The Osile of Oke-Ona stands at the heart of one of the most important chapters in the political history of Abeokuta. The office emerged from the older political organisation of the Ẹgba Oke-Ona division, survived the upheavals that scattered Ẹgba communities during the nineteenth century and was restored at Abeokuta in 1897 with the installation of Karunwi I. Within months, the restored Osile became one of the principal rulers incorporated into the new central government established in Abeokuta in 1898.
The history of the stool is also closely connected with the account of the Reverend Samuel Johnson, whose The History of the Yorubas preserved traditions concerning Oke-Ona, the Osile and the town of Oko. Johnson recorded stories of dangerous kingship, ritual sacrifice and violent deaths associated with earlier holders of the office.
Understanding the Osile therefore requires looking beyond a single royal title. The story involves the older divisions of Egbaland, the emergence of Abeokuta, the incorporation of Owu into the new city, British intervention in Ẹgba affairs and the long effort to create a central government capable of holding together a complex federation of townships and political authorities.
Oke-Ona and the Old Ẹgba Political Order
Before the nineteenth-century wars that transformed much of Yorubaland, the Ẹgba were traditionally organised into three major sections: Ẹgba Alake, Ẹgba Gbagura and Ẹgba Oke-Ona.
Each section consisted of numerous communities with their own chiefs, institutions and local identities. Political authority was distributed rather than concentrated in one absolute monarch. The Alake became associated with the Ake section, the Agura with Gbagura and the Osile with Oke-Ona.
Oko occupied an important place in the history of Oke-Ona and was closely associated with the Osile kingship. Samuel Johnson identified it as the principal town connected with the Osile.
The upheavals accompanying the decline of the Oyo Empire and the wars of the early nineteenth century displaced many Ẹgba communities. Refugees eventually gathered at Abeokuta around 1830, where they reconstructed much of their older social and political organisation.
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Abeokuta therefore developed not simply as a single town under one ruler, but as a large settlement composed of communities whose political loyalties remained closely tied to their former towns and divisions.
This arrangement gave Abeokuta considerable internal diversity. Military chiefs, Ogboni authorities, township leaders, merchants, Christian converts and traditional rulers all exercised influence at different levels of society.
Osile of Oke-Ona and Traditions of Dangerous Kingship
Samuel Johnson preserved some of the most striking traditions associated with the Osile institution.
He described the title as one traditionally regarded as unfortunate and associated Oke-Ona with human sacrifice. He also recorded a tradition that an Osile entering and leaving the Ogboni house passed through the blood of male and female sacrificial victims.
Johnson further related that earlier Osiles were believed to have met violent ends when their conduct became unacceptable. One tradition held that unpopular rulers could be stoned, and Johnson associated the name Oko with stones used for pelting.
The reputation of the Osile stool for troubled reigns survived into later accounts of Ẹgba history.
Historian S. O. Biobaku recorded that Oke-Ona was reluctant to restore its principal ruler at Abeokuta because holders of the office were believed to come to unfortunate ends. He also noted that among six Osiles installed between 1897 and 1950, only two died natural deaths. Other reigns ended through deposition, exile or violent death.
These different endings became part of the longstanding reputation surrounding the office.
Human sacrifice was also known in nineteenth-century Egbaland. The Treaty of Friendship and Commerce concluded between the Ẹgba authorities and the British at Abeokuta on 18 January 1893 included an undertaking to abolish the practice.
The traditions surrounding the Osile were therefore rooted in a political and ritual world very different from that which later emerged under colonial rule.
Abeokuta and the Search for Central Government
The political structure of nineteenth-century Abeokuta created both strength and difficulty.
Individual townships retained considerable autonomy. Ogboni institutions, military chiefs, commercial interests and traditional rulers all possessed influence. No single political authority could easily impose its decisions upon the entire city.
For a society built by displaced communities determined to preserve older identities, this arrangement was understandable. It also allowed different sections of the city to mobilise their own resources during periods of warfare.
The weakness became clearer when Abeokuta needed to act consistently as one state.
Sodeke, the military leader who played a major role in the establishment and early defence of Abeokuta, exercised considerable influence until his death in 1845. After his death, the question of central leadership became increasingly important.
Military chiefs and Ogboni authorities continued to compete for influence, while missionary activity, expanding commerce and closer contact with Lagos brought new political forces into Ẹgba society.
Efforts to create a stronger central administration therefore began decades before the political changes of the late 1890s.
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In 1871, G. W. Johnson, widely known as Reversible Johnson, advanced a constitutional scheme intended to organise Abeokuta into a more formal federal structure. The proposal sought to establish different levels of rulers and political authorities representing the wider city, its principal sections and its constituent townships.
Although the scheme did not become a permanent constitution, it demonstrated that political leaders in Abeokuta were already searching for ways to balance township independence with central administration.
Osile of Oke-Ona and the 1897 Restoration
For many years after the establishment of Abeokuta, the Osile stool remained vacant.
That changed in 1897, when Oke-Ona selected Karunwi as its ruler. He became the first Osile installed at Abeokuta.
The restoration occurred during the governorship of Sir Henry Edward McCallum, who served as Governor of Lagos from 1897 to 1899. The year also coincided with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
Prince Ademola played an important part in the effort to restore the principal traditional kingships and strengthen central political authority in Abeokuta. The restoration of the Osile therefore formed part of a wider reorganisation of the city’s political institutions.
Karunwi I’s installation was more than the revival of an old royal title. It returned Oke-Ona’s principal kingship to active political life at a time when the structure of government in Abeokuta was undergoing major change.
Within a year, the Osile would hold an important office in the new central administration.
McCallum and the Ẹgba United Government of 1898
The major reorganisation took shape in 1898.
By this period, British influence across southwestern Nigeria was increasing rapidly. British forces had defeated Ijebu forces in 1892, while the 1893 Anglo-Ẹgba treaty had established a formal relationship between Britain and the Ẹgba authorities.
Abeokuta remained politically distinct, but the pressures surrounding its independence were growing.
Governor McCallum became closely involved in the reorganisation of the government. With assistance from Prince Ademola and W. A. Allen, the Lagos government’s representative in Abeokuta, a state council was established in 1898 with the Alake as chairman.
The principal sectional rulers were assigned defined governmental responsibilities.
The Osile became responsible for justice. The Olowu was associated with finance, while the Agura was assigned roads and works. Other officials were given responsibilities connected with public order, sanitation, commerce, agriculture and administration.
The arrangement marked an important stage in the political development of Abeokuta.
Traditional royal institutions were now incorporated into a more formal central administration. The government combined older Ẹgba political structures with decades of local constitutional experimentation and the increasingly powerful influence of the British colonial presence.
The Ẹgba United Government therefore emerged from several overlapping forces: traditional sectional authority, internal attempts to create political unity, educated Ẹgba constitutional thinking and growing British intervention.
It represented one of the most notable efforts in late nineteenth-century Yorubaland to transform a federation of largely autonomous communities into a coordinated central state.
Owu and the Four Principal Sections of Abeokuta
Owu occupies a distinctive place in the political history of Abeokuta.
Historically, Owu was separate from the three original Ẹgba divisions. The destruction and dispersal of the old Owu polity during the wars of the early nineteenth century forced large numbers of Owu people from their former settlements.
Owu refugees subsequently joined the communities gathering at Abeokuta.
Once established there, they became an important part of the developing city. Owu eventually stood alongside Ẹgba Alake, Ẹgba Oke-Ona and Ẹgba Gbagura as one of the four principal components of the Abeokuta political system.
Samuel Johnson preserved this historical distinction when he described Owu as separate in origin from the Ẹgba. In the political organisation that developed at Abeokuta, however, the Owu became fully integrated into the wider federation.
The Alake, Osile, Agura and Olowu consequently emerged as the four major royal figures associated with the principal sections of the city.
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This arrangement reflected the unusual character of Abeokuta itself. It was a city created by warfare, migration, resettlement and the reconstruction of older political communities within a new environment.
From Karunwi I to Karunwi III
Karunwi I’s reign as the first Osile installed at Abeokuta began in 1897 and ended in 1899, but the institution he represented continued.
Successive Osiles occupied the stool through the twentieth century, during the later years of the Ẹgba United Government, the period of British colonial rule and the transition to independent Nigeria.
The institution remains active today under Oba Dr Adedapo Adewale Tejuoso, Karunwi III, the Osile of Oke-Ona Egbaland.
He ascended the throne in May 1989 and marked his 37th coronation anniversary in May 2026.
His long reign represents a striking transformation in the history of an institution once surrounded by traditions of violent or unhappy endings.
The continued survival of the Osile stool also demonstrates how political institutions originating in precolonial Ẹgba society adapted to migration, warfare, constitutional reform, colonial rule and the modern Nigerian state.
Conclusion
The history of the Osile of Oke-Ona is much larger than the story of a single throne.
It begins in the political organisation of the old Ẹgba country, continues through the displacement caused by nineteenth-century warfare and re-emerges in the remarkable process through which Ẹgba communities rebuilt their society at Abeokuta.
Samuel Johnson preserved powerful traditions surrounding the office, including memories of ritual sacrifice, troubled rulers and violent kingship. These traditions formed part of the political identity attached to the stool and help explain the reluctance associated with its restoration.
The decisive turning point came in 1897.
The installation of Karunwi I restored the Osile at Abeokuta and returned Oke-Ona’s principal ruler to a prominent position within the city’s political system. In 1898, the Osile became responsible for justice within the Ẹgba United Government, joining the Alake, Agura, Olowu and other leading figures in an ambitious effort to create an effective central administration.
The government that emerged represented a meeting point between Ẹgba political traditions, local constitutional experimentation and the growing pressures of British imperial expansion.
More than a century later, the Osile stool remains part of the traditional structure of Egbaland, linking contemporary Abeokuta with the migrations, conflicts and political transformations of the nineteenth century.
Author’s Note
The story of the Osile demonstrates how traditional institutions can survive enormous political change by adapting to new circumstances. The restoration of the stool under Karunwi I in 1897 was not simply a return to an older system; it restored Oke-Ona’s principal kingship at a moment when Abeokuta was creating a more centralised political administration. From the upheavals that brought the Ẹgba to Abeokuta to the establishment of the Ẹgba United Government, the history of the Osile reveals a society continually balancing sectional identity, inherited authority and the demands of political unity.
References
Johnson, Samuel, edited by Obadiah Johnson. The History of the Yorubas: From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate. Lagos: C.M.S. Bookshops, 1921.
Biobaku, S. O. “An Historical Sketch of Egba Traditional Authorities.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1952, pp. 35–49.
Phillips, Earl. “The Egba at Abeokuta: Acculturation and Political Change, 1830–1870.” The Journal of African History, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1969, pp. 117–131.
Law, Robin. “How Truly Traditional Is Our Traditional History? The Case of Samuel Johnson and the Recording of Yoruba Oral Tradition.” History in Africa, Vol. 11, 1984, pp. 195–221.
Davies, Lanre. “The Rise and Fall of Egba Independence: A Review.” Ife Journal of History, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2013.
Ellis, A. B. The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa: Their Religion, Manners, Customs, Laws, Language, etc. London: Chapman and Hall, 1894.
Burton, Richard F. Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains: An Exploration. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1863.
Payne’s Lagos and West African Almanack and Diary for 1894. Lagos, 1894.
