Why they might have gone wild: the Yorubas of southwestern Nigeria and the politics of the First Republic

Abstract

This paper argues that contrary to the general belief that the Yorubas or the westerners through their unconventional mode of politicking destroyed Nigeria’s first republic, the seeds of destruction were first sown in 1914 when Lord Frederich Lugard, the British chief imperial agent amalgamated the various autochthonous communities into one capitalist state. Drawing from the frustration-aggression theory as discernible in the works of Gurr (1970, 2000; Feierabend and Feierabend, 1972; Louis and Snow, 1981; Ellingsen, 2000; Stewart, 2000, 2002), the paper submits that if other ethnic groups had found themselves ‘trapped’ in similar conditions, their reactions could have not have more been different. The paper recommends that revisiting the 1914 episode should be the major agenda for ‘peacing’ Nigeria together from the pieces.

Keywords: Yorubas, South Western Nigeria, Politics, Nigeria, First Republic