Power, Culture and Modernity in Nigeria: Beyond the Colony by Oluwatoyin Oduntan (Review)

Power, Culture and Modernity in Nigeria: Beyond the colony by Oluwatoyin Oduntan (review)

Mufutau Oluwasegun Jimoh

Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Volume 21, Number 1, Spring 2020, (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cch.2020.0000

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/754567

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] Power, Culture and Modernity in Nigeria: Beyond the colony

By Oluwatoyin Oduntan. London; New York: Routledge, 2018.

In Power, Culture and Modernity, Oluwatoyin Oduntan challenges the conventional interpretation of colonial African history by mapping the instructive responses of the Egba people of South West Nigeria to European sociopolitical and religious forces that sought to shape and appropriate their sociocultural and political systems.

In six engaging chapters, Oduntan explores the socio-political development among the Egba people of Abeokuta in the southwestern part of Nigeria. The new settlement, established in 1892, consisted of various sub-Egba groups: the Ake, Oke- Ona, Gbagura, Oshile, and later the Owu. Oduntan argues that the Egba nation was negotiated out of various groups that migrated into Abeokuta (31). The forging of a new Egba identity, Oduntan argues, was an existential necessity. Though one could argue that pre-Abeokuta Egba settlements lacked hierarchical othering, he concludes that the Ake claimed seniority based on “primordial authority over other settlements” (32). However, in the new settlement, leadership was not defined by claim to royalty: it was “survival of the fittest.” Men who became the rallying point for the new settlement were men of war and valor.

Oduntan goes on to describe the impacts of freed slaves from Sierra Leone, Cuba and Brazil in the making of Abeokuta in the third quarter of the nineteenth century. The freed slaves, most of whom remembered their towns and points of departure, became central in the colonialization of Yorubaland. Contrary to earlier scholars, Oduntan argues the returnees from Sierra Leone were not on a civilizing mission; rather, they had become disenchanted with the colonial policy of the British and sought a new living space. Lagos was their first choice of settlement after leaving Sierra Leone. However, the fear of King Kosoko, a prominent slave dealer, forced them to first seek accommodation in Badagry, a slave market town to the west of Lagos. Unfortunately, their sojourn in Badagry was not palatable. Those who sought refuge in Abeokuta were accommodated by the Egba chiefs, and their presence changed the

© 2020 Mufutau Oluwasegun Jimoh and The Johns Hopkins University Press sociopolitical and cultural landscape of Egbaland. They saw themselves as the harbingers of Victorian ideas and ethos in Abeokuta and Lagos (34, 52, 53).

Because of their education and their time under British rule, these formerly enslaved people were Victorian in their worldview, but they still related with the Egba people because they retained their African identity. Their ability to negotiate the sociocultural milieu of colonial Africa under the British gave them the authority to assert their Egba citizenship. They were therefore very active in Egba life, forming sociocultural clubs such as the Egba Patriotic Association (formed in 1893), the Egba National Council (formed in 1898), and the Lisabi Club (formed in 1934). These associations became a vehicle to propagate their notion of modernity, Oduntan argued. Because of their Western education and advanced knowledge in technical skills, they constituted the new elite. Oduntan remarks, whether they were a “deluded hybrid” or not, they became a “recognized elite and power broker” class.

Missionaries were very central to the formation of Egba identity in the incipient days of colonialism. They however lacked a clear understanding of the conflict between King Kosoko and his challenger to the throne of Lagos, Akitoye. Akitoye was presented as anti‒slave trade crusader and Kosoko as an unrepentant slave dealer. According to Oduntan, however, the Egba were merely playing existential politics, and the missionaries were outplayed by the Egba. The Egba elites succeeded in using the missionaries as conduits to the British government in Lagos. After the death of Sodeke, the Egba war chief, the missionaries encouraged and supported the centralization of chiefly power, which led to the installation of Alake in 1854 in the midst of and despite the contestation of chiefly power among the traditional elite and “modern” elite. It did, however, give the Egba a sense of national unity.

While the Egba tolerated the missionaries to an extent, interference in the local power dynamics among the Ogboni chiefs by Lagos-based Egba elite and general resentment by the people over the overt manipulation of Christian converts against the Egba Chief led, Oduntan argues, to the Ifole crisis of 1867. The Ifole, earlier characterized by writers as a reaction towards missionaries, Oduntan shows to be more specifically revulsion of feelings of the traditional elite and the people against the

According to Oduntan, colonialism, Islam and Christianity not only shaped and moderated the evolution of traditional Egba political institutions, they solidified the position of Alake, who was elevated from Alake of Ake, to Alake of Egbaland. Alake emerged out of multiple contesting new political identities created by the new political economy as the central political figure in the new sociopolitical order. This did not abate the contestation of traditional authority by the powerful Ogboni chiefs in Abeokuta. The missionaries aided the centralization of political authority that revolved around Alake; powerful Ogboni chiefs contested this kingship. In some cases, powerful chiefs like Onlado of Kemta and Ogundeyi of Iporo and spiritually savvy chiefs like Ogundipe were able to usurp the power of Alake (73). But by the last decade of the nineteenth century a combination of factors had enhanced the status of Alake. He became more visible and assertive on the home front and more prestigious among other Yoruba monarchs. Egba autonomous towns and kingdoms came under the central authority of Alake and the Egba United Government, a Western model of governance was put in place, Egba multiple identities were carefully negotiated to give way for a common Egba identity, and Alake prevailed over the centrifugal forces within the nascent Egba nation.

This new Egba nation, Oduntan notes, faced multiple problems associated with colonialism at the dawn of twentieth century (Chapter 3). The colonial reality did not alter the Egba constitutional arrangement that operated in the pre-1914 era; rather it reinforced its authority under the new colonial order. The Egba United Government, which had guaranteed independence, was subsumed under the Egba Native Authority with Alake as the head under the supervision of the British Colonial Resident Officer. Alake became technically a representative of the colonial authority with limited political power. The new reality also produced its own points of contention. Alake’s area of jurisdiction was contested and disputed, and the precolonial boundaries were altered, which deepened animosity towards Alake of Egbaland. Traditional chiefs who lost out in the contestation of territorial claims in Abeokuta “moved to its margin” to acquire vast territory. These chiefs, mostly of Saro origin, used these acquisitions to legitimize their Egba citizenship and identity. However, alignment of Egba

© 2020 Mufutau Oluwasegun Jimoh and The Johns Hopkins University Press interestswith the British ensured that Alake’s claims over territories like Imeeko, Imala, Iberekodo, Iju and Isheri were sustained. Other semi-autonomous towns in Abeokuta, such as Owu, lashed on to the opportunity created by the British to claim territories like Wasimi, Ibogun, Ifo and Otta. Furthermore, this arrangement brought to the fore the resentment of the Egba people over multiple taxation issues, creating tension among the Egba and also sharpening the line of identity contestation among different segments of the Egba nation. Taxation, control over resources and Owu resentment over Egba hegemony resulted in the Adubi war of 1918, Oduntan concludes.

Beyond the sociopolitical scene, colonial medicine was another site of power contestation between the British and the Egba (Chapter 3). The smallpox, “Sopono” in local parlance, ravaged Abeokuta during the colonial period, and the response exemplified the political power inherent in control of an epidemic. While the colonial authorities introduced vaccinations against the spread of the disease, they also moved against local therapeutic practices. The Sopono cult, an exclusive club of traditional healers, was banned by the British, predicated on the assertion that these healers were responsible for spread of the disease. Colonial authorities threatened fines and imprisonment to curtail the activities of Sopono cult members. Alake, the highest political authority, was compelled to ensure compliance with the colonial order other. In 1928, some members of the Sopono cult were jailed by the colonial administration. The fight against Sopono revealed the wider ideological dimension of colonial medicine. The imposition of governmentality and delegitimization of African therapeutic practice confirms, according to Oduntan, that colonial medical policies were influenced by cultural, racial and economic factors.

In addition to these valuable points, the book also reassesses the contribution of women to the sociopolitical issues that defined the politics of Egba before and during the transfer of power in the twentieth century. Multiple socioeconomic problems galvanized opposition against Alake and against Oba Ademola in 1943. Oba Ademola was involved in many scandals that “demeaned his public image” (147). Resistance against the policies of Alake that were seen as obnoxious was championed by Mrs. Funmilayo Kuti, who was a prominent member of the National Council of Nigeria Citizens (NCNC). The emergence of Kuti changed the dynamics of the resistance movement. She employed her knowledge of Western education to mobilize women

© 2020 Mufutau Oluwasegun Jimoh and The Johns Hopkins University Press and other disenchanted actors against Alake. She found a ready ally in the Ogboni group that had being alienated by Oba Ademola. The abdication of Oba Ademola was a result of revulsion of feelings of many groups within the Egba nation.

Throughout this book, Oduntan demonstrates that colonialism never determined the evolution of Egba identity; rather, Egba elite used the missionaries to create a national identity out of multiple competing identities. While existing studies amplify the celebatorial view of the missionary contributions to the modernization of Abeokuta, the author questions earlier scholarship that has boxed the missionaries and the colonialists into the role of agents of civilization. He carefully threads together various accounts from multiple sources to show how the Egba checkmated the hegemonic tendencies of the British and negotiated their terms of engagement. However, the politics of inclusion by the Saro in Abeokuta created a political conundrum for the colonial authority in Lagos, who always acted carefully towards the Egba after the Glover-Ikorodu affair. Secondly, though the author discussed the contribution of Egba women during the twentieth century, he was surprisingly silent on the contributions of women during the turbulent early years of Abeokuta. Beyond Madam Tinubu, an Egba woman of Gbagura extraction who played an important role during the Egba war with Dahomey, the book failed to explore this important segment in Egba history. Thirdly, the book leaves out how Egba evolved and codified their laws given the multiplicity of their identities and histories. I invite the author to interrogate these issues in a subsequent edition. This book represents Mudimbe’s idea of history “history as a discourse of knowledge and a discourse of power.”The book, elegantly written and lucid, is crammed with good ideas and provides clues for the reinterpretation of Yoruba- British relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Mufutau Oluwasegun Jimoh, PhD Federal University Birnin-Kebbi Kebbi State, Nigeria