The world appeared to have been first alerted of the existence of the Yoruba race in the 1600s by Ahmed Baba, a Songhai Islamic scholar, who wrote that the Yoruba of West Africa were ‘unbelievers, remaining in their unbelief’.
Most accounts of the Yoruba-speaking peoples of ancient times do not reflect the enormous territory covered. Yoruba-speakers occupied the areas between the River Volta, in the West, and the River Niger, in the East, with an Atlantic coastline 1,000km or so long. The Yoruba had no standing army and no war-making industries. So how did the ancient Yoruba peacefully and tranquilly manage such a vast territory?The answer lies in their use of three political strategies:
1. Ancestry
2. Equality
3. Democracy
The Yoruba were inculcated on ancestry with a belief in a common origin at Ile Ifẹ. This city happened to be located at the midpoint of the Yoruba territory and with belief in a common descent from Oduduwa. Therefore, All Yoruba were blood-related kins and owed allegiance to one and all (Ọmọluabi). The Yoruba were inculcated with the belief that they belonged to one, Yoruba-speaking, nation (Orile Ede Yoruba), which was provided with divine guidance through Oriṣa and Ifa, and which was home for all to come to ‘rest’ (IIe labọ simi oko).
On equality, the Yoruba were indoctrinated with the philosophy that all children, birthed the same way, were born equal; and that all sexes were equal (‘Pele - hello - possessed neither male nor female’). The Yoruba were indoctrinated with the philosophy that one Yoruba age group was equal to another (‘We built Ile Ife on the pearls of wisdom of young and old’). The Yoruba were indoctrinated with the philosophy that all Yoruba conurbations (dialects) were equal since each was sanctioned by Oduduwa – Anago, Kétu and Sabẹ (in the west), Akoko, Awori, Ẹgba, Ekiti, Ife, Ijẹbu, Ijẹṣa, Ondo, Ọwọ and Ọyọ (in the centre), and Benin, Itṣẹkiri and Igala (in the east).
On democracy, the Yoruba established a blueprint (the Constitutional Ọba) for the governance of every settlement, large or small, in which every citizen participated directly, as of right. The cardinals of the blueprint were that the ruling group was composed of a council (Ijọba) and a headman (Ọba); the Ọba was the voice of the council and enforcer of council decisions. Membership of the council was by nomination from clans and from ‘unions’ – artisans, market traders, guilds, professionals, religionists etc. In turn, the council selected the Ọba from a pool of ‘ruling families’. The council-controlled, and could remove, the Ọba so that there was no chance of dictatorship by the Ọba; the Ọba reigned, he/she did not rule. The clans and ‘unions’ controlled, and could remove, their councillors (Oloye) so that there was no chance of a councillor going rogue.
The hand of Oduduwa was the decisive factor in each of the aforesaid political strategies but who or what Oduduwa actually was remains a mystery. To some, Oduduwa was a deity that descended from the sky using a chain; the chain apparently was still located in the city of Ile Ifẹ but hidden from prying eyes. According to others, prominent among who was the ‘authoritative’ Yoruba author Samuel Johnson, Oduduwa was an empire-builder who came south from somewhere in the Middle East, and conquered and made Ile Ifẹ into an empire, which then subsumed pre-existing Yoruba nations. Remarkably, despite Oduduwa’s avowed importance to the Yoruba story, few Oduduwa-related artefacts exist, and the solitary shrine is at Ile Ife, which raised the possibility that Oduduwa might not have been a physical person after all.
Two appellations, namely, Olofin and Igba, provide clues to the identity of Oduduwa. Olofin meant ‘owner of the law’ and Igba was a rounded calabash. Added to this mix was the Yoruba use of word-duplication as a means of emphasis. For example, the Yoruba word Agbagba meaning ‘the very elderly’ was a word duplication of agba + agba, that is, ‘elderly’ + ‘elderly’; the Yoruba word kiakia meaning ‘very quickly’ was a word duplication of kia + kia, that is, ‘quick’ + ‘quick’. Similarly, the ‘odudu’ of Oduduwa likely was a word duplication of odu + odu or ‘collection’ + ‘collection’ meaning a compendium. The word ‘wa’ would have been meant ideals. In other words, Oduduwa was, in the same genre as the Odu Ifa, a compendium of political ideals, not a physical person. The myths making Oduduwa a person or deity were mere Europeanised renditions, not Yoruba beliefs. (see also The Law as practised by the Ancient Yoruba: A Book to remind us of the World that we lost by Olusola Oni https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087T2Z1CG/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_ZVJS586BWD291AB2D023