The Modakeke community of southwest Nigeria first mooted the idea around 1937. They would no longer set aside a portion of their farm produce as ‘isakole’ paid annually to Ile-Ife landowning families. They had occupied the land for upwards of one hundred and fifty years and now viewed the Yoruba land custom of expropriating non-natives to make their lessee status unambiguous old-fashioned. And how fair was it that having settled the land for many generations, inter-marrying with their hosts (Ooni Abewela who ascended in 1839 was half-Modakeke) and making immense contribution as skilled military and farmhands to the well-being of Ife metropolis, were they, the self-named Modakeke, yet considered non-natives without rights to land? This proposal outraged Ife-folk. It appeared to them like a brazen land arrogation attempt by the Modakeke, like a modern-day tenant ripping their ‘tenancy agreement’ and saying they now own the house by virtue of long tenancy. The Ife-Modakeke l
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