THE URBAN-RURAL INTERFACE IN IBADAN, 1900-1999

Abstract

The interaction between rural and urban settlements, people and enterprises are major components of livelihoods and production systems in Africa Although, historical studies have been carried out on urban-rural interface in other parts of Nigeria, few are on the phenomenon exist on Ibadan, particularly during this period. This study was, therefore, designed to examine urban-rural interface in Ibadan, with a view to highlighting the structural, institutional and economic factors that affected urban food supply and livelihood between 1900, a period when colonial policies created a rural economy distinct from the urban, and 1999 when five urban and six rural local council areas in Ibadan were formally recognized by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution.

The historical method was adopted, while a combination of interpretive and ethnographic designs was used. Primary data were sourced from oral interviews conducted with purposively selected 80 villagers: rural farmers, traders and artisans in villages about their links with Ibadan. In the city, interviews were conducted with purposively selected 90 people aged between 50 and 90: 11 Ibadan chiefs, 12 lineage heads, 15 urban traders, 12 artisans, 15 food marketers, 10 transporters, and 15 consumers who were conversant with the history of Ibadan. Materials including colonial reports and Ibadan provincial papers were sourced from the National Archives, Ibadan. Secondary data were obtained from books, journals, magazines and theses. Data were subjected to historical analysis.

The Ibadan customary land tenure system in the early 1900 encouraged the periodic movement of people from the city to the villages, and vice versa. Migration was a major factor that shaped Ibadan urbanization and livelihood. Although, it altered family structures and lifestyles, it did not affect family cohesion significantly. The villagers of Amosun, Lagun, Apatere and many others looked to their traditional compounds (Agbo’le) in the heart of the city such as Bere, Mapo and Oja’ba as their homes. This strengthened a symbiotic socio-economic existence between the city and the hinterland. As a web of networks linked both spaces in the 1940s, reciprocal exchanges of food were significantly enhanced. Regardless of the diverse household livelihood strategies such as hunting, crafts and trading, farming contributed more than half of the total income of the rural people, while urban-induced induced industry and service sectors such as Nigerian Tobacco Company, Nigerian Breweries Ltd., and University of Ibadan represented an important part of the city economy and played vital roles in employment creation, income generation and poverty alleviation for both the city dwellers and the rural migrants between 1950 and 1980. Food remittances aided urban food security, while financial remittances, especially in the post Civil-War and oil boom periods between 1970 and 1990, enhanced rural livelihood. Urbanization, globalization, markets and transportation networks in Ibadan in the post independence period provided a mix of services for effective linkage of activities and connected rural areas with the city and global economies.

Cultural affinity remained central to the understanding of Ibadan urban-rural interface, while social and economic factors continued to shape urban food supply and livelihood within the twentieth century.