By the mid nineteenth century, Yorubaland was living through a dangerous transition. The old imperial order associated with Old Oyo had weakened and fractured, and the political system that once helped regulate succession, tribute, and military hierarchy no longer held the region together. In its place, new power centres emerged, shaped by migration, warfare, and the search for security.
Communities resettled, warriors regrouped, and towns that began as camps or refugee settlements grew into formidable city states. Among the most important were Ibadan, Ijaye, and the reconstituted Oyo kingdom under Alaafin Atiba. Each of these centres drew legitimacy from Oyo traditions, yet each interpreted authority in its own way, and none could command universal obedience across the Yoruba country.
This new landscape did not automatically produce chaos, it produced competition. Every alliance carried suspicion. Every diplomatic meeting carried hidden calculations. The struggle that followed was not only over land, it was over the right to lead.
The Rise of Ibadan, A War City With Big Reach
Ibadan’s strength came from its character. It was not built primarily as a palace city anchored by a sacred dynasty. It grew as a war town, powered by military organisation and the authority of war leaders whose influence came from victory, strategy, and the ability to attract fighters.
As Ibadan expanded its influence, it built networks of client relationships, war alliances, and protective arrangements. Some towns saw Ibadan as a necessary shield in an age of insecurity. Others feared it as an ambitious power that would replace one imperial order with another, only this time ruled by soldiers rather than a throne.
Ibadan’s leaders presented themselves as stabilisers, but stability often meant enforcing their preferred settlement, and their preferred settlement increasingly placed Ibadan at the centre of Yoruba decision making.
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Ijaye and Kurunmi, The Guardian of an Older Order
Ijaye was smaller than Ibadan, but it carried deep political meaning because of who led it. Kurunmi held the title Aare ona kakanfo, the historic office associated with supreme military command in the Oyo political tradition. In the memory of many Yoruba communities, the Kakanfo was more than a warrior, he was a pillar of the constitutional balance of power.
Kurunmi’s reputation rested on firmness and a strong commitment to inherited norms. He believed that even in a changed political environment, Yoruba legitimacy still required respect for established expectations, especially around succession. To him, the future could not be built by ignoring the moral rules that had once held the state together.
This stance attracted sympathies from those who feared Ibadan’s reach, and from those who believed that if old rules were casually broken, new rulers would eventually break any rule that stood in their way.
Oyo Rebuilt Under Atiba, A Throne That Still Mattered
Even after Old Oyo’s decline, the Alaafin institution retained symbolic prestige. The rebuilt Oyo under Atiba represented continuity, ritual authority, and a sense of cultural centre. For many communities, even those far from Oyo, the survival of the throne was tied to identity and order.
In the 1850s, efforts were made to calm the rivalry among Yoruba powers. Accounts of diplomacy during this period, including a major gathering at Ibadan in 1855, describe attempts to acknowledge the Alaafin’s seniority in symbolic terms and reduce open conflict. Yet these arrangements were fragile. Tribute expectations, enforcement, and political loyalties differed from place to place. What looked like unity in public could still be rivalry in private.
The Succession Crisis That Lit the Fire
The major turning point came after Alaafin Atiba’s death in the late 1850s, commonly placed around 1858. The succession that followed became the spark that turned tension into war.
At the centre of the dispute was Adelu, Atiba’s son. Kurunmi opposed Adelu’s elevation, arguing that it clashed with established expectations within Oyo political tradition. Yoruba succession customs varied across periods and contexts, but many traditions held that the Aremo, the first son, did not normally succeed directly in a smooth, straightforward manner, and in some remembered traditions the Aremo’s position carried heavy ritual restrictions. Kurunmi leaned on this inheritance of custom to reject the legitimacy of the new arrangement.
Ibadan supported Adelu. Its leaders favoured a settlement that reinforced stability and strategic alignment, even if that meant bending older expectations. To Kurunmi, this was more than a political choice, it was a dangerous precedent. If the rules around kingship could be adjusted for convenience, then kingship itself would become a tool of military power.
From Dispute to War, 1860 Begins the Siege Years
War broke out in 1860. Ibadan’s forces were larger and better coordinated, and the conflict soon became a hard struggle defined by siege pressure, disrupted farming, and the slow grinding down of resistance.
Ijaye sought support among allies who feared Ibadan’s dominance. The war was not only a clash between two towns, it was a contest between coalitions and competing visions of leadership. Communities were pulled into the fight by loyalty, fear, or the need for protection.
The human cost was severe. Prolonged conflict in this period commonly meant hunger, displacement, and the collapse of normal trade and farming cycles. As roads became unsafe and fields were abandoned, the suffering spread beyond the battlefield. The war changed lives not only through death, but through forced migration and the weakening of local economies.
Kurunmi’s End and the Fall of Ijaye, March 1862
Kurunmi is traditionally reported to have died during the war, often dated to 1861, before the final destruction of Ijaye. His death removed the central figure whose authority held the resistance together, even though the town and its allies continued to struggle.
In March 1862, Ibadan forces captured and destroyed Ijaye, bringing the main phase of the war to a decisive end. The destruction of the town was not just a military outcome, it was a statement. It signalled that challenges to Ibadan’s preferred order would be met with overwhelming force.
Ibadan emerged as the dominant power in Yorubaland, not because every town loved its leadership, but because it had proven it could impose outcomes, defend allies, and punish resistance.
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What the War Changed Across Yorubaland
Ibadan’s victory reshaped Yoruba politics in lasting ways. It strengthened Ibadan’s regional influence and hardened rivalries among Yoruba powers. It also deepened the pattern of fragmentation, because dominance did not automatically create trust. Some towns accepted Ibadan’s leadership as the price of peace. Others watched, waited, and prepared for future conflict.
The war also left a legacy of disruption, towns destroyed or weakened, families displaced, trade routes destabilised, and alliances reshaped by fear and necessity. In the longer view, a region divided by repeated conflict became more vulnerable to external intrusion, especially as British influence grew along the coast and expanded inland.
The Ibadan, Ijaye War remains a defining moment because it was not simply about territory. It was about legitimacy. It was about whether inherited constitutional expectations could restrain military ambition, and whether a war city could become the centre of Yoruba power without becoming an empire in everything but name.
Author’s Note
The Ibadan, Ijaye War shows what happens when a society tries to rebuild authority after an old order breaks, power rushes to whoever can organise, protect, and win, while tradition fights to remain the conscience of leadership. Kurunmi’s resistance, Ibadan’s pragmatism, and the succession crisis after Atiba together turned disagreement into siege and destruction, and by March 1862 Yorubaland had a new reality, Ibadan stood at the top, and every other town had to decide whether to align, resist, or simply survive.
References
Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas
Toyin Falola, The Political Economy of a Pre Colonial African State
J.F. Ade Ajayi and Robert Smith, Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century
