Kemi Badenoch said she was Yoruba, with nothing in common with the barbarians and savages of Northern Nigeria. Instinctively, everyone who heard her knew she was talking about inheritance from her Yoruba ancestors. Kemi Badenoch was saying she was heir to a specific legacy, the Yoruba legacy. We members of the Yoruba Party in the UK are heirs to the same Yoruba legacy as Kemi Badenoch.
Legacy comes in many different guises. Kemi Badenoch was referring only to the legacy of the Yoruba character (แปmแปluabi). There is one legacy for which we Yoruba display a depressing level of ignorance, the relationship between Great Britain and Yorubaland. That legacy was made formal more than a century ago but has been laid unclaimed by the Yoruba for just as long. It is our duty as heirs to expose and codify the nature and extent of this formal relationship, to identify its legal implications in today’s world, and to make known the benefits and detriments.
The first formal relationship established between Great Britain and Yorubaland was a treaty concluded on 23 July 1888. Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Alaafin Adeyemi of Yorubaland concluded and signed that treaty on behalf of their people. The British government made the treaty public by publishing it in London. On 16 June 1890, Queen Victoria formally ratified the treaty; the Alaafin did the same by accepting a treaty-related fee from the British government. By paying that fee to the Alaafin from the public purse and accepting the treaty under the Foreign Jurisdiction Act, the British government consolidated the Britain-Yorubaland Treaty into domestic law. The treaty established the boundary and frontiers of the Yorubaland, imbued the Yorubaland with an international personality, bore the hallmarks of finality, and possessed the force of international law, binding and enforceable. Britain at that time was seeking legitimate trade to replace the Transatlantic slavery that then was ending. Hence, the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty was focused on friendship, peace, and trade, to the exclusion of Britain’s competitors.
There has been a tendency by the chattering classes to dismiss Britain’s non-European treaties because the local signatories were ill-informed, and overwhelmed illiterates. This is nonsense of course. The caricature has arisen because of Britain’s unilateral decision to renege on its treaty obligations. If Britain had honoured its treaty obligations, Yorubaland would have emerged as a modern independent State outside of the ‘Colonial State’ of Nigeria. Alaafin Adeyemi was not passive. He wielded significant negotiating power. Alaafin Adeyemi influenced the treaty terms to the advantage of the Yoruba, exploiting the fact that Britain at that time could not afford to be dismissive of the Yoruba interests. In the treaty, Alaafin Adeyemi insisted that Britain recognised the sovereignty of Yorubaland and its autonomy in political and economic matters. Britain’s decision to renege on its treaty obligations merely put the formalised relationship into the legal state of ‘abeyance’. Britain reneging on the treaty did not, and could not, abolish it. The manifestations of the Britain-Yorubaland Treaty have merely been suspended due to other realities. It is therefore right and proper, and equitable, for heirs to the Yoruba legacy to pursue implementation of this legal relationship. It is an obligation.
The second formal relationship established between Great Britain and Yorubaland was an Order in Council promulgated by the British monarch at Windsor Castle on 22 November 1913 The Order incorporated Yorubaland into the Colony of Nigeria. The monarch made the Order under the Crown’s prerogative power, at his residence, in the presence of only 3 members of the House of Lords. The ‘prerogative’ refers to residual power left over from when the British Crown was directly involved in government. An Order in Council although ‘primary legislation’ is an executive act lacking the ‘representative character’ that comes with Parliamentary authority. In other words, an Order in Council excluded input from the British people.
This 1913 Order contravened other legal commitments to which Britain had previously agreed, which made it unlawful. The 1913 Order subverted the will of Parliament expressed in the Select Committee recommendations of 25 June 1865, which contemplated withdrawal from ‘all settlements including Lagos and not to annexe new territories’, which vetoed ‘all further extensions of territory or assumption of government or new treaties offering protection to native tribes’, and which entertained no exception to this ‘policy of non-extension’. The 1913 Order contravened the terms of the 1888 Britain-Yorubaland Treaty, which required consultation before the non-cession status of Yorubaland could be altered. The Alaafin and other Yoruba rulers were not consulted and their consent was not obtained before the Order was promulgated. The 1913 Order violated Section 2 of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act 1890 (the FJA), which specified that the jurisdiction of the British Monarch overseas extended only to British subjects, the Yoruba were not British subjects. The Order violated also Section 11 of the FJA, which specified that an Order in Council must be laid before Parliament for scrutiny, but this was not done. The 1913 Order jettisoned Lord Shelburne’s 1898 Niger Committee Report on amalgamation, which confirmed that ‘the Yoruba Country’ was outside of the British jurisdiction. Under international law, illegal acts, such as those listed here, could not create their own law (ex injuria jus non oritur). In other words, the British monarch was not entitled in law to enact the 1913 Order in Council.
It is therefore right proper, and equitable, for heirs to the Yoruba legacy to seek the revocation of the legacy of the 1913 Order. Fortunately, the extent of the ‘prerogative’ has been limited by law since the 1600s. It was held in the 1611 Case of Proclamation that the ‘prerogative’ was inferior to the law of the land, and in the 1909 case of Immunity of the Crown from Mandamus the ‘prerogative’ was a ‘vague’ legal instrument. Both the 2008 Bancoult (Commonwealth) case and the 2019 Parliament Prorogation case confirmed that a prerogative act although ‘primary legislation’, was subject to judicial review, or parliament could simply revoke it. These then are 2 aspects of the Yoruba legacy for UPUK to pursue in 2025. And those of you who are not already members of the YPUK, please join us at www.yorubapartyuk.org.