Ẹ̀gbá Leadership, the Aláké and the Ẹgba United Board of Management

Abẹ́òkúta is the most institutionally interesting town in nineteenth-century Yorubaland because it was built from scratch by refugees and had to invent its government as it went. It began under Ṣódẹkẹ́ with no king at all, acquired a crowned Aláké in 1854, and between 1865 and 1874 ran an experiment, the Ẹgba United Board of Management, in joining traditional chiefly authority to the administrative capacity of Sierra Leonean returnees. The experiment failed, and Agneta Pallinder-Law's analysis of why it failed is the standard scholarly account of what modernisation on African terms was up against in that period 1.

From no king to the Aláké

The Aláké is the crown of Ẹgba Aké, one of the townships of the Abẹ́òkúta confederation, raised to paramountcy over the whole. There was no Aláké reigning at Abẹ́òkúta until 1854 2. Ṣódẹkẹ́ had governed without a crown until his death in 1844 or 1845, after which the Ògbóni and the Ológun, the civil-judicial and military constituencies, competed for dominance and the sources describe the result as anarchy.

Ṣàgbùà Okùkẹ́nù, born about 1790 and a great-great-grandson of Laarun, was crowned on 8 August 1854 as the first Aláké to rule in the fortified city of Abẹ́òkúta, and reigned until his death on 31 August 1862 2. He is the Sagbua of CMS correspondence, the chief with whom Henry Townsend and Samuel Àjàyí Crowther dealt from 1845 onward, and the recipient of the celebrated 1848 gift of an English Bible and a printing press from the Church Missionary Society. This corpus has not verified the CMS dealings directly from a scholarly source in preparing this file and flags them accordingly; Biobaku is the place to check 3.

Somoye served as regent, first in 1845 to 1846 and again from 1862 2. Then follows a gap in the record that the sources handle inconsistently: one listing gives Somoye's second regency as 1862 to 1866 while placing Adémọ́lá I's installation at 28 November 1869, leaving three years unaccounted, and another describes a single interregnum of about seven years between Okùkẹ́nù's death and Adémọ́lá's installation. The seven-year reading, 1862 to 1869, is the more coherent, and the discrepancy is recorded here rather than smoothed 2.

Aláké Adémọ́lá I, a grandson of Jibodu through his mother Teniade, was installed on 28 November 1869 and died in office on 30 December 1877 2. His accession was bitterly contested with Oyekan, and Oyekan's supporters, principally the Ògbóni chiefs, refused to recognise his rule for years; Ẹfúnróyè Tinúbú backed Oyekan in that contest. Oyekan duly succeeded him on 1 January 1878 and reigned to 18 September 1881 2. Adémọ́lá I was neither deposed nor did he abdicate; he died in office, and popular accounts saying otherwise are wrong.

He should not be confused with Aláké Ládàpọ̀ Adémọ́lá II, who reigned from 1920 to 1962 and whose confrontation with the Abeokuta Women's Union under Fúnmiláyọ̀ Ransome-Kuti in 1948 and 1949 belongs to the twentieth century and is treated elsewhere in this corpus.

Later nineteenth-century holders: Oluwaji, 9 February 1885 to 27 January 1889; an interregnum from 1889 to 1891; and Oshokalu from 1891 2.

The Ẹgba United Board of Management, 1865 to 1874

The EUBM was an attempt to build a modern administration at Abẹ́òkúta by joining the traditional elite, the chiefs and the Ògbóni, to the westernised Saro elite. It levied customs duties, issued postage stamps, and conducted correspondence with Lagos as a state would 1 4. Its first minuted meeting that can be dated was on Monday 30 October 1865 in the Council Hall, with minutes recorded by its secretary, G. W. Johnson 4.

G. W. Johnson was a Saro, born in Sierra Leone, who first visited Abẹ́òkúta in 1863 during a short trip to Lagos, returned to Sierra Leone, and relocated permanently to Abẹ́òkúta in 1865, serving as Secretary of the Board 4. His arrival is described in the literature as an eruption, and he influenced Ẹ̀gbá leadership for the next thirty years. He is known by a nickname that appears in the sources as both Reversible Johnson and Irreversible Johnson; this corpus has not established which form is correct and records both.

He is not related to Samuel Johnson the historian or to James "Holy" Johnson, and the coincidence of surnames among Saro figures, which arose because liberated Africans were given English names at Freetown, is a recurring source of confusion in this period.

Pallinder-Law's analysis of the failure is the standard one: the Board ceased to function when the chiefs lost interest, because it depended entirely on traditional-elite support while pursuing modernising aims the conservative elite did not share 1. Her wider argument is that Abẹ́òkúta's independence was largely illusory well before the formal annexation of 1914, because of military and financial dependence on the British 1. The Board ended in 1874.

The interest of the episode is that it is an African attempt at a modern administrative state, staffed by Africans, using African political institutions, decades before colonial rule imposed one. It failed for reasons internal to Abẹ́òkúta rather than because it was suppressed, which is why it is worth knowing about: the question of whether traditional authority and modern administration could be joined was asked and answered in practice, not just in theory.

The Ẹgba United Government, a separate body

This is frequently conflated with the EUBM and should not be. The Ẹgba United Government was formally recognised in 1898 by Lagos Governor Sir Henry McCallum, replacing a triumvirate government that had operated from 1893, with John Payne Jackson, editor of the Lagos Weekly Record, influential in the change and adviser to Aláké Gbadebo I 4.

Its structure was a Council of Chiefs headed by the Aláké, an Olóri Parakoyi as executive head, the Ìwàrèfà as senior advisers, the Ògbóni as judges and mediators, and city-state governments beneath. It was dissolved in 1918 after the Adubi war, Lugard finding its power-limiting structure incompatible with indirect rule 4. The EUBM ran 1865 to 1874; the EUG ran 1898 to 1918. They are different bodies a generation apart.