“Two thirds of people in Scotland identify only as Scottish, not British, according to new findings from the census”

“1.8 million people identify as Welsh only (58% of the population) and 218,000 identify their national identity as Welsh-British (7% of the population”)

I was reintroduced to the controversy over the origins, wherewithal and proprietary rights of the name Yoruba, by the altercation between Professor Peter Ekeh and Dr Bala Usman in 2001.

The original introduction came from “Colonialism and the Two Publics of Africa: A Theoretical Statement” by Professor Peter Ekeh. It was published by the Journal of Comparative Studies in 1975

The first salvo was fired by Dr Bala Usman whose ‘imperial historiography’ started with this bombast: “The fact is that, the earliest record we have of the use of the very name “Yoruba” was in the Hausa language and it seems to have applied to the people of the Alafinate of Oyo”.

“This came from the writings of the seventeenth century Katsina scholar, Dan Masani (1595-1667), who wrote a book on Muslim scholars of the ‘Yarriba.’ But it was from a book of the Sarkin Musulmi Bello, written in the early nineteenth century, that the name became more widely used”.

“The Bishop Ajayi Crowther, the Reverend Samuel Johnson, and his brother Obadiah Johnson, among others, came, in the nineteenth century, to widely spread this Hausa name to the people who now bear it, in their writings”

‘Anybody who has read the scholarly writings that have come out of the University of Ibadan from the early 1950’s knows that there has never been and there is nothing like a Yoruba “Race”. There is no way ignorant people can lead. Unless something is done these nincompoops will continue to shout true federalism”

In response, Ekeh countered in (The Mischief of History: Bala Usman’s Unmaking of Nigerian History By Peter Ekeh, Urhobo Historical Society) 

“In the week of April 18th through 25th, 2001, the Nigerian internet community received an ample supply of Bala Usman’s essay titled “Misrepresentation of Nigeria” and “Ignorance, Knowledge and Democratic Politics in Nigeria”..

It is the text of his presentation at a symposium at Bayero University, Kano, on Tuesday, 17th April 2001..” It was a frontal attack on the notion that the Yoruba and Igbo had their own autonomous history, independent of Nigeria”.

“Bala Usman is telling us in his two essays that the Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw, and Urhobo — his principal examples — had no histories until they were created by British imperialism”

“So what is Bala Usman’s proof that the name “Yoruba” is an “Hausa name”? It is so, to repeat, because, he says, “the earliest record [sic] we have of the use of the very name ‘Yoruba’ was in the Hausa language” — from the writings of a man born in 1595!

“But in fact the name Yoruba was used by a Timbucktu theologian, Ahmad Baba, who was already a distinguished scholar long before Dan Masani was born in 1595. Moreover, Ahmad Baba (1556-1627) wrote in Arabic, not in the Hausa language”.”

I like to upgrade Ekeh’s rebuttal with the disclosure that Usman actually exhibited ignorance in his agitation “that there has never been and there is nothing like a Yoruba race”. To think that he actually titled his missive “Ignorance, Knowledge and Democratic Politics in Nigeria”

He was, of course, writing to the answer of a predetermined conclusion conspicuously manifested in his “misrepresentation of Nigeria”. My former boss at the Guardian, Godwin Darah referred to him in his response as an ‘ideological point man of the Fulani oligarchy for decades’

Regardless of the plausibility of the myth of Oduduwa, the conception of this “Yoruba race” is not determined by biology…or the Oduduwa myth.

Long before Usman passed on, the conception of what constitutes a race has gone beyond biological determinism. ‘Many scholars now consider race to be a social construction.

This means that racial categories, such as “black,” “white,” or “Asian,” are not based on natural or inevitable human differences but are the result of social ideas, values, and practices’

The more the embarrassment for Usman given his affectation of structuralism and socialism while intermittently spewing fascist outbursts.

Of a similar Pan Muslim North ideological orientation, Professor Farooq Kperogi turned on Mrs Kemi Badenock, the leader of the Conservative Party in the UnitedKingdom, UK. “Well, since Ms. Badenoch hates northern Nigeria that much, she might also consider rejecting even the term Yoruba, as it originates from—of all places—northern Nigeria!”

Professor Moyo Okediji rightly made the point. “Why do they assume that if x is found in Yoruba language and it is also found in the Arabic language, x must be an Arabic word by default, but not a Yoruba?. His editor at the Saturday Tribune seconded Okediji in similarly argued article four years ago.

There is also the manipulation of the translation of what Ahmad Baba actually said.The reproduction of his original text (as translated by John Hunwick and Fatima Harrak for the Institute of African Studies Rabat), reads:

“Those who come to you from the following [sic] clans: the Mossi, the Gurma, the Busa, the Yorko, the Ku Tukul, the Yoruba, the Tanbugbu, the Bobo) are considered non-believers who still adhere to non-belief until now…. You are allowed to own all these”

In his book, titled “Partitioned Borgu: State, Society and Politics in a West African Border Region” to which Kperogi made copious reference Dr. Hussaini Abdu rationalised “It’s obvious that Ahmad Baba “Yoruba” as “Yariba” in his 1613 essay because Arabic, the language in which he wrote, does not have the vowel “o.”. The three dominant vowels in Arabic are “a,” “I,” and “u. 

So how, then, does Abdu account for the use of the vowel ‘o’ in the words “the Mossi, the Yorko, the Bobo, as they appeared alongside Yoruba in the original text? ie (“Those who come to you from the following [sic] clans: the Mossi, the Gurma, the Busa, the Yorko, the Ku Tukul, the Yoruba, the Tanbugbu, the Bobo”).

It is not that Kperogi was not aware of the crucial point made by Olagunju and Okediji …it is just that it does not serve the purpose of his neo Bala Usman scholarship. 

He thereafter embarked on a relentless heckling of the Yoruba in his Saturday Tribune column (“Kemi Badenoch’s Yoruba Identity Meets Inconvenient Truths”)

Surprisingly, there are some simple historical facts that one would not expect an average general reader to get confused about.

Kperogi wrote “I was shocked to read recently that even Ibadan, the administrative capital of Western Nigeria, was founded by a northern Nigerian of Borgu origins”. Oluyole, the founder of modern Ibadan, was the scion of Bashorun Yau Yamba, who was of Borgu ancestry”.

From 1820 when Ibadan was founded, the order in which they ascended the Ibadan throne was Baale Maye Okunade,1820-1826; followed by Baale Oluyendun Labosinde (1826 to 1830); Baale Lakanle (1830-1835) and Basorun Oluyole who reigned for 15 years (1835-1850).

From this chronology, how does anyone extrapolate that Oluyole was the founder of Ibadan, ancient or modern? 

Kperogi equally wrote “More than that, several towns and villages in Oyo were founded by Borgu people. For instance, Ogbomoso, a major Oyo town, was founded by a Baatonu (Bariba) prince. The title of the town’s monarch, “Soun,” is a corruption of “Suno,” the Baatonu word for king”.

First, from all available evidence, Soun Ogunlola was of Ibariba ancestry but I’m yet to come across any information that he was Ibariba prince. He was a hunter from a neighboring community to Oyo metropolis who helped get rid of a fiend, Elemosho, who had besieged Oyo.

“The Alaafin was so impressed by Ogunlola’s prowess that he, the Alaafin, requested Ogunlola to stay in the capital (Oyo-Ile) instead of returning to his settlement”.

“Ogunlola politely declined saying “Ejeki a ma se ohun” meaning “let me manage that place” (This is precisely what Soun connotes in Yoruba language).

“His majesty, the Alaafin, granted Ogunlola’s wish to return to his settlement”. Literally, Soun is Yoruba word for, keep minding the other place.

We have to wonder why a principal sovereign monarch, of the status of Alaafin, would have to look outside Yoruba cultural heritage, to pick a title for a subordinate monarch.

For that matter, were any eccentric Alaafin to contemplate any such self-abnegation, the title should be Sonu (which means king in Baatonu language, according to Kperogi) not Soun.

Two more contenders on this evergreen Yoruba nationality consciousness syndrome have come to my notice.

According to the Cambridge University Press “English ethnologist Richard F. Burton reports of a Yoruba account in 1861, noting that the name “Yoruba” derives from Ori Obba, i.e. -The Head King. It was applied ex-situ originally in reference to the Yoruba sociolinguistic group as a whole. Centuries later however, it evolved to be applied exclusively to the oyo subgroup when this subgroup rose to attain imperial status, particularly at its apogee (c.1650 – c.1750) until in the mid-1800s when this trend was reversed back to the original context.

If this account is true then it turns many previous accounts on their heads. It claims that Yoruba have identified themselves as such long before the Oyo empire appropriated the identity (or was appropriated to them). It is doubtful whether a man of this description was mindless or spinning a yarn.

The other says “the people who call themselves Yoruba today, said in Hausa what they usually say when they go to their own markets, to other merchants. Apparently as far back as the 16th century and right up to the 19th..when they get to the market places where they met the Hausa people, they inquired from them in their usual courteous manner, Ya meaning “How”, or Yi meaning “How about” and ribà, meaning “profit” (See the Dictionary of Hausa-English). Ya-ribà or Yi-ribà- How about profit? Hence they were known as the people that say Ya-ribà” (Posted in: Rhythms of Shekere). It will be interesting to know what Yariba theorists have to say on this.

Meanwhile, according to the same Cambridge University Press-”The word “Yoruba,” used to describe a group of people speaking a common language, was already in use in the interior of the Bight of Benin, probably before the sixteenth century”. I’m certain this will not be the last word of the syndrome.