It is universally acknowledged that in today’s modern multilingual world, understanding Yoruba language will increase one’s business potential, enhance one’s professional skill set, enable us to interact with cultural communities in our home town or city and take us to exciting destinations across the planet. Yoruba people number between 35 and 40 million. Their dynamic culture, philosophy, arts, language, sociology and history have attracted numerous studies.
The paper, by Adeboye Titus Ayinde, Department of Psychology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, adedickson@yahoo.com; ayindade@oauife.edu.ng, (+ 2348036019665; +2348028294888) which was published in the Journal of Demography and Social Statistics, 2015, 2(1&2): 79-88, examined the nature of indigenous pattern of entrepreneurship and the modern practices among the Yoruba people of Nigeria in West Africa. The study based on social-cognitive learning theory template (observational learning) of Bandura explores pre-independence (some years before 1960) mode of entrepreneurship and (four decade after independence year) among the Yoruba ethnic group. Findings revealed that indigenous entrepreneurship was deeply entrenched in social cultural values and community alignment to a particular line of business, whereas, the modern entrepreneurship was shrouded in a lot of technicalities and with little or no boundary as long as the lines of business activities are concerned. It was revealed however, that the motive or drives for entrepreneurship, risk taking and learning process were similar in both indigenous and modern entrepreneurship. Based on the challenges posed by these similarities and differences in indigenous and modern mode of entrepreneurship among the Yoruba extraction of Nigeria, the study concludes that cultural perspectives could be blended with sophisticated tools designed to foster entrepreneurship.
An indigenous form of what is recently termed entrepreneurship has been in existence before the coming of the European to Africa. African people, particularly the Yoruba ethnic group of South Western, Nigeria, have some practices, which depict the modern day entrepreneurship. The Yorubas comprise people from Ife, Ijesha, Oyo, Egba, Ekiti, Ijebu and some part of Edo, Kwara, Kogi State and Republic of Benin. The groups are noted for entrepreneurial activities in different dimensions. But for the purpose of this discourse, these dimensions are classified into three different types to reflect the three perspectives on entrepreneurship discussed earlier. The first set of entrepreneurial among Yoruba people are the people who commercialize natural skills and talents, producer of farm inventories and artifact and decoration ornament.
The people who engage in the commercialisation of natural skills include the “Onilu” or “Ayan”, (drummers), “Asunrara” or “Oloriki”, (the praise singers), “agbegilere” (woodcraft, sculpture), “Onidiri” (hairdressers) e.t.c. The people who belong to this category are individuals who use their talents to attract intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Similarly, there are inventors who produce farm instruments such as cutlasses, hoes, go-to-hell etc, and those who produce different ornaments that can enhance human beauty. The group is called “Alagbede” in Yoruba language. The people that belong to these two categories could be described as innovative entrepreneurs who employed some levels of creativities in meeting the needs of their people at a particular point in time. The second group of indigenous entrepreneur comprises those who specifically combined learning with innate skills to modify some of the activities discussed in the first dimension to attract monetary gains. For example, the praise singer (Olorin) may engage the services of the drummers (Onilu) to form a band, with a view to attracting more patronage and thereby maximise economic gains. The individuals in this category belong to the group of entrepreneurs who modify and repackage for greater economic gains. The mode of operation here is to gain attention through modification of old ideas to produce a seemingly new brand of products or services, through a combination of different skills. The arbitrary display of talents may be replaced with act of waiting for people to request and charged accordingly before service is rendered. Thus monetary reward is emphasized above any other rewards.
The third aspect of indigenous entrepreneurship describes those who engage in proper commercial activities of buying and selling. This, indeed, is the type of business many people known as the real entrepreneurship. There are two specific groups of entrepreneur in Yoruba society. The two are popularly referred to as “Alajapa” and “Alarobo”. “Alajapa” could be described as the itinerant traders, while the “Alarobo” could be described as “petty traders”. The difference between the two groups is that “Alajapa” deals with bulk sales, while “Alarobo” are retail sellers. In Yoruba land, “Alajapa” represents modern day wholesalers, who maintain contact with the source of a product, and buying in bulk, whereas, “Alarobo” are those who buy from “Alajapa” for the purpose of selling to the end user of the products (consumers).
Entrepreneurship in modern days is highly sophisticated version of what obtains in the indigenous entrepreneur practices. Unlike the crude form of entrepreneurship that exists in the pre-colonial period among the Yoruba, the modern entrepreneur practices are well organised to meet the demand of the present day. Basically, the three dimensions of entrepreneurship identified in the olden days, still exist in the modern practice, but emphasis is placed on innovations and creativity as the bedrock of all the perspectives. Consequently, the need to organise and register the different activities that subsumed under entrepreneurship is given prominence. The purpose is to promote individuals’ identity and right of any efforts (copyright), which arise from their sense of creativity. An entrepreneur, nowadays, is described as an exploiter of an idea who creates an enterprise (small or big) not only for personal gain, but also for social and developmental gains. As such, he/she establishes his/her enterprise to promote one idea or the other for the benefit of society and from there he derives his living (Olagunju, 2004). In this way, the entrepreneur is an innovator who discovers new ideas; combine with creativity and modern management techniques not only for personal gain but also for social development. It is from this perspective that this paper looks at the various innovations and creativities that have transformed commercial activity among the Yorubas.
As stated earlier, the Yoruba ethnic group of Western Nigeria is noted for their trading prowess. Their closeness to the centre of commercial activities (Lagos) has greatly influenced the group. With the coming of European traders, the scope and forms of indigenous entrepreneurship changed. The activities of the Europeans opened up many places previously unknown. This made people to go from place to place to trade and with this, market sprung up. The European came to trade and to explore the various abundant resources available in Yoruba land. In their desire to trade, they entered into trade alliances with indigenous people. This gave the people experience and background to establish enterprises of their own. With the attainment of independence of Nigeria in 1960, the Yorubas became front-liners of commercial activities. Evidently, Lagos, which predominantly occupied by Yoruba Ethnic group became, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria economy.
The paper underscored the similarities and differences in indigenous and modern mode of entrepreneurship among Yoruba extraction of Nigeria. It could be deduced that entrepreneurship has been in practice among Yoruba ethnic people for quite a long time even though there was no specific name given to this practice at the time, and that the concept is deeply entrenched in Yoruba social cultural values as various communities, clans and households were fund of aligning to a particular line of trade or business in reminiscent of what might be described as a trademark in the modern entrepreneurship practice. And that social cognitive learning theory is applicable to the learning process in both indigenous and modern entrepreneurship practices.
Meanwhile, it is very clear that in practice and operation, the difference between the indigenous entrepreneurs and their modern counterparts is not substantial. The major discrepancy is that, what appear as a crude form of practice among Yoruba entrepreneurs has given way to a sophisticated practice due to advances made in society. The modern entrepreneur is shrouded in a lot of technicalities such as; mandatory trade registration, membership of association, publicity etc, which are not in place during the pre-colonial era. All these, notwithstanding, the fundamental principles such as; risk-taking, profit maximisation, entrepreneurship learning process etc, which are behind entrepreneurship practice are similar in both the indigenous and the modern entrepreneurship. Thus cultural perspectives, as far as entrepreneurship is concerned, could not be jettisoned, but rather be merged with the modern sophisticated tools to foster entrepreneurship in our society.
GEN Benin and FORAM Initiatives are stepping up efforts to launch the ‘’Activating YORUBA speaking people in BENIN REPUBLIC for SDGs’’ Project. The aim is to popularise the SDGs document translated into Yoruba language by the United Nations, hold Mass Mobilisations to Achieving the SDGs among the Yoruba speaking people in Benin Republic while preserving Yoruba language through cross-country cultural exchange and educational activities.