Encyclopedia of the Yoruba

Toyin Falola, Akintunde Akinyemi, TOYIN FALOLA, AKINTUNDE AKINYEMI

• Éditeur: Indiana University Press
• Année: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780253021564
• Sujet: Histoire
• Sous-sujet: Histoire de l'Afrique

"The encyclopedia gives a complex, yet detailed, presentation of the Yorùbá, a dominant ethnic group in West Africa... an invaluable resource." — Yoruba Studies Review The Yoruba people today number more than thirty million strong, with significant numbers in the United States, Nigeria, Europe, and Brazil. This landmark reference work emphasizes Yoruba history, geography and demography, language and linguistics, literature, philosophy, religion, and art. The 285 entries include biographies of prominent Yoruba figures, artists, and authors; the histories of political institutions; and the impact of technology and media, urban living, and contemporary culture on Yoruba people worldwide. Written by Yoruba experts on all continents, this encyclopedia provides comprehensive background to the global Yoruba and their distinctive and vibrant history and culture. "Readers unfamiliar with the Yoruba will find the introduction a concise and valuable overview of their language and its dialects, recent history, mythology and religion, and diaspora movements... Highly recommended." — Choice

A

ABÍỌ́LÁ, MOSHOOD KÁṢÌMAWÒ ỌLÁWÁLÉ (1937–1998)

Chief Moshood Káṣìmawò Ọláwálé Abíọ́lá was born in Gbágùrá, Abẹ́òkúta (Ògùn State), on August 24, 1937. One of M. K. O. Abíọ́lá’s names alludes to the condition of his birth. Collectively, his father’s wives lost twenty-two pregnancies before he was born; the name Káṣìmawò is loosely translated as “let us wait and watch.” He was a man of very humble beginnings who made the deep forests his first resource base by fetching fuel wood to sell to women in different markets. He was known to have played the àgídìgbo, a native Yorùbá guitarlike musical instrument, as a way of raising funds for his education. As if his name were a compass for his life, from his humble beginnings he became a key player in business, sports, media, and then politics.

Abíọ́á was admitted to Nawair-Ud-Deen Primary School for his elementary education in 1944, but he later changed to African Central School, both in Abẹ́òkúta, a year later. He obtained his primary school leaving certificate (diploma) around 1950. For the following five years, Abíọ́lá attended Baptist Boys High School in Abẹ́òkúta and graduated in 1956. It took him just ten years to qualify as a chartered accountant at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland in February 1966.

Chief Abíọ́lá’s flame started to burn brightly, and he gained notice around 1970 after assuming the leadership of International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) as vice president for Africa and the Middle East at age thirty-three. More business successes followed, including the founding of Radio Communications (Nig.) Ltd. in 1974. His other business interests included the music recording company Decca (WA) Ltd., Wonder Bakeries, Abíọ́lá Farms, Abíọ́lá Bookshops, and finally Concord Newspapers, which changed the dynamics of newspaper publishing and distribution in Nigeria. Chief Abíọ́lá is also credited as the first publisher of African Science Monitor, a magazine that reported the scientific achievements of Africans. According to Tádé Akin Àìná, the magazine was established “as part of [Abíọ́lá’s] vision and recognition of the need for a platform to challenge not only the asymmetrical power relations that constitute dominant discourses and practices in the sciences, but also to encourage and elevate Africa’s self-conception of her role in the sciences and their place in the lives and cultures of her peoples” (25).

Chief Abíọ́á’s business empire spread over sixty countries and five continents, including ventures such as Concord Airlines and Summit Oil International Ltd. Chief Abíọ́lá also made it his business to inspire others by donating to different worthy causes. He contributed to the construction of sixty-three secondary schools, forty-one libraries, and twenty-one water projects across the nation (Fáyẹ̀míwò 2003). Chief Abíọ́lá was named Pillar of Sports in Africa because of his involvement at different levels. In the 1970s, he founded the eponymous football club Abíọ́lá Babes Football Club, which was based in Abẹ́òkúta. His philanthropy was not limited to Nigerian institutions; he also contributed to institutions of higher learning elsewhere on the African continent and in the United States. As one of the major sponsors for reparations in Africa, he established the Abíọ́lá Foundation for Reparation with an endowment of $500,000 and donated a large amount of money to the W. E. B. DuBois Center in Accra, Ghana.

Apart from his generosity to individuals and institutions, he was bestowed with about 150 traditional titles from different parts of the country. The most prized title was his installation as the fourteenth Ààrẹ-Ọ̀nà-Kakaǹfò by the aláàfin of Ọ̀yọ́ in 1988. A gap of twenty-two years separated Chief Abíọ́lá from his predecessor, Chief Ládòkè Akíntọ́lá, who was killed in 1966 during a violent military takeover. Historically, the title was bestowed on war generals in the old Ọ̀yọ́ Empire. The Ààrẹ-Ọ̀nà-Kakaǹfò was expected to lead other warriors to victory during wartime. Ironically, Chief Abíọ́lá’s theater of war was the treacherous terrain of Nigerian politics.

Chief Abíọ́lá’s first involvement with politics was in 1956 at age nineteen. When he left Baptist Boys High School, he joined the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). Not much is known about his membership in the NCNC. He joined the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in 1980 and made an immediate impact around the country. Yorùbá people in the Southwest, the area from which he hailed, felt betrayed by his political interest because of its likely political damage for Chief Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀’s Unity Party of Nigeria. Chief Abíọ́lá suffered a temporary political setback when the NPN refused him a place on its presidential ticket during the 1979 elections. He vowed to quit partisan politics but soon changed his mind after the military administration of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida created two new political parties: the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NPC). Chief Abíọ́lá joined the SDP and eventually became its presidential candidate for the June 12, 1993, elections. Abíọ́lá won the election, but the results were annulled by the military government led by President Ibrahim Babangida eleven days after the elections were concluded. As a result of this annulment, the nation was engulfed in a series of political crises and experienced a quick succession of administrations. Chief Abíọ́lá was arrested and detained for five years during General Sani Abacha’s military administration. One of his wives, Kudirat Abíọ́lá, was killed on June 4, 1996, upon leaving an important political meeting. About two years after her death, Chief Abíọ́lá died on July 7, 1998, at the age of sixty, under mysterious circumstances while in detention.

Chief Abíọ́lá’s death became a rallying point for many pro-democracy activists in Nigeria and others around the world who called for a return to democratic rule in Nigeria. Most states in southwestern Nigeria have immortalized him in various ways.

See also Afẹ́nifẹ́re, Ẹgbẹ́; Names and Naming; Royalty and Chieftaincy; Oòduà Progressive Congress (OPC); Politics and Political Parties since 1945

REFERENCES

Àìná, T. A. “Beyond Reforms: The Politics of Higher Education Transformation in Africa.” African Studies Review 53.1 (2010): 21–40.

Fáyẹ̀míwò, Moshood. M. K. O. Abíọ́lá. Tampa, FL: USAfrican Christian Publishing, 2003.

Kọ́léadé Odùtọ́lá

ACTION GROUP

The Action Group (AG) political party was the brainchild of Chief Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀. When the party officially launched at Ọ̀wọ̀ on March 21, 1951, it was already one year old, conceived over nine secret meetings that had been going on for the previous year. One reason for the formation of this political party was to bring together the progressive but divided Yorùbá people. In his 1960 autobiography, Chief Awólọ́wọ̀ stated that AG’s objective was to “devise plans for organizing the people of the Western Region so that they may be able to play influential and effective role in the affairs of Nigeria under the New Governor Macpherson Constitution of 1951.” In 1951, a Daily Times editorial hailed the formation of AG as follows:

The first, in the field of party politics, with a definite plan, for winning seats under the new Constitution. The objective of the Action Group is admirable, and deserving of support. The Convention People’s Party [CPP] in the Gold Coast [Ghana] has proved that party organization pays big dividends. We therefore welcome the Action Group to the Nigerian political scene. And may other organizations follow its lead. Several strong parties are required if the new Constitution is to function effectively. (3)

Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, editor of the Lagos-based West African Pilot newspaper, wished the AG the best of luck, noting, “Its aims and objects are laudable and in program of action is varied and wide. From all appearances it is an awakening consciousness in the West. . . . It agrees in some aspects with the Ghana Convention People’s Party, in being a party organization.”

The announcement of the birth of the AG took the country by storm. Those who later became covert and overt adversaries of the party also heralded its debut in glowing terms. Awólọ́wọ̀ and eight others founded the party. Despite Awólọ́wọ̀’s personal contact with sixty persons, drawn from different parts of Western Region of Nigeria, people were not interested, thus confirming the unorganized and disunited characteristics of the Yorùbá people at the time. The charter members at the party’s initial meeting on March 26, 1950, at the Òkè-Àdó Residence of Chief Awólọ́wọ̀ in Ìbàdàn included Chief Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ (Ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ), S. O. Shónibárẹ́ (Ìjẹ̀bú-Òde), Chief Abíọ́dún Akéréle (Ọ̀yọ́), S. T. Ọ̀rẹ́dẹ̀ìn (Ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ), Ọlátúnjí Dòsùmú (Ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ), J. Ọlá Àdìgún (Ọ̀ṣun), Adéyígà Akínsànyà (Ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ), and Ayọ̀ Akínsànyà (Ìjẹ̀bú-Rẹ́mọ).

The basic principles that brought members together were summarized in AG’s motto: “Freedom for all, life more abundant.” It was not only agreed that the rule of one nation by another was unnatural and unjust; the founders also believed that the people of the Western Region of Nigeria in particular and Nigeria in general would have a more abundant life when they could enjoy freedom from British rule, ignorance, disease, and want. As a political party, the AG was disciplined, cohesive, committed, and well organized. The AG leaders’ sagacity, popular appeal, and pragmatic approach to politics are indisputable.

See also Akíntọ́lá, Samuel Ládòkè; Awólọ́wọ̀, Ọbáfẹ́mi; Politics and Political Parties since 1945

REFERENCES

Adébámwí, Wálé. Yorùbá Elites and Ethnic Politics: Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀ and Corporate Agency. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Awólọ́wọ́, Ọbáfẹ́mi. The Autobiography of Chief Ọbáfẹ́mi Awólọ́wọ̀. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960.

Daily Times (Lagos, Nigeria), 1951: 3, 21.

West African Pilot (Lagos, Nigeria), 1951: 3, 29.

Ọláyíwọlá M. Abégúnrìn

ADVERTISEMENT

Advertising is a form of marketing communication used to encourage, persuade, or manipulate an audience (viewers, readers or listeners, sometimes a specific group) to take or continue to take some action. Advertising as an institution tells people how to pick the best out of many materials around them. To the Yorùbá people, advertising is the “medicine” of business (ìpolówó ọjà ni àgúnmu òwò) and language its hallmark. Advertising is the soul of a business, the method the seller employs to advertise or qualify the product he or she sells in a way that will attract people. Yorùbá people have specific ways of advertising their products, and the goal of any seller is to persuade buyers, either overtly or covertly, to buy his or her goods or products. Advertising (ìpolówó ọjà) in Yorùbáland can be categorized as a form of poetry, because it follows a regular beat and is often sung. Advertisement is found all over Yorùbáland, although the names of some items, goods, or products may vary from one dialect group to the other.

When town life was still closely knit, people knew the particular house where specific items were sold. When the use of money succeeded trade by barter, when sellers no longer knew those who were interested in their items, the system of hawking came about in which the indigenous hawker goes around the neighborhood on foot to enable buyers to be aware of the fact that the seller was around.

Small-scale trading is a fashionable economic activity among women in traditional Yorùbá society. A few of the items traded include local foods—raw and cooked—traditional clothes, and daily-use items. These items are advertised through ìkiri ọjà (hawking) and ìpolówó (advertising). The hawkers also regard advertising as very crucial to their trade, and language is a very critical part of it. For this reason sellers deck their language with many traditional oral literary material, such as proverbs, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, and other devices, to strike the right chord in buyers. The essence of this is to bring the commodity being advertised to the consciousness and reach of the consumers.

As society has gradually changed in its social, political, and economic outlook, advertising has inevitably taken new shape in Yorùbáland. Instead of people advertising their goods by parading through the streets, most people now have shops and offices with signposts or banners informing others about their businesses. There are modern forms of advertising on electronic media (radio, television), print media (business card, flyer, banner, and billboard), and other media (GSM, the Internet, electronic billboards).

The following examples show how iyán (pounded yam) and àgbàdo (cooked maize) are advertised:

Ẹ wojú ọbẹ̀, ẹ múyán.

Iyán-an re, ọbẹ̀ẹ re.

Iyán-àn mi, à-jẹ-ríre.

Examine the soup and buy pounded yam.

Good pounded yam, good soup.

Eat my pounded yam, eat and experience good things.

Láńgbé jinná o!

Ọ̀sìngín àgbàdo

Dandawì, olóko ò gbowo

Cooked maize is ready!

Fresh maize.

Very cheap, the farmer took no money.

REFERENCES

Akínyẹmí, Akíntúndé. “African Health on Sale: Marketing Strategies in the Practice of Traditional Medicine in Southwestern Nigeria.” In Traditional and Modern Health Sys...