OYO YORUBA AND ILORIN RELATIONS IN 19TH CENTURY
ABSTRACT
It is an undisputed fact that communities graduated from various stages viz primitive to the sophisticated stage hence there is bound to be relationship between these communities and localities. The nature and type of relationship that exist between these communities differs as there is no water, light compartment be among the communities. This study intends to investigate and explore the nature of the relationship that existed between the Oyo-Yorubas and the Ilorins in the 19th century when the zeal for expansionist is very high among the imperial powers.Consequently, in order to get accurate and reliable information views of various authors on related literatures were consulted so also personal interviews were conducted to people who has first hand information about happenings in the 19th century.
CHAPTER ONE
- BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Historians agreed that crises and warfare predominated in Yoruba during the 19th century. However, up till now, historians have not put all what happened in that century, under a common historical phenomenon. It is true that several writers dealt with different aspects of crises and wars, but only very few of them recognize and even timidly, that they are part of an essentially holistic global phenomenon imperialism.
Furthermore, this study intends to show all that happened in Yoruba land during the 19th century was the manifestation of imperialism arising out of state and individual expansionist as well as exploitative tendencies which was set in motion by -Yoruba group and subsequently nurtured. It as a result of the nature of its relations with Ilorin. However we shall examine the relations from political economic and socio-cultural perspective.
Before doing that, three issues require attention. The first is the justification for the adoption of the frame work of imperialism. It is imperialist inclination that spurred certain states to embark on territorial and power aggrandizement. In order words, not all states can be imperialist, hence the existence of mini states or segmentary societies.
Inspite of this, imperialism cannot be categorized into ancient and modern as some European writers do, while imperialism may be atavistic in the sense of being as old as the emergence of organized states, all imperialisms in whatever geopolitical environment have the same objectives of exploiting the human and the material resources of all conquered or weaker people in order to ensure their own survival, for instance old empire and its -Yorubas successor states of Ibadan, Ijaye and new as well as Ilorin in varying degrees had similar objectives.
Obviously, such objectives were mainly the product of internal dynamics within the imperialist states arising out of internal and at times external political and economic power differentiation. This invariably leads to expansion and domination for the imperialist state and individual member of the ruling class, such tendencies bring glory and prestige but exploitation to the subdued groups.
This development in turn creates two centrifugal forces. The first is intermittent struggles for position and power among the members of the ruling class of the imperialist state. The other is in the form of determination of the subject peoples to free themselves from imperial oppression and return their states to the status quo or launch their own imperialism on others. Under this circumstances, there is bound to be crises and wars not only between the imperialist states but also between them and the hitherto exploited groups. This is what happened in Yoruba land during the 19th century.
