In 1938, the Alaafin of Oyo earned an annual salary equivalent to ₦7.56 million, three times the ₦2.52 million paid to the Ooni of Ife. Under colonial indirect rule, traditional rulers were paid salaries by the British administration, and those salaries reflected how the colonial government ranked each throne. The Alaafin, head of the old Oyo Empire, sat at the top of Yorubaland's pay scale, while the Ooni, regarded by the Yoruba as the spiritual source of their origins, earned a third of that. The gap shows how colonial rule measured power by administrative and political weight, not by ritual or ancestral prestige. It is a reminder that colonial structures reshaped the status of Nigeria's traditional institutions in ways that still echo today.

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In 1938, the Alaafin of Oyo earned an annual salary equivalent to ₦7.56 million, three times the ₦2.52 million paid to the Ooni of Ife. Under colonial indirect rule, traditional rulers were paid salaries by the British administration, and those salaries reflected how the colonial government ranked each throne. The Alaafin, head of the old Oyo Empire, sat at the top of Yorubaland's pay scale, while the Ooni, regarded by the Yoruba as the spiritual source of their origins, earned a third of that. The gap shows how colonial rule measured power by administrative and political weight, not by ritual or ancestral prestige. It is a reminder that colonial structures reshaped the status of Nigeria's traditional institutions in ways that still echo today. #BeyondNaija #Alaafin #Ooni #Yoruba #NigerianHistory #ColonialNigeria

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