1 day Ago By Tunji Ajibade
Last Friday, I stated that I wondered if any Oyo Yoruba person could disregard other tribes without disregarding a certain percentage of their root. I shall proceed to utilise this to make a point in my submission. To me, if any person should claim to partly have no blood of other ethnic groups flowing in their veins, it can’t realistically be Oyo Yoruba.
With an empire as vast as Oyo was for centuries, there was no chance of that happening. Hardly could anyone from any of the royal houses already in existence in the pre-colonial period in Yoruba-speaking areas make such a claim. Why? Kings and warlords had a bigger share of war spoils, and slaves from other tribes were part of war spoils.
Many of them bore children for the royalty and warlords. In Nigeria, we knew children of concubines (often slaves from a different tribe) who rose to become more prominent than the children of married wives. Beyond royalty, ‘undiluted’ blood isn’t just possible to have among a conquering people such as the Yoruba.
Conquering people left seeds wherever they went, and they returned home from wars with seeds or what could produce seeds. Conquerors got the conquered to assimilate their culture. They intermarried and formed filial relations, which helped them maintain dominance over conquered territories.
Less powerful people being subsumed by the more dominant cultures was common from time immemorial, and the complexity engendered was acknowledged by historians and other experts. This is the reality of human existence; one reason conquering Germans, for instance, sits on the throne in England and is found on many other thrones across Europe. Closer home, the Fulani have been more recent beneficiaries of the same practice in northern Nigeria, something similar to what Oyo Yoruba did across territories in the pre-1804 Fulani Jihad years.
Unfortunately, the decline of the Oyo Empire wiped out many traces of the cultural assimilation phenomenon as many areas broke free to form their kingdoms. Then they subsequently muted their ties to Oyo Yoruba for all manner of reasons. Meanwhile, some Yoruba get offended at the Fulani for conquering others, something that the Yoruba also did long before the Fulani began theirs in the 19th century.
I think accepting that we humans do a few similar things is soundness of mind, sounder than living in denial based on which some hate fellow humans. Oyo Yoruba didn’t hate others in the pre-colonial period; rather, they brought others closer and that way gained strength. My late uncle and father, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, Alaafin Oyo, continued with this Oyo Yoruba practice, so he made the comment that I referenced last Friday.
It would be a different blood flowing in my veins if my views were different from those of my forebears, the ancient Alaafin, who weren’t minimalists. They were leaders who thought large-scale and had a broad vision, a vision broad enough to accommodate many ethnic groups under their royal protection in an empire, not a kingdom. I find it baffling when a Yoruba person who’s well-educated thinks and speaks as though they have something they could call undiluted Yoruba blood.
At least no Oyo Yoruba person should think or talk like that, as it isn’t our reality. The mentality of “we don’t want others,” which some now harbour, is seeping into the response to the allegations now made against Ndigbo. There’s no single allegation levelled against Ndigbo that I’ve not treated on this page in the past years while appealing to Ndigbo to not make comments that upset others.
I stated that Ndigbo had nothing to gain by losing other people’s goodwill and that it was the kind of extreme response that we now see that they would end up attracting. I’m alarmed; the matter is getting worse. Yoruba are now so angry that some say people shouldn’t accommodate Ndigbo, sell land to them, or give Ndigbo jobs in the South-West.
At one stage, it was the Fulani some didn’t want Yoruba to have anything to do with. Now it’s Ndigbo. Yoruba don’t do knee-jerk reactions.
We traditionally think long-term. Related News Canadian-Nigerian woman threatening Yoruba, Benin people with poison arrested Alaafin: Royal family seeks fresh selection The imaginary Yoruba far-right Some even say online that every Yoruba should marry only Yoruba, and the children of any Yoruba-Ndigbo marriage shouldn’t be voted for in the South-West. That’s scary.
Yoruba are one major ethnic group in Nigeria that intermarries a lot. That’s how open-minded we are. And it didn’t start today.
It went as far back as my ancestor Oranmiyan in the 13th century, who married a non-Yoruba woman in Benin (mother of the Oba of Benin) and another woman among the Nupe who was the mother of Sango, the second ruler of Oyo. While agitation for one’s people is an inalienable right of Nigerians and many ethnic groups exercise it, calls that appeal to minimalism aren’t something any well-meaning Yoruba should subscribe to. The extreme views of a few people shouldn’t be accepted by Yoruba who are forward-looking.
Are these small groups dictating to the Yoruba persons they should marry? Are they to decide what the Yoruba should do in inter-ethnic relations? The Yoruba are too informed to be persuaded by some narrow ideology that considers the moment, not the long term. Groups with extremist views can continue to make their calls, as it’s their right to do so. It’s the right of urbane Yoruba to not pay them attention.
Efforts should be made to improve the lot of the Yoruba by their state governments. Political leaders in the north do the same, ensuring their people are catered to in every way possible. But to state that the Yoruba should withdraw into a cocoon and not permit people who want to live among us to do so is unlike us.
It’s un-Yoruba, and whatever is un-Yoruba shouldn’t be permitted to creep in. It was not how we were in the past, not who we are now, and never how our part of the country became the most preferred by all Nigerians. “Chase outside out” and “Don’t marry them” can’t be the right calls each time South-West gets upset with any other ethnic group.
How to intelligently and systematically manage situations that the Yoruba don’t feel look right is what people and government should focus on, not the extreme calls by some fellows who forget that the Yoruba are coming from an empire. One interesting angle is that some of those who say children of non-Yoruba shouldn’t be voted for may just be surprised by what their DNA tests would reveal. But they make extreme calls.
These aren’t calls I subscribe to, and no Oyo Yoruba should because it doesn’t reflect us. We’re a large, accommodating people, and whoever identifies with us shouldn’t be rejected. The future and the continued greatness of the Yoruba depend on doing more of what made us a force to reckon with in the first instance.
Those who want to marry only within their tribe and thereby cut off those characteristics that have helped Yoruba remain on top can go ahead. In any case, humans are naturally disposed to mixing freely, intermarrying, and assimilating into cultures they choose. Anything contrary is unnatural, a means of promoting hate, a minimalist approach to life.
Tribes that practice it would soon find themselves at the bottom rung of every progressive human index. I return once more to Ndigbo. Not all Ndigbo are guilty of what they are accused of.
For instance, in Lagos State, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, a politician and one I can call the Lagos State government’s official political liaison officer to Ndigbo in Lagos, has over the years appealed to Ndigbo to not make provocative comments about others. I quoted him on this page in the past.
But I kept hearing important Ndigbo figures making comments that amounted to “rub it in their faces.” It was so intentional that it was off-putting, rubbing off badly on those who went this way than those they intended to spite. It was a show of lack of tact.
Imagine the effects if Fulani rulers continuously rub it in for the non-Fulani population they rule over in northern emirates, let alone people living among the majority of Yoruba. Provocative and unhelpful comments need to stop. Ndigbo should live and maintain good relations wherever they find themselves across the nation.
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