0
Your Royal Majesty, Alayeluwa Oba Kayode Adegboro
Alademure of Ibokun and Her Royal Highness Olobi Bridget Adegboro
Your Royal Majesty Alayeluwa Oba Dokun Thompson and Her Royal Highness Olori Joy
Thompson
Oloni of Eti-Oni, Ijesa.
Our Special Guest of Honor, Hon. Adewale Richard Adedoyin,
Hon. Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Osun State.
The Representative of Consul-General, Embassy of Nigeria, Consul Oreoluwa Akerele
Our Distinguished Chairman, Prof. David Olowokere
I-PID President Aare Akinyemi Olusegun Fasakin
The Presidents of various Ijesa Associations present
Our Kinsmen and women from UK, Nigeria, Canada, and Australia
My fellow Ijesas and friends of Ijesa
INTRODUCTION.
Let me start my talk here today with these questions. Who are we? When we say Ijesha..... what
do we mean? How does the rest of the world see us as Ijeshas?
Ladies and gentlemen, who we are; what we represent and our image before the world is well
enshrined in our rich history as well as our heritage.
Who Are We?
Like many other Yoruba states, an account of the origin of Ijeshas claims historical link with Ife.
Early rulers of Ilesha, the modern power center of Ijesha claim links with Ibokun fourteen miles
to the North of Ilesha. Obokun, the Owa's ancestor is said to be a descendant of Oduduwa who
was situated in Ibokun, subsequent Owa's resided in Northern Ijesaland. Across the Yoruba land,
the history, economy and politics are the same and this is not different for us as descendants of
Oduduwa. The Ijesa (written as Ijesa in Yoruba orthography), are a sub-ethnic of the Yoruba.
This group is predominantly from the city and environs of Ilesha and the historic state of Ilesha
in the same area. The Ijesa territory is adjoined by the Ekiti on the east, the Igbomina to the
north, the Ife to the south, and the Oyo and Ibolo to the west. The Ijesa may have lost some
territory to their neighbours during various conflicts and wars of the nineteenth and preceding
centuries. The people of Oke-Ako, Irele, Omuo-Oke speak a dialect similar to Ijesa.
1
To the outside world, the name Ijesa has become synonymous with our ways of life as astute
business people... I mean osómáalò. For the benefit of Ijesa sons and daughters born and bred in
the Americas and other parts of the world present here today, we Ijesas are the "Osomaalos" of
Nigeria. As described in the book by Omole (1991) the appellation was originally considered as
a term of abuse to characterize the aggressive Ijesa textile traders. The word „Osomaalo‟ is tied
to the process of debt collection. It means „I will not sit until I have collected my money,‟
showing an inflexible determination to succeed in the face of all odds. Beyond the general
parlance and interpretations, Osómáalò is described as a long-distance trader, usually in textiles,
who sold his goods on generous terms of credit, and then used any means necessary to doggedly
pursue his clients until their debts were paid in full
Then, as a response to another question who are we? We are Ijesa.....omo Obokun, (add song
interlude...omo owa Obokun re mi......) We are the children and descendants of Owa Ajibogun or
Owa (King) who was one of the 16 sons of Oduduwa, the progenitor of the Yoruba race.
According to history, the standard version of tradition among us (Ijesa) traces our origin to the
youngest son of Oduduwa called Obokun (Owa‟s ancestor), in commemoration of the occasion
in which he was tasked with fetching water to cure his father‟s blindness. On return, following
his older siblings he moved out of Ife and settled in what is today known as Ijesaland. There he
found a confederacy of five towns in the Obokun area. Historically Obokun is so central to us,
and our history that we most often referred to omo Obokun (children/ descendants of Obokun.
To the third question, when we say Ijesa, what do we mean? An answer to this particular
question suggests can aptly be situated in aforementioned paragraphs above and in our
historiography. We are osómáalò, descendants of Owa Obokun, and the kin of Ogedengbe
Agbogun gboro, okunrin ogun. Like the rest of the Yoruba race, we have had our share of
different kinds of experiences in peace and war times. These experiences and our entrepreneurial
activities have contributed to our spread across the world. Among such are the late-18th and 19th
century wars was responsible for many Yoruba-speaking people being sold into slavery in the
Americas. Amongst these were many Ijesa people, who retained their ethnic identity, religious
practices, and music in Cuba (as Yesa) and Brazil (as Ijexas).
2
So ladies and gentlemen, like Brother Malcolm X said “we didn‟t land on Plymouth Rock, my
brother and sisters- Plymouth Rock landed on us”. Meaning unlike modern day Ijeshas like me,
you and our children who came here on our will and volition. The earlier generations of Ijeshas
were brought here against their will. But the good thing about us all is our ability to adapt and
make a home as well succeed wherever we are on the face of the planet. As fighters, we have
continue with tenacity, in all our wars even till today, knowing that the real price of war is
victory and this is exemplified in the victory of Ogbeni Rauf Adesegun Aregbesola, an
Ijeshaman and the Executive Governor of Osun State, Nigeria.
To this third and final question, I say we are warriors and warriors we shall forever be. The
Ijesa military prowess is summed up in this war song "Ijesa ree arogun yooo..ye so'gbodo fowo
kan omo obokun ri a......" As an old Yoruba community, Ilesha was an important and major
military centre in the campaigns against Ibadan, 60 miles (97 km) west-Southwest in the 19th-
century Yoruba civil wars. Our ancestors played active role and was as a leading member of a
confederacy known as the Ekitiparapo meaning 'Ekiti together'. This combined forces of the Ijesa
and Ekiti was formed to fight for the independence of their people. In that war, Ogedengbe, an
Ijesa warrior-leader who died in 1910, played a vital role during the kiriji war of the 19th
century, was instrumental in the defeat of invading armies of Ibadan and other powerful regions
thereby preventing them from conquering and dominating Ilesa and other. Little wonder, in our
postmodern Yoruba culture and existence, we the Ijeshas are still playing an actively frontal role
in the total regional integration of the South West Nigeria, with a view of building a strong and
viable economic and culturally sound egalitarian society.
Our Journey So far: Ijesa and Nigeria
Though the emergence of Nigeria constrained Ijesa action per se, the social reality of Nigeria or
the forcible incorporation of the Nigerian state on Ijesa created opportunities for migration of
Ijeshas for wage employment in the colonial bureaucracy. However, moving out of Ijesa land
and the awareness of their Nigerian‟s also coincided with increasing rather than diminished
ethnic consciousness. Prior to the 1920s, the dominant job of migrants was to take up Osomaalo
trading which partly means a trader who sells cloth on credit in small towns and villages through
hawking or by foot. Ilesha is a classic - though hardly a typical - example of that ethnographic
3
celebrity, the Yoruba town: a large, nucleated settlement that is the centre of a kingdom and itself
the primary residence of an overwhelmingly agricultural population. Even when it was largely
derelict owing to war, in 1886, Ilesha's population was estimated to be between 20,000 and
25,000 and a figure of up to 40,000 may be appropriate for the height of its growth before the
sack in 1870. Though this is not as large as the largest Oyo-Yoruba towns of the nineteenth
century, its considerable size was not due, as theirs was, to very heavy recent immigration under
the impact of the wars.
Modern Ilesha is a major collecting point for the export of cocoa and a traditional cultural centre
for the Ilesha (Ijesa) branch of the Yoruba people. Palm oil and kernels, yams, cassava, corn
(maize), pumpkins, cotton, and kola nuts are collected for the local market. Local industries
manufacture nails and carpets, and the town has a brewery; there are also a recording company
and a publishing firm, and the Supreme Oil industry at Ilesha. Several prominent quartzite ridges
lie east of Ilesha, and gold mining is an important activity in the area, i.e. The Operand Gold
field. The Gerontocracy system was gradually been demolished as the old senior chiefs and
residents who held the sources of income were losing their financial hold due to legitimate trade
and the consolidation of British reign across Western Nigeria and the emergence of Cocoa as a
cash crop. Many Ijesa sons participated in trade such as trading cloths. The major pioneer of
Cocoa trade was Gurnee Thompson, a former slave and associate of Ogedengbe. By 1917, wage
labourers were being hired by the apart farm of Peter Apart, another ally of Ogedengbe.
However, social, kinship and lineages connexions contributed to a relatively easy access to land
by ambitious elites due to the allocation of large parcels of land to lineages.
Ilesha and much of Ijesa land was actually not conquered by the British nor did them
willing undergo incorporation into the Nigerian state. However, their internal politics and
courting of the British as an external ally against Ibadan may have led to the loss of political
autonomy. Towards, the end of the nineteenth century Ilesha which had lost many of its sons to
slavery saw some trickle back to town among who were J.P. Haastrup and P.J. Mefree secretaries
of Owa Hasstrup or Ajimoko, both men made risk in representing the Owa to call on the British
attention to Ijesaland and their independence from Ibadan. Discussions between Ibadan and
Ilesha led to a treaty in 1886 which was guided by the British. The coming of Christianity and
Christian repatriated slaves also led to cash cropping and carpentry and during the period
4
especially beginning in the 1920s, some young men and elites in the town came to embrace the
term Atuluse or improvement of the town.
It was the recognition of the need for the Ijesa to lift up themselves by their own
bootstraps that led to the establishment of the Ijesa Improvement Society, the first modern pan-
Ijesa socio-cultural group, in 1922. It was at a time when the Ijesa not only had problems with
their British colonial overlords but also with their own local administration under the Owa
Obokun who had since 1914 been constituted into a Sole Native Authority on the model of the
Northern Nigeria Emirates, under the Indirect Rule of System introduced by Sir Fredrick Lugard.
This meant that the Ijesa had to contend not only with a hostile foreign colonial power but with a
despotic local administration supported by that foreign colonial power. In this kind of unpleasant
political climate, the best help was self help. By the late 1930s, a new educated age group
emerged through members who had passed through the educational system. The educated elite
contributed in defining what the ends of political action should be and the means to pursue them.
Among the educated group were E.O. Ayoola who founded an independent school in Ilesha, S.
Akinola, a member of the House of Assembly, J.M. Ajayi-Obe an elected councilor, I.A.
Owolabi, a member of Reformed Ogboni and E.O. Fajuyitan. It was through the classroom halls
that it became more fashionable for Ijeshas to identify as Yorubas when prior to the 1920s, the
term was applied to the Oyos. These groups also emerged as a challenge to the traditional
chieftaincy in the political control of Ijeshland. By the end of the Nigerian civil war past the first
republic, the Ijeshas have fully been incorporated into the Nigerian state and his present state is
affected both by internal and external dynamics as a Nigerian society. During the pre-
independence and independence period, J.O. Fadahunsi became a leading Ijesha political boss
and was also a member of the regional opposition party supporting one of the oldest nationalist
parties in Nigeria, the N.C.N.C. The second republic between 1979 and 1983 saw Ijeshas playing
key role in the democratic process and in fact formed the pillar of the Unity Party of Nigeria‟s
(UPN) victory in the old Oyo State just as astute politicians of the Ijesha breed like Late Bola
Age emerging the first executive governor of Oyo State, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, the Director
of Organisation of the UPN among many others. The third and fourth republics were no different
than the earlier ones. By 1991, when Osun was carved out of the old Oyo State, Ijeshas became
part of and a prominent player in the State. The Ijesha politicians continue to hold sway in the
5
national and state political arena, although Ijesha, however, it won‟t be until 2003 that Ijesha
prominence manifested with the emergence of Erelu Olushola Obada as the Deputy Governor of
the Osun State up till 2010. By 2010 November, with the election victory of Ogbeni Rauf
Aregbesola, a.k.a. Oranmiyan, we the Ijeshas are once again back at the helms of affairs in Osun
State, after almost four years of legal battle in the court before being declared the winner of the
2007 gubernatorial elections in Osun State. His victory particularly can be likened the
prominence and perseverance of the great warrior Ogedengbe agbogun agboro okunrin ogun of
the olden times. At the national level, The Chief of Defence Staff Oluseyi Petinrin, from Ipetu-
Ijesa, also an Ijesa woman Dr. Erelu Olushola Obada is the current Minister of State in the
Ministry of Defence. At the business and economic level, Ijeshas having matured beyond the
osomaalo and migrated into the post modern business world have continued to contribute the
development of Nigeria and Diaspora economically. By the grace, history is replete with
contributions of great Ijesha men like Oba Olashore of Iloko Ijesha, whose world class school
have continued to draw candidates from all across the world ... among others. Worthy to note
here is that the principle of self help, which was elevated to a philosophy of action by the
aggressively individualistic Ijesa in the inter-war years, was to assist the socio-economic
development of Ijesaland and to make the Ijesa very cautious towards, if not totally suspicious of
all governments be it local, regional or national in the post war and pre-independence era. This
explains why the few commercial and industrial establishments in Ijesaland today are owned
largely by the Ijesa themselves. Indeed, with the exception of the recent Federal Government
efforts to exploit the gold deposits at Itagunmodi and Igun in Atakumosa Local Government
area, there are virtually no government-sponsored commercial and industrial undertakings in the
whole of Ijesaland."
Our Journey and Connection into the Future
No doubt, from the story of forebearers, Ijeshas have come a long way to the present. However,
we cannot continue to dwell on the successes, triumphant victories and achievements of our
ancestors, to an extent that we will now forget the task ahead of this generation and the next.
Most particularly, I want to speak to the next generation and the succeeding one. This charge has
become so necessary because where we go as a people, will depend on how we are able to
6
position ourselves in this century and the coming ones. History today has shown the Chinese,
Indians and South Africans among many people conducting and achieving ground breaking
success in business, science, engineering, education, and many other human vocations. In thesis,
I will rely on the Chinese and Indian efforts and example of rebuilding their cultural heritage and
attainment of economic prosperity. I am choosing these peoples of the world because they share
historical antecedents like us the Ijeshas and because they have done so within the space of less
than a century. So to all of us the Ijeshas particularly in the Diasporas, we need to join hands
with our kin and kiths back at home towards the rebuilding of Ijeshaland and Nigeria in general.
So question is can we say of the same of the Ijesha in another fifty years?
For those of us living in the developed countries you have been witnesses to what good
governance and development mean for a nation. For some of us living in Nigeria, there is a
strong understanding of what the challenges of facing Nigeria are because experiencing it has
become a daily occurrence. For instance, the challenges in Nigeria of which the average Ijesha is
not immune from are not different from those being encountered daily by other Nigerians. For
instance, the United Nations Development Programmes, Human Development Index (HDI),
ratings placed Nigeria at 158th position out of 177 countries; Nigeria is the only OPEC member
that is ranked among the 10 poorest nations and the 13th least viable country in the world; over
half of Nigeria‟s 150 million population are poor; no Nigerian University is ranked among the
best 1,000 in the world; Nigeria is potentially Africa‟s largest economy; every year the nation
produces over 200,000 graduates of tertiary institutions; the nation has the sixth largest Gas
Reserves in the world, 10th largest oil producer with abundant but largely untapped natural
resources and 60 per cent of its arable land lying fallow. This is incredibly incomprehensible.
Where We Should Be
Three inseparable organs are veritable imperatives for family and community development. Our
men, women and youth are the tripods that will accelerate Ijesaland‟s advancement. The men
cruising, the women have just taken off. We are here today as one people with one destiny. Old
and young alike, where sex has no place in our schemes of doing things!
I address you at this hour as one of you who has seen both sides of the world. I am with you here
today because you recognized that our beloved land must advance beyond the stagnating
7
doldrums of poverty, to harness the great potential inherent in us, help reinforce the good in Ijesa
and aspire to be like the beautiful cities you have here in America.
At the conception of my address at this conference, I ruminated and enquired about the last
keynote speaker. I wanted to learn from his grasps of our issues and avoid mistakes. As I thank
you for this honour, I fret at the facts that we all know our problems. In togetherness, we shall
build this kingdom!
To IPID, the organizer and convener of this noble gathering, news about your interests in the
growth of Ijesaland gets to us regularly. That you could form and sustain a noble body like the
IPID in a distant land is a source of pride and commendation to us. It demonstrates that you have
not allowed the glamour and glimpse of America to severe your attachment to our ancestral
roots. Nothing can change this. Time and distance rather than quelling your patriotism,
strengthen it. I am aware that this think-home-philosophy is the bedrock of the IPID.IJESA:
ONE PEOPLE!
You, the IPID members have the unique privilege of witnessing what is happening in some of
the cities of America. You have discovered the clues behind their amazing development. We can
imbibe or stand on the revolutionary shoulders of civilization-giants to accelerate our growth.
We therefore look up to you to share such experiences with us. Sponsor lectures and seminars
back home in Ijesaland, rebrand our philosophy and advance communal spirit across board.
It is my hope that by the time we conclude this conference, the recommendations of our think-
tank would be ready for the consumption of our Governor! We have assurances that, our prayers
shall be heard by the Governor!
Ijesa needs to be internally cohesive if it is to be a stronger player on the national scene!
Of course, I do not want to advise you on what you should do as a nation. I can merely make
suggestions which I know I am equally obliged to be a partaker! And let me preface these
8
suggestions by saying that, I have nine, and not ten, suggestions for your consideration
* Encouraging the rest of the Ijesa communities to accelerate its progress in governance and
peace, as well as in economic and social development.
*Reinforcing good leadership by supporting IJESA's own regional and communal plans instead
of polarizing the existing structure.
*Ready to be risk-takers, matching the risks that the new leaderships are taking in other tribal
groups just starting to make progress.
*Working towards accelerating human capital development, by helping one another to find their
feet wherever it is our purview to do so.
*Ensuring that Ijesa receives fair treatment in the schemes of things in the state and Nigeria.
* Fighting its poverty and marginalization in the state and national schemes of things. Via
mobilizing many of her key Associations and network to help Ijesaland.
* Play active roles at attracting donor communities with clear-cut pro-Ijesa goals.
*Understand the support needed by our land from NGO and attracting them unto our land.
* Recognizing the special need and place of our traditional leaders for strong Ijesa. Establishing
strong institutions whose work cuts across communal boundaries and interests.
I had thought I could hold my tablet of ideas to nine, but, forgive me: I have a tenth suggestion.
*Loving one another will bring about unity of purpose which is the main ingredient of
development.
As a result of this, Ijeshas across the world must as a matter of urgency join hands with others
both in the Diasporas and back home to wrest the country from the clutches of these cabal of
9
men and women who are daily milking our country dry. I urge this call, because we have
historical responsibility to do.
Mr. Chairman, Royal fathers seated, organizers of this convergence of Oniyan, friends ,sons and
daughters of our land, the time is now to wake up to clarion call of rebuilding our land! Ijesaland
needs us more than ever. Please, let us take time to reflect upon the little that I have said and
those of subsequent speakers.
This gathering of people of Ijesaland from far and near is, in and of itself, an act of patriotism.
Thank you very much for taking this initiative and for your kind attention. I feel privileged to be
invited to give this keynote address, in this Conference and am grateful for the spirit with which
the dialogue is being conducted. I can only hope that my nine -- no, ten -- suggestions have a
place in the deliberations we will now be going into and those you will be looking at again when
you return to your various destinations. I am confident that the blueprint that will come out of
our deliberations will improve on our lots!
Thank you and God bless. Alalede Ujesa A Gbe Ha Oooooo!
Prof. Ifemidayo Akinmoladun
10