The Cultural Agency of Elites: Awolowo and the Re-making of the Yoruba

The mystique of eliteness is a quality that is cultivated or constructed overtime. Here, I examine agency - a culturally-specific, consolidated stream of composite actions and interactions that are geared towards specific social endeavours, and structure -representing conventions and social parameters through which agency and social practices are performed and become performative, by tracing the historical-political context in which Chief ObafEmi Awolowo, the acknowledged leader of the Yoruba of Nigeria, rose to politico-cultural prominence and succeeded to the "throne" of the Yoruba progenitor, Oduduwa. I argue that through this succession, Awolowo became the "modern Oduduwa" and the central signifier of Yorubaness in 20(th) Century Nigeria and beyond.