area asserted the legitimacy and prestige from which they found themselves excluded in their town of residence. When the constitutional reforms of the 1950s confirmed the creation of a quasi-federal system, the political ambitions of Awolowo and many other nationalist leaders were given shape by the nature of the envisaged independent state and geared first towards the capture of power in the Western Region and then the Nigerian state. While a reduction of the official powers of traditional rulers became possible, their political cooperation and even an increase in their symbolic status became desirable because the cooperation of traditional rulers in the nationalist project had political expediency. British rule, particularly in western and northern Nigeria, had been based on modified forms of traditional authority at the grassroots, and the state to which the nationalist politicians aspired still relied on traditional legitimacy. As the Action Group informally assimilated traditional rulers – albeit with reduced official powers – into party politics, it was able to extend state control into local government without the abolition and replacement of obaship, which would have allowed opposition parties to enlist conservative sections of society. Nationalist politicians versed in politics outside Lagos remained aware that traditional titles were closely associated with struggles over the nature and representation of communities. In 1951, the Akàrígbò’s close association with the NCNC meant that he represented Remo as sympathetic to the anti-colonial, republican and achievement-oriented ideals symbolised by Nnamdi Azikiwe within Nigerian nationalist politics. In this sense, the NCNC certainly represented the views of many Remo citizens, both in Remo and elsewhere. At the same time, once a political party became associated with a traditional ruler or other local leader, it represented the version of community associated with this person. Thus any political party that was brought into a community was immediately associated with a local agenda, irrespective of whether its national leaders were aware of this process or not. A popular leader could not only deliver an area for a political party, but could unite his community’s internal and external relations under the

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banner of the party. For this reason, being an NCNC member in Remo in 1951 meant supporting not only the Akàrígbò but also his understanding and representation of Remo itself. Because many struggles in traditional politics concerned the shape and ambition of the community, their political nature was obvious to insiders and many outsiders. For this reason, the identification of local malcontents, and the inevitable association with their agenda, could provide a way in which the opposition party could insert itself into local politics.Their success subverted attempts to represent the community as unified and proposed other views of the community itself. In 1951, the views associated with the AG’s politics in Nigeria were probably only very slightly more conservative socially and politically than those associated with the NCNC. Yet the AG’s representation of Remo was much more anti-authoritarian and subversive than that of the NCNC because it revalidated the political views of Remo’s outlying and former rebel towns. Because elections enabled communities to confirm or subvert the traditional rulers or local leaders who claimed to represent them, they also allowed communities of migrants to situate themselves within local hierarchies. Thus the Sabo community of Sagamu clearly expressed its support for Akàrígbò Adedoyin by voting for the NCNC. However, because Sabo remained outside the complex set of connections linking traditional and party politics, the very straightforwardness of its vote – denoting political support for an individual local leader rather than for his vision of the community – was subversive and politically threatening for those whose politics was aimed at popular perceptions of the communities’ internal and external relations of power. Beyond its relevance in party politics, the traditional also became a potent signifier of personal and group ambition for Obafemi Awolowo and the AG. Thus, Awolowo himself accepted a chieftaincy title in his hometown Ikenne in 1955, and later he also received chieftaincy titles from other communities. In the 1950s and 1960s, he accepted the titles of the Asíwájú of Remo, the Olísà of Ijeun (Abeokuta), the Òdólé of Ile-Ife, the Ajagunlà of Ado-Ekiti and the Obong Ikpa Isong of Ibibioland among others. Because the towns and communities associated with these titles overwhelmingly voted for the AG, Awolowo’s titles also conveyed a message regarding his geographical areas of support, constituting a political geography that drew on old rivalries, historical self-perceptions and current ambitions. As the traditional titles were associated with traditional legitimacy, they complemented Awolowo’s democratically legitimated successes in the elections. The private acquisition of traditional titles by Awolowo and other politicians reflected the inclusion of traditional title-holders into the AG as well as the insertion of the AG into historical rifts (Sklar 1963: 234; Osuntokun 1984). In 1958 the twelve members of the AG’s Western Region Executive

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Council included two traditional rulers and seven members with chieftaincy titles (Sklar 1963: 266). Awolowo’s revalidation of the traditional also constituted an important distinction between the Action Group and Azikiwe’s NCNC at the national level. Originally, the NCNC had focused primarily on mobilising groups associated with distinctly modern ambitions, from the educated elite to Nigeria’s increasing migrant and trading populations. While Awolowo would oversee a radical reform (and modernisation) of traditional rulers’ official powers, his commitment to the symbolic importance of chieftaincy and rulership appealed both to more socially conservative voters and observers and provided a vocabulary of opposition to those opposed to the NCNC for other reasons. The close association of Awolowo’s revalidation of traditional authority and his ambitions for the Yoruba nation has often been taken by observers to imply that he was a more ‘tribal’ politician that Azikiwe. While concerns over ethno-nationalist representation and development were certainly much more part of Awolowo’s public repertoire than Azikiwe’s, both the NCNC and the AG relied strongly on local traditional rulers within the Western Region. However, Awolowo’s open assimilation of the traditional into nationalist politics also threw the influence within the NCNC of a traditionally much more egalitarian politics associated specifically with Igbo communities into relief. As a result, the Action Group was also able to mobilise votes in parts of the Easten Region. Finally, increased contact with British colonial officers through education and political agitation as well as exposure to European and North American societies may have contributed to the appreciation of the traditional by Awolowo and other Nigerian nationalists. During his stay in London, Awolowo is likely to have been confronted with the racial discrimination that distressed his Ibadan colleague and later rival Ladoke Akintola during his own studies in the UK (Akintola 1982: 26).35 Generally, such encounters strengthened their victims’ nationalist convictions. But at the same time, it would not have been an unusual reaction for anyone confronted with such attitudes to stress their home society’s distinctions, which in the case of western Nigeria included chieftaincy. Moreover, conservative European and North American views at the time sympathised with traditional rulers, who were seen as having grassroots legitimacy while the politicians demanding independence were considered unrepresentative. In this sense, chieftaincy titles gave African nationalist leaders an international status and legitimacy. This may, incidentally, have been the reason for Awolowo’s decision to call his 1960 autobiography, published in Cambridge, UK, Awo: The Autobio­ graphy of Chief Obafemi Awolowo (emphasis added). Thus traditional authority was not only an important institution with implications for party politics and the nature of the post-independence state, but also a signifier of personal and group ambitions in the local,

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national and international context. While the party politicians reduced the official powers of traditional rulers, they expanded the cultural and symbolic meaning of traditional authority through their acceptance that it signified authenticity and the legitimate representation of a geographically defined group. The expanded meaning of chieftaincy and traditional rulership contributed to the terminology of Nigeria’s political discourse, as it allowed party and traditional politicians to recast the complex relations between communities and other interest groups as conflicts based on traditional identities – albeit with fluid and contested patterns of ascription which responded to contemporary questions. Perhaps most importantly for Remo’s political culture, the growing focus of party politics on traditional and communal cleavages in the early 1950s transcended earlier forms of a tentative local political consensus that had had a strong base in religious practice. Building on the political mobilisation and spread of educational aspirations to new and non-Christian local groups during the 1930s and 1940s, the growing importance of historically defined forms of solidarity and belonging through party politics subsumed religious and religiously influenced class interests under communal visions of the future. In this process, an originally primarily Christian concern with education and enlightenment values was generalised for the whole community and, as NCNC-voting Sabo proved an exception to this trend, especially for the vision of the community represented by the Action Group. The transformation of Remo politics from a predominantly Christian cultural politics to communally defined interests both reflected and contributed to Awolowo’s visions of a politically united Yoruba nation, and while his attempted generalisation of enlightenment values for the nation was not always successful in predominantly Muslim communities, it did prevent a mobilisation of religious cleavage in some communities beyond Remo, most importantly in Lagos. But beyond the subsumption of religious difference under communal identity, the association of traditional rulers with authenticity and legitimacy confirmed discourses on tradition as politically productive and innovative in a more general way. As in the colonial state, the manipulation of modern traditional practice could define and redefine communities and groups. The success and failure of such redefinitions in the context of Remo is the subject of the next chapter.

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6 remo united, ikenne divided

Obafemi Awolowo was an ambitious and disciplined man who, like many Remo citizens of his background and generation, valued education highly. Perhaps not surprisingly, he wanted to marry a wife with similar qualities. He especially admired the young women who were, like himself, descendants of the first group of converts to Anglicanism in Ikenne and members of St Saviour’s Church.1 Most of Ikenne’s leading Christians were, through kinship and associational ties, involved in the wider struggles over titles, land and leadership that constituted the town. However, Awolowo had, especially since his father’s death, little connection to the intimate politics of the town, and his insertion into Ikenne’s political struggles would be determined by his romantic ambitions and eventually by the family of his wife, Hannah Idowu Dideolu. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Awolowo relied on his wife Hannah’s kinship ties for his interventions both in succession disputes in Ikenne and in the leading Remo town of Ofin. Awolowo’s interventions in Ikenne and Ofin point both to his general political resourcefulness as well as his growing appreciation of traditional structures of popular participation. In both cases, and in particular in Ikenne, he drew on political techniques popular in the early nationalist movement, including especially the mobilisation of migrants for participation in local disputes. But in both Ikenne and Ofin, his success in installing the candidate of his choice depended not primarily on direct political mobilisation but on the control of the local administration. As town and divisional councils were now constituted by electoral politics, this process points to an expansion of democratic principles, but it also illustrates the assimilation of political technologies once controlled both by the British and local traditional rulers into nationalist politics. Finally, his reliance on lineage politics and kinship ties in both Ikenne and Ofin illustrates the continuing importance of traditional forms of political legitimacy and mobilisation in contemporary politics. Beyond chieftaincy and obaship, forms of participation and legitimacy embedded in everyday life continued to structure local responses to local politics and undergirded the creation of popular consent.

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a political marriage

Like many men of his generation, Obafemi Awolowo looked for a wife from his own community, and specifically the town of Ikenne. Born in 1915, Augusta Omoriola Onafowokan was the first Ikenne girl to attend a secondary school, and after her completion of the CMS Seminary in Lagos, she worked at the Colonial Secretariat as a clerk. Augusta was the daughter of Gabriel Onafowokan, the Native Administration Treasurer of Ijebu Province, and at that time one of Ikenne’s most prominent citizens. Like Awolowo, Onafowokan was a child of early Christian converts and a highly educated patron of St Saviour’s Church, Ikenne. As the holder of one of the most highly paid administrative posts available to locals, he was a respected member of the local elite and a man of political weight. In 1930, before his involvement in the bitter politics surrounding Awùjalè Adesanya, Onafowokan had been offered the throne of Ikenne. However, by that time his administrative career was so successful that he rejected it, pointing out that his income and influence as a ruler – an office interesting enough to promote bitter disputes over the throne in many communities – would be much lower than in his current position. When Awolowo asked for Augusta’s hand in marriage, her father turned him down. According to Oyesanya (1992: 38), Augusta was already engaged to another man and her father had little choice in the matter. However, Awolowo’s later life suggests that he was deeply hurt by this turn of events, and it is likely that Onafowokan was also swayed by other considerations. Described by his children as a strict disciplinarian (Oyesanya 1992: 49), Onafowokan was a man who brooked no opposition, and Awolowo’s selfassured demeanour and unwillingness to supplicate others may have piqued him. Moreover, Awolowo’s father had died young and left him with few material resources while Onafowokan, like most early converts and their descendants, had used his possession of Western education and literacy to establish himself economically. Obafemi later courted Hannah Idowu Dideolu Adelana, whose father, Moses Odugbemi Adelana, had also played a significant role in the emerging Anglican community in Ikenne. He was installed as the Bàbá Ìjo or ‘father of the congregation’ of St Saviour’s Church in 1937. Like Augusta, Hannah belonged to a family that valued education and she had also attended school up to secondary level. It appears as if Hannah’s parents had similar misgivings about the young Obafemi as Augusta’s. In her own autobiography, Hannah remembers that she secretly wrote to him – considered too much of a rascal and troublemaker by her mother – and, after being admonished for her choice, ‘continued the relationship underground’ (Awolowo 2003: 11). However, Hannah was committed to Obafemi and in 1937, shortly before his business collapsed, her parents eventually agreed to a wedding. Theirs was by all accounts a successful marriage, which remained monogamous

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for almost fifty years, from December 1937 until Awolowo’s death in May 1987. In his autobiography, Awolowo described Hannah as an ‘ideal wife’ and a ‘jewel of inestimable value’ (Awolowo 1960: 108–9). In the early years of their union, Awolowo seems to have closely emulated a contemporary Western model of marriage and insisted that his wife did not work outside the house. However, when he left Nigeria in 1944 to study law in London, he began to appreciate Hannah’s aptitude for business. By that time, Hannah had given birth to three children and was pregnant with their fourth. She and the children stayed in Nigeria, and she supported herself and the children financially throughout the period of his stay abroad by trading in locally made and imported dresses, hats, shoes and bags. On top of this, she also sent money to her husband in the UK. After his return, she continued to trade, and she later became an important distributor for several companies, including Nigerian Breweries and the Nigerian Tobacco Company. She commented on the changing relations of power between the spouses during the period of Awolowo’s absence: Occasionally, he [Awolowo] used to ask for the source of the money, but since he needed the money which I used to send him from my little business, he had no choice but to keep his calm, because he was in no position to object in far away London. (Awolowo 2003: 12) Hannah was not only proud to be able to support her family financially through her trading, she also gained great satisfaction from backing her husband’s political career, recalling that ‘[she] lived [her] life as a wife, mother, business woman and, above all, an adviser and helper and [she] had a sense of fulfilment to the bargain’ (Awolowo 2003: 17). Perhaps her attitude was not surprising, as Hannah was born into Remo and Ikenne politics. Thanks to the fact that descent in Remo was not established along exclusively patrilinear lines, Hannah was not only a member of the powerful Liyangu royal family, which had access to the throne of the Akàrígbò as well as that of a number of other Remo towns, but also belonged to Ikenne’s most prominent royal family, Obara. Hannah’s membership of the Obara family gave the young Awolowo his first chance to get involved, at the level of Ikenne town politics, in what would become his two vocations: politics and the law. It also pitted Awolowo against Augusta’s father, Gabriel Onafowokan. Between 1933 and 1936, a number of Ikenne citizens cleared land along the Ikenne–Sagamu road to use for farming. This offended members of Hannah Awolowo’s Obara family, who claimed that this stretch of land was their family property and evicted the farmers. However, those who had cleared the land argued that it was communal or town land (itè) and not private property. This meant they would negotiate payment for the land with the oba and the Òsùgbó leaders rather than with Obara family. Supported by Onafowokan, the farmers took

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their case to the Alákènnéé Orenowo, who promptly resolved the matter in their favour.2 The Obara family then took the case to the Native Court in neighbouring Ilisan, where they won. Similarly committed, Onafowokan’s group lodged an appeal at the Remo Court of Appeal in Sagamu. In need of a representative both able to deal with the court procedures and willing to publicly oppose Onafowokan, the Obara family turned to the young Obafemi Awolowo in 1938. Awolowo accepted and made a success of his representation when the Court of Appeal again awarded the right of ownership to the land to the Obara family. Undaunted, Onafowokan continued to take the case through the institutions, until in 1940 it was heard by the West African Court of Appeal (WACA). Again, Awolowo successfully represented the case.3 While the WACA did not grant the Obara family the exclusive ownership of the land, it considered them the main caretakers of the land on behalf of the town and ordered Onafowokan’s party to pay sixty guineas to cover their expenses.4 In some ways, the division of labour between Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo in Ikenne and Remo reflected a gendered approach to politics, in which Awolowo himself acted officially in the public sphere while his wife provided access to and mobilised non-public political resources. This division of labour continued to characterise their relationship, and although Hannah Awolowo took on formidable political roles in her husband’s absence, for example during her husband’s imprisonment and after his death, her preferred role was clearly that of providing often indirect support to her husband’s work rather than to establish her own political profile. Her supportive role reflected, for many observers, typical wifely qualities, but it also exemplified a wider political trend. While the contributions of women, from the mobilisation of grassroots groups to the provision of material and other resources, were crucial for the success of political projects, including the nationalist movement, they tended to be underrepresented in political office (Denzer 1994). While the reasons for this development are beyond the scope of this book, it has continued to dominate Nigerian politics over the decades. At the level of local politics, the importance of Hannah’s family links for Awolowo’s insertion into Ikenne politics also illustrates that, unlike suggested by some observers (Garigue 1954), lineages did not become less important as occupational differentiation and access to individual wealth and power increased. While it is also beyond the scope of this study to investigate the changes of power within Remo lineages during the twentieth century, it is likely that the economic and political opportunities created by decolonisation generated a shift in power both within and between lineages in many communities. At the time of writing, Hannah Awolowo’s power within both the Obara and Liyangu families certainly continues to reflect

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the political successes of her late husband. Rather than declining in the face of other forms of social differentiation, lineages continued to provide a form of social organisation that could provide important links between different occupational and religious groups. As kinship ties were adapted for and integrated into modern politics, they also provided an important basis for political mobilisation and participation. f i l l i n g t h e t h r o n e o f i k e n n e , 1949–50

In June 1949, Alákènnéé Adejumo Orenowo of Ikenne died, and Obafemi Awolowo, who had by then just won a seat in the Remo Native Administration Council through his leadership of Máàjéóbàjé politics, entered Ikenne politics again as an opponent of Gabriel Onafowokan. As mentioned above, Onafowokan had been offered the throne of Ikenne in 1930. This offer was tied into Ikenne politics in several ways. At the time, there were three officially recognised ruling families in Ikenne, which included the Orogbe, the Gbasemo and the Obara, to the last of which Hannah Awolowo belonged.5 However, a fourth family, called Moko, also had claims to the throne of Ikenne.6 Not least because of the then widespread popular support in Ikenne for the Moko’s most prominent member Gabriel Onafowokan, the Moko family was at this juncture offered a reinsertion into Ikenne obaship. If Onafowokan had accepted Ikenne’s crown in 1930, he would have had to give up his soaring administrative career in the capital of Ijebu Province for what was then only the baálèship of a much smaller town which, at the time, was of modest political significance.7 Onafowokan pleaded youth as an excuse for not wanting the office yet and argued that the baálè’s stipend was too small to provide for the education of his children. As the Moko family had no other suitable candidate to put forward at the time, Onafowokan then supported the candidature of Adejumo Orenowo from the Orogbe family, which was next in line to present a candidate.8 Onafowokan’s understanding was that the offer of the throne would remain open to him if it became vacant again in his lifetime, and that he would accept the throne in that case. This was also the understanding of important Ikenne leaders, including the new Alákènnéé Orenowo (1931–49). Throughout his reign, the Alákènnéé affirmed the right of the Moko family to participate in the annual meetings of Ikenne’s royal families and to receive a share of royal dues. Within weeks of Alákènnéé Orenowo’s death in 1949, Onafowokan announced his retirement from the Treasury on the salary of £20 per month. This openly signalled his availability for the throne that had been offered to him nineteen years earlier. However, after the Ikenne–Sagamu road land case, Onafowokan’s candidature had taken on a different meaning within town politics. Now Onafowokan’s obaship would not only include the Moko family in the number of recognised royal families of the town, but it would

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also pose a threat to Hannah Awolowo’s Obara family. As the land along the Ikenne–Sagamu road became increasingly valuable, Onafowokan would almost certainly try to undermine the 1940 ruling of the West African Court of Appeal regarding the disputed land if he became Alákènnéé. Directly or indirectly, this would undermine the interests of the Obara family. Awolowo intervened quickly to prevent Onafowokan from becoming Alákènnéé. With Hannah’s help and the support of the Obara family leaders, he began to champion an alternative candidate even before the traditional mourning period for Oba Orenowo was over. At first, Awolowo backed the candidature of Amos Solarin MBE, a Methodist pastor who had served in the Second World War and who was a brother of the famous educationist and political activist Dr Tai Solarin. However, Solarin withdrew from the contest when he realised how divisive it would be. Awolowo then gave his support to Gilbert Awomuti, a literate Lagos-based tailor. Confident that Awomuti would be able to muster support within the town, Awolowo put Awomuti forward as the new Alákènnéé at the next meeting of the Ikenne Town Council. The majority of the town council members, many of whom had been elected after their engagement in Máàjéóbàjé activities under Awolowo’s leadership, supported his choice.9 By opposing Onafowokan’s candidature in this way, Awolowo frustrated Onafowokan’s personal ambitions. But he went further than that: both Solarin and Awomuti were members of the Gbasemo royal family, whose turn it was to present a ruler only if the claim of the Moko family was ignored.10 Thus Awolowo not only opposed Onafowokan’s personal ambition but also that of his family by contesting the reinsertion of the Moko family into the Alákènnééship. Onafowokan’s supporters were outraged. Apart from those involved in Moko lineage politics, his supporters included many of Ikenne’s senior chiefs and public intellectuals, who had been involved in the inclusion of the Moko family in town politics and who were offended by what they saw as Awolowo’s dangerous destabilisation of the town (Ogunsimbo 1949). As the dispute between the two candidates and their supporters increased in volatility,11 the colonial administration attempted to settle the case through a public hearing. The hearing was attended by about 2,000 citizens of Ikenne, many of whom were migrants from Lagos and Ibadan mobilised by Awolowo. After the hearing, Resident Butcher found the two opposing factions to be of similar strength. In a further public inquiry, again attended by hundreds of migrants from Lagos and Ibadan in support of Awolowo and Awomuti, no progress was made.12 The official failure to make a decision appeared to Awolowo’s supporters as if the British were punishing him for his involvement in the anti-taxation Máàjéóbàjé movement. There is no indication of this in the files, but Resident Butcher, who oversaw the case at the beginning, was certainly irked by Awolowo’s political tactics and commented disapprovingly:

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I am led to believe that Mr. Awolowo has constituted himself kingmaker!13 As Butcher would find out to his own discomfort, Awolowo would indeed emerge from this dispute as a successful kingmaker. Through a skilfully orchestrated campaign, which included the support of his then ally Akàrígbò Adedoyin, Awolowo was eventually able to turn the stalemate to his advantage. On 5 March 1950, Awolowo forced the hand of the British by encouraging an unsanctioned installation of Awomuti in Ikenne.14 On 7 March, a big editorial on Ikenne appeared in Awolowo’s recently founded newspaper, the Nigerian Tribune. In the article, entitled ‘Justice Versus Spite’, which was soon taken up by other newspapers, the administrative officers involved in the Ikenne chieftaincy dispute were accused of dragging their feet out of sheer malice. At the same time, the Remo Divisional Council, under Awolowo’s leadership, pronounced Awomuti the rightfully installed Alákènnéé. On 22 April 1950, the new Acting Resident Robinson gave in to the pressure created by the press, the Divisional Council and Awolowo’s urban supporters. Unlike Butcher, who had felt that Awolowo needed at least to court British approval for the installation of his candidate, Robinson was prepared to accept the authority of the local councils. In terms of precolonial relations of power these had as little or as much right to intervene in matters of traditional authority as the British, but they were, after all, legitimated by an election. Robinson thus proposed to acknowledge Awomuti as the new Alákènnéé, because: There is this recommendation by the Remo Council carried by an overwhelming majority. I am satisfied.15 Thus Awomuti was recognised as the new Alákènnéé in 1950 against the wishes of an important section of the town’s population. The consequences of Awolowo’s victory would affect Ikenne politics throughout the 1950s and indeed up to the time of writing. At the same time, Awolowo’s realisation that beyond the administrative sphere, intimate traditional politics such as lineage interests could be used to influence and control traditional politics would soon find wider application. t h e s t r u g g l e f o r t h e t h r o n e o f o f i n , 1952

In 1952, Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin died, and Awolowo was determined to extend his political control from the outlying and former rebel towns, which supported the AG, to Ofin where the NCNC dominated. However, Awolowo was faced with a formidable opposition: after Adedoyin’s death, his son Adeleke Adedoyin, a prominent lawyer and friend of Nnamdi Azikiwe’s as well as an NCNC representative in the Western Region House of Assembly for Lagos, contested the throne. Adeleke Adedoyin’s election

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would confirm the NCNC’s dominant role in Ofin, and it would thereby prevent the AG from becoming the dominant party in all of Remo. To put a stop to Adedoyin’s plans to become Akàrígbò, Awolowo, as in Ikenne, turned to lineage politics. And as in Ikenne, he had an inside understanding of the relevant family interests through his wife’s kinship ties, this time to Remo’s royal Liyangu family. Sharing in the rights to the throne of the Akàrígbò, the Liyangu family had access to the thrones of several mostly Sagamu-based or southern Remo communities. Apart from Ofin, the Liyangu family’s control extended to the thrones of Ado, Epe, Ikenne, Simawa and Sotubo. It was, even before the political ascent of Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo, one of the most powerful families in the area (Olorì Funmilola Adekoya, 4 August 2002). The candidate originally put forward by the Liyangu family was a Dr Solanke, who had spent most of his life in Abeokuta, where he was well established. However, confronted with the possibility of a drawn-out and acrimonious contest, deeply embedded in local politics and rivalries, Dr Solanke withdrew his candidature. Moses Awolesi, who was put forward by the Koyelu family, lived in Sagamu. As a wealthy local businessman, he had considerable public support. Born in 1892 to the man who would later become – albeit for a very short reign – Akàrígbò Awolesi Erinwole (1915–16), and his wife Osunfunke, Awolesi was baptised in 1904 and attended Wesley School Sagamu and thereafter Wesleyan Boys School in Lagos. In 1917, he joined the Nigerian civil service as a clerk and, having risen to the rank of Assessment Officer, retired in 1947. Upon his return to Sagamu, Awolesi established himself as a versatile businessman and landlord (Onasoga 1989: 15–17). Perhaps influenced by his own close family ties to Makun, again due to the acceptance of both maternal and paternal descent in Remo lineage politics, Awolesi was also one of the very few members of Ofin’s ruling families who had joined the AG. As in Ikenne, lineage politics were adapted for and integrated into party politics. After Solanke’s departure from Sagamu, the Awolowos gave Awolesi their full personal support. With Hannah’s help and mediation, the Liyangu family also supported Awolesi. Beyond the realm of traditional and lineage politics, another faction had vested interests in the dispute over the Akàrígbòship: the residents of Sabo. Since its foundation, Sabo, and especially its Hausa community, had strongly supported its founder and representative Akàrígbò Adedoyin. After his death, the Hausa Sabo community transferred its political backing to his son Adeleke. As Adeleke entrenched himself in the palace built for his father, young men from Sabo, who acted as security guards, stationed themselves outside the palace and on Ofin’s main Adedoyin Road, which led from the palace to Sagamu’s Methodist School. The Hausa community played an important role in creating public support for Adedoyin. Many individuals donated cattle to Adedoyin’s cause, which were killed to feed

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not only the security guards outside the palace but also other supporters of Adeleke (Ayodele 2004: 348). Their support for Adeleke Adedoyin seemed to Sabo leaders simply a continuation of their appreciation of their settlement’s founder, a political decision that was consistent both with northern Nigerian cultural values and local understandings of the importance of a community’s foundation. In this sense, it represented an attempt by Sabo to launch itself as a political community within the established discourse of Remo politics. However, at the same time Sabo’s support for Adedoyin ignored the tradition of rotation among the royal families of Ofin, thus radically undermining imagined relations of seniority by suggesting that an offspring community like Sabo could change the political dynamics in its community of origin, Ofin. The shock created by Sabo’s support for Adedoyin was further increased by the fact that many people had not previously realised that Sabo had the ambition to gain a voice in Remo politics. In the past, Sabo had appeared to simply accept the status quo, which happened to be represented by Akàrígbò Adedoyin. Sabo’s sudden active support for his son Adeleke seemed like a complete reversal of its former subservience. Despite the strong support for Adeleke Adedoyin from Sabo, public opinion was deeply divided between Adedoyin and Awolesi. Like Adedoyin, Awolesi had support from outside the traditional Ofin community, especially from Makun. One reason for this was his party political affiliation with the AG, which was strongly supported by Ofin’s rivals, including Makun. However, Awolesi also had strong personal ties to Makun through his mother’s family, and many Sagamu townspeople therefore felt that Awolesi would be able to overcome the rivalry between the quarters. As large sections of the Sagamu population were mobilised, violent stand-offs between supporters of Adeleke Adedoyin and Moses Awolesi occurred frequently, especially along Adedoyin Road or on the grounds of the Methodist School. As the local officers of the Nigeria Police Force were unable – and, perhaps in some cases, unwilling – to maintain public order in the face of such animosity, the Divisional Council invited police reinforcements to Sagamu in May. More than a dozen policemen were then brought to Sagamu.16 In June, Adeleke Adedoyin mobilised enough allies in Ofin to be installed in a local ceremony, and the West African Pilot published by his old school friend and political ally Nnamdi Azikiwe backed him strongly.17 However, his bid for his father’s throne was eventually unsuccessful. Crucially, Awolowo prevented Adedoyin’s recognition by the Remo Divisional Council. The council had been fully under Akàrígbò Adedoyin’s control during his lifetime, but despite much admiration for Adedoyin, the late oba was also believed by some to have favoured the infrastructural development of his own community Ofin to the detriment of other towns. For this reason,

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several NCNC councillors joined the AG after his death (Segun Sodiya, 2 March 1998). Perhaps more importantly, Awolowo was becoming more and more popular throughout Remo, as he had actively courted politicians from Ijebu and Remo to join the Action Group since its inception. Six of sixty inaugural and executive members of his party, the AG, were from Remo Division, and two more came from Ikorodu, which was part of the precolonial Remo area (Sklar 1963: 108–10). As in Ikenne, Awolowo eventually used the Divisional Council to establish the candidate of his choice in Ofin. The new, AG-dominated Council boycotted Adeleke Adedoyin’s candidature and forced him to leave Sagamu for the time being. Instead, Moses Awolesi was duly installed as the Akàrígbò. As in Ikenne, a large section of the population was unhappy with this choice, and the combination of party, lineage and traditional politics, with their wider implications for communal ambitions, led to some clashes. A few months after Awolesi’s installation, a confidential report by Ijebu Acting Resident W. Fowler noted: At about 1:00 pm yesterday, September 8th, the Action Group Party began a campaign at Shagamu. Speakers were equipped with loud hailers and one in a misguided attempt to win over support from the opponents of the Akarigbo, spoke in tactless and extravagant terms. There was some interference with his vehicle and his attendants were molested.   This led to retaliation by the inhabitants of the Makun Quarter who armed themselves with matchets, dane guns and so on; Adedoyin’s supporters from the Offin [sic] Quarter withstood the retaliation and for about and hour and a half to two hours there was disorder.18 Yet despite the bitterness with which Awolesi’s installation was greeted at first, he was soon able to establish himself in the position of the Akàrígbò, because he was able to draw on the discrepancies between the party political division of Remo and Ofin’s ambition for hegemony within Remo to his personal advantage as well as to the benefit of his title. the unification of remo behind the action g roup

The installation of Akàrígbò Moses Awolesi in 1952 prepared the ground for the political unification of Remo behind the Action Group, which was further entrenched by the rise of Awolowo and a growing awareness of regional and national politics. Thanks to his affiliation with the Action Group, Akàrígbò Awolesi was able to overcome the initial opposition of many Ofin and southern Remo townspeople to his person. Because Awolesi was widely accepted and supported in the towns over which he claimed seniority, local opposition to the paramount status of Ofin and the Akàrígbòship declined markedly outside Sagamu. The acceptance of Ofin’s para-

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mount status in turn created growing support for Awolesi and the AG in Ofin. In 1953, more than a third of local council seats in Ofin quarter were won by Action Group candidates, and the local council election in 1958 showed a clear AG victory in Ofin. In the 1958 elections, Action Group candidates won 256 of 283 wards in Remo, and dominated all fourteen town councils with at least three-quarters majorities. The growing support for the AG in Remo was also assisted by the fact that the AG’s prominent local leaders began to play an important role in the politics of the Western Region.19 After the Action Group victory in the 1951 Regional election, Awolowo became the Leader of Government Business and Minister for Local Government in February 1952, while Odemo Samuel Akinsanya joined the Western Region’s House of Chiefs and became a Minister without Portfolio. As Akàrígbò Awolesi’s career trailed Awolowo’s rising national profile throughout the 1950s, he also played a prominent role in AG politics at the regional level and in the House of Chiefs (Adeleke-Adedoyin 1984: 52). In this capacity, these local leaders not only ensured Remo’s presence within the regional political debate, but they were active policy-makers whose mission had strong local support. As AG leaders from Remo helped to spread the educational and enlightenment ideas that had defined Remo since the late nineteenth century at the level of ethno-national and regional politics, they represented local ideas of what constituted good politics. Also, the prominence of Awolowo and Akàrígbò Awolesi contributed to a greater awareness of Remo’s role in the postcolonial state. Peel has, with reference to late colonial Ilesa, suggested that a group’s ‘special sense of itself grew in reciprocal relationship with those of all its neighbours’ (Peel 1983: 181). Remo’s political identity, too, was increasingly defined within the wider framework of other Yoruba-speaking groups of western Nigeria. Communal ambitions reflecting historical rivalries that often dated back to the nineteenth century found expression in the overall voting patterns within the Western Region. Despite the earlier successes of the Egbé Omo Odùduwà among Ibadan’s educated elite, Awolowo’s support among the native Ibadan was low because he continued to be identified with the representation of migrant settler’s rights. Led by the charismatic Adegoke Adelabu, who had entered a political alliance with Awolowo’s old rival Azikiwe, Ibadan voted overwhelmingly NCNC. However, many of Ibadan’s former subordinates and opponents, including Egba, Ife and Ekiti, as well as the Ondo, Owo and Ikale communities east of Ijebu that had not been part of the Oyo or Ibadan empire, tended to support the AG.20 Similarly, despite the loyalty of several Remo towns to Ibadan in the nineteenth century, anti-Ibadan feelings existed in Ijebu and Remo. Migrants in Ibadan suffered from anti-Ijebu sentiments directed against their prominence in landownership, trade and – thanks to their

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comparatively high levels of education – the administration (Mabogunje 1967: 85–95). As distances and travel times between Ibadan and Remo were low, many migrants chose to vote in their hometowns, and because Remo migrants were often leaders and opinion-makers at home, their influence on local voting patterns was probably considerable. Thus a Remo vote for the AG was very often also a vote against Ibadan. Despite the many factors driving AG acceptance in Remo, the overwhelmingly successful translation of local AG dominance into political unity under Akàrígbò Awolesi was not based on consent alone. Not all AG support was recruited without pressure. Once the local (town) and divisional governments were dominated by the party, the victimisation, intimidation and even punishment of opponents became possible. Harassment by the local government police and administration took such forms as the meticulous control of tax and rates payments of opponents as well as sanitary inspections. At the same time, precolonial civic practices aimed at creating unity within the community were often revived at the grassroots, and in particular masquerade and associational outings were used to intimidate, mock or even convince local NCNC supporters of the value of the AG (Macaulay Adekoya, 12 November 1996, 13 November 1996, 24 December 1996). While its control of the local administration enabled the AG to entrench its power in Remo and elsewhere, it also enabled some communities to resist the pressure of political unity. Thus the incorporation of the former Remo town Ikorodu into Lagos enabled local NCNC leaders to re-enact Ikorodu’s historical struggles with Ofin through party political rivalry. Ikorodu, which was widely believed to have been founded by members of royal Ofin lineages, had developed into an important lagoon town during the nineteenth century. It had long resented Ofin’s overlordship, and as part of the community’s struggle for recognition as an independent town, Ikorodu leaders had begun to ask for a crown from Ofin in the 1930s. Their demand continued to be refused by Ofin, and Ikorodu leaders eventually undermined Ofin’s claims to their town by turning to Ijebu-Ode, which duly granted the town an obaship in 1947. When Ofin established its hegemony in Remo through AG support, Ikorodu, safe from the pressure of the AG-dominated Remo Divisional Council, united behind the NCNC (Soyemi 1987). Thus the administrative separation of Ikorodu and the other Remo towns helped to create political distance. The rivalry between Ikorodu and Ofin also mobilised sections of the population in some of the newer settlements in southern Remo, and especially in Ogijo, which was at times claimed both by Ikorodu and Ofin as a farming village. Since the foundation of Sagamu, the communities in Sagamu had continued to control access to most of the land in southern Remo where they had been located before the foundation. As old and new villages and towns in southern Remo expanded to serve the food markets in Lagos and

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elsewhere, many members of these communities paid rent to landlords in Sagamu. The control of Sagamu over these villages was buttressed by the local administration based there, although Ikorodu continued to make claims to sections of the land. When Ikorodu voted NCNC, some groups in the southern Remo villages and towns followed its example. As Ikorodu, being located within a different administrative entity, could not possibly be as successful in enforcing rent payments as Sagamu, this support reflected the real material interests which informed the struggles over local traditions of belonging and their politicisation. In reflection of the fact that a southern Remo vote for the NCNC came to demonstrate both their opposition to Ofin and their support for Ikorodu, the NCNC leader supported in Ogijo and other southern Remo communities was not Adedoyin or another Ofin representative, but Chief T   . O. S. Benson, whose political base was in Ikorodu (Soyemi 1987: 38; Adeniji 2002: 42–5).21 However, the overwhelming majority of Remo citizens supported the AG after the installation of Moses Awolesi in 1952.22 The process in which the AG became Remo’s ‘national’ party again points to the fact that while traditional and historical affiliations legitimised party politics, the reverse was also the case. By validating the aspirations of his subjects through his confirmation of the ambitions of those who had voted AG before him, Awolesi became the first modern Akàrígbò to be widely acknowledged as the leader of Remo by Remo citizens outside his home community of Ofin. This acceptance as the Akàrígbò of Remo in turn legitimised Awolesi as the Akàrígbò of Ofin. As the integration of traditional and party politics contributed to a new, united, postcolonial political identity in Remo, it was not a passive process of mutual identification, but a powerful and creative political tool in the creation of consent for new visions of the community. The process of internal stratification associated with the political unification of Remo also illustrates that the AG successfully furthered the process of centralisation which had defined Remo politics since the nineteenth century. It tied party politics closely to the legitimacy of the traditional rulers. As the Akàrígbò’s seniority among Remo obas was no longer based solely on heavily contested historical traditions and British administrative decisions but on widespread acceptance throughout Remo, he became a legitimate representative of the locality. The very acceptance of the Akàrígbò, however, implied that Remo itself was imagined as a place with a much more hierarchical relationship among its constituent towns.23 It suggested that political opposition to the party of the majority also challenged the new traditional hierarchy and its beneficiaries, perhaps even traditional authority itself. In this sense, traditional authority in Remo – strengthened by the ever-increasing desire of politicians to associate with it – became a locus of moral-political representation in the postcolonial state.

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As the unity of Remo was confirmed and legitimised by party politics, Adeleke Adedoyin was increasingly perceived not as a man who had contested his father’s throne but as a man who posed a threat to Remo’s new political order. As Awolowo’s political power expanded, this perception did not only hamper Adedoyin’s further political career in the AG, but also that of other members of his family who were suspected of having a similarly destabilising agenda. Thus in 1955 one of Adeleke’s relatives, Haastrup Ademuyiwa Adedoyin, was installed as the crowned head of the Odolowo quarter in the Ijebu town Okun-Owa. However, local opposition against this ruler was repeatedly successful in mobilising government institutions to arrest and fine him (Abiodun 2001: 47–61). Because of its continued support for Adeleke Adedoyin, the Sabo community suffered a loss of autonomy within Remo. Awolesi’s need to increase Sabo’s structural dependence to undermine Adeleke Adedoyin resonated with popular perceptions of appropriate forms of political participation. The involvement of Sabo in the struggle over the Akàrígbòship had shocked many Remo citizens because of its unexpectedness. However, the unease about Sabo’s involvement in local politics also reflected popular views on authority, which were compounded by ethnic and religious difference. Sabo’s support for Adedoyin was widely understood to challenge the local control of politics and thereby to undermine Remo’s political unity. Moreover, the fact that Sabo itself had neither a traditional ruler nor traditional civic associations seemed to confirm that, if successful, Sabo would also undermine the traditional sphere so closely associated with both the negotiation of individual and group aspirations and party politics. To contain Sabo’s subversive aspirations, Akàrígbò Awolesi ensured its political and spiritual submission. Protecting Awolesi, Ofin and the new Remo, Ofin’s Orò association began to patrol Sabo in 1953 (Ogunjobi 1988: 59). As Sabo’s place at the lower end of the new Remo hierarchy was confirmed by its subjugation to Orò, the NCNC’s influence in Ofin declined so much that in 1953 even Adeleke Adedoyin joined the AG. By that time, the mutually legitimising politics of Akàrígbò Awolesi and the AG were established. Even if not all aspects of Awolowo’s attempt to redefine Remo politics were foreseen by him, he had played the leading role in the creation of a new Remo community. At the same time, Awolowo’s intervention in Ofin’s chieftaincy politics was supported by the complex interplay of a range of internal and external factors, which involved the everyday perceptions and aspirations of ordinary Remo citizens, and in particular their views on the inherent value of education and local relations with Ibadan. But as developments in Ikenne show, not all attempts by Awolowo to redefine community were successful.

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w hy i k e n n e h a s n o o  b a t o d ay

Having won the contest for Ikenne’s throne, Alákènnéé Awomuti decided to undergo the Ìgbopón ceremony, which precedes the traditional initiation and installation of an oba, in January 1952. During this ceremony, the oba is recognised as the head of the town by the Òsùgbó. He receives a wooden tray with a symbolic share of pork, and from then on he can receive his share of the sacrifices carried out on behalf of the town, which must be brought to him on the same tray. In reflection of the symbolic reversions of authority that frequently characterised town rituals and festivals, during the Ìgbopón ceremony the oba is also instructed in the use of the tray in order to perform his duties towards the Òsùgbó during the local Balùfòn festival. However, many members of the Onafowokan section of the town were determined to prevent Awomuti from undergoing this initiation, and in a violent struggle on the morning of the ceremony, Ona Balogun, one of Onafowokan’s supporters, was stabbed to death.24 When news of Balogun’s death spread, Onafowokan’s supporters protested angrily. Oba Awomuti left the town for the Remo capital Sagamu without having undergone the initiation. Awolowo heard of the crisis and drove to Ikenne from Ibadan that afternoon. As his car entered Ikenne, he was identified and attacked by the crowd that had gathered by Balogun’s house. Although Awolowo was not afraid and wanted to address the crowd, his driver turned the car and left Ikenne. When the alleged killer of Ona Balogun, who had been found guilty of murder in a local court, was acquitted of all charges at the Supreme Court in Lagos, a number of Ikenne citizens suspected that Awolowo had used his influence to sway the judge (Soriyan 1991: 297–8). Despite the continuing political success of Awomuti’s sponsor Awolowo in regional politics, Ikenne politics remained difficult for Alákènnéé Awomuti because many local chiefs supported Onafowokan and the Moko family. To create some support for himself in this area, Awomuti decided to confer chieftaincy titles on several of Ikenne’s prominent citizens. Among the men and women so honoured were Hannah and Obafemi Awolowo. In order to avoid another provocation of conflict between the two town factions, mediators were sent around town to the main players in the conflict and a reconciliation meeting was held in Ikenne Customary Court on 26 December 1954. At this meeting a rapport of some kind was established between the two groups, and many of Awolowo’s former opponents agreed to keep the peace. In return, it is suggested by members of the Moko family, Awolowo agreed to look into the question of the reinstatement of the Moko as a ruling family (Soriyan 1991: 300). In January 1955, the Awolowos were installed as chiefs during a grand ceremony followed by a special Thanksgiving service in St Saviour’s Church and another generous reception at their house. While the public opposition to Alákènnéé Awomuti became less violent

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after Awolowo’s installation as a chief, Awolowo’s opposition to the Moko family continued to create local opposition against him and to outrage those who believed he had promised to reconsider the issue. Under Awolowo’s Premiership of the Western Region, the Western Region government requested all local councils (formerly town councils) to submit official declarations in respect of the local traditional titles for approval in 1958. Ikenne local council, chaired by Action Group member Ayo Akinsanya, put forward a declaration that clearly reflected Awolowo’s view of local relations of power. Despite local opposition to this declaration, the document was duly approved in Ibadan on 24 May 1958.25 The declaration made under section 4(2) of the Chiefs’ Law 1957 of the Customary Law regulating the selection to the stool of Alakenne of Ikenne chieftaincy clearly stated that there were only three ruling houses in Ikenne, namely the Obara, the Orogbe and the Gbasemo. No mention was made of the Moko family. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Chiefs’ Law of Ikenne did not facilitate the reunification of Ikenne behind the Obara family. Instead, it drove Awolowo’s opponents into party politics as a way of expressing their opposition to him. In the first half of the 1950s, Onafowokan financed and supported the NCNC as the primary opposition party to Awolowo’s AG in Remo. When the NCNC lost its local significance in the latter half of the 1950s, Onafowokan created the Ijebu-Remo Taxpayers’ Association (IRTPA), modelled on the Ibadan Taxpayers’ Association (ITPA) led by the Ibadan politician Adegoke Adelabu, whose rivalry with Awolowo dominated regional politics at the time (Sklar 1963: 261). Its eclectic programme was mainly due to the fact that the IRTPA was an organisation in which all forms of local opposition to the AG and to Awolowo were united. Thus, although the IRTPA claimed to be affiliated, like the ITPA, to the anti-colonial NCNC in 1957, it also opposed self-government for Nigeria. Awolowo, it was feared, would use the powers of the postcolonial state to completely extinguish the ambitions of the Moko family and its allies. As Awolowo’s opponents in Ikenne feared, the 1950s and 1960s saw his rise in status and power and Ikenne chieftaincy politics were not revisited officially. In 1981 the Ogun State government, created in 1976 out of the Western Region, set up the Alakenne of Ikenne Chieftaincy Review Commission with the aim of re-examining the 1958 chieftaincy declaration. By this time, Gabriel Onafowokan had died, but his children continued to provide leadership for the Moko family. During the commission’s interviews in June 1981, the Moko family was represented by Gabriel’s lawyer sons Taiwo and Kehinde Onafowokan. After an exhaustive fact-finding mission, involving interviews with many of those who had a stake in this conflict, the commission submitted a report and recommendations to the state government. However, neither the Review Commission’s report nor a government White Paper based on the report were published.

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On 20 August 1984, Alákènnéé Awomuti died, and the town could not be united behind a successor. Beyond Onafowokan’s immediate family, many Ikenne citizens continued to support the reinsertion of the Moko family into the obaship of the town. Meanwhile, the Awolowos put their weight behind the Alákènnéé of Ikenne Chieftaincy Declaration, which excluded the Moko family. According to the Declaration, which also prescribed the pattern of rotation among the three recognised ruling houses, it was the turn of Ikenne’s most powerful royal family – Obara – to present the next candidate for the throne. However, by that time, the rift in town politics had affected the Obara family itself, which had divided along lines of political interest. As an old and powerful royal family, the Obara family could boast a large number of members and thus potential candidates for the obaship. After a number of consultations within the family, two prospective candidates for the throne of the Alákènnéé emerged. These candidates drew support from very different quarters. David Efunuga, a retired court clerk, was supported by the Awolowos and a large number of leading Obara family members. In particular, he had the support of the section of the family in control of the long-disputed land along the Ikenne–Sagamu road. Efunuga’s rival Ademolu Odeneye, a retired photographer and trader, had some backing from Obara. However, he drew the majority of his support from the Moko quarter, where he lived. Through maternal relations on his father’s side, Odeneye was also a Moko member.26 Odeneye’s closeness to the Moko family, however, was the very reason why his candidature was bitterly opposed by those who wanted to ensure that the Moko family would not be recognised as a royal family of Ikenne. The implications of his reign would, it was feared by his opponents, include not only the recognition of the Moko family, but also a reduction in the Obara family’s influence and their loss of control over the land along the Ikenne–Sagamu road (Oba M. S. Awolesi, 7 August 2002). During a meeting held by Ikenne’s ten kingmakers in July 1985, Odeneye was elected as the new oba with six votes against Efunuga’s four. However, Efunuga’s supporters held that the election had not been in accordance with the 1958 Alákènnéé of Ikenne Chieftaincy Declaration, according to which the Obara family should have voted on the candidates before presenting them to the kingmakers. Determined to prevent Odeneye from ascending the throne, Efunuga took the matter to the High Court of Ogun State. The High Court in Sagamu confirmed Efunuga’s interpretation of the law and declared Odeneye’s nomination null and void.27 Although Obafemi Awolowo died in 1987, the struggle continued. An appeal by Odeneye and his supporters – led by Kehinde Onafowokan SAN28 as learned counsel – was dismissed in 1988, and in December 1990 the Supreme Court of Nigeria confirmed the dismissal.29

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In 1991, a number of family and town meetings were held in an attempt to resolve the issue out of court, but these came to a standstill when the rumour circulated among Odeneye’s supporters that the head of the Obara family, who was in control of the paraphernalia of Ikenne’s royal office, including the Gbedu drums, had made arrangements to install David Efunuga.This perceived threat to the Moko family was countered by another set of legal actions, including an injunction preventing the local and state government institutions from recognising any installation of an Alákènnéé of Ikenne until the report of the 1981 Chieftaincy Review Commission had been published. At the time of writing, the legal power struggle between the two town factions – including the two factions of the Obara family – had not been resolved. The interregnum in Ikenne illustrates the failure of both Awolowo and Onafowokan to establish themselves, even if retrospectively, as the owners of Ikenne, which is the literal meaning of the royal title Alákènnéé. It is probably a reflection of Awolowo’s national status that his failure to establish control over Ikenne has not been discussed in the literature on him. As the ownership of Ikenne continues to be contested, those involved have adopted multilayered self-representations. Although associated with the interests of the anti-Moko branch of the Obara, Hannah Awolowo has explicitly stated that she did not want to discuss Ikenne traditional politics because she did not want to encourage ‘troublemakers’. By arguing that she was ‘a mother to everyone in Ikenne’, Hannah Awolowo implied at the same time that she represented the whole community (Hannah Awolowo, 7 August 2002). the rise of idotun

Although at the time of writing Ikenne’s interregnum has lasted for more than twenty years, the town has not been without communal leadership. As illustrated in Chapter 2, power reverts to the representative town association upon the death of the oba, and Ikenne’s Olíwo, the head of the Òsùgbó, has been the town’s regent. As the titled chiefs of the Òsùgbó cannot normally be installed as rulers, the Olíwo’s regency does not represent a threat to the royal family. However, an Olíwo is not able to carry out all the oba’s obligations. Thus Ikenne’s Olíwo is not in a position to discuss local matters as a peer with the other members of the Remo Traditional Council, who are all obas. Neither can he sign the identification certificates necessary to make applications for identity cards or passports. Due to the continuing integration of obaship into the postcolonial state, a town without an oba suffers from lack of access to the local administration. The passionate lament from the resident of a Yoruba town outside Remo illustrates this: Since the demise of our traditional ruler … things have not been going well with the town politically, socially, and economically as we do not know what is going on in government circles since a regent is

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not entitled to attend government meetings where towns’ problems would be discussed and solutions found to them [sic]. (Daily Sketch, 28 November 1995) Thanks to Awolowo’s influence such a fate did not befall his hometown Ikenne. Instead, he created consent for a different form of traditional authority by redrawing the boundaries of the community and encouraging the revalidation of royal traditions in the town of Idotun. After the destruction of Idotun before or during the 1836 war,30 most citizens of Idotun moved to Ikenne, where they founded Idotun quarter in its northwest. Although Idotun had a crowned ruler, he had either disappeared or died during the war, and no new oba was installed for many decades after the resettlement of the community. However, most of Idotun’s senior chiefs and Òsùgbó officers survived the destruction of their settlement, and the continued existence of Idotun’s Òsùgbó guaranteed that Idotun retained its distinct character as a town in its own right. In 1920, Badaru Ogunbawo Otesile, a converted goldsmith who had been baptised as Alfred, was put up by Idotun as an Olúdòtun, and he was installed as the community’s ruler. However, in 1921 a supporter of Otesile, Odupajo Adegba-bi-eru-esin of Idotun, stood in front of the Alákènnéé’s palace and compared the reputation of Idotun, which had a historical crown and was an ìlú aládé, with that of Ikenne in a manner that suggested that the status of the Olúdòtun was higher than that of the Alákènnéé. After this incident, the Olúdòtun was immediately removed from office by Ikenne citizens outraged at this insult to the Alákènnéé. Within Ikenne, the Idotun quarter has consistently supported Obafemi Awolowo, and the AG chairman in Ikenne’s local council during the 1950s, Ayo Akinsanya, was from Idotun. On 30 September 1958, Sobola Opeaye (1958–76) was installed as the second Olúdòtun of Idotun in Ikenne, albeit at a lower official rank than the Alákènnéé. He was succeeded by S. O. Oresajo (1976–81), a wealthy businessman and leader of the Methodist community of Ikenne. The immediate past Olúdòtun of Idotun, Oba Michael S. Awolesi, ascended the throne on 30 July 1983. Trained as a tailor in Lagos, Michael Awolesi became an itinerant salesman of traditional remedies and later worked for Shell as a sales promotion supervisor. A sociable and popular man, Michael Awolesi garnered widespread support for the ascent of the Idotun community within Ikenne. In November 1985, Olúdòtun Awolesi even installed Idotun chiefs in the Ikenne Town Hall. By doing this he not only physically expanded his activities beyond the Idotun quarter, but also used the annex that had originally been built for spiritual functions involving the Alákènnéé and which overlooked the place where the Alákènnéé’s skulls were kept. Despite this implicit challenge to the Alákènnéé’s authority, Awolesi went ahead, although he has held subsequent installations elsewhere (Soriyan 1991: 46–52).

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Probably both in reflection of his political connections and his local popularity, Awolesi was granted the right to wear a beaded crown or adé on 23 March 1985, and Idotun was officially recognised as an ìlú aládé, or a town that owns a crown, in this way. Awolesi was made the secretary of the council of Remo obas at the local government level, and after the division of Remo local government in 1991, he took on the chairmanship of the traditional council of Ikenne local government. In 1991, Olúdòtun Awolesi’s status was upgraded to that of a Grade 2 oba, and the ceremony in December of that year, where Awolesi was officially presented with a new staff of office and instrument of appointment, was attended by Hannah Awolowo. As Alákènnéé Gilbert Awomuti had died in 1984, Olúdòtun Awolesi was, for most of his reign until his death in 2003, the only oba in Ikenne. Awolesi’s successor, Olúdòtun Odunayo Solarin, has never shared the town with another ruler. The Olúdòtun’s leading role in Ikenne affairs has been reflected by his official recognition as a Grade 2 Oba – the same status as that of the past Alákènnéé Gilbert Awomuti.31 Thus, while Ikenne itself had no oba which represented it as a united community, it has de facto been represented by the oba of Idotun for over twenty years. In a settlement where most people had ties to both towns, the authority of the Olúdòtun exemplified the political mobilisation of community ties. While the rise of Idotun’s status vis-à-vis Ikenne was bitterly resented by opponents of the Awolowos, it has been projected into the past by the Olúdòtun and his supporters. Thus the late Olúdòtun Awolesi suggested in an interview that the towns of Ikenne and Idotun merged after a long friendship to protect themselves against external enemies, refuting the older narratives of Idotun’s refuge in Ikenne which imply Idotun’s obligation to Ikenne as its host (Oba Michael S. Awolesi, 7 August 2002). Although Obafemi Awolowo could not establish his version of Ikenne politics as centred on the Obara family, the rise of Idotun within Ikenne illustrates his ability to transform the community’s view of itself, even posthumously. The vacuum which emerged after the death of the Alákènnéé was filled by the Olúdòtun. Thus if Awolowo’s legacy to Ikenne did include the division of the town, it also included a trajectory of success and revival for Idotun, a community that had, despite its past as a crowned town, until the 1950s only constituted a quarter of Ikenne. As Idotun’s status has increased, Ikenne has become a settlement of two towns of almost equal status. The presence of those two towns, both with their own set of civic associations, clearly reflects the settlement’s political division at the level of grassroots political participation. popular consent and the remaking of community

As the transformations of Ikenne and Remo illustrate, once party politics were intimately associated with locally rooted institutions, they could

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contribute to the creation of new communal identities. This process, in turn, had implications for electoral results. Taking these insights beyond Remo, the Action Group soon consciously attempted to remake communities through an appropriation of traditional politics throughout the Western Region and, often helped by the Egbé Omo Odùduwà, inserted itself into Yoruba politics through local and regional rivalry. The party attempted to coerce dissenting areas such as Ibadan, Ilesa and Oyo, or – outside the Yoruba-speaking areas – Benin, into political support for the AG through the manipulation of traditional authority. However, as the early experiments in Remo and Ikenne suggest, such interventions were only successful where they reflected a community’s view of itself and its outside relations. For example, despite the AG’s massive intervention in Ibadan, and even the suspension of Awolowo’s rival Adegoke Adelabu from the Ibadan District Council, the AG was not able to establish a firm hold on Ibadan politics at that stage. As party politics became an important force in the making of communities at the local level and beyond, they redefined communities both in terms of their boundaries and by reinterpreting and connecting their internal and external views of themselves. Thus the unification of Remo behind the AG confirmed the stratification of the community’s traditional hierarchy and created widespread popular consent for the paramountcy of the Akàrígbò. Beyond the local, Remo’s vote for the AG represented its support for the person of Obafemi Awolowo in nationalist politics, as well as its ideological closeness to the areas of Ife and Ekiti which voted similarly.32 At the same time, it represented to Remo voters their critique of NCNCvoting Ibadan, and their dismay over the equally NCNC-supporting Sabo. As the community’s boundaries and its relations to its constituent groups and others were redefined and became mutually supportive, Remo was remade politically. Because local struggles over electoral politics remained intensely particular even when they reflected much wider concerns, they were sometimes seen to reflect tribal or communal cleavages only, as opposed to differences between wider communities of interest defined by occupation, education and social class (Garigue 1954). While it is useful to distinguish between traditional and modern (or party) politics in order to refer to different political dynamics and processes, Awolowo’s transformation of Remo politics illustrates that at the grassroots, everyday meanings associated with these two spheres of politics constantly seeped into one another. Also, such analyses ignore the fact that communal politics frequently aim to transform and modernise other forms of differentiation. Using, but also transcending, the wealth of political traditions that centre on local community in southwest Nigeria, party politics aimed at the creation and control of larger political communities. Although electoral politics were tied to interests and

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v­ iewpoints located in the everyday and traditional, they were also concerned with a reordering of community ties far beyond the local. Moreover, as the Remo example illustrates, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, divergent political and business interests as well as religious, educational and occupational changes played an important role in the creation and recreation of communities. Disproving the condescension with which Awolowo had thought about the ‘masses’ during the late 1940s, communities were formed, fixed and reformed in response to both local and wider political concerns, and communal cleavages represented, in a very real sense, differences of interest and ideology. In this context, the assumption that loyalty to the community reflected a primordial politics appears both ahistorical and absurd: like all political allegiances, political communalism reflects historically rooted interests. Based on both material and ideological concerns, any enduring transformation of the community needed to be based on popular participation and consent. Finally, popular support for Awolowo’s intervention in Remo not only legitimised and renewed Remo’s traditional hierarchy, it also inserted Awolowo into Remo’s view of itself and its past. Once Remo’s traditional hierarchy became based on consent, it became natural in local discourse to project similar consent and unity into the past, and to view not only Remo’s factionalism since the break-up of the Remo federation but also its inclusion in the Ijebu kingdom (and later District and Province) as temporary. In this way Remo’s unification in the 1950s created a new precolonial genealogy, in which Remo’s independent existence in the past became, if not a certainty, then at least a strong possibility, which in turn both confirmed and obscured Remo’s long struggle for independence from Ijebu-Ode. As the architect of Remo’s purposeful unity in the present, Awolowo thus also became an originator of its past. On the basis of local engagements with power and history, Awolowo’s social basis in Remo politics was dramatically extended once it took on this mythical dimension. While Awolowo’s mobilisation of traditional (as well as non-traditional) elites allowed him to establish local political unity under his leadership, it was the popular support for Awolowo and the AG that really entrenched this process. The dramatic political effects of this development during the 1950s and 1960s are explored in the next chapter.

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7 ethno-regional politics and popular rebellion in remo

Reflecting both Awolowo’s ambitions for Nigeria and his ideas about an emerging Yoruba nation, the AG became the dominant party of Nigeria’s Western Region during the 1950s. However, as the AG established itself at the grassroots through its integration with and assimilation of traditional institutions, its proposed political unification of  Yorubaland also implied the hierarchisation of traditional authority and possibly other forms of traditional politics. This dynamic created great popular resistance among the citizens of polities who feared to be disadvantaged by this process.1 Despite successful processes of political unification in places like Remo, where party politics confirmed and were confirmed by the local traditional hierarchy, the AG’s vision of a pan-Yorubaism based on traditional leadership thus also buttressed communal rivalry. The overall effect of Awolowo’s attempt to create political unity through the assimilation of traditional politics therefore appears complex. While the assimilation of party and traditional politics points towards an integration of localities into the state through the traditional, the same process helped to retain and reformulate differences at the communal, local and regional level. In 1960, Awolowo gave up his premiership of the Western Region to his long-time ally and deputy party leader Ladoke Akintola and contested the federal elections. However, when Awolowo failed to establish the AG as a party in power at the national level, local dynamics of conflict and competition changed dramatically. Drawing on his control of the regional administration and making the most of the weakening of the local NCNC leadership after Adegoke Adelabu’s death in 1958, Akintola was able to expand the AG’s influence into many communities formerly united behind the NCNC. At the same time, Akintola’s lower commitment to Awolowo’s avowed aims of expanding free education and healthcare, and his preparedness to negotiate with political rivals at the regional and central level, led to increasing ideological differences between him and Awolowo. In turn, many communities whose support for Awolowo had been based on their own commitment to modernisation and enlightenment became increasingly sceptical of Akintola. When the ideological disagreements led to a split of the party in 1962, and eventually to the imprisonment of Awolowo in 1963, Awolowo’s ability

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to influence politics in Remo or the Western Region directly was completely undermined. However, by that time, the entrenchment of party politics in local and traditional institutions had created institutionalised structures of support for Awolowo in many localities. In Remo, the traditional hierarchy could operate successfully under the local leadership of Akàrígbò Awolesi, who worked closely with Hannah Awolowo to maintain local support for Obafemi Awolowo. But support for Awolowo in Remo was also increasingly deeply embedded in popular movements and local traditional institutions beyond obaship and chieftaincy, and in particular with the politicised and revived precolonial civic associations of Orò and, to a lesser degree, Egúngún. As a result, Awolowo’s physical absence from Remo did not mean the end of his local influence. Instead, it became the factor that confirmed his symbolical centrality to its politics. awo l owo ’ s t r i a l a n d i m p r i s o n m e n t

The emergence of three ethno-regionally based power blocks in early postcolonial Nigeria has many origins, both in precolonial and colonial history, which have been discussed in detail elsewhere (Nnoli 1978; Traub 1986). As political and economic resources of Nigeria’s three regions continued to be centralised throughout the 1950s,2 the regional blocks themselves were also loci of power struggles. Perhaps because of the AG’s intermediate ideological position within Nigeria, the Western Region was the country’s most divided. Often the political contests between the AG and the NCNC drew on and instrumentalised older forms of political rivalry, and it was perceived as significant that the AG favoured the Óòni of Ile-Ife over the Aláàfin of Oyo as the spiritual leader of the emergent Yoruba nation. Also, as Awolowo and a large number of the AG executive were from non-Oyo areas of the Western Region that had been strongly influenced by mission Christianity, their strong emphasis on the education and enlightenment values associated with Christianity may have affected the AG’s acceptance in some (though not all) Muslim-dominated communities. Reflecting different aspects of local difference, throughout the 1950s support for the NCNC was strongest in Oyo, Ibadan, Ilesa and many of the smaller towns and cities in Oyo Province and Oshun and Ibadan Divisions. While the difference between Oyo and Ile-Ife influenced the status of the AG in different communities, it also had relevance for political rivalries within the AG. In 1954, Awolowo had made his old ally Ladoke Akintola his deputy, and in 1955 Akintola became the leader of the national opposition in Lagos, to provide the party with what he perceived as a regionalpolitical balance. Although not a Muslim, Akintola had grown up in Minna in northern Nigeria, and his family roots were in the Oyo city of Ogbomoso, a town which rose to regional importance in the nineteenth century when its population was swelled by the arrival of refugees from other Oyo cities

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and towns.3 However, the roles of the two men were reversed when, in the 1959 Federal Elections, Awolowo considered the AG’s chances to emerge as one of the victorious parties to be good and, hoping to become a partner in a national coalition government or even Head of State, he swapped roles with Akintola. But while Akintola was duly elected into the Western House of Assembly as the new regional premier, Awolowo found that he had miscalculated the AG’s chances. Instead of becoming a major player in the national government of an independent Nigeria, he found himself as the leader of the opposition to a national government in which the NCNC was the junior partner to the North’s NPC. While Akintola now controlled the administration of the Western Region, Awolowo, despite being the leader of the AG, found himself reduced to the leadership of the opposition in Lagos. The shift in power from Awolowo to Akintola at first encouraged the unification of the Yoruba-speaking areas behind the AG, which now seemed less of an Ijebu and Remo party to many Ibadan and Oyo citizens. Like Awolowo, Akintola appropriated the legitimacy of traditional authority by appointing a number of obas, including the rulers of Ibadan, Ondo, Iwo, Ijebu-Ode, Warri and Agbor, to ministerial posts (Vaughan 2000: 98–9). As a result of this increased inclusion, opposition to the decrease in obas’ formal powers, which had dominated politics in Oyo and some allied towns, was reduced. However, despite the consolidation of the AG in several formerly hostile political environments in the early 1960s, Akintola’s empowerment heightened personal, political and economic rivalry between himself and Awolowo. His reduction of school subsidies and his more general neglect of the educational and enlightenment policies so close to Awolowo’s heart, as well as his preparedness to negotiate openly with the northern Nigerian leader Ahmadu Bello, for whom Awolowo had little sympathy, appeared to Awolowo not only as a reversal of a formerly progressive politics but also as a personal betrayal. Rivalry between Awolowo and Akintola eventually found expression in a public disagreement over party policy. While Awolowo’s wing of the party indicated increasing sympathies with socially radical politics aimed at creating more equal educational and economic opportunities, the Akintola faction supported the more conservative policies associated with the NPC, which dominated the central government. In this situation, the historical rivalries that had plagued the AG before 1960 re-emerged. However, this time around, many Oyo towns and cities supported the regional government, while many non-Oyo areas remained loyal to Awolowo. In these parts of the Western Region, including the Lagos suburbs Ikeja and Mushin, and extending to Ijebu and Remo, Ekiti, Owo and Ondo, Awolowo’s allies had built strong local structures of support, and his political ideals resonated with popular and educational ambitions. To overcome such resistances,

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Akintola’s AG relied increasingly heavily on the use of coercion (Traub 1986: 405–8).4 The situation escalated when Awolowo challenged Akintola in public. In early 1962, Bisi Onabanjo, then the editor of the pro-AG newspaper the Daily Express, published a sustained criticism of Akintola, and Awolowo himself went on a tour of Akintola’s home area in Oshun Division, presumably to undermine his local support basis.5 At the Action Group Congress in Jos in May 1962, Awolowo then put twenty-four charges against Akintola to the party executive, and even after Akintola apologised in an attempt to prevent a division, a party vote by an open show of hands expelled him for treachery,6 leading to a de facto split of the party. After this coup, Awolowo and his supporters signed a petition to install Alhaji D. S. Adegbenro, Akintola’s former Minister of Local Government, as the Western Region’s new premier. Akintola retaliated by making the vote for Adegbenro in the House of Assembly impossible, and drew on the support of the central government which declared a state of emergency in the Western Region. When Adegbenro’s case against Akintola was confirmed by the British Privy Council, the central government again demonstrated its partiality by amending the constitution to nullify the Privy Council’s judgement and instituting the Supreme Council as the nation’s highest court. Eventually, the Akintola faction appointed Moses Majekodunmi as the Western Region’s Administrator, and in January 1963 Akintola returned to Ibadan as the premier of a coalition government of his faction of the AG and the NCNC (Tinubu 2001: 96–113). Meanwhile, Awolowo and his followers were prosecuted, again with the support of the central government. In June 1962, Nigeria’s Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa established a commission of inquiry, headed by Justice G. B. Coker, to investigate the Western Region government’s financial probity. This commission examined the large loans provided by the AG government to six major statutory corporations since 1954, which had depleted the funds of the Western Region Marketing Board. In particular, the investigation focused on the loans to the National Investment and Properties Corporation, which had in return financed the AG and newspapers supporting the party, and Awolowo was found guilty of abusing his position as Premier. In October, Awolowo and others were also accused of having planned to oust the government by force and were charged with treasonable felony. Eventually, Awolowo and several of his political allies (including leading politicians from non-Yoruba areas in the AG) were found guilty of plotting to overthrow the central government and of training revolutionaries in and smuggling arms through Ghana. In September 1963, Awolowo was imprisoned for ten years (Jakande 1966). Undoubtedly, Awolowo had been determined to regain power in Western Nigeria and to establish himself as a national leader.7 There is equally no

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doubt that his trial was politically motivated. This fact was reflected in a number of irregularities in the treatment of the accused and their erstwhile allies, which included weeks of detainment without being charged, a ban on non-Nigerian lawyers, implemented in response to Awolowo’s original representation by a UK-based legal expert, and, allegedly, ‘thirddegree methods’ during defendants’ and witnesses’ interrogations by a South African interrogation expert.8 Apart from the clear bias of the central government and the officials involved against Awolowo, public sympathy for Awolowo increased further when his first-born son, Segun Awolowo, who a few months earlier had returned from the UK with a degree from Cambridge and a qualification as a barrister, died in a motor accident in July 1963. Prevented from seeing his wife or other children at this stage, Awolowo had to learn the news from the radio. While Awolowo bore his loss stoically, many men, women and children grieved bitterly on his behalf, and even in Ibadan, markets and shops were closed in sympathy with the Awolowo family (Jakande 1966: 226–8). In response to Awolowo’s suffering, the number of his supporters increased. As people mulled over recent events and what might have been, Awolowo was increasingly associated with the promise of education and prosperity for all, while, faced with decreasing world market prices for the region’s cocoa and other exports as well as empty government coffers, Akintola could no longer deliver these promises. Thus many of Awolowo’s supporters felt that, irrespectively of his guilt, he had represented them in the best possible way while in office. Popular loyalty to Awolowo was expressed in the widely known song: Awólówò, Bàbá Láyínkáá, máa kówó wa náà, Ìgùnnú ló ní Tápà, Tápà ló nÍgùnnú, máa kówó wa náà. Awolowo, Layinka’s father, continue to carry away our money (loot our treasury), the Igunnu masquerade belongs to the Nupe, and the Nupe belong to the Igunnu masquerade, continue to carry away our money. Confronted with this degree of loyalty, Akintola found it increasingly difficult to compete with Awolowo. Akintola’s relative position vis-à-vis his former party leaders deteriorated further as Awolowo’s status as a man of mythical or prophetic qualities increased. Having always been a man of fairly categorical beliefs who understood political compromise not so much as a virtue but as a weakness, Awolowo’s unwillingness to seek compromise either with Akintola or with the central government now appeared as

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integrity. Awolowo probably perceived his own fate in these terms, which contributed to his perception as a man who was punished for his uncompromising vision for the greater good. He later recalled: They wanted me to agree to the dissolution of the Action Group and to a number of things so that I could get out of jail immediately. Of course one of them even said, ‘Well, they say you are very stubborn,’ and I said, ‘Yes, I am very, very, very stubborn’; he used one ‘very’ and I used about three ‘very.’   ‘But,’ I said, ‘I am in good company.’ He happened to be a clergy I wouldn’t mention his name. From Genesis to Revelation I asked him to point out one prophet, one outstanding figure who was not very, very stubborn. (OGBC 1986: 2) As Awolowo took on the status of a national prophet, many supporters of Awolowo in the communities traditionally associated with him began to see their own roles within the pan-Yoruba project as central not only for themselves but for the nation. While the majority of British and colonial officials as well as Yoruba-speaking intellectuals in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century had considered Oyo and in particular Ibadan as representative for Yoruba culture and history (Johnson [1921] 1976), Awolowo’s leadership and political fate now caused many non-Oyo Yoruba communities, including Remo, to consider themselves the true representatives of Yoruba interests. It is possible that this understanding, as well as the worry that Awolowo’s suffering would, like that of the prophets, be visited upon his people, contributed to the political radicalisation of the time. Certainly many Remo citizens who were prepared to defend Awolowo and his legacy believed they were not only acting for themselves but for the greater good of the Yoruba nation. Such feelings were evoked also by the different basis in communal and traditional politics of the two former AG leaders, and especially the chieftaincy titles they had acquired. As illustrated above, Awolowo’s titles indicated his strong support outside Oyo, while Akintola was closely associated with Oyo. Politically supported by the rulers of such towns as Ibadan, Owo and Iwo, all of whom held posts as ministers without portfolio in his government, Akintola was also the Asipa of his hometown Ogbomoso. Moreover, he was installed as the Ààre Ònà Kakan'fò by the Aláàfin of Oyo in August 1964. This was the traditional title of the leader of the imperial Oyo army, and it denoted, to Akintola’s supporters, his power and the high esteem in which he was held as a leader (Osuntokun 1984: 138–49). At the same time, it seemed obvious to Akintola’s opponents that the title of Ààre Ònà Kakan'fò represented his traitorous nature: Afonja, a previous Ààre Ònà Kakan'fò of Oyo, had opened the Yoruba-speaking areas to the influence of the Fulani army. Many supporters of Awolowo saw Akintola’s title as a

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confirmation that he, like his predecessor Afonja, endangered the interests of the Yoruba people through cooperation with politicians from northern Nigeria. the nndp str uggle for remo

For the federal elections in October 1964, the Akintola group, consisting of a section of the former AG and the former NCNC of the Western Region, reconstituted itself as the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) and entered a coalition with the northern NPC. Many Action Group members who had previously supported Awolowo joined the NNDP because they felt that the political status quo – based on each party’s control of the regions – would protect Yoruba and Western Region interests.9 Meanwhile, the remaining Awolowo supporters campaigned as the United People’s Grand Alliance (UPGA) and entered an alliance with the national NCNC. Drawing on Awolowo’s ideological stand against Akintola as well as the AG’s shared roots with the NCNC in the nationalist movement, the UPGA used its political opposition to establish itself further as a party of social critique. However, despite some successes of the UPGA and its allies in the Northern Region, the 1964 election was marred by the intimidation of the UPGA throughout the West, and results were further skewed by a lastminute call for an election boycott from the UPGA leadership. This gave the NNDP an easy electoral victory in the Western Region. Political events were popularly understood through exchanges linking the political leaders to the ritual and traditional. After Akintola had been reinstated as the Premier of the Western Region, he referred to his political power and intentions in terms of a spiritual and irrevocable authority, almost like a king. He referred to himself by saying: A ti ki òjé bo baba olóòsà lówó, ó wá ku baba eni tí òo bo.10 The chief priest has been fully installed with his ring11 on the finger [hand],12 it remains to be seen who will try to remove it. This suggested that his position was irreversible like that of an installed titleholder. It was understood generally that Akintola suggested that anyone who would wrest power from him would have to expect the kind of spiritual repercussions that follow violence against an òrìsà priest. Bola Ige, one of Awolowo’s supporters, replied by confirming this form of understanding: Tí kò bá se é bó, a óò gé owó náà ni. If it becomes impossible to remove the ring, we shall cut the finger [hand] off. Aware of the potentially political nature of almost all aspects of everyday life, the NNDP’s attempts to establish itself locally were directed at extremely

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close social control. For this reason, the public performance by the then very popular playwright Hubert Ogunde of the dramatic play Yorùbá Ronu,13 which was sympathetic to Awolowo, was banned, and Ogunde’s company was persecuted. Painfully aware of the fluid boundaries between politics, tradition, ritual and even the private performances and consumptions of everyday life, the NNDP banned all playing of songs that included Awolowo’s name in 1965 (Nigerian Tribune, 6 July 1965). This ban was probably aimed at a then very successful song by the Jùjú14 musician I. K. Dairo, which included the lines: Ta ní í so pá ò ní baba o? Kó wáá so. Ta ní í so pá ò ní baba? Hèn-én? Baba nÍkene n;kó o? Awólówò? Hòo! Who says we have no father? Let him speak up. Who says we have no father? Hen? What about our father in Ikenne? Awolowo? Ho! Due to the entrenchment of the AG in Remo’s local and regional political dynamics, only a few local leaders, including Adeleke Adedoyin and several Sabo representatives, supported the NNDP. Beyond such pockets of support, it was impossible to generate consent for any politician or party associated with opposition to Awolowo in Remo. To entrench itself, the NNDP manipulated the local government and, to overcome popular resistance, often did so with much greater reliance on local administrative structures, and less popular consent than the ousted AG.15 Business contracts and other financial rewards were used to co-opt former opponents. Where politicians and traditional rulers were reluctant to declare their new allegiance, their political platforms were replaced with NNDP-controlled management committees. Like the AG in the past, the NNDP sought the support of traditional rulers and other local institutions and, again with greater force then the AG had needed, disciplined those local representatives and obas who continued to represent popular political ambitions through a reduction or withdrawal of their salaries.16 Several Remo obas were closely associated with Awolowo: the Odemo of Isara and the Akàrígbò of Remo had held Action Group ministerial posts, while the Ewùsì of Makun was a high party official. The NNDP government removed Samuel Akinsanya, the Odemo of Isara, from his seat at the House of Chiefs and reduced his stipend to a penny a year. Akàrígbò Moses Awolesi

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was accused of inciting riots and lawlessness in several Remo towns during a tour of the area by UPGA leader Michael Okpara. Returning to the chieftaincy dispute that had shaken Sagamu in the early 1950s, the NNDPcontrolled Ofin Management Committee even attempted to depose Awolesi in favour of his former rival Adeleke Adedoyin. When these attempts proved impossible due to local opposition within Ofin and beyond, the NNDP reduced the Akàrígbò’s stipend to punish him, and eventually this happened to many Remo rulers (Anifowose 1982: 192). As traditional authority had remained an important source of political legitimacy, and as local structures of power had become important for the local entrenchment of party politics, they now proved to be capable not only of organising consent for the state but also of subversion and opposi­tion. The opposition of most traditional rulers in Remo to the NNDP illustrates that despite the implications for their careers and income, many obas and other traditional authorities continued to act as representatives of their communities by refusing to legitimate a political party that was not accepted locally. In Remo, the Akàrígbò presided over a traditional hierarchy which was closely intertwined with support for Awolowo. However, traditional authority was not reduced to passively endorsing or opposing NNDP dominance; it also played an important role in refracting party political rivalry onto local struggles and institutions, as well as personal political careers and their popular perception within the united Remo. The close links between party politics and the landscape of local relations of power is illustrated by Adeleke Adedoyin’s rise within the NNDP and the political aspirations of Sabo during that period. After the Awolowos’ victory over Adeleke Adedoyin during the struggle over the throne of Ofin in 1952, Adedoyin had remained in party politics as an NCNC leader. He had later joined the AG, but supported Akintola when the party split and then joined the NNDP. Throughout this period, he had remained in close contact with his supporters, and especially the Sabo leaders who had supported his candidacy. While Sabo support for Adedoyin reflected the appreciation of his father’s position as the founder and representative of Sabo, the support of Remo’s mostly northern Nigerian migrants may also have reflected the opposition of many Sabo residents to the institution of Orò patrols after 1953, and its general disempowerment within Remo’s new political compact. As long as Akàrígbò Awolesi remained in power, an increase in Sabo’s status within Sagamu and Remo politics was very unlikely. For Sabo, the NNDP’s coming to power in Remo promised a turn of events. As in 1952, it was in Sabo’s interest to help Adeleke Adedoyin to become Akàrígbò in 1964. However, even if Akàrígbò Awolesi remained in office with a reduced degree of control, Sabo would greatly benefit. One of the ways in which Sabo could take advantage from such a situation would be its establishment as an independent quarter or town within Sagamu on a

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par with the other constituent towns of the settlement. This would not only allow Sabo to be politically represented, and possibly to repel Ofin’s Orò patrols, but it would also allow it to retain more of its wealth for its own development. Under the present arrangement, Akàrígbò Awolesi controlled a large part of the income from Sabo market. However, if Sabo were to be recognised as an independent quarter or town, Sabo’s transfers to Ofin would be reduced. But in the context of local politics, an independent community needed its own civic associations and ruler. Leaving the former to be resolved, Sabo believed that it had a candidate for the rulership who could unite the community and also legitimately represent it to the outside. As the direct descendant of the founder of Sabo, Adeleke Adedoyin was the most likely candidate for an ọlójà- or obaship of Sabo. In the 1964 Federal Elections, Adedoyin contested the Remo constituency for the NNDP. He stood against Hannah Awolowo, who, after her husband’s imprisonment, had taken over the leadership of the AG’s and later UPGA’s women’s wing, and who not only stood in for her husband at the level of regional politics but also stood as the UPGA candidate for Remo. UPGA candidates were intimidated throughout the Western Region, and Adedoyin was proclaimed the winner of the elections. As a result of this victory, widely believed to have been stolen, widespread discontent ensued and the election result was also legally contested (Nigerian Tribune, 16 January 1965). However, as the UPGA had earlier called for an unsuccessful election boycott, it was difficult to gage the degree of NNDP manipulation and widespread violence was avoided. Following his electoral victory, Adedoyin began to seriously advance the case for Sabo as a traditionally legitimised township under his authority in 1965. With this attempt to redefine party and traditional politics in Remo, Adedoyin posed a serious threat to Remo’s existing traditional hierarchy, which had clearly defined itself in opposition to the NNDP. As Sabo aspired to become an independent community with the help and support of an eligible and traditionally legitimised leader and potential ruler, it remained vulnerable only for its lack of civic associations. This was important because, in many Remo communities, the Orò association had begun to reflect the popular mobilisation and reliance on local structures of power associated with nationalist and party politics. In this sense, the use of Orò patrols to ensure Sabo’s compliancy after the 1952 chieftaincy dispute reflected a wider trend. As the political struggle between NNDP and UPGA mobilised people in a similar way, Orò and the mostly young men who participated in its masquerades and outings played an increasingly important role in the conflict over Remo’s political order.

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popular political mobilisation and the orò a ­ ssociation

In Nigeria, the decolonisation process was often represented as a conflict between the educated youth in the political parties and the traditional elders who held rulership and chieftaincy titles.17 This representation obscures the close bonds between and similar educational backgrounds of traditional and party political elites in many parts of the Western Region, and in particular in areas like Remo where education had become a pre­requisite for successful participation in local politics very early during colonial rule. However, at the same time the formulaic juxtaposition of educated youth and traditional elders reworked older relational categories of youth as moral guardians of the community and as a group whose power is at least partly independent of the oba. This is illustrated by the revival of Orò, the maleonly civic association which had flourished in the immediate precolonial period as the junior of two organisations that would execute the town’s criminals. After the formal establishment of British rule in Remo in 1894, Orò and Òsùgbó activities were heavily regulated, and none of the participatory traditional civic associations in the Remo towns were included in the local administration established by the colonial state.18 After Remo’s excision from Lagos and the introduction of Indirect Rule, the British further built up the position of the obas, and traditional rulers presided over the Native Courts, controlled communal or town land and the local police force, as well as becoming responsible for their subjects’ direct taxation. As the British oversaw a transfer of power to the obas, they also suppressed the functions of the civic associations to prevent or reduce local forms of resistance. But although many traditional meeting places of the Òsùgbó and Orò associations were physically destroyed in Ijebu, this was not the case in Remo.19 Nevertheless, restrictions based on the activities of these associations, and particularly Orò as the executive arm of the Òsùgbó, were enforced with steep fines. Because Orò insists on a strict separation of gender, women are confined to their compounds for the duration of any Orò outing. Women must not even catch a glimpse of what is going on outside, and so all doors of the house or compound must be closed and opened only by male children. Also, all windows and potential lines of sight should be covered or avoided. During major communal Orò outings, such as the yearly Orò festivals in all Remo towns, women are excluded from all public activities, and roads and markets are closed to prevent non-local women from encounters with Orò. A communal Orò festival also means a ban on the Muslim call to prayer and the prohibition of all drumming, even in church. To prevent conflict over Orò activities during British rule, communities had to apply to the Resident for an approval of longer Orò outings. Until the 1950s, they were

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usually granted two consecutive nights only for celebration, thus limiting bottlenecks in traffic and trade and restricting Orò’s imposition on women’s freedom of movement to a minimum. Apart from the colonial rhetoric in support of women’s rights, economic progress and the spread of monotheistic religion, the British prohibition of Orò probably also reflected many officers’ individual reactions of distaste to the ritual and social practices they encountered. The cultural gulf between most administrators and locals was reflected with clarity in the legal formulation that custom be upheld unless repugnant to ‘natural justice, equity and good conscience’.20 When communities celebrated Orò illegally, especially during daytime, their rulers were punished: in 1919, the Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo and the rulers of Iperu, Ogere and Isara refused to obtain permission from Sagamu (as they saw it) for their communal Orò celebrations. All of them were heavily reprimanded and forced to enter a bond for £50 for their ‘future good behaviour’.21 Another factor which initially weakened the political influence of Òsùgbó and Orò in Remo was the rapid and massive conversion to the world religions, and especially to Christianity. Due to the ritual and spiritual aspects of the activities of civic associations, many new converts refused to participate in them. Yet despite the empowerment of the obas vis-à-vis the towns’ civic associations and the conversion to monotheism, Remo’s participatory traditions were not permanently damaged. As Peel (2000: 270) has pointed out, many Yoruba Christians eventually accepted membership in the civic associations of their hometowns for a variety of political, social and spiritual considerations. The life histories of important Remo leaders illustrate that Remo was no exception to this development, and those who actively joined local civic associations included the Methodist leaders A. Haastrup and F. W. Mellor. Remo leaders made local civic associations acceptable spiritually by reinterpreting them as a kind of freemasonry or simply as ‘custom’, and by focusing on their continuing political importance at the grassroots. A considerable number of local Christian groups also felt that the Òsùgbó could be Christianised and the Reformed Ogboni Fraternity (ROF) became very successful in Remo during the 1930s and 1940s. Similar organisations emulating the international success of the ROF today include the Ogboni Aboriginal Society which is based on modernised traditional practices only. According to the editor of the Remo-based newspaper The Community News, Juwon Opayemi, people realised long before the end of colonial rule that monotheistic religion and local spiritual practices could be combined (25 March 1998). He learnt the following song when he grew up during the 1960s and 1970s in a mostly Anglican family and believes that the song demonstrates the compatibility between monotheistic and traditional religion:

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Àwa ó sorò ilé wa o (×2), èsin kan kò pé – ó ye (×2) ká wa ma sorò. Àwa ó sorò ilé wa o. We will perform the rites of our ilé [family, lineage, compound](×2), there is no religion that says – it is right (×2)22 that we should not perform the rites. We will perform the rites of our ilé. Despite a possibly difficult relationship with sections of the Christian or Muslim communities in Remo, many local civic associations and masquerades were revived during the 1940s and 1950s as nationalist and party politics were inserted into local struggles. A leader of this trend was Odemo Akinsanya of Isara (1943–85), who from 1944 onwards encouraged his town’s Orò association to come out during the daytime as well as during the night. By the 1950s, daytime Orò celebrations and the attendant confinements for women had been reintroduced to most Remo towns.23 It is likely that this process remained contested and that some local Christian and Muslim groups opposed at least public Orò practices. However, no direct reference to local opposition to Orò at this time could be found in writing, and interviews in the 1990s and 2000s – when opposition to public Orò practices was expressed by a small group of local Christians and Muslims – elicited only diplomatic responses about the 1950s and 1960s from people who considered themselves indigenous Remo citizens. While it is of course possible that the revival of Orò during the early independence years fitted in with confidence in the value of local practice among local Christians, it is also possible that this tolerant public attitude was the result of the important political role played by Orò. The introduction of nationalist politics increased the need for the local legitimation and embeddedness of all political actors, and many obas in particular relied on civic associations to give weight to their and their towns’ political ambitions through grassroots activities. Orò, and in particular its tradition of mockery, exposure and even abuse for wrongdoers, also enabled local leaders to construct and maintain a politically united community. As the role of party politics and later the AG expanded, this tradition was converted into pressure on political rivals and opponents of the AG. Politically mobilised Remo migrants often travelled to their hometowns to participate in the Orò festival, and many young and politically active men were both AG supporters and members of Orò (Lateef A. Sodeinde, 23 August 2002). Thus widening political participation during the 1950s established the politics of the Remo Orò, linked to the moral authority of the ancestors, as those of nationalist fervour and educational aspirations. As Orò’s modern aims were so clearly represented by Awolowo, its legitimation of Awolowo

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REMO TODAY To Ibadan

Administrative boundary, 1914 to present Ipara Settlement

Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

Major industrial area 0

Isan

15 kilometres

Ipara Isara Ode Remo Sagamu-Benin Expressway

Akaka

Ogere

Ilara Iperu

To Abeokuta

Irolu

R. O

na

Ilisan To Ijebu-Ode, Benin

Ikenne

Sagamu Sabo Starlight Kara lorry park To Lagos

West African Portland Cement Corporation (WAPCO) Ode Lemo

R. Ib u

R. Owur

u

NNPC depot (Mosimi)

To Odogbolu Ikenne Rubber and Agricultural Plantation

Ogijo

Emuren

To Ikorodu, Lagos

Map 6 Remo today (Source: Author’s research) himself also recognised him as an ancestor or founder of contemporary politics. As Awolowo was increasingly recognised as not only a local leader but a representative of Remo and its historical existence, he became a reference point in everyday life. Reflecting the permeability between everyday social and cultural activities and politics, Remo political practice increasingly drew on these spheres. The increasingly close personal association between AG/ UPGA and Orò membership was reflected in the fact that many Orò groups supported and secured nightly political outings by supporters of Awolowo who criticised and embarrassed local NNDP members (Oba Adedayo

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Adekoya, 4 August 2002). After Awolowo’s arrest and imprisonment, his party also became – at least in the Remo popular imagination – a local spiritual force. In 1964, UPGA supporters throughout Remo started to carry palm fronds in an allusion to the symbol of the Action Group, the palm tree. As a cultural symbol, palm fronds referred to the creation of sacred spaces for the worship of òrìsà and to the demarcation of the groves of Orò and other town associations or masquerades. Battle songs written in anticipation of the 1965 Western Regional elections again drew on the image of the palm tree: Egbé olópe l’awa o se o (×2), àyà wa ò já (×2), Egbé olópe l’awa o se o! We will support the palm tree party (×2), we are not afraid (×2), we will support the palm tree party! This song in particular not only illustrated the assimilation of party politics into the local political universe, it also alluded textually to the emerging political will to use violence. The line àyà wa ò já (we are not afraid) not only stated the singers’ readiness for battle, it alluded to battle through the use of an expression which rhymed – with contrasting tone-marks – with the word jà (to fight).24 t h e 1965 r e g i o n a l e l e c t i o n s a n d a f t e r w a r d s

After Adeleke Adedoyin’s 1964 so-called federal election victory over Hannah Awolowo – who was perceived as representing her husband both as his wife and by having taken on a prominent leadership role within the UPGA after his imprisonment – the atmosphere in Remo during the political campaigns leading up to the regional elections in October 1965 was highly charged. Violence was used as a means of political expression by both parties. NNDP thugs, frequently brought to Remo from outside, targeted people and institutions associated with Awolowo. The palace of Ikenne’s oba was burnt down, and Awolowo’s pet economic project in Remo, the Ikenne Rubber and Agricultural Plantation, which had been established in Ikenne in 1959, was a prime target for local NNDP anger. It was attacked by arsonists in March 1965 (Nigerian Tribune, 26 March 1965). The plantation had been established with public funds, which created some jealousy in rival towns, and it had played a role in Awolowo’s trial, where he had been accused of having misdirected the funds for this plantation to Ikenne despite poor agricultural conditions. However, the plantation also signified Awolowo’s contested attempts to represent and reorder Ikenne, because it had been built on part of the bitterly disputed land along the Ikenne– Sagamu road which belonged to Hannah Awolowo’s Obara family.

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Because of the UPGA’s broad support base in Remo, anti-NNDP violence dominated public life. In many towns, UPGA supporters intimidated and harassed NNDP supporters, and attacked their property and even their lives. Grassroots anger against the NNDP was so strong locally that judges did not dare punish UPGA supporters, even in murder cases. In Ipara, NNDP leader Ogunloye Fajunmoju was killed, but the twelve men accused of the killing walked free, despite the fact that the act had been seen by several witnesses (Nigerian Tribune, 21 July 1965). In a similar trial regarding the murder of Ogere’s NNDP leader Ogunkoya Aberenla, Justice Oyemade even stated that: Any one who offers to give evidence for the prosecution before him in the … case … will do so at their own risk and that he [Oyemade] would not be sorry for them for whatever treatment they may receive thereafter. (Nigerian Tribune, 27 July 1965) The announcement of the election results was dramatic, because a group of people close to UPGA forced an independent announcement, according to which the UPGA had won sixty-eight of ninety-four seats in the Western Region.25 Official results claimed seventy-one seats for the NNDP (Anifowose 1982: 221). This sparked off extremely violent reactions throughout the Western Region, and especially in Remo. When Akintola almost halved Marketing Board producer prices a few days later, local violence took on the character of a grassroots revolt. Over the following days and weeks, members of both sexes and from different socio-economic backgrounds protested bitterly against the political manipulation of the regional government (Anifowose 1982: 230–1). In Remo, several demonstrations by women exposed and ridiculed the government (Nigerian Tribune, 1 November 1965). An incensed crowd burnt state infrastructure, houses and the property of NNDP party members, who were considered the local agents of betrayal or the enemies within. Violence was directed at anyone seen to have cooperated with the NNDP, and local NNDP leaders were killed in the Remo towns of Iperu, Ikenne and Sagamu. Throughout the crisis, party supporters and traditional associations cooperated closely in punishing those who were seen to undermine the communal values associated with the AG. Many of those killed were beheaded, a traditional sign of executions sanctioned by the Orò and Èlúkú associations. The involvement of traditional civic associations also allowed the expression of discontent with traditional rulers without discrediting traditional politics as a whole: Remo obas Samuel Abimbolu and Adebo Green of Ode Remo and Ilisan respectively, who had both been sympathetic to NNDP, had to leave their towns after violent confrontations with their townspeople. In most cases, the violence was planned or coordinated by young men associated with UPGA. Because of the use of petrol in the destruction of people and

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property, the attacks were code-named Operation Wetie (Wet It). Awolowo’s close associate Bola Ige describes the atmosphere in Remo during a drive from Ibadan to Lagos via Sagamu with Wole Soyinka: From a few miles outside Ibadan, at Idi-Ayunre, till we got to Majidun river after Ikorodu [i.e. throughout their time on Remo territory], we ran into a series of roadblocks mounted by young men carrying palm leaves, cudgels, broken bottles and matchets. Some of them were also carrying kegs which an unsuspecting person might think contained palm-wine, but which really contained petrol …   [But we had no problems with the youth.] Usually one young man would sit on the bonnet of the car waving his palm frond and saying: ‘These are Awo’s children; no harm must come to them.’ … It took us more than four and a half hours to get to Lagos, but we enjoyed it. (Ige 1995: 285) As the power of the AG was entrenched locally despite the NNDP’s best efforts, fear of retaliation increased. People began to be terrified that Ijebu and Remo would be bombed by the Western Region or central government, or that that a northern-dominated military coup would end their political opposition. As Akintola’s association was with the NPC and northern Nigerian interests, the mostly northern Nigerian migrants in Sabo were increasingly feared as potential fifth columnists. While much of the local anti-northern sentiment was based on a generalised – and frequently mythological – narrative of northern treachery against Awolowo and Remo, Adeleke Adedoyin’s NNDP support and championing of Sabo’s ambition to establish itself as an independent community seemed to confirm these fears and suspicions. When Adedoyin was installed as the Seriki Tilasi (understood to mean ruler by force, i.e. against the will of Akàrígbò Awolesi and the Remo he represented) by some senior representatives of Sabo, these fears were confirmed. Adedoyin’s installation – and his meaningful title – suggested that he would represent Sabo and give it the status of an independent community against all opposition (Tokunbo Adedoyin, 5 August 2002). In a strike against Sabo, AG/UPGA youth and Orò associations in Sagamu planned and code-named Operation Salvation. In early December 1965, houses owned by northerners in Sabo and elsewhere in Remo were destroyed, and their property was looted or burnt. Some migrants were raped, others were burnt to death or beheaded by Orò, and even travellers along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway who looked like northern Nigerians were stopped, harassed and punished by local groups. As the police and judiciary were incapable of ending the crisis, the attacks on Sabo lasted for two full days. Those who survived fled Remo for fear of death (Nigerian Tribune, 17 December 1965a, 17 December 1965b). While

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political violence had at first only been directed against Adedoyin and other local Akintola supporters, Operation Salvation illustrated clearly what would happen to all those who did not fit into Remo’s new understanding of itself, now reflecting, or aiming to reflect, the politics of a community united behind Awolowo both by Remo’s elites and local participants in popular politics. In this constellation, the migrants at Sabo were viewed as a threat because they represented, by association, the enemy of a central government controlled by northern Nigerians. Of course, many Sabo residents had been born in Remo or had lived there for decades and it is impossible to say how they would have been viewed if their participation in local politics had followed a different trajectory. But when Sabo’s residents endeavoured to legitimise Adedoyin and, by implication, the NNDP, their attempts to subvert local unity were violently punished. Reflecting public outrage at Sabo’s attempted subversion of the community, Remo’s public aggression against northern Nigerians continued after the riots and was not even halted by the anti-NNDP military coup of January 1966 which ended Nigeria’s First Republic. As ethnic tensions increased all over Nigeria, many of Sabo’s northern Nigerian migrants left to go back to the North. Many, however, especially the Ilorin families and the Hausas from Kano, belonged to families that had committed themselves to Sagamu for generations, and some had lost contact with their families and communities in northern Nigeria. These residents of Sabo only went as far as Ibadan, where they decided to fight for their right to live in Remo. Sabo representatives Alhaji Garba Dan Sagamu and Alhaji Babangida Matazu asked for the intercession on their behalf of the Sarkin Hausawa of Ibadan, Alhaji Dikko, who had good links to the new military administrator Adekunle Fajuyi. Eventually, the military government convinced both sides to meet at the palace of Akàrígbò Awolesi, where an agreement was reached that guaranteed the peaceful return of the Sabo residents (Ayodele 2004: 349–50). In the meeting, the Sabo leaders promised that they would call a halt to their support of Adeleke Adedoyin and accept the authority of the Akàrígbò Moses Awolesi. Meanwhile, the Akàrígbò appeared as a judge between Remo popular opinion – as enacted by Orò – and Sabo, acting as a seemingly neutral arbitrator in a conflict in which his interests were clearly associated with one side. But because Sabo had only been a reluctant part of the new Remo compact previously, the meeting also established the Akàrígbò as a legitimate representative of the territory, i.e. as the representative of all Remo settlements, irrespective of their residents’ origin. Thus the peace negotiations with Sabo legitimised the renewed subjugation of northern migrants’ interests under the Akàrígbò both in content and form. They confirmed the Akàrígbò as the representative of a Remo the unity of which included the consent of both its older towns and Sabo.

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orò in sabo and in remo

Operation Salvation of 1965 illustrates not only the continuing relevance but also the contestedness and potential subversiveness of the traditional sphere in politics. Sabo’s attempt to assimilate and gain the status of a township was based on economic success and demographic strength as well as the community’s commitment to Remo. To gain independence, Sabo was prepared to assimilate the dominant form of local political representation through traditional rulers, and to make the Ofin prince Adeleke Adedoyin its representative and ruler, possibly even its oba. Because of the national, regional and personal politics involved, this attempted appropriation of local tradition was perceived as a threat. To ensure the exclusion of Sabo, the already politicised Orò association was mobilised. Unlike rulership, Orò represented a layer of local tradition that Sabo had not been prepared to assimilate and at the level of which it was not equipped to engage with outsiders. By uniting different groups to attack Sabo, Orò enacted the community’s changed view of itself as united through a refracted and modern appropriation of precolonial practices and institutions. Apart from the colonial institutions, which included the traditional rulers, there had been no institutionalised cooperation between the civic associations of the Remo towns since the 1860s. However, in the attack on Sabo in 1965, the Remo Orò groups united against a common enemy, and after 1965, Orò cooperation became a feature of institutionalised politics in Remo. From 1972 onwards, the Remo Orò groups met regularly in the Akàrígbò’s palace in Ofin (Lateef A. Sodeinde, 23 August 2002).26 While no unified Remo Orò has emerged since then, Orò’s institutionalised cooperation continues to represent the unity of Remo as sanctioned by the spirit of the community. At the same time, Sabo became Remo’s only quarter which had no representative at the Orò meetings in the Akàrígbò’s palace. The development of Orò into an institution of Remo popular politics reflected the growing political cohesion of Remo at the level of popular participation, which mirrored Remo’s now consensual traditional hierarchy under the Akàrígbò. But the coordination of Orò activities throughout Remo also created a faultline along which belonging was enacted. As Orò practice became an indicator of Remo identity, those who had potential access to and participation in Orò perceived themselves as representing the communal ancestors and, by implication, owners of Remo. As a result, Orò’s political importance and its ability to constitute belonging were widely understood to be more important than its spiritual implications. The vast majority of Remo Christians and Muslims tolerated or even supported Orò because not to have done so would have made them outsiders in their own communities. Orò’s implications for gendered politics were perceived in a slightly different way. Although it is possible that the rise

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of Orò, since it must not be seen by women, led to an indirect masculinisation of parts of the public sphere in Remo, women did not protest against their exclusion from political activities involving Orò. As women have the power to undermine Orò outings by not complying with their exclusion from the public sphere, they did not perceive the expansion of its political scope of action as detrimental to their interests. As the female local politician and leader Olorì Funmilola Adekoya (4 August 2002) put it, ‘If we don’t like what they [Orò leaders and members] are doing, they will know’. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the exclusion of northerners from popular politics through Orò was regularly enacted. Outings and parades by the regional Orò associations, led by the Orò of Ofin, continued to remind Sabo residents that Orò expressed local relations of power and control.27 Sabo’s position was further entrenched when other masquerades, including Egúngún, also began to enter the settlement. While most residents accepted this fact, and children and even adults sometimes joined in the celebrations, an equally important section of the population felt uneasy about the growing presence of local traditional institutions in Sabo. Such resentment was easily transformed into fear and anger, and when in 1974 a little Hausa boy went missing during an outing of Ofin Egúngún masks to Sabo, some residents concluded that the masquerade was responsible for his disappearance and attacked the masqueraders. However, once the festival had been disrupted, the boy was found, and the Egúngún masqueraders were compensated for their loss and embarrassment (Sanni 2000: 28–9). As Orò – as well as other traditional civic associations – became an institution that defined northern Nigerian migrants as outsiders, it also enacted a politics of ethno-regional difference. While Remo natives were identified with the political pan-Yorubaism associated with Awolowo, northern migrants and Sabo residents were taken to represent the central government. As in the northern Nigeria of the Remo popular imagination, most of Sabo’s residents were Muslims. However, unlike more religiously tolerant local Muslims, they had no access to local civic associations and in particular to Orò. Yet despite its refraction of ethno-regional relations of power, the process of making natives and outsiders in Remo remained distinctly local. Thus Orò is usually associated with southern Yoruba polities, including Egba, Remo and Ijebu, although its suitability for popular mobilisation may be a reason for the spread of its popularity throughout Yorubaland during the twentieth century. If the Yoruba nation imagined and represented in local struggles was characterised by unevenness, so was the construction of ethnicity in Sabo. Perhaps because of the political leadership of the migrant group from Kano in Sabo, but also in reflection of southern Nigerian stereotypes of Hausa or even ‘Hausa-Fulani’ or ‘Emirate’ people, residents of Sabo were locally referred to as Hausa although many of them were not culturally or

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linguistically Hausa. Thus the heterogeneity of Sabo found little reflection in local politics. As only the Kano Hausas, who dominated the cattle trade and butchery, were given official recognition by the Akàrígbò, many people not directly involved in Sabo politics remained unaware of the settlement’s heterogeneity. As a result of the popular view of Sabo as a Hausa settlement, even the Ilorin migrants in Sabo, who were Yoruba-speakers, were perceived as Hausa. Accordingly, many of them were affected by Orò violence in 1965. The perception that Ilorin migrants were Hausas rather than Yoruba reflected Ilorin’s history as well as its geographical and political location within the Northern Region, where the relatively well educated Yoruba-speakers were able to play an important administrative and symbolic role within the NPC. Thus the perception of the Ilorin migrants as Hausa suggests that the administrative boundaries of the state played an important role in both the shaping and the perception of ethnic identity beyond Remo. At the same time, and notwithstanding Remo’s pivotal role in the Yoruba ethno-national discourse, the ascription of ethnicity and belonging remained powerfully subject to political discourses rooted in the local. Despite their victimisation, many members of the Ilorin community returned to Sabo after the end of the First Republic. The community’s lack of local representation was addressed in the early 1970s, when Akàrígbò Awolesi invited the Ilorin community to select a head who would officially represent them. Eventually, Alhaji Yusuf Ayinda, locally known as Olosanyin because he used his knowledge of Islam to divine the future,28 was elected as the Ilorin representative in Sabo. The formalisation of the Ilorin migrants’ representation in Sabo reflected the status of this group, which continues to be strongly present in Islamic teaching and strip weaving, and illustrated the widespread appreciation of the Ilorin migrants’ economic and spiritual contribution to life in Remo (Juwon Opayemi, 20 August 2002). However, although the official recognition of the Ilorin community within Sabo established them as different from Hausas – and perhaps even fellow Yorubas – in local perceptions of Sabo, it did not create an opening for Sabo’s naturalisation into Remo politics. Due to their origin from a northern Yoruba community, where Orò had not been prominent in the past, and signalling their commitment to Islam through the rejection of what many Sabo residents perceived as ‘cults’, the Ilorin migrants did not adopt or participate meaningfully in Orò. t h e s a c r a l i s a t i o n o f awo l owo i n e ve r y d ay l i f e

As the events of the 1960s illustrate, popular support for Awolowo in Remo went increasingly beyond the personal politics of traditional rulers or lineage politicians on whom Awolowo had originally focused his political energies. While the assimilation of traditional and party politics had at first depended

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on Awolowo’s personal intervention and presence, the deepening of popular commitment to Remo unity took on a dynamic independent of his personal presence when he was imprisoned after the break-up of the AG in 1962. As young men in particular revived precolonial civic associations such as Orò in support of the vision of Remo associated with Awolowo, support for him was entrenched not in one but in several of Remo’s important civic institutions. Because Orò enjoyed, despite its genderedness, widespread and popular support within Remo, so did pro-Awolowo politics. While the widespread popular support for Awolowo that emerged during his imprisonment legitimised him politically, it also transformed the nature of political participation in Remo. The parallel processes of local political unification and the politicisation of Orò revalidated older cooperative traditions in Remo. While the clashes of 1965 and 1966 illustrated that Orò would direct popular violence against those who were perceived to challenge Remo unity, the subsequent unification of Orò suggested that Remo unity was increasingly instituted at the level of grassroots and popular politics. Confirming Remo’s unity as a joint project of elite politicians and the mostly young men active in Orò, Orò re-established inter-town cooperation as a routine practice at the grassroots, which existed in a complex relationship with more authoritarian structures. While Orò supported the unity of Remo both to the outside world and within Remo, it illustrated that in so far as political leaders claimed legitimacy, they remained subject to grassroots criticism. Orò had punished obas and other leaders who undermined Remo’s political unity, and its role in Remo reflected the ongoing, or possibly revived, importance of popular consent for local leadership. The grassroots activities associated with Awolowo both reflected and further increased the mythical status he held in Remo after 1962. As the man who had united Remo’s traditional hierarchy politically and the symbol around which the representatives of Remo’s communal Orò ancestors cooperated, Awolowo’s status as both a representative of Remo’s contemporary unity and a focal point of the projection of this unity into the mythical past was further entrenched. As Awolowo was increasingly identified with Remo’s historical and political identity, which was perceived as underpinning the activities of traditional rulers, the activities of Orò groups and, by extension, the many areas of political activity and spiritual concern associated with them ensured that support for Awolowo became part of a selfunderstood, habitual experience of the everyday for many Remo citizens despite his physical absence. As in the worship of òrìsà, Awolowo’s spiritual powers were confirmed no longer by what he did but by what his followers achieved (Barber 1981). Beyond Orò, the importance of Awolowo and the AG for the remaking of the local political identity was acknowledged in many spheres of life. By the mid-1960s, many Remo towns possessed AG Egúngúns, which were decked

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out in cloth printed with Awolowo’s face, symbols of the AG such as palm trees and party slogans. Confirming the AG as an ancestor of contemporary Remo, these masquerades clearly pointed to Awolowo’s mythical powers: while still alive, one of Awolowo’s creations, or ‘children’, i.e. the AG, was already an ancestor of the locality. Thus was confirmed Awolowo’s position as Remo’s spiritual patron, set between the worlds of spiritual and worldly power. These perceptions would strongly influence popular perceptions of Awolowo and his political ambitions for Yorubaland and Nigeria after his release from prison.

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8 self-reliance, development and civic pride in remo

The political turmoil in the Western Region was ended by an anti-NNDP military coup in early 1966. The coup resulted in a new government under General Aguiyi Ironsi, which was welcomed enthusiastically in Remo and many other parts of southern Nigeria. However, the coup leaders had murdered NNDP leader Ladoke Akintola as well as most of the country’s northern leaders. In northern Nigeria, hostility to Ironsi and his government led to widespread anti-Igbo violence and pogroms (Isichei 1976; Anthony 2002). In July 1966,Yakubu Gowon, a Christian from the Northern Region, emerged as Nigeria’s Head of State after a counter-coup. However, this coup had not succeeded in the Eastern Region, and in protest against Igbo victimisation the Eastern Region decided to secede from Nigeria as the state of Biafra. Reflecting a strong sense of disillusionment with the Nigerian postcolonial experience, support for the idea of regional secession existed in the Western Region as well. Aware of the necessity not to antagonise especially the Yoruba-speakers in the Western Region and hoping to win a political ally, in August 1966 Gowon released Awolowo with a state pardon for the ten-year prison sentence he had been given in 1963. In Remo and elsewhere, he was greeted with this song: Káàbò, sé dáadáa lo dé? Bàbá Láyínkáá, A ti n;retíì re, Káàbò, sé dáadáa lo dé? Welcome, have you arrived well? Father of Layinka, We have been expecting you, Welcome, have you arrived well? Drawing on the popular support that had increased during his prison sentence both in Remo and throughout the Western Region, Awolowo was widely recognised as the most eminent Yoruba politician during the period of military rule that followed his release.

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t h e c o n s o l i d a t i o n o f yo r u b a p o l i t i c s u n d e r militar y r ule

The Gowon government hoped to benefit from Awolowo’s popularity in two ways, namely by legitimising its own politics in the Western Region and by consolidating the tentative unity of its Yoruba communities which had emerged after Awolowo’s imprisonment in order to prevent further political factionalisation and conflict. Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, the Western Region’s military administrator, facilitated this process by inviting a large number of former politicians and other opinion leaders from Yoruba ­communities throughout the Western Region. Appealing to them to over­come past divisions, he suggested that it might be to the benefit of all if the Yoruba spoke with one voice and enjoined those present to elect a leader. Proposed by an old supporter and seconded by a former NNDP member, Awolowo was chosen as the Asíwájú Yorùbá, or vanguard leader of the Yorubas, without a counter-motion or opposing vote (Ige 1995: 326–7). While the title of Asíwájú Yorùbá itself was new – there had been no institution in recorded memory that could have conferred a pan-Yoruba title until that time – it carried something of the weight of established traditional titles. His new title not only recognised his contribution to the making of a Yoruba politics but also lifted his status beyond that of Akintola, whose highest title, Ààre Ònà Kakan'fò, only represented the Oyo, a part of Yoruba­land. Awolowo was well aware of the political and symbolic significance of this title and noted with satisfaction that it identified him as the first truly panYoruba leader since the mythical Oduduwa (Vaughan 2000: 127). In 1967, Gowon appointed Awolowo as the Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Finance Commissioner. By supporting the Gowon administration against Biafra, Awolowo disregarded, for the first time in his political career, popular opinion in his area of origin, Remo. After the clashes of 1965 and 1966, many Remo citizens were sceptical about the central government and thought that Yorubaland should secede from the federation just like Biafra. These views were shared by other Yoruba communities and their leaders, and the possibility of declaring an Oduduwa Republic was widely discussed even among close supporters of Awolowo (Ige 1995: 342–3). Remo’s enduring scepticism of Nigerian politics was, however, not expressed in public criticism of Awolowo but in private support for Biafra. Throughout the Civil War (1967–70),1 people in Remo housed and hid Igbo refugees who were in danger of being arrested for detention by the central government. Others helped to smuggle food, in particular the locally produced cassava product gàrí, towards the lagoon, from where it would be carried eastwards to Biafra (Oba Adedayo Adekoya, 19 February 1998). Dr Tai Solarin, the proprietor of the international Mayflower School which is still based in Awolowo’s hometown Ikenne, was Remo’s most prominent

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opponent of government policy, and he was arrested several times during the war for harbouring and publicly defending Igbo refugees. Reflecting widespread popular support for Solarin, after his first arrest Sagamu youth groups – assisted by Orò – threatened that if he was not released, they would prevent the movement of the government’s troops through Remo to the front (Omole 1994: 82–4). An intervention by Awolowo eventually resolved the situation: Solarin was released and the Nigerian army passed through Remo. One of the most important reasons for Awolowo’s support of the military government was Gowon’s determination to break up Nigeria’s regions into twelve states, which closely reflected Awolowo’s own views on Nigeria’s political future. Awolowo had reflected on the role of the regions’ political machines in his own political marginalisation in his book Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution (1966), written during his time in prison, and argued for the creation of eighteen states based on Nigeria’s larger ethnic and linguistic groupings to further the development and emergence of Nigeria’s ethnic nations. Beyond such immediate concerns, Awolowo also anticipated that the creation of six states out of the former Northern Region would give progressive politicians, like himself, the chance to undermine the monolithic politics that had characterised the Northern Region under Ahmadu Bello’s leadership. Less interested in the idea of progress through ethnic nationalism than Awolowo, Gowon’s main ambition was to use state creation, controlled by a more centralised national government, in order to undermine the Biafran project by appealing to non-Igbo citizens of the Eastern Region who wanted administrative independence. Despite these differences, the shared commitment to federalism by Awolowo and Gowon created a political alliance in which Nigeria’s future was decided, to the detriment of Biafra and the possibility of an Oduduwa Republic. Awolowo’s ideological distance from popular opinion in Remo during this period reflected not only his national ambitions but also his desire to consolidate Yoruba politics. The opportunity to prove that he had become a spokesperson even for communities that had previously opposed him came in 1968 and 1969, when he became the people’s mediator in a popular political rebellion that was centred on Ibadan, Oyo and their outlying villages. At the time, the rural economy was depressed by falling international prices for cocoa and the declining yields of many older cocoa farms. Moreover, farmers were upset that the Western State’s military government had raised taxes despite the economic implications of the Civil War over the existence of Biafra, which included high inflation and reduced public spending. Popular anger over this development was eventually focused in the Àgbékòyà2 movement centred on Ibadan. However, the military governor of the Western State, Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo, refused to accept that the Àgbékòyà rebellion reflected real grievances, thereby enabling Awolowo

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to insert himself into the conflict as the farmers’ representative.3 Mediating directly between the farmers and the central government, Awolowo eventually forced Adebayo to give in to almost all Àgbékòyà’s demands (see Adeniran 1974; Beer 1976; Vaughan 2000: 132–3). Although it was Awolowo’s ability to associate himself with an already existing Àgbékòyà that helped to confirm his reputation as Nigeria’s leading Yoruba politician, he is today frequently remembered as the founder of the movement. In such debates, the Àgbékòyà rebellion is transposed in time to the end of the First Republic, and their violence is conflated with the earlier anti-NNDP riots of the Operation Wetie (Wet It).4 In a reversal of cause and effect that projects Awolowo’s success into the past and also explains the later eminence of vigilante-based movements like the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), the Àgbékòyà rebellion is seen as the result of Awolowo’s mythical powers to mobilise Yoruba-speakers in protest against the central government by mobilising popular action or ‘calling the Àgbékòyàs’. However, while this representation rearranges cause and effect, it correctly identifies the Àgbékòyà rebellion as one of the turning points of Awolowo’s politics. After the popular revolts in Remo and elsewhere during the 1960s, Awolowo clearly understood and appreciated the importance of popular or ‘mass’ based political support far beyond traditional rulership. Thus, apart from establishing himself in Ibadan’s popular politics, Awolowo’s engagement with the Àgbékòyà rebellion reflected his increasingly conscious commitment to capturing and representing Yoruba and eventually wider Nigerian politics not only through the integration of traditional elites but also at the grassroots. After the end of the Civil War, Awolowo further expanded his popularity and credibility by leaving the Gowon government in 1971, thus remaining untainted by later disillusionment with his administration (Awolowo 2003: 23). The creation of states in 1967 had been followed by a centralisation of national income from Nigeria’s exports, and the revenues directly controlled by the central government grew significantly after the Civil War because oil exports from the former Eastern Region increased and oil prices rose. As the government’s funds had increased, the public perceived corruption as a growing problem, and Gowon’s apparent reluctance to leave office was interpreted by many Nigerians as an attempt to retain political control over Nigeria with the ultimate aim of enriching himself. Popular discontent with the Gowon government increased once Gowon announced in 1974 that a return to civilian rule in 1976, as originally planned, was ‘unrealistic’, and he was eventually overthrown in 1975 by a military faction under the leadership of Brigadiers Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo. After Mohammed’s assassination in 1976, Obasanjo took over government and announced that he would continue with the planned return to civilian rule.

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t h e 1979 e l e c t i o n s

Obasanjo’s programme of transition to civilian rule entailed the creation of a draft constitution based on the American rather than the Westminster model, the reformation of the local government system and the public discussion of this constitution by a constituent assembly. It also included the creation of seven more states and a federal capital territory (to encompass the future Nigerian capital of Abuja), bringing up the number of Nigerian states to nineteen. The new creation of states contradicted Awolowo’s political vision of ethno-nationalist territories because it led to a division of the Western State which had been a focus of Yoruba politics. In 1976 the former Western State was divided into Oyo State with its capital Ibadan, bordered in the east by the new Ondo State with its capital in Akure, and in the south by Ogun State which included the Egbado (now Yewa), Egba, Remo and Ijebu areas and had its capital in Obasanjo’s hometown of Abeokuta. Although the states were created in response to the military government’s notions of administrative equity rather than the ethno-nationally focused development advocated by Awolowo, state creation within the Western State still reflected local demand. Also, although Awolowo would have preferred the administrative unity of the majority of Yoruba-speakers in the Western State, even if excluding Lagos and several northern Yoruba communities, several of his close allies were involved in the demands for the creation of states. While continuing historical differences influenced this development, the fiscal logic of the post-Civil War Nigerian state played a significant role too. As the central government had become the main allocative and distributive authority in control of national revenue, communities became more dependent on the state. In this context, historical and cultural differences were increasingly mobilised for the creation of new states and local governments, primarily to broaden access to central funds. But because personal, cultural, religious and sub-ethnic differences became valuable tools for the negotiation of a greater share of the nation’s oil revenue, Awolowo’s position as the representative of Yoruba politics remained only tentative. In 1978, Obasanjo lifted the ban on political parties with a view to hand over government to elected representatives in 1979, and Awolowo quickly announced the creation of a new party, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Under his leadership, the party strove hard to develop a national profile and Awolowo himself completed a first tour of Nigeria in December 1978. Support for the UPN reflected both Awolowo’s widespread popularity in the former Western Region and his growing association with socially redistributive politics and grassroots political mobilisation. Since his release from prison and the publication of Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution (1966), he had headed a group of former politicians, intellectuals and a new generation of political leaders that met regularly at his house. Several members of this group, which referred to itself as the ‘Committee of Friends’, had

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also contributed, directly and indirectly, to his next books, The People’s Republic (1968), which called for the introduction of a socialist democracy and the further development of Nigeria’s state-based federalism to reflect ethno-national boundaries, and Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria (1970), which discussed the importance of local political control for political and economic development. While Awolowo was now much more widely supported among Yorubaspeakers than during the 1950s, his growing commitment to socialist ideas altered the political alliances he was able to forge outside Lagos and the former Western Region in the run-up to the 1979 elections. While he retained support in the eastern non-Igbo areas, now Cross River and Rivers State, his old allies Anthony Enahoro from the former Mid-Western Region and Joseph Tarka from the non-Hausa south of the former Northern Region sought different alliances.5 At the same time, Awolowo was able to attract other non-Hausa northern leaders,6 as well as important Igbo politicians who had fallen out with Azikiwe, including Philip Umeadi from Onitsha, who became Awolowo’s running mate. It was perhaps Awolowo’s choice of Umeadi, rather than a northerner, that prevented him from consolidating his support in the North as much as he had wanted to. In the 1979 elections, the UPN emerged as Nigeria’s second biggest party, with over 4.9 million votes versus the almost 5.7 million votes raised by the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which largely inherited the mantle of the Northern People’s Congress.7 The Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), led by Nnamdi Azikiwe, was a predominantly Igbo-based party that emerged in third place as a successor to the NCNC. Because the large ethno-regional blocs of the 1950s and 1960s continued to exercise a powerful influence over electoral results, with the NPN dominating in the North, the UPN in the West and the NPP in the East, several commentators have suggested that party politics in 1979 largely reflected the alliances of the 1960s (Sklar 1981; Joseph 1981). However, perhaps driven by the understanding that control of the central government also meant control over the nation’s central revenue, political alliances also increasingly transcended these boundaries. The NPN in particular was very successful in creating support for itself in the South through inter-ethnic bargaining and political accommodation (Diamond 1982: 634). This process reflected both an increasing integration of political elites and the growing importance of patronage networks, whose operation came to be described colloquially as ‘sharing the national cake’. Unlike the NPN, Awolowo’s UPN held on to a self-image of principle rather than realpolitik, and Awolowo largely focused on direct electoral support for himself and his party’s ostensibly socialist programme. Apart from the disappointment in the North, it is likely that Awolowo’s refusal to engage in political negotiation contributed to his loss of the

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presidential elections in 1979. Also, elections in several communities were severely rigged, and where the UPN had no local elite representatives, it is likely that even existing grassroots votes for the party were not adequately recorded. Moreover, Awolowo’s refusal to accommodate his rivals may have influenced the decision by the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) not to announce a run-off election between the NPN leader Shagari and Awolowo even though Shagari had not fully satisfied the constitutional requirements for the presidency.8 Although Azikiwe supported Awolowo’s legal challenge to this decision, it does not appear that it generated much opposition outside southwest Nigeria. But in the area dominated by the UPN,9 FEDECO’s decision was widely interpreted as the manifestation of a politics of growing inequitability, social difference and corruption. Reflecting on this, Awolowo’s ally Ebenezer Babatope contended: It is no under-statement that [the] majority of Nigeria’s super rich, the rich and the affluent hate Awo’s person and in fact regard Awo as an enigma to Nigerian politics. The reasons for this are quite clear. Chief Obafemi Awolowo has spent over fifty years fighting the cause of the teeming poor of Nigeria. (1984: 43) Interpreted this way, Awolowo’s failure to capture Nigeria’s presidency resonated with and expanded upon the narratives of persecution that were first associated with him during his trial and imprisonment in the 1960s. In line with his expanded ambitions and support base, Awolowo was now increasingly represented as a potential redeemer of the Nigerian nation who had been undermined by a conspiracy of the wealthy and powerful. But as Awolowo’s support base remained strongest within the former Western Region, his appeal to class interests was intertwined with the politics and position of the Yoruba ethnic nation. On the one hand, this rhetorical focus on equality confirmed the enlightenment tendencies within Yoruba cultural nationalism, but it also invested the ethnic nation, like Awolowo, with the ideology of redemption for Nigeria. When the reform of the country along the lines envisaged by Awolowo proved more difficult than imagined, he and his followers focused increasingly on realising and entrenching their politics through local participation in the areas they controlled. The shared experience of such politics in turn created a form of grassroots solidarity that was, if not exclusively then to a large degree, congruent with Awolowo’s vision of the Yoruba nation. opposition to state author itar ianism

Despite significant discontent with FEDECO’s Western Region, General Olusegun handed over government under President Shehu Shagari on the First Republic, the northern-based NPN had

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decision in the former power to a new civilian 1 October 1979. As in entered an alliance with

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Azikiwe’s NPP, while Awolowo’s UPN remained in opposition. Excluded from control over the nation’s resources at the national level, the organisation of revenue allocation by the central government to the states became a major theme of Awolowo’s politics. When the central government reduced its allocation to the states in 1981, many UPN leaders and supporters saw this as an attempt to undermine political opposition through financial exclusion. Another matter of contention was the central control of Nigeria’s police force, which gave police commissioners rather than state governors control over the local police force. When the Ogun State commissioner of police refused to license a UPN conference in the state, also in 1981, UPN leaders accused the government of using the police as a means of oppression. As state governors from different political backgrounds began to criticise the authoritarianism of the central government, the UPN’s meetings of ‘progressive state governors’, initially focused on the FEDECO decision to proclaim Shagari’s presidency, expanded. Originally including UPN governors and their allies from the northern states, i.e. the radical People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and the Borno- and Gongola-based Greater Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP), the group was later also joined by state governors of Nnamdi Azikiwe’s NPP. As a result of this development, Awolowo sought to initiate the realignment and expansion of opposition forces (Osaghae 1998: 129–37). As a focal point of political opposition to the NPN, Awolowo held great hopes for the 1983 elections for himself and his party. Beyond his growing network of political alliances, Awolowo believed that the policies of the UPN in Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo and Bendel States, which the party controlled, would convince voters elsewhere of his political vision. In all UPN states, the party had reintroduced the welfarist policies associated with the Action Group in the 1950s, including free education, free health care and a drive towards the creation of full employment. The UPN also made a conscious attempt to increase the access of local communities to political decision-making at the grassroots. The creation of additional local government areas in its states, announced by the UPN in 1981, did not only reflect the party’s attempts to further entrench and reward its local support bases but was also consciously aimed at flattening the hierarchical relationships that often developed between local government headquarters and less centrally located communities. In Remo, the originally unitary local government was divided into three administrative areas, with Sagamu remaining in control of the capital and the southern Remo towns and villages, Irepodun local government to Sagamu’s northeast including Ikenne, Ilisan and Irolu and Iperu, and Idarapo local government including Ipara, Isara, Ode Remo and Akaka. To counter the growing importance of patronage and authoritarianism in Nigerian politics, and perhaps to overcome its relative exclusion

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from centrally controlled resources as well, the UPN established several programmes of government support for local developmental activities, including the building and expansion of educational, infrastructural and agricultural activities. By doing this, Awolowo drew on an established practice in many parts especially of southern Nigeria (Honey and Okafor 1998;  Trager 2001), where economically successful migrants had maintained close ties to their home communities and contributed to their development in various ways.10 Forming associations and holding regular meetings in their towns of residence, many migrants also raised funds to improve life in their more rural hometowns.11 Seeking to develop and enlighten their home communities, many of these associations reflected ideas of òlàjú or enlightenment (Peel 1978), which had originally been associated with Christianity but were by now generalised throughout Yorubaland and especially associated with Awolowo. They sponsored or, through the mobilisation of their contacts outside the locality, facilitated the building of schools, town halls, roads and other forms of educational and infrastructural development. In many communities, the attempts originally led by individual migrant associations were also institutionalised and coordinated at the local level and later involved both migrant and local dignitaries and leaders. In Remo, local development associations had a long tradition and reflected the region’s relations to the bigger cities that existed nearby. In Ibadan, an Egbé Omo Ìjèbú12 was formed in the mid-1920s to represent the interests of Ijebu and Remo migrants. However, despite the shared economic and political interests of its members vis-à-vis Ibadan, conflicts imported from the home area led to a factionalisation of the organisation. The Egbé Omo Ìjèbú in Ibadan eventually broke up because the Remo members felt those from Ijebu-Ode to be overbearing and arrogant (Aronson 1970: 198–201). After the disintegration of the Egbé Omo Ìjèbú, the Ijebu Remo Progressive Union (IRPU), strongly supported by the former migrant and traditional ruler Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin in Sagamu, was founded to represent specifically Remo interests. Unfortunately, communal rivalry also affected the IRPU, which played a coordinating role in the completion of Remo’s first community hall. In 1950, the British proposed to build a community hall in Sagamu, and the project was widely supported, even across the political divide between Sagamu and the outlying Remo towns. One reason for this was that the community hall was considered to project political maturity, enlightenment and prestige, particularly vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode which already possessed such a building. When the IRPU helped to coordinate local assistance for the project, donations poured in from numerous Remo migrant clubs and associations. However, when the hall was completed in 1952, many of those who had contributed to the building felt deceived. Although it had been proposed – and, many felt, agreed – that the community hall should be

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called Remo Community Centre, it was named Sagamu Town Hall,13 which was considered a political betrayal by many citizens of Remo’s outlying towns. By the 1960s, the migrants and citizens of individual Remo towns had mostly formed their own development associations. When the collapse of the First Republic brought the end of free education and healthcare in the former Western Region, local civic efforts were again directed at grassroots improvement in many communities. In Remo, where the Action Group’s policies had reflected strong local traditions and interests, community leaders increasingly channelled communal competition into the improvement of individual towns along the lines institutionalised by Awolowo and the Action Group. The quest for educational and infrastructural development appears to have had a particularly strong mobilising effect on the towns outside Sagamu. Perhaps because, as the capital of Remo, Sagamu has been at the focus of development efforts led by the state and local government, the contributions of Sagamu migrants to their town are less visible than the contributions of the other Remo towns.14 However, despite such difficulties, the Sagamu Development Association has made important contributions to education and health in the town.15 Major projects of the development associations of Remo’s outlying towns signalled a widespread understanding of development as related to education, healthcare and communication. Thus, the Ikenne Development Association (IDA), which was supported by Awolowo following its inception in 1975, has rehabilitated the town’s old community dispensary (1977) and built two high schools (1978 and 1984), two new hospital wards (1979 and 1980) and a library (1986) (Soriyan 1991: 264–6). The Iperu Improvement Union’s major projects included a modern post office (1970), a community hospital (1977), two secondary schools (1978 and 1980), an automatic telephone exchange and a new town hall (Oretade 1989: 45). The Ode Remo Development Association has built a town hall (1957), a high school (1978), a hospital (1984) and a post office (1994), while a new town hall was near completion at the time of the interview (Oba Sunday Adeolu, 22 December 2004). Other development organisations have been able to achieve similar aims.16 Many of the development projects in work between 1979 and 1983 received financial, administrative and logistical support from UPN state and local government administrations. In the face of ongoing local competition over town development, an important cooperative project in northern Remo stands out. After negotiations between representatives of the neighbouring towns of Isara, Ode Remo and Ipara, an inaugural meeting for a joint town-planning authority was held in 1961. A draft constitution for a jointly owned estate was accepted at a general meeting in 1962. Most importantly in education-conscious Remo, an application to the Ministry of Education for the establishment of

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a local secondary school was approved in 1965. In 1967, the school opened and received £2,000 from the military governor of the Western State as an ad hoc grant. A road to the school from Isara was built in the same year. The new estate was to be called Sapade, a name derived from Isara, Ipara and Ode Remo. Built on land donated by Isara, Ode Remo and Ipara,17 the Sapade estate encompassed 227 acres (Odufuwa 1971: 4–12). The local efforts at joint development were originally associated with the initiative of Oba Samuel Akinsanya and other local leaders, who continued to lobby on behalf of the Sapade development throughout the turbulent years leading up to the 1966 coup and military rule. From 1979, Sapade was strongly supported by the UPN, which not only provided generous financial assistance to the school but also situated the headquarters of the new Idarapo local government area in the new estate in 1981. As the UPN’s support for locally built schools, dispensaries and the Sapade project illustrates, its encouragement of grassroots-based development not only buttressed its political vision of the expansion of opportunities throughout Nigeria, but was also closely linked, at this stage, to an expansion of the public sector. However, the UPN’s investment in improving people’s life chances was not without structural difficulties. As Nigeria had benefited from growing income from oil revenue during the 1970s and Nigerians became aware of their communal wealth, a regime in which public services were funded through taxation was increasingly difficult to justify at the grassroots (Guyer 1992). But during the early 1980s oil prices fell from the heights they had attained during the 1970s, and as the NPN used its control of the national revenue to decrease or delay allocations to states and local governments, several UPN administrations soon found themselves overcommitted financially (Ajasin 2003: 313–23). Therefore the UPN needed to win to the 1983 elections in order both to refinance its current policies and to finally implement Awolowo’s political vision for Nigeria. t h e 1983 e l e c t i o n s a n d awo l owo ’ s r e t i r e m e n t

The contracting economy meant that the 1983 elections were perhaps even more hotly contested than those of 1979, and in the opposition states, the centrally controlled police and national media were widely accused of favouring the NPN. However, these bitter national debates did not affect Remo’s local politics, which remained united in its support of Awolowo and the UPN. In fact, relations between the locality and the party were characterised by strong personal continuities. As former AG and UPGA politicians, now in the UPN, controlled local and state governments, they also helped many of the Orò and youth leaders of the First Republic to establish themselves successfully as businessmen or local politicians. For example, Dipo Odujinrin, a former Remo youth leader who had become a lawyer in

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the 1960s and spent the 1970s working for several business joint ventures close to Awolowo, was elected to the Ogun State House of Assembly in 1983. In this sense, party politics at the local level provided a link between the generations, and appeared as a realm in which young people were eventually rewarded for their support of local leadership. Little space for political competition existed between 1979 and 1983, even beyond party politics. As both the traditional hierarchy and the Orò groups were associated with Remo unity, local rivalry was sometimes expressed through a different traditional civic institution, the Egúngún masquerade. For example, rivalry between Ofin and Makun quarters in Sagamu led to several incursions of Ofin Egúngún masquerades to Makun.18 Personal political rivalries, for example over UPN candidatures, were also associated with Egúngún and, perhaps in reflection of Awolowo’s association with Egúngún in Remo, clashes between Egúngún masquerades sometimes accompanied political primaries where both candidates claimed to represent him. But before the 1983 elections all political factions agreed to abstain from using Egúngún masquerades, subsuming even this expression of rivalry under the local consensus.19 The ability to suppress local rivalry to this degree confirmed the unusual position of Remo even within pro-Awolowo politics, and it reflected the many-layered, unchallenged and decades-long entrenchment of popular and elite support for him in the region. Although the UPN was clearly the dominant party throughout southwest Nigeria, it attained a similar degree of local entrenchment in very few other places. Few states and local governments were able to exercise control over all attempts to challenge the local UPN leadership and, in some cases, were even unable to prevent local malcontents and opposition groups from joining the NPN. While the UPN and its allies saw in the 1983 elections an opportunity to finally defeat the dominant conservative forces, the NPN was determined to extend its control over Nigeria. In particular, the NPN seized upon a conflict that had emerged within the UPN at the level of state politics, where many leading political figures were unhappy over Awolowo’s decision to allow UPN governors a second term despite clamour for their removal from members of the younger generation. The men and (sometimes) women of the new political generation had been happy to accept positions as state commissioners or vice governors in 1979, but by the 1980s many of them felt that it was now time for them to have a taste of real power. When Awolowo was unable, or unwilling, to accommodate these expectations, important UPN leaders from Ogun, Ondo and Oyo States decamped to the NPN.20 Although Awolowo and the Ogun state governor Bisi Onabanjo were able to maintain very close control of their home state, the NPN contenders in Oyo and Ondo were more successful. Ajasin’s former deputy Akin Omoboriowo in particular was able to mobilise communal differences

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and win NPN support in the Ekiti north of Ondo State (Babarinsa 2003). During the national elections of August 1983, the NPN attempted to expand its control of the Nigerian state by rigging the vote much more drastically than in 1979. The NPN’s electoral success shattered any ambitions by Awolowo and his supporters within and outside Yorubaland to establish what they perceived as a progressive government. In the former Western Region, the NPN also attempted to undermine the popular bases of the opposition parties through the exploitation of the UPN’s inter-­generational conflict. Thus the NPN not only claimed to have won a much higher percentage of the presidential votes than in 1979, it also asserted victory in the gubernatorial elections in Ondo and Oyo States. However, the central government’s attempt to mobilise Yoruba historical rivalries backfired, and popular reactions to the political manipulation in Oyo and Ondo States resembled those in Ijebu and Remo in 1966. In widespread riots, hundreds of people, including senior NPN politicians and their families, were killed and government infrastructure as well as the property of NPN supporters was destroyed. As in 1966, the riots were ended by a military coup, which was carried out by Muhammadu Buhari in December 1983. The Buhari coup marked the end of Obafemi Awolowo’s political career, and he subsequently announced his retirement from party politics at the age of 74. Increasingly based in Ikenne, where his political supporters continued to visit him, Awolowo focused more and more on local self-help efforts independent of the public sector. He had, throughout his life, played a leading role in the institutionalisation of private development efforts and supported a range of Ikenne migrant associations and social clubs by donating his money and time to them.21 To a limited degree, this engagement in development politics reduced discontent over Awolowo’s vision of Ikenne and contributed to local perceptions of his legitimacy. However, beyond such immediate considerations, Awolowo’s engagement in local self-help efforts also contributed to the emergence of wider structures and practices that confirmed the ability of ordinary communities to provide better lives for their citizens and pull themselves up economically without direct support from the state. c o m p e t i t i ve g i v i n g a n d d e s t r u c t i o n

From the earliest days of privately organised development efforts, the facilitation and provision of local development by private individuals in Remo was widely associated with their perception as politically legitimate leaders. Where local men and women contributed to the community in a manner that reflected popular ambitions, they also established themselves as representatives of and speakers for the community. In reflection of this dynamic, the major contributors to development projects were rewarded with positions of influence and honour in many Remo towns. For example, in Ode

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Our Saviour’s Church, Ikenne (Photo: Insa Nolte) Remo, two founding members of the Ode Remo Development Council (ODC), Aláyé Odè Adesanya (1929–60) and Aláyé Odè Sotinwa (1969– 85), became obas, and all ODC chairmen between 1982 and 1998 were rewarded with town chieftaincy titles.

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Where two or more local donors competed for acceptance and distinction, their rivalry could have positive effects for the community, or for parts of it. In Ikenne, both the Awolowos and the Onafowokans worshipped at St Saviour’s Anglican Church. As both families were also both generous givers to St Saviour’s, their competition played an important part in increasing the status of the Anglican Church in Ikenne. A new church building was started in 1959, and in 1960 Awolowo donated a Hammond organ. After Gabriel Onafowokan’s death in 1976, his children donated a church tower clock which was eventually dedicated in 1983. Not to be outdone, Awolowo gave the church a four-manual pipe organ and for many years also met the allowances of the organist. Since then, offerings from the Awolowo and Onafowokan families have continued to enrich their church. Perhaps the most important contribution to Anglicanism in Ikenne and Remo was Hannah Awolowo’s leadership of the Working Committee on the Creation of Remo Diocese in the early 1980s, which was rewarded in 1984 when Remo was granted Diocesan status with the seat of the Diocese at St Paul’s Cathedral in Sagamu. One of the requirements for Diocesan status was that a second church was built in one of the Diocesan towns outside Sagamu. Hannah Awolowo pledged to build this church in Ikenne, and the Obafemi Awolowo Memorial (Anglican) Church was dedicated in 1990 (Soriyan 1991: 89, 98, 353, 371–2). In many contexts, the politics of competitive giving were open to contradictory interpretations and personal manoeuvring. Thus, when Gabriel Onafowokan’s son Adedapo Onafowokan became an eminently successful businessman, he built an ultra-modern post office with staff quarters in 1981. Not only did he build the post office on Ikenne’s Awolowo Avenue, but he also donated the whole complex to the Ikenne Development Association (IDA), which has been closely associated with the Awolowo family since its inception. In an extravagant demonstration of generosity, Onafowokan also donated a million Naira to Awolowo’s UPN (Soriyan 1991: 159–66, 285). With these donations to institutions closely associated with the Awolowo family, Onafowokan clearly recognised Awolowo’s political leadership and his supreme authority, both in matters of local and national development. However, at the same time, Onafowokan’s donations could be understood as subtly decentring Awolowo’s authority. Like the acceptance of donations, which implies the recipient’s or the community’s support for the donor, Onafowokan’s contributions to Awolowo’s projects obliged the latter, at least theoretically, to gratitude and support in return. Because the provision of infrastructural development reflected on personal and political legitimacy, it was also always a political claim to represent the community and was recognised as such by the potential beneficiaries of a project. As in traditional and party politics, a claim to the representation of the town had to reflect communal ambitions if it was to be accepted. Where

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political struggles for recognition did not, or could not, result in competitive giving, for example because of the overwhelming power of one party, they often involved the boycott or destruction of development projects. Because the actual use of development projects implied the legitimacy of their donor and her or his vision for the town, the politics of development reflected complex struggles over power, leadership and legitimacy in which all sections of the town could participate. Where a donor was perceived by factions of the town as having used force rather than consent to legitimise him- or herself, townspeople boycotted or even destroyed projects that did not represent their view of the community. This possibility is illustrated by the disputes surrounding the Ikenne Rubber and Agricultural Plantation. The plantation was established by the Western Region government in 1959 on Ikenne land in order to, as many people saw it, enable Awolowo to benefit both national development and that of his hometown. The plantation was designed to provide both employment and local tax revenue through a pay-as-you-earn system, and it brought major population growth to Ikenne. Originally, the project provided an alternative to out-migration and the plantation was mainly worked by local youths. After the Civil War, however, the plantation also attracted many migrants from the former Eastern Region in search of a livelihood. Due to the interaction of local farmers and plantation workers during the peak agricultural season, from February or March to August, when the plantation hired daily paid workers, the plantation has helped to disseminate modern farming methods to local farmers. While some innovations have been unsuccessful, the use of fertilisers and higher yielding varieties as well as improved storage systems have enabled Remo to remain one of the most important areas for the supply of cassava for Lagos despite rising agricultural wages (Salami forthcoming).22 Apart from its economic contribution to Remo, the plantation also occupied a crucial political space in Ikenne. It was established in part on the land along the Sagamu road the ownership of which had been disputed between sections of the town led by Awolowo and Onafowokan respectively. Because the plantation made use of the disputed land in a way designed to benefit all of Ikenne and beyond, it was probably created in an attempt to unite a greater part of the town behind Awolowo. However, despite Awolowo’s attempts to turn the disputed land to a use that would find widespread acceptance within the community, many Ikenne citizens continued to see the plantation as representing his views of Ikenne. Irrespective of the benefits it brought to Ikenne, the plantation was burned down almost completely during the 1965–6 crisis, and it has been the object of several smaller violent attacks since then.23 The attacks on the Ikenne Rubber and Agricultural Plantation suggest that Awolowo’s opponents refuse to accept this contribution to the community,

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despite the economic benefits derived from it, because an acceptance would, retrospectively, legitimise Awolowo’s political actions in Ikenne. Similar instances of politically motivated boycott and the destruction of infrastructure and institutions of benefit to the community have occurred in other Remo communities. Thus, in a confrontation between townspeople and the oba in Isara over communally owned land, the library provided by Odemo Samuel Akinsanya – suspected of harbouring the documents that enabled the ruler to outwit his local opponents – was burnt down. In a reversal of the positive dynamics of competitive giving, two rival development associations in Ode Remo undermined each other by destroying the physical infrastructure provided by the other. More generally, during times of widespread and violent political rebellion against the central government in the 1960s and 1990s, popular violence in Remo has often been directed against centrally owned infrastructure. In these conflicts over local development efforts in Remo, the potential benefits derived from infrastructural development were clearly weighed against the legitimacy their use conferred on their donors. If the politics associated with a particular donor contradicted popular visions of the community, the acceptance of development infrastructure would be disputed or even refused in order not to provide legitimacy for the donor. These constellations shed light on the limitations of interpreting development or civic commitment only in terms of patronage politics. While a contribution to the community’s progress, well-being and wealth generally created widespread support, this process was not automatic, and consent could not be bought. Assessed by popular views, civic commitment could not be reduced to generosity, and the economic benefit of local development efforts would not just be measured against the community’s material needs, but also against its ideological and moral aspirations. awo l owo a n d t h e i nve n t i o n o f e r e k e d ay

Awolowo’s involvement in Ikenne development politics illustrates in an exemplary way that he was able to create tentative consent for aspects of his vision of Ikenne through development activities when these reflected more general ambitions within the community. At the same time, it illustrates his ability to imbue local development efforts with a significance that transcended the economic, and that both reflected and increased his own association with the spiritual. During the 1950s and 1960s, Awolowo’s contribution to development efforts in Ikenne had been closely linked to his political vision for the town. In reflection of this, many development projects associated with him were burnt down during the 1965–6 crisis. One of the destroyed buildings was the palace of Alákènnéé Awomuti, who had been installed with Awolowo’s help and against the interests of Gabriel Onafowokan and the Moko family. After

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his release from prison, Awolowo embarked on a more conciliatory politics. Instead of rebuilding the palace, he argued that the Ikenne town hall, for which funds had been collected by different associations since 1957, should be erected on the now empty site, together with an annex for the oba’s ritual functions. This was a practical solution, which allowed the community to pool funds for the town hall and the rebuilding of the palace. Despite some disagreements in the town over the symbolic link created in this way between the town and its disputed oba, the foundation stone for the new town hall was laid in 1968 and the new hall was opened on 1 November 1975. Aware of the symbolic importance of this project, the Awolowos had not only contributed liberally towards the building of the town hall, they also supported the celebrations that accompanied its opening. In time, popular support for the town hall grew, in particular because many Ikenne citizens felt that as a growing number of neighbouring towns had already built a town hall, communal differences must be put aside to keep up with the neighbouring towns. In this way, the ongoing and low-level rivalry between the Remo towns provided a wider context of support for a project potentially associated with political factionalism in Ikenne. Perhaps because it remained possible to understand the Ikenne town hall as meaningful beyond Awolowo’s vision for the town, its opening ceremony and subsequent celebration were a great success. Many migrants visited Ikenne for the celebrations and pledged to support further development projects under the auspices of the IDA, which had been formed to organise the festivities and which had also been generously supported both by Hannah and Obafemi Awolowo.24 Thus, while the building of the new town hall on the spot of Alákènnéé Awomuti’s palace did not create direct consent for Awolowo’s vision of Ikenne, it created a perspective on town politics in which Awolowo was also recognised for his contribution to the town, at least vis-à-vis other towns. In this limited but important sense, it reduced popular opposition to Awolowo’s politics in Ikenne. Hoping to institutionalise the IDA’s role in Ikenne and to repeat the success of the opening of the town hall, it was suggested that a community development festival could be celebrated every year, in which the IDA could act as an umbrella organisation bringing together Ikenne’s migrant and social clubs for the planning and organisation. From 1976 onwards, the IDA organised the preparation and organisation of a development festival in Ikenne during the first week of November (Soriyan 1991: 257, 262). The new festival was called Ereke Day, after Ìkénné Erékè, one of the oríkì or praise names of the community, which is believed to refer to the town’s present location on top of a hill. The first Ereke Day festival included an eclectic mix of other communal and group activities, many of which centred on the celebration and maintenance of the town’s physical and communal existence.

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Ereke Day programme (Source: Pamphlet reproduced with kind permission of Mr Ayo Onatola, Secretary-General 2002–4 of the Ikenne Development Association)

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On the day preceding the main celebration of Ereke Day, the town and the nearby river Uren are cleaned early in the morning by several groups of townspeople. This part of the programme, described in mock-military language as ‘Operation Keep Ikenne Clean’, is followed by an interdenominational service at the town hall and inter-college debates among the postprimary schools of Ikenne. Events often also include cultural competitions and ceremonies involving the formal opening or handing over of donated property. The highlight of the festival begins with a dance by the registered members of the IDA around the town, showing their unity in clothes made from specially chosen cloth (aso ìlú25), followed by speeches by local dignitaries, a public account by the IDA’s officers of the organisation’s achievements and activities, the collection and public announcement of donations, and a presentation of civic awards and trophies to deserving community members. This so-called Grand Finale is later followed by a dance in the town hall and the festival ends the next morning with special prayers in churches and mosques (Soriyan 1991: 262–3). Reformulated ritual serves as a strategy to collectivise and mobilise the townspeople under the leadership of the IDA, and to create, even temporarily, private consent for the IDA’s public representations of the town’s constitution and its politics. As Ereke Day reformulates town-centred ritual in a manner that includes and acknowledges Awolowo’s contributions to the community without representing his views on Ikenne as the only possible, it has increased popular acceptance for him without insisting directly on consent for his politics. In this way, the IDA has added another layer to the ways in which the town represents, constitutes and imagines itself. Despite the close association of Obafemi Awolowo with the IDA, the performances of Ereke Day project a view of the town in which different local narratives and practices are brought together in a manner that appeals to many Ikenne citizens. Centring on different forms of religious and ritual performance, the festival involves Christian and Muslim prayers and practices as well as traditional town rituals and òrìsà worship. At once legitimising and subverting local political traditions through the combination of aspects of dance, display and masquerades with mundane activities as well as Christian and Muslim practices, the celebration of Ereke Day by the IDA asserts diversity as the basis of the town’s unity (Drewal 1992: 160, 171). Through its integration of activities linked to other town rituals, the Ereke Day festival recreates and modernises the activities of traditional civic associations. At the same time, the festival’s association with the town’s essence and foundation through Ikenne’s oríkì, as well as its focus on the unity of the town and its community, suggest that Ereke Day takes on some characteristics of the festivals associated with traditional civic associations. Like a traditional civic association, the IDA also honours its members upon their

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Ereke Day programme, activities (Source: Pamphlet reproduced with kind permission of Mr Ayo Onatola, Secretary-General 2002–4 of the Ikenne Development Association)

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death, and in particular it has rewarded Awolowo’s patronage by contributing to his burial. After Awolowo’s death in 1987, the association organised a press release and presented a letter of condolence to Hannah Awolowo, and shortly before the burial proper it organised an unscheduled ‘Operation Keep Ikenne Clean’ to prepare the town for his passing. A representative of the IDA held a special funeral oration and the IDA organised a dance performance for ‘Papa’, for which uniform vests and caps were made. According to the IDA’s official history, the association spent more than twenty thousand Naira during Awolowo’s burial (IDA 1996: 88). Of course Awolowo’s burial attracted exceptional attention from a wide range of Nigerian leaders, intellectuals and ordinary people, who in this way commented on and argued over his national status, but the IDA’s involvement in this event as a development association constituted a claim of ownership by the locality that primarily reflected Awolowo’s specific and local contributions. Beyond Awolowo’s influence during his lifetime, the IDA’s involvement in his burial also resonated with the more general perceptions of his extraordinary personal capabilities, and it reflected, like a mirror-image of the political potential of ostensibly religious groups, the spiritual potential of any group or individual concerned with power. While Awolowo’s personal struggles over legitimacy in Ikenne influenced and structured his engagement with the IDA and Ereke Day, the integration of Ereke Day into the ritual cycle of Ikenne institutionalised development both as a civic concern that exists independently of state politics and as a spiritual engagement concerned with the well-being of the community. While open to state representation and intervention, the celebration of community development through the idiom of the traditional – and reliant on the private donations of migrant and local citizens – demonstrated self-sufficiency and autonomy as alternative forms of power. While the comparison between the IDA and a traditional civic association has its limitations,26 and while Awolowo was unable until his death to overcome local opposition to his vision of Ikenne entirely, the IDA’s success exemplifies his political creativity. It illustrates his ability and preparedness to create local support through a wide range of associations and practices. Clearly reflecting the failure of the Nigerian state to provide the kind of development envisioned by Awolowo and his followers, Ereke Day was a powerful symbol for the possibility of creating a community that was based on political and economic solidarity independent of the state. As Remo’s citizens increasingly perceived the state as indifferent to their local ambitions, community development festivals similar to Ereke Day spread to other Remo towns and beyond.

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c o m m u n i t y d e ve l o p m e n t f e s t i va l s

Awolowo’s support for the invention or adoption27 of the Ereke Day community development festival in Ikenne transformed the political and ritual landscape of Remo. As community development festivals similar to Ereke Day were established in most Remo towns during the last decade of his life and after his death, they have come to represent an important nexus of local struggles over power as well as structuring interactions between the locality and the outside world, including the state. Most of Remo’s community development festivals take place on a fixed date between August and November, when international flights to Nigeria are relatively cheap. Ostensibly, the aim of these festivals is to lure the second, third and even fourth generation of migrants back to their hometowns, and to collect as much money as possible from them and others for the new development projects the hometown association has decided upon. It is assumed that the more people come home, the more they will enjoy themselves because they have other migrants to talk to, and the more likely it is they will come back in following years. It is also assumed that more money will be donated at the launching if more people are there. This is because more people can come up with more money, but also because people are more generous when a larger crowd cheers them on (Alhaji Olayinka Sadiku, 7 March 1998). But the burning concern with raising funds reflects the passionate dedication to development on the basis of redistribution from wealthier (and frequently migrant) to less wealthy (and often locally based) citizens in order to create more equal chances of success within the community. One of the most important aspects of the community development festivals remains the affirmation of the town as a united community. As official representatives of the towns, obas tend to play a prominent role during the community development festivals, and their photographs and crowns, rather than images of the town itself, usually represent the town in the programme of events. It is the duty of traditional rulers to ensure that obas from other towns also attend the venue, both to give it splendour and majesty and to remind people of historical relations between towns. During the appeal for donations, rulers sometimes reward generous contributors by inviting them to the high table and thus bestow traditional legitimacy on them. Through the mixture of elements of traditional practice and the central role of chieftaincy and obaship, the town is celebrated as the goal of civic aspirations which are constituted both by precolonial practice and – reflecting not only on Awolowo but the more general cultural politics of Remo – an ethic of enlightenment, accountability and duty to the community. As local communities attempt to create more equal opportunities for their members, and in effect aim to do better than the contemporary Nigerian state, they also celebrate an alternative form of power and belonging. It is

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Table 8.1 Names of some community development festivals in Remo Town Name of festival Ikenne Ereke Day (celebrated since 1976) Ilara Ijaye Day (celebrated since 1987) Ilisan Isanbi Day (celebrated since 1978) Ipara Oguola Day (celebrated since 1992) Iperu Akesan Day (celebrated since 1988) Irolu Agaun Day (celebrated since 1980) Isara Afotamodi Day (celebrated since 1978) Ode Remo Lafose Day (celebrated since 1986) Ogere Olipakala Day (celebrated since 1978) Sagamu Sagamu Day (celebrated since 1984)

Origin of name Ìkénné Erékè is one of Ikenne’s oríkì or praise names. Ereke is derived from orí òkè, which refers to the hill-tops where the first settlers made their home.* The main oríkì of Ilara is Ìlárá Ìjàyè, omo kò sòóré. It hails Ilara for not having been defeated in a war against the Egba town of Ijaye because its citizens did not sleep on a certain type of mat. Isanbi (Ìsànbí) is the male founder of Ilisan. Oguola (Óògúolá) is the male founder of Ipara. Akesan (Àkèsán) is the female founder of Iperu. Agaun (Àgàún) is the male founder of Irolu. Afotamodi is one of the oríkì of Isara and praises the town for having built its town walls with bullets (ota). Aláfòse is one of the oríkì of the Aláyé Odè, the oba of Ode Remo. It refers to his power to make blessings or curses that come true. Olipakala (Olípàkálà) is the male founder of Ogere, who united the communities making up Ogere today. The name Sagamu was created in 1872 when the composite town was founded. The name was derived from Òrìsà-gun-àmù-ewà, a reference to a shrine close to the nearby river Ibu.

* The word erékè is also believed by some to refer to the excellence of Ikenne. Moreover, it alludes to Ikenne’s links with Ijebu-Ife, where the Ikenne migrants from Ile-Ife are believed to have settled on their way to their present location and where an Ereke quarter exists. Sources: Interviews and newspaper articles: Soriyan (1991: 28–9); Nigerian Tribune, 5 October 1985; National Concord, 23 October 1984; and interviews with Oba Solomon Adekoya, 8 March 1998; Oba Joseph Ogunfowora, 28 March 1998; Oba Oladele Ogungbade, 11 March 1998; and Oba Idowu Onadeko, 13 March 1998.

in this sense that development festivals could be seen as important elements of a ‘civil religion’.28 The celebration of Ereke Day has not been adopted wholesale by other towns, and every town’s community development festival is felt to represent that town in its uniqueness. For example, in reflection of Ipara’s strong military history, the Ipara Oguola Day festival includes a hunting expedition.

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In Ode Remo, it is perhaps the personality of its convivial and sociable ruler Oba Sunday Olufunso Adeolu (1990–2008), which is reflected in the election of a ‘Miss Lafose’ during a town ball before the launching of a new donation drive for the town on Lafose Day. Successful elements of such community development festivals spread, and the element of a candle light procession through the town, originally invented in Ode Remo in the early 1990s, has since been adopted by many other Remo towns. Yet in every case, the use of known ritual, dance and entertainment elements in a recombined form engages with the community’s view of itself and its external relations. As Table 8.1 illustrates, the names of most community development festivals reflect the distinctiveness of the town by evoking its historical foundation or a sense of the community’s heart. They either refer to the town’s founding hero or to an oríkì of the townspeople or its ruler, which is considered to reflect the fundamental nature of the community. By referring to the foundation or ancient achievement that constitutes the identity of the town, the organisers of community development festivals not only re-establish the particular character of the towns and their communities, they also assert that they represent the community in an essential and meaningful way. As community development festivals have become embedded in the ritual calendars of their towns over the past two decades, and as the associations which organise them mirror traditional civic associations in many ways, is it not surprising that, when asked about community development festivals, most townspeople describe them as traditional. Table 8.1 illustrates that while most community development festivals evoke a historical founder or an oríkì, Sagamu’s development festival is simply named after the settlement. As the name was agreed on during the town’s modern foundation in 1872, it refers to Sagamu’s beginnings, but it is also a constant reminder that Sagamu is a confederate town. As the exact nature of political and historical relationships between Sagamu’s constituent towns and quarters continues to be the subject of passionate debate, the difficulties surrounding Sagamu Day illustrate the links between political rivalry, communal representation and local development. To unite the various development associations in Sagamu under an umbrella establishment, leading members of the town founded the Sagamu Conference of Social Clubs (SCSC) in 1980. The SCSC also suggested the institution of a Sagamu Day festival to serve as a catalyst for development and progress, and to create a greater sense of unity within Sagamu. For this purpose, the SCSC inaugurated the Conference of all Sagamu Obas (later the Sagamu Traditional Council). The first meeting of the Conference of all Sagamu Obas was held in April 1981, and meetings have since then been held on a quarterly basis under the presidency of the Akàrígbò. This arrangement suggested that a unification of Sagamu for purposes of devel-

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Sagamu Day Programme (Source: Pamphlet)

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Sagamu Day Programme, aims and achievements (Source: Pamphlet)

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opment would further entrench the position of the Akàrígbò, and it created tensions especially between Sagamu’s powerful Ofin and Makun quarters (Ayodele 2004: 432–44). The first Sagamu Day was planned for 1982, but the committee of the SCSC was unable to agree on a representation of Sagamu acceptable to all communities represented on the committee. After another failed attempt to celebrate Sagamu Day in 1983, a different committee organised the first Sagamu Day celebration on 27 October 1984 under the auspices of the Sagamu Development Association. Since 1984, the number of migrants’ associations and social clubs participating in Sagamu Day has increased greatly from the original nineteen, and the festival itself has expanded from two days to a whole week. However, despite the growing appeal of Sagamu Day, the festival remains contested, suggesting that the vision of Sagamu associated with the Akàrígbò’s paramountcy, while accepted in the political and administrative sphere, remains bitterly disputed at the level of town development. Clashes between the Makun and Ofin quarters have frequently ended the celebration of Sagamu Day. To accommodate Makun aspirations within Sagamu and prevent further clashes, the chairmanship of the Sagamu Day organising committee was given to a Makun representative in 1996, and it has rotated between the quarters since then. The Sagamu Development Association has also agreed to support the building of the Ewùsì of Makun’s palace as a communal project. However, communal rivalry continued to have a pronounced effect on the festival (Nigerian Tribune, 26 October 1996). In 1998 Sagamu Day had to be cancelled due to communal disagreements,29 and although the festival has since been reinstated, its organisation and celebration remains the subject of fervent disagreements within Sagamu. As the history of Sagamu Day illustrates, community development festivals can remain contested not because they celebrate a town’s unity but because they celebrate particular visions of the town. In response to the difficulties of establishing Sagamu Day as well as to assert their own status as independent towns within Sagamu, Sagamu’s quarters increasingly celebrate their own community development festivals. Thus Makun holds Obaluwa Day in October, which is named after a traditional town festival in February (Segun Okeowo, 20 August 2002). Meanwhile, Sonyindo celebrates Balufon Day, also named after the Balùfòn town festival, in order to overcome its lack of infrastructure (Oba George Awosanya, 17 July 2002). Unlike the community development festivals in other Remo towns, the festivals of Sagamu’s confederate towns tend not to have new names based on historical founders and oríkì but to reflect older festivals with other ritual consequences in the town.30 While the establishment of community development festivals within Sagamu is only in its infancy, it is likely that the names of these festivals have been chosen for diplomatic reasons. As Sagamu is, like any Remo town, often imagined as united from the time of

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its foundation, the public proclamation of a different original foundation pertaining to a community within the town might be seen as undermining Sagamu unity. Similar asymmetries and possible sources of conflict exist in many towns, and especially in those settlements that have accommodated other towns at some point in the past. Thus Ode Remo and Iperu include the towns of Iraye and Eposo as well as Idarika and Idena respectively. In both Ode Remo and Iperu, the rulers of the resettled towns participate in the main town festivals in a manner that suggests their acceptance of the host town’s ruler. However, local leaders in Idarika and Idena support the idea of additional community development festivals in Iperu, and Iraye has constituted its own Development Council with a structure partly independent of Ode Remo (Oba Samuel Adesanya, 9 March 1998). Meanwhile, in Ikenne, the Olúdòtun of Idotun – a town within Ikenne – has presided over Ereke Day since the beginning of the post-1984 interregnum in Ikenne. Local perceptions about how the relationship between Ikenne and Idotun will develop once a new Alákènnéé is installed differ widely within Ikenne. Perhaps because the celebration of community development festivals is so closely linked to the assertion of communal aspirations, Sabo does not, at the time of writing, possess a community development festival. While there are some social clubs engaged in providing infrastructural development for Sabo, they are neither centrally organised nor associated with any form of communal celebration. However, Sabo residents participate in the festivals of other towns, both through their representatives on Sagamu Day and through the membership of individuals from Sabo in important social clubs and associations in Sagamu. For example, Alhaji Haruna Babali Shehu, a representative of the Hausa community at Sagamu, is a past vice president of the prestigious Sagamu Progressive Club (26 July 2002). Also, producers and sellers of suya and other snacks derived from beef usually attend community development festivals (Adekunle 1990: 43). Both in Sagamu and in the outlying towns, demand is usually high because many celebrants feel that suya is an appropriate food for such festivals. In the context of development festivals, suya represents Sabo’s economic contributions to Remo, and the suya sellers and other official and unofficial visitors from Sabo are usually warmly welcomed.31 Beyond their implications for relations of power within the towns, community development festivals both structure and react to social conditions characterised by increasing mobility. While towns remain dependent on outside resources (even if these are not provided by the state), at least within Nigeria, migrants, too, remain dependent on their towns. As the role of Sabo within Remo illustrates, access to political and economic resources continues to be structured by identity in terms of origin throughout Nigeria. The dominance of historical rivalries, ethno-regional politics and

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a differentiation between indigenes and settlers in most Nigerian communities has prevented many migrants from being able to claim full citizenship rights anywhere but in their hometown. Having experienced exclusion and discrimination on the basis of their origin in Nigeria and beyond, many individuals are careful to maintain ties of belonging to their hometowns (Honey and Okafor 1998: 4). Thus migrants, while establishing their claims to ownership of the town, are at the same time owned by it. The townspeople’s awareness of this fact is reflected in a sense of entitlement to their successful co-citizens’ achievements. During many community development festivals, lists with the names and sums of individual donations are published and people publicly comment on the adequacy of such contributions. The reliance of many towns on migrants’ contributions for development also reflects the decline of locally available economic and political resources since the 1980s. The deteriorating economy and years of corrupt military rule understood as detrimental to local interests created an exodus of Remo citizens not only to the big Nigerian towns but also to Europe, North America, North Africa, India and South Africa. However, although especially recent migration reflects on the decline of local life chances during the 1980s and 1990s, it is often also viewed as a positive process. Many Remo townspeople do not only see migration as the result of global and national inequalities but also as an extension of their town’s substance and significance. Through the town’s claim on its migrants, all residents and migrants share in the successes and achievements of those who are particularly successful abroad. To confirm and celebrate the town’s achievements and contributions to the world, lists of a town’s distinguished citizens and their careers are sometimes published by the development associations. The strong sense, held both by migrants and residents, of the town’s positive contributions to world history through their migrants – and thus the town’s fixed place in the world – is illustrated by Alápér u Ogunfowora’s poetic claim to Iperu’s greatness: One Iperu man was captured in the war, and they sold him as a slave. He was taken to America. He lived there, and he became very wealthy and powerful. He married from all over the country. He later founded his own place, and called it ‘Peru,’ after his hometown. It was because he had been away from home for so long that he forgot the proper name – ‘Iperu’. (Oba J. O. Ogunfowora, 28 March 1998) By celebrating the town not only as the focus of migrant-led development and communal rivalry but also as a source of civilisation, community development festivals affirm a town’s place and meaning in the world. Understanding even forced migration as part of this process, present-day migrants are seen both to continue the spread of civilisation and to simultaneously come home to communities created by their communal ancestors. And

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as Alápér u Ogunfowora pointed out, the town’s collective ancestors are known to have been everywhere already. In this sense, community development festivals confirm and establish notions of communal value and worth based on a distinct and important contribution to world history. This understanding – and the desire to be recognised for it – is also reflected in the inclusion of local histories in festival programmes and the support and financing of local historians by many community development associations. While such histories often reflect and engage with local conflicts, they are also usually produced with the stated aim of putting one’s town on the map of Nigeria, Africa and the world (Harneit-Sievers 2002).32 Thus, even though local development efforts, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, reflected a growing sense of exclusion from the state, Awolowo’s role in the establishment of development festivals asserted the value of Remo vis-à-vis others by demonstrating popular consent for the further expansion of education and development. At the same time, local perceptions of Remo’s developmental success also came to include a strong sense of the moral superiority of Awolowo and his followers. The ritual emphasis on civic duty and self-reliance in Remo development festivals was clearly linked to Obafemi Awolowo’s political and mythical legacy, and the improvement of everyday life in the spirit of Awolowo confirmed his power beyond the grave. The further expansion of local self-help efforts, both in response to perceived exclusion and in assertion of Awolowo’s enduring worldly and spiritual authority, played an important role in defining Remo’s politics for more than a decade after Awolowo’s death.

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9 after awolowo

Obafemi Awolowo’s death in 1987 occurred at the beginning of Nigeria’s second phase of military rule, which lasted until 1999. During this period, a range of developments contributed to fears in Remo that the central government was determined to eradicate Obafemi Awolowo’s legacy and to exclude Yoruba interests – as long as they were identified with Awolowo – from the centre. In response to this perception as well as to declining public infrastructure, rising crime rates and narrowing economic opportunities, local vigilantes took over power from the centrally controlled police. Cooperating with Orò and a new ethno-nationalist organisation, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), the vigilantes developed a growing pan-Yoruba discourse on local control and autonomy in the face of military oppression. Despite Awolowo’s physical absence, popular consent for this development was legitimised by and focused on the political legacy of Awolowo. After the return to civilian rule in 1999, the pent-up frustration of local groups, keen to establish control in response to the wider political changes led to an extremely violent conflict between ‘indigenous’ and migrant groups in Sagamu, which evoked a constellation of anti-government versus pro-government interests. However, in the longer term, the political coherence of Remo’s Orò, vigilantes and OPC groups declined. No longer held together by opposition to the military, aspiring local leaders have emerged and increasingly challenged not only the political unity of grassroots organisations but even the local traditional hierarchy. At the same time, the rigged election victory of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003 was accepted peacefully by the majority of the population, and Awolowo’s widow Hannah has enabled politicians of the PDP to appropriate her late husband’s name. Thus while Awolowo’s scepticism of the central government has lost in importance for the creation of local consent and political unity, his pan-Yoruba legacy continues to be of symbolic and mythical importance for Remo and wider politics. m i l i t a r y r u l e a n d a p r o - awo l owo a k à r í g b ò

The collapse of the Second Republic in 1983 heralded the introduction of authoritarian and repressive tendencies of a previously unprecedented kind. These were linked to a range of attempts to revive the ailing economy with

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policies of structural adjustment, including the privatisation and reduction of the public sector. The military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, openly blamed the political class for the country’s decline and political parties were once again proscribed while several office-holders suspected of corruption – including prominent UPN members – were subjected to lengthy trials and prison sentences. Beyond that, the government controlled its critics, and especially the press, by making it possible to detain anyone for up to three months without trial. Against this background the 1985 ‘palace’ coup by General Ibrahim Babangida, who quickly revoked several of the more controversial policies and actions of the previous regime, was welcomed widely. It was of particular importance to Remo that Babangida also reached out to the Awolowo faction in Nigerian politics by acknowledging the importance of human rights and consultative decision-making. Moreover, Babangida visited Awolowo’s house in Ikenne, and spoke admiringly of his leadership qualities after his death in 1987. However, the confluence of military and pro-Awolowo politics was shortlived. After an initial period of enthusiasm for Babangida in southwest Nigeria, his regime was quickly associated with growing patronage and corruption under the guise of privatisation. Even though national revenue decreased throughout the 1980s, Babangida systematically favoured his supporters and army contacts in the bidding for contracts, and gave them favoured access to foreign currency and business subsidies.1 At the same time, his repeated manipulation of the transition programme to civilian rule, originally scheduled for 1990, suggested that he was not really prepared to hand over power and that he was particularly keen on suppressing and diluting the kind of redistributive politics historically associated with Awolowo. Meanwhile, and despite the support among many younger Yoruba politicians for Hannah Awolowo, Awolowo’s contemporary Adekunle Ajasin took over the leadership of his political heirs and followers. By 1988, political meetings had moved to Ajasin’s home town of Owo, with the result that both Hannah Awolowo and Remo became less central to the day-to-day politics of the pro-Awolowo camp, even though they retained a strong symbolic importance for many of the so-called Awoists. Other fault lines developed when during the early 1990s younger politicians built their own networks with a view to standing for the presidency once the return to civilian rule was announced. As Awolowo’s ‘political family’ struggled for cohesion, the role and influence of his biological family became less defined.2 In Remo, popular scepticism of Babangida was closely associated with the military government’s attempts to interfere in local traditional politics, which remained tied both to Awolowo’s political legacy and the continuing interests of his widow Hannah. Unlike the military governments between 1966 and 1979, the post– 1983 military governments actively courted traditional rulers and chiefs

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to enhance their legitimacy. The administrative and political roles played by traditional rulers gained symbolic significance as the militarisation of society and the close control of the so-called transition process discouraged other forms of political expression. Consequently, the control of traditional politics became a significant instrument of military rule throughout the former Western Region and beyond. In Remo, the military government saw an opportunity to insert itself into local politics when Akàrígbò Moses Awolesi, who had supported Awolowo throughout his reign, died in 1988. After Awolesi’s death, two candidates for the throne of Ofin emerged. In a curious replay of the dispute over the Akàrígbòship in 1952, one of the contenders for the throne was Adediji Adedoyin, like Adeleke a son of Akàrígbò Christopher William Adedoyin (1916–52). Like his half-brother, Adediji Adedoyin was an established and well-respected lawyer, and he had considerable support in Sagamu due to his generosity and pleasant personality. More importantly, the central government supported his candidacy. The other candidate was the equally popular Michael Sonariwo, a former ward of the Remo politician G. I. Delo-Dosunmu, graduate of Harvard Law School, deputy chairman of the Federal Board of Inland Revenue, director in the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications and private telecommunications businessman. Sonariwo was supported by Hannah Awolowo, by now an important elder of the influential Liyangu royal family.3 Unfortunately for Adediji Adedoyin, in the context of Remo’s historical disputes his installation could be seen as a retrospective legitimation of the politics of his senior half-brother Adeleke Adedoyin, who had attempted to undermine Remo unity during the 1950s and 1960s. Many people thought that irrespective of Adedoyin’s personal qualities, his links with Awolowo’s old adversary would be an affront to the Awolowo legacy, and for this reason some of his erstwhile supporters turned against him. Beyond such popular sentiments, it was also widely rumoured that many important Remo leaders – allegedly mobilised by Hannah Awolowo – had decided to make sure that members of the Adedoyin family would never again be enthroned in Ofin.4 Consequently, Adedoyin’s rival Sonariwo was eventually backed by the majority of the population, including most former supporters of Moses Awolesi. However, the Babangida administration continued to support Adedoyin despite the repeated insistence of the kingmakers, traditional rulers, market women and other dignitaries from Remo that Sonariwo was the popular candidate. After two years, the military governor of Ogun State intervened and allowed the state courts, which were in favour of Sonariwo, to deal with the matter.5 One reason for this decision may have been the preparations for Nigeria’s ill-fated Third Republic. By 1990, local government and state elections were already planned, and it was obvious that these elections would result in pro-Awolowo governments in support of Sonariwo. Under

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these circumstances, a forced installation of Adedoyin might not only have been futile but even have led to a popular rebellion. After almost two years of legal battle, Michael Sonariwo was installed in August 1990 as the new Akàrígbò.6 However, when the transition to Nigeria’s so-called Third Republic failed and the presidential election of 1993 was nullified, Sonariwo became vulnerable again. Because the winner of the presidential elections, Moshood Abiola, was the first Yoruba-speaker to be so, the annulment of his election and his subsequent imprisonment were widely interpreted as a sign of the determination by Babangida and the northern military in general to exclude Yoruba interests from the central government.7 A short-lived civilian Interim National Government was replaced in November 1993 by another military government, which was led by one of Babangida’s close allies, General Sani Abacha. As Abacha sought to legitimise himself through the control of politics in the traditional sphere to an even larger degree than his predecessor,8 Michael Sonariwo, closely identified with pro-Awolowo politics, found his office once more under threat. Buoyed by support from the military regime, Adediji Adedoyin’s supporters successfully applied for a restraint which, in November 1994, banned Michael Sonariwo from parading himself or otherwise, holding himself out to the public in any manner whatsoever as the Akarigbo of Remo and from performing any functions of the said Akarigbo. (Daily Sketch, 24 November 1994) Sonariwo took his case to the Ibadan Court of Appeal, where he sought a stay for the execution of the judgement (Daily Times, 25 November 1995). As in the late 1980s, Akàrígbò Michael Sonariwo received enormous support both from his town and from other Remo leaders. Not only did major Ofin chiefs publicly support him, pointing out that his rule was in the interest of peace in the town, he also received support from many northern and southern Remo towns in Sagamu and Remo, both from traditional rulers and from other power-brokers (Daily Sketch, 30 November 1994; Daily Times, 2 December 1994, 3 December 1994 and 12 December 1994). Despite the injunction placed upon him, Sonariwo continued to act as the Akàrígbò throughout the following years, and no official intervention in his activities was attempted. One reason for this was that Sonariwo’s power was deeply entrenched, not only within the traditional hierarchy and through Hannah Awolowo’s personal support but also at the level of popular mobilisation and participation. Local groups, including an increasingly powerful local vigilante group that cooperated with the Remo-wide Orò association originally mobilised in the pro-Awolowo struggles of the 1960s, supported Sonariwo strongly. Again, it is highly likely that the security forces declined to intervene directly on Adediji Adedoyin’s behalf lest they provoke a popular

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rebellion. Adedoyin’s attempts to unseat Akàrígbò Sonariwo through legal interventions and injunctions finally ended with the demise of the Abacha government in 1998. Adedoyin himself died shortly afterwards. Relying on Remo’s institutional and popular support for the pro-Awolowo politics he represented, Akàrígbò Sonariwo was able to hold on to the throne even against the bitter opposition of the central government for the first decade of his rule. As a result, Remo was able to maintain the internal traditional hierarchy associated with Awolowo far beyond his death. Popular support for Sonariwo reflected both Awolowo’s historical importance for Remo and the area’s alienation from the central government, while the traditional hierarchy presided over by the Akàrígbò appeared as the natural reflection of Remo’s relations with the state past and present. r e m o v i g i l a n t e s a n d t h e o o d u a p e o p l e ’s c o n g r e s s

Remo’s scepticism of and opposition to the central government was linked to a growing range of local practices beyond the traditional hierarchy, most notably those involving the popular mobilisation of young men in Orò and a widespread ethos of civic duty and self-reliance. These local structures grew in importance as people came to feel that military rule was both inept, corrupt and brutal, as well as hostile to Yoruba interests. Throughout Nigeria, the life chances of ordinary people, being linked to contracting public sector provision and economic opportunities as well as rising crime rates, declined sharply, while the political elite siphoned off ever growing amounts of national revenue for private use.9 In many parts of the former Western Region, these developments were understood as a blow to Yoruba social, political and economic ambitions. Yoruba leaders, including many of Awolowo’s former allies, were prominent in founding Nigeria’s foremost pro-democracy movement, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), an umbrella organisation for a wide array of human rights organisations. NADECO also included ethno-regionally based associations like the cultural group Afénifére,10 a pan-Yoruba group associated with Awolowo’s old political supporters,11 as well as a range of political, cultural and military groups evoking Oduduwa, the mythical ancestor of the Yoruba. But despite the widespread feeling of marginalisation in the former Western Region, both Babangida and Abacha were able to split Yoruba popular opposition by mobilising those historical rivalries that Awolowo had only tentatively overcome and others which had been mobilised during the Second Republic. In several cases the military rulers used their power to define and create communities, manipulating local aspirations to create consent for the central government. In particular the creation of new states and local governments drew on existing traditions of competition to give new sections of the ethno-regional elite access to state allocations,

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and important members of the Yoruba elite were engaged in the successful lobbying for Osun State (from Oyo State) in 1991 and Ekiti State (from Ondo State) in 1995. Especially in Ekiti State, local leaders also demonstrated public support for the Abacha government (Kraxberger 2004). In this process, Ijebu (including Remo) remained the only former province in the Yoruba-speaking parts of Nigeria which was not given the status of a state. The perceived exception of the former Ijebu Province from state creation was interpreted locally as an attempt to punish Ijebu and Remo for the political legacy of Awolowo.12 Yet while the non-creation of an Ijebu State confirmed a local sense of victimisation, the creation of administrative boundaries at the local level had more complex effects on local politics. The UPN-created local governments had been abolished by the end of the Second Republic, but Remo local government was divided again in 1991 to create a new Ikenne local government area with headquarters in Ikenne. In 1996, this was divided again to generate Remo North local government area with its headquarters in Isara, the hometown of the Yoruba nationalist icon Odemo Akinsanya.13 Unlike in 1981–3, thus, the new local government headquarters were not necessarily placed in the largest or most centrally located town within the area,14 and this created some local opposition. It is possible that the central government hoped to undermine Remo’s political unity by overemphasising the Awolowo legacy to the perceived detriment of the towns less directly associated with him or his followers, but any lasting political disagreements were prevented or suppressed. Irrespective of government intentions and unlike in 1981–3, the local government creation under military rule did not succeed in generating local support for the administration. In particular, both new and old local governments were unable to address growing local concern over crime, because the police remained under central control. When crime rates in Ogun State soared in the mid-1980s, the Babangida government had encouraged local governments to legalise vigilante activities under the control of the obas (Daily Times, 12 September 1986). As crime especially affected the area near the Lagos-Ibadan highway that runs through Remo, vigilantes soon operated in all Remo towns. However, although it was originally the central government that encouraged the creation of vigilante groups, many vigilantes later came to see themselves as agents of opposition to government politics. The main reason for this development was the mounting view that the central government and its institutions were themselves immoral and even criminal. As both Babangida and Abacha created special police and security forces under their personal command, their private agendas were seen to dominate any remaining concerns over public security (Reno 2002: 840, 849). Moreover, several of Nigeria’s highest officials were implicated in the drug trafficking and advance fee fraud crimes15 with which Nigeria was

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more and more identified internationally (Bayart et al. 1999; Apter 2005: 224–41). Throughout the former Western Region, rumours gained credibility which suggested that army leaders and politicians used sections of the centrally controlled police and army to support and protect criminals. Certainly in Remo, the extraordinary rise in local crime was widely perceived as the result of the deliberate acts of the central government. In many towns, vigilante activities were at least originally organised like other self-help activities, and a prominent chief or local leader would ask all local families to volunteer a contribution toward the community’s protection. Contributions could either include financial assistance or the designation of a suitable family member for vigilante duties, with monies used to provide torchlights, mobile phones, transport and weapons for the vigilantes. But beyond modern technology, many vigilante groups also drew on existing traditions of local security provision. These were linked to traditional civic associations such as the hunter’s guild or, most frequently, Orò, which had been connected with the protection of the community since the 1960s. Playing an important role in the symbolic containment of those locally associated with the central government, Orò activities had increased again after the annulment of Abiola’s election in 1993, and local concerns especially about the role of Sabo in Remo politics had been expressed through frequent Orò outings to Sabo. Although vigilante and Orò groups did not merge, many young men were either members of both organisations or were content to cooperate with the other group. Orò outings sometimes prepared the ground for vigilante activities and many of the young men involved in vigilante activities used charms of Orò origin for their own spiritual protection. The vigilantes also adopted cultural techniques associated with Orò and other masquerades for spiritual and moral protection. Thus the vigilantes began to swear binding oaths promising to act in the interest of the community, to wear special black clothing and to speak in a secret language which was unintelligible to those who were not initiated (Lateef A. Sodeinde, 23 August 2002). Moreover, by the 1990s the local vigilante groups, originally operating on quarter and town levels, imitated the Orò pattern of Remo-wide coordination and met regularly at the Akàrígbò’s palace to synchronise their activities. Several vigilante groups strengthened themselves by acquiring small arms (Amusan 2001: 65), and the local police force, including many non-Yoruba-speakers and seen by many as part of Abacha’s state apparatus of oppression, was increasingly excluded from the provision of security at night. Disillusioned with the institutions of what they saw as a criminal state, vigilantes even expanded their activities into the judicial sector, and by the mid-1990s, Remo vigilante groups had begun to kill those found guilty instead of handing them over to the police (The Guardian, 17 September 1996). Like the executions associated with Orò and Èlúkú, the bodies of

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those executed were usually beheaded and left lying by the roadside to act as a deterrent. This practice was widely defended as justified in the face of the immorality associated with the central government institutions. A formal complaint about vigilante activities in 1996 by the local police commissioner was dismissed by the Remo Traditional Council with the argument that, unlike the police, the vigilantes did not routinely accept bribes to let criminals escape (Ikenne LG, file 124). In the aftermath of public outrage over an armed robbery of the Olísà of Ofin, M. O. Ogunlaja, which was widely understood as an attack on the Remo traditional elite, and the murder of a mother and child by armed robbers in Sagamu in 1997,16 the Sagamu vigilante groups descended systematically on what they perceived to be the criminal elements of the town. Based on the everyday knowledge of (mostly female) local residents as well as market traders, the vigilantes killed a large number of locally known criminals and their associates, including police officers. In some cases, even reformed ex-criminals and parents of criminals were killed. The vigilantes also threatened bars and other establishments associated with rowdy behaviour and closed places where drugs such as marihuana and cocaine were sold.17 Herbalists and others suspected of aiding armed robbers and other criminals by providing them with spiritual protection were also harassed and sometimes killed. According to Odunlami and Oduntan (forthcoming), about 200 people were killed during this period. Despite the great human loss, few public figures criticised the vigilantes.18 One reason for this may be that at this time the vigilantes played an important role in supporting Akàrígbò Sonariwo against his rival Adedoyin and his backers within the military regime. But beyond the importance of traditional politics, many people felt that the vigilantes, although perhaps overzealous, provided a real service to the community. From this point of view, the vigilantes had not only ousted the criminals but had also asserted that the community was not dependent on, or even at the mercy of, the state, but that it was really based on the mutual trust and agreement of its citizens. Many Remo citizens even felt that, by re-validating communal participation and consent in the struggle against crime, the vigilantes had reversed the social decay that was associated with the rule of criminals. As a female local leader argued: Before the vigilante came we were not safe. They [the armed robbers] would knock at our doors at night and if we asked who was there they would say, ‘We are your real landlords.’ …   The children were starting to imitate them, they were stealing and abusing their parents. …  Now if you lose only one Naira in the motor park in Sagamu at night, somebody will run after you and say, ‘Excuse me, Ma, you have left this.’ (Olorì Funmilola Adekoya, 4 August 2002).

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the r ise of oodua organisations

As the Remo vigilantes demonstrated the locality’s opposition to the Abacha government as well as its loyalty to the Awolowo legacy, they also contributed to a larger political discourse. During the 1990s, grassroots organisations based on secret forms of mobilisation and solidarity and often relying on vigilante activities emerged, grew and reformed throughout southwest Nigeria and beyond (Gore and Pratten 2003). Many of these organisations had a clear political orientation in which their implicit or explicit critique of the central government was combined with visions of a better and more equitable community. In the former Western Region, these visions remained closely associated with the politics of Awolowo. After the imprisonment of the Yoruba President-elect Moshood Abiola in July 1994, Sagamu citizen Popo Ade-Banjo, the former director of political affairs of Abiola’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), was one of many prodemocracy activists who, as in the 1960s, feared that the government would use military force to establish total domination of Nigeria. To defend Remo and Yorubaland in general, Ade-Banjo founded the Oodua Liberation Front (OLF). The OLF was only made known to a few men and women who could be trusted not to betray the organisation to agents of the central government, or, as they called it, the military occupation force. Based on the model of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the OLF was designed as an army of resistance that would attack the central government and its institutions through autonomous revolutionary cells without presenting itself as a target (Popo Ade-Banjo, 14 February 2005). As popular support for a defence of Yorubaland from a military onslaught established itself in opposition politics throughout the former Western Region, others drew on the same mythical discourse centring on Oduduwa. During the latter half of the 1990s, two dozen or more organisations evoking Oodua [Oduduwa] emerged in Nigeria. Reflecting different strands of Yoruba cultural and political nationalism as well as possibly different historical and class experiences, views about how to best achieve the defence or even liberation of southwest Nigeria differed among the Oodua groups. While Sagamu citizen Ade-Banjo considered the use of violence an essential political tactic, Abiodun Aremu from Kwara State formed the Oodua Youth Movement (OYM) in September 1994 to raise popular awareness through a declaration of rights as well as posters, leaflets and articles.19 Later almost all Oodua organisations were registered and coordinated by umbrella associations including the Apapo Omo Oodua (Apapo) and the Coalition of Oodua Self-Determination Groups (COSEG) (Omojola 2003: 93). Like the OYM, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) was established in 1995 as a primarily socio-cultural organisation.20 Established under the leadership of medical doctor Frederick Fasehun and attracting scholars like the late Yoruba historian Professor Saburi Biobaku and the diplomat and

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writer Dr Oladapo Fafowora, the OPC intended to re-centre the Yoruba nation through research on Yoruba history and culture. Including and incorporating those of Yoruba descent in Europe and the Americas, it planned to promote worldwide Yoruba cultural unity. Reflecting the strong enlightenment values of its leading members, the OPC also condemned the state’s failure to provide opportunities for ordinary people (Oladapo Fafowora, 16 February 2005). When OPC leader Frederick Fasehun was arrested by the Abacha regime in December 1996, Fasehun’s deputy, Gani Adams, took over the control of the organisation. Under Adam’s leadership, the OPC expanded to its present importance by attracting less privileged and less educated members into its fold and by offering vigilante services which were greatly welcomed in many Yoruba-speaking communities in Lagos and beyond. By that time, Ade-Banjo’s OLF had gone underground in Sagamu because Ade-Banjo had been forced into exile. Once he had established himself in Washington (USA), Ade-Banjo founded the Oodua Nation’s People’s International Council (ONPIC) in 1996, which sought to engage with UN institutions and in particular the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO). However, despite Ade-Banjo’s continuing activism in the United States, the OLF dissipated. Meanwhile, its vision and tactics appealed widely to politicised Remo citizens and many OLF members in Sagamu joined the OPC.21 Because the OPC re-validated the provision of vigilantes and other security services, it also attracted activists from similar vigilante and Orò groups. Many of the young men who went out with Orò and the vigilantes joined the OPC and OPC members supported the other organisations. In reflection of the close association between local vigilantes, Orò and OPC, Lateef A. Sodeinde, a representative at the regular Orò meetings at the Akàrígbò’s palace and a strong supporter of Sagamu’s vigilante activities, also became the OPC’s coordinator for Sagamu. As in the past, the overlapping of memberships and activities among the different organisations was not seen as redundant. Instead, the coexistence and cooperation of numerous different groups affirming the importance of local security provision increased their legitimacy because it mobilised significant grassroots participation and consent. Perhaps most importantly under the circumstances, Orò, vigilantes and OPC posed a clear threat to any local leader tempted to collaborate with the central government, and thus demonstrated to the world outside Remo that the Remo elites – and the pro-Awolowo legacy they represented – enjoyed robust local support and grassroots legitimacy. But the maintenance of local political unity through the control both of the community and its suspected subversives also took place in the context of more general political processes. Ade-Banjo had helped to spread the notion of organised

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and armed community control as a political tactic beyond the locality but failed to establish his own vision of resistance politics. As the OPC became the most important political vigilante group in southwest Nigeria instead, Remo’s subsequent integration of the OPC into local political structures mirrored older processes of the area’s engagement with politics in the former Western Region. In this case, Remo was both a producer and a product of pro-Awolowo politics – even after Awolowo’s death. gender and indigeneity in an embattled remo

While the cooperation between Orò, vigilantes and OPC continued to legitimise Remo elite and popular politics vis-à-vis the outside, it also had the effect of strongly discouraging women and men without local family ties from participation in the active protection of the community. Although some women joined the OPC, there were no female Orò or vigilante members, and female OPC members were usually excluded from participation in any events during which the OPC cooperated with the other associations. Although several influential women in Remo, including Hannah Awolowo herself, gave their direct or indirect support to OPC and vigilante activities by providing them with information, supporting them financially or giving them access to housing and transport, women’s participation in the Remo OPC was lower than in other communities (Nolte 2008). At the same time, the OPC’s link to Orò and the vigilantes discouraged migrant Yorubaspeakers, such as members of the Ilorin community in Sabo, from joining the organisation. Embedded in gendered ritual and local power structures, the Remo OPC remained, despite its ostensibly ethno-national outlook, an organisation that was dominated by male members of local origin. In 1999, the genderedness and local embeddedness of Orò, vigilantes and OPC clearly affected the perception of threats to the community by these groups. In the mid-1990s, the central government had established a depot for crude oil products south of Sagamu at Mosimi. A lorry park, where the tankers that transported the petroleum products from Sagamu to northern Nigeria waited their turn, was built at nearby Kara (New Nigerian, 23 December 1996). Although Mosimi and Kara were situated on Remo territory, both the Mosimi depot and the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) at the Kara lorry park were headed by northern Nigerians. Many locals felt that this reflected attempts by the Abacha government to keep control of national oil revenues entirely out of the hands of Remo people. Allegations of favouritism towards northern Nigerians at the Kara lorry park and at Mosimi abounded, and local businessmen and drivers in the oil transport business complained that their northern Nigerian colleagues could jump waiting queues, that they were not always charged full fees and that they were given preferential access to oil products in high demand (Lateef A. Sodeinde, 23 August 2002). As many of the economi-

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Kara lorry park (Photo: Insa Nolte) cally marginalised young men active in Orò, the vigilante groups and the OPC worked as motor-park touts or car, lorry and motorcycle drivers, they were particularly aggrieved by this development.22 The grievances caused by the northerners’ control of the oil transport business at Kara and Mosimi resonated with more long-standing economic and sexual resentments. Although Remo is a major kolanut producer, it has no control over the market. The local kola trade is firmly in the hand of northern Nigerians based at Sabo, who export the nuts to the north. As a result, kola prices and even its saleability are overwhelmingly determined by demand. During the latter half of the 1990s, prices continued to fall for several years, affecting primarily the local women who washed and traded the kolanuts in small quantities. The periodic refusal of kola buyers to offer a cost price or any price at all for kolanuts had led to conflicts in Sabo market ever since the beginnings of the trade in the early twentieth century, and while the women’s grievances were of relatively low overall economic significance for most families in the 1990s, they affected a large number of people (Segun Okeowo, 20 August 2002). Apart from its economic implications, the buyers’ power to set the price or refuse a sale was also understood as a threat to marital fidelity and the availability of women as wives. Many people believed that local women

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Car mechanics at Mosimi depot (Photo: Insa Nolte) might be tempted or forced to have sexual relations with the kolanut traders to sell their wares. Such unsanctioned sexual relations, it was feared, would undermine husbandly authority and potentially sabotage the attempts of young men to establish themselves as husbands and fathers, thereby undermining the community as a whole (Sanni, 2000: 31). As Orò is one of the most powerful forces to ensure women’s support of the community, the sexual fears associated with the falling prices for kolanuts reinforced the sense that Orò’s control of Sabo would sustain and secure Remo as a whole.23 Further anxiety about the destructive impact of unsanctioned sexual relationships was associated with Sabo itself. After the building of the new Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depot at Mosimi, a substantial influx of new northern Nigerian migrants to Sabo had taken place. Many of these new residents – in some cases, part-time residents – were lorry drivers and financiers in the crude oil business who were single or temporarily separated from their families and who had money to spend. As a result, their influx brought with them a rising number of (mainly northern Nigerian) prostitutes.24 Eventually the number of prostitutes became so high that they created a new quarter of Sagamu between Sagamu’s Sabo and the NNPC depot, called the Starlight quarter because it came to life at night.

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Starlight (Sagamu) (Photo: Insa Nolte) Fears of the destructive sexual voracity of northern Nigerian women remain part of everyday folklore in many parts of the former Western Region,25 and as Starlight expanded, these fears grew. As indigenous citizens of Sagamu and other Remo towns also visited Starlight, some sections of the population felt that these men were at fault for spending their money on prostitutes. However, many others thought that the prostitutes were to blame for tempting responsible men to fritter away their money, and many men confronted with financial problems after a visit to Starlight felt cheated in retrospect. Meanwhile, popular awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS increased as the government became less inactive about this rising threat in 1999. In the wake of increasing HIV/AIDS awareness, the prostitutes of Starlight were openly blamed for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the community. Again, the attribution of social disorder to women’s subversion of society strengthened the understanding that Orò’s control of Sabo would sustain and secure Remo as a whole. Due to a minor conflict between the obas of Ofin and the town of Ijokun, on whose farmland Sabo had been built, Orò had only made very cursory visits to Sabo since 1996. In response to widespread communal anxiety and thanks to the support of the civilian Ogun State government, Akàrígbò Sonariwo announced that the Orò of Ofin would visit Sabo on 18 July 1999

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(Nolte 2004: 75–6). However, due to the expansion of Sabo during the previous years, many of the new migrants were unfamiliar with the institutionalised Orò patrols, and several groups of young men felt that they should defend their quarter against this un-Islamic practice. Many of the more recently arrived migrants were not aware that the absence of Orò in the previous years was connected to a local dispute. Instead, they thought that Orò had ceased to operate because it was a form of sorcery which had ‘nothing to contribute to society’ and ‘should be condemned’ (Alhaji Mohammed Namadina Chindo, 19 July 2002). In their view, a defiance of Orò demonstrated the greater glory of Islam while helping to refute local attempts to appropriate the economic power of the inhabitants of Sabo. The determination of the new migrants to stop Orò reflected both their own insertion into the local economy of Sagamu as well as the wider politicisation of Islam in Nigeria. Local relations of power were affected in complex ways when a successful transition programme after General Abacha’s death led to the election of Yoruba-speaker Olusegun Obasanjo as Nigeria’s President in February 1999. Obasanjo was an ex-military man, and most of his support came from northern and eastern Nigeria. However, by July 1999, he was perceived, in northern Nigeria, as marginalising the North and favouring the former Western Region (Abuja Mirror, 14–20 July 1999). In opposition to Obasanjo’s assumed bias, growing Islamic piety, which had long served as a critique of political corruption in the North, emerged as a political challenge to the new central government through demands for the introduction of Sharia penal law in several northern Nigerian states. Feeling justified by their alignment with wider religious and political arguments, the new migrants also challenged the established representatives of the Hausa community of Sabo. When the Seriki Hausawa, Alhaji Garba Abubakar, advised the young men not to challenge Orò, he was accused of supporting the locals (Alhaji Haruna Babali Shehu, 26 July 2002). On the evening of the planned Orò outing to Sabo, some young men encouraged a Hausa prostitute to challenge the masquerade by facing it. After a beating by the Orò followers, the woman died the same night. In the morning, several young men from Sabo took to the streets carrying guns and other weapons, ostensibly to avenge her death. However, local witnesses saw that unusually, most locally owned trucks used for the transport of crude oil products had been removed from Kara, which is only within a short distance of Sabo and Starlight, to the Mosimi depot. As no trucks carrying petroleum-products were set alight during the battle, this is probably true. It suggests that both the confrontation of Orò and the subsequent battle of retaliation were planned by the more recent immigrants to Sabo (Sanni 2000: 33). Thus the woman who lost her life after her confrontation of Orò was little more than expendable collateral for the new migrants, albeit one that was compellingly chosen to symbolise the fears of sexual deviancy and

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collective disorder that locals associated with the expansion of the migrant community. Once the battle had started, the new migrants first established control over Sabo where they attacked those who had opposed their plans. Seriki Hausawa Abubakar’s house was burnt and, although he was able to escape, his wives and children were killed (Sanni 2000: 34).Then the fighters crossed the strip of land separating Sabo and the locally settled parts of Sagamu into an area known as Ajegunle, again suggesting that the local challenge of Orò was planned as a general attack on a wider community which they saw as oppressive. In Ajegunle, the men began to fight with the Sagamu citizens, who were led by local Orò, OPC and vigilante leaders in a battle that soon engulfed the whole settlement. In reflection of the considerable strength of the Sabo insurgents and the refusal by the police to intervene at this stage,26 the battle remained undecided until the national OPC intervened on behalf of Sagamu citizens. On the second day of combat, OPC members from other communities joined the fight and the battle moved back to Sabo where the rebels were defeated. The clash led to the loss of several scores of lives on both sides – official numbers referred to between sixty and a hundred people – and the destruction of many houses (The Guardian (UK), 20 July 1999; The Guardian, 23 July 1999).27 The 1999 battle illustrated the strong association of the moral community with both ethnicity and religion. While pan-Yoruba sentiment, evident in the cooperation with the national OPC, was associated with Orò activities in Sabo, the pan-Islamic politics connected to northern Nigeria inspired Sabo’s resistance to it. Beyond these ideological struggles, the material success of new Sabo residents, which was felt to have been obtained at the expense of the indigenous community, was considered subversive and threatening by the locals. After the battle, local rights to resource access and control were widely re-established based on indigeneity or ethnicity. Within a few months, the interests of the migrants were again subsumed under local and ethno-regional concerns. A Yoruba-speaker was installed as the manager of Mosimi Depot, and a Remo native was made the president of the NURTW at Kara. The kola trade at the Sabo market, which had been exclusively under the control of northern Nigerians, was opened, at least in part, to locals. Perhaps most importantly, the rights of Orò to visit Sabo were no longer disputed, and the Remo traditional elite was once more legitimised and empowered vis-à-vis outsiders. However, the battle had also illustrated important faultlines within the migrant community in Sabo. During the battle, the new migrants, most of them Hausa-speakers, had hoped to mobilise wider ethno-religious links, and as Sabo was dominated by the Hausa community, the refusal of the older migrants to support them seemed like a betrayal. Many of the established Hausa-speakers from Sabo, including the Seriki Hausawa,

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were physically attacked by the new migrants. Like the Seriki Hausawa, who had fled to the Akàrígbò’s palace after the destruction of his house and death of his family, many of the established Hausa-speakers sought refuge with friends, business partners and even family (through intermarriage) in the indigenous part of Sagamu during the battle, and some even fought against the insurgents. After a peace agreement was signed by representatives of the Sagamu and Sabo communities, Seriki Hausawa Abubakar was invited to undergo an additional installation to his office which would be based on local cultural practice for Muslims. He accepted and in 2000 he was turbaned by the oba after a ritual preparation for the occasion by representatives of Ofin’s civic associations (Alhaji Haruna Babali Shehu, 26 July 2002). The local installation ceremony of the Seriki Hausawa not only reflected widespread appreciation of the loyalty of those who accepted and valued local political practice, it also honoured and legitimised those who had chosen to belong to Sagamu as ‘Sagamu Hausa’. Despite the affirmation of an unequal relationship between indigenes and Sabo-based Hausa migrants through Seriki Hausawa Abubakar’s acceptance of local ritual, his installation was also understood as the recognition of Sabo, and the ‘Sagamu Hausa’ who dominated it, as a community in local terms. Indeed, the growing local acceptance of the ‘Sagamu Hausa’ was further confirmed by the allocation of two seats in the Remo local government to the community, enabling Sabo representatives to participate in wider decisions affecting Sagamu and southern Remo. Despite the opportunities offered to local migrants in the wake of the battle, the events were perceived as threatening by a number of new migrants. While some of them left Remo altogether after the conflict, others simply left Sabo. They moved either to Starlight or – especially if they were in Remo only for part of the month – to the Mosimi depot. Although both settlements have been visited by Orò, residents are united in their opposition to it. At the time of writing, the settlements at Mosimi and Starlight have no local representation at the Akàrígbò’s palace or at the local government level.28 In the case of Starlight, the lack of recognition is probably also explained by its association with immorality and specifically female threats to the community. At the same time, Starlight is – like many parts of southern Remo – also increasingly attracting Lagos residents who want to escape the crime of the former Nigerian capital and is developing into an extensive settlement (Oba George Awosanya, 17 July 2002). the end of opposition politics

Although the battle of Sabo in 1999 demonstrated the effectiveness of the cooperation of the Remo Orò, OPC and vigilante groups, the wider transformations associated with Nigeria’s Fourth Republic would introduce

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important divisions into local politics. The 1998–9 military-led transition programme had been widely criticised as undemocratic by the Yoruba political elite and pro-Awolowo politics of opposition to the central government dominated the transition to and early years of the Fourth Republic. Initially, President Olusegun Obasanjo, despite his Yoruba origin, was widely seen as a stooge of northern Nigerian and military interests. While his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was successful in many parts of Nigeria, the cultural-political association Afénifére and another AG-successor party, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), both closely associated with the pro-democratic NADECO, won the 1999 elections in all Yoruba-speaking states of the former Western Region.29 However, during its first term in office, the Obasanjo government responded toYoruba fears of continued military domination and won support from many sections of Nigerian society, including important Afénifére and AD leaders. As the PDP gained local acceptability, the possibility of party political competition allowed the re-emergence and intensification of past and present rifts within Yoruba politics. Eventually, the AD and several other organisations originally associated with a pro-Awolowo politics of resistance to the central government split, including the OPC.30 Disagreements over what attitude should be taken towards the Obasanjo government divided many Yoruba communities at the grassroots, and Remo, unlike in the past, was unable to maintain its political unity. After the split in the national OPC, Sodeinde’s OPC leadership was increasingly challenged by a rival faction in Sagamu. While Sodeinde had remained faithful to the OPC’s founder Fasehun, in 2000 a faction of the OPC emerged whose leader ‘Irawo’31 accused Sodeinde and his followers of abusing their power and associated himself with the rival OPC faction under Gani Adams. The emergence of two local OPC factions also contributed to the split of the vigilante group in Sagamu.32 In 2001, the two OPC factions in Sagamu negotiated a cessation of hostilities, and Ofin’s Balógun Kolawole Odumuyiwa was elected as the new vigilante leader. As Balógun Odumuyiwa was closely associated with Akàrígbò Sonariwo, his choice represented an attempt by the Akàrígbò to unite and establish close control over the vigilantes. Despite the Balógun’s leadership, the division between the Sodeinde (Fasehun) and ‘Irawo’ (Adams) faction of the OPC and vigilantes continued.33 At the same time, boundaries remained fluid. Several members of both the OPC and vigilante factions changed their affiliations. Meanwhile, the Remo Orò association remained undivided and provided a space for contact and cooperation between members of different groups. However, as the cooperation between vigilantes and OPC had supported the local traditional elites during military rule, the fluidity of these groups after 1999 also contributed to a weakening of the relative position of the local traditional hierarchy.

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Despite the continued foregrounding of political opposition to the central government, the lines of conflict among the Sagamu OPC and vigilante groups also revolved around the establishment of control over political and economic niches and individual advancement. Local opposition to the vigilantes under Balógun Odumuyiwa became more pronounced when Akàrígbò Sonariwo convinced the West African Portland Cement Corpora­tion (WAPCO), established south of Sagamu in 1972, to contribute to Sagamu’s community development in 2002. WAPCO’s development contributions were designed to improve the lives of young Sagamu people and included an industrial training centre as well as scholarships for Sagamu students. To control and facilitate the development delivered by WAPCO, a group of young Sagamu men under the leadership of Isiaka Salami then established the Sagamu Youth Development Association. However, the young men were disappointed when in 2003 they believed they were cheated over a large sum of money from WAPCO. As the Akàrígbò had just built a new private residence, Salami became convinced that the Akàrígbò had used the missing funds to build his house, and purportedly accused him of having deprived the Sagamu youth of a sum between 5 and 30 million Naira (Dakobiri 2004: 17–19). Eventually, the loss of political cohesion and the subsequent rise of economic competition in Remo OPC and vigilante politics ended Remo’s long-established politics of opposition to the central government. In April 2003, the OPC’s and the vigilantes’ control over security and policing in Remo – which ensured their value in terms of national political strategies – was thoroughly challenged. On a Sunday evening in March 2003, Kehinde Ogunjimi, a student in Abeokuta, was killed by men believed to be members of the Balógun’s vigilante group in front of his family’s house in Ewusi Street, Sagamu. His executioners allegedly claimed that Ogunjimi could not identify himself and that he looked like a known member of a local robbery gang. After Ogunjimi’s execution, his body was brought to the Akàrígbò’s palace. Both the murder and the removal of the body infuriated Ogunjimi’s family and friends, who contacted his fellow students in Abeokuta as well as local groups prepared to confront the Balógun’s vigilantes and Akàrígbò Sonariwo. On the following Monday, the groups mobilised by Ogunjimi’s murder – altogether several thousand young men – descended upon Sagamu and attacked the Akàrígbò’s cars and his palace. When the Balógun’s vigilantes retaliated, a battle ensued that soon engulfed large sections of Sagamu. In the confrontation, the houses of another traditional ruler, several chiefs and local leaders as well as local government buildings were also attacked and looted (The Vanguard, 18 March 2003, 21 March 2003). Among the houses destroyed by the mob was the Akàrígbò’s official palace – originally built in 1872 and rebuilt in 1921 – as well as the houses of the two Sagamu

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Entrance to the Akàrígbò’s palace after the 2003 attacks (Photo: Insa Nolte) leaders closely associated with the establishment of the vigilante force, Olísà Ogunlaja and Balógun Odumuyiwa. After the clash, speakers for the Akàrígbò suggested that the violence against the ruler and his chiefs had been manipulated for political reasons. The Sagamu-WAPCO relations committee supported Akàrígbò Sonariwo in stating that he had not received any money destined for community development from WAPCO. While the activities of the Sagamu Youth Development Association might have been simply based on misunderstanding, speakers for the Akàrígbò suggested that other factors pointed to a very carefully managed operation. They contended that the murder of Ogunjimi had been carried out by unknown forces who took the body to the palace to make it look as if the Balógun’s vigilantes had been involved. Also, there were allegedly indicators that the police had not only refused to intervene, but had encouraged and helped the insurgents. According to the oba’s representatives, the District Police Officer, Mr Fakorede, had accompanied local groups of fighters to the Akàrígbò’s palace before it was burnt (Dakobiri 2004: 19; The Western Post, 2004a). A few weeks after the clash, in April 2003, the AD was defeated in the Remo elections. This event would have been very difficult to imagine if

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Akàrígbò Sonariwo’s political control at the grassroots had not been undermined. Before March 2003, the control of the local security infrastructure was in the hand of groups associated with the Akàrígbò and the pro-Awolowo part of the AD. During the elections, the pro-Awolowo OPC and vigilante groups would have discouraged people from voting for the opposition party and possibly even manipulated election results in favour of the AD. However, after the 2003 battle the vigilantes and OPC lost political ground won over many years. The leader of a central government delegation imposed a dusk-till-dawn curfew on Sagamu and the government also sent in the paramilitary mobile police force to monitor the situation (This Day, 24 March 2003). Once pro-government forces had established a local base and removed the pro-Awolowo groups, the manipulation of the electoral process for a PDP victory became possible. Thus the Akàrígbò’s loss of control over a section of the local grassroots associations to rival groups and the mobile police permitted the electoral victory of Gbenga Daniel as the PDP governor of Ogun State. Because the 2003 election victory of the PDP – both in Remo and elsewhere – contradicted established political traditions, it did look, as one commentator put it, ‘programmed’, meaning stage managed (This Day, 22 April 2003). According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the elections were marred by extensive manipulation throughout Nigeria, and many serious abuses were perpetrated, especially by PDP members, including the intimidation and threatening of voters in order to falsify results.34 In Ogun State, the PDP was confirmed to have won not only the gubernatorial elections but also all nine representative and all three senatorial seats. As Ogun State was the home state, not just of pan-Yoruba icon Obafemi Awolowo, but also of the Afénifére leader Abraham Adesanya, this PDP victory boosted Obasanjo’s legitimacy considerably. Beyond Ogun State, the PDP was confirmed as the winner of the 2003 elections in all other Yoruba-speaking states, apart from Lagos State. But despite the obvious manipulation of the election results in the southwest – and unlike following the 1965–6 and 1983 elections – no widespread violence ensued when the election results were made public. In fact, the election results of 2003 were widely accepted by the population and even, after the initial shock, by most AD and Afénifére leaders. In particular the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) urged the AD political elite to accept the election results in good faith as ‘the will of the masses’ (This Day, 18 April 2003).35 A significant, though by no means overwhelming, degree of local support for and acceptance of the PDP victory in 2003 reflected a perception that Yoruba-speakers had renegotiated their place within Nigeria and that the nature of Yoruba politics was about to transcend the anti-government stance associated with Awolowo’s personal political legacy. As a result, the role of Remo within Yoruba politics, formerly a vanguard of opposition to

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the central government, would also be altered, with potential implications for the internal hierarchies of Remo. t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s o f awo l owo ’ s p o l i t i c a l l e g a c y

The acceptance of the 2003 PDP victory in the southwest illustrated the widespread perception that as a formerly marginalised or excluded group, the Yoruba had finally won access to central government. President Obasanjo’s Yoruba background was crucial to this perception. Despite the continuing pull of ethno-regional politics, the 2003 PDP victory in Ogun State as well as in most other states of the former Western Region36 incorporated Yoruba and Remo politics into the mainstream of Nigerian political negotiation. Having established the Yoruba (and Remo) for the first time as a potentially consenting part of the postcolonial Nigerian state, events after 2003 suggested that the relationship between the Nigerian state and its constituent groups was not rigidly fixed and that Obafemi Awolowo’s political legacy remained subject to change and reinterpretation. The rise of PDP leader Gbenga Daniel to the governorship of Ogun State in 2003 suggested the potential for change not only in Remo’s relationship to the Nigerian state but also in Remo’s internal relationships. Daniel’s rise was, in many ways, closely linked to the hagiographic treatment of Awolowo by sections of the Yoruba political elite, notably by the pan-Yoruba Afénifére association which was led by Abraham Adesanya. Born in 1922, Adesanya had been a member of Awolowo’s Action Group and had remained a faithful follower of Awolowo throughout the years of the First and Second Republic. Having finally taken on a position of national leadership after the death of Michael Ajasin in 1996, Adesanya organised both Afénifére and the pan-Yoruba party AD, which he considered to be an Afénifére-offshoot, along lines that somewhat resembled Awolowo’s (and Ajasin’s) principled style of leadership but lacked their charisma.37 In many cases, the Afénifére leaders used their influence to decide party primaries according to age and experience, thus deepening existing rifts by disfavouring politicians of the younger generation, and in particular those who had been too young to be involved in party politics during the Second Republic (1979–83). The Afénifére’s emphasis on the primacy of age meant that the personal ambitions of many younger AD members – i.e. those under fifty years of age – were disappointed.38 In a process resembling the outcome of UPN disputes of the early 1980s, a number of AD politicians who felt they had not been given due recognition by the rather monolithic Afénifére leadership crossed the carpet to the PDP. However, without Awolowo’s personal, ideological and moral influence over the party, and in view of declining popular opposition to the Obasanjo government, the number of political defectors was much larger than during the Second Republic. By September 2001, the group of ‘new’ PDP politicians in the southwest included the frustrated

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AD politician, successful businessman and philanthropist Gbenga Daniel. As a long-time financier of Yoruba nationalist politics, Daniel quickly won support from important opponents of the Afénifére, including Yoruba power-brokers and the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), for his PDP nomination.39 But most important both for Daniel’s nomination in Ogun State and his ability to establish popular support was the support of Awolowo’s widow Hannah (This Day, 12 October 2001), who had retained a following among young Awoists over many years and who was far more flexible in her understanding of her husband’s political legacy than Adesanya. As a symbolic gatekeeper of her late husband’s political legacy, Hannah Awolowo’s approval and later support of Gbenga Daniel both facilitated and legitimised the PDP victory in 2003. Despite some criticism of her openness towards the PDP from those who considered themselves the ‘authentic’ inheritors of the Awolowo legacy, Hannah Awolowo had been helping to prepare the ground for this victory for some time. In 2002, Hannah Awolowo had openly welcomed PDP representatives on the occasion of Obafemi Awolowo’s posthumous birthday which the Awolowo family has celebrated every year on 6 March since his death in 1987. On these occasions, friends, political associates and followers of the late Awolowo congregate in his hometown Ikenne to participate in an early, intimate remembrance service in the Awolowos’ chapel and a later, more public service and lecture at St Saviour’s Church, where they celebrate and discuss past and present politics. This group, which constituted itself as a family of Awolowo’s political heirs, was dominated for many years after his death by politicians critical of the central government and the military, and had become a focal point of Afénifére/AD popular display and demonstrative politics after 1999. However, in the run-up to the 2003 elections it was in the PDP’s interest to rebut the AD’s claim to be the sole representative of Awolowo’s legacy and PDP representatives wished to attend the celebrations. In her autobiography, Hannah Awolowo describes how the southwest Nigerian PDP joined the AD during a posthumous birthday in the year before the 2003 election by insisting that Awolowo’s legacy consisted of general pan-Yoruba sentiment rather than his critical view of the central government. Beyond her support for this shift in the ideological appropriation of her late husband, Hannah Awolowo also openly admitted to pique over her own sidelining within Awoist politics and her perceived neglect by the AD, which made her more amenable to the PDP’s advances: At Awo’s post-humus [sic] birthday on 6 March 2002, I noticed some developments. Politics had already started. So, a certain political party [PDP] got involved in the ceremonies although I did not ask them to be so involved. They insisted they had to do something since all Yoruba

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are Afénifére, and that mama [the author, i.e. Hannah Awolowo] should not be seen to be in support of one child against the other.   Probably because the other group which was associated with papa [Obafemi Awolowo] while alive appeared to have taken things for granted, the second group was more determined at getting my attention. So they came in full-force, erected canopies and provided entertainment. I was at first looking at them but I could not say people should not honour papa or his wife. (Awolowo 2003: 40–1) Hannah Awolowo’s personal appreciation of the PDP grew further when she was visited by the President in person during a bout of illness and when high-profile PDP members enabled her to complete the Dideolu Special Hospital (This Day, 8 August 2003), a hospital she was building to contribute to the infrastructural development of her hometown Ikenne. She rebutted criticism from the Afénifére leaders by pointing out that their ‘almost total neglect of the Awolowo dynasty’ had created a vacuum waiting to be filled by those who show ‘a semblance of recognition for my social standing in the society’ (Awolowo 2003: 42). Hannah pointed out that as the head of the ‘Awo Dynasty’ she was in support of anyone who was interested in upholding her husband’s social and political ideals, and her personal closeness – at the time – to President Obasanjo seemed to suggest that the PDP was not only a legitimate Yoruba party, but perhaps even a better Yoruba party than the AD.40 After the PDP victory in Ogun State, Hannah Awolowo’s openness towards the politics of central government also appeared increasingly attractive to some local groups and leaders, and a large number of rankand-file AD party members decided to leave their old party and join the PDP. Organised by supporters of the local candidate for the Ikenne local government chairmanship, Daniel Ogunderu, the carpet-crossing was staged in Awolowo’s hometown Ikenne during a visit by the PDP Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel. Among the banners that were held up to welcome Daniel there were those that proclaimed him the ‘Awolowo of our Era’ (This Day, 13 March 2004). Hannah Awolowo’s acceptance of the political overtures of the president’s party liberated the image of her late husband from that of a leader of opposition politics. She thus created and legitimised the possibility that Yoruba politics – which continue to be defined by the invocation of Awolowo’s intellectual and political legacy – will be opened up to include not only those who engage with national politics from a position of fundamental disempowerment and disenchantment but also those who are prepared and able to engage in the practicalities of government. But despite its political possibilities, Hannah Awolowo’s openness towards the central government also pointed to the ongoing importance of patronage politics in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, and she has been bitterly criticised by those who still identify

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Obafemi Awolowo Memorial programme (Source: Pamphlet reproduced with kind permission of Olóyè Dr H. I. D. Awolowo) with Awolowo’s legacy of critical engagement with the central government (Adebanwi 2008). However, irrespective of the debates over Hannah Awolowo’s representation of her husband’s political legacy, Obafemi Awolowo’s association

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Obafemi Awolowo Memorial programme, order of service (Source: Pamphlet reproduced with kind permission of Olóyè Dr H. I. D. Awolowo)

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with divine powers and spiritual influence, which began during his lifetime, and which has been encouraged and nurtured by his family in his posthumous birthday celebrations, persists and continues to expand. The fact that Awolwo’s historical politics have increasingly become subject to appropriation and reinterpretation illustrate and confirm his focal position within Yoruba (and Nigerian) politics, and in turn entrench his mythical importance for the Yoruba and Remo identity. As popular evocations of Awolowo increasingly represent him as an ethno-national hero rather than a real person engaged in specific political interventions, the growing gap between Awolowo the man and his myth evokes cross-temporal and cross-cultural comparisons with national heroes in other parts of the world. In this context, the Awolowo myth may reflect more general ideological processes associated with the historical imagination in modern political nationalisms. But at the same time, the Yoruba nationalism with which Awolowo is associated is not supported by state or other administrative structures and, perhaps as a result, Awolowo’s legacy has remained unstable and contested. Thus his political inheritance is both narrowed to exclude the real-life conflict in which he was involved as a local and regional leader over many decades and potentially expanded to include all those who consider themselves Yoruba and who, even if they stand for anti-Awolowo traditions, claim to represent Yoruba interests. For Remo, Awolowo’s mythical role has been more significant and less fluid than for the Yoruba nation, because it was associated with the unification and transformation of the area’s traditional hierarchy as well as many popular organisations. Although the Awolowo myth was not always reflected in the local organs of the state, in particular during military rule, it continued to be embedded in local structures that were highly successful in maintaining an independent local identity that could both be projected into the past (vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode and, to a lesser degree, other polities) and into the present (vis-à-vis the central government and the postcolonial state). But Awolowo’s success in Remo, perhaps more than elsewhere, has also obscured a clear view of his historical achievements because the political transformations associated with his historical agency have become generalised as part of a traditional and local identity often perceived, at least on the surface, in terms of essence. Reflecting Awolowo’s mythical importance for Remo, at present local leaders tend to convey their agendas, like Gbenga Daniel in 2003, by appropriating Awolowo’s name and agency. In this way, Awolowo’s status as a mythical representative of Remo and its existence as a distinct and independent community has remained unchallenged or was even – albeit indirectly – confirmed. However, both elite and popular political structures at the grassroots have been weakened by events since 2002. Moreover, Daniel’s electoral victory has reintroduced a degree of political competition into

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the previously closely unified polity, and even though this victory was not based on widespread popular mobilisation, it enjoyed some local support. Whether the tension inherent in this social constellation will lead to an enduring transformation of Remo’s internal and external relations in the future will depend not only on the politics of the Nigerian state but also on the ability of local leaders to create popular consent for such changes.

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The centenary of Awolowo’s birth in 2009 raises important questions about where Nigeria – and the Yoruba political tradition so largely incarnated in him – stands today. As Nigeria remains a strongly centralised state under successive civilian governments since 1999, Awolowo’s political vision of a decentralised Nigerian confederation of ethnic nations remains unfulfilled. Similarly, his demands for greater social equality contrast sharply with the gulf between rich and poor in Nigeria, which continues to expand despite the central control of significant national revenue derived from oil exports. And finally, since his death, the tentative political unity of the Yoruba nation vis-à-vis the central government has been ostensibly weakened as sections of the community have sought inclusion in the centre’s distributive regime. However, despite these apparent failures, Awolowo’s political memory remains iconic. As one of the big three nationalist leaders during the time of Nigeria’s independence, he still inspires pride and respect, even among those who disagree with his political ambitions and ideals. As the first Yoruba leader in national politics, he also continues to represent a mythical – or potential – Yoruba unity not only to his political heirs but also to his ideological opponents. In this capacity, he also continues to arouse fear and dislike by those who are suspicious of a Yoruba ethno-national politics. But most importantly, Awolowo’s rhetoric of devolution, redistribution and education continues to structure intellectual, ideological and even practical opposition to the central government in both southern and northern Nigeria, even if it is usually only attributed to him by Yoruba speakers. Thus, unlike any of his contemporaries, Awolowo has created a political legacy that includes a lasting template for critical engagement with the Nigerian state. The main reason for the ongoing popularity and relevance of Awolowo’s vision is the fact that it evolved in the course of his life-long engagement with local-level politics. As this book has illustrated, local political traditions can constitute a repository of complex and pluralist political repertoires that both complement and provide alternatives to the wider political processes structuring relations of power. Thus, in Remo, political traditions focused on creating and maintaining consent have remained of continuing

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importance over the past two centuries, despite important changes in the locality’s access to power and resources. As participatory political traditions have remained relevant at the grassroots, the political practices and ideals they inspire are compatible with national ‘prebendal politics’ (Joseph, R. 1987), but they also have the potential to go far beyond them. The endurance of local political traditions suggests that it remains important not to reduce African politics to a dependent variable of external causalities. While wider processes, from colonialism to globalisation, undeniably affect local relations of power, life in Remo continues to be shaped by continuities in particular modes of conducting politics. Like obaship, chieftaincy and Orò, some local political traditions have persisted, albeit not unaltered, under formal political arrangements of very different kinds. Other political traditions, such as the community development festivals, have emerged in clear response to a particular external situation but were later naturalised into Remo’s complex social and political relations. In this way, even modern local institutions frequently take on a neo-traditional appearance. However, this process is far removed from a putative ‘re-traditionalisation’ of the continent (Chabal and Daloz 1999: 45–92). As this book illustrates, the local engagement with political traditions is at least partly based on rigorous, creative and self-confident engagement with contemporary and international discourses. Remo leaders and intellectuals have rethought and refocused local relations of power through a wide range of debates, from the local engagement with Christianity and colonial rule to more recent concerns over development and democratisation. The wide and enduring appeal of Awolowo’s rhetorics of pan-Yorubaism, redistribution and education demonstrates that local African politics are not irrelevant to wider debate. Beyond responding to broader developments, local-level politics also inspire important – and in some cases crucial – contributions to them. As Remo’s political traditions include the privileging of popular consent over coercion, their endurance under different forms of governance also points to the limits of contemporary debates on democratisation in Africa. Awolowo’s career in Remo and beyond exemplifies that a politician’s struggle for popular support was often based on the mobilisation, directly or indirectly, of patron–client relations. This phenomenon confirms suggestions that even within the periods of democratic government in Nigeria, power continued to be exercised independently of the processes and institutions usually associated with democracy (Clapham 1993). At the same time, the importance of popular support in local politics, even under clearly non-democratic political dispensations, indicates that participatory and often egalitarian practices remained rooted in the everyday experience of and engagement with power. If the current discourse on democracy

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in Africa is too narrow to take account of such participatory elements, the definition of the political – and of democracy – in comparative and systemic approaches to Africa must be expanded to include a wider range of social routines. Furthermore, the continued local support for Awolowo, clearly motivated by ideological interest and associated with serious economic disadvantages, illustrates that Remo’s popular engagement with power went beyond the material concerns addressed by clientelism. Even beyond the local – and perhaps unusual – rejection of government patronage, Remo politics frequently addressed questions of historical meaning and morality. The political activities of local leaders, from the political enterprises of chiefs and obas to the generous donors of development projects, were deeply rooted in a civic ethos of contributing meaningfully to the community. But the fluid boundaries of the political meant that all activities and initiatives were constantly assessed and reassessed for their wider implications. Where such implications affected the community (or parts of it) negatively, for example by legitimising historical narratives of power in a subversive manner, groups and individuals routinely rejected material advantages in order to maintain their ideological and moral positions. By considering convictions and values more important than material advancement, Remo politics demonstrate that in rural Africa, notions of an ‘end of ideology’ are premature.1 At the grassroots, both political and development debates remain inseparable from the moral and ideological. Despite the dominance of Awolowo’s agenda within postcolonial Remo, local political agency was not driven by rigid notions of culture or identity. As Remo’s historical trajectory shows, its leaders and citizens have discussed and formed opinions on local, national and international developments both from the unique perspective of their locality and with the aim of furthering their own ambitions through the appropriation of new or unfamiliar practices, technologies and ideas. In this context the notion of an unchanging Remo identity in the past and present is an ideological construct embedded in the functioning of local institutions rather than a historical reality. However, it is a construct that has proven successful in a variety of political contexts (Bayart 2005). Following the constant reworking of local self-image and projection over time, this book suggests that Remo’s particular role in Yoruba and Nigerian politics is best understood as the result of historically grounded strategies and repertoires. Individual leadership played an important role in Remo’s transformation from a loose federation of towns within the Ijebu kingdom to a centralised, hierarchised and independent community. Although this change was linked to the wider transformations of the area, it was not determined by outside forces, and Remo citizens were able to draw on a range of participatory traditions to negotiate local change in relation to both internal dynamics

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and the surrounding political landscape. Thus Remo politics depended on the ability of local leaders to offer their prospective followers political visions that made sense both within Remo itself and with regard to its position visà-vis the rest of the world. During the 1940s, Obafemi Awolowo emerged as the most important Remo leader of the late colonial and postcolonial period. Like other successful local politicians before him, Awolowo was able to situate himself with exceptional success within Remo politics by drawing on a wide range of local and imported political traditions in order to gain popular support. Awolowo’s ability to adapt his political skills to pan-Yoruba and Nigerian politics also enabled him to transform Remo’s political identity. Through his rise to regional power in the 1950s, Awolowo helped bring about a unification of Remo’s traditional hierarchy behind his own party. Ironically, it was his seeming exclusion from national power from the 1960s onwards which ensured that Remo’s political unity endured for many decades in the face of overwhelming domination by the central government. Thus it was Awolowo’s particular insertion into wider ideological and practical political debates and struggles that made it possible for him to alter Remo’s political topography significantly. At the same time, Awolowo’s successes in the political arena beyond Remo reflected his understanding of local political processes. Awolowo’s early political focus on the creation of an enlightened and mutually supportive Yoruba nation reproduced not only his mastery of the complex hierarchical and participatory processes involved in the unification of Remo, it also revealed his insight that in order to win popular votes from his rival Nnamdi Azikiwe, he needed to offer an ideological vision that rooted the prevailing nationalist rhetoric in the local. Awolowo’s later politics reflected an even deeper understanding of the political dynamics that continued to characterise Remo politics. After his experience of continuing popular support in the face of shifting elite loyalties during the 1960s, Awolowo himself showed an increasing appreciation of non-elite political agency and he expanded his early reciprocal and developmental politics into an explicitly redistributive and socialist model that was clearly designed to offer ideological and moral visions to the masses rather than to individual political leaders. After failing to win the national vote in the Second Republic, Awolowo expressed his critique of the then prevailing patronage politics through counter-models of active civic commitment and grassroots development. Throughout his life, Awolowo’s visions for Nigeria were influenced by his insights into the political processes that characterised Remo. Acknowledging Awolowo both as a creation and a creator of Remo politics, it is important not to overlook the important enabling role played by his wife Hannah, whose family was deeply embedded in Remo politics and who had some experience of local leadership on which Obafemi could

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draw. Through her financial independence, Hannah enabled Obafemi to obtain the law degree that would give him the legitimacy and status required to challenge Nnamdi Azikiwe and his party, and thus to embark on his political career. By mobilising her own family ties in support of her husband’s agenda, Hannah also empowered Obafemi to mobilise lineage politics to party political ends within Remo. Moreover, by contesting direct elections and taking over important leadership positions while Obafemi was in prison, Hannah actively supported Obafemi’s political work. Since his death, her continuing role in Remo and Yoruba politics has been crucial to the public management of his political legacy. As Hannah provided Obafemi with personal and financial support as well as with privileged access to local political agency, it is obvious that Hannah was not only the more pragmatic partner in an often idealised and highly successful marriage, but also an integral part of her husband’s career. Hannah’s choice to combine her critical political agency with demure and ‘wifely’ behaviour illustrates both the possibilities and limitations of female political agency in postcolonial Nigeria. As this book has shown, the resources at the disposal of Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo included both means of coercion and the ability to create consent through the construction of convincing political arguments and narratives. But as the enduring opposition to Awolowo in some parts of Western Nigeria suggests, and as Ikenne affairs confirm, the use of force, or even simple manipulation, was only successful where it was geared towards and complemented the building of popular support. Because Awolowo’s political success primarily reflected his ability to influence popular opinion, his failure to fulfil his ultimate ambition and become Nigeria’s head of state suggests that his ability to win support at the grassroots not only had its limits, but was possibly also a flawed strategy in the wider context of Nigerian national politics. Even so, irrespective of Awolowo’s lack of success at the national level, his career illustrates that political leadership in postcolonial Nigeria can build on grassroots legitimacy and does not have to be dependent on patronage politics alone. But most importantly, the political history of Remo illustrates that rural Nigerians have participated meaningfully and consistently in local and sometimes even national politics for decades, and that they continue to do so. Remo citizens both engage with the state and participate in the ongoing renegotiation of the local community, and they represent neither an ‘uncaptured peasantry’ which prefers the state to stay away (Hyden 1980) nor are they oppressed ‘rural subjects’ subject to decentralised despotism (Mamdani 1996). The commitment of Remo’s rural constituents to political participation suggests that, despite the authoritarian interventions of the colonial and the postcolonial state and the persistence of violence in local political struggles, the potential for political transformation and reform exists at the

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Nigerian grassroots. This potential is shared by rural and urban communities in many parts of Nigeria, and it continues to reflect the ambitions and dreams of Obafemi Awolowo for an enlightened and liberated Nigerian state.

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CHAPTER 1   1. In this book, the terms ‘tradition’ or ‘traditional’ are used in a purely descriptive way to describe offices and structures that are legitimated through recourse to the precolonial past.   2. In this book, the term ‘civic’ is used to refer to institutions through which groups and individuals participate in the relations of power within the town. It does not imply a clear distinction between the state on the one hand and civil society on the other, because, as set out in Chapter 1, this would not reflect the reality of Yoruba and other African local-level politics.   3. This identification is encouraged by the fact that the Yoruba term ìlú connotes both.   4. According to Galtung, structural violence refers to constraints on human potential created by the existing political or economic configuration as opposed (though often linked) to direct or personal violence.   5. Translation: Book of the History of Ijebu and Other Towns.   6. Translation: Book of the History of Isara Town (Ijebu-Remo).   7. Translation: Observations about the Installation of Obas since the Beginnings of the World in the Town of Ikenne.   8. Translation: Society of Descendants of Oduduwa.   9. The AG lost the 1954 Federal Election in the Western Region to the NCNC. 10. Awolowo was Leader of Government Business in the Western Region 1952–4. 11. By that time, Nnamdi Azikiwe himself was also subject to a similar inquiry, although not one that had been instigated by the AG. 12. Despite some suspicions at the time that Adelabu’s death during a car crash in the Remo town Ode Remo had been engineered by his rivals, this seems extremely unlikely. Adelabu’s biographers firmly reject the idea (Post and Jenkins 1973). 13. In opposition to Awolowo, Onafowokan set up a local version of Adelabu’s ITPA, the Ijebu-Remo Taxpayers’ Association (IRTPA) in Ikenne during the 1950s. 14. Those who provided successful evidence against Awolowo during his trial were fellow politicians and (former) AG members. 15. Akintola also retained strong support in his home area even after he was discredited elsewhere after the spurious electoral successes of 1964 and 1965, which created much antagonism throughout the rest of the Western Region. In fact, local support for him remained strong even when Akintola’s new party, the NNDP, was itself riven by conflicts between Akintola and his Deputy FaniKayode. For example, Akintola’s ally S. A. Tinubu from the town of Iresi in Oshun Division felt drawn to Fani-Kayode during the 1965 elections, but was called before a meeting of local obas and other leaders and asked to rejoin hands with Akintola (Tinubu 2001: 126–30). 16. Olagbegi was succeeded in 1968 by Olóòwó Adekola Ogunoye, but after

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Ogunoye’s death, Olagbegi was reinstalled in October 1993. Although both Ajasin and Olagbegi have since passed away, the rifts reopened in Owo by this installation created violent conflict in the community for several years. 17. Akintola had grown up in Jos. 18. According to his autobiography, Azikiwe’s ancestors included several rulers or obis of Onitsha (Azikiwe 1970: 1–5). 19. This changed in the 1950s, when primary education in the Western Region was made free and compulsory. 20. This position was abolished in 1963 and Azikiwe became Nigeria’s first President of the Senate of Nigeria. 21. In the July presidential election of 1979, the winner was required to score 25 per cent or more in at least two-thirds of the federation’s then nineteen states. Shehu Shagari only won 25 per cent of the votes in twelve states and a 33.77 per cent share of the vote, while Awolowo came second to Shagari with 29.18 per cent of the votes. 22. FEDECO’s argument was that as Shagari had won 25 per cent in twelve states and 19.9 per cent in another, he had de facto satisfied the requirement as twothirds of nineteen states did not have to be rounded up to thirteen states but could be understood as exactly twelve and two-thirds of a state. Thus the 19.9 per cent won by Shagari in Kano State were understood to constitute more that 25 per cent of 66 per cent (two-thirds) of the votes cast in that State (for a detailed if critical explanation of the judgement, see Ajasin 2003: 278–81). 23. Azikiwe served as an adviser to the Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu until 1969, when he switched to the federal side. 24. The Nigerian People’s Party (NPP) was the successor to the NCNC. 25. President Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria (NPN) inherited the mantle of the Northern People’s Congress, but it significantly expanded its appeal in the south by obtaining support in the non-Igbo states of southeastern Nigeria. 26. Outside of Remo, there were also a number of powerful Yoruba businessmen and opinion-makers with close business links to the central government who supported the NPN. Most prominent among them was Moshood Abiola, who used his widely read Concord newspaper to discredit the UPN before he sought reconciliation with Awolowo. 27. Peel (1984) has pointed to the close relationship between the past and present in Yoruba political discourse, and has suggested that both are constantly evaluated in the light of each other. Local historians have indeed recently begun to suggest that Remo was united and independent of Ijebu-Ode in a past before written sources (Mamora 1991: 4–5; Oguntomisin 2002: 11). CHAPTER 2   1. In the 1950s this fact inspired a vivid comparative debate on Yoruba urbanism which contributed much to the development of urban sociology (see Bascom 1955; Mabogunje 1962; Krapf-Askari 1969). A detailed discussion of the relevant sociological and historical approaches to Yoruba urbanism in relation to Wirth’s suggestion that cities are identified by their social heterogeneity can be found in Hannerz (1980).   2. Contemporary evidence suggests that the relationship between different town institutions and the complex forms of communication between them is in itself perceived as constitutive of the community. While the oba and the Òsùgbó are considered as absolutely essential for the existence of a town in Remo, a town’s status and self-confidence increase with its associational life. Townspeople as well as local historians delight in the enumeration of traditional and modern

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associations possessed by their towns, because they feel that the very multiplicity of institutions illuminates its status and importance.   3. According to Oduwobi (2006: 154), olójà is properly translated, in the Ijebu context, as the ‘owner of the town’, not the ‘owner of the market’. The Ijebu term for market is òbù. The word ojà may be linked to the Itsekiri word aja, meaning a village, and it is likely that both words are cognates for settlement. I am grateful to J. D. Y. Peel for pointing out that the Ijesa office of the olójà may have the same etymology, as it also refers to the town rather than the market.   4. Remo pronunciation differs from Abraham (1958: 291), who spells the word Odì.   5. Translation: to open the calabash.   6. This practice evokes similarities with European medieval theology about ‘the king’s two bodies’ (Kantorowicz 1957), but a comparison of concepts and theologies of the royal body is beyond the scope of this book.   7. Ìwàjà is the abstract noun for ó wo àjà (ó wàjà), translation: he [a ruler] has died (Abraham 1958: 36).   8. These histories are reviewed and discussed in detail elsewhere (see Ogunkoya 1956; Ayantuga 1965), but as Oduwobi (2004: 3–11) points out, they have also been subject to powerful interests and misunderstandings. Neither the internal organisation of the Ijebu kingdom nor its geographical extension have been reconstructed in detail to date.   9. According to the dominant local histories, the future founders and rulers of Remo migrated to the Ijebu area from Ile-Ife under the leadership of the Orímolúsì of Ijebu-Igbo (Ogunkoya 1956: 53; Ayantuga 1965: 21; Onasanya and Oduyale undated [probably 1990s]: 7–8), or the Àjàlóòr un of Ijebu-Ife (Soriyan 1991: 1). From Ijebu-Igbo or Ijebu-Ife, the Remo party travelled to Ikanigbo quarter in Ijebu-Ode. The Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode later encouraged them to settle in Remo, and several leaders moved to Remo via Okun-Owa (Ogunkoya 1956: 53; Ayantuga 1965: 21; Onasanya and Oduyale undated [probably 1990s]: 7–8). 10. Town histories from Ipara and Ogere suggest that an early cultural hero of the settlement became its first ruler as an oba or olójà. Other towns, such as Ode Remo and Makun, claim to have adopted obaship directly from Ijebu-Ode (Epega [1919] 1934: 17–26). However, these histories often exist concurrently with histories in which the town’s rulers are said to have migrated from Ile-Ife. 11. To my knowledge, the earliest written version of a history leaving out an acknowledgement of Ijebu-Ode’s centrality for the royal migration where this had previously existed was narrated in 1937 by the Akàrígbò of Ofin, presumably to support and legitimise his struggle for paramountcy and Remo’s administrative independence from Ijebu. At the time this history was widely challenged by representatives of other Remo towns opposing the move for independence under the Akàrígbò’s leadership, and it was thoroughly ridiculed in court (see Beyioku 1997). More recent histories pointing to a direct origin from Ile-Ife tend not to be tied to past or present political factions within Remo. Like the Akàrígbò’s 1937 narrative, some histories of royal migration suggest that while the Remo obas were part of a wider migration to the Ijebu area, they did not have any relevant ties to the Ijebu capital (Adeleke-Adedoyin 1984; Mamora 1991). Some of the more recent oral interviews and written texts also refer to migrations that led (almost) directly from Ile-Ife to Remo (Alao and Oguntomisin 2002: 5–7; Ayodele 2004). 12. According to an oba of Ilara, princes from the Ekiti town Aramoko founded the towns of Ilaramokin (Ondo), Ilara (Yewa), Ilara-Eredo (near Epe-Ijebu, now in

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Lagos state), Okuku (Oyo) and Ilara (Remo). As a result of their common origin from Ekiti, special ties exist between these towns and Ilara (Oba S. Adekoya, 8 March 1998). 13. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 7. 14. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 25. 15. The relationship between oba and Òsùgbó may have been somewhat different in Ijebu-Ode, where the Awùjalè was also the head of the Òsùgbó (Adesanya 2005: 33). 16. Abraham (1958: 59) spells the word Apèènòn. 17. Further associations of the involvement of particular families with the earliest foundation of the town were implicit in the division of many Òsùgbó into two houses, called Ìjo and Igòn, each of which had its own head, the Olótùú Ìjo and Olótùú Igòn respectively. Membership was determined by family, and the Ìjo consisted of both members of the royal family and descendants of the ‘earliest’ foundation of the town. Most other representatives were members of the Igòn. Members from both houses were part of the Òfùwà, a council of executive advisers from the Òsùgbó to the oba. Members of the Òfùwà could be distinguished by their insignia of office, the Itagbè, a shaggy cloth worn either on the head or over the right shoulder. 18. The sound transcribed as ‘gh’ in Ijebu and Remo dialect does not appear in standard Yoruba. 19. To retain its integrity, the Òsùgbó must in particular keep its signifier of authority, the edan, which symbolised the importance of human consent and complementarity for the functioning of the community. As long as the edan of a particular town touched the physical surface of the ground, it was understood that the town could be influenced through magical practices performed on the human images of the edan. While the edan could ensure the continuing existence of a town even after its destruction, it was also one of the town’s greatest vulnerabilities. If a town’s edan was captured by the enemy in war, it was believed that its town would remain under enemy control, while if the edan was destroyed, the town was considered to have been destroyed. Its inhabitants would have to find new hometowns, otherwise, it was believed that they would be vulnerable to outside powers. During the nineteenth century, both Remo and Egba towns are said to have been destroyed like this. However, even documented destructions of particular towns have been flatly denied with the argument that the physical evidence in the form of captured or mutilated edan (now exhibited in museums or private collections) had already been stripped of their power by ritual specialists (Adedayo Adekoya, 13 February 1998). 20. Ogunmogbo’s Òsùgbó survived and attempts are being made at the time of writing to recreate the town. 21. In some towns, including Ofin and Ikenne, the Olúmale was the head of Èlúkú (Awopeju 1979: 111). 22. Useful historical and at times comparative descriptions of Orò can be found in Abraham (1958: 484–5), Bascom (1944: 50–61, 1969: 93), Dennet ([1910] 1968: 34–6, 53), Farrow (1926: 71–6), Frobenius (1912: 169–70), MortonWilliams (1964: 247), Talbot ([1926] 1969: 750–60). 23. A very detailed and interesting analysis of the role of women in Orò, Osùgbó and Egúngún can be found in Weisser (1992). 24. Frobenius notes that the women recognised the pieces of wood for the bullroarer, although they pretended not to know their function. However, when Frobenius acted as if to whirr the wood, the women were scared (Frobenius 1912: 169).

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25. As women are also members of families by birth, and as many women draw strength and power from the institutions and family networks of which they are part, women’s perceptions of their status within families is strongly situational and also dependent on age. 26. Examples of different forms of female involvement in the announcement or praise of Orò can be found in the Nigerian Chronicle (3 September 1909) and Flynn (1997: 117–18). 27. In the nineteenth century, annoyed about her exclusion from a certain aspect of town politics in Abeokuta, the powerful trader Madame Tinubu boasted that she would like to see Orò. After a threatening visit by Orò, she paid a fine to the association (Nigerian Chronicle, 10 September 1909). Despite a number of high-profile deaths of women who saw Orò, not all women who do so are killed (CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc. 121, Z1). 28. While Èlúkú was celebrated in Abeokuta by the beginning of the twentieth century, it does not appear to have had an explicitly political function (Nigerian Chronicle, 11 February 1910). 29. This relationship appears to be reflected in the suggestion that Orò was a cultural export from Egbaland to other Yoruba-speaking areas (Nigerian Chronicle, 1 October 1909). 30. Not all missionaries were unsympathetic towards Orò. Among the earliest written references to Orò in Remo are missionaries D. Hinderer’s and Dr E. G. Irving’s reports on a trip to the Remo capital Ofin in 1854 and 1855. On 18 December 1854, their party approached Ofin from Iperu, but as Orò was out in Ofin, the women of the group were not allowed into the town for some time (CMS, CA2/O/52, 18 December 1854). Irving notes that while he felt sorry for the women, he appreciated the calm and respectability conferred upon a town by Orò, as well as the ‘satisfaction [of men] having “check-mated” their women.’ 31. CMS, CA2/O/56, 21 June 1878. 32. CMS, G3/A2/O/11, February 1902. 33. CMS, CA2/O/56, 21 June 1878. 34. As with most associations, every town has its own hierarchy based on its particular history. Thus the Agemo leader in Imusin is called Nópa. 35. According to Drewal (1992: 114), the current Awùjalè has, for several decades now, not participated in this festival because he believes it not to be sanctioned by his personal religion, Islam. Those concerned with the execution of the festival continue to include his persona in their plans and interpretations. 36. ‘Adesola’, a.k.a. the Reverend E. T. Johnson, has linked Èlúkú to the Agemo masquerade. For a detailed description of Èlúkú and Orò, see also Nigerian Chronicle (30 April 1909–11 February 1910). 37. However, it is also referred to as the husband of Agemo (Nigerian Chronicle, 18 June 1909). 38. For a detailed description of the links between Agemo and Èlúkú, see Nigerian Chronicle (30 April 1909–9 July 1909). 39. Age itself is not easy to pin down in these narratives. While a historical dating of the settlement is clearly difficult in the absence of pre-nineteenth-century sources or archaeological evidence, historical settlement, perhaps in reflection of the importance of human agency and consent in town politics, does not appear to be as valued an indicator of age as political unity. Most histories of Ode Remo suggest that Iraye was a centralised settlement before Ode Remo. 40. See Soyemi (1995) for a more elaborate description. 41. Royal Palace Sonyindo, file IRCC/834/97. 42. This deity has many names, including Obalúwayé, Olóde, Ilèégbóná, Bàbá-Àgbà.

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43. There is some evidence suggesting that the popularity of Sàngó and Òrìsà Oko only increased during the second half of the nineteenth century (Ojo 1976: 372–3). According to Sonoiki (1990: 44), the father of a woman still alive in 1990 was the first to venerate Sàngó in Ikenne after he saw lightning strike a stone on his farm. 44. Osi belong to the parts of the town’s infrastructure that are not normally moved when a town moves, and some towns have osi in more than two places. 45. It is possible that the Egúngún taboo was only instituted after the defeat of the northern Remo towns around Makun in 1864 and 1865 (Segun Sodiya, 2 March 1998). 46. The fact that Remo’s Egúngún reflect the locality’s dominant mode of politics rather than Oyo practice appears to confirm Willis’s (2008) thesis that while the spread of this masquerade under Oyo influence has been well documented, the politics of Egúngún in the post-imperial age still need investigation. 47. Despite some opposition from within the Anglican Church, the colonial government officially recognised the ROF in 1943 (Oluwole 1992: 14–40). 48. The Ogboni Aboriginal Society is, like the ROF, a modern association with a national and international membership and institutions at different administrative levels. It is based on a universalised Yoruba traditional practice, and while its members are often drawn from the traditional Òsùgbó or Ògbóni associations (which are always associated with specific towns), the existence of the Ogboni Aboriginal Society does not predate the twentieth century. 49. This description almost exactly mirrors Bascom’s description of Yoruba towns, where he suggests that aYoruba town is composed of ‘segments based on kinship, organized politically into permanent, clearly defined wards or “quarters” and precincts or subquarters’ (1955: 450). 50. Other Yoruba terms for family include ìdílé, which describes the configuration of a nuclear family, a section of a lineage or a lineage, and ebí, which is usually taken to refer to the people who are family members. 51. Ilara settled both near Makun (not in its present location) and near Isara (in its present location) at different times in its history. As Ilara and Isara settled in close proximity for some time, Ilara town also includes several powerful families of Isara origin. 52. At the time of writing, most historians in print refer to thirteen original towns in Sagamu, and Onasoga’s reference to fourteen founding towns is unusual. 53. The struggle over Sotubo/Orile Ijagba also suggests that the theoretical moveability of communities is, at least in part, restricted by the lack of available land, which may itself be a result of a rapidly growing population during the twentieth century. 54. Lloyd’s suggestion of the existence of cognatic descent in Ondo and Ijebu has led to some discussion. Bender (1970) argues that while individuals trace their descent through the mother’s patrilineage, in practice in Ondo cognatic descent is not reflected in local norms. At the same time, Francis (1981) has pointed out that in practice the negotiation of cognatic descent was an integral part of many land cases in the Ijesa town Ibokun, at least during the colonial period. 55. Most chieftaincy declarations in Remo explicitly or implicitly accept descent both from the paternal and the maternal side as an appropriate qualification of the candidate. However, in disputes a female link can sometimes constitute a weakness for the candidate. 56. The first holder of this title was Obafemi Awolowo, followed after his death in 1987 by S. F. Sosan of Iperu. 57. A similar construction is the group of Olójà Mér ìndínlógún, which describes

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the group of sixteen Ijebu towns and villages whose Àgèmò priests converge annually in Ijebu-Ode for the capital’s Àgèmò festival. At present, this group includes nineteen Àgèmò priests, although only sixteen of them have dancing rights. However, the early Ijebu historian Epega ([1919] 1934: 15) refers to an ‘original’ eleven participating Àgèmò priests, but names thirteen participating settlements and seventeen participating Àgèmò priests. It is therefore possible that the association of the number sixteen with the Àgèmò festival in Ijebu-Ode has superseded an earlier group of eleven, and that the number of Àgèmò priests participating in the Ijebu-Ode festival has grown during both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. 58. Academic histories of Ijebu (and Remo) often ignore the town assemblies as a form of internal organisation. 59. According to d’Avezac, in the early nineteenth century Makun Omi was the capital of Idoko, a historical (pre-Obanta) name of the area constituted by these meetings. It is possible that d’Avezac’s informant in retrospect overestimated the importance of his hometown, or that, as in Remo, the leading town and the assembly town of the area were not the same. However, the old capital of Idoko was situated on what is today Imusin territory, and d’Avezac’s informant suggests that Idoko’s capital had moved from Imusin to Makun Omi earlier. It is therefore also possible that at the time of his informant’s residence in this part of Ijebu, the assembly place of the towns in the area had moved to Makun Omi (Lloyd 1967: 243). 60. In Ijebu-Ode the Pàm'pá was part of the important imperial institution Ilamuren, which consisted of great magnates and officials under the presidency of the Lísà who decided legislative, executive and judicial matters relating to the towns under the control of Ijebu-Ode. 61. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 14. 62. Older Remo speakers sometimes pronounce the word egbé, and it this is how the word may have been pronounced in the nineteenth century. Egbé is the standard Yoruba spelling which has been widely accepted today. 63. In Ijebu-Ode, both men and women born within the same period were members of age grades or Régbérégbé. The age grades gained great political importance in nineteenth-century Ijebu-Ode, where they very much dominated politics in the latter half of the nineteenth century and in the 1880s under the leadership of Balógun Ogunfowora even openly rebelled against the Awùjalè (Ayandele 1992: 23). Other Ijebu and Remo towns had a similar system, with age grades sometimes named after those in Ijebu-Ode but mostly after events which locally affected their towns independently (Salami 2001: 65). 64. The Lópèérèè existed in both Ijebu and Remo towns but had – perhaps because few Ijebu towns were affected by the wars of the nineteenth century – much greater significance in Remo. 65. Here Remo pronunciation differs slightly from Abraham (1958: 332), who spells the word Ìyálóòde. 66. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 13. 67. These former Remo towns may have found it easier than other towns in comparable situations to accept their separation from the rest of Remo because of the economic and cultural advantages enjoyed as a result of their proximity to Lagos and the lagoon. However, for the largest former Remo town Ikorodu the fact that its relations with Ofin continue to be characterised by an ongoing political rivalry may have played a role as well. Ikorodu-Ofin rivalry is explored in slightly greater detail in Chapter 6. 68. The proliferation of family, quarter and town names in this area mean that some

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of these names exist elsewhere in Remo. Two farming villages called Agbowa exist in southern Remo and a settlement called Itakete existed in the north of Remo between Isara and Eposo (today settled in Ode Remo). This Itakete was destroyed in the nineteenth century and has only recently been resettled as a farming village. However, while the multiple existence of settlement names makes it possible to reinterpret the histories of these settlements in various ways, it also points to the close ties created by the movements of people who re-created and adopted these names. 69. Local authors referring to these towns as former Remo towns include Epega ([1919] 1934: 17), Soyemi (1987: 50–1), Soriyan (1991: 1–2), Beyioku (1997: 47–50) and Olugbile (2000: 34). 70. The historically important town of Okun-Owa continues to be recognised as an important settlement place for many Remo leaders on their journey from Ijebu-Ode, who went on to found their independent settlements from there. It is possible that its role as a centre of dispersal reflects a past high status of Okun-Owa among the Remo towns, which was undermined by Ofin’s rise to power. Thus at least one history of Ofin points out explicitly that Okun-Owa was not senior to Ofin at any time. Ayodele suggested that: ‘On arrival at Okun Owa, there was no physical confrontation between the Akarigbo and the Okun Owa people. Akarigbo settled peacefully with the former settlers, but Akarigbo being more powerful dominated the settlement and ruled over the whole settlement’ (Ayodele 2004: 23). This claim is emphatically rejected in histories of Okun-Owa, which suggest that as a settler the Akàrígbò recognised the seniority of the existing community of Okun-Owa and its rulers (see Abiodun 2001). 71. In contrast to historians like Epega and Soriyan, a list of Remo towns produced by Ayodele (2004: 5) completely ignores any towns situated outside the presentday administrative boundaries of Remo, even Ikorodu, implying an essential sameness of the Remo group of towns in past and present. 72. However, there are exceptions. For example, the Ilakan Agemo from Aiyepe does not participate in the annual festival of Ijebu-Ode, and the dialect spoken in Afo, also in Aiyepe, is distinctly Remo rather than Ijebu (Oduye 1987: 6, 15). 73. While more research on the historical politics of the eastern Ijebu towns is needed, Ilakan and Afo have been represented on Map 1 as Remo towns for the early nineteenth century primarily to indicate the possibility of a historical adjustment of the eastern boundary of the Remo towns (see page 66). 74. Interestingly, some of the western Ijebu towns continue to struggle for acceptance from Ijebu-Ode. During the 1990s, the oba of Okun-Owa repeatedly found that his town was omitted from the list of Ijebu towns in the annual brochure for Ijebu’s national Obanta Day published by the Ijebu-Ode Development Association (Abiodun 2001: v). 75. The fact that Oko was once situated in Ijebu and subsequently migrated to the area today considered the north of Remo is accepted by all sides, although the present ruler of Oko challenges the area’s inclusion in Remo (Nolte 2002: 375). The dispute over Oko’s origin as well as the interpretation of the town’s migration is linked to the political control over the area north of Isara as well as the status of the Oke-Ona group in Abeokuta and is extremely complex (Osindeinde et al. 1980: 13; Tejuoso 1991: 209–10). CHAPTER 3   1. The transatlantic slave trade was officially abolished in 1807 by Britain, and the Netherlands and France followed in 1814 and 1815 respectively. However,

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according to Smith ([1969] 1988: 75), between 7,000 and 10,000 slaves per annum were sold in Lagos until the British occupation in 1851.   2. Crowder (1962: 311) disputes the usually accepted date of c.1825 and argues that the destruction of Owu – the end of the war – must have taken place around 1820. Biobaku ([1957] 1991: 13) suggests that the Owu war began in 1821.   3. Johnson ([1921] 1976: 223) claims that these towns were subjugated by the allied army, but this is probably a misrepresentation. Two of the five important Ijebu war chiefs mentioned by Johnson in this context were natives of the Remo towns involved. According to Idowu Onadeko, the Odemo of Isara, Kalejaiye and Ogunade were natives of Isara and Ipara respectively (Oba Onadeko, 13 March 1998).   4. Biobaku ([1991] 1991: 19) dates the war to the year 1832. Johnson ([1921] 1976: 248) dates this war to 1819, which is too early, as it predates the accepted date of foundation for Abeokuta, which is either 1829 or 1830.   5. In his Intelligence Report of the Ijebu Remo District of Ijebu Province, Abell (CSO 26, 135: 6) gives this number, but no town names. According to Johnson ([1921] 1976: 55), Iperu and Ode Remo were not among those defeated but suffered under siege.   6. CMS, CA2/O/52, 17 May 1855.   7. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 5.   8. CMS, CA2/O/52, 16–18 December 1854.   9. CMS, CA2/O/52, 18 December 1854. 10. CMS, CA2/O/49, 18 December 1854. 11. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 7. 12. Narratives originating from Ofin and Ikorodu suggest that Ikorodu was founded by the son or sons of Akàrígbò Koyelu, making it a town subordinate to Ofin. However, since the 1860s, Ikorodu’s relationship to Ofin has been characterised by rivalry, and it is highly likely that the alternative myths of origin, first recorded by Governor Carter in the 1890s, which linked Ikorodu – like many northern Remo towns – to Ijebu-Ode were either initially mobilised in this conflict or derived from a privileged relationship with Ijebu-Ode in the early nineteenth century. 13. After 1864, the victorious Egba army refused to return to Abeokuta and settled in Makun. An intervention by Lagos drew a part of the Egba army to Ikorodu, where their siege was ended by a Lagos attack in May 1965. (The remaining Egba troops at Makun were defeated shortly afterwards by a joint Ibadan/Ijebu Remo army.) The defeat of the Egba in Ikorodu by Lagos brought Ikorodu under close control from Lagos (Phillips 1970). 14. NAI, CSO 26, 135: 8. 15. This mid-nineteenth-century settlement is not included in Map 1 (see page 66), which instead shows Makun’s settlement in the west of Remo, which it occupied in the early nineteenth century. 16. Translation: The deity mounts a water pot of beauty. This name indicates a shrine near a river. 17. None of the towns resettled in Sagamu had lost their farmland, and while some of the towns had been destroyed in the campaigns of 1861–4, they could have resettled on their land. Equally, not all destroyed towns moved to Sagamu. 18. According to Oduye (1987: 1), Ago-Iwoye was constituted by seven communities including Ibipe, Isamuro, Idode, Odosinusi, Igan, Imosu and Imere, which agreed to settle together and found the Ijebu town of (then) Ago-Meleki, now Ago-Iwoye. According to the Daily Sun (20 May 2004), it was constituted by eight communities including the above and Mamu.

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19. According to Oduwobi (2000: 249–50), Ijebu-Igbo was founded by the five communities of Okesopin, Ojowo, Atikori, Oke-Agbo and Japara. 20. According to Ogunremi and Adeniji (1989: 9–10), Odogbolu was founded by the eight communities of Efiyan, Idena, Odoyangan, Odogbon, Odolayanra, Ado Oloro, Iloda and Ikosa. 21. According to Oduye (1987: 1), Aiyepe was founded by the communities of Aba, Afo, Idobiri, Ilakan, Ololubisanwa and Odolowu, a town originally founded by refugees from Owu in the 1820s. 22. In practice, there may have been little difference between these forms of representation. Town rulers required to maintain distance from the public because of their status would likely send Òsùgbó representatives to negotiate on their behalf, while Òsùgbó members would strive to represent the town in a manner agreed by its ruler. See Ogunremi and Adeniji (1989: 25) and Oduye (1987: 20). 23. A number of such treaties were signed by local rulers at the time, but the existence of this treaty has not been confirmed by British sources to date. 24. CMS, CA2/O/49, 02 January 1855. 25. The widespread disdain for Christianity Ayandele (1983: 91) describes for pre-1892 Ijebu certainly existed in many Remo towns, where converts to Christianity were often harassed or expelled. The lay preacher resident in Ofin in the 1850s, a Ghanaian liberated in Sierra Leone, was forced to leave Ofin by the people of neighbouring Iperu after a few years (CMS, CA2/O/56, 21 June 1878). 26. Ijebu-Ode had become highly unstable after the ascendancy of pro-trade Balógun Onafowokan at the expense of the oba, and was threatened by attack from the northern Ijebu town of Ijebu-Igbo which continued to support the blockade on Ibadan throughout Ibadan’s war with the Ekitiparapo (1877–93). 27. The majority of the Remo towns appear to have heeded this advice, but some troops joined the Ijebu forces. Others, presumably attempting to negotiate relationships with Ijebu-Ode carefully, simply arrived too late to participate in the decisive battle near Magbon. 27. Also, the Ikorodu leaders at the time were in favour of formally joining the Lagos administration. 29. Captain Reeves Tucker put a damper on local attempts to reduce Ijebu-Ode’s influence after his appointment in 1903. 30. CMS, CA2/O/56, 21 June 1878. 31. The relative sympathy of rulers to Christian missionaries, contrasted with the hostility of the Òsùgbó, echoes developments in Abeokuta between 1845 and 1867. The war chiefs, concerned with external relations, were pro-mission, while the Ògbóni remained anti-mission until Christians became numerous in the townships and started to join the Ògbóni. 32. NAI, Ijeprof. 8/8, Extract G.61. 33. NAI, Ijeprof. 8/8, 02 September 1933. 34. NAI, Ijeprof. 8/8, 20 June 1892. 35. It was widely alleged both by Remo leaders and colonial officers that the Óòni had only supported the Akàrígbò because he had received £50 from Ofin for his services, but his declaration was published in the Gazette No. 9 of 28 February 1903 and thus became accepted historical information (Ijeprof. 8/8, 02 September 1933). CHAPTER 4   1. While it is dangerous to project census data into the past, this argument is supported by the fact that in 1963 the majority of rural Remo citizens (i.e. those

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living in the towns outside Sagamu) were Christian, whereas the majority of Sagamu citizens – which by that time included not only local Muslim traders but also a very successful quarter of northern Nigerian traders, Sabo – were Muslim (Census Office of Nigeria 1963: 115).   2. It appears that local perceptions of Remo as overwhelmingly Christian at this time are a generalisation reflecting the importance of its Christian elite. While it is dangerous to project census data into the past, by 1952 only 27 per cent of the Remo population were officially Christian, while 36 per cent each were Muslims and traditionalists (Peel 1967: 295). However, eleven years later, the overall number of Christians (42.7 per cent) had almost caught up with that of Muslims (45.6 per cent) and only 11.7 per cent of the population were traditionalists (Census Office of Nigeria 1963: 115). No religious data has been included in a census since then, but Christianity is frequently considered the majority religion of Remo today (see also Laitin 1986: 18).   3. Confirmed polygamists were accepted as full communicants in Remo’s Methodist church only in the 1950s.   4. In Iperu, a small local group called the Joyful News Evangelists also worked successfully for the Methodist church by running a local clinic.   5. During the 1898 conflict in Iperu, a government clerk from Sagamu warned the townspeople and the ruler that the ejection of Thompson would have dire consequences for the town and the matter was dismissed.   6. In most conflicts, the government appeared to be partial to the Christians. In Ikenne, the ‘ABD’-war of 1902 was started by an Egúngún masquerade who waved a booklet for writing classes.The Christians were offended and the booklet was snatched by a woman, although women must not touch the Egúngún. The Egúngún association then destroyed the Wesleyan Church, and an angry crowd expelled all Christians from the town. However, the Christians went to Sagamu and returned with Hausa soldiers who arrested the masqueraders. The Egúngún were prosecuted in Lagos and had to pay a fine of £200 (Soriyan 1991: 310).   7. The small town of Gbogbo near Ikorodu, where an early Methodist community thrived by 1896, was an exception to this development. Ikorodu moved from the Ijebu to the Lagos-based Faji Circuit in 1912 (Paulsen 1972: 111–13).   8. According to Paulsen (1972: 132), young men from Ago-Iwoye who had worked in Ode Remo took the doctrine back to their hometown and then put pressure on the WMMS to send an agent.   9. Cassava is easy and cheap to produce and was grown in Remo before 1892. However, the cassava grown in Remo (and Nigeria generally) has a high prussic acid content which must be removed before consumption. As reliable technologies to achieve this were not known locally at the time, cassava remained a marginal food. After 1892, educators from Lagos brought technologies for the effective removal of prussic acid to Remo, where it was quickly developed into a local industry (Okuseinde forthcoming). 10. It is difficult to obtain comparable population data for both towns during the interwar years, but by 1952 Sagamu had more than one and a half times the population of Ijebu-Ode with 39,100 inhabitants to Ijebu-Ode’s 24,600 (KrapfAskari 1969: 29). 11. Remo pronunciation and understanding differ from Abraham (1958: 151), who spells the word egurè and notes it as an Ijebu word for town or village. 12. Prominent Anglicans from Ijebu and Remo included Bishop S. O. Odutola (Ibadan), Bishop I. G. A. Jadesimi (Ibadan), Bishop Okusanya (Ondo), Bishop S. I. Kale (Lagos) and Archdeacon Efunkoya. Prominent Methodists (Wesleyans) included M. O. Dada, the first African Chairman of the West Nigeria District;

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N. O. Salako, President of the Nigerian Methodist Conference; Amos Solarin, Chairman of the Lagos District; Professor Bolaji Idowu, Chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Ibadan; and T. T. Solaru, the Director of Oxford House Ibadan. 13. Apart from Christopher Sapara Williams (1855–1915), this group included the Anglican Bishop James Johnson (1836–1917), the pastor of Araraomi church Mojola Agbebi (1860–1917), S. A. Coker of the African Church, the editor of the Nigerian Times James Bright Davies (1848–1920), the editor of the Lagos Weekly Record John Payne Jackson (1848–1915), the editor of the Nigerian Chronicle Chris Johnson (1864–1946) and Herbert Macaulay (1864–1946), a surveyor and one of the founders of Nigerian nationalism. Other members included lawyers Kitoye Ajasa and J. Egerton Shyngle (1862–1926), civil servant John Otunba Payne, merchant Samuel Herbert Pearse (1866–1955) and businessman Candido da Rocha (1867–1959) (Okonkwo 1982). 14. Details of the long-standing conflict which, involving several Ofin chiefs, eventually led to the installation of Adedoyin are explored in Oduwobi (2003). According to Joshua (1989: 30), Adedoyin went to see Oyebajo Torungbuwa in exile at Ososa and asked for his backing as well as the removal of a curse widely believed to have been placed by this ruler upon the throne, which was said to have caused the premature end of Akàrígbò Awolesi Erinwole. 15. The rivalry between the brothers was resolved in a Solomonic judgement by the British, who asked both of them what should be done with the crown if they were not given it. Adeniyi Pabiekun thought that in that case the crown should be passed to the next branch of the royal family, while Adedoyin answered that the crown should be passed to his brother (Joshua 1989: 28–30). 16. Although Revd Mellor did not remarry after the death of his own wife, he appears to have felt comfortable with Adedoyin’s polygynous household. 17. Dedicated to his congregation, Mellor took a course in dentistry during furlough in 1923 to help people with minor dental ailments. His wife Cecilia opened a dispensary at Oko, Sagamu, and set up a number of maternity centres with young widows trained as midwives at Ilesa Hospital (Ayodele 2004: 237–8). Mellor also helped to found Sagamu Girl’s School (1930) and the Methodist Women Teacher Training College (1933), and sent aspiring teachers to Wesley College, Ibadan, the United Missionary College, Ibadan, and the Methodist Teacher Training College, Ifaki-Ekiti. His support of local educational efforts was not limited to his religious constituency, and in 1937 Mellor became the chairman of the committee raising funds first for secondary schools in Remo, where he worked together with the Anglican Revd Canon. B. A. Falade, and was supported by the Muslim community headed by Alhaji Rufai Ogunjimi (Ayodele 2004: 190–1). Mellor also provided organisational help and financial support to the building of the Muslim Ansar-ud-deen school in Makun, Sagamu, which was opened in 1942. 18. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1937. 19. When the Remo circuit was Africanised in 1950, Mellor was transferred to Badagry. 20. Since his death, the former Agbowa Methodist Church has been renamed the Reverend Mellor Methodist Cathedral and a mausoleum was built in his memory in 1995. 21. After their return to Ikenne, Odubote was the first Baba Egbé of Saint Saviour’s Anglican Church Ikenne and later became an adviser of Ikenne’s ruler. 22. Onafowokan attended St Saviour’s Primary School, Ikenne, St Paul’s Anglican Primary School, Abeokuta, and later CMS Grammar School, Lagos.

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23. Titles included The Mystery of Yoruba Gods, Imole Awon Ti Nwa Oluwa (translation: The Light of Those Who Seek God), Sonibare, Ihamora Oluwa (translation: The Armour of God), Afigbagbo b’Olorunrin, Ire Eniyan (translation: The Goodness of Human Beings), Iwe Itan Ijebu ati Ilu Miran (translation: A History Book of Ijebu and Other Towns) and Ifa – Amona Awon Baba Wa (translation: Ifá – The Guide of Our Fathers). In the 1930s Epega sold most of these books for four to six pence, with higher prices for his book on Ifá, which cost 21 shillings. Publication dates for these books are difficult to ascertain, as many of the books appear to have been published in small print runs first, to be expanded and republished in response to demand. 24. Moreover, it is the only written history of Remo based on a wide range of oral sources that at the time referred to living memory of the town assemblies, and Epega was in contact with – and respected by – historians beyond the boundaries of Remo and even Ijebu. Apart from Ifá, Epega’s history draws on fourteen years of research and acknowledges information from Otunba Payne and Bishop Johnson as well as a number of anonymous and named oral historians from different Ijebu and Remo towns. Epega in turn advised and trained other historians, including, in 1949, the young Saburi Biobaku for his dissertation on Egba history. 25. As Epega’s history remains very difficult to obtain commercially, Epega’s contribution to local history writing has also been neglected in the academic literature. For example, in Falola’s (1999) homage to non-academic Yoruba historians, Epega is mentioned only twice. 26. NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C32/1 (I), 07 June 1922. 27. NAI, CSO 21, IPR 30 September 1922. 28. Anger about this financial marginalisation, made even harder to swallow by a growing sense of status vis-à-vis Ijebu-Ode, was reflected in claims that Remo had been degraded to a ‘mere suburb of Ijebu Ode whilst in its palmy days under the Colony, it [had been] the brilliant and legitimate rival of Ijebu-Ode’ (NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C32/1 (I), 07 June 1922). 29. Major Ruxton, who reviewed the 1922 petition, pointed out – rather carelessly in view of the financial imbalances that inspired it – that he thought the expense of staff and buildings at Sagamu unnecessary. 30. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1923. 31. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1925. 32. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1924: 3. 33. For a description of Talbot’s life and a list of his publications, see his obituary by Meek (1947). 34. NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C32/1 (II), page 18. 35. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1931. 36. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1932. 37. NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C32/11 (1), 02 September 1933. 38. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1933. 39. NAI, Ijeprof. 8/8, 02 September 1933. 40. NAI, CSO 26, 135. 41. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1935. 42. NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C32/1 (1), 20 March 1933. 43. I am grateful to Hans-Heinrich Nolte for pointing out that having been born while one’s father was emperor (porphyrogenitus) was also an important means of distinction in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) empire. 44. However, despite the fact that the Gbelegbuwa family had last held the Awùjalèship in 1790, the throne had allegedly been offered twice to its most

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prominent member, the Victorian Lagosian intellectual and administrator John Augustus Otunba Payne, who, however, refused it both in 1895 and 1905. 45. The abídàgbà principle had not been applied entirely strictly in the past. Thus Awùjalè Ali Ogunnaike of the Fidipote family, who had supported the representations of the Gbelegbuwa family and died in January 1933, had not been born while his father was on the throne. Similarly, the Tunwase family had championed a candidate who had not been born during his father’s reign between 1915 and 1917 (Oduwobi 2004: 90–3). 46. As the Gbelegbuwa family was rehabilitated during the reign of the Fidipote family, the Anikilaya and Tunwase families expected to have their turns before the Gbelegbuwa could reign. 47. Gabriel Onafowokan’s maternal grandmother was a daughter of Odufowo, the first child of the forty-ninth Awùjalè Tunwase (1886–95) and the sister of the fifty-fourth Awùjalè Folagbade Adenuga (1925–9) (Oduwobi 2004: 96–9). 48. At the time, Sir William also represented the ex-Awùjalè Folagbade to the colonial government and attempted to negotiate a higher salary for the exiled oba. 49. NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C32/1 (II), 16 January 1936. 50. The letters contained town histories which denied the claim of the Akàrígbò to be the paramount ruler of Remo. They insisted that tribute, if it was paid at all, went to the Awùjalè in Ijebu-Ode, and that the Akàrígbò of Ofin was only a primus inter pares among the Remo rulers. All but one of these letters were signed by the respective rulers of the towns (NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C 32/1 (I), 15 October 1936, 27 November 1936, 02 December 1936, 28 December 1936, 15 February 1937). 51. For a partial transcript of their statements and a comment, see Beyioku (1997: 43–4). 52. After this decision, the diffusion of Indirect Rule principles and subsequent devolution of power from the province’s centre became more acceptable, and Ijebu-Igbo, which had also agitated for separation from Ijebu-Ode, was granted a sub-Native Administration and a sub-treasury in 1938 and 1940 respectively (Odunlami 2001: 57–8). 53. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1937, 1938. 54. This argument shares similarities with the notion of ‘despotic decentralisation’ (Mamdani 1996: 57–137). However, in contrast to Mamdani’s argument, in Remo traditional power was not directly associated with an unchanging historical community. Instead, it was used productively and innovatively by those in control of the local administration. cHAPTER 5   1. Odutola was reconciled with the Awùjalè in 1945, when a suit against the Awùjalè was thrown out of the Supreme Court and Odutola accepted a high chieftaincy title in Ijebu-Ode from the Awùjalè (Ayandele 1992: 117).   2. Odutola was adept at devising insults that would appeal to those enjoying the more traditional and symbolic expression of political intent as well. On another occasion he presented the Awùjalè, who had lost his right arm in the 1934 assassination attempt, with an ostrich whose wing had been amputated (Ayandele 1992: 116).   3. Already before the 1940s, about 9.8 per cent of Ijebu’s rural population (including that of Remo) had emigrated – permanently or temporarily – to larger towns and cities (Aronson 1970: 156).   4. The Congress had been founded in 1942 as the Federated Trades Union of Nigeria.   5. Rival newspaper editors Ikoli and Azikiwe were Ijaw and Igbo respectively.

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Meanwhile both Ikoli’s ally Awolowo and Azikiwe’s friend Akinsanya were Yoruba-speakers from Remo.   6. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 2428 (I), 28 July 1941.   7. See especially NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 2428 (I), 26 September 1941.   8. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 2428 (II), 27 June 1943.   9. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 2428 (III). 10. Wole Soyinka’s novel Ìsarà: A Voyage Around ‘Essay’ ([1989] 1991) revolves around the efforts of a group of educated young men from Isara to support the campaign of Samuel A. Akinsanya to become Isara’s oba between 1941 and 1943. The novel is not – and does not aim to be – historically accurate, and I have examined important historical dislocations in an earlier publication (Nolte 2005). 11. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 2746 (I), 12 November 1943. 12. According to Okuseinde (forthcoming: 8), a bag of gàrí sold for two pounds while the controlled price was ten shillings and six pence. By November 1944, fixed prices were at a quarter of the market price. 13. The Aláké directed the police to set up blocks along the roads to Ibadan, Sagamu, Ijebu-Ode and Lagos to stop and search the loads of female traders. Police officers often seized goods without compensation under the pretext of requisitioning it for the war effort. The suspicion was widespread that the Aláké sold the seized goods on to the government at the specified price (Johnson 1982: 150). 14. Translation: Do not let it be spoiled. 15. The family had a house in Oke-Ado, an area of the town where many houses were owned by migrants from Ijebu and Remo. Hannah’s textile shop was in Gbagi, also an Ibadan area settled mostly by migrants, many of them railway workers. 16. Otelaja (2006) sketches the educational experience of a (then) Traditionalist girl during the 1940s. Despite the difficulties presented by overwhelmingly faithbased schools, the subject of his biography, Mrs Grace Otuola Awoyemi, was able to eventually obtain several London-based qualifications. 17. SLI, file 2443. 18. When Awolowo had to auction his house in Ikenne to satisfy his creditors, Adedoyin had bought the house, and he had later resold it to Awolowo at only a nominal profit. 19. NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1948. 20. Translation: Society of Native-Born Descendants of Ijebu Remo. 21. SLI, file 2443. 22. Ijebu historian Oduwobi (2004: 194–5) comments on this development: ‘The elevation of the Remo area to Divisional status in 1951 accelerated a process in motion. As a distinct Division, the area became a major geo-administrative unit … The creation of Ijebu-Remo Division had the effect of conferring a political identity, which under present-day arrangements is symbolized by the appointment of an Akarigbo as one of the four joint chairmen of the Ogun State Council of Obas.’ 23. Translation: Society of Descendants of Oduduwa. 24. Other founding members included Oni Akerele, Akintola Williams, Saburi Biobaku, Abiodun Akinrele and Ayo Rosiji. 25. Other members of the re-launching included several of Awolowo’s former contemporaries from the NYM, including Sir Adeyemo Alakija, H. O. Davies, Akinola Maja and Bode Thomas. 26. The Awùjalè at first decided against supporting the Egbé because he believed that

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the Ijebu people were descendants of Olu-Iwa and not descendants of Oduduwa (Arifalo 2001: 199). 27. Sir Chandos was formerly called Theodore Hoskyns-Abrahall. 28. The Resident thought that the councillors were advised to await the outcome of the civil action before committing themselves further (NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1949). 29. With the Local Government Ordinance of 1952, the number of ex officio members of the local (town) councils was reduced to one half. In the Divisional (formerly Native Administration) Council the number of ex officio members was reduced to a third, and that number was later reduced even further. The Divisional Council also obtained the sole authority to rate and collect tax in Remo (NAI, CSO 26, IPAR 1952). However, in an acknowledgement of the obas’ influence over the tax collection process, their salaries were changed from fixed stipends to percentages of the overall tax revenue. For example, as from 1952, the Akàrígbò’s annual income was to be 12.5 per cent of the Remo tax revenue (Adeleke-Adedoyin 1984: 38). In 1954, traditional rulers were relieved of their Native Court presidencies, and the new Customary Court judges were appointed by the Judicial Service Commission (Sklar 1963: 26–7). 30. Although Ile-Ife is generally recognised as the place from which all other towns and their rulers originated, the Óòni himself is, in many local histories, considered the descendant of a palace slave of Oduduwa. 31. An informal meeting of AG founders took place in March 1950 in Ibadan. The party was officially inaugurated on 28 April 1951 in Owo. 32. The Egbé’s president Adeyemo Alakija publicly declared his support for the AG after the AG’s official creation in 1951, and many branches throughout the country followed suit. 33. At the time of writing, Sabo and other areas of settlement south of Sagamu have also begun to expand onto the land of other communities, especially Ijagba (Oba Samson Adesanya, 14 August 2002). 34. Details of the electoral college system and migrants’ voting rights are given in Sklar (1963: 28–32). 35. During the time of Awolowo’s stay in the UK, the West African Students’ Union – patronised by many future African political leaders – engaged forcefully with both racial discrimination and colonial policy (Garigue 1953: 68). CHAPTER 6   1. The discrepancy between the reference in the majority of historical and contemporary documents to ‘St Saviour’s Church’ and the sign of ‘Our Saviour’s Church’ at the church in question in Ikenne was not resolved at the time of going to press.   2. SLI, file 1730, 26 May 1938.   3. SLI, file 2500.   4. Disputes over the land in question continued to divide the Ikenne community, and Awolowo had to travel home several times over the following years to settle them. He often mobilised migrants to travel with him (SLI, file 1717).   5. Among these families, the Obara had presented the earliest ruler of Ikenne at its present site. It also controlled a number of the paraphernalia associated with the rulership. While the Obara family exercised most power, the other two families resent any suggestion that they are or were at any time or in any form junior to the Obara. For about a century before 1930, the right to the throne of Ikenne had rotated among the three families of the Obara, the Orogbe and the Gbasemo, and with the death of Alákènnèè Emosu from the Obara family it was

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– in theory – the turn of the Orogbe family to present the town’s next ruler.   6. The Moko family’s claim to the throne of Ikenne lay in the contention that it represented the descendants of rulers who had dominated the settlement of Ikenne before it moved to its present location several hundred years ago. According to its representatives, the Moko family had not presented a ruler since the move of Ikenne to its present site because the last ruler from the Moko family had broken a taboo by ordering the execution of a suspected criminal without consulting the Òsùgbó.   7. The British only recognised the Alákènnèè as an oba in 1947.   8. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (I), 08 July 1949.   9. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (I), 23 June 1949 and 05 August 1949. 10. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (I), 17 July 1949 and 18 July 1949. 11. Members of the Obara family were the traditional keepers of the royal drums which were beaten during an installation. To threaten an installation against their wishes, Onafowokan’s faction produced their own set of Gbedu drums. 12. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (I), 17 August 1949 and 19 September 1949. 13. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (I), undated sheet no. 11. 14. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (II), 05 March 1950. 15. NAI, Ijeprof. 1, 3734 (I), 10 April 1950. 16. The additional policemen were put up in the Wayfarer Hotel and in Reverend Aina’s Store. See NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C23, 28 June 1952. 17. The Nigerian Tribune, 27 June 1952, refers to a pro-Adedoyin article in the West African Pilot on 18 June 1952. 18. NAI, Ijeprof. 2, C23, 09 September 1952. 19. According to Sklar (1963: 108–10), thirteen of sixty executive and inaugural AG members, i.e. over 20 per cent, were from Ijebu and Remo. Onabanjo (1984: 235), who bases his numbers on the 1963 census, suggests that only 6.1 per cent of the population of the later Western State (i.e. excluding Lagos and several groups of northern Yoruba-speakers) were Ijebu and Remo. However, the results of this census were subject to political interference and are very likely to reflect an anti-Ijebu bias. Nevertheless, Ijebu and Remo probably do not constitute more than 10 per cent of the Yoruba-speaking population, suggesting that this area was represented especially strongly in the AG. 20. This overarching pattern was neither simple nor static, and its complex dynamic was constituted by the political expression of historical local, communal and even sub-communal rivalries as well as the emergence of new political identities and alliances as illustrated by the unification of Remo. 21. Reflecting the growing influence of the AG in Lagos during the 1950s, T. O. S. Benson lost his Ikorodu seat in 1956 to Alhaji S. O. Gbadamosi. 22. As most local rivalries could no longer successfully be expressed through party political competition, they were suppressed and enacted as rivalries within the AG (SLI, file 2500). 23. Local struggles over the extent of the Akàrígbò’s power continued to exist throughout Remo. However, they were not usually expressed as party political rivalry, and they tended to be directed against the person rather than the persona of the Akàrígbò (SLI, file 2498, esp. 03 November 1969). 24. SLI, file 2500. 25. As in Ikenne, chieftaincy declarations created rifts in many communities throughout the Western Region. The 1959 Chiefs Law was designed to prevent any attempt to change the declarations in court. 26. SLI, file 2501. 27. SLI, file 2291, HCS/47/85.

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28. Meaning: Senior Advocate of Nigeria. 29. SLI, Supreme Court Judgement No. SC 288.1988. 30. Several sources from Ikenne and Idotun refer to the 1836 war as the time of Idotun’s destruction (Soriyan 1991: 44–52; Oba Michael S. Awolesi, 7 August 2002). Therefore my earlier suggestion that Idotun was destroyed in the late eighteenth century (Nolte 1999: 129, 305) is probably wrong. 31. Despite its vacancy, the status of the Alákènnéé has been upgraded to that of a Grade 1 Oba, but it has never been filled in this capacity. 32. The Ekiti towns underwent a process of political unification similar to that of Remo, although somewhat more slowly and in a less enduring way. Originally the administrative centre of Ado-Ekiti in the south was an NCNC stronghold, while many other leading Ekiti towns supported the AG (Osuntokun 1990: 63–5). CHAPTER 7   1. This may be one of the reasons why the AG was less successful in garnering regional support than its ‘rival’ parties the NCNC and NPC in the Eastern and Northern Regions respectively.   2. Business and trade associations worked towards obtaining regional economic monopolies or protected markets in exchange for party donations and political support. In the Western Region, for example, the Nigerian Motor Transport Union, the Nigerian Produce Buyers Union and the African Contractors Union were closely associated with the AG, and over 40 per cent of the AG members of the House of Representatives were also business people. Personal wealth and political influence became closely associated in all three regions (Traub 1986: 195–210).   3. Clearly, such regional ties were fluid. Although Akintola came to increasingly represent the interests of Oyo Yoruba-speakers in the AG, his early political career had close links to the businessman and political entrepreneur S. O. Gbadamosi, who had family ties to the Remo towns of Ikorodu and Ode Remo. Gbadamosi, one of the main AG financiers, had supported Akintola during his early career as a journalist and law student in London, where he qualified as a barrister in 1949. Gbadamosi had also been instrumental in bringing Awolowo and Akintola together in the first informal meeting of AG founders in 1950 (Osuntokun 1984: 4–50).   4. Access to market stalls, water supply and waste disposal facilities were perceived by many as dependent on party support, and many observers also noted that AG supporters were rewarded with access to jobs and bank loans. Also, the AG did not hesitate to use its power at the regional level to exile hostile traditional rulers or to dissolve recalcitrant local councils, replacing them with AG caretaker committees.   5. According to Ige (1995: 218), Awolowo started this tour successfully in OrileOwu, a community strongly supportive of him and wary of Akintola’s hometown Ogbomoso. From there he planned to proceed to Apomu, Ikire, Gbongan, Ede, Osogbo and Ejigbo, where Awolowo had remained friendly with local rulers, but could later be persuaded to abandon the tour.   6. This event was surrounded by dispute and reflected the broad base of support for Awolowo within the party at this stage, because the party constitution proscribed vote by the ballot.   7. In interviews and conversations, both followers and critics of Awolowo have suggested to me that he was in fact involved in plans for a forceful takeover of government. However, due to the political bias of the trial, the available evidence

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remains too disparate to accept this argument with certainty at the time of writing.   8. The man at the centre of these allegations was Mr Ceulman, a South African Assistant Superintendent of Police who was brought to Lagos expressly for the interrogation of defendants and witnesses in this trial (Jakande 1966: 111–30).   9. The excision of the Midwest Region from the Western Region in 1963 was perceived by more conservative Yoruba-speakers as the central government’s punishment of the political opposition of the Western Region by diminishing its political influence vis-à-vis the other regions. Cooperation with the central government would, in their view, preserve the region’s remaining political integrity. 10. This and the following quote, as well as their translations, were provided by Oba Adedayo Adekoya (8 February 1998 and 9 February 1998). 11. The translation of òjé, which simply refers to a metal (lead), as a ring is based on my own experience of the regalia of òrìsà priests. I am very grateful to Karin Barber for pointing out that òjé in this context can also refer to a bangle. 12. Ọwó can refer to a finger although it is generally used to refer to a hand. See previous footnote. 13. Translation: Yoruba, Think. 14. A popular musical style. 15. It is possible that this was a general phenomenon. Even in Ijesa, where the NNDP had much support, it appears to have relied on stronger coercion than the AG in previous years (Peel 1983: 249–51). 16. Vaughan (2000: 109) points out that the regional authorities also amended the law to better control the traditional rulers, giving the authorities comprehensive powers to appoint, suspend and dismiss rulers from the Western Region’s House of Chiefs. 17. In Remo, the interest in education and support for nationalism were strongly associated with migration. There were few posts for school-leavers in Remo, and many educated Remo migrants lived in Lagos or Ibadan, where they became involved in nationalist politics. Like Obafemi Awolowo, many of them travelled regularly between these centres of power and their hometowns and established themselves as leaders in local party politics. 18. However, in some localities, local leaders associated with Òsùgbó, especially if they held chieftaincy titles, were recognised as members of advisory councils. 19. Ademuyiwa Haastrup, the Methodist mediator between Ofin and Lagos before 1894 (see Chapter 3), had joined the Òsùgbó of Ofin and promoted it to the British as a noble institution. It is greatly thanks to him and James Johnson that, unlike in Ijebu-Ode, the Òsùgbó and other societies including Orò were not destroyed in Remo (Ayandele 1966: 270–1). 20. For this quote and a more detailed discussion, see Park, The Sources of Nigerian Law, pp. 72, quoted in Mamdani (1996: 115). 21. NAI, Ijeprof. 1/775, undated [probably July/August 1944]. 22. I am grateful to Wale Adebanwi for pointing out that the expression ‘ó ye’ in the song might also simply be a sound to connect the lines, in which case there is no translation for this section. The interpretation given in the main text was provided by Opayemi during the interview. 23. See NAI, Ijeprof. 1/775. 24. The technique of using contrasting tone-marks to rhyme is often used in Orò chants. 25. A literary description of this feat by one of the group members is to be found in Soyinka (1994).

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26. Thirty-seven Orò groups meet at the time of writing. 27. As Remo citizens’ support for Orò reflected their inclusion, northerners in Sabo acted their exclusion through Orò. Although even non-indigenous men are usually invited to follow the masquerade in public places, and although all women can participate in the festival by sending food or money to the revellers, Sabo women – as well as most men – did not contribute to these outings. 28. Òsanyìn is also the name of a traditional deity that is represented by a bird on an iron bar and divines by ventriloquism (Abraham 1958: 528). CHAPTER 8   1. The Civil War against Biafra is, despite official historiography, often referred to locally as the Biafran War.   2. Translation: Peasants Resist Suffering.   3. Awolowo obtained the trust of the Àgbékòyà leaders Tafa Adeoye and Folarin Idowu and thereby outmanoeuvred Ibadan politician Mojeed Agbaje – one of his political rivals – who had opened his house to the Àgbékòyà leaders in the early months of the rebellion (Beer 1976: 180–205).   4. For examples of this misunderstanding in print, see the otherwise excellent Sesay et al. (2003: 17).   5. Both Enahoro and Tarka were presented by some political analysts as the Nigerian leaders of the future, and it is possible that especially Enahoro simply wanted to avoid too close an association with Awolowo in order to appeal to new sections of the electorate. While Tarka died in 1980, Enahoro remained close to leading allies of Awolowo despite his alternative political orientation.   6. These included Paul Unongo and Ayuba Kadzai from Benue and Gongola States respectively.   7. The NPN significantly expanded its appeal in the South by obtaining support in the non-Igbo states of southeastern Nigeria, but it also had to accept the increasing political division of the former Northern Region. This included the (re-)establishment of two other mainly northern-based political parties: the Greater Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP) under the leadership of Waziri Ibrahim of Borno appealed to many non-Hausa northern voters, and the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) was the successor to the reformist Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and was led by Aminu Kano.   8. FEDECO’s argument was that as Shagari had won 25 per cent in twelve states, and 19.9 per cent in another, he had de facto satisfied the requirement as twothirds of nineteen states did not have to be rounded up to thirteen states but could be understood as exactly twelve and two-thirds of a state. Thus the 19.9 per cent won by Shagari in Kano State was understood to constitute more that 25 per cent of 66 per cent (two-thirds) of the cast votes in that state (for a detailed if critical explanation of the judgement, see Ajasin 2003: 278–81).   9. The UPN won in five of nineteen states, including Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo and Bendel States, and had very good results in Kwara and Gongola States. 10. The links between migrants and stay-at-home townspeople were of great importance to both sides. Many migrants returned home at critical junctures to influence town politics. During such visits, or when their townspeople came to see them, migrants in turn received farm produce, especially cassava flour or gàrí, edible snails and dried fish in quantities that often lasted for several weeks. In the cities, migrants took care of school children and apprentices who lodged with them, and they supported family members through gifts in cash and kind. Because most Remo migrants were able to return to their hometowns frequently, many of them also built houses in their hometowns and invested in local busi-

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nesses, including transport, tailoring, grain milling and baking (Aronson 1971: 271–2). 11. The functions of migrants’ associations were probably at first directed much more at making life easier for newcomers in the strange and sometimes hostile environment of their host towns than at influencing events at home. Established migrants helped newcomers to find work and housing; often members supported each other to finance burials and marriage celebrations. For detailed studies of hometown associations’ activities in the Nigerian cities, see Hodgkin (1956) and Little (1974). 12. Translation: Society of Descendants of Ijebu. 13. NAI, Ije Remo Div 1, 271. 14. However, development efforts in Sagamu have also often been hindered by the rivalry between the dominant quarters of Ofin and Makun (and others). 15. It has supported both the local Methodist College and Ansar-ud-deen School as well as donating a 62-bed ward to the Ogun State Teaching Hospital at Sagamu. 16. The Ogere Community Development Council has built two secondary schools, a big town hall and a health centre, in addition to the financial aid it gives to local schools, gifted students and local vigilantes (Oba Oladele Ogungbade, 11 March 1998). Different development associations in Isara have extensively invested in the tarring of roads, a commercial fishing pond as well as a new town hall and a palace (Pekun Awobona, 13 November 1998). The Ilisan Development Council has built two secondary schools and provided its market with electricity (Onasanya and Oduyale undated [probably 1990s]: 46), while the Irolu Development Council has provided a town hall, a borehole, streetlights and a community bank (Oba Ademolu Adeyiga, 31 March 1998). The Ilara Development Association has built four access roads and a borehole as well as assisting local primary schools (Oba Solomon Adekoya, 8 March 1998). 17. In addition to the land donations, two funds were launched – one of £3,000 for the council and one of £6,000 for the first cooperative project, the secondary school. As Akaka, which had not donated any land, wished to have a right to the school as well, its citizens contributed £1,000 to the school fund. 18. As Makun forbids Egúngún practice on its territory, its youth retaliated by attacking the masquerades. Conflicts between these quarters have been enacted through masquerades from the 1960s onwards, with the last major battle in 1988 (Segun-Okeowo 1990; Kolade Segun-Okeowo, 21 August 2002). 19. This agreement was eventually taken up throughout Ogun State (Daily Times, 30 July 1983). 20. A number of powerful Yoruba businessmen and opinion-makers who owned their success to good relations with the military government also supported the NPN. Most prominent among them was Moshood Abiola, who used his widely read Concord newspaper to discredit the UPN before he sought reconciliation with Awolowo (Makinde 2002: xx). 21. Detailed correspondence with the leaders of these associations and clubs can be found in the Sopolu Library Ikenne (files 743, 2496, 2497). 22. Now used by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the plantation has served as a testing ground for a range of cassava trials. 23. According to Popo Ade-Banjo (14 February 2005), the last attempts to destroy parts of the plantation were carried out in 1998 and 1999. The attackers were apprehended and the matter was resolved clandestinely. 24. More recently, several of their children have also held offices in the IDA, including their daughter Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu, who has chaired the

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IDA’s medical committee, and their son Oluwole, who was a member of the IDA’s executive committee (IDA 1996: 19). 25. Translation: town cloth. 26. Burial outings of traditional civic associations often include the demand for belongings or even parts of the deceased. This practice has not been adopted by the IDA or any other community development association I am aware of. 27. It remains impossible to establish whether Ereke Day was the first community development festival in the former Western Region. Outside Ikenne, some leaders of migrant organisations have suggested that community development festivals were inspired by examples from Ijebu towns, either Ijebu-Ode or IjebuImusin, but I am not currently aware of confirmed evidence for a community development festival celebrated before 1976. It should be noted, however, that community development festivals in Remo bear some resemblance to the ‘general return’ days – and the festivals that sometimes accompany them – called by some Igbo town unions and community leaders since the 1940s. 28. For a reflection on ‘civil religion’ in connection with communal development efforts, see Matory (1994: 65). For the first consistent use of the notion of ‘civil religion’, originally coined to encompass the spiritual dimension of civic commitment in the USA, in a Yoruba community, see Olupona (1991). 29. Sagamu Day was cancelled in 1994 and 1995 as well, but then the main reason for the cancellation was – as in many Remo towns – protest against the annulment of Moshood Abiola’s election of 1993 and his subsequent imprisonment. 30. See Chapter 1 for Balùfòn in Sonyindo. 31. At the time of writing I am not aware of any clashes during community development festivals that were directed against Sabo. 32. Harneit-Sievers (2006: 208) argues that ‘Those “at home” do not need that much of a written history in order to make sense of their community. Instead, it is the socially and geographically mobile modern elite that feels the need to supplement the lost experience of communality … It finds this supplement not only by creating town unions “abroad” but also by (re)constructing the community “at home.” The latter is done practically, for example, by establishing development projects for the home town. But it is also done conceptually and in the imagination, for example, by means of historical narratives.’ CHAPTER 9   1. Those associated with the Babangida regime also benefited from the privatisation of public enterprises demanded by the IMF. Almost all state-owned industrial or commercial ventures were sold directly to army and ex-army men or to conglomerates linked to them (Osaghae 1998: 20, 196–207). Lewis (1999: 51) estimates that between 1988 and 1993, $12.2 billion or roughly 20 per cent of Nigeria’s export income was siphoned off illegally by the Babangida administration.   2. This process is described in much detail in the excellent Adebanwi (2008).   3. Although both candidates for the throne of Ofin had links to several Remo royal families and did not necessarily stand for Liyangu, they were both members of the Liyangu family.   4. This rumour has not only been confirmed in interviews and informal conversations but also in print (The Vanguard, 23 March 1990).   5. Fearing a forced installation of Sonariwo, Adediji Adedoyin argued in a local court that as long as a dispute was pending, his opponent Michael Sonariwo should not be installed. The court agreed in theory, but indirectly supported Sonariwo by arguing that that, since the date and time of a suspected ­installation

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were not known, they could not issue an injunction (The Vanguard, 21 April 1990). Eventually, the Ogun state government stepped in and decreed this particular installation non-injunctionable (Daily Champion, 14 July 1990).   6. According to the Daily Sketch (15 July 1990), among those who also attended his installation were Moshood Abiola, Ogun state governor Navy Capt. Mohammed Lawal, General Diya, Chief of Air Staff Nureni Yusuf, Rear Admiral Tunde Elegbede and Major-General Ayodele Balogun. He was also supported by several traditional rulers, including Oba Okunade Sijuwade, the Óòni of Ile-Ife and the traditional rulers of Lagos, Ilorin, Onitsha, Osogbo, Ila, Gbongan and Oke-Ona in Abeokuta.   7. After the annulment of his election and in particular since his death in prison, Moshood Abiola has sometimes been represented as one of Awolowo’s disciples. However, during his lifetime, Abiola was frequently one of the representatives of the anti-Awolowo camp in Yoruba politics.   8. Sani Abacha called upon traditional rulers to mediate government policy nationally and internationally. After the execution of human rights activist SaroWiwa and his colleagues, a committee of ‘50 Wise Men’ was set up to deal with the crisis. More than forty members of the committee were traditional rulers (The Punch, 3 December 1995). Abacha included traditional rulers in many government institutions and in 1997 allocated 5 per cent of central government’s revenue to them as stipends (National Concord, 13 December 1996). The (never implemented) 1995 Draft Constitution even ensured the presence of traditional rulers at all levels of government (This Day, 1 February 1998). In return for their privileged status, Yoruba obas as a group were called to support General Abacha after an alleged coup against him in December 1997 which led to the exclusion of the highest ranking Yoruba-speaker, General Diya, from government. Although many Yoruba obas cooperated with the Abacha government, and their public cooperation with the central government was conducted with acute awareness of the reach of the military, no Remo oba openly supported Abacha. Almost certainly in awareness of the widespread popular opposition to Abacha, the Remo obas responded to General Diya’s arrest with principled silence (Nigerian Tribune, 17 January 1998).   9. Even more than Babangida’s rule, the Abacha years were characterised by the personal enrichment of the government’s supporters. An estimated 25 per cent of Nigeria’s export revenues was skimmed off illegally by groups associated with his government (Lewis 1999: 51–3). 10. Translation: ‘We love ourselves [each other] like we love goodness.’ 11. Egbé Afénifére was also the Yoruba name for the Action Group during the 1950s and 1960s. 12. It is possible that other reasons also contributed to the lack of success of the movement for an Ijebu State. Thus the lobbyists could not agree among themselves on the nature of their petition. While the Ijebus, supported by the Awùjalè, demanded an Ijebu State (The Guardian, 27 August 1992), a section of Remo citizens, represented by Sagamu-based media manager and business magnate Chief Olu Fadairo, demanded a state of their own with Sagamu as capital. This Remo State was supposed to encompass great parts of Ijebu for practical reasons (Nigerian Tribune, 14 November 1992). In an attempt at compromise between Ijebu and Remo, a state with the town Odogbolu as the capital was also suggested (The Guardian, 4 February 1993). 13. Isara is also the hometown of Olaniwun Ajayi, a prominent pro-Awolowo politician and close personal friend of both Obafemi and Hannah Awolowo. 14. The local government headquarters during UPN rule in 1981–3 were Sapade in

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Idarapo, whose boundaries were similar to Remo North local government, and Iperu in Irepodun, whose boundaries were similar to Ikenne local government. 15. Advance fee fraud crimes are crimes in which the intended victims are enticed to pay money up front to secure a large (but fictitious) profit or reward. 16. According to witnesses, the robbers discovered that the woman had very little to steal and killed her baby in anger. The distraught mother then shouted that they might as well kill her as well, which they did. 17. By the 1990s, marihuana had probably been grown for local consumption for several decades but cocaine was only slowly becoming more popular due to the country’s involvement in the international drug trade. 18. An exception was the editor of the Sagamu-based Western Post, Remi Beyioku, who publicly denounced the vigilantes. He was later beaten up by unknown youth but has since successfully continued his publishing business. 19. Aremu’s OYM is sometimes (wrongly) regarded as the first Oodua organisation, which may reflect the fact that Ade-Banjo’s OLF was primarily known by trustworthy members of the pro-Awolowo and pro-democracy political elite (including the non-Yoruba-speaker Anthony Enahoro) and avoided press exposure. 20. Between 1999 and 2005 two competing OPC factions existed which upheld different stories of the foundation of the group. A summary of the myths associated with Frederick Fasehun and Gani Adams respectively is provided in Sesay et al. (2003: 33–5). 21. Upon his return to Sagamu in 1998, Ade-Banjo founded the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM), which continues to operate locally at the time of writing and provides support and guidance to many OPC activities (Popo Ade-Banjo, 14 February 2005). 22. For a discussion of the trajectory of youth politics in Remo, including the 1999 conflict at Sabo, see Nolte (2004). 23. For the association of similar fears with women’s trade across social and geographical boundaries, see Flynn (1997: chapters 4 and 5). 24. Although many of Starlight’s sex workers were Hausa-speakers, it was difficult to confirm at the time of writing that they were fully accepted as part of the Hausa community in Remo. Male Hausa respondents from that community often blamed the existence of the prostitutes on the permissiveness of ‘modern’ Remo society, and a casual conversation with only one woman, who was linked to the trade indirectly, suggested that relationships were fluid and circumstantial. 25. This perception is sustained through gossip and popular literature. For example, in 2005, I bought a copy of the widely read (by both male and female readers) magazine Today’s Romance (vol. 7, no. 4) in Sagamu, which included a so-called investigative article entitled ‘Sex News: Why Hausa Women Don’t Wear Pants [i.e. knickers, underwear]’ in which the author revealed that this practice enabled them to satisfy their voracious sexual appetites quickly. 26. The police intervened only on the second day of fighting when the battle turned back to Sabo, which confirmed local fears that the attack had not only been planned but planned with the help of the police. 27. Some of the victims were brought to Kano by an influential northern Nigerian businessman, and popular anger over the sight of the maimed and dead triggered a major clash in Kano with repercussions in many other Nigerian cities. 28. The NNPC depot itself has a formal representative in its manager, who cooperates with the Remo authorities. 29. Both names evoked Awolowo’s legacy. While the acronym AD resembled that of

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Awolowo’s party, the AG, the name Afénifére played on the fact that the Yoruba name for the Action Group had been Egbé Afénifére. 30. The OPC split into a moderate faction, led by Frederick Fasehun, and a radical faction, led by his former deputy Gani Adams. It is unclear how relevant the differences between these factions were at grassroots level as both were involved in violent conflict. However, before 2002 the Adams faction was probably more critical of the police and other government institutions. 31. Translation: star. To protect informants and actors engaged in youth politics, they are not identified unless otherwise agreed. Many young men use street names such as ‘Irawo’, under which they are known publicly but which may not be linked easily to their private lives. 32. In 2000, the ‘Irawo’ faction killed the vigilante leader ‘Sakuta’, one of Sodeinde’s followers. The killing of ‘Sakuta’ resonated with popular perceptions of the abuse of power in office because he had rented a generator for a private occasion and later refused to pay for it because the owner had not provided fuel with it. 33. Some conflicts between different OPC and vigilante factions in Sagamu were tied to intra-party political rivalry. During 2002 the AD remained the most powerful party in Remo, and most important political conflicts were personal rivalries over AD-controlled positions. Thus the AD primaries for the chairmanship of the newly created Sagamu Central Local Government were contested by two candidates with different backing. Joko Adekunbi, a former member of another local government in Sagamu, was supported by the (pro-Fasehun) OPC faction led by Sodeinde, a section of the vigilante and Tolu Daudu, the ex-Commissioner for Health in Ogun State. His opponent Bamgbola Akinsanya was supported by the ‘Irawo’ (pro-Adams) faction of the OPC, another section of the vigilante and ‘Awo’ Awofala, a former principal of Remo Division High School (Juwon Opayemi, 20 August 2002). Crucially, the candidates in this case neither represented different social or residential groups nor stood for different political ideas. Instead it appears that the two groups simply consisted of rival local patronage networks. 34. HRW argued that ‘The violence and climate of intimidation facilitated widespread fraud, invalidating the results of the elections in many areas.’ 35. The OPC’s wider support for Obasanjo in 2003 is discussed in Nolte (2007). 36. In 2003, Lagos emerged as the only Yoruba state in which the AD gained enough votes to produce the majority of the state’s representatives, its three senators and its governor, Bola Tinubu. In all other Yoruba states, the majority of AD seats were taken over by the PDP. 37. He held Afénifére meetings in his hometown of Ijebu-Igbo and expected the protagonists of inner-party conflicts to come to his house to hear his judgement. As a man of principled but dogmatic character, he also reserved harsh punishment for those he considered traitors to the Afénifére cause. Adesanya was criticised both among sections of the Yoruba elite and in the population at large for the fact that the Afénifére relied very strongly on seniority as a guiding principle. 38. In 2003 in Ogun State, the youngest senatorial candidate put forward by the AD was sixty-five, whereas the PDP’s senatorial candidates, Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun Central), Olatokunbo Ogunbanjo (Ogun East) and Iyabode Anisulowo (Ogun West) were all businesspeople in their forties and early fifties. 39. Daniel also retained some support within the Afénifére, for example from Dr Femi Okunrounmu, the Secretary-General and his former teacher. 40. In retrospect it appears as if the seeming closeness between the Awolowo family and Obasanjo was primarily geared towards the 2003 elections and thus mostly

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instrumental. Although Awolowo’s grandson Segun remained Obasanjo’s assistant until 2007, most other personal and professional links between the Awolowos and the President were much more short-lived. CONCLUSION   1. Since the 1990s a number of political thinkers have examined the idea that ideological conflicts are increasingly replaced with other developments (including other forms of conflict). While this debate is directed at a global rather than a local scale, Fukuyama (1992) in particular assumed a privileging of the material over the ideological by arguing that the ability of liberal democracy to provide material well-being meant it would replace other forms of government, albeit in the long run.

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File No. 2291, HCS/47/85, ‘Ikenne–Remo Chieftaincy Tussle (1985) – Judgement Delivered’. File No. 2443, ‘Egbe Omo Ibile Ijebu Remo’. File No. 2496, ‘Ijebu-Remo Affairs Vol. I 1955–1960’. File No. 2497, ‘Ijebu-Remo Affairs Vol. II 1960–1961’. File No. 2498, ‘Ijebu Remo Affairs Vol. III 1961–1971’. File No. 2500, ‘Ikenne Affairs Vol. II’. File No. 2501, ‘Ikenne Affairs Vol. III’. Supreme Court Judgement No SC 288.1988 ‘Prince Ademolu Odeneye v Prince David Olu Efunuga’, not filed.

Other Archives Òdòfin of Sonyindo’s palace, Sonyindo, Sagamu, File No IRCC/834/97. Ikenne Local Government, File No. 124 ‘Remo Traditional Council 1992–’. inter views

Abatan, Bose. 22 August 2002. Ifá diviner and businesswoman. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Losi Clinic, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Ade-Banjo, Popo. 14 February 2005. Former National Director of Political Affairs of the Social Democratic Party until 1993, thereafter founder of the Oodua Liberation Front (OLF, now defunct) and the Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM). Interview conducted by Insa Nolte in Epe, Sagamu, Remo, Nigeria. Adedoyin, Tokunbo. 5 August 2002. The son of the late NCNC politician Adeleke Adedoyin, Tokunbo Adedoyin is a lawyer with offices in Lagos and Sagamu. He represents Ofin (Sagamu) community in several local cases. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Ofin, Sagamu, Nigeria. Adekoya, Oba Dr Adedayo Olusino. 8 February 1998, 9 February 1998, 13 February 1998, 19 February 1998, 4 August 2002 and 6 August 2002. Ode Remo-based historian and the Légùsèn of Ode Remo as well as the Oba Àmérò of Ile-Ife. Interviews conducted by Insa Nolte at Losi Clinic, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Adekoya, Olorì Funmilola. 4 August 2002. Chairwoman of the Ogun State Women’s League. Since 1999, Adekoya has also served in numerous political appointments at the federal level. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Losi Clinic, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Adekoya, Macaulay. 12 November 1996, 13 November 1996, 24 December 1996. Ode Remo-based historian and engineer. Interviews conducted by Insa Nolte at Ilé Lósì, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Adekoya, Oba Solomon. 8 March 1998. The Alárá of Ilara. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Ilara, Remo, Nigeria. Adeolu, Oba Sunday Olufunso. 22 December 2004. The Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo and a well-liked former television star. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Oba Adeolu’s residence in London, UK. Adesanya, Oba Samson. 14 August 2002.The Oníìjàgbá of Ijagba, Sagamu. Interview conducted by Adesanya Adekoya at the royal palace, Ijagba, Sagamu, Remo, Nigeria. Adesanya, Oba Samuel. 9 March 1998. The N:lokú of Iraye. Interview conducted by

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bibliography

305

Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Iraye, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Adeyiga, Oba Ademolu. 31 March 1998. The Onírolu of Irolu. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Irolu, Remo, Nigeria. Awobona, Pekun. 13 November 1998. Chairman of Remo North Local Government Council. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at LG Headquarters Isara, Remo, Nigeria. Awolesi, Oba Michael S. 7 August 2002. The Olúdòtun of Idotun, Ikenne, Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Idotun, Ikenne, Remo, Nigeria. Awolowo, Dr Hannah I. D., Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON). 7 August 2002. The Yèyé Oòduà of Ile-Ife, Ìyálóde of Remoland and eminent widow of the late Chief Dr Obafemi Awolowo. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the Awolowo compound, Ikenne, Remo, Nigeria. Awosanya, Oba George. 17 July 2002. The Òdòfin of Sonyindo. Interview conducted by Adesanya Adekoya at Sonyindo, Sagamu, Remo, Nigeria. Bakare, Ali. 17 August 1996. The Apènò of Ode Remo. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Ode Remo, Nigeria. Chindo, Alhaji Mohammed Namadina. 19 July 2002. A new migrant to Remo (1992), member of the Hausa community at Mosimi and transporter of petroleum products to Gusau. Interview conducted by Adesanya Adekoya at Sabo, Sagamu. Fafowora, Oladapo. 16 February 2005. Yoruba public intellectual and one of the original founders of the OPC. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte in Lagos, Nigeria. Fakunmodu, Abiodun. 18 September 1996. The Olúmalè and head of the Orò association of Ode Remo. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Ode Remo, Nigeria. Mohammed, Hassan. 27 July 2002. A member of the Hausa community at Sabo and former local government councillor representing Sabo. Interview conducted by Adesanya Adekoya at Sabo, Sagamu. Odunlami, Babatunde A. 24 August 2005. Ikenne-based historian and university lecturer. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria. Ogunfowora, Oba J. O. 28 March 1998. The Alápér u of Iperu. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Iperu, Remo, Nigeria. Ogungbade, Oba Oladele. 11 March 1998. The Olóògèrè of Ogere. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Ogere, Remo, Nigeria. Okeowo, Segun. 20 August 2002. Former student leader and local historian and businessman. Okeowo has represented Makun (Sagamu) community interests in several local disputes. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte in Makun, Sagamu, Remo, Nigeria. Onadeko, Oba Idowu. 13 March 1998. The Odemo of Isara. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Isara, Remo, Nigeria. Opayemi, Juwon. 25 March 1998, 20 August 2002. Editor of the Remo-based newspaper The Community News. First interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Emos’ Relaxation Corner, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Second interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Ofin, Sagamu. Osifade, A. O. 17 August 1996. The Olíwo of Ode Remo. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Ode Remo, Nigeria.

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Sadiku, Alhaji Olayinka. 7 March 1998. Chairman of the Ode Remo Development Council (ODC) and Afribank manager. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Ode Remo, Nigeria. Segun-Okeowo, Kolade. 21 August 2002. A Makun-based historian, farmer and religious dramatist. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Sotubo, Remo, Nigeria. Shehu, Alhaji Haruna Babali. 26 July 2002. A member of the Hausa community at Sabo and co-signatory of the Sagamu Peace Accord 1999. Interview conducted by Adesanya Adekoya at Ofin, Sagamu. Sodeinde, Lateef A. 23 August 2002. One of the OPC founders in Ogun state and the Remo chairman of the Fasehun faction of the OPC, Sodeinde also holds a high Orò office in Ofin. He has been a representative at the regular Remo-wide Orò meetings since the early 1990s. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at Losi Clinic, Ode Remo, Nigeria. Sodiya, Segun. 2 March 1998, 3 March 1998. Member of Liyangu royal family of Ofin, Sagamu. Interview on 2 March 1998 conducted by Insa Nolte at his Iperu filling station, Remo, Nigeria. Interview on 3 March 1998 conducted by Insa Nolte at Ofin, Sagamu, Remo, Nigeria. Sonoiki, Oba Ayoola. 5 March 1998. The Elépòsò of Eposo. Interview conducted by Insa Nolte at the royal palace, Eposo, Ode Remo, Nigeria.

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Index

Ààre Ònà Kakanfò, 180, 199 Abacha, Sani, 232–5, 243, 285nn8,9 Abatan, Bose, 69 Abell, A. F., 38, 41, 70, 80, 84 Abeokuta converts, 92–3, 105 education, 103, 105, 106, 111, 274n22 founding of, 72, 78, 86 location on map, 82, 97 missionaries, 93, 272n31 politics, 79–81, 202, 267nn27,28, 271n13, 272n31 see also Aláké of Abeokuta; Egba towns Aberenla, Ogunkoya, 190 abídàgbà succession, 35, 115, 120, 276n45 Abimbolu, Oba Samuel, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 190 Abiola, Moshood, 232, 237, 264n26, 283n20, 284n29, 285n7 Abo, 81 Abraham, R. C., 265n4, 266nn16,22, 273n11 Abubakar, Garba, 243–5 Achebe, Chinua, 27 Action Group (AG) education, 17, 163, 173–4, 176, 177, 264n19 founding of, 138, 278n31 Ibadan politics, 17–18, 163–4, 173 local policies, 207 rivalry with NCNC, 5, 15, 22–3, 151, 176–8 split in, 20, 21, 177–8 support for, 138–41, 162–6, 173–4, 279n19, 280nn1,4 symbols of, 189, 197 AD see Alliance for Democracy Adams, Gani, 238, 246, 286n20, 287n30 Ade-Banjo, Popo, 237, 238, 283n23, 286nn19,21 Adebayo, Adeyinka, 199, 200–1 Adebonojo, Badejo, 67 Adedoyin, Adediji, 231–3, 284–5n5 Adedoyin, Adeleke, 138, 159–62, 166, 182–4, 189, 191–3, 231

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Adedoyin, Oba Christopher William, Akàrígbò of Ofin ambitions for paramountcy, 113, 114–15, 118, 121 Awolowo and, 132–3, 277n18 career of, 104–5 death of, 159 political opposition, 138–41 power of, 4–5, 10, 13 Remo independence campaign, 107–10, 116–19 Sabo creation, 142–5, 147–8 unification policy, 9, 96–8 Adedoyin, Haastrup Ademuyiwa, 166 Adefulu, Oba Adeilo, Alálísan of Ilisan, 63 Adefulu, Yemi, 63 Adegba-bi-eru-osin, Odupajo, 171 Adegbenro, D. S., 178 Adejumo, Ezekiel, 93 Adekoya, Oba Adedayo, 42 Adekoya, Olorì Funmilola, 194, 236 Adekoya, Oba Solomon, Alárá of Ilara, 37, 69 Adekunbi, Joko, 287n33 Adelabu, Adegoke, 17–18, 19, 163, 168, 173, 175, 263n12 Adelana, Moses Odugbemi, 154 Ademola, Adetokunbo, 112 Adeniji, A. O., 272nn20,22 Adenuga, Oba Folagbade, Awujalè of IjebuOde, 115, 116 Adeolu, Oba Sunday Olufunso, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 35, 222 Adeosin, Oba Joseph Ade, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 108 Adeoye, Tafa, 282n3 Adesanya, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 211 Adesanya, Abraham, 249, 250, 287n37 Adesanya, Oba Daniel, Awùjalè of Ijebu-Ode legitimacy, 34, 113, 115–19, 120 opponents of, 120–1, 125 Adesanya, J. A., 110 Ado, 83, 160 location on map, 143 Ado-Ekiti, 150, 280n32

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location on map (as Ado), 76 Afénifére, 233, 246, 250–2, 285n11, 286–7n29, 287n37 Afo, 72, 270nn72,73, 272n21 location on map, 66 AG see Action Group Agaigi family, 63 Agbaje, Mojeed, 282n3 Àgbékòyà rebellion, 24, 200–1, 282n3 Agbowa, 71–2 age grades (Régbérégbé), 69, 269n63 Agemo associations festivals, 50–2, 267n35, 268–9n57, 270n72 practices, 52–4, 73–4 Ago-Iwoye, 86, 87, 110, 271n18 location on map, 82, 97 Methodism, 101, 273n8 Agunloye, Soyombo, Ewùsi of Makun, 42 Agura (Remo town), 61 Aiyepe, 71, 72, 81, 86–7, 270n72, 272n21 location on map, 82, 97 Àjàlóòr un of Ijebu-Ife, 37, 265n9 Ajasa, Kitoye, 116, 274n13 Ajasin, Michael Adekunle, 19, 230, 263–4n16 Ajayi, J. F. Ade, 80 Ajayi, Olaniwun, 285n13 Ajegunle, 244 Ajetunmobi, Garuba, 142 Akaka, 37, 77, 79, 283n17 location on map, 66, 82, 188 see also Alákaka of Akaka Akàrígbò of Ofin contest for the throne, 159–62, 231–3 move to Sagamu, 85 political authority, 164–5, 183, 192 relations with British, 88–90, 91, 94–5 status of, 4, 30, 37, 225, 265n11, 279n23 see also Adedoyin, Christopher William; Awolesi, Erinwole; Awolesi, Moses; Igimisoje, Oduname; Sonariwo, Michael; Torungbuwa, Oyebajo Ake, 67, 68, 105 location on map, 66 Akinsanya, Ayo, 168, 171 Akinsanya, Bamgbola, 287n33 Akinsanya, Oba Samuel early life, 111–14 nationalist politics, 148–9 in NYM, 14, 120–3 Odemo of Isara, 13, 125–7, 129, 138, 187, 277n10 support for Awolowo, 182 Akintola, Samuel Ladoke career of, 280n3 death of, 198

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relations with Awolowo, 18–19, 23, 175, 176–81 support for, 180, 263n15 Western Region premier, 21, 175, 177, 181 Aláàdúrà see Church of the Lord Aláàfin of Oyo, 137, 176, 180 Alákaka of Akaka, 138 Alake (Egba group of towns), 67, 68, 70, 72, 77 Aláké of Abeokuta, 38, 130, 277n13 Alákènnéé of Ikenne, 121, 157–9, 167–72, 214–15, 278–9n5, 279n7, 280n31 Alakija, Adeyemo, 116, 278n32 Alápér u of Iperu, 108, 121, 133, 136, 139–41, 227 Alárá of Ilara, 37, 38, 69, 108, 121 Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 39, 53, 95, 100, 108, 121, 138, 186, 211 Alliance for Democracy (AD), 6, 246, 249, 250, 286–7n29, 287nn33,38 Amosun, Ibikunle, 287n38 Anglo-Ijebu war (1892), 12 Anisulowo, Iyabode, 287n38 Apapo Omo Oodua (Apapo), 237 Apèna, 42, 43, 63; see also Òsùgbó ­associations Apomu, 75, 280n5 Are, 92 Aremu, Abiodun, 237, 286n19 Asaye, Oba F., Olóògèrè of Ogere, 133 Asaye, Oba Michael, Ewùsi of Makun, 108 Asetun of Ode Remo, 57 Asíwájú Yorùbá, 199 authoritarianism, opposition to, 204–8 Awofala, ‘Awo’, 287n33 Awoism, 26, 230, 251 Awolesi, Oba Michael S., Olúdòtun of Idotun, 171–2 Awolesi, Oba Moses, Akàrígbò of Ofin, 5, 160–6, 182–3, 192, 231 Awolowo, David Sopolu, 111 Awolowo, Hannah background of, 153 elections (1964), 184, 189 Ikenne involvement, 170, 212 marriage, 14, 154–7, 261 political involvement, 6, 31, 230–1, 251–5, 261 see also Liyangu family; Obara family Awolowo, Obafemi Asíwájú Yorùbá, 199 autobiography, 151 chieftancy titles, 150–1 death of, 25, 27, 219, 229 early life, 111–14, 131–2 elections (1979), 202–4 entry into politics, 131–3

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Index

Ikenne involvement, 153, 157–9, 167–70, 212–19 imprisonment, 5, 19, 23, 25–6, 178–80 legacy of, 6, 25–9, 230–1, 233–4, 250–6, 257–62 local political involvement, 2–3, 5–6, 14–17, 133, 137–41, 205–8 in London, 15, 151, 278n35 marriage, 14, 153, 154–7, 261 myth of, 25–7, 29, 174, 179–81, 191, 196–7, 201, 228, 255–6 national political involvement, 20–5, 176–8, 199–201 nationalist politics, 148–52 in NYM, 120–3 Ofin involvement, 162 opposition to Shagari government, 204–8 Path to Nigerian Freedom, 15, 131, 134 political opponents, 17–19 popular support, 172–4, 195–7 posthumous birthday celebrations, 27–8, 251–5 release from prison, 198 retirement, 210 Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution, 200, 202 traditionalist views, 148–52 unification policy, 9 Western Region premier, 15–16, 20, 26, 168, 175 Yoruba politics, 134–7, 175, 180–1, 199–201, 257 see also Action Group; Unity Party of Nigeria Awolowo, Segun (son of Obafemi), 25, 179 Awolowo, Segun (grandson of Obafemi), 287–8n40 Awolowo-Dosunmu, Tokunbo, 283n24 Awomuti, Oba Gilbert, Alákènnéé of Ikenne, 13, 138, 158–9, 167, 169, 172 Awori assemblies, 67, 72 location on map, 66, 76, 82 towns, 59, 65 Awoyemi, Grace Otuola, 277n16 Awujalè of Ijebu-Ode, 266, 276nn1,2 Akàrigbò Adedoyin and, 108, 117–18 contest for the throne, 115, 276nn45–48 festivals, 50, 56, 267n35 Ibadan conflict, 80–1 legitimacy, 34, 115–19 NYM conflict, 113, 120–1 politics, 39, 80–1, 85, 94, 108, 110, 113, 115–19, 133, 285n12 power of, 37, 91, 276n50 Ayandele, E A., 69, 272n25 Ayinda, Yusuf, 195

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Ayodele, Olu, 64, 146, 270nn70,71 Azikiwe, Nnamdi Awolowo’s political rival, 15, 24, 124, 134, 137–8 career of, 20, 21–3, 138 Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), 203 baálè, 33, 157 Babangida, Ibrahim, 230–4, 284n1 Babatope, Ebenezer, 204 Babayemi, S. O., 57 Bakare, Ali, 41 Balógun, election of, 70 Balógun of Ofin, 99, 246–8 Balogun, Ona, 167 Balufòn, festival, 53–4 Barber, Karin, 9, 36, 281n11 Bariga (Lagos suburb), 128 Barnes, Sandra, 9 Bascom, W. R., 265n22 Batoro, 57, 83 location on map, 66, 143 Bello, Ahmadu, 20–1, 23, 177 Benin, 173 influence of, 64, 75 location on map, 76 Benson, T. O. S., 165, 279n21 Beyioku, Remi, 276n51, 286n18 Biafra, 24, 198, 199–200, 264n23, 282n1 Biobaku, Saburi, 7, 67, 237–8, 271n2, 275n24, 277n24 Bisuga, chief of Iperu, 93 Bourdillon, Governor, 117, 123 Breadfruit Church, 89 Brice-Smith, H. M., 110 British attitudes to, 129–30 relations with Remo, 90–1, 94–5 relations with Sagamu, 88–91 see also colonial period Buhari, Muhammadu, 210, 230 bullroarer, 45–6, 48, 266n24; see also Orò Butcher, Resident, 158–9 Cameron, Donald, Governor, 109–10 Campbell, Consul, 88–9 capital city, role of, 7 Carter, Governor, 90–1, 94, 117 cassava, 1, 101, 123, 199, 213, 273n9, 282n10, 283n22; see also gàrí Caxton-Martins, Olatunji, 112 centralisation local processes, 67–8, 87–8, 92 Nigeria, 24, 201 Remo, 4, 67–8, 95, 96, 106, 118, 165 Sagamu, 4, 83, 92 Chandos, Sir Theodore Hoskyns-Abrahall, 136, 278n27

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chiefs Awolowo’s titles, 150–1 as civic representatives, 3, 33, 39, 45, 60, 158, 170, 171, 235, 259 community development festivals, 220 Ikenne chieftaincy declaration, 168–70 lineages, 61, 62–3 military government, 230–1 and obas, 3, 167, 170 symbolic importance, 124–5, 136, 149–52 as title-holders in civic associations, 43, 46, 50, 54 Western Region House of, 163, 182 see also civic associations; elites; obas; traditional rulers Christianity Africanisation, 103 attitudes to, 49, 89–90, 92–3, 96–8, 193, 272nn25,31 civic associations and, 8, 48, 49, 93, 146, 186–7 colonial period, 12–13, 96, 98–107, 237n6 converts, 48, 49, 56, 89, 93, 111 education, 99, 102–3, 132 introduction of, 58 political elite, 12–13, 96, 98–9, 102–7, 126–7, 130, 147, 273n2, 274n13 Remo, 98–102, 118–19, 272–3n1, 273n2 see also Methodism; missionaries Church of the Lord (Aláàdúrà), 103 Church Missionary Society (CMS), 78, 90, 99, 101, 103 civic associations and Christians, 48–9, 56, 58, 118–19 and community development organisations, 217, 219, 222, 284n26 and Muslims, 49, 58 and obas, 46, 48, 50, 52, 73–4, 190 in post-colonial politics, 5–6, 30, 176, 186–7, 193–4, 196 Sabo’s lack of, 147–8, 166, 184–5, 193–4 town quarters, 48–60, 83 in towns, 3, 8, 45, 46, 236n2 vigilantes, 235 women, 41, 43, 47–8, 50–2, 185–7, 194, 239, 266n23, 267n27, 269n63, 282n27 see also Egúngún masquerades; Èlúkú associations; masquerades; òrìsà; Orò associations; Òsùgbó associations civic ethos, 259–60 Civil War (1967–70), 199–201, 282n1 clientelism, 10, 259 Clifford, Sir Hugh, 107

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CMS see Church Missionary Society Coalition of Oodua Self-Determination Groups (COSEG), 237 Coker, G. B., 178 Coker, R. A., 112 colonial period Christianity, 12–13, 96, 98–107 elites, 96, 98, 102–7 local control, 114–19 Remo politics, 12–14 community development associations, 6, 31, 206–8, 210–14, 283n16 and civic associations, 217, 219, 222, 284n26 communal rivalry, 206–7, 222, 225–6, 283n14 development projects, 207, 283n16 donations, 210–14 education, 25, 207–8 Ereke Day festival, 215–19, 221, 284n27 Remo community development festivals, 220–8, 258, 284n27 Sapade, 207–8, 283n17 confederate towns, 4, 72, 83–4, 86–8, 222, 225 conflicts between historians and power-holders, 13 between indigenes and migrants, 144–5, 191–5, 229, 239–45, 282n27, 286nn26,27 between the Native Administration and traders, 128–9 between Remo towns, 11, 38, 53, 57, 65, 70–1, 75–81, 96, 242 grammar of, 73–5 in the nationalist movement, 124–5 over development, 212–14, 222, 225–6, 283n14 over obaship, 124–7, 130, 133–7, 152, 157–62, 167–70, 230–3, 247–8 social, 11–12, 40, 74, 75–81 within lineages, 61–2, 169–70, 231 see also violence consent colonial state, 94–5, 107–10, 118 creation of, 4–5, 73–4, 153, 165, 171, 192, 257–8, 261, 266n19 cultural politics, 13–15, 98, 119 party politics and, 5, 16, 119, 139–41, 173–4, 182–3 postcolonial state, 229, 233–8, 250, 256 town politics, 9–11, 32–3, 73–4, 84–6, 171, 213–15, 217–18, 267n39 see also popular participation corruption, 18, 23, 24, 201, 204, 227, 230, 233–5, 284n1 alleged, 104, 126

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Index COSEG see Coalition of Oodua Self-Determination Groups coups see military coup criminals politicians, 234–5 punishment of, 41–2, 48, 94, 235–6, 279n6 state, 235–6 see also Orò associations; Òsùgbó ­associations; vigilantes Crowder, Michael, 271n2 Cruise O’Brien, Donal, 119 cultural politics, 13–15, 98, 102–7, 111–14, 118–19, 125, 127, 132, 147, 152, 220 Dairo, I. K., 182 Dan Sagamu, Garba, 192 Daniel, Gbenga, 249, 250–6, 287n39 Daura, Maikano, 142 Daura, Mallam Dogo, 142, 147 death penalty, 41–2, 48 Delo-Dosunmu, G. I., 110, 113, 131, 231 democratisation, 136–7, 258–9 Dende, Ibrahim, 142 Dennett, R. E., 47 descent groups, 61–4, 268nn54,55; see also abídàgbà succession; lineages development associations see community development associations Dikko, Alhaji, of Ibadan, 192 donations see community development associations Drewal, Henry John, 47 Drewal, Margaret Thompson, 267n35 Eades, J. S., 7 Eastern Region, 20, 22–4, 198, 200–1, 213, 267n35 edan, 43, 266n19 education Christian, 96, 99, 102–3, 132, 147, 274n17 Muslim, 132, 147, 274n17 and politics, 22, 23, 26, 134–5, 148, 152, 163, 173–4, 176, 177, 185, 205–7, 257–8 in Remo, 12, 22, 25, 29, 62, 96, 104–5, 121–2, 281n17 women, 109, 130, 274n17, 277n16 see also Action Group; community development associations; elites Efunuga, David, 169–70 Egba towns, 8, 72–3 assemblies, 67, 68, 71 conflicts, 71, 77–8 links to Remo towns, 54, 57, 60, 61, 72, 221, 267n29 location on map, 66, 76

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311

see also Abeokuta; Oko (Egba town) Egbado, 86, 202 location on map, 76 Egbé associations, 69, 269n62 Egbé Afénifére see Afénifére Egbé Omo Ìbílè Ìjèbú Rémo see Máàjéóbàjé movement Egbé Omo Ìjèbú, 206 Egbé Omo Odùduwà, 15, 134–7, 138, 163, 173, 277n26, 278n32 Egúngún masquerades, 47, 56, 57, 77, 176, 194, 196–7, 209, 268nn45,46, 273n6, 283n18 Ekiti towns, 7, 9, 272n26, 280n32 links to Remo towns, 38, 265–6n12, 274n17 location on map, 76 politics, 79, 163, 173, 177 State, 209–10, 234 elections (1951), Western Region, 139–40 elections (1964), 181–4 elections (1965), 189–92 elections (1979), 24, 27, 202–4, 264nn21,22 elections (1983), 25, 27, 208–10 elections (1999), 246 elections (2003), 229, 248–52 Elépòsò of Eposo, 70 elites Christian, 12–13, 96, 98–9, 102–7, 126–7, 273n2, 274n13 nationalists, 111, 120–1 see also obas; traditional rulers Ellis, A. B., 47 Èlúkú associations criminal justice, 48, 190, 235 practices, 52, 54, 73–4, 266n21, 267nn28,36–8 see also civic associations Emere, 77 Emuren Agemo, 53, 74 British relations, 94, 117 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 politics, 37, 53, 74 Enahoro, Anthony, 203, 282n5, 286n19 Epe conflict with Ofin, 38, 68, 95 location on map, 66, 143 politics, 38, 68–9, 95, 121, 140, 160 Sagamu, 83 Epega, David Onadele, 13, 38–9, 40, 49, 65, 68–9, 71, 73, 80, 83, 106, 108, 113, 114–17, 268–9nn57, 270nn69,71, 275nn23–5 Eposo location on map, 66 migration, 45, 92 oba, 40, 45, 226

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Òsùgbó, 45 status of, 70, 226 Ereke Day festival, Ikenne, 215–19, 221, 284n27 Erinle, J. S., 125 Erinwole, Oba Awolesi, Akàrígbò of Ofin, 104, 160, 274n14 Erinwole, Osunfunke, 160 Erunwon, 77, 105 Èsù, 56; see also òrìsà ethnicity Awolowo’s views on, 15, 200, 257 nationalist politics, 22, 124–5, 233–4 postcolonial politics, 28, 192, 202–3, 204 Remo, 147, 166, 192–5, 244 Ewùsi of Makun, 42, 85, 108, 121, 138, 182, 225 Fadairo, Olu, 285n12 Fadipe, N. A., 47, 63 Fafowora, Oladapo, 238 Fajunmoju, Ogunloye, 190 Fajuyi, Adekunle, 192 Fakorede, District Police Officer, 248 family groups (ilé), 58–9, 62–4, 268n50; see also descent groups; lineages Fani-Kayode, 263n15 farmers, rebellion see Àgbékòyà rebellion Farrow, S. S., 47 Fasehun, Frederick, 237–8, 246, 286n20, 287n30 Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO), 24, 204, 205, 264n22, 282n8 Fidipote family, 276nn45,46 Fowler, W., Acting Resident, 162 Frobenius, L., 265nn22,24 Galtung, Johan, 263n4 gàrí, 127–9, 199 Gbadamosi, S. O., 279n21, 280n3 Gbagura (Egba group of towns), 67, 71, 77 Gbasemo family, 157, 158, 168, 278–9n5 Gbelegbuwa family, 115, 275–6n44, 276nn45,46 Gbelegbuwa, Awujalè of Ijebu-Ode, 115 Geary, William Neville, 116–17, 276n48 gender relations Agemo festivals, 51 complementarity of, 43, 47–8, 185–6, 242 kolanut trade, 240–1 Orò associations, 47–8, 185–6, 193–4, 239, 267n27, 282n27 political participation, 9, 11, 119, 128–9, 130–1, 190, 194 see also women GNPP see Greater Nigerian People’s Party

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Gowon, Yakubu, 23, 198–201 grassroots politics, 5–6, 30–1, 113–14, 172–4, 196, 204–8 Greater Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP), 205, 282n7 Green, Oba Adebo, Alálísan of Ilisan, 190 Haastrup, Ademuyiwa (James Pythagoras), 12, 90–1, 99–100, 186, 281n19 Harneit-Sievers, Axel, 284n32 Hausa, Sabo, 141–5, 160–1, 194–5, 244–5 ‘Hausa’ soldiers, 91, 94, 107 Hinderer, D., 78–9, 89, 267n30 HIV/AIDS, 242 Hodgkin, Thomas, 283n11 Human Rights Watch (HRW), 249 Ibadan Ijebu relations, 77, 79 local politics, 17–18 migrant associations, 206 Native Settlers Union, 135 party politics, 163–4, 173 Remo immigrants, 135–6 Ibadan Tax Payers’ Association (ITPA), 17, 168 Ibadan-Ijaye war, 79–80 Ibido, 83 location on map, 143 Ibikunle, Balógun of Ibadan, 80 Ibo [Igbo] Federal Union, 22, 134 IDA see Ikenne Development Association Idarika destruction of, 40, 73, 81 location on map, 66 meeting place of Remo assemblies, 49, 65, 67, 70–1, 81 migration, 92 oba, 40 as town quarter, 59, 92, 226 Iddo (Egba town), 67, 71 Iddo island (near Lagos), 53 Idena location on map, 66 migration, 92 oba, 40 as town quarter, 59, 92, 226 Idimota, Yesufu, 116 Idotun destruction, 59, 171, 280n30 oba, 40, 171–2, 226 politics, 170–2 as town quarter, 59, 226 see also Olúdòtun of Idotun Idowu, Folarin, 282n3 Ife, 7, 75, 163, 173 location on map, 76 see also Ile-Ife; Óòni of Ile-Ife

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Index Ifekoya, I. A., 13, 102, 125 Igbein, 54, 77 location on map, 66 Igbepa, 84 Igbo politics, 22, 199–200; see also Biafra; Civil War Igbogbo, 71 Igbomina towns, 7, 9 location on map, 76 Ìgbopón ceremony, 167 Igbore, 77 location on map, 66 igbórò groves, 46; see also Orò associations Ige, Bola, 135, 181, 191 Igimisoje, Oba Oduname, Akàrígbò of Ofin, 83, 104 Ijagba, 69, 83, 139, 140, 278n33 location on map, 66, 143 Orile, 61, 62, 268n53 Ijebu Agemo associations, 50, 268–9n57 Ibadan attitudes to, 17, 135–6 kingdom, 3, 7, 11 location on map, 66, 76, 82 political alliances, 75–7 rulers of, 36–7, 265nn9–11 State, 234, 285n12 towns of, 8, 71–2, 86–8, 270n74 see also Awujalè of Ijebu-Ode; Ijebu-Ode Ijebu-Ife, 37, 67, 221, 265n9 location on map, 76 Ijebu-Igbo, 67, 86, 87, 110, 265n9, 272nn19,26, 276n52, 287n37 Ijebu-Ode age grades (Régbérégbé), 69, 269n63 British conquest, 90–1 colonial rule, 12–13 location on map, 66, 76, 82, 97 òrìsà, 56 political authority, 8, 88 relations with Remo, 3–4, 30, 79–80, 101–2, 107–10 town assemblies, 67–8 trade, 77–8 see also Awujalè of Ijebu-Ode; Ijebu Ijebu Remo Progressive Union (IRPU), 206 Ijebu-Remo Taxpayers’ Association (IRTPA), 168, 263n13 Ijemo, 77 Ijesa (Ijebu town), 64, 71, 101 location on map (as Ijebu-Ijesa), 66, 97 Ijesa (kingdom), 7, 9, 265n3, 268n54, 281n15 location on map, 76 Ijeun, 68, 150 location on map, 77 Ijokun, 83, 144–6, 242 location on map, 66, 82, 143

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Ikenne, 53, 59, 92, 266n21, 268n43 Alákènnéé, 121, 157–9, 167–70, 198, 278–9n5, 280n31 Awolowo’s involvement, 150, 153, 157–9, 167–70, 210, 212–20 Christianity, 56, 100, 273n6 Ereke Day festival, 215–19, 221 Idotun’s role, 170–2, 226 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 Obafemi Awolowo Memorial Church, 212 Olíwo, 170 Òsùgbó, 94, 170–2 party politics, 139, 140, 190 quarters of, 59–60 St Saviour’s Church, 153, 154, 211, 212, 278n1 town hall, 215 see also Awolowo, Hannah; Awolowo, Obafemi; Onafowokan, Gabriel Ikenne Development Association (IDA), 207, 212, 215–19 Ikenne local government, 234, 258–9n14 Ikenne Rubber and Agricultural Plantation, 19, 189, 213–14 location on map, 143, 188 Ikenne-Sagamu road, land dispute, 155–6, 158, 169, 189, 278n4 Ikereku, 77 location on map, 66 Ikija, 77 Ikirun, 86 Ikoli, Ernest, 124–5, 276–7n5 Ikorodu, 71, 78, 80, 91, 93–4, 104, 270n71, 271nn12,13 in Lagos, 81, 91, 94, 269n67, 272n27 location on map, 66, 82, 97 Methodism, 101, 273n7 party politics, 162, 164–5, 191, 279n21, 280n3 Ikorodu District, 12, 91, 97 Ilakan, 72, 270nn72,73, 272n21 location on map, 66 Ilara, 38, 69, 283n16 Balùfòn festival, 54–6 Ijaye Day festival, 221 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 migration, 45, 60, 74, 265–6n12, 268n51 politics, 68–9, 139 see also Alárá of Ilara Ilaye, 61 ilé (family groups), 58–9, 62–4, 268n50 Ile-Ife, 50, 150 location on map, 76 mythical importance, 25, 34, 278n30 origin from, 36–7, 60, 221, 265nn9, 10, 11

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see also Ife; Óòni of Ile-Ife Ilédì, 40, 41, 45, 46, 91, 94; see also Òsùgbó associations Ilisan, 43, 57, 63, 80, 92, 190, 283n16 Isanbi Day festival, 221 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 Orò associations, 46–7 politics, 117, 121, 139, 190, 205 status of, 68, 70 see also Adefulu, Oba Adeilo, Alálísan of Ilisan Ilorin, migrants from, 142, 144, 147, 192, 195, 239 ìlú aládé, 34, 41, 42, 171–2 Ilugun, 71 Imapako, town assemblies, 67 Imo, 77 location on map, 66 Imole Oluwa Institute, 106 Imota, 71 Imowo, town assemblies, 67, 71 Imusin, 67, 86, 87, 267n34, 269n59, 284n27 Inanuwa, Ewùsi of Makun, 42 Indirect Rule, 4, 102, 114–15, 276n52 infrastructure, attacks on, 213–14 Ipara, 38, 40, 77, 78, 78–80, 80, 92, 93, 205, 265n10, 271n3 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 oba, 121, 125 Oguola Day festival, 221 politics, 125, 139, 190 see also Sapade; Sowole, M. S. Iperu, 205, 207, 227, 268n56, 271n5, 272n25, 273n4 Akesan Day festival, 221, 226 Christianity, 49, 93, 100, 273n4 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 migration, 92 oba, 35, 38, 40, 133, 136–7, 186 politics, 41, 69, 117, 121, 125, 139–40, 141, 190 rebellion, 38, 77–9, 80, 81 see also Alápér u of Iperu; Sapade Ipoji, 84 location on map, 66, 143 Iporo, 68, 77 location on map, 66 Iraye, 267n39 Agemo, 52–3 Èlúkú, 52 oba, 40 as town quarter, 59, 92, 226 Irolu, 205, 283n16 Agaun Day festival, 221 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 politics, 92, 116, 139 Ironsi, Aguiyi, 198

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IRPU see Ijebu Remo Progressive Union IRTPA see Ijebu-Remo Taxpayers’ Association Irving, E G., 78–9, 89, 267n30 Isara, 40, 60, 69, 92, 114, 186, 205, 234, 268n51, 270n75, 271n3, 283n16 Afotamodi Day festival, 221 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 Odemo, 125–7 politics, 77, 79, 80, 94, 139, 214, 285n13 see also Akinsanya, Oba Samuel; Sapade Iseri, 59, 142 location on map, 66, 76, 82, 97 Islam education, 132, 147, 274n17 in Ijebu-Ode, 12–13, 98 Orò opposition, 49, 243–5 Sabo migrant community, 146–7, 194–5 Itesi, 77 Itoko, 77 Itoku, 68, 77 ITPA see Ibadan Tax Payers’ Association itún (town quarters), 58–62 ìwàjà, 36, 265n7 Ìwàréfà, 43, 69, 111; see also Òsùgbó associations Iworu, 46–7 Iyingbola of Ode Remo, 57 Jabajábá, 56 Jobore, town assemblies, 67 Johnson, E. T., 267n36 Johnson, James, 49, 80, 89–90, 93, 271nn3–5, 274n13, 275n24, 281n19 Joseph, Lai, 27 Joyful News Evangelists, 273n4 Kadzai, Ayuba, 242n6 Kakan'fò, 68, 70 Kalejaiye of Isara, 271n3 Kano, Aminu, 282n7 Kara lorry park, 239–40, 243, 244 location on map, 143, 188 Kemta, 68 location on map, 66 Kesi, 68, 77 Ketu (Lagos suburb), 128 kolanuts, 1, 101, 142, 145–6, 240–1 Kosoko affair, 88–9 Kuku, Balógun, 12, 98 Ladejobi, Olófin of Ilisan, 45 Lagos, 13, 22, 135 education, 22, 98, 103, 105, 106, 138, 154, 160, 237n9, 274n22, 281n17 location on map, 66, 76, 82, 97 nationalist movement, 14–15, 112–14,

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Index 120–2, 124–5, 131 politics, 4, 12, 88–91, 102, 116, 152, 176, 205, 238, 249, 271n13, 279n21, 282n9, 287n36 trade, 77, 78, 79, 80, 101, 104, 123, 127–9, 213, 270–1n1, 277n13 Lagos Daily Service, 22, 124 Lagos Market Women’s Association (LMWA), 128 Lagos Youth Movement, 113; see also Nigerian Youth Movement Latawa, 84 location on map, 66, 143 Lewis, P., 284n1 Lider ù, 54–6, 57; see also òrìsà lineages, political role, 156–7, 158, 160–2; see also descent groups; family groups literacy, growth of, 13–14, 58, 98–9, 102–3, 107, 119; see also education Little, Kenneth, 283n11 Liworu, 46–7; see also Ilisan, Orò Liyangu family, 155, 156, 160, 231, 284n3 Lloyd, P. C., 61, 141 local development, 6, 31, 206–8, 210–14, 283n16; see also community development associations local government administration of, 234–5, 285–6n14 democratisation, 136–7, 278n29 local politics Awolowo’s involvement, 2–3, 5–6, 14–17, 133, 137–41, 205–8 consent, 42, 73–4, 95, 98 Ibadan, 17–18 popular participation, 7–11, 140, 257–9 Lópèérèè associations, 70, 100, 269n64

Máàjéóbàjé movement, 130–3, 157–8 Mábolájé see Ibadan Tax Payers’ Association MacPherson constitution, 137 Madden, Major, 93–4 Majekodunmi, Moses, 178 Makun conflict with Ofin, 57, 209, 225, 283nn14,18 destruction of, 80 location on map, 66, 143 migration, 45, 72 Muslim immigrants, 142–4 Obaluwa Day festival, 225 Òsùgbó, 42 politics, 38, 57, 77–80, 108, 117, 121, 138, 139, 162 quarters of, 59, 60 in Sagamu, 84–6, 92, 144, 146, 161 status of, 69, 70 see also Ewùsi of Makun Makun Omi, 67, 269n59

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Mamdani, Mahmood, 122, 267n54 Martindale Inquiry, 117–18 masquerades Agemo festivals, 50–2, 74 Egúngún, 47, 56, 57, 77, 194, 209, 268nn45,46, 273n6, 283n18 political use, 164, 184, 209 Sabo, 146, 194 Matazu, Babangida, 192 Mellor, Cecilia, 105, 274n17 Mellor, William Frederick, 13, 103, 105, 108–9, 115, 121, 186, 274nn16,17,19,20 Methodism, 273nn3,4,7,12 converts, 13, 90, 108–9 in Remo, 93, 96, 99–103, 118–19 women, 11, 109, 274n17 see also Haastrup, Ademuyiwa; Mellor, William Frederick migrants associations, 121–2, 206–7, 220 civic commitment, 6, 206 educated, 11, 110, 120, 185, 281n17 from Owu, 66, 71, 88, 272n21 from Oyo, 38, 39, 57, 77 grievances against, 239–45 in Ibadan, 135–6, 149, 163–4, 277n15 in Lagos, 124–5, 128 nationalist, 110–11, 113, 121–2, 158, 281n17 oba, 36–7, 265nn9–11 Ode Remo, 92 rural-urban, 121–2, 276n3 in Sabo, 141–6, 147–8, 183, 191–2, 194–5, 241, 243–5, 278n34 ties with home communities, 164, 187, 206, 226–7, 282–3nn10,11, 284n32 military coup (January 1966), 21, 23, 26, 192, 198 military coup (July 1966), 23, 198 military coup (1983), 25, 210 military coup (1985), 230 Minne, R. T., 118 missionaries Anglican, 78–9, 89, 98–9 Ijebu-Ode, 89–90 Methodist, 93, 98–9 Orò associations, 48–9, 93, 267n30 Remo, 98–9 see also Christianity Mogunpa, town assemblies, 67 Mohammed, Murtala, 201 Moko family, 157–8, 167–70, 279n6 Moloney, Governor, 90 Morton-Williams, Peter, 265n22 Mosimi oil depot, 239–41, 243, 244, 245 location on map, 188

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NADECO see National Democratic Coalition National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) coalition with Action Group, 181 elections (1951), 138–41 rivalry with Action Group, 5, 15, 22–3, 151, 164, 176–8 support for, 18, 150, 181–2, 281n15 traditional politics and, 149–52 National Council for Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) see National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), 19, 233, 246 National Party of Nigeria (NPN), 24–5, 203–4, 208–10, 264nn25,26, 283n20 National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), 239 nationalist politics ethnic divisions, 124, 233–4 leaders, 111–14 Remo, 14–15, 120–3 traditional rulers and, 130–3 women’s involvement, 129, 130–1 Native Administration challenges to, 130–3 figures in, 13, 105 obaship, 124–5 Remo, 109–10 Native Settlers Union, Ibadan, 135 NCNC see National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons Nigerian Motor Transport Union, 112, 123, 124 Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), 5, 181–4, 189–92 Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), 203, 205, 264n24 Nigerian Trades Union Congress, 123 Nigerian Tribune, 15, 137, 159, 190 Nigerian Union of Young Democrats (NUYD), 128–9 Nigerian Women’s Union (NWU), 130 Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), 14, 22, 112, 113, 114, 120–3, 124–5, 148, 277n25 NNDP see Nigerian National Democratic Party Nolte, Hans-Heinrich, 275n43 Northern People’s Congress (NPC), 20, 22, 195, 203, 282n7 Northern Region, political parties, 282n7 NPC see Northern People’s Congress NPN see National Party of Nigeria NPP see Nigerian People’s Party NURTW see National Union of Road Transport Workers

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NUYD see Nigerian Union of Young ­Democrats NWU see Nigerian Women’s Union NYM see Nigerian Youth Movement Oba, 77 Obada market, 90 Obafemi Awolowo Memorial Church, Ikenne, 212 Oban;ta head, 54–6 Obara family, 155–6, 157, 158, 168–9, 170, 189, 278–9n5, 279n11 obas decline of, 39–40 migration of, 36–7, 265nn9–11 persona, 35, 37, 53, 78, 279n38 powers of, 41–2, 136–7, 177 relations with Òsùgbó, 42, 46 role of, 33–40, 124–5 structural opposition, 46, 52 see also traditional rulers Obasanjo, Olusegun, 6, 28, 201–2, 243, 246, 252, 287–8n40 Ode Lemo, location on map, 66, 82, 188 Ode Remo, 41, 49, 57, 77, 95, 126, 186, 205, 265n10, 271n5 Agemo associations, 52–3 Christianity, 93, 100 education, 103, 106 Lafose Day festival, 221, 222, 226 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 migration to, 92, 273n8 missionaries, 89, 93 politics, 77–81, 93–4, 117, 125, 139, 190, 280 quarters, 40, 45, 60, 92 status of, 69, 70 see also Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo; Sapade Ode Remo Development Council (ODC), 207, 211 Odemo of Isara, 40, 121, 182 Odeneye, Ademolu, 169–70 Òdì, role of, 34, 265n4 Odogbolu, 71, 72, 86, 87, 101, 272n20, 285n12 location on map, 82, 97 Odubela family, 115 Odubote, Aborisade, 105 Odubote, Isaac Onafowokan, 105, 274n21 Oduduwa Awolowo, 25–6, 27, 28, 199 mythical ancestor, 36, 134, 199, 233, 237 see also Egbé Omo Odùduwà Oduduwa Republic, 199, 200 Odujinrin, Dipo, 208–9 Odukogbe, Odemo of Isara, 40 Odumuyiwa, Kolawole, 246–8

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Index Odunlami, Babatunde A., 72, 236 Odutola, Timothy, 112, 120, 276nn1,2 Oduwobi, Tunde, 265nn3,8, 272n19, 274n14, 277n22 Oduyale, A. T., 43, 69 Oduye, Olusegun Adedapo, 72, 271n18, 272nn21,22 Ofin authority of, 4–5, 40, 68–9, 78–9, 81, 96 Christianity, 90, 99–100, 101, 109 conflict with Epe, 38 conflict with Makun, 57, 209, 225, 283nn14,18 leading town, 3–4, 30, 38, 68–9, 70, 79–81, 83, 96–8, 104, 133 location on map, 66, 76, 143 migration, 37 politics, 14, 78, 105, 138–9, 162–6, 183 quarters, 61 relations with British, 88, 89, 91 in Sagamu, 84, 85–6, 90, 144, 146 throne of, 159–62, 231–2 vigilantes, 236, 246 see also Akàrígbò of Ofin Ogbomoso, 86, 176, 180, 280n5 location on map, 76 Ògbóni, 3, 8, 33, 40, 45–6, 48, 272n31; see also Òsùgbó Ogboni Aboriginal Society, 8, 58, 186, 268n48 Ogere, 103, 265n10 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 oba, 133, 136–7, 138 Olipakala Day festival, 221, 283 politics, 38, 77, 79, 81, 117, 139, 186, 190 see also Olóògèrè of Ogere Ogijo, 37, 128, 164–5 location on map, 66, 82, 97, 188 Ògún, 56; see also òrìsà Ogun State creation of, 168, 202 elections (2003), 249, 250 government of, 250, 252 Ogunade of Ipara, 271n3 Ogunba, Oyinade, 50, 52 Ogunbanjo, Olatokunbo, 287n38 Ogunbiyi, T. A. J., 58 Ogunde, Hubert, 182 Ogunderu, Daniel, 252 Ogunfowora, Balógun, 269n63 Ogunfowora, Oba J. O., Alápér u of Iperu, 227–8 Ogunjimi, Kehinde, 247–8 Ogunlaja, M. O., 236, 248 Ogunmogbo, 45, 74, 92, 266n20 location on map, 66 status, 68–9

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Ogunnaike, Ali, 115, 276n45 Ogunoye, Oba Adekola, Olówò of Owo, 19, 263–4n16 Ogunremi, G. O, 272nn20,22 Ogunsimbo, Abel, 13 oil revenues, 239–41 Ojukwu, Odumegwu, 264n23 Oke-Odan, 86 Oke-Ona (Egba group of towns), 67, 71, 72, 77, 270n75 Oko (Egba town) allegiances, 67, 72, 270n75 location on map, 66 Orile, 126 Oko (Remo town), 60, 84, 143, 274n17 location on map, 66, 82, 97 Okpara, Michael, 183 Okun-Owa, 75, 88, 166, 270n74 location on map, 66, 82, 97 Remo claims to, 71–2 Remo migration, 72, 265n9, 270n70 Okunrounmu, Femi, 287n38 Okupe, Abraham, Alápér u of Iperu, 108, 133, 139–40 Olagbegi, Oba Olateru, Olówò of Owo, 19, 263–4n16 OLF see Oodua Liberation Front OLM see Oodua Liberation Movement Olófin of Ilisan, 45 olójà, 33–40, 41, 50, 265n3 Olójà Mér ìndínlógún, 268–9n57 Olóògèrè of Ogere, 121, 136 Olótùú Erelú, 32; see also Òsùgbó associations Olówò of Owo, 19, 137, 263–4n16 Olowu, Seidu, 90 olóyè, 33; see also chiefs Olúdòtun of Idotun, 170–2, 226 Olugbile, O M., 270n69 Olukokun, Oba Soleghe, Ewùsi of Makun, 85 Olúwayé, 54–6, 111; see also òrìsà Olúweri, 56; see also òrìsà Olúwo, 42, 43, 60, 92; see also Òsùgbó associations Omoboriowo, Akin, 209 Ona, River, 71 location on map, 82, 97, 188 Onabanjo, Bisi, 178, 209 Onadeko, Oba Idowu, Odemo of Isara, 69, 271n3 Onafowokan, Balógun of Ijebu-Ode, 272n26 Onafowokan, Adedapo, 212 Onafowokan, Augusta Omoriola, 154 Onafowokan, Gabriel Alákènnéé of Ikenne, 157–8, 167 Awolowo and, 140, 154, 155–6, 168, 263n13 background of, 13, 105, 276n47

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death of, 212 imprisonment, 116 see also Moko family Onafowokan, Kehinde, 168–9 Onafowokan, S. K., 64 Onafowokan, Taiwo, 168 Onasanya, S. A., 43, 69 Onasoga, Olatunji Oladunle, 84 Ondo, 163, 177 descent, 62, 268n54 location on map, 76 State, 202, 205, 209–10, 234, 282n9 towns, 9, 38, 265n12 Onipanu (Lagos suburb), 128 ONPIC see Oodua Nation’s People’s International Council Oodua Liberation Front (OLF), 237–8 Oodua Liberation Movement (OLM), 286n21 Oodua Nation’s People’s International Council (ONPIC), 238 Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), 201, 229, 237–9, 244, 245, 246–7, 249, 286n20, 287nn30,33 Oodua Youth Movement (OYM), 237, 286n19 Óòni of Ile-Ife, 95, 117, 137, 176, 272n35, 278n30, 285n6 Opayemi, Juwon, 186, 281n22 OPC see Oodua People’s Congress Opeaye, Oba Sobola, Olúdòtun of Idotun, 171 Operation Salvation, 191–2, 193 Operation Wetie, 191, 201 oral history, 34, 275n24 Orenowo, Adejumo, Alákènnéé of Ikenne, 157–8 Oresajo, Oba S. O., Olúdòtun of Idotun, 171 oríkì, 3, 9, 215, 217, 221–2 Orile Ijagba see Ijagba Orile Oko see Oko (Egba town) òrìsà, 36, 268n43 festivals, 53–7, 217 groups based on, 33, 45, 46, 73 priests, 181, 281nn11,12 symbolism, 189, 196 Orò associations gender relations, 47–8, 185–6, 193–4, 239, 267n27 Muslim opposition, 243–5 political activity, 187–9, 196 political violence, 191–2 practices, 45–50 Remo representation, 193–5 restrictions on, 185–6 Sabo, 166, 184, 193–5, 242–5, 282n27 vigilante groups, 235–6, 246 Orogbe family, 157, 168, 278–9n5

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Oshun Division, political support, 18 Osi, 56, 100, 268n44 Osifade, A. O., 41 Osindero, Jacob, 49, 93 Osinloye, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 95 Osiyemi, Oba D. M., Ebumawe of AgoIwoye, 108 Osogbo, 86, 280n5 location on map, 76 Òsùgbó associations authority of, 95 Christianity and, 58, 93 destruction of, 185, 281n19 divisions, 43, 266n17 political role, 185–6, 281n18 role of, 3, 8, 33, 40–50, 264n2 Sagamu, 83, 87, 272n22 women members, 43, 44 Òsun, 56; see also òrìsà Osun State, 234 Otesile, Oba Badaru Ogunbawo, Olúdòtun of Idotun, 171 Otubusin, Daniel (later Oba Daniel Adesanya), 115–16 Otunba Payne, John Augustus, 275n24, 275–6n44 Our Saviour’s Church, Ikenne see St Saviour’s Church Owu conflict, 75, 271n2 location on map, 76 migrants, 66, 71, 88, 272n21 Oyegunsen, Joseph, 49, 93 Oyemade, Justice, 190 OYM see Oodua Youth Movement Oyo influence of, 11, 64, 67, 70, 75, 268n46 location on map, 76 migration from, 38, 39, 57, 77, 88 party politics, 173, 176–7, 180, 205, 209–20, 282n9 State, 202, 234, 282n9 towns, 9, 86, 145, 200, 265–6n12 see also Aláàfin of Oyo Pabiekun, Adeniyi, 104, 274n15 palm tree, symbolism, 189 Pàm;pá association, 69, 269n60 participation see popular participation party politics elections (1951), 139–40 elections (1964), 181–4, 281n9 elections (1965), 189–92 elections (1979), 202–4 elections (1983), 208–10 elections (1999), 246 elections (2003), 229, 248–52 introduction of, 137–41

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Index lineage politics and, 160 popular participation and, 140–1, 173–4 Remo, 138–40, 148–52, 162–6, 172–4, 189–92, 208–10 traditional politics and, 15, 141, 148–52, 165–6, 168, 176, 182–3, 187, 195 violence, 189–91, 210 patrilineage see descent groups Paulsen, Jan, 99, 273n8 PDP see People’s Democratic Party Peel, J. D. Y., 9, 98, 107, 163, 186, 264n27 Pelewura, Madam Alimotu, 128–9 People’s Democratic Party (PDP), 229, 246, 249, 250–2 People’s Redemption Party (PRP), 205, 282n7 Poke, Oba Onabajo, Odemo of Isara, 125 popular participation local politics, 7–11, 140, 257–9 Remo politics, 3–6, 172–4 see also consent praise names see oríkì prostitutes, 241–4, 286n24 PRP see People’s Redemption Party Pullen, A. P., 128

319





Raniken, 61, 84 Ransome-Kuti, Funmilayo, 130 rebel towns, 80–1, 92, 93–4 party politics, 138–9, 150, 159 Remo independence, 96, 98, 100, 114, 117, 121 Reeves Tucker, Captain, 272n29 Reformed Ogboni Fraternity (ROF), 8, 58, 186 Régbérégbé (age grades), 69, 269n63 regional parliaments, 137 religion civil religion, 221, 284n28 communal rivalry and, 12–13, 143, 244, 273n2 nationalist politics and, 129 popular participation and, 119, 186 traditional practices and, 147, 186–7 see also Christianity; Islam; òrìsà Remo Awolowo’s legacy, 28–9 belonging, 147, 165, 193, 195 Christianity, 98–102, 273n2 Civil War, 199–201 colonial elite, 102–7 colonial rule, 12–14, 91, 102 community development festivals, 220–8, 258, 284n27 conflicts, 11–12, 40, 74, 75–81, 244 development associations, 6, 31, 206–8, 283n16 Diocese (Anglican), 121

Sabo boundaries of, 146 civic associations, lack of, 147–8, 166, 184–5, 193–4 community festivals, 226 creation of, 144–6 location on map, 143, 188 market, 144 migrants, 146–7, 192, 194–5 Orò associations, 166, 184, 193–5, 242–5, 282n27 party politics, 166, 183–4 political representation, 147–8, 160–1, 193 violence, 191–2, 195, 243–5 Sagamu community hall, 206–7 confederate town, 4, 72, 83–4, 222, 225 economic growth, 101 foundation of, 4, 12, 81–6 location on map, 82, 97, 143, 188 migrant community, 142–5 opposition to, 92–5 prostitutes, 241–4, 286n24 quarters of, 59, 61, 146–7, 225–6 relations with the British, 88–91 Sagamu Day festival, 221, 222–6, 284n29 towns of, 83–4, 143, 271n17 violence (2003), 247–8 Sagamu Conference of Social Clubs (SCSC), 222–5 Sagamu Development Association, 207 Sagamu Youth Development Association, 247, 248

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Divisional status, 133, 277n22 education, 132 independence campaign, 88–9, 94, 107–10, 114–19 location, 1, 188 location on map, 66, 76, 82, 97, 188 migrants, 121–2, 206–7, 220, 281n17 nationalist politics, 120–3 party politics, 138–40, 162–6, 172–4, 189–92, 208–10 political violence, 189–92 precolonial institutions, 32–74 relations with British, 90–1, 94–5 relations with Ijebu-Ode, 3–4, 79–80, 101–2, 107–10 towns assemblies, 64–73 Rémo Métàlélógbòn, 3, 33, 49–50, 64–73 ritual reversals, 73–4 road transport, 123 Robinson, Acting Resident, 159 ROF see Reformed Ogboni Fraternity Ruxton, Major, 275n29

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320

obafemi awolowo and the making of remo

St Saviour’s Church, Ikenne, 153, 154, 167, 211, 212, 251, 278n1 Saki, 86 location on map, 76 Salami, Isiaka, 247 Salami, Mallam Abdul, 142 Sàngó, 56, 268n43; see also òrìsà Sapade, 207–8, 283n17 SCSC see Sagamu Conference of Social Clubs Second World War, 11, 123, 127 secret societies, 40, 46; see also Èlúkú associations; Orò associations; Òsùgbó associations Shagari, Shehu, 24, 204–5, 264nn21,22, 282n8 Shehu, Haruna Babali, 226 Shovelton, Sister Winifred, 109 Sklar, Richard, 278n34, 279n19 skulls use of, 100, 171 worship of, 56 slaves former, 63, 91, 141 trade, 75, 77, 86, 88–9, 227, 270–1n1 Smith, Robert S., 80 Sodeinde, Lateef A., 238, 246 Sodiya, Segun, 38 Sokoto politics, 11, 75 Sardauna, 20–1 Sokoya, E. A., 110 Solanke, Dr, 160 Solarin, Amos, 158 Solarin, Oba Odunayo, Olúdòtun of Idotun, 172 Solarin, Tai, 199–200 Soloye, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 39, 80–1 Somolu (Lagos suburb), 128 Sonariwo, Oba Michael, Akàrígbò of Ofin, 6, 231–3, 242, 247–9, 284–5n5 Sonoiki, A. O, 268n43 Sonoiki, Oba Ayoola, Elépòsò of Eposo, 70 Sonyindo Agemo, 51 Balùfòn, 54, 225 location on map, 66, 143 Sagamu, 61, 84, 100 Sosan, S. F., 268n56 Sotinwa, Aláyé Odè of Ode Remo, 211 Sotubo, 61, 62, 160, 268n53 Sotubo family, 61 Sowole, M. S., 110, 138, 140 Soyemi, Oluremi Adenuga, 167n40 Soyinka, Wole, 111, 191, 277n10 Starlight, 241–2, 245, 286n24 location on map, 143, 188 states, creation of, 200–1, 202, 233–4

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structural opposition, 46, 52 Study Circle, 112 Subair, H. A., 112 suya, 142, 226 synoikismos, 83 Tafawa Balewa, Abubakar, 21, 178 Talbot, Percy Amaury, 109, 115, 254n22 Tarka, Joseph, 203, 282n5 Thompson, W. A., 100, 273n5 Tinubu, Bola, 287n36 Tinubu, Madame, 267n27 Tinubu, S. A., 263n15 Torungbuwa, Oba Oyebajo, Akàrígbò, 91, 93, 95, 99–100, 104, 274n14 towns Agemo associations, 52–3 assemblies, 64–73 belonging, 64, 140, 220, 227, 245 communities, 32–3 confederate, 4, 72, 83–4, 86–8, 222, 225 consent, 9–11, 32–3, 73–4, 84–6, 153, 171, 213–15, 217–18, 257–8, 267n39 family groups (ilé), 58–9, 62–4 Ikorodu District, 97 institutions, 32–3, 73–4, 83, 264–5n2 names of, 61, 269–70n68 polities, 7–9 precolonial rulers, 33–40 quarters (itún), 58–62, 83 trade gàrí, 127–9 kolanuts, 101, 142, 145–6, 240–1 traditional allegiance, 37, 71–2, 94, 110, 115, 119, 174 traditional hierarchy, 5, 28, 118, 165, 173–4, 175–6, 183, 193, 196, 209, 229, 232–3, 246, 255 traditional politics, 14, 17–18, 120, 122, 125, 135–7, 140, 148–52, 159–60, 162, 173, 175, 180, 190, 230–1, 260 traditional rulers Awolowo’s titles, 150–1 Ikenne chieftaincy declaration, 168–70 nationalist politics and, 130–3 party politics and, 141, 148–52, 168, 182–3 power of, 136–7 precolonial, 33–40 see also chiefs; elites; obas traditions authoritarian, 7–8, 126, 148 civic, 5, 6, 40 participatory, 8–9, 12, 33, 65, 83, 95, 106, 113–14, 166, 186, 258–60

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Index

political, 18, 21, 106, 173, 217, 249, 257–60 royal, 80, 171

Umeadi, Philip, 203 union movement, 14, 123 United Africa Company (UAC), 128 United People’s Grand Alliance (UPGA), 181, 184, 189–90 Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) creation of, 24, 202 elections (1979), 203–4, 282n9 elections (1983), 208–10 policies, 205–8 Unongo, Paul, 282n6 UPGA see United People’s Grand Alliance UPN see Unity Party of Nigeria Uren, River, 53, 56 Vaughan, Olufemi, 281n16 vigilantes, 229, 234–6, 246–8 violence elections (1965), 189–92 political, 11, 213–14 vigilantes, 235–6, 247–8 WAFF see West African Frontier Force WAPCO see West African Portland Cement Corporation Ward, E. R., Disrict Officer, 125 Weisser, G., 265n23 Wesley College, Ibadan, 14, 111–12 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS), 99, 101, 103 West African Frontier Force (WAFF), 127 West African Pilot, 22, 124, 161 West African Portland Cement Corporation (WAPCO), 247–8

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321

location on map, 143 Western Region Awolowo’s involvement, 15–16, 26, 137–41, 163, 168, 175 division of, 202 elections (1951), 139–40 elections (1964), 181, 281n9 party politics, 173–4, 176–7 Yoruba politics, 199–201 Western State, 200, 202, 279n19 Whiteley, Chief Commissioner, 126 Williams, A. V., 99 Williams, Christopher Sapara, 104, 274n13 Willis, John C., 268n46 WMMS see Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society women civic associations, 41, 43, 48, 50–2, 185–7, 194, 239, 266n23, 267n27, 269n63, 282n27 destructive powers, 47–8, 241–2 education of, 109, 274n17 gàrí trade, 127–9 kolanut trade, 146, 240–1 party politics, 156, 209 popular participation, 47, 53–4, 129, 130–1, 190 as rulers, 35 status of, 267n25 see also gender relations Yewa see Egbado Yoruba nationalism, 15, 134–7, 175, 180–1 Oodua organisations, 237–9 politics, 7–11, 199–201, 250, 257, 287n36

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