‘Death is Preferable to Ignominy’: Politically Motivated Suicide, Social Honor and Chieftaincy Politics in Early Colonial Ibadan

Most modern theories do not emphasize the idea of heroic suicide. The high profile, politically motivated suicides in early colonial Ibadan (Nigeria) discussed in this paper epitomize this type of suicide. It is suggested the key to understanding these cases is to be found not only in the people’s multilayered past – the general Yoruba past & Ibadan’s nineteenth-century military heritage – but also in their conception of honour & social norms. It is concluded politically motivated suicide, though self-destructive, was actually meant to serve an honourable purpose such that those involved became heroes even in death. (101 notes)