“Yoruba Ronu” is a powerful phrase that has travelled across generations in Yorubaland. It is both a warning and a mirror, urging self-reflection at moments of internal crisis.
The phrase is credited to the late Chief Hubert Ogunde, popularly known as Baba Ogunde, who staged a political play titled Yoruba Ronu at Obisesan Hall in Ibadan in 1964. The play was a bold commentary on the deepening political crisis in the Western Region, caused largely by the rivalry between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his successor as Premier, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola.
Chief Akintola was reportedly in attendance. According to popular accounts, he walked out of the hall alongside members of his cabinet before the play ended. His reaction was unsurprising. The performance was a direct intervention in a crisis that, at the time, he appeared to be benefiting from politically, even though history would later cast him as one of its greatest casualties.
What began as a political disagreement around 1960 gradually deteriorated into the Western Region crisis of 1962. By 1964, when Yoruba Ronu was staged, the region had become a theatre of chaos. Political violence, arson, and factional hostilities had taken firm root. The crisis would not truly end until one of its principal actors, Chief S.L. Akintola, was assassinated during Nigeria’s first military coup in January 1966.
The cost to Yorubaland was enormous. Lives were lost, properties destroyed, and the moral authority of the region badly damaged. The fallout also produced one of the most controversial episodes in Nigeria’s political history, the arrest, trial, and imprisonment of Chief Obafemi Awolowo on treason-related charges.
More damaging was the long-term consequence. Yorubaland became deeply divided, and those divisions created openings for external forces to manipulate regional politics to their advantage. As echoed in the Yoruba Ronu theme song, the Yoruba nation became like a football, kicked around by others. Few things bring greater disrepute to a people than forming alliances with external interests to fight internal battles. It ran against the core values of Yoruba political culture.
Much of the rivalry has been oversimplified over time. One persistent oral account claims that Chief Awolowo attempted to overthrow Akintola after losing his bid to become Prime Minister at the federal level. This narrative has endured despite being a distortion of the real issue.
What actually transpired was an institutional and ideological crisis rooted in party supremacy. Chief Awolowo was the national chairman of the Action Group, while Akintola served as deputy chairman. From 1954, when the party assumed control of the Western Region government, state policies were firmly guided by party ideology.
However, after Akintola became Premier, he began to deviate from established party policies. Awolowo, acting in his capacity as party chairman, challenged these deviations. Akintola ignored the intervention and proceeded with an independent political direction.
A clear example was the Cocoa Marketing Board. Established under Awolowo’s administration on party recommendation, the board was designed to stabilise cocoa prices and protect farmers from global market volatility. The board absorbed losses when prices fell, ensuring farmers earned stable income.
Akintola, upon assuming office, raised the fixed price of cocoa. The move was politically strategic, aimed at winning the loyalty of cocoa farmers who largely supported Awolowo. The decision, however, proved economically unsustainable. When cocoa prices crashed, the board ran into severe losses, validating Awolowo’s earlier caution.
Beyond policy disagreements, Awolowo believed Akintola felt threatened by his political stature and popularity, and was willing to take extreme measures to assert dominance.
Perhaps Akintola’s greatest historical disadvantage was his failure to leave behind a detailed written account of his actions. He wrote no autobiography, no personal reflection that could counterbalance prevailing narratives. This silence allowed interpretations and misinterpretations to flourish unchecked.
Awolowo, by contrast, documented his life extensively. Historians naturally rely on available records, and in death, documentation became one of Awolowo’s greatest advantages.
In one notable biography of Akintola authored by Femi Kehinde, it was revealed that towards the end of his life, Akintola questioned whether the office of Premier was worth the chaos that engulfed the Western Region. Unlike Awolowo, he never had the opportunity to govern a united Yorubaland. One can only speculate that, had he lived longer, reconciliation might have been possible. Unfortunately, no concrete evidence exists to support that possibility.
On January 15, 1966, history reached its tragic climax. A military coup swept through Nigeria, and Akintola was among its targets. Soldiers arrived at the Premier’s Lodge in Ibadan and repeatedly called for him to come out. Faced with the choice of resistance or surrender, Akintola chose courage and restraint. Fighting back would have endangered his family and achieved nothing.
He bade his family farewell and stepped out. Moments later, he was shot and killed.
With his death, Yorubaland lost a leader. The Are-Onakakanfo returned to the ancestors.
In his lifetime, Chief S.L. Akintola was many things: a lawyer, journalist, politician, orator, husband, father, and warrior. His life was impactful, complex, and controversial. Despite the manner of his death and the enduring rivalry with Awolowo, he remains one of the most discussed figures of Nigeria’s First Republic.
History may judge him harshly or kindly, but one fact is incontestable: S.L. Akintola was not merely a political villain or beneficiary of crisis. He was, ultimately, a victim of a military coup and of a fractured political era that consumed its own.
