Ibadan And Its 12 Kings | By Lasisi Olagunju

A number of friends outside Ibadan have asked me what having more kings meant for Ibadan as a city and its uncountable struggling millions. My response has been a riposte interrogating the importance of change in life and of reforms in human institutions.

The ascendancy of Ibadan from war camp to city and the distinctiveness of its Olubadan kingship are products of constant change and reforms. All through its modern history, every major improvement or amendment or adjustment to the Ibadan chieftaincy law has had streaks of controversies. In 1936, Ibadan as a city was tired of dragging the Baale title with minions in charge of its villages. It wanted its traditional head to be called and known as Olubadan instead of the lowly Baale title. The colonial government approved it on 18 June, 1936 but put it on hold on 7 July. On 9 July, fifty-seven Ibadan chiefs signed a petition asking the authorities to “bring about the desired change” they all longed for.

They said changing the title of their ruler from Baale to Olubadan was “a mere nomenclature” conferring no right upon “the holder to wear a beaded crown and it is hoped that no holder of it in future shall have such aspirations.” The chiefs boasted that “if we had cared for the beaded crown, we would have assumed one before the advent of the British Government. We have been democratic since the establishment of the third Ibadan, and we like our constitution to continue so” (See Ruth Watson’s Civil Disorder is the Disease of Ibadan: Chieftaincy and Civic Culture in a Yoruba City, 2003, from page 142 to 145). The approval for the title-change came on 21 October, 1936 with the colonial government emphasizing that the title was cosmetic, that it could only massage the ego of the bearer, it contained no potency that could make the bearer a king with a beaded crown to match.

But those who boasted in 1936 that they needed no king with a beaded crown attempted a change in tune just three years after. A Conference of Yoruba Chiefs was to be held in Ibadan in May 1939 but certain Ibadan merchants caused to be made abroad and imported into the country 3,000 yards of a purpose-made ‘Olubadan Damask’ – today’s Aso Ebi. Watson (2003: 154) describes the cloth as “so dense in cultural meaning and political symbolism” that the authorities believed it was a threat to public peace. Emblazoned on the Aso Ebi for distribution in the city was a drawing of Olubadan Abasi leading a leopard by a cord amidst a design with “a coloured ground bearing at the top, a crown, and in the border the words: Olubadan d’oba, abuse buse (Olubadan has become king, end of discussions).” The Leopard on a leash in Olubadan’s hand was interpreted to be the Alaafin. The Lion in Oyo saw the cloth and roared from Oyo; the colonial government heard the loud protest in Lagos and banned the distribution and use of that cloth everywhere – and forever. That incident and similar others were what the late Alaafin, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III referred to as “the skirmishes of the 1930s” in his historic motion of 1976 at the Oyo State House of Chiefs while pleading that the council grant the Olubadan the right and privilege to wear a beaded crown.