“Constitutional Experimentations and the Military Factor in the 19th Century Yoruba Power Politics”
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Date
2019
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Federal University, Dutsinma, Katsina State
Abstract
This thrust of this paper bothers on the inherent constitutional experimentations and the military factor observable in the Yoruba power politics during the revolutionary 19th century. The paper adopts the historical research method, which employs the use of available primary and secondary sources of historical analysis. Findings in this study show that evidences abound on the emergence of new forms of political organisations throughout Yorubaland in the 19th century. Ijaye under Kurunmi, Ibadan under Basorun Oluyole, Oyo under Alaafin Atiba, Ekiti (-parapo) under Prince Fabunmi and Ogedengbe, Egba, Abeokuta under Sodeke, Oke-Odan and Iwo under Balogun Ali, among others, provide us with clear examples of such experiments in political engineering. This was in the general spirit of the constitutional experimentations that pervaded the political space during that turbulent century. The paper concludes that although the 19th century was indeed an epoch of cataclysmic changes not only in the area around the Niger that came to be known as Nigeria but the West African sub-region in general, by and large, Yorubaland during the 19th century was particularly bedevilled by three distinct upheavals from three distinct quarters. The militarisation of politics in the 19th century as against the politicisation of the military in the 20th century speaks of the political dynamism within the same political space.
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Keywords
Yorubaland, Constitutional experimentation, Political organisation, Military Factor
Citation
Aboyeji, A. J. and Aboyeji, O. S. (2019): “Constitutional Experimentations and the Military Factor in the 19th Century Yoruba Power Politics” Dutsinma Historical Review, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2019 A Journal of the Department of History and Strategic Studies, Federal University, Dutsinma, Katsina State, pp. 123-136.