Ladoja and the Allure of Ibadan History
Dialogue With Nigeria By AKIN OSUNTOKUN
“Ibadan, a running splash of rust and gold, flung and scattered among seven hills like broken china in the sun” — J. P. Clarke
Ioffer my heartfelt goodwill to the new Olubadan, Senator Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja. A former governor of Oyo State and a senator of the Federal Republic, he deserves public recognition as a man who has led a distinctive and accomplished life. I was privy to the turbulence of his gubernatorial years, and I know that his rise to the Olubadan stool is the culmination of a long arc that has taken him through the rough seas of modern Nigerian politics and back to the anchorage of traditional authority. He was fortunate in some respects and unfortunate in others — least among them the blessing and curse of having been bound to a powerful political godfather who both elevated and constrained him.
If one were to map the theatrical cast of recent Ibadan politics, Dr. Omololu Olunloyo (of blessed memory) once supplied a neat script. He characterised the triumvirate that for a time steered the city — himself, the late Azeez Arisekola Alao and Lamidi Adedibu — as the pendulum upon which the city swung. The division of labour, in his laconic summary, was brain (Olunloyo), brawn (Adedibu) and kudi (Arisekola). The image is telling: it captures the functional specialisation of power in Ibadan’s politics — the strategist, the enforcer, and the financier. As with all theatrical casts, these players had their entrances and exits; the stage moves on. Today, the old triumvirate is largely gone. Who now plays the roles of strategist, strongman and sponsor is less transparent, though Governor Seyi Makinde has emerged as a pre eminent figure in contemporary Ibadan public life, projecting administrative authority and, to some, a degree of autonomy from the old godfather networks.
The Ladoja–Adedibu relationship is a study in the double edged nature of political patronage. As often happens in Fourth Republic Nigeria, the bargain between godson and godfather collapsed once power was secured. Adedibu, the archetypal godfather, felt shortchanged: the customary “political service charge” that he believed his station warranted was, in his judgement, insufficient to sustain his clientele politics — what wags called “Amala politics,” a reference to his populist relationship with the grassroots. Adedibu’s most formidable political instrument was not doctrinal persuasion but personality: an earthy profanity that bordered on shamelessness, a capacity to shock and to charm in equal measure. He was, many conceded, an honest rogue — candid, brutal, and entertaining. His self deprecating, diabolical humour found an unlikely admirer in President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose occasional sympathy for Adedibu speaks to the strange affinities of power.
A revealing anecdote captures Adedibu’s priorities with comic finality. While observing the Muslim afternoon prayer one day, Adedibu was interrupted by the arrival of Arisekola Alao in his opulent car. Without hesitation he abandoned his devotions to usher in the dollar dusted visitor, musing that when the answer to one’s prayer has manifestly arrived in human form there is little point in pursuing further supplication. The story, whether apocryphal or literal, is emblematic of a politics in which immediacy — the material, the visible, the present — often outstrips abstract principle.
The enmity between Ladoja and Adedibu soon metastasised into threats of impeachment. Removing a state governor requires a two thirds majority of the State House of Assembly members, and Ladoja opted for a defensive strategy: he retained a sufficient number of legislators to deny Adedibu the supermajority he needed. Ladoja defended the tactic by pointing to precedents elsewhere, notably Chimaroke Nnamani’s defence in Enugu State. President Obasanjo, however, was unimpressed. To him, a pact with a political “devil” required fidelity; one did not enter into a concordat and then flout its terms. When I sought to intercede for Ladoja during those fraught moments — I had known and been friendly with his son, Mutiu — Obasanjo’s candour on the impropriety of reneging on political bargains was plain.
Two impressions of Ladoja endured for me. First, he was not a man who clung to office at all costs. He was already a self made man long before the characteristic murk of Nigerian politics claimed him. Second, he carried himself with a dignity that suggested his political ambitions were not solely about personal aggrandisement. Knowing that the Olubadan stool is governed by a gerontocratic ladder of ascension — a system of progressive seniority among chieftaincy lines — many expected his eventual elevation. His accession now gives him a different kind of power: symbolic, moral, and potentially catalytic in a city that still must reconcile the claims of modern governance with the pull of tradition.
As Olubadan, Ladoja has given voice to a familiar boast: “Without Ibadan, Yoruba Obas would’ve become Emirs.” It is an assertion that resonates because it invokes a defining moment in Yoruba resilience — the rout of a Fulani incursion at Osogbo in 1840, led in substantial measure by an Ibadan led Yoruba army. The stakes of a different outcome at Osogbo are difficult to overstate. Nineteenth century rumour and dread spoke of the Sokoto Caliphate’s ambition to “dip the Koran in the Atlantic,” a euphemism for conquering Yoruba lands all the way to the Lagos coast. Sir Ahmadu Bello himself recorded that at one time it appeared credible that the prophecy of the Koran in the sea might come to pass. In that context, the martial response of Ibadan and her allies can be read as existential — a defence not merely of territory but of cultural and political autonomy.
And yet, the narrative of Ibadan’s heroism must be told alongside its more ambivalent deeds. The city’s militarism, emergent from the vacuum left by Oyo’s collapse, did not always assume heroic forms. The Ekiti Parapo war — the most consequential intra Yoruba conflict of the mid nineteenth century — was sparked by the unruly conduct of Oyo Ibadan emissaries and their agents, the ajele, whose exploitation of Ekiti lands provoked a coalition of resistance. Under leaders such as Aare Latosisa, Ibadan’s emissaries exacted tribute, imposed authority, and indulged in the venalities of patronage. The ajele were widely reviled as autocratic, rapacious and hedonistic; their abuses galvanised opposition from Ijesa, Ekiti, Igbomina, Yagba and Akoko. In short, the same militarism that defended Yorubaland externally too often translated into internal domination and oppression.
Professor Bolanle Awe’s scholarship is instructive here. She traced how the collapse of the Oyo Empire removed a stabilising force that had hitherto guaranteed peace across Yorubaland, and how the subsequent Fulani incursions from Ilorin forced large displacements of people. Refugees and migrants, clustering in new settlements, created new centres of power — Ibadan among them. Some early inhabitants were, according to some accounts, fugitives and exiles; over time the city’s population swelled with immigrants from across the Yoruba world. Such a cosmopolitan base endowed Ibadan with an energy and opportunism that were both constructive and combustible. It was well placed to provide a military check on external aggression, and yet it was ill suited to the sober restraint required to govern a multi ethnic, multi regional polity with equal justice.
History also reveals episodes of accommodation that complicate the heroic image. Baale (later Olubadan) Okunola Abbas Alesinloye, in correspondence with northern rulers, is said to have courted recognition from emirs and to have asserted an Islamic pretension, styling himself in Arabic correspondence as “amir al muslimin” and “baale of all the baales.” Isaac Ogunbiyi and Stefan Reichmuth document these exchanges in Toying with the Caliphate. Whether these overtures were sincere designs for a caliphate or tactical manoeuvres for prestige and alliance is debatable; what matters is that they reveal how Ibadan’s leaders, like other rulers in a period of flux, experimented with multiple sources of legitimacy — martial, religious, and diplomatic.
How then should we remember Ibadan in the nineteenth century history of the Yoruba? The answer is necessarily complex. Ibadan was emergent, improvisatory, and ambiguous in motive and consequence. Its militarism addressed an urgent dilemma — the vacuum left by Oyo’s fall and the need for a bulwark against external encroachment — but its methods were often heavy handed. The city’s interventions sometimes promised unity and protection, and at other times they inflicted disruption and resentment upon neighbouring communities. The paradox of Ibadan is that the very energy that made it a defender of Yoruba autonomy could — unchecked — turn it into a new centre of hegemony.
These historical tensions have a modern echo in contemporary Ibadan politics. The godfather networks, the contest between patronage and institutional governance, and the uneasy coexistence of modern state authority with traditional leadership are living continuities of that nineteenth century legacy. The Olubadan stool itself is a symbol of continuity: a reminder that authority in Yoruba public life has always been layered, negotiated and performative. Senator Ladoja’s elevation thus invites reflection on the balance he might strike between ceremonial dignity and civic responsibility. As Olubadan he can be a custodian of culture, a moral voice in public debate, and a bridge between the old and the new. He can also — and this is the hope — use his prestige to challenge clientelism, advocate for social justice, and steer Ibadan towards development that honors its history without repeating its excesses.
In the end, the story of Ibadan is instructive for a broader lesson about nationhood. When an imperial centre falls, new formations rise to fill the vacuum. Some respond to danger by providing protection and coherence; others respond by replicating domination. The task for contemporary leaders — whether elected governors or traditional rulers — is to learn from both the virtues and the vices of their predecessors. They must cultivate the capacity to defend and to build, while resisting the temptations of predatory power.
As we welcome Senator Rasheed Ladoja to the Olubadan stool, we should honour the memory of Ibadan’s martial courage at moments like Osogbo, but we should also remember the lessons of Ekiti Parapo and the era of the ajele. We should hope that under his stewardship Ibadan’s proud heritage — its cosmopolitan energy, its cultural riches, and its capacity for leadership — will be celebrated without repeating the excesses of the past. If the past teaches anything, it is that legitimacy comes not just from victory in battle or from the charisma of a godfather, but from the steady, often tedious work of just governance, of protecting the weak, and of binding communities together by the common purpose of the common good
