Chapter VI: The Yorubas and Their Country

The administrative problems which confront the Government of Southern Nigeria in the western, or Yoruba, province are very much more complicated than any to be met with in the central and eastern provinces. They arise partly from the character, at once progressive and unstable, of the Yorubas themselves, partly from the curious divergence in the political relations subsisting between his Majesty’s Government and the various sections of the old Yoruba confederation, partly from the influences working in favour of direct British rule which find favour in the Lagos Legislative Council, but mainly through neglect, disinclination to look a situation not without delicacy in the face, and the absence of any serious effort to map out a definite, consistent policy.

In one respect at least, that of the rapid assimilation of every feature, good, bad, and indifferent, which comes to them from the West with the influx of European religious and social ideas, law, and commercial and industrial activity, the Yorubas (who considerably outnumber them) may be termed the Baganda of West Africa. If this capacity spells true progress for a tropical African people, then the Yorubas are infinitely more progressive than any of the peoples, not of Nigeria merely, but of Western Africa. It is, nevertheless, worthy of remark that, without exception, all the native papers published in Lagos which, if not in every case edited by Yorubas, profess in every case to be the mouthpieces of the “Yoruba nation,” ceaselessly lament the Europeanizing of the country, the decay of the national spirit, the decadence of family authority, and the deterioration of the rising generation without, however—so far as many years’ perusal of their columns can enable one to judge—ever making an attempt to grapple with the problem in a constructive sense, and, in some cases, perhaps unwittingly, contributing not a little to further the processes which they denounce and deplore. In this, their notable characteristic, the Yorubas may have been influenced by environment, for although a considerable portion of the area they inhabit is forest land, much of it is open park-like country, and the whole of it lies outside the deltaic region altogether. It is among the Yorubas that Christian missionary propaganda has obtained most of its converts in West Africa, although none of the ruling chiefs have accepted the Christian faith, and although Islam is now making much more headway than Christianity. Moreover, official Christianity, already represented in Yoruba by as many sects as we have at home, has been riven by the defection of a body, some 3000 strong, I believe, which has constituted itself an independent Church, the real, though not explicitly avowed, motive being a refusal to abide by the monogamous sexual relationship which the Church enforces. With Christian missionary teaching Western education, or, more accurately, and, generally, semi-education (and indifferent at that) has, of course, gone hand in hand, and it is among the Yorubas almost exclusively, so far as Southern Nigeria is concerned, that the problem of the “educated native” and what his part is to be in the future of the country arises and threatens already to become acute.

Nowhere in Africa, it may be confidently asserted, are so many radically different influences, policies and tendencies at work among one and the same people as are observable to-day in this Yorubaland of 28,000 square miles. The situation is really quite extraordinary, and offers an unlimited field of speculation to the student. The natural aptitudes of the Yorubas—of both sexes—are husbandry and trade, not soldiering. But the necessities of tribal defence drove them to concentrate in large centres. These centres have remained and become the capitals of separate provinces, allegiance to the original head having mostly fallen into virtual, in some cases into total, desuetude. Thus we find to-day a series of native towns which for estimated numbers surpass anything to be met with in any part of native Africa—such as Ibadan, 150,000; Abeokuta, 100,000; Oshogbo, 40,000; Ogbomosho, 35,000; Ife, 30,000; Oyo, 40,000; Ijebu-Ode, 35,000; Iseyin, 40,000; some twelve other towns with a population of between 10,000 and 20,000; and twice as many more whose inhabitants number 5000 to 8000. The most surprising contrasts, illustrative of the divergences referred to, are noticeable in these agglomerations of human life—for instance, between Abeokuta, Ibadan, and Oyo. Abeokuta, the capital of the “Egba united Government” (whose authority extends over 1869 square miles), its mass of corrugated iron roofs glaring beneath the rays of the tropical sun, spreading around and beneath the huge outcrop of granitic rock where its founders first settled a hundred years ago, offers the curious picture of a Europeanized African town in the fullest sense of the term, but with this unique feature, that its administration and the administration of the district, of which it is the capital, is conducted by natives—_i.e._ by the Alake (the head chief) in council.

It is, of course, true that the British Commissioner wields very great influence, but he is invested with no legal powers of intervention whatever, because the British treaty with the Egba section of the Yoruba people recognizes their independence in all internal affairs; and all Government notices and pronouncements posted up in the town are signed by the Alake and the Alake’s secretary. The Commissioner, Mr. Young, finds himself, indeed, in a position where the utmost tact is required. He has passed through very unpleasant times, and the confidence and respect he has ultimately won constitute a veritable triumph of personality. He has achieved the seemingly impossible task of becoming a real power in a native State over which, save in its external relations and in civil and criminal cases affecting “non-Egbas,” the British Government has no legal jurisdiction. The Alake, a burly African, has not—a matter of thankfulness—adopted European dress, as the bulk of his officials have done, but he lives in a two-storeyed European house boasting of a tennis-court which, I am confident, the ample proportions of its owner forbid him from using. The whole machinery of administration is on the European pattern, with its Secretariat, Treasury, Public Works Department, Police, Prison, Printing Offices, Post Office, etc.—all managed by Europeanized Africans. I visited most of the Government departments, the prison, and printing offices, and was impressed with the industry and business-like air which reigned within them. The revenues, thanks to the Commissioner, are in a healthy state. Excellent roads have been and are being constructed. A water supply is being arranged for out of a loan of £30,000 advanced by the Southern Nigeria Government. Labour-saving machinery is being introduced at the Commissioner’s suggestion. An imposing college is in course of erection. It is all very remarkable and interesting. Whether it is durable is a matter which I shall have occasion to discuss later on.

Very different is the state of affairs such as I found it early in this year in Ibadan, capital of a district of 4000 square miles with a dense population of 430,000 (107 to the square mile), an enormous, straggling, grass-roofed, rather unkempt town luxuriating in tropical vegetation and whose neighbourhood abounds with rich and delightful scenery. Here, administratively speaking, government is neither fish, fowl, nor good red-herring; neither African, nor European, nor Europeanized-African. All real influence has been taken out of the hands of the Bale (head-chief) and nothing has been substituted for it. Treated at intervals with unwise familiarity and with contemptuous disregard, the present Bale, a man obviously unfitted for his office, has no authority over his chiefs, who in council—as I have myself witnessed—openly deride him. The inevitable consequence is that the chiefs themselves constantly intrigue against one another and have no prestige with the people, while the people themselves have no respect either for their own rulers or for the white man. A visit to the Bale’s Court in company with the recently-appointed Acting-Resident was a surprising revelation—quite as painful, I am inclined to believe, to that official as to the writer—of unmannerly conduct, of total absence of respect for his Majesty’s representative, of utter lack of decorum and dignity. The “Ibadan Government,” as I saw it, is a caricature, and a dangerous caricature, of government, unlike anything, I am glad to say, which I observed in either of the two Protectorates. The town and the inhabitants are obviously out of hand, and in my opinion—an opinion which, having felt bound to communicate it to the responsible authorities in Nigeria, I am the freer to state here—is that if the whole place be not thoroughly overhauled, events must arise at no distant day leading to considerable trouble. I am inclined to think that some people would rather welcome trouble.

Oyo, again, is a singular contrast both to Abeokuta and to Ibadan. The seat of the Alafin, titular head of all the Yoruba-speaking peoples, Oyo is a clean, peaceful, sleepy town charmingly situate in open country and reverentially regarded by many Yorubas. Here the native form of government has been happily preserved against many assaults from both within and without. The Alafin’s abode—the Afin—consists of a collection of spacious compounds beautifully thatched with here grass and surrounded by a wall. Here the Court is held, distinguished by all the ceremonial inherent to what was once (and might again become) a wonderfully efficient national Government. In its courtliness, its simple if barbaric dignity, the decorum of chiefs and councillors, and the manifest honour in which the ruling head was held, this Pagan Court recalled the best type of native government I had previously observed in the Mohammedan Hausa provinces of Northern Nigeria, although differing radically from the latter in construction and formulæ. The Alafin himself, a man of great strength and stature, his head surmounted by the national casque or crown of heavy native coral, with a curious face which reminded one of the lineaments of the Egyptian Sphinx (the Yorubas profess to trace their descent from Egypt), is one of the most striking native personalities I observed in Nigeria. A notable incident in the State reception I witnessed was the presence among the prostrated chiefs of several whose dress showed that they had embraced Islam, doing obeisance to their pagan lord.

This brief description of the three most important centres of Yoruba life will serve to show how varied and haphazard are the forms which British policy takes in the Western Province. I fear that much trouble lies ahead if steps are not adopted to evolve something more closely approximating to statecraft in handling the problems of the country. An attempt to show what might be done and the reasons for doing it will be made in the next chapter.