Urban Development and the Changing, Role of the Balogun Institution in Abeokuta

Abstract

This study attempts to analyse the changing role of the Balogun chieftaincy title among the
Egba, right from its inception when the Egba people consciously formed a military group
for the defence of their townships at their Orile (homestead), and the time they arrived

. Abeokuta up tiff the twentieth century. Studies on Egba political and military history have
not been devoted to the evolution of the Balogun chieftaincy institution in Egbaland or
Abeokuta nor has any of these studies considered the changing role of the Balogun
institution in an urban setting. This article is the first attempt at studying the changing roles
of the Balogun institution from the time it was instituted in the Egba forest. It discusses the
fortunes of the institution in the city of Abeokuta where urban and political development
greatly affected the traditional role. The article argues that urbanisation and political
development in the city of Abeokuta brought about the transformation of the Balogun to
what it became in the twentieth century