WHO ARE THE YORUBA PEOPLE?

Femi Kani-Kayode

PART 1

The Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria are a nationality of approximately 50 million

people, the vast majority of who are concentrated primarily within Nigeria, but who are also
spread throughout the entire world. They constitute probably the largest percentage of
Africans that live in the diaspora and they have made their own extraordinary contributions
in virtually every field of human endeavour throughout the ages. Descendants of the Yoruba
and indeed various ancient derivatives and forms of the Yoruba language can be found and
are spoken in places like Benin Republic, Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, the United States of America and
various other parts of the western world. Today first, second and even third generation Yoruba
have settled down and spread all over the world and are amongst the best and most sought
after lawyers, nuclear scientists, doctors, industralists, academics, writers, poets,
playwrites, clerics, theologians, artists, film producers, historians and intellectuals throughout
the world. Wherever they go they tend to flourish and excel.

This is nothing new and indeed has always been the case. The first Nigerian to be called to
the Bar was a Yoruba man by the name of Sapara Williams who was called to the English Bar
and started practising as a lawyer in 1879. Yet Sapara Williams was not a flash in the pan or
a one-time wonder. Other Yoruba men followed in his footsteps in quick succession and were
called to the English Bar shortly after he was. For example after him came Joseph Edgarton
Shyngle who was called in 1888, then came Gabriel Hugh Savage who was called in 1891,
then came Rotimi Alade who was called in 1892, then came Kitoye Ajasa (whose original
name was Edmund Macauly) who was called in 1893, then came Arthur Joseph Eugene
Bucknor who was called in 1894 and then came Eric Olaolu Moore who was called in 1903.
Ironically Sapara Williams was not the first Nigerian lawyer though he was the first to be
called to the English Bar. In those days you did not have to be called to the Bar to practice
law and the first Nigerian lawyer that practised without being called to the Bar was a Yoruba
man by the name of William Henry Savage. He was described as a ”self-taught and practising
lawyer” and he was a registered notary public in England as far back as 1821. These were
indeed the greats and every single one of them was a Yoruba man.

My friend and brother the respected Mr. Akin Ajose-Adeogun, who is a historian by calling and
a lawyer by profession, is a man for whom I have tremendous respect. I have often described
him as the ”living oracle of Nigerian history” simply because he has a photographic memory,
a knack for detail, first class sources and has read more books on Nigerian history than anyone
that I have ever met before in my life. Akin has an extraordinary mind, he is a living genius
and I have often urged him to write a book. You can ask him anything about anyone or any
event in any part of our country, since or before independence, and he will give you names,
dates and the sequence of events immediately and without any recourse to notes, books or
sources. After he has given you the information he will then cite his sources and tell you which
books to go and read in order to confirm what he is saying. I have learnt so much from him
that I must publicly acknowledge the fact that I owe him an enormous debt of
gratitude. He once told me something that I found very interesting and that reflected the semi
god-like status that our earliest lawyers, including some of the names that I mentioned
earlier, enjoyed amongst the people. These men were not only revered but they were
also admired by all, including members of the British intelligensia, legal fraternity and
elites. Akin told me that many years ago in the mid-80’s Sir Adetokunboh Ademola, who
himself was one of the legal greats, who was called to the English Bar in 1934, who was the
third Nigerian to be appointed as a magistrate in 1938, who was the third Nigerian to be
appointed as a High Court judge in 1948 and who was the first Nigerian to be appointed Chief
Justice of the Federation in 1958 said the following words to him. He said, ”when you saw the
way that the earliest Nigerian lawyers conducted themselves in court and argued their cases
you would have been filled with pride and you would have wanted to become a lawyer
yourself. Members of the public used to fill the court rooms to the brink and sometimes even
the forecourts and passages just to watch these great men perform and enjoy their brilliance
and oratory. They spoke the Queens English and they knew the law inside out. It is not like
that today”. This is a resounding testimony from an illustrious Nigerian and it speaks
eloquently about where the Yoruba, as a people, are coming from and the stock and quality
of minds that they are made of.

Yet the dynamism of the Yoruba and their innovations and ”firsts” did not stop there. It went
into numerous other spheres of human endeavour quite apart from the law. Permit me to cite
just two examples. The first lies within the field of medicine. Dr. Nathaniel King was the
first Nigerian to become a medical practitioner. He graduated from Edinburgh University in
1876 and he was a Creole of Yoruba origin. Next came Dr. Oguntola Sapara who was the
second Nigerian to become a medical practitioner and who graduated from Edinburgh
University in 1884. He was followed by Dr. John Randle who graduated from Durham
University in 1891, then Dr. Orisadipe Obasa who graduated from Edinburgh University in
1892, then Dr. Akinwande Savage who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1900, then
Dr. Curtis Adeniyi-Jones who graduated from Durham University in 1901. Others like Dr.
Oyejola who graduated in 1905, Dr. Kubolaje Faderin, Dr. Sesi Akapo and Dr. Magnus
Macauly who all graduated in 1912, Dr. Moyses Joao Da Rocha who graduated from Edinburgh
University in 1913 and many others followed after that.

The second example lies within the ranks of the clergy. The first African Anglican Bishop and
the first man to translate the Holy Bible and Book of Common Prayer to any African language
(outside of Ethiopia) was a Yoruba ex-slave who gave his life to Christ, won his freedom
and rose up to become one of the greatest and most respected clerics and leaders that the
African continent has ever known by the name of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther. Unknown to
many his original name was Rev. John Raban but he changed it in his early
years. Crowther got his first degree at the famous Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leonne (which
at that time was part of Durham University). He was ordained as an Anglican Bishop in 1864
and in that same year he was awarded a Doctorate degree from Oxford University.

This extraordinary man who was blessed by God with an exceptionally brilliant mind was, as
far as I am concerned, one of the greatest Africans that ever lived. He not only translated the
Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer to Yoruba (an extremely difficult, complicated and
painstaking venture which he began in 1843 and which he completed in 1888) but he also
codified a number of other christian books and he translated them into the Igbo and Nupe
languages. He was literally the pillar and foundation of the Anglican church in west Africa.
Throughout his adult life he courageously stood up and fought for the rights and the dignity
of the African and he, more than anyone else, was responsible for the spread,
influence and power of the christian faith in Nigeria in the late 19th century. He was also the
maternal grandfather of the great nationalist Herbert Macaulay who, together with Nnamdi
Azikiwe, founded the political party known as the NCNC in 1944. Crowther was also the
father-in-law of Rev. Thomas Babington Macauly who founded the Christian Missionary
Society Grammar School (CMS Grammar School) in 1859 in what was then the Lagos Colony.
CMS Grammar School was the epitome of excellence and a citadel of great learning in those
days. It was also the oldest secondary school in Nigeria and the main source of African
clergymen and administrators in the Lagos Colony. It is not surprising that it was the son-in-
law of the great Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther that founded such a school and that it was his
grandson that founded one the greatest political parties that the African continent has ever
known. This is another first for the Yoruba.
Yet who are these people and where did they come from? What is their origin and what is
their source of strength? What were their migratory patterns over the last 30,000 and
more years and how did they end up in Ile-Ife? What is their connection to the Middle East,
to the Arabs of Mecca and Medina, to the ancient Egyptians and to the Nubians of the
Sudan? What makes them so special and so peculiar all at the same time? What makes their
religious set-up so complicated and so profound and what allows each of the great monotheic
faiths of christianity and islam together with the traditional religions to flourish and excel
amongst the very same people at the same time? Why are the Yoruba so accommodating of
outsiders and what is responsible for their liberal disposition when it comes to their dealings
with people from other cultures, other faiths and other nationalities? Why is it that so many
Yoruba families have mixed ancestral bloodlines that go back hundreds (and in some
cases thousands) of years with so many different nationalities from outside Yorubaland and
indeed from outside Nigeria, including the Bahians of Brazil, the Haitians and Cubans of Port
Au Prince and Havana, the Creoles of Freetown (Sierra Leone , the Ga’s of Accra (Ghana),
the tribes of Dahomey (Benin Republic), the Edo, the Bini, the Itsekiri and other tribes from
the old Mid-Western region of southern Nigeria and the Nupe, the Hausa, the Fulani, the
Shuwa Arab and the Kanuri from the north? What is the cultural and spiritual affinity of the
Yoruba with the people of the old Northern region and the people of the old Mid-Western
region and why are the people from those two regions and those from the South-
West collectively referred to as the ”Sudanese Nigerians”? Some of these questions may
never be answered but in the sequel to this essay we will attempt to at least view and analyse
the Yoruba from a historical perspective and this may explain why they are what they
undoubtedly are- ”primus inter pares”, the first amongst equals.

PART 2

In his 2000 page book titled ''Ile-Ife-The Source of Yoruba Civilisation'', Prince Adelegan
Adegbola wrote the following about the Yoruba people of south-western Nigeria- ''the
Yoruba are the progeny of great kingship, efficient kingdom-builders and astute rulers. They
have been enjoying for centuries a well-organized pattern of society, a pattern which
persists, in spite of all the changes resulting from modern contacts with the western world.
Their kings have, from very long past, worn costly beaded crowns and wielded royal
scepters. No one remembers the time when the Yoruba people have not worn clothes. Their
character of dignity and integrity is an ancient one. In reality, the Yoruba claim to be
descendants of a great ancestor.

There is no doubt at all that they have been a great race. They are, and they appear in
some ways to be detrimentally over-conscious of their great ancestry and long, noble
traditions.....the Yoruba are one of the most researched races in the world. According to
Professor S.O. Arifalo, by 1976 the available literature on the Yoruba, despite many
omissions, numbered 3,488 items. These vast amounts of works are quite substantial and
unrivalled in sub-Saharan Africa. Also the artefacts showed that the Yoruba were intelligent,
complex and wealthy people whose art and technological skills were unsurpassed in pre-
historic Africa. Almost everything we know about the Yoruba people comes from Ile-Ife.''

Professor Adegbola's research is as fascinating as it is outstanding. It is a ''must read'' for

all those that are interested in finding out who the Yoruba are, where thy come from, what
they stand for and what their contribution to religion, culture, the arts and civilisation really
is. Adegbola'a research into the history of the Yoruba and the various Yoruba kingdoms is
second to none. His findings certainly put a lie to the controversial assertion made by Sir
Hugh Trevor-Roper, one of the best-known and most respected historians that ever lived,
who once said that ''the history of Africa is darkness, nothing but darkness''.

Nothing could be further from the truth and it is clear to me that this Englishman, despite
his outstanding credentials, knew next to nothing about our rich history, heritage and
culture which, in my view, was far more advanced and goes back for thousands of years
more than even his own. In this essay I will make my own contributions to the debate and I
will concentrate primarily on the pre-historic era of the Yoruba before the coming of
Oduduwa to Ile-Ife and before the establishment of the great kingdoms and princely states.
I will focus on their origins as a people and their migratory patterns.

The Yoruba are ancestors of the black Cushite migrants and settlers that did not go to Africa
with the other descendants of Cush but that rather chose to settle in the areas and environs
that were to later become the ancient cities of Mecca and Medina in what is presently known
as Saudi Arabia.

They were not Arabs but they were there as settlers for thousands of years and they
constituted an industrious, prosperous, powerful, large and respected minority within the
larger Middle Eastern community. However they were eventually driven out of those Arab
towns and communities and forced to leave them for refusing to give up their religious faith,
their deep mysticism and paganism and their idol worship after Islam was introduced to
those places by the Prophet Mohammed in 600 AD.
They migrated to the banks of the great River Nile in Egypt where they intermingled and
inter-married with the Egyptians, the Nubians and the Sudanese of the Nile. The Egyptian
roots and connections of the Yoruba are deep and irrefutable and the third and final part of
this essay is dedicated solely to exploring and explaining those roots. For thousands of
years many of the Yoruba remained on the banks of the Nile but the bulk of them eventually
migrated to what was to later become known as north-eastern Nigeria and once again they
settled, mingled and inter-bred with the Shuwa Arabs and the Kanuris of Borno.

From there they eventually swept across the whole of the north and migrated down south to
the forests and farm lands of what is now known as south-western Nigeria making their
primary place and location of settlement and pagan worship Ile-Ife. Ile-Ife is to the Yoruba
traditional worshippers what Mecca is to the Muslims and what Jerusalem is to the Jews and
the Christians. The establishment of Ile-Ife as the centre and source of all that is Yoruba
was confirmed by Oduduwa himself when he sent his sons out from Ile-Ife to other parts of
Yorubaland to establish their own independent kingdoms, including Bini Kingdom. It was
after that that we broke up into various kingdoms and communities within what later
became known as the old Western Region of Nigeria. Some of those kingdoms and empires
were large, sophisticated, powerful, and great (like the Oyo Empire) and some were not so
great and large.

Yet each was fiercely independent and established its own sophisticated system of
government, customs, legal codes and conventions.

Sadly these Yoruba kingdoms spent one hundred years fighting one another in totally
unnecessary civil wars before the arrival of the British but it is a historical fact that they
were never defeated in any war or conquered by any foreign army. Yet the only things that
they had in common amongst themselves was their language (which broke into different
dialects), their historical heritage, their affinity and respect for Ile-Ife and their
acknowledgement of that town as being their spiritual home and finally their acceptance of
the Oonirissa of Ife as ''the living manifestation of Oduduwa, the quintessential icon of
royalty and splendour and God's chief representative on earth''. This collection of different
kingdom states with a common ancient root were collectively known as the ''Yoruba''. Yet
the fact of the matter is that the word ''Yoruba'' has NO meaning in our language or any
other language that is known to man.

No-one has been able to tell us with certainty the meaning of the word ''Yoruba'' or indeed
where it really came from. This really is very strange and is indeed a deep and unsettling
mystery. For all we know it could even be a deep and ancient insult. That is why I have
always preferred to be referred to as an ''ife'' rather than a ''Yoruba''. Another question that
is often asked is why did our forefathers indulge in all the mass migrations from first Mecca
and Medina, then to Egypt, then to Borno, across the vast plains and desert lands of
northern Nigeria and then finally settled in the forests of the western region? Historians
have ventured a number of reasons for this but the truth is that no-one knows with much
certainty. My own personal theory is that the reason that our forefathers kept having to
migrate until we found somewhere of our own was either because of war or because we
refused to give up our pagan beliefs and practices.

I believe that when Islam was eventually introduced into the areas that we once settled our
forefathers suffered all manner of persecution for their tenacity to their ancient pagan faith
and their refusal to convert and consequently they had to move on. I may be wrong and
many historians have offered one or two other explanations for these mass migrations yet
whatever the reasons for them may have been, whether they were due to war, famine or
religious persecution, it is clear that the influence of the Arabs, the Egyptians, the Nubians,
the Sudanese, the Kanuris, the Nupes and all the other nations that we once lived with,
mingled with and mixed our blood with through breeding and marriage is very strong
amongst the Yoruba people, their music, their language and their culture till today. We shall
return to this theme in part three of this essay.

For thousands of years the Yoruba were pagans and ifa was their cornerstone. Their faith
was polytheic in nature and they believed, like the Ancient Egyptians, not in one Supreme
Deity, but in a pantheon of gods each of which had its own place and served its own
purpose. As a matter of fact most of the ancient gods that the Egyptians worshipped were
introduced to them by Yoruba diviners, sorcerers and pagan priests. Such was the level of
our influence on Egyptian culture, religion and history.

The monotheic faiths of Islam and Christianity were both espoused by the Yoruba thousands
of years later and were both established primarily by the strong trade links that existed
between them and the Hausa/Fulani from the north, the Turkish traders of the Ottoman
empire from the southern Atlantic coast, the Portuguese and European traders who plied
that same southern Atlantic coast and the Christian missionaries who vigorously evangelised
the whole territory. Both Christianity and Islam eventually took full root in the land and in
the hearts and minds of the Yoruba people whilst paganism, ''ifa'' and the practice of their
more traditional faith was eventually pushed to the back seat. This was quite an
achievement because for thousands of years both christianity and islam were fiercely
resisted by the Yoruba and even till today many Yoruba people still tenaciously hold on to
their traditional faith. That is why it is very difficult to find a Yoruba family that does not
have christians, muslims and adherents of the more traditional and ancient tribal faiths in
their ranks.

The slow and massive migration of the Yoruba from Arabia, Egypt, Borno, through northern
Nigeria and to their own homelands in the south-west are why they, together with the other
numerous tribes in ''mid-western'' (the Bini, the Ishan, the Urhobo, the Itsekiri, the Isoko
and all the other tribes that were once part of the old Western Region of Nigeria) and
''northern'' Nigeria are generally known as the ''Sudanese Nigerians''. This is because they
all migrated from North Africa and the Sudan to their present locations. By way of contrast
the various tribes from the rest of southern Nigeria who migrated from eastern and
southern Africa to their present locations comprise of the Igbo and the people of the eastern
Niger-Delta area (including the Ijaws, the Ikweres, the Kalabaris, the Efiks, the Ibibios, the
Ika Igbos and all other tribes that were part of the old Eastern Region of Nigeria).

These people are known as the ''Bantu Nigerians'' and they are very different to the
Sudanese in terms of their outlook to life and their culture and history. Permit me to explain
this assertion. The history of the people that are known as the ''Sudanese Nigerians'' is well-
documented, well-entrenched and well-acquainted with strong and respected hierarchical
structures and the administration of extremely large and powerful, culturally-diverse,
cosmopolitan and sophisticated empires that once stretched across thousands of miles of
different territories and civilisations. These great empires, which were headed by powerful
kings and emperors, such as the Oyo, Habe, Nok, Nupe, Tiv, Borgu and Sokoto Empires,
conquered many lesser peoples in centuries past and administered many territiories when
compared to the Bantus.

The Bantu's only experience and knowledge of ancient empire and kingship is limited to a
few relatively small yet notable kingdoms and coastal states in what is presently known as
Nigeria's eastern Niger-Delta area. Examples of this are the Kalabaris who have their
Amayanabo, the Efiks who have their Obong and a few others. The most populous tribe
amongst the Bantu are the Igbo. They are originally of Jewish stock and they have
absolutely no history of kingship, empire and organised hierarchical structures at all.

They were essentially republican in nature and they were a collection of village and forest
communities that were bound together only by their common language and their ancient
heritage. That is why the Igbo often take pleasure in saying ''Igbo enwe eze'', meaning ''the
Igbo have no king''. Outside of the royal kings of Onitsha and Asaba to have kings and
chiefs amongst the Igbo was a relatively new phenomenon which certainly does not pre-
date the last 150 years. As a matter of fact the kngs of those two towns and communities
were not even originally of igbo stock but were offshoots of the Royal House of Bini in what
is presently known as Edo state.

The Obi of Onitsha and the Asagba of Asaba and indeed most of their subjects were
descendants of the Oba of Benin and the the people of edo respectively. The igbo did not
even have chiefs up until 150 years ago. It was when the British colonialists arrived in the
east that they appointed ''warrant chiefs'' for them. This explains why the igbo particularly
finds it exceptionally difficult to understand the complexities and subtleties of people that do
not share their republican heritage or beliefs.

Yet the truth about the Nigerian situation is that everybody and every tribe and nationality,
no matter how big or small, brings something to the table. That is what makes us so special
and unique as a people and that is what makes our country so great. There is indeed unity
in diversity and whether you are a Yoruba, an igbo, a fulani, a hausa, a tiv, an idoma, a
nupe, an urhobo, an ishan, an itsekiri, an isoko, a kalabari, a kataf, a shuwa Arab, a kanuri,
a berom, an igbira, a bini, an ikwere, an efik, an ibibio, a jukun, an ijaw or any other tribe
or nationality it is in the greater collective and the beautiful racial and cultural melting pot
that Nigeria has become that we can find our true power and greatness.

The Yoruba, no matter how rich our history, are only a part of a much greater family of
peoples each with their own noble heritage and proud history. In the third and final part of
this essay we will explore the Egyptian roots of the Yoruba and we will consider the
remarkable similarities between ancient Egyptian culture, religion and language and that of
the Yoruba people.

PART 3

Up until 1292 BC and the ascension of King Menpehtyre Ramesses, all the Pharaohs of
Egypt were black. These include some of the better known ones such as King Horemheb
(who preceded King Ramesses), King Khafra (who was depicted by the Great Sphinx of
Giza), King Tutankhamun (the young Pharoah whose tomb was discovered with enormous
riches and a terrible curse by a British archeologist and explorer called Howard Carter),
Queen Cleopatra (whose beauty was enchanting, who captured the emotions of Julius
Caesar and Mark Anthony, who divided the Roman Empire and whom this writer honoured
with a poem titled ”The Nubian Queen”), Queen Nefertiti (who was the wisest of the wise
and the most compassionate of all the Egyptian monarchs), King Piye (who was the
conqueror of Egypt, the master of Nubia and the greatest of all the Cushite warrior kings)
and the two Pharaoes that the biblical Moses and the biblical Joseph knew respectively and
that had such a great impact on Jewish history and the fortunes of the Jewish people. All
these Pharaohs were black African Nubians who were to be later referred to as the
”Sudanese”.

The fact of the matter is that right up until the establishment of the 19th dynasty and the
coming of King Ramesses in 1292 BC the rulers of Egypt were all Nubians and not the
”brown and olive-skinned” Euroasiatics and Arabs that the Ramessesian era ushered in.

The Nubians not only ruled Egypt for thousands of years but they also constituted the
majority of those that made up the Egyptian middle class and intelligensia including the
clerics, theologians, artists, writers, poets, medics, artisans, builders, architects,
astrologers, mathematicians and professionals. The Ancient Egyptians themselves referred
to their homeland as ”Kmt” (which is conventionally pronounced as ”Kemet”).

According to the celebrated historian Cheikh Anta Diop, the Ancient Egyptians referred to
themselves as “Black people” or ”kmt” and ”kmt” was the etymological root of other words,
such as ”Kam” or ”Ham”, which refer to ”black people” in Hebrew tradition. Diop, William
Leo Hansberry, and Aboubacry Moussa Lam have argued that ”kmt” was derived from the
skin colour of the Nile valley people, who they claim were black. And they were absolutely
right.

These are the facts though some western and Arab Egyptologists find it hard to accept and
often seek to deny it. Yet whether anyone likes to accept it or not the fact remains that the
greatest civilisation that the world has ever known, which is the Egyptian civilisation, was
led and established by people of colour and those same people were the custodians of the
deepest mysteries and secrets of our world and of the human race.

The final batch of ancient Cushites that remained in Arabia for thousands of years after all
the others had left and that had refused to leave those lands for Africa with their Ethiopian
brothers and sisters eventually migrated to the Egyptian Nile Valley from Mecca and Medina.
Thousands of years later this last wave of Cushite migrants were to be referred to as the
”Yoruba”. Yet for thousands of years before the word ”Yoruba” was even conceived and
after their arrival in the Nile Valley these same people constituted an essential and vital part
of the ruling and middle class of the Sudan, Nubia and Ancient Egypt. The Cushite
forefathers of the Yoruba were a learned and mystical people that were well versed in
philosophy, the arts, history, the mysteries of the age, science, anthropology and the
secrets of the spirit realm and human existence.

Their contribution to Ancient Egyptian culture and art was second to none. Most importantly
the pantheon of gods that they had worshipped, guarded jealously and served for thousands
of years whilst in Mecca and Medina before their migration to the Nile Valley were accepted
by the Egyptian ruling elite and were fully integrated and superimposed on the Egyptian
religious stratosphere. As a matter of fact those gods were not only accepted but they
eventually became the cornerstone and foundation of Ancient Egyptian culture and religion.
That is the level of input that the Yoruba made into the affairs and development of Ancient
Egypt.

In our quest to further explore the ancient Egyptian roots of the Yoruba permit me to qoute
copiously from an excellent contribution titled ”YORUBA- THE EGYPTIAN CONNECTION”
which was written by Olomu and Eyebira. The write-up is utterly fascinating in terms of it’s
depth and research. In the section titled ”The Oduduwan Revolution”. The authors wrote the
following-

”In this chapter, we shall talk of a possible migration from ancient Egypt. Many traditions
point to a fact that an alien group (Egyptians) immigrated to Yoruba land and mixed with
the original population.Many oral traditions are replete with these stories. The Awujale of
Ijebu land has shown that the Ijebus are descended from ancient Nubia (a colony of Egypt).
He was able to use the evidence of language, body, scarification, coronation rituals that are
similar to Nubians’ etc, to show that the Ijebus are descendants of the Nubians.

What the present Awujale claimed for the Ijebus, can be authenticated all over Yoruba land.
The Awujale even mentioned (2004) that the Itsekiri (an eastern Yoruba dialect) are
speaking the original Ijebu language. Since the Nubians were descended from the
Egyptians, the Ijebu, and by extension, all Yoruba customs, derived from the Egyptian as
well. Many traditional Yorubas have always claimed Egypt as their place of original abode,
and that their monarchical tradition derives from the Egyptians.

Apostle Atigbiofor Atsuliaghan, a high priest of Umale-Okun, and a direct descendant of

Orunmila, claimed that the Yorubas left Egypt as a result of a big war that engulfed the
whole of Egypt. He said the Egyptian remnants settled in various places, two important
places being Ode Itsekiri and Ile-Ife.Chief O.N Rewane says “Oral tradition has it also that
when the Yorubas came from South of Egypt they did not go straight to where they now
occupy. They settled at Illushi, some at Asaba area – Ebu, Olukumi Ukwunzu while some
settled at Ode-Itsekiri,.” (O.N. Rewane Royalty Magazine A PICTORIAL SOUVENIR OF THE
BURIAL AND CORONATION OF OLU OF WARRI, WARRI 1987). Since these oral traditions are
passed on by very illiterate people, we can augment whatever is recorded with written
sources.

Concerning the migration of some of the Yoruban ancestors from the east, Conton says:
”The Yoruba of Nigeria are believed by many modern historians to be descended from a
people who were living on the banks of the Nile 2,000 years ago, and who were at the time
in close contact with the Egyptians and the Jews. Sometime before AD 600, if this belief is
correct, these people must have left their fertile lands, for reasons which we can not now
discover and have joined in the ceaseless movement of tribes west wards and south-wards
across our continent.We can only guess at the many adventures they and their descendants
must have had on their long journey and at the number of generations which passed before
they arrived. All we can be certain about is that they were a Negro people and that one of
the many princely states they founded on their arrival in West Africa…..was Ife”- Conton.

Although we agree with Conton that some of the Yoruban ancestors migrated from Egypt,
we tend to toe the scientific line of Cheik Anta Diop, that the ancient Egyptians were pure
Negroes. Aderibigbe, an indigenous scholar, also accepts that the Yorubas migrated from
Egypt. He says:“The general trend of these theories, most of them based on Yoruba
traditions, is that of a possible origin from “the east”. Some scholars, impressed by the
similarities between Yoruba and ancient Egyptian culture – religious observation, works of
art, burial and other customs – speak of a possible
migration of the ancestors of the Yoruba from the upper Nile (as early as 2000BC –
1000BC) as a result of some upheavals in ancient Egypt”. (AB ADERIBIGBE 1976). Unlike
Conton, Aderibigbe was able to pinpoint a cause for the Yoruban migration – war. Olumide
Lucas did a lot of job to show similarities and identities between the ancient Egyptians and
the Yoruban peoples. The date that Aderibigbe gave (2000BC – 1000BC) is much earlier
than that given by Conton. Aderibigbe’s date corresponds to that of the Hyksos invasion of
Egypt 2000-1500BC.

On the possible eastern origin of the Yorubas, Tariqh Sawandi says:“The Yoruba history
begins with the migration of an east African population across the trans-African route
leading from Mid-Nile river area to the Mid-Niger. Archaeologists, according to M. Omoleya,
inform us that the Nigerian region was inhabited more than forty thousand years ago, or as
far back as 65,000BC. During this period, the Nok culture occupied the region. The Nok
culture was visited by the “Yoruba people”, between 2000BC and 500BC. This group of
people was led, according to Yoruba historical accounts by king Oduduwa, who settled
peacefully in the already established Ile-Ife, the sacred city of the indigenous Nok people.
This time period is known as the Bronze Age, a time of high civilization of both of these
groups. According to Olumide J. Lucas, “the Yoruba, during antiquity, lived in ancient Egypt
before migrating to the Atlantic coast”. He uses as demonstration the similarity or identity
of languages, religious beliefs, customs and names of persons, places and things. In
addition, many ancient papyri discovered by archaeologists point at an Egyptian origin”
(Tariqh Sawandi: ”Yorubic medicine: The Art of divine herbology).