In the Beginning
This month of September marked the end of the Yoruba civil war. It was perhaps the longest civil war history had encountered. Sixteen traumatic years of blood, anguish, with nights and days of pitched battles by brave Yoruba soldiers. Embedded in the war are history, politics, economy, culture and epistemology. The first bullet was fired around 1870, on the midnight of a Sunday. Ibadan infantry soldiers, led by Latoosa rookies, pounced on fringe villages in Ijesaland. Ekiti suffered initial defeat. Fabumi assembled two battalions. His first attack was towards Ikirun. But he met a tested artillery and infantry soldiers from Ibadan. The first bitter encounter between Ekitiparapo and Ibadan ended in what the war generals themselves described as “Ogun Jalumi” or what the Western world refers to as “Battle of Waterloo.” Babalola, a fiery soldier, said to have fought in several wars outside Yorubaland, led the Ibadan’s first main battle, some miles from Ipole. But the Ekiti were less tested in naval warfare. What would they do? They retreated and launched an intensive war campaign, enlisting young men across the Yoruba country.
Ancient Yoruba War Tactics
For days and weeks, the Ekitiparapo created several platoons, built trenches and trained a large contingent of fighters. A small group of spies was created, similar to an Espionage Corps, with their headquarters at Ilara Mokin. The training involved the study of animal behaviour and its relationship with war tactics. The training manual: The snake recoils and waits for a decisive opportunity; the straight flight of a bevy of little birds moving skywards, indicates the enemy is near; when the birds’ flight is in landscape form, it is indication that the enemy is far away. The sudden and consistent roaring and bickering of wood peckers, signals that the enemy is encamping nearby. When buffaloes ramble through the forest in blind rage, then the enemy is in a rush to attack; when in majestic but brisk steps, the enemy is ahead in a sort of maneuvers. When a dog backs intermittently on the field of battle, there is a spy within.
Ibadan Might
Oyo, for over 500 years earlier, had fought battles they never lost. On the Lagos fringe, Oyo had over 100,000 soldiers; in the Northern hemisphere, she had an equal number of soldiers, and it was thought no force in the world during that era could confront and defeat Ibadan, the inheritor of Oyo’s military prowess. Even then, earlier, many people from outside Oyo, from as far as Itsekiri and Ekiti lands had enlisted in the Oyo Army, as a pan Yoruba unitary force.
Now, Ekiti had to call on their cousins, the Ijesa, who had produced one of the greatest military generals of the time. The war was fought with respect for the dignity of man. They allowed the children to go. Took the men for young slaves and slew a gang of rebels. The war intensified after Ekiti and Ijesa soldiers encamped at Otun-Ekiti, where they had spent three nights, led by Fabunmi, planning their war strategy. On a sandy soil, Fabunmi laid out the attack plans as his commanders listened attentively. A review of the plan would be done after each battle. Ogedengbe came up to lead the war, after initial reluctance. Fabunmi had written a letter to him. Letter writing was usually done at the time, using the Ifa octopus engraved on a leather skin, and mounted on the shoulder of a horse.
Ogedengbe
Said to be an extraordinarily honest man, a brilliant soldier and war maestro, he had been trained also in Ibadan, in all techniques of war. He was a charming man whose bulky eyes drew and awed women. As it was the tradition of every soldier trained in Ibadan at that point, Ogedengbe swore an oath never to attack Ibadan. But then, his people were being killed and taken as slaves. Save your fatherland from slavery or remain in servitude due to the oath, were the two choices that confronted him. He chose liberty. But as a decent soldier, he first sent a signal to Ibadan on his plans to enter the stage. Latoosa replied with a list of War Standards. Ogedengbe encamped at Ita Ogbolu after training an initial fighting force of 10,000 people. When Ibadan heard this, on November 3, 1879, they sent for reinforcement. Latoosa sent Balogun Ogboriefon, Ojo and Ogundepo. Ogedengbe’s entrance changed the game. For instance, he subsequently internationalised the war campaign, when he imported weapons from Hamburg in Western Germany to prosecute the war.
Ibadan was met with resistance never before seen, with a skillful display of tactics unimaginable by the Ekitiparapo. On May 4, 1880, Are Onakakanfo personally led one section at the warfront. Ogedengbe who died in 1902 led successful military expeditions. Before he died, Western journalists came to Iwo – where he was initially detained by the British after the war – to interview him on his military expertise. Around 1887, he was invited for a state visit by the King of Englthat and, a request he declined on the account he was too busy with state matters. The King later sent his picture to him, which I saw during my last visit to his great, great grandson, the current Ogedengbe, himself a retired soldier. The Nigerian Army has about 24 great grandsons of Ogedengbe who have enlisted into its rank. I saw at the vast compound where the late Ogedengbe lived, special food plates imported from Germany which he used to eat. He also had a “surface-bunker”, where recalcitrant soldiers were detained.
What Caused the War?
There have been different accounts. But from the political point of view, it was a battle between unitarist and confederacy Forces. Ekitiparapo wanted a loose federation; Ibadan wanted a unitary Yorubaland where power would be over-concentrated, and this is a problem that hunts Nigeria today. In my personal encounter with the current Aare Latoosa, he told me that his great grandfather, Latoosa, had consulted the Ifa oracle. He said the oracle told the ancient Latoosa that some “Albinos” were coming to dominate Yorubaland and take over her resources. The oracle then told the Aare to build a single force to repel them on behalf of the Yoruba nation. The Albino is believed to be the white colonialists who later came.
Lessons
• The war never witnessed the conscious killing of children and women. This appears to be the height of the civilisation of Yoruba culture. War loots were taken, young men taken as slaves, while beautiful young women were also abducted, but on both sides, they set standards of war which could be said to equal the UN Convention on War Prisoners that came more almost 150 years later;
• Only a rich nation could have raised such a huge army. The war was fought without borrowing from any external source;
• In the end, the people came to the peace table on September 23, 1886 at noon. Dialogue is more important than war. Africans can resolve their differences on their own terms;
• If the Yoruba had not been divided, no force would have been able to conquer them. As at the time of the Kiriji war, there were no fewer than 500,000 soldiers kept by several Yoruba fiefdoms;
• It is painful that more than 90 percent of the weapons used in prosecuting the war have been lost by the Nigerian military government under the guise of being preserved. These weapons, including locally manufactured war machines and those imported from Germany, are said to be worth over 500 million dollars in war related tourism. The materials are still being kept at the Abuja and Jos museum by the federal government, and many of them would be missing or might have been stolen, having been put under the care of civil servants;
• A few years ago, I had proposed to the Ekiti State Government a Yoruba War Museum. The government accepted this with great enthusiasm, and the idea was to establish a huge museum where all the artifacts relating to the war would be kept. I visited Cambridge in London where efforts were in top gear to actualise the dream. Unfortunately, the end of the APC government in 2014, halted this great pan Yoruba Project.
Credit: Adewale Adeoye, PT