Who Was Bashorun Gaa??

Who Was Bashorun Gaa??
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Bashorun Gaa was a notable nobleman and leader of the military in the old Oyo Empire during 17th/18th century. He was instrumental to the military conquests during his time as a prime minister. In 17th Century Oyo Kingdom, the monarchical failings came with a succession of uncharitable kings to the exalted throne.

Alaafins Odarawu, Kanran, Jayin,Ayibi and Osinyago in the second half of the 17th century were despotic. According to historical records, Odarawu was bad-tempered, Kanran, an unmitigated tyrant, Jayin, effeminate and dissolute, Ayibi cruel and arbitrary and Osinyago, worthless .

Internally, Bashorun Gaa as head of the Oyo Mesi, the Oyo council of kingmakers acquired too much power in the process and became Frankenstein monster in the kingdom. In office as prime minister between 1750 and 1774, Bashorun Gaa supervised the dethronement and execution of four successive Alaafins as follows:

Alaafin Labisi 1750-spent 17 days
Alaafin Awonbioju 1750-spent 130 days
Alaafin Agboluaye 1750-1772 (submitted to Bashorun Gaa’s dictation but was later forced to commit suicide at last).
Alaafin Majeogbe 1772-1773 . He was a king maker and at the same time king destroyer, a great usurper (Ayinla, 2011), renowned for his juju prowess. To eliminate him therefore became the consuming passion and chief concern of the fifth Alaafin, while Gaa was yet prime minister.
He became so powerful and notorious that all the previous Alaafins were afraid of him. Where he got power that he wielded over the throne remains a mystery. He became so power-drunk to the extent that he was forcing kings to commit suicide for not following his dictates (Oduwole,2011).
The unwritten Constitution which gave Bashorun (prime minster) a final say on the nomination of the new Alaafin and the control of the kingmakers was so great that the Bashorun ’s power rivaled that of the Alaafin himself. This of course was an open opportunity for
Bashorun Gaa to have absolute control of the political machinery of old Oyo kingdom of his time, in his palms.
However, his notoriety reached its peak when he murdered Agbonyin, the only daughter of reigning Alaafin Abiodun who, at the time, decided to take the bull by the horns.
Notwithstanding, the elimination of this tyrant prime minister cost so much of state resources and time. Not without the Aare-one-kakan-fo (Yoruba generalissimo) Oyalabi from Ajase after was he finally overpowered and killed. His children fled Oyo for places like Egbado (Yewa), Badagry, Cotonou in Dahomey, all main locations where their father had contacts.
The Crimes of Basorun Gaa
Bashorun Gaa was a classical tyrant of Yoruba pre-colonial era. Bashorun Gaa was instrumental to the killing of four kings. He was therefore, guilty of regicide. He wickedly supervised the dethronement of four kings by forcing them to commit suicide. The last king to be dethroned, Alaafin Majeogbe, was executed under the supervisory instructions of Bashorun Gaa (Faleti,1972). In addition to his extra judicial killing, he instructed the murder of the daughter of Alaafin Abiodun and later used the victim for money ritual. Bashorun Gaa, unconstitutionally hijacked all the political power and machinery of Oyo kingdom. All the homage, respects and the material benefits meant for the kings were diverted to his personality. This was a great crime against the royal political system and great assault to the gods of the land and the past ancestors. (Faleti, 1972).

Bashorun Gaa was a crime instigator. He was fond of aiding, abetting and covering the rimes committed by the people of his household. The history recorded the serial killings committed by his sons and head slave. The criminals were protected by him and even punished those who reported the crime. He ordered the massacre of the family members of one of his wives who was alleged to have attempted to poison him.

Terrorism was another crime of Bashorun Gaa. During his reign as prime minister, he and his household were great terrorists. Innocent citizens were terrorized by them. People’s belongings and property were vandalized and maliciously damaged by the notorious members of his family. The houses and property of the innocent citizens were set ablaze; wives of innocent citizens were forcefully taken away from them. Force labour was unnecessarily imposed on people and freedoms of people were taken away from them. The period was recorded as the most turbulent period in the history of Oyo kingdom.

The end of Basorun Gaa
The elimination of Bashorun Gaa was a difficult one. It cost the old Oyo kingdom many material resources, time and lives of innocent people. Alaafin Abiodun and Oyo warriors in collaboration with Aare-Ona-Kaka-N-fo Oyalabi were eventually able to close in on him and arrest him. He was tied to a stake at Akesan market and Alaafin Abiodun ordered that every citizen cut a pound of flesh from his body and drop it in a huge fire in front of him. He was made to smell the odour of his own flesh, his nose was not allowed to be cut and flesh from his left part of the chest was excluded too (to prevent him from dying quickly). The remains of his body were later burnt in fire to prevent the re-incarnation of this wicked man.

The public execution of this man eventually brought up a popular saying in Yoruba land to warn those in power and the rulers who are tyrants. The saying goes thus: if you are audacious in doing evils you can continue, but if you remember the death of Bashorun Gaa be righteous in all your doings”

A Brief History Of Bashorun Gaa

A good Yoruba man, the story of Bashorun Gaa of the old Oyo Kingdom is not new; for the sake of those that are not familiar with the story, I shall briefly tell it.

Bashorun Gaa of sad memory was the head of ‘Oyomesi’, the legislative arm of the kingdom, but he was so extra-ordinarily powerful with supernatural powers of fetish. History has it that Gaa had the power to change from human-being to any wild animal of his choice.

Intoxicated with awesome power, Gaa was removing and installing kings at will. He would reel out orders side by side with the king and any king that wanted to assert his authority would be dealt with by Gaa’s Army.

There was a time a king in Oyo was said to have beheaded his father-in-law for the ‘mouth diarrhoea’ committed by his daughter, the wife of the tyrant king. Cashing in on the wrongdoing, Gaa, in conjunction with other kingmakers, forced the monarch to the evil forest to embark on the journey of no return. In order to appease Gaa, the new king thereafter gave his precious daughter in marriage to Gaa, but when Gaa was in need of an animal called ‘Agbonrin’ (deer) and he couldn’t’ find one on time, he ordered that the daughter of a king who bore the similar name, Agbonrin be slaughtered instead, and that climaxed his atrocities.

A petition in form of a plea was filed by Alaafin, the great king before the powerful Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) known as ‘Generalismo’ Aare Ona Kakanfo. There was a civil strife between the two powerful men, but Gaa caved in by decoy. He changed to an inanimate object in a bid to escape the wrath of the people he had traumatised.

THE CRUSHING OF GAA AND THE OLD SYSTEM

Aare Onakankanfo through his mystical power, uncovered the decoy, reverted Gaa back to a human being and disarmed him completely. The Generalissimo handed Gaa back to Alaafin for appropriate sanction and the king who was still bitter about the misconduct and abuse of office and power of Gaa, recommended that Gaa be sentenced into instalmental killing.

Contrary to established myth there is little evidence that Gaa’s fall came about through a popular rising of the supposedly oppressed masses across the empire. Finally coming against an Alaafin, Abiodun, who matched the increasingly aged Bashorun in wit, cunning and ruthlessness, Gaa fell to a well crafted and concealed conspiracy whose success rested on an alliance of the Royal princes with the provincial kings, subject to the capital, and who also provided the bulk of its military muscle.

The uprising in Oyo itself would have failed had not the provincial chiefs led by Oyabi, the Aare ona kakanfo or head of the imperial army marched on the capital for the first time in Oyo’s history. Seeing that the officer class and imperial staff – the Eso where well represented in the capital as were many ordinary soldiers, it seems the need for outside intervention which in the end proved crucial to the royal party’s triumph would suggest a lack of real support for the royal cause within Oyo or significant support for the Bashorun.

Whatever the reason there is a broad consensus that the resistance by Gaa and his supporters in the City was ferocious and only put down after intense and savage fighting. Again the strength of the resistance against what were clearly overwhelming odds implies men fighting not just for their lives but for something they felt was worth laying them down for. Gaa’s family and supporters were slaughtered across the breath of the empire. The Bashorun himself was taken alive, tortured, publicly humiliated and burnt at the stake, the taunts of his royalist enemies ringing in his ears as he died.

THE OLD OYO EMPIRE AFTER GAA

With him died the old empire and the power of civil authority that had underpinned it. The Oyo mesi never recovered, the people were cowed into submission before the triumphant princes and provincial kings. The consequence of his defeat was a new unchallenged absolutism by the Alaafin and the princes together with the increasingly unchecked power of the provincial kings and army leaders with their increasingly loud demands of independence from Oyo. As the price for their support in crushing Gaa and the old order. The Alaafin had won but his victory would prove pyrrhic for the royal line.

The next time the imperial army would march on the capital, this time led by Afonja, the Kakanfo, who succeeded Oyabi; it would come not to support the king, but to claim his head. The revolution had begun

The new struggle was now one between the centre at Oyo and the newly emboldened provincial kings and army chiefs. It would end up tearing the empire apart and hurling the entire kingdom into a century of revolution and turmoil that would only end with the arrival of the British who tiring of the impact of the chaos on the unimpeded commerce their new industries in Lancashire demanded, imposed a peace on a region exhausted by endless struggle strife and conflict.