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Kiriji War: World’s longest ethnic war that pitched powerful Yoruba towns against Ibadan

Kiriji War: World’s longest ethnic war that pitched powerful Yoruba towns against Ibadan

Kiriji war

Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and the largest city in West Africa didn’t just earn its place as the political capital of Nigeria’s southwest region, over 120 years ago after the fall of the old Oyo empire, the city started playing the role of a big brother to other towns in Yorubaland. Assigning District Officers popularly known as ‘Ajeles’ to several towns under its authority and extracting tributes from their colonies.

The collapse of the old Oyo Empire in the beginning of the 19th century due to the attack by the Muslim Fulani Emirate established at Ilorin, left a leadership vacuum that would provide an effective military check to any further encroachment by the Fulani on Yoruba territories. Ibadan’s status as a war camp and the influx of soldiers to the settlement in its early years, positioned it to rise to become the ‘mother hen’ shielding towns in the Eastern parts of Yorubaland from the encroaching Fulanis.

The effective opposition posed by the Ibadan army to the Fulani Jihadist forces earned it loyalty from major settlements in the eastern half of the Oyo Empire to Ibadan. By the mid-1870s, the Ibadan Empire was made up of Ibarapa, metropolitan Ibadan, Ife, Osun, Ijesa, Ekiti, Akoko and most of Igbomina. Ibadan then started posting Ajeles (district officers) to towns under its territories.

However, the overbearing lifestyle of the Ajeles started creeping in, they became too power drunk and the Ekiti people and other towns who could no longer bear their oppression had to revolt.

Cause of the war:

The war was said to have gotten its name Kiriji from the thunderous sound ‘kiriji’ of the cannon guns which the Ekitiparapo forces acquired for the war. Although there are several accounts on the cause of the war, chiefly among them was the desire for freedom from Ibadan’s dominance, this is why many historians called the war – the fight for freedom. By 1877, Ibadan had made a lot of enemies who formed an alliance under Ekitiparapo to revolt against the Ibadan Empire.

Adewale Adeoye, a journalist wrote “In my personal encounter with the current Aare Latoosa, he told me that his great grandfather, Latoosa, had consulted the Ifa oracle. He said the oracle told the ancient Latoosa that some “Albinos” were coming to dominate Yorubaland and take over her resources. The oracle then told the Aare to build a single force to repel them on behalf of the Yoruba nation. The Albino is believed to be the white colonialists who later came.” The Albino is believed to be the British colonialists who later came into Africa.

Composition of the alliance:

The Ibadan army, which camped at Igbajo, was led by a generalissimo Aare Obadoke Latoosa, the 12th Aare Ona Kakanfo, while the Ekitiparapo led by a renowned warrior Saraibi Ogedengbe (famously known as Ogedengbe Agbogungboro), the Balogun of Ijeshaland, comprised of war leaders from Ilesa, Ekiti, Efon, Yagba, and Akoko. Others were Baloguns from Ila, Otun Ekiti and Akure while the Elekole, the Alara, the Alaaye and Ajero personally led their own contingents to Oke-Imesi to fight under the leadership of Ogedengbe.

Ilorin supported Ekitiparapo, Egba and Ijebu also closed their trade routes to the coast against Ibadan so that their troops would not be able to obtain arms and ammunition. Ibadan at the center, was fighting at five different war fronts – the Ilorins camped at Offa Ibadan’s ally) in the north, Ekitiparapo and Ile-Ife (joined in 1882) in the east, Egba and the Ijebus in the west. Despite the overwhelming alliance against Ibbadan, these five forces could not defeat Ibadan before a stalemate was reached in 1893.

The Ondos and the Mahins in present day Ilaje local government area of Ondo State did not participate in the war while Oke Oguns in Oyo State and the Egbados now known as Yewas in the western part of Ogun state were also said to be passive spectators in the war.

How it ended:

While the war raged, the British colonial government in Lagos stood aloof because it did not affect its economic interest, after a series of condemnations, it finally waded into the crisis.

After years of killing, fierce battle, unrelenting power tussle, massive destruction of communities and properties, the warring parties signed a treaty to end the war in September 1886. According to Aribidesi Adisa Usman and Toyin Falola in ‘The Yoruba from Prehistory to the Present’, the Treaty stipulated that:

– Members of Ekitiparapo be granted autonomy

– The warring sides should respect the territorial boundaries of one another in the future

– The Alaafin should retain the position relative to the Owa of Ilesa before the war – the status of an elder to a younger brother.

– The boundaries between Ekitiparapo and Ibadan would stay as they were at the time of the agreement and the inhabitants of Otan-Ayegbaju, Iresi, Ada and Igbajo who wanted to stay with their Ekiti and Ijesa kin were free to migrate, but the towns would remain in the hands of Ibadan.

– The Ilorin-Ibadan contest over Offa would be resolved later

– The people of Modakeke would leave Ife territory and move to Ibadan area between the Osun and Oba rivers and those who wish to stay were to move to Ife.

– Ijebu and Ibadan were to sign a peace agreement and the Ijebu forces would remove their camp near Modakeke and return home.

On September 23, 1886, the Acting Colonial Secretary, Henry Higgins, Queen’s Advocate, Oliver Smith, and other delegates from Lagos with the representatives of Ibadan, Ekitiparapo, Ife, Ijebu and the Alaafin present, peace was announced before the warring parties and their camps were destroyed.

Despite the signing of the treaty in 1886, the war didn’t bring immediate peace due to some unresolved matters on the Ilorin-Ibadan front, the Ijebu front and the Ile-Ife-Modakeke front. The clause in the treaty asking the Modakeke to relocate from their town to another site did not go down well with them, this still results in communal clash up till this present age. The Ilorin did not attend the peace meeting and they continued their scramble for Offa with Ibadan.

One of the historical sites in Igbajo (Ibadan soldiers’ camp) in Boluwaduro Local Government Area of Osun State that played a crucial role in the war was the Fejeboju Stream formerly called Eleriko Stream. It is said to be a symbolic and mysterious stream that provided spiritual cleansing to the casualties and wounded warriors. Victims went to the stream to wash blood from their wounds. With its therapeutic powers, the water from the stream was also used to remove bullets from the wounded warriors. It supplied water to both the Ibadan and Ekitiparapo Confederation camps.

If the Yorubas had not gone to war against themselves and were united, historians said with the kind of soldiers the Yorubas had at that time, about 500,000, it would have built an indomitable force that would make it very difficult for the British to make an inroad into the region to colonise it.

 

  • This story was first published in May 2020
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