By Adesegun Osibanjo
A civilisation before a name
Long before the word Yorùbá entered maps, treaties, or political vocabulary, the people now united by that name already existed as a civilizational family. They shared language continuums, cosmology, ritual systems, artistic traditions, and — most critically — a unifying sacred ancestry traced to Ilé Ifẹ̀.
Across oral traditions, Ilé Ifẹ̀ stands not merely as a city but as the metaphysical cradle of existence, kingship, and legitimacy.
What this civilization did not possess was a single collective ethnic name. Identity was local and political: Òyó, Ifẹ̀, Ìjẹ̀bú, Ẹ̀gbá, Owu, Ekiti, Ijẹ̀ṣà, Ondo, Akoko, Awori. These were not isolated tribes but autonomous polities rooted in a shared origin.
Unity existed without uniformity; ancestry without centralisation. The absence of a collective name did not imply fragmentation. It reflected a mature civilization comfortable with plural authority anchored in a single sacred source.
It was this unnamed unity — a people before a name — that history would later name from the outside.
The Dispersal of Princes: How Òyó Became the Sword While Ifẹ̀ Remained the Source
Yorùbá oral traditions consistently recount the dispersal of royal princes from Ilé Ifẹ̀. Whether interpreted literally or symbolically, these narratives explain the emergence of multiple crowned polities sharing ancestry but exercising independent authority. Among these offshoots, Òyó rose uniquely.
While Ilé Ifẹ̀ retained its role as the sacred source of legitimacy, Òyó transformed dispersal into dominion. Through cavalry warfare, administrative innovation, and territorial expansion, Òyó became the political and military nucleus of Yorùbáland.
The Aláàfin emerged not as a ritual superior but as the supreme wielder of imperial power.
This was not a rupture. It was a division of civilizational labour. Ifẹ̀ embodied origin, ritual continuity, and spiritual authority. Òyó embodied organisation, coercive power, and statecraft. One was the Source; the other, the Sword. Yorùbá history functioned on this dual axis — sacred legitimacy without political centralisation, political dominance without ritual supremacy.
The External Birth of the Name “Yorùbá”
It is within this Òyó-centred political reality that the name Yorùbá first appears. The earliest verifiable references to the term occur not in Ifẹ̀ oral liturgies or palace histories, but in Arabic and Hausa writings between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Scholars such as Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu and later Sultan Muhammad Bello of Sokoto used variants like Yarba, Yaruba, or Yariba to describe the powerful people south of Hausaland — specifically those associated with Òyó and its imperial sphere.
At this stage, Yorùbá was not an ethnic label. It was a political one. It denoted Òyó power, Òyó organisation, and Òyó reach. As Òyó influence expanded, external observers extended the name beyond the capital to related peoples within its cultural and linguistic orbit.
The nineteenth century transformed this political label into an ethnic identity. The collapse of the Òyó Empire, prolonged warfare, enslavement, and mass displacement scattered
Yorùbá-speaking peoples across West Africa and the Atlantic world. In Brazil, Cuba, and Sierra Leone, enslaved and freed individuals from diverse Yorùbá polities were grouped under a single name. Missionaries, seeking linguistic standardisation, adopted Yorùbá formally, most notably through the work of Samuel Ajayi Crowther.
Thus, Yorùbá became an adopted unifier — an external name embraced internally to fill a critical gap. A people who already shared ancestry, culture, and language finally acquired a collective name.
Lúkùmí: A Diaspora Identity, Not a Homeland Name
Claims that the Yorùbás were formerly known as Lúkùmí require careful distinction. Lúkùmí was never a homeland ethnonym. It emerged in the Cuban and Caribbean diaspora, likely derived from common Yorùbá expressions such as olúkù mi (“my friend” or “my companion”) frequently heard in ritual and everyday speech.
In the Americas, Lúkùmí became a religious and cultural identifier for Yorùbá-descended peoples practising Ifá and Òrìṣà traditions.
Crucially, no credible oral, linguistic, or archaeological evidence shows that any precolonial community in Yorùbáland referred to itself as Lúkùmí. The term reflects diasporic adaptation and cultural survival, not original self-identification.
Lúkùmí therefore stands as testimony to resilience abroad, not as a displaced ancestral name.
Colonial Treaties, the Crown, and a Misread Balance
Colonialism did not create Yorùbá duality; it misunderstood it.
British administrators, trained to govern through hierarchy, struggled to grasp a system built on complementarity. Yorùbá governance did not revolve around a single paramount ruler but rested on a balance between sacred authority rooted in Ilé Ifẹ̀ and political sovereignty exercised from Òyó.
For colonial administration, balance was inconvenient. Bureaucracy demanded a “first among equals.”
For treaty purposes, the British recognised the Aláàfin of Òyó as the political head of the Yorùbás. This administrative designation, however, did not erase Ilé Ifẹ̀’s sacred primacy — a distinction the Yorùbás themselves never confused.
The tension crystallised on 1 April 1901, when Governor Sir William MacGregor convened Yorùbá Ọbàs at Lagos City Hall to adjudicate disputes over crown legitimacy. The immediate case involved the Akarigbo of Rẹ́mọ and the Ẹlẹ́pẹ̀ of Ẹpẹ, who was claiming the right to wear Adé Ìlèkè — the beaded Crown reserved for senior Monarchs of Ifẹ̀ derivation like Akarigbo.
Despite being the colonial government’s recognised political head, Aláàfin Lawani Agogo-Ija deferred the matter to Ọọni Adelekan Olubuse I, acknowledging publicly that questions of crowns fell under the sacred authority of Ilé Ifẹ̀.
Governor MacGregor recorded this acknowledgment in his Dispatches on Native Administration in Yorùbáland (Colonial Office Records, CO 147/160, National Archives, Kew).
Colonialism had distorted the balance, but it also inadvertently documented it. Ifẹ̀ remained the Source. Òyó remained the Sword.
Odùduwà Nation or Yorùbá Nation?
This history frames contemporary self-determination debates. Yorùbá Nation offers global recognition and linguistic clarity. It is the name by which the world already knows the people. Odùduwà Nation reaches deeper, invoking sacred ancestry and civilizational origin beyond colonial naming.
The choice need not be absolute. Yorùbá speaks to the world. Odùduwà speaks to the soul. A confident people can wield both without contradiction.
Reclaiming History, Shaping Destiny
The Yorùbá story was not created by colonialism, though colonialism reshaped its expression. It was named externally, yet unified internally long before it was named. Ilé Ifẹ̀ remains the spiritual axis. Òyó remains the political memory. Neither diminishes the other.
A people who understands the origin of their name, the balance of their power, and the depth of their ancestry are not merely remembering history. They are reclaiming destiny.
Engr. Adesegun Osibanjo BENG, MBA is the Lead Transformation Strategist, Ade-Nexus Centre for Energy & Climate Innovation and a Registered Engineer of the Federal republic.
Key Sources
Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas
S. O. Biobaku, The Egba and Their Neighbours
J. F. Ade Ajayi, Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century
Robin Law, The Oyo Empire, c.1600–1836
MacGregor, William. Dispatches on Native Administration in Yorùbáland (Colonial Office Records, CO 147/160, The National Archives, Kew, 1901).
Oral traditions of Ilé Ifẹ̀, Òyó, Remo, and Ẹ̀gbá
Adesegun Osibanjo, The Resurgence of the Supremacy Challenge Between the Aláàfin of Ọ̀yọ́ and the Ọọni of Ifẹ̀: The Source and The Sword