IFE-Olukotun Community, North-Central Nigeria And Issues of Migration and Linkages with Other Yoruba Towns

Abstract

Human beings world over tend to be perennially restive and Yoruba people seem to have had their own share of this human trait. People migrate for various reasons. Hence, it will certainly be a stretch of imagination to think that they have always occupied their present land. (Ogunba 1973:91) Though, a long period of effective occupation can make a community feel they are the original owner of a place. As such, to lay claim to a place as one’s original home, the number of years one’s fore fathers had settled there is imperative, likewise the language spoken whether original or borrowed and how homogenous or otherwise the culture is. It is in this wise that the heterogeneous nature and the recent awareness of certain Yoruba towns having the same cognomen and names with certain quarters in Ife-Olukotun engendered the desire to search for their link with such Yoruba towns to unearth the historical and socio-cultural accounts for insight for the present and future and preservation for posterity. More importantly, is the current wave of Obaship in the community with each of the quarters that made up Ife-Olukotun having their own Oba (king) as against the hitherto one Oba (Olukotun of Ife) for the entire community. Methodology adopted for the paper are Archival and Secondary sources.