BASORUN GAA , HISTORIC VILLAIN OR VICTIM OF HISTORY

Of the many imposing figures embellishing the rich tapestry of its tumultous history, the Yoruba’s, unique in their intriguing propensity to produce commanding if contentious historic figures will be hard put to identify a man whose colossal impact on his era and the subsequent history of his people reverberates with a force as unanswerable as that of the last great Prime Minister of the once mighty Oyo Empire – Bashorun Gaa.

His notoriety, steeped in the bloody regicide of four kings echoes through the formidable history of this eternally restive naton residing in the south-western corner of modern day Nigeria, placing him at the peak of the pantheon of Yoruba pantomime villains, above the infamous clutches and not insubstantial claims of the likes of Kosoko King of Lagos, Madam Tinubu of the same city, Afonja and Solagberu the renegades of Ilorin and Efunsetan Aniwura the feared Iyalode of Ibadan. Gaa was the Prime Minster of Oyo whose reign preceded its collapse and the fall of Yoruba land into a century of revolution and bloody chaos which would only end with the dawn of the British conquest towards the end of the 19th century.

Gaa who reigned towards the end of the 18th century was a man of immense personal force and magnetism. Charisma, the ability to instil fire in the souls of men he had in abundance Authoritarian and combative, a born leader of men unafraid of controversy or open conflict, his name provoked fear and hatred amongst the many who denounced his perceived ruthless ambition and alleged personal cruelty as sufficient proof of his political and historical perfidy. To ba ni aya osika, bo ba ri iku Gaa, waa so oto, has been a popular curse and terrible warning aimed at the iconoclastic Yoruba rebel for centuries, echoing the fiery end of this man whose times coincided with and punctuated the most turbulent period of its history.

But history is never that simple, nor does the interrelationship between its personalities and its politics lend itself to the easy certainties of facile moralising. History is a tale, but not a fairy tale. Its rules follow the iron logic of necessity that prescribe the immutable laws of social evolution, complete with its treacheries and intrigues, its cruelties and passions. The faint hearted can read history, but make it they cannot. Unlike fairy tales the outcome is not predetermined to soothe, its characters not created to comfort through the easy categorisation of good and evil, wicked and righteous, denuded of social content and historical context. Historical characters are complex and their actions are informed by the historical role they play. Their morality weighed on the scales of the shifting equilibrium of bitter social and national struggles. Who is more virtuous a ‘wicked’ man thrust to the forefront of a progressive ideal or a ‘good one’ burdened with the imperatives of a championing a retrograde cause.

GAA, A TYRANT OR FIGHTER AGAINST TYRANNY ?
Was Gaa a tyrant, or was he, albeit ruthlessly, a fighter against royal tyranny. Was Gaa trying to usurp the royal power in Oyo, or was he resisting its attempts; outstripping its constitutional power, to control, beyond what had hereto been historically acceptable, the society it had raised itself above. Was he a historic villain or a victim of history? If this rhetorical argument might seem revisionist, it is because it is. If accepted history is the story of the victor, then it cannot justifiably lay claim to the last word on its legacy. Or as was so memorably intoned in the prologue to the epic 1995 film on the war of Scottish liberation, Brave heart, – History is often a story told by those who have hanged heroes.

YORUBA HISTORY, LIKE ALL HISTORY WAS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS ON THE TOMBSTONES OF THE VANQUISHED
Yoruba history like that of most pre-colonial African societies was recorded orally, verbalised by full time poets who earned their keep ministering to the land’s royal houses, none of whom had any reason to remember the great usurper with any affection. It was later transcribed into the written word by the far from neutral pens of the first western trained missionaries and teachers, men like Ajayi Crowther and Samuel Johnson, the new Christians who shared the prejudices, preconceptions and purposes of the foreign empire they served. An empire whose emerging, still contested dominance demanded a corresponding revision of its newly conquered lands history, promoting a narrative favourable to local royalty and the absolutism of crowned heads without whose cooperation the cornerstone of colonialism – Indirect rule through a single unchallenged despot, dressed up in the paraphernalia and pomp of historic legitimacy, would founder on the rock of the lawlessness and rebellion which had engulfed Yoruba land for well neigh a century.

To understand history, it is not enough to understand personalities, it is necessary to understand, fully understand, the environment they lived and operated in, to comprehend the social currents and forces, the interplay of which alone determined their actions. To understand Bashorun Gaa, we need to understand not the morality or otherwise of this undoubtedly flawed figure or even his enemies, but the society they lived and died in, its struggles, its wars and above all the complex socio economic forces that force people, classes and nations into bloody collision.

THE OYO EMPIRE
At its height, from the 16th to 18th century, the Oyo Empire was the most feared force along the western coast of Africa, stretching from the borders of modern day Ghana in the west to the ancient Benin kingdom in the east, it was centred on the old city of Oyo, a walled metropole which had long been the most powerful of the Yoruba settlements in the south-western part of the territory of modern day Nigeria. While self-serving myths imply its prominence to the ancestry of Oranyan, the beloved grandson of the legendary founder of the Yoruba race, Oduduwa, its geography offers a more prosaic if more sensible reason behind its emergence as a regional power house in its own right. It was strategically located on the vast plains of the guinea savannah, dominating the natural routes of trade, communication and conquest, a site far more favourable than those of its sister Yoruba settlements such as the Ijebu's, and Egba's tucked deeper into the forests to its south or the Ekiti’s hemmed into their mountain ranges to its east. The city of Oyo, seizing advantage of its open surroundings quickly mastered the use of that universal instrument of military conquest, the horse, spreading its formidable reach across most of the region, reducing town after town to subjection and tributary status.

The complexity of a society’s structure like that of every living organism evolves to match the dynamic of its ever developing daily functions. Therefore compared to the smaller surrounding towns and settlements, Oyo developed a governmental apparatus of a certain subtlety and sophistication. With its rising prosperity increasingly stratifying society along socially hierarchical and invariably antagonistic lines, potentially concentrating too much power in too few hands; inevitably empowering the most privileged - the royal households from whose ranks the Alaafin and other important chiefs were chosen, a committee of seven lesser nobles, representing the seven districts of the city were constituted into an advisory cum legislative body, called the Oyo mesi, headed by a titled chief called the Bashorun who acted as the Prime Minister



While many have described the Alaafin as a toothless tiger in a decorated cage, the evidence implies he was not as impotent as myth suggests. He held the power to declare war and levy and collect taxes through a network of agents called illari scattered across the empire. The power to raise money and declare war was thus concentrated in royal not civil hands. The ultimate check on the power of the princes or akeyo of the royal families was the power of rejection held by the Oyo mesi under the bashorun or the power to force an oppressive king to abdicate by taking his own life.


Most empires are torn asunder by internal strife. Conflict provoked by external stimuli such as the arrival of new wealth or sources of it. This point was reached in Oyo with the sudden arrival of new and previously undreamed of riches, from a source few could have imagined would yield such sudden riches at so little expense – the bounty of the vast ocean with its endless traffic in humans – the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade

THE RISE OF THE TRANS ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE AND THE POWER STRUGGLE IT PROVOKED IN OYO
Slavery had been a mainstay of the Oyo economy for generations increasing in profile and prominence as the city expanded its power and territory. All the noble classes including members of the Oyo mesi owned and traded in slaves. But the industrial scale of the new trade, unlike anything ever seen before opened up opportunities for the wealthier classes in the Empire that by their position, organisation, privileges and connections the royal party was best placed to exploit.

Commerce was the oil that lubricated the machinery of the empire, fostering travel, trade and communication across its towns and villages. And the biggest commodity by far was slaves. As the consequent prosperity flourished so did the machinery of government required to administer the ever expanding empire grow in complexity and organisation, an administration which in the hands of the ubiquitous and powerful Illari’s or king’s representatives and tax collectors gave the palace and royal princes a major economic advantage in the emerging struggle for wealth and power in the empire. The royal princes with their blood and social connections to the royal families of the various provincial towns and cities across the realm also had a readymade network to exploit to the maximum the opportunities presented by the new trade.

This was not the result of any organised conspiracy, but a natural by-product of economic expansion in any environment. Economic growth particularly from a low threshold is an impersonal and inexorable force demanding an efficiency much more easily supplied by an authoritarian rather than a collegiate state. The demands of managing a vast and far flung empire, of collecting taxes, administering trade and imposing law and order, of monitoring and managing hundreds and hundreds of disputes, small and large, between diverse communities, of the day to day tasks of running a complex and increasingly hierarchical empire, of achieving equilibrium between the centrifugal and centripetal forces whose tensions keep an empire together are of a scale beyond the scope of any committee regardless of how august. It takes an emperor to rule an empire. Hence, increasingly, real power devolved to the hands of the Alaafin, his illaris, the provincial leaders and the power on whose back the empire increasingly rested – the Army chiefs, amongst whom were counted many provincial chiefs, such as the Onikoyi of Ikoyi and the Timi of Ede.

Invariably the civil authority of the still powerful but increasingly marginalised Oyo mesi and the metropolitan chiefs was challenged by a royal party and provincial leadership who by their position had cornered to the detriment of the Bashorun and his followers much of the new wealth. The scene was set for a showdown. With the rise of the forceful and powerfully assertive Gaa to the post of Bashorun, it became inevitable. Five Alaafin's, Labisi, Awonbioju, Agboluaje, Majeogbe and Abiodun were raised to the throne under Gaa four of whom he disposed.

THE RISE AND FALL OF GAA
The simplistic conventional narrative of Gaa’s supposed tyranny suggests the Allafins he deposed were removed, killed or forced to commit suicide as a result of the Bashorun’s caprice or the cruel vagaries of his mercurial temperament. But this does not explain the acquiescence of the 6 remaining members of the Oyo mesi, powerful men in their own rights with substantial local followings without whose backing Gaa would have been dangerously isolated.

Another issue long ignored by the anti Gaa school has been the popular mood of the ordinary people of Oyo which seems at this point to have been largely suspicious of the royal party, as a result of a series of despotic and oppressive Alaafins in the period leading up the emergence of Gaa. These included Alaafin Amuniwaiye, known for ravishing the wives of his underlings and allegedly as malicious myth go the first Alaafin caught, literarily in the act by Magun. A fable suggesting just how low in esteem of the people the rapacious alaafins had become. Alaafin Gberu an oppressive tyrant ultimately rejected by the Oyo Mesi, Alaafin Osinyago and his immediate successor, Ayibi, both brutal and corrupt despots all of whom were rejected and overthrown just before the rise of Gaa to Prime Ministership.

The most comprehensive if far from unbiased account of Yoruba history to date, Rev Samuel Johnson’s tome with its fervent anti Gaa flavour was forced to admit in Chapter V page 178 –“Gaa had great influence with the people and a great many followers who considered themselves safe under his protection from the dread in which they stood of kings because of their cruel and despotic rule”

It is in this light that the emergence of this powerful prime minister has to be seen, with the popular will demanding an assertive and powerful personality in the position of Prime Minister or bashorun to check the growing abuse and oppression of royal power.

It was said of Gaa that he created a parallel administration mirroring the structure and spread of the palace officials and ubiquitous Illari’s or the kings provincial representatives, a network spread across the realm comprised of his sons and supporters who took upon themselves the responsibilities of levying taxes and dispensing justice, supplanting the king’s officers across the empire. The Bashorun had become a law onto himself.


GAA’S REGICIDE
Gaa’s regicide like that of similar upstarts in aristocratic states, such as Cromwell in 17th century England and the Jacobins in revolutionary France, who all gained undying infamy by separating monarchs from their crowned heads only seems abhorrent when seen through the eyes of the incorrigible royal romanticist, not those of practical men of action and politics in similarly unforgiving environments. There was no other way of removing an absolutist king except by killing him. If a King proved despotic as there is ample evidence most of the Alaafin’s, even predating Gaa, did, they couldn’t be voted out, nor forced into retirement. A king once crowned cannot be dethroned. Hence the old law of abdication meaning death or suicide. Kings don’t resign, neither do they do pension In pursuing this Gaa was only showing a will and decisiveness to push through his policy of checking royal absolutism through the only means possible – death. That this in the end did not prove sufficient only reflects how deep the corruption had eaten into the fabric of the state with the removal of individual kings doing nothing to deter those who followed them from taking the same path of absolutism the new changed situation demanded. It also showed the utter futility of Gaa’s brave but ill-fated opposition to the increasing absolutism of the royal party. He was a representative of a bygone era, a more simple age of small town politics in an epoch where the insatiable demand from across the seas for slaves on an industrial scale and the unimaginable wealth it brought in its wake had rendered the old borders, the old structures, assumptions and certainties redundant and obsolete. The age of the dictator and the warlord had arrived. Gaa and his constitutionalists had become yesterday’s men.

THE CRUSHING OF GAA AND THE OLD SYSTEM
Contrary to established myth there is little evidence that Gaa’s fall came about through a popular rising of the supposedly oppressed masses across the empire. Finally coming against an Alaafin, Abiodun, who matched the increasingly aged Bashorun in wit, cunning and ruthlessness, Gaa fell to a well-crafted and concealed royalist conspiracy whose success rested on an alliance of the metropolitan princes with the provincial kings, subject to the capital, and who also provided the bulk of its military muscle. The uprising in Oyo itself would have failed had not the provincial chiefs led by Oyabi, the Aare ona kakanfo or head of the imperial army marched on the capital for the first time in Oyo’s history. Seeing that the officer class and imperial staff – the Eso where well represented in the capital as were many ordinary soldiers, it seems the need for outside intervention which in the end proved crucial to the royal party’s triumph would suggest a lack of real support for the royal cause within Oyo or significant support for the Bashorun.

Whatever the reason there is a broad consensus that the resistance by Gaa and his supporters in the City was ferocious and only put down after protracted, intense and savage street. fighting. Gaa's followers fought to the death.. Again the strength of the resistance against what were clearly overwhelming odds implies men fighting not just for their lives but for something they felt was worth laying them down for. Gaa’s family and supporters were slaughtered across the breath of the empire. The Bashorun himself was taken alive, tortured, publicly humiliated and burnt at the stake, the taunts of his royalist enemies ringing in his ears as he died.

WITH GAA DIED THE EMPIRE
With him died the old empire and the power of civil authority that had underpinned it. The Oyo mesi never recovered, the people were cowed into submission before the triumphant princes and provincial kings. The consequence of his defeat was a new unchallenged absolutism by the Alaafin and the princes together with the increasingly unchecked power of the provincial kings and army leaders with their increasingly loud demands of independence from Oyo, as the price for their support in crushing Gaa and the old order. The Alaafin had won but his victory would prove pyrrhic for the royal line.

The next time the imperial army would march on the capital, this time led by Afonja, the Kakanfo, who succeeded Oyabi; it would come not to support the king, but to claim his head. The revolution had begun

The new struggle was now one between the centre at Oyo and the newly emboldened provincial kings and army chiefs. It would end up tearing the empire apart and hurling the entire kingdom into a century of revolution and turmoil that would only end with the arrival of the British who tiring of the impact of the chaos on the unimpeded commerce their new industries in Lancashire demanded, imposed a peace on a region exhausted by endless struggle strife and conflict.. The colonial era had dawned.

Thanks for this

Interesting!

If only we have good movie producers in this country, this is a block buster.

Whao. Can you please put a source I will like to read more

7lives:
If only we have good movie producers in this country, this is a block buster.

there is. though it was made in the Yoruba language, I watched it about 10 years ago. the title is Basorun Gaa. quite interesting. if you understand yoruba and interested in seeing the movie maybe you can still get a copy. the picture quality is quite good so you don't have to worry about that.

those days were interesting, you sought absolute power if you wanted it, no charm, shrine, ritual was enough,no sacrifice too great, you had to go all in. maybe it was true that lies were spread by the throne to discredit Basorun Gaa but in line with the practices of old it was most likely they were true. like him making human sacrifices.even though both sided were of course into the act.still empires rise and fall and it was just the right time for the then glorious oyo empire to fall. gaa for good or ill was indeed a catalyst.

This is a beautiful expose to a one sided story that have been handed over to future generations. The empire structure was robust in her checks and balances that a certain man would outlive five kings. The kings were overreaching. Even in the popular movie, i saw nothing wrong in Basorun Gaa's hold to governance except his children impunity and the request which resulted in the Alaafin Abiodun's daughter being used for money sacrifice, i questioned the script and wondered how can the Alaafin's daughter be involved in a street trade or what a whole Basorun of the Oyo Empire would need to be involved in those rituals for, this article has really confirmed my judgment that History is being distorted and a one sided story by apologist is what we have in Nigeria, Nigerian graduates in History and Archaeology needs to do more to correct these erroneous mistakes of the past.

a nice and interesting piece I always thought gaa was the total villian but the supporters of the crown didn't understand that his near-tyrannical check on the alaafin's power held the empire together

Like you said, history always favour the victor. I believe so many stories both in Yorubaland and across Africa are distorted because when you have people telling stories, along the line or after sometimes, they change this stories to suit the egos of those in power and with time, the story changes.
Bashorun GAA can't be that bad as portraited but how do we know the truth when the story has been changed to suit the ego of new kings.
Same goes with the History of Yoruba. If you go through the history on wikipedia, you'll notice so many distortion. One good example is the fact that the present lineage are called Arole Oodua. We were told that Oranmiyan, after leaving Benin founded Oyo, and going by the fact that he(Oranmiyan) as the last son of Okanbi(only son of Oduduwa) was the right heir to the throng at Ife, but there's nowhere in history where it was report that a son of Oranmiyan became Ooni. Instead, what we have are children of the man deposed as Ooni for Oranmiyan taking over after the same Oranmiyan. Now because time has passed and the story changed, we are made to believe that they are the rightful ones for the throne.
I think those studing history have to take their time to rewrite all this history and always say the truth never minding whose ox is gored.

AdiscoPele:
Like you said, history always favour the victor. I believe so many stories both in Yorubaland and across Africa are distorted because when you have people telling stories, along the line or after sometimes, they change this stories to suit the egos of those in power and with time, the story changes.
Bashorun GAA can't be that bad as portraited but how do we know the truth when the story has been changed to suit the ego of new kings.
Same goes with the History of Yoruba. If you go through the history on wikipedia, you'll notice so many distortion. One good example is the fact that the present lineage are called Arole Oodua. We were told that Oranmiyan, after leaving Benin founded Oyo, and going by the fact that he(Oranmiyan) as the last son of Okanbi(only son of Oduduwa) was the right heir to the throng at Ife, but there's nowhere in history where it was report that a son of Oranmiyan became Ooni. Instead, what we have are children of the man deposed as Ooni for Oranmiyan taking over after the same Oranmiyan. Now because time has passed and the story changed, we are made to believe that they are the rightful ones for the throne.
I think those studing history have to take their time to rewrite all this history and always say the truth never minding whose ox is gored.

Not only in yoruba land or africa but all over the world.

The victorious always decides the story that eventually becomes history

shukuokukobambi:


Not only in yoruba land or africa but all over the world.

The victorious always decides the story that eventually becomes history

You are very right

Not all Bashorun Gaa children died. Most fled to Borgu kingdom.

Ojo Agunbambaru was one of the surviving sons of Basorun Gaha after the near annihilation of his entire family orchestrated by a mob for years of his extreme tyranny. Ojo escaped to the Bariba country during this uprising against his authoritarian father. Nothing was heard of him until the tumultuous times when Afonja, the Army Chief of the empire pursued his ambition for independence, with the help of the deadly Fulani servants called Jamas.

For the reason that there was no more strong leadership or unity in the empire, Ojo sought to avenge his father’s killing, returning to Oyo with a large army of Bariba mercenaries archers and calvary. He was able to decimate the nobility, especially the group that had ties with Afonja, his archenemy, for his father’s support of the popular uprising against his own father. Ojo never did won any true friends, for his killing of the nobles. Many of his followers did follow to have their way with him or to watch him. He was defeated through the help of some of his own warriors who were Oyo men and he fled with his Bariba soldiers.

See The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning Samuel Johnson

History !!!

“A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars..............
..Will Durant

Hmmm....

No one must supersede the power of the Alaafin. There is no mystery to the story of Gaa says Sango.

The head minister of state, Oyomesi title commanded the army. Sango would have never allowed such, Sango commanded himself. Ajaka failed as an Alaafin because the ministers and generals wouldn't respect his commands but they feared Sango. No leader can command without fear! Everyone feared Gaa so no wonder he did what he did and got away with it. Again, no one supersedes the Alaafin, simple solution.

Ase

Love Sango

AdiscoPele:
Like you said, history always favour the victor. I believe so many stories both in Yorubaland and across Africa are distorted because when you have people telling stories, along the line or after sometimes, they change this stories to suit the egos of those in power and with time, the story changes.
Bashorun GAA can't be that bad as portraited but how do we know the truth when the story has been changed to suit the ego of new kings.
Same goes with the History of Yoruba. If you go through the history on wikipedia, you'll notice so many distortion. One good example is the fact that the present lineage are called Arole Oodua. We were told that Oranmiyan, after leaving Benin founded Oyo, and going by the fact that he(Oranmiyan) as the last son of Okanbi(only son of Oduduwa) was the right heir to the throng at Ife, but there's nowhere in history where it was report that a son of Oranmiyan became Ooni. Instead, what we have are children of the man deposed as Ooni for Oranmiyan taking over after the same Oranmiyan. Now because time has passed and the story changed, we are made to believe that they are the rightful ones for the throne.
I think those studing history have to take their time to rewrite all this history and always say the truth never minding whose ox is gored.

well, there is no real evidence to support the existence of Okanbi. Outside early History books(claimed to be based on Oyo traditions), every other source claims Oduduwa had many children, nothing less than 16.

I do not know if Oyo traditions truly state Okanbi as the only child of Oduduwa, but what I know is that according to an Oyo elder I spoke with, Okanbi became Ooni. His true Identity is still Unknown


@B, do you mean Obalufon?

macof:

well, there is no real evidence to support the existence of Okanbi. Outside early History books(claimed to be based on Oyo traditions), every other source claims Oduduwa had many children, nothing less than 16.

I do not know if Oyo traditions truly state Okanbi as the only child of Oduduwa, but what I know is that according to an Oyo elder I spoke with, Okanbi became Ooni. His true Identity is still Unknown


@B, do you mean Obalufon?

Yes, Obalufon

AdiscoPele:
Yes, Obalufon

Well then in response to your previous post, I have to say that Lajamisan who is the ancestor of all Oonis after him is not a son of Obalufon

You might get somewhere with the argument that he is not Oranmiyan's son(even though that's what they say inIfe) but that he is Obalufon 's son cannot flow, because his children are known across Yorubaland and if lajamisan,a very popular fugure, happens to be one, the clues would be all over his personality like it is in that of his known children

marked