Introduction
On 1 October 1953, the Iyere Improvement Society (IIS), a local association of Western-educated African elites in Iyere community, announced the death of the community’s head chief, Oliyere.Footnote 1 Iyere, a peripheral town in the colonial Owo district, was reorganized into the Owo Native Authority Council in Ondo Province, western Nigeria, under British colonial rule. In the announcement, the IIS informed the Olowo-in-Council of the death of the town’s head chief, Oliyere Adedapo, who died on 7 August 1953. Consequently, the society declared the Oliyere stool vacant and notified the Olowo-in-Council to disregard any claimant to the Oliyere stool. The IIS also challenged the traditional method of selecting an Oliyere and sought to reform the chieftaincy institution to reflect its vision of modernity and progress for the Iyere community. The letter concluded with the statement: ‘I have to make it clear that the society is representing the interest of 90% of the populace of Iyere.’Footnote 2 Despite the association’s efforts to reform Iyere’s chieftaincy system from within, the colonial bureaucracy prevented it from achieving its goals throughout the late colonial period. It was not until 1967, seven years after Nigeria gained independence and ended British control, that the military government in western Nigeria implemented chieftaincy reforms that elevated the Oliyere to the status of a king.
Little scholarship has highlighted the connection between local politics and its influence on colonial rule in western Nigeria (for a review, see Vaughan Reference Vaughan2000; Nolte Reference Nolte2010). This article explores the consequences of colonial restructuring in Iyere and how the IIS’s pursuit of colonial modernity – a young, Western-educated leader(ship) and a post office – was hindered by the Owo Native Authority Council, the institution responsible for administering the area under colonial rule. Iyere’s case study helps us understand how grassroots politics in western Nigerian communities during the late colonial period shaped the policies and actions of the British colonial government, and how these policies and actions affected postcolonial Nigeria’s First Republic (1960–66). The study reinforces Frederick Cooper’s critique of postcolonial African nation states, arguing that the legacies of colonialism, including ethnic divisions and inequalities, animate postcolonial African society (Cooper Reference Cooper2010). Using previously untapped archival materials, including letters, correspondence, memos, minutes, oral interviews and memoirs,Footnote 3 I argue that the IIS encountered obstacles that created feelings of marginalization among the Iyere people during the late colonial period. This sentiment was leveraged and promoted by the IIS to justify its call for reform of the Iyere chieftaincy institution, even though the colonial government did not respond to its demands. After Nigeria’s move to self-rule in 1960 and the disruption of the country’s First Republic following the 1963 Western Region crisis, educated elites in Owo metropolis and Iyere used this prevailing sentiment to oppose the leadership of Olowo Olateru Olagbegi II, especially after his falling out with Obafemi Awolowo’s camp in the Action Group (AG), the political party known for promoting free education and social welfare programmes in western Nigeria. Iyere’s rise to the status of a kingdom in 1967 was precipitated by the Western Region crisis.
Previous studies have examined British imperialism in Africa and how the colonial indirect rule system created distinct classes of African intermediaries (Falola and Aderinto Reference Falola and Aderinto2010; Ikime Reference Ikime1968; Matthews Reference Matthews1937; Crowder Reference Crowder1964). By the mid-1800s, Britain had made inroads into West Africa, including Nigeria, where Toyin Falola (Reference Falola2009: 1–25) argued that the British adopted a treaty strategy in 1836 and later resorted to large-scale violence, as evidenced by the 1851 annexation of Lagos. This was consolidated by the activities of the Royal Niger Company and its subsidiary military force, the Royal Niger Constabulary, through which violence was unleashed on the colonized population resisting British interests (Stapleton Reference Stapleton2022). Even though violence animated the British colonial project in late nineteenth-century Africa, the British recognized that the purported civilizing mission, which justified colonization, would be difficult to achieve through violence alone. By the end of the nineteenth century, the British had developed a more adaptive colonial framework, known as indirect rule, a system of colonial administration that incorporated indigenous chiefs and agents as intermediaries between the British government and the colonial population, thereby integrating indigenous institutions and traditional elites into the colonial administration. While the policy was applied and well known in the administration of northern Nigeria, its origins, according to J. C. Myers, ‘can be traced back at least as far as the 1850s in the thinking of colonial administrators in India and Natal’ (Reference Myers2008: 1). This system altered indigenous institutions and disrupted local communities across Africa, in what Lord Lugard, the colonial governor of Nigeria, believed was an evolutionary process of modernizing British tropical Africa (Lugard Reference Lugard1965). Olufemi Vaughan’s Nigerian Chiefs (Reference Vaughan2000), focusing on the Oyo Province in western Nigeria, argued that the violent imposition of British rule on traditional African societies led to the inclusionary tactic deployed by the colonial authorities in the early twentieth century: adapting pre-existing traditional institutions through the indirect rule system to build an accommodation mechanism to appease the local ruling chiefs. However, colonial reforms in the 1930s and pressures from the Ibadan Progressive Union (IPU), a hometown union composed of Western-educated elite Christians, enabled the inclusion of educated elites in the Native Administration (Vaughan Reference Vaughan2000: 22–43). It was in the context of the reforms that the IIS, for example, intensified its efforts on the Owo Native Authority Council of Ondo Province in pursuit of colonial modernity.
Studies on indirect rule and colonial administration have recently shifted away from the British-versus-African binary. In the case of Nigeria, seminal texts such as historian Moses Ochonu’s Colonialism by Proxy (Reference Ochonu2014) argue that the British authorized the Hausa-Fulani of northern Nigeria as agents in their ‘civilizing mission’ to govern the perceived ‘pagans’ of the Middle Belt, where specific spaces were considered too backward for the emergent indirect rule system. The colonial administrators were convinced that the Middle Belt required an extended period of exposure to Hausa-Fulani influence to develop appropriate leaders and integrate into a system of indigenous representation. This approach, rooted in British martial race ideology and the notion of difference, which also had a Yoruba manifestation, as in the cases of Iyere and Owo, was anchored in the idea that certain groups among the colonized peoples possessed the ethnocultural sophistication necessary to promote indirect rule. Such an approach was adopted in many colonies of the British Empire, including India and the Palestine mandate. (For details about the ideological origins of the British Empire and how the British developed martial race ideology for colonial rule in India, see Streets Reference Streets2010; Armitage Reference Armitage1996; Metcalf Reference Metcalf1994.) In Palestine, for example, the British singled out the Zionists as agents of progress and colonial modernity. They believed that their knowledge, particularly in science and finance, which resonated with Western values, would further modernize the Palestinian Arabs they perceived as backward (Norris Reference Norris2013). This form of ‘sub-colonialism’, as Ochonu (Reference Ochonu2014) describes it, also known as ‘divide and rule’, is similar to the case of Nyasaland (Malawi), where the British colonial administrators favoured the Lomwe people above other ethnic groups as they considered them ‘hardworking, intelligent, and willing to work’ (Gift Kayira and Banda Reference Gift Kayira and Banda2013: 44; see also Boeder Reference Boeder1984: 31–3).
The existing literature on Western-educated African elites has examined their roles during colonial rule and their acquisition of communal legitimacy through ethnic or hometown associations. In Nigeria, Emmanuel Ayandele describes them as a new set of hybrids who strategically positioned themselves as saviours of the unlettered Africans by assimilating Western values. This new class of Africans, trained by European Christian missionaries in colonial schools, set themselves apart from other Africans and their communities with a new sense of authority and superiority, redefining how communities should be organized in line with their Western vision of modern society and their exposure to the outside world. Their redefinition of African civilization in terms of European values made them valuable collaborators in the British colonial project (Ayandele Reference Ayandele1974). In explaining the role of Ibadan-educated elites in western Nigeria, Olufunke Adeboye (Reference Adeboye2004) notes that changes in the colonial state in the 1940s shifted the British inclusionary focus from traditional chiefs to Western-educated African elites.
Western-educated African elites articulated their ideas on state formation and, at times, challenged colonial authorities through hometown and community associations formed during colonial rule. They mobilized communal resources to promote Western education by encouraging reading and intellectual culture (Adeboye Reference Adeboye2004). In this manner, the educated elites became cultural brokers who mediated both the ‘indigenous socio-political paradigm’ and the institutions of the colonial state (Adeboye Reference Adeboye2008: 78; Zachernuk Reference Zachernuk2000: 6). The colonial authorities rarely trusted them because their activities were often perceived as threats, given their tendency to incite colonial subjects against the authorities. Adeboye’s contention, in the case of Nigeria, resonates with Gift Kayira et al. (Reference Gift Kayira, Banda and Robinson2019), who argue, in the case of Nyasaland, that ethnic associations, comprised of Western-educated elites, disbanded to support the leading nationalist movement of the Nyasaland African Congress after the colonial government legalized the formation of political parties in the colony in 1944.
In western Nigeria, as elsewhere in colonial Africa, ethnic associations served political, economic, social and cultural functions. While their activities were defined to serve community development, the associations also became spaces for African intellectual elites to articulate their agenda and assert authority, negotiate, and mediate colonial politics (Bratton Reference Bratton1989; Little Reference Little1957; Trager Reference Trager1998; van den Bersselaar Reference van den Bersselaar2005). Historically, there is consensus that African community associations date back to the colonial period, particularly during the interwar years, even though they became more prevalent following the ‘rural–urban migration’ after World War Two, when they served as a medium for local development mobilization. Even though the associations encouraged community development, the elites manipulated them to promote their own political advancement as the associations enabled them to speak ‘in their alleged collective and help deliver them as an electoral constituency’ (Evans Reference Evans2010: 398). In this context, the IIS mobilized community support for its agenda to modernize Iyere’s traditional leadership institution and to demand a post office (more on this later).
Evidence from Owo district is similar to that from other parts of Nigeria and Africa. The British colonial tradition of indirect rule reorganized the traditional Owo polity to legitimize its leadership over suburban communities in the early twentieth century. Iyere was among the communities colonially subsumed under the Owo divisional area, even though both the Owo kingdom and the Iyere community were independent entities before colonial rule and have a long history of intergroup relations. Moreover, the educated elites in Iyere (the IIS), like the IPU in Oyo Province and hometown associations elsewhere in Africa, became powerful forces in local politics and in ideas of modernity and progress, even as these were contradictory. Yet, there are stark differences. For example, while Islam was the guiding principle behind the Hausa-Fulani dominance over northern minorities during colonial rule, in the cases of Iyere and Owo in Ondo Province of western Nigeria, a more sophisticated political entity (Owo) was imposed over a lesser one (Iyere).
This article is divided into three sections. The first section examines the colonial reorganization of Iyere and the impact on its precolonial set-up. In section two, I discuss the emergence of the IIS after World War Two and its role in community development mobilization during decolonization. The final section analyses the impact of the Western Region crisis on local politics in Owo district and its implications for Iyere’s status as a kingdom in 1967.
Iyere’s precolonial state formation and colonial reorganization
Like many Yoruba towns and villages, Iyere prides itself on the popular myth of the origin of Ile-Ife and Benin in the precolonial period (Akintoye Reference Akintoye1969). The two popular versions of Iyere history claim that its people were descendants of Oduduwa, a Yoruba mythological figure (Osho Reference Osho2002). During the precolonial era, Iyere functioned as a confederacy led by a head chief titled Oliyere. He was the head of the town, and the ruling houses from which the titleholder emerged were all located in the Urogho quarter of Iyere.Footnote 4 Other traditional quarters in the town were entitled to have only quarter heads, such as Ojima of Ujima, Elemile of Upo, Ajelu of Igbe and Ajegunma of Ukiti. According to oral accounts, individuals from these quarters were ineligible to ascend the throne of Oliyere; nevertheless, they submitted to Oliyere’s leadership.Footnote 5
There was a debate over whether Oliyere, during the colonial period, could be regarded as a king.Footnote 6 Oral evidence from Iyere refutes this proposition. Some have argued that Oliyere was a Baálè (head chief), a lesser cultural and political position subservient to a king. In contrast, others claimed that Iyere did not make kingship claims until the 1967 ‘prescribed authority’, which transformed the town from a Baálè chieftaincy system to a kingship system, elevating it from its precolonial and colonial designations.Footnote 7 Accounts from the Upo quarter of Iyere claim that Oliyere could be likened to a Baálè (head chief) in the Yoruba traditional setting. In the various oral records of Iyere’s history, there was no traceable evidence of regal paraphernalia (crowns), a significant marker of kingship and authority among the Yoruba people of south-western Nigeria, to justify a kingship claim (Thompson Reference Thompson1970). Additionally, there was no evidence of a precolonial royal palace, as in other ancient Yoruba towns and cities, to demonstrate the existence of a kingship institution in Iyere before 1967. In Yoruba tradition, a palace symbolizes divine royalty and honour (Cordwell Reference Cordwell1983; Afolabi Ojo Reference Afolabi Ojo1968; Vlach Reference Vlach1976). Throughout the colonial period, the head chief governed the community from the family house, unlike Owo, which had a precolonial majestic palace.Footnote 8 Even though the British empowered prominent kings and chiefs, such as the Olowo, through the Native Authority over several outlying towns, the relationship between the Olowo and the towns was not entirely strained by the colonial order, as the Owo kingdom had a long history of mutual relations with outlying towns in the district, including Iyere (Akomolafe Reference Akomolafe1979).
Following the early twentieth-century colonial restructuring under the indirect rule system, Iyere (along with other towns such as Oba-Akoko and Idoani) was reorganized under the Native Authority of Owo.Footnote 9 The colonial authorities considered the Olowo a suitable means of governing communities in the area. This was because, unlike Owo, many communities in the division lacked a central authority that fit into the British imagined form of colonial governance. Unlike Owo, which qualified as a federalist town before colonial rule, Iyere operated a confederacy with multiple quarter chiefs. However, prior to colonial rule, Owo and Iyere experienced smooth intergroup relations. This mutual relationship was attributed to the eighteenth-century diplomatic agreement and war treaty between Olowo Ajaka and Oliyere Ashamaju, who, according to Iyere lore, were both warrior leaders (see Figure 1). Oral evidence asserts that Oliyere Ashamaju accompanied Olowo Ajaka on every military expedition in nearby towns in the eighteenth century.Footnote 10 Some of their expeditions resulted in violence and the destruction of politically and militarily weak neighbouring communities for tribute; these communities included Oba, Ikun, Afo, Supare and Akungba (Akomolafe Reference Akomolafe1979). These neighbouring towns were later rearranged as part of the colonial Owo district under the Native Administration.
Chief Bello Awodeyi, Iyere’s Ogun priest, at the shrine where Olowo Ajaka and Oliyere Ashamaju swore an oath of military allegiance with a goat in the eighteenth century. Ogun is the Yoruba god of iron. Source: The priest consented to the reproduction of this photograph.
The structure of Nigeria’s indirect rule system institutionalized Olowo’s supremacy over marginal communities. Through the Native Administration, taxes were collected for the colonial government in outlying towns by representatives of the Olowo and by colonial officers (Ogunode Reference Ogunode2023). It is said that the Oliyere customarily paid homage to the Olowo as a mark of honour, particularly during his annual Igogo festival, which honours Queen Oronsen, the wife of Olowo Rerengejen. During this festival, the Olowo is adorned in ‘Agogo’, a hairstyle that ‘represents the peak of feminine hair fashion’ in Yoruba and Owo culture (Ogunwale Reference Ogunwale1972; Abiodun Reference Abiodun1989).
Before 1967, Oliyere and other head chiefs from the colonial suburbs were prohibited from wearing crowns, even though oral evidence indicated that they had not possessed such objects prior to colonial rule.Footnote 11 Also, the Olowo’s consent was required for Oliyere to appoint a quarter chief within his domain, or for anyone to be appointed as Oliyere. The traditional authority to appoint or bestow traditional titles was exclusively reserved for the Olowo under the colonial Chiefs Law of 1948, until the 1967 prescribed authority. Therefore, when the IIS sent a notification letter to the Olowo-in-Council after the death of Oliyere Adedapo in 1953, they were fulfilling their customarily imposed obligations as stipulated by the colonial Chiefs Law on behalf of the Iyere people. Part of the letter reads:
I am directed to inform you that Chief Oliyere Adedapo, the Oliyere of Iyere, died on 7th August 1953. I am to add that this head-chief stool is considered vacant as we have not decided who the proper person to take up the office is. Our overall opinion is that the appropriate person to take up the office shall be presented soon.Footnote 12
The letter illustrates that, although Iyere was never a conquered town or considered subservient to the Owo kingdom before colonialism, the indirect rule system altered their precolonial mutual relations, creating an imbalance of power between them. However, by 1953, Western-educated elites in Iyere began processes that would set the path for reforming Iyere’s traditional politics and autonomy following the death of Oliyere Adedapo.
Decolonization and the Iyere Improvement Society, 1946–67
The outcome of World War Two afforded colonial subjects opportunities for claim making following their roles in the Allied triumph.Footnote 13 British colonial officials pursued reforms to sustain colonial control amid local protests and changes in the international system that exposed them to ‘international scrutiny’ (Cooper Reference Cooper2010: 261; Hodge Reference Hodge2007). For the educated African elites, as Frederick Cooper (Reference Cooper2002: 91) notes, ‘[N]o word captures their aspirations [in the postwar period] better than “development”.’ By the end of World War Two, the colonial government in Nigeria had begun reforms, including constitutional reforms, to sustain the colonial order.Footnote 14 As in many other towns and cities in Africa, and in western Nigeria in particular, Western-educated elites in Iyere prided themselves on being new agents of change and colonial modernity following the postwar reforms.Footnote 15 Typical of the many ethnic associations formed by Africans in the 1940s, the IIS was comprised mainly of intellectuals whose Western education was not merely a tool but also a form of power among the colonial subjects. They negotiated colonial politics and challenged colonial laws (on how ethnic associations mediated colonial politics in Nigeria, see, for instance, Ochonu Reference Ochonu2013; Magid 1968). Initially formed in 1946 to drive Iyere’s development and growth, the association consisted of a president, a secretary and other executive members: John Ogunleye, S. M. Ogunbodede, G. A. Awede, J. A. Adeshida and Orishagbayi.Footnote 16 Despite their diverse political views and affiliations, the IIS members were always in agreement regarding community development matters. Chief Ogunbodede was a member of Nnamdi Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC), the leading nationalist party in eastern Nigeria. At the same time, Chief Ogunleye was a member of the AG, a party known for its public campaign for free education, led by Obafemi Awolowo. Together, they shared a goal of advancing Iyere.Footnote 17
Following political reforms in Africa after World War Two and constitutional development in Nigeria amid the wave of radical anti-colonial resistance and campaigns by Nigerian nationalists, several Western-educated elite groups across political parties and ethnic associations, including the IIS, began to assert their voices within the colonial administration. (More about constitutional development in Nigeria can be found in Lawal Reference Lawal2010; Olusanya Reference Olusanya1966; Reference Olusanya1973; L. P. M. 1953.) The proactive approach and influential role of the IIS in the postwar period vividly demonstrate the local elite’s agency and influence in shaping Iyere’s future. For example, on 1 October 1953, the IIS wrote to the Olowo-in-Council and the Native Authority in Owo, Ondo Province. The letter, signed by the association’s president, John Ogunleye, and other members of its executive committee, conveyed the passing of Chief Adedapo, the Oliyere of Iyere. Chief Adedapo, who had served as the traditional and political leader of the Iyere community, passed away on 7 August 1953. The association also stated that the Oliyere position was vacant and that they had yet to identify a successor.Footnote 18 Additionally, the association expressed dissatisfaction with the succession ladder system in the same letter. This system often led the oldest candidates from customarily recognized ruling houses to assume kingship and chieftaincy positions based on seniority. The IIS considered this traditional framework a hindrance to the town’s progress and development, particularly with respect to political stability. It argued that the system led to ineffective leadership and hindered its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. In the words of the association, ‘the old order changeth yielding place to new’.Footnote 19 The IIS’s critique of the traditional order revealed deep dissatisfaction and an urgent need for change. It was particularly concerned about the political stability, or lack thereof, caused by the existing system. As successive chiefs generally served for a brief period due to old age, the association argued that the old order should be reformed to accommodate a more progressive succession model.Footnote 20
In its reform agenda, the IIS believed that a younger leadership would enhance Iyere’s development by charting a new course for communal purposes, such as extending the rural electrification project from Owo that the association had advocated for the Iyere community.Footnote 21 Its vision for a more progressive succession model offered hope for Iyere’s future and accounted for the IIS’s popularity among the people. To achieve its objectives, the association proposed a proactive solution: appointing a regent (an interim female head in the traditional Yoruba system) until the association could formalize processes for appointing a new Oliyere, to be coordinated by the association. This proposal demonstrated the IIS’s proactive approach to change:
I am directed to stress that anyone presenting himself as the Head Chief without our formal approval should not be regarded, and any person giving out the rights attached to this office to such a person is doing so at their own risk. We are contemplating appointing a regent and shall notify you of the name when all necessary arrangements have been completed.Footnote 22
Based on this correspondence, it is clear that Iyere was subservient to Olowo of Owo.Footnote 23 The letter also illustrates some of the IIS’s efforts to influence and modernize Iyere chieftaincy institutions and leadership recruitment processes to promote the association’s agenda and, as it also claimed, the interests of ‘ninety percent of the populace of Iyere’, a move that negated the Native Law and Custom under colonial rule.Footnote 24 Although the association’s action contravened colonial customary laws, the oral account is consistent with the IIS’s correspondence, in which it claimed that the position reflected the community consensus and that of the youths, who also opposed the ladder system of succession.Footnote 25 However, since Iyere had no record of regency leadership in its political history until 1988, the colonial authorities denied the IIS’s proposal.Footnote 26
Colonial customary laws prevented the IIS from modernizing the chieftaincy institution in Iyere. By 12 October 1953, the Resident Officer of Ondo Province responded to the association in a memo via the District Officer in Owo. He highlighted the legitimacy of traditional kingmakers in chieftaincy selection and appointment. Part of the letter reads as follows:
It might be well to inform the writers early that the kingmakers make the appointments of chiefs of the status of the Oliyere by Native Law and Custom, and are subject to His Excellency the Governor’s approval by the powers conferred upon him by the appointment and deposition of Chiefs Ordinance Cap. 18 Laws of Nigeria 1948. The Governor has delegated his powers in this connection to the Resident [Officer], whose decision is final.Footnote 27
Counterintuitively, the correspondence illustrates the clash between tradition (represented by the colonial authorities) and colonial modernity (represented by the IIS). The case of Iyere accentuates the underlying tension between traditional rulers and the ‘non-chiefly class’ under indirect rule (Okafor Reference Okafor1981: 64). The memo shows that the colonial authorities did not acknowledge or recognize the IIS as chief makers. In their response, it was clear that the Olowo-in-Council superintended the recruitment to the Oliyere chieftaincy in accordance with colonial customary laws. The memo also clarifies the status of the Oliyere, which was then referred to as ‘head chief’ and not as Oba (king).
In the Yoruba traditional system, the head chief, commonly referred to as a Baálè, was hierarchically inferior to an Oba.Footnote 28 The Yoruba kingship hierarchy was anchored on the crown. The uncrowned chiefs, the Baálès, were at the base of the hierarchy and class system. These figures, predominantly residing in villages, played essential roles in the societal structure. Some of them were situated in relatively large towns that were subsidiary to metropolitan cities or in towns of military rather than traditional creation. (For further insights on the Baálè, see Ojo Reference Ojo1966: 16.) The socio-political and economic power of Baálès is contingent on the authority and delegation of an Oba, under whose authority the Baálè subsists. Even though Baálès are respected in their domains, an Oba may uphold or override their orders and decisions.Footnote 29 The Native Authority of Owo district exploited this Yoruba tradition. And this was the case with Iyere.
The Olowo-in-Council acted in conjunction with quarter chiefs from Iyere, even though the IIS was not altogether comfortable with such an arrangement because of the conservative attitude of Iyere chiefs. According to oral accounts, the IIS’s move to reform the Iyere traditional institution went beyond merely repositioning the usual system of succession. It sought an autonomous traditional institution to facilitate its community development agenda within the colonial order.Footnote 30 Members of the IIS executives believed that the Iyere traditional chiefs were not sufficiently enlightened to make critical decisions, which sometimes required signing agreements and holding debates at Native Council meetings. For example, the association attributed the loss of some of Iyere’s ancestral lands in the colonial Owo division to the Ijebu people and to the Iyere chiefs’ lack of imaginative leadership, thereby frustrating the IIS’s efforts to attract development to the community.Footnote 31 For this reason, the IIS believed that an educated, young leader was better suited to Iyere’s traditional leadership.
The IIS’s aim to improve the social and economic lives of Iyere people and connect them to the world led to its request for a postal agency in 1947 to enhance communications and financial savings in the postwar colonial economy.Footnote 32 However, colonial bureaucracies hampered its efforts. The early twentieth century saw the emergence of a colonial monetary system throughout British West Africa (Hopkins Reference Hopkins1970: 102). According to Ayodeji Olukoju, the British colonial government’s need to monetize colonial economies prompted the creation of institutions such as the Bank of British West Africa in 1893. This bank helped facilitate ‘the introduction and circulation of imperial currency in colonial Nigeria’ (Olukoju Reference Olukoju1997: 279). The development was part of the government’s effort to integrate colonial Africans across British colonies into the British financial system, a process further aided by the establishment of the Post Office Savings Bank in 1924. Given this dynamic, in addition to the flow of communications and telegraph services that the post office facilitated, the colonial post office became an essential institution in facilitating the circulation of currency and financial savings among Africans in the British colonies, especially during World War Two and its immediate aftermath (Velasco Reference Velasco2023: 644–6). The primary objective of entrusting the post office with local financial savings was to ensure that the colonial population, which had limited access to commercial banks, attracted savings and, at the same time, accustomed itself to the currency system to cultivate what Velasco described as ‘a thrift mentality’ (ibid.: 647). The IIS was determined to attract such colonial infrastructure to ease the social and economic activities of Iyere people.
Poor representation by Iyere chiefs contributed to the IIS’s failure to secure a post office for the community in 1947. When the post office was proposed to the Owo Native Council, the colonial authorities thwarted the council’s efforts due to inadequate representation and support from the Iyere chiefs and the Oliyere.Footnote 33 Despite the association’s persistence, the survey office in Oshogbo dismissed the proposal, citing the community’s proximity to Owo, which it described as ‘one mile away’.Footnote 34 The matter was eventually brought to the attention of the Native Authority Council in Owo, where the Olowo suggested that the IIS route its proposal through the Oliyere to the council for consideration.Footnote 35 The Olowo deemed it unconstitutional to discuss the post office matter with the association unless the community chiefs supported the proposal.Footnote 36 On 28 April 1950, the District Officer informed the surveyor’s office at Osogbo that the proposed postal agency at Iyere was not recommended.Footnote 37 Later, on 7 November 1951, the Olowo was prevailed upon by the association and supported the proposal.Footnote 38 However, the District Officer further scrutinized the proposal and sought information on Iyere’s literate population, the distance between Iyere and the nearest post office in Owo, and the logistics provided by the IIS to justify the proposal.Footnote 39 A thorough review of subsequent correspondence reveals that the District Officer did not take any further action to assist the association in realizing its goal of establishing a postal office in the community. This was evident in the minutes of the Owo district executive committee meeting held on 25 September 1952, in which S. M. Ogunbodede (Figure 2) raised the Iyere postal agency matter in his capacity as Iyere’s councillor, and it was mentioned that there had been ‘no reply from the Department concerned’.Footnote 40 For these reasons, the IIS became critical of the Native Authority, rendering the chiefs unpopular among the Iyere people. Following Oliyere Adedapo’s death in 1953, the association saw an opportunity to reform the traditional institution to enable proactive leadership and modern development.Footnote 41 These examples demonstrate the increasing consciousness of marginalization in Iyere and the elites’ strategies.
Chief S. M. Ogunbodede, Secretary of the IIS and member of the NCNC from 1946 to 1966. Source: Retrieved from family records at Iyere with permission from Ogunbodede’s estate.
Figure 2 Long description
The image features a portrait of Chief S. M. Ogunbodede, who served as the Secretary of the IIS and was a member of the NCNC from 1946 to 1966. He is wearing glasses and traditional attire, which includes a white garment with intricate patterns. The background consists of a decorative pattern with circular and oval shapes, adding a cultural context to the portrait.
The association’s bold, strategic push to dismantle the succession system was pivotal. It aimed to reform the town into an independent traditional entity and to elevate its status to that of a kingship.Footnote 42 Despite the 1950s reform, which was intended to accommodate Western-educated elite nationalists and intellectuals into the colonial administration, the colonial government continued to protect and preserve the traditional system that enabled indirect rule through local chiefs and the Olowo’s dominance over outlying towns in the district.Footnote 43 The colonial government’s response that the association had no business with chieftaincy affairs amid postwar reforms aimed at ensuring the inclusion of educated elites in colonial administration resonates with Anne Phillips’s (Reference Phillips1989) conception of the British colonial policies and indirect rule as ‘enigmatic’.
The Iyere scenario was a microcosm of the decolonization agenda of Western-educated elites against traditional chiefs in western Nigeria, particularly among those who supported the NCNC. Since 1951, the NCNC had vehemently opposed the continued participation of traditional chiefs in colonial administration. Its opposition was based on the belief that such involvement contradicted the chiefs’ roles as cultural custodians of the people and as unbiased umpires in their communities. The NCNC’s stance on restricting traditional chiefs to cultural roles formed a significant part of the decolonization agenda, highlighting the tension between tradition and colonial modernity. By 1959, the NCNC was resolute in challenging the West Chiefs Law of 1948 before the Federal Supreme Court, arguing that its provisions were unconstitutional. The NCNC viewed some of its provisions as infringements on fundamental human rights and on justice. For instance, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the party’s president, while on a campaign tour at Ilesha, western Nigeria, in 1959, challenged the provision of the law that forbade Nigerians from challenging the appointment of chiefs upon their ratification by the council of chiefs and the colonial authority. The provision had considered any contestation a criminal offence, and defaulters were ‘liable to conviction to imprisonment for two years’.Footnote 44 Azikiwe regarded the excessive power bestowed on chiefs as a source of intoxication and a critical problem of indirect rule. Azikiwe’s position reflected the sentiment of many Western-educated elites against the indirect rule system in Nigeria, but their pursuit in Iyere was contradictory, as they opposed the Native Authority as much as they championed the cause of Iyere kingship.
The IIS effort in Iyere and the broader agenda of the NCNC explain the inherent contradiction and power contestation between Western-educated elites and traditional chiefs during the late colonial period. So how did Oliyere become a king if the colonial laws considered contesting the existing provisions unconstitutional? Even though the association’s confrontations with the Native Authority did not yield immediate results, they instilled a sense of marginalization in the community, impacting their politics and aspirations in the post-colony. In the wake of the Olateru Olagbegi II/Adekunle Ajasin faceoff in postcolonial Owo district, a byproduct of the First Republic’s Western Region crisis, the Western-educated elites in Owo metropolis and IIS members sympathetic to Awolowo’s politics leveraged this sentiment for political capital with unintended consequences for decolonization and autonomy in Iyere.
The Western Region crisis and Iyere autonomy in the 1960s
By the time of the First Republic in 1963, western Nigeria was enmeshed in a political crisis under the AG-led regional government (see, for instance, Diamond Reference Diamond and Diamond1988). The crisis affected local politics across branches of the AG in western Nigerian communities with a large Awolowo following. Regional ideological conflict between Chief Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola, the two prominent leaders of the party, ruptured local politics in the AG branches. To many Yoruba elite, Awolowo, as Wale Adebanwi (Reference Adebanwi2014: 22) forcefully described it, was (and still is) ‘an exemplar’. The internalization of his status was shown among the Yoruba elite in Owo district during the crisis. Awolowo’s influence on local districts such as Owo and the enthusiasm with which his loyalists, headed by Chief Michael Ajasin, pushed his agenda against the Akintola camp, superintended by King Olateru Olagbegi II, illustrate the extent to which Awolowo, as Insa Nolte (Reference Nolte2010) argued, embedded himself in local politics in western Nigeria. It turns out that the inability of the party’s regional leaders to reconcile internal contradictions and ideological differences further deepened animosity among local elites in Owo, prompting the military administrator in the Western Region to partition the district into several independent political entities in 1967 to restore peace.
Despite the conflict between traditional chiefs and Western-educated elites, there were instances of cooperation in developing their communities during the late colonial period. The case of Olagbegi and Ajasin is a classic example of such collaboration and contradictions. It was unique because they were royal cousins and descendants of Oba Elewuokun in Owo. Their somewhat collaborative efforts began in 1941, when Olagbegi II was selected as the king of Owo, setting a community development agenda for the kingdom. He found an ally in his cousin, Ajasin, who pursued his Western education at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone and graduated in 1946 (Ajasin Reference Ajasin2003: 1–3). Olagbegi and Ajasin envisioned a modern Owo, and together they leveraged Ajasin’s Western education to establish a colonial-era modern high school for Owo (Imade College).Footnote 45 Correspondence revealed that Olagbegi financially supported Ajasin’s graduate studies in London through communal efforts. On 26 April 1946, Ajasin wrote to the Owo Native Authority through the Education Department in Freetown, requesting assistance with arrangements for his studies at the London University Institute.Footnote 46 Olagbegi approved Ajasin’s request and presented his case to the District Officer in Owo, who referred the matter to the Education Officer in Ondo Province.Footnote 47 Olagbegi’s letter to the District Officer states: ‘If the answer is not favourable, then my people and I will be responsible for his going to England.’Footnote 48 By 5 July 1946, the Ondo Province educational officer decided that ‘Mr. Ajasin should be sent at the expense of the community’.Footnote 49 The Ondo Province’s decision was the same as that of the Acting Director of Education of Western Province, W. T. Mackell:
There can be no questions about the government giving a scholarship to Mr. Ajasin to proceed to England. It was understood that the Olowo and [the] community would undertake this themselves and that all arrangements would be made from Fourah Bay College. The Olowo and the people must take full responsibility for financing Mr. Ajasin’s course, but we propose, in effect, to aid them in their endeavours.Footnote 50
This correspondence illustrates that the Olowo’s community efforts funded Ajasin’s education in England. The communal investment in Ajasin prompted Olowo Olagbegi II and the Imade College board of governors to appoint him, upon his return from England, as the pioneer principal of Imade College to give back to the community.Footnote 51 He resumed his role as principal and managed the college until 1962, two years after Nigeria’s independence from British rule, when his political contest with the Olowo began amid internal animosity within the AG, a political party to which they both belonged (Ajasin Reference Ajasin2003).
Postcolonial politics in western Nigeria’s First Republic strained the relationship between Ajasin and Olagbegi II. Although the structure of governance during the First Republic was consolidated on the late colonial politics of inclusion and accommodation introduced by the colonial government, the transition to self-rule reshaped political power dynamics among Nigerian politicians (Coleman Reference Coleman1958: 319; Olusanya Reference Olusanya1973; Ismaila Reference Ismaila2024). As the government’s responsibility shifted entirely to Nigerians, some political parties became enmeshed in internal conflicts and rivalries in their quest for political power and state formation. These conflicts led to crises in some regions, including the Western Region in 1963 under the AG government. Political scientists have studied the causes of the 1963 Western Region crisis and its implications for Nigeria’s First Republic. Internal conflicts within the AG, a political party dominated by the Western Region and led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo (the former premier of the Western Region), precipitated the 1963 crisis. AG was set on a risky path after Awolowo’s defeat in the 1959 federal election, when he lost to the NCNC candidate, Nnamdi Azikiwe, who had allied with the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), a predominantly northern political party (Diamond Reference Diamond1966). After Awolowo’s defeat, the AG’s power dynamics altered the region’s political structure, creating political animosity within the party. For instance, when Awolowo was nominated to run for the presidential elections, Chief Ladoke Akintola, his deputy premier and colleague in the AG, was nominated for the premiership of the Western Region. Awolowo’s loss threatened the relationship between the two leaders. The struggle over party structure and control generated tension and ideological conflict among loyalists, who were divided along radical and conservative lines. The radical faction advocated democratic socialism and populist policies, including free education and reduced government spending. In contrast, the conservative faction advocated free-market capitalism, which permitted political patronage and served the class interests of some business elites within the party. Akintola, the new leader in the Western Region, was uncomfortable with Awolowo’s efforts to assert his control over government policies and appointments after he had left the premiership for the federal parliament, where he led the opposition against the NCNC–NPC alliance government. The resulting power struggle fractured the party’s unity (Diamond Reference Diamond and Diamond1988; Ayoade Reference Ayoade1985; Jackson Reference Jackson1972).
The 1961 financial crisis in the region exacerbated the personality clash, prompting the Akintola government to implement austerity measures, including raising tuition fees. This decision contradicted the principle of free education endorsed by Awolowo and the AG. Awolowo believed that, during such a difficult period, the government should focus on reducing expenses, eliminating corruption and serving the people. However, this idea angered Akintola’s conservative allies, especially businesspeople and chiefs in the AG who benefited from the government’s patronage (Diamond Reference Diamond and Diamond1988; Ayoade Reference Ayoade1985; Jackson Reference Jackson1972). The political hostility and ideological conflict between Awolowo and Akintola affected their followers at the grassroots level, adding to the challenges faced by Western-educated elites who had assumed control of the country’s administration following independence in 1960.
The sour turn in the Olagbegi/Ajasin relationship can be attributed to political developments within the AG during the First Republic. In Owo, AG political elites were divided into two blocs. Party members based their politics on the ideals of Awolowo and Akintola. For example, Ajasin and Olagbegi disagreed over who should be the party’s candidate for the regional parliament election in August 1960. Traditional chiefs and businesspeople were mindful of their position in the scheme of things, given Awolowo’s radical propositions at the time. They sought to consolidate their class dominance within the party, a pattern typical of the emergent African political class in the late colonial period (Sklar Reference Sklar1979). Ajasin supported Ademola Fayemiwo, the party’s secretary in Owo district, for his commitment to the party and its original principles (Ajasin Reference Ajasin2003: 110). The king’s supporters argued that the decision was in response to his refusal to grant Ajasin plots of land for the proposed Owo high school. As it turned out, Olagbegi wanted co-ownership of the school, which contradicted Ajasin’s vision of a sole proprietorship. They argued that the selection of Fayemiwo was a ploy by Ajasin loyalists to undermine the Olowo. The Olowo advocated for S. B. Aruwajoye, a prominent businessman and the incumbent district representative in the Western Region parliament from 1955 to 1960. Aruwajoye was also a member of the board of governors of Imade College, with Olagbegi as the proprietor. With Olagbegi’s influence in the district, he mobilized the majority support for S. B. Aruwajoye.Footnote 52
Ajasin’s and Olagbegi’s followers began infighting based on what Ajasin described in his memoir as ‘the fear of the unknown’ (Ajasin Reference Ajasin2003: 115–16). Olagbegi became punitive towards party members, and Imade College staff loyal to Ajasin, including Samuel Olotu, A. S. Olanusi, Abudu Sule and Folarin Alabi, were dismissed from their primary positions. However, Olowo denied the charge of a witch hunt, arguing that their dismissal was a disciplinary action for their ‘gross misconduct’, which he was authorized to address as the chairman of the college’s board of governors.Footnote 53 By December 1962, Ajasin and Olagbegi’s relationship had deteriorated. Consequently, the king ordered Ajasin and his staff to vacate the college’s staff residence (Ajasin Reference Ajasin2003: 115). The conflict finally escalated after the AG conference in Jos in 1963, at which Olowo Olagbegi, as one of his advisers, supported the Akintola camp (Oloidi Reference Oloidi1994: 56–60).
The Western-educated elites in Owo and residents of outlying towns, including AG members loyal to Awolowo’s politics in the IIS, such as S. F. Akinro, voiced their objections to Olowo’s policies. They believed that Olowo was using his power punitively and excessively.Footnote 54 For example, A. S. Olanusi argued that Olowo’s covert disciplinary action against him was unwarranted and based not on gross misconduct but on his intention to marry his younger sister, a proposal he had opposed (Ajasin Reference Ajasin2003: 110). Some towns also expressed concerns about Olowo’s appointment of his sons and followers as chiefs, including instances in Ijebu and Iyere.Footnote 55
The 1966 military coup disrupted Nigeria’s First Republic. Following the military takeover, military administrators were assigned to administer the affairs of the country’s geopolitical regions. Lieutenant Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, the military administrator of the Western Region, undertook a tour to assess the state of infrastructure and development (Kehinde Reference Kehinde2019). In Owo, he scheduled an inspection of the coffee plantation at Isuada, a rural town in the district that housed a government agricultural settlement. During his visit, aggrieved communities and interest groups, including the Iyere AG members and representatives of the IIS, such as S. F. Akinro and Chief Ogunleye, seized the opportunity to present their grievances of marginalization in the district.Footnote 56 Together with other AG members loyal to Awolowo and Ajasin, they protested against Olowo’s excessiveness in an organized rally, even though Olagbegi’s political camp regarded this as a political ploy. They sought the military government’s intervention to restore the relative peace previously enjoyed in the district by curbing the king’s excesses. The protesters submitted their petition to the Governor after he addressed them (Oloidi Reference Oloidi1994: 60). Consequently, the Council of Chiefs in the Western Region set up an inquiry panel to investigate the petition, which concluded that Olagbegi was guilty of partisanship and unwarranted appointments. Olagbegi II was suspended on 6 June 1966 for these infractions (Teniola Reference Teniola2013).
The suspension of Olagbegi during the First Republic revolutionized chieftaincy institutions in Owo district. It allowed members of the IIS to align with the anti-Olagbegi campaigners, who invoked memories of their marginalization following the colonial rearrangement to deprecate Olagbegi’s power and political influence in the district. After his suspension, the military government’s efforts to restore peace included partitioning the district into several independent communities, which it achieved through the Western State Law of Nigeria of 1959.Footnote 57 Even though Olagbegi’s camp viewed the actions of the outlying towns as a strategic mobilization by Ajasin to undermine the Olowo, the Chiefs Law, inherited from the colonial era, was reviewed by the military administration as part of its efforts to restore peace in the district. While there is no record of Iyere petitioning for autonomy in the early postcolonial period, oral accounts suggest that the Olagbegi/Ajasin feud hastened the balkanization of the district into several autonomous entities, which sources in Iyere described as an ‘unexpected blessing’.Footnote 58 The review served the interests of rural communities such as Iyere. It ensured the restoration of their territorial autonomy and the elevation of the chieftaincy of outlying communities in the district, commonly referred to as the ‘prescribed authorities’. Consequently, head chiefs (Baálès) across suburban communities became kings based on the new reform under the military administration:
I am directed to inform you that His Excellency the Military Governor has appointed you as the prescribed authority with respect of all minor chiefs whose chieftaincy titles are traditionally associated with Iyere area in accordance with section 16(1) of the Chiefs Law.Footnote 59
The provisions of the new Chiefs Law curtailed Olowo’s authority in the district. For example, Oliyere became king of his kingdom. He administered its affairs without the influence of the Olowo or any other traditional regional authority. He independently controlled and allocated community land in accordance with domestic needs to support Iyere’s socio-economic advancement. Chieftaincy appointments in the kingdom could be made without Olowo’s consent. The ‘prescribed authority’ empowered the Oliyere with the paraphernalia of office, such as crowns and a staff of office – a significant marker of authority and royalty in Yoruba divinity and mythology.
Conclusion
The 1963 Western Region crisis catalysed Iyere’s transition into a kingdom in 1967. Although colonial restructuring and indirect rule in the twentieth century placed the community under the Owo Native Authority, post-World War Two reforms that allowed Western-educated Nigerian elites to participate in colonial administration led to the emergence of the IIS. Through this group, Western-educated Iyere elites aimed to reshape traditional leadership and attract colonial infrastructure, such as a post office, to the community. However, colonial authorities continued supporting the Native Authority to counter the IIS’s radical tendencies. Although colonial bureaucracy constrained the association’s push for colonial modernity, its advocacy for institutional change and development fostered feelings of marginalization among the people of Iyere. As the Western Region crisis worsened during Nigeria’s First Republic, members of the AG, loyal to Chief Awolowo under Ajasin’s leadership in Owo district, mobilized dissidents and sought to curb the political excesses of the district’s traditional ruler, Olowo Olateru Olagbegi II, whose politics diverged from Awolowo’s but aligned with his political rival, Chief Ladoke Akintola. Iyere’s dissatisfaction with Olagbegi’s rule was exploited in the series of protests that the Olagbegi camp believed were orchestrated by Awolowo’s loyalists. This unrest prompted the military administrator of the Western Region to divide the district into several autonomous units in 1967, following a public inquiry aimed at restoring peace in Owo district.
Waliu Ismaila earned his doctorate in History from West Virginia University. He lectures in the Department of History and Political Science at Utah Valley University. His research is at the intersection of modern Africa and diaspora histories, British imperialism in Africa, war and society, and the global Cold War.
