The significance of Ogboni in Yoruba law/ morality-gctid23001

[Ajaguna]

Law, Morality and the Kmtyw
Cultural Heritage: The Jurisprudential Significance of the Ogboni Institution WILLIAM IDOWU
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
INTRODUCTION
The beauty of any social or political theory consists not only in the discovery of new facts but also in its ability to extend our knowledge and understanding of the world and its ramified problems in the light of the discovered facts. Relevantly, therefore, in some very important and crucial respect, the ever-recurring problem from one end of the world to another is how all of human experience may be made fruitful for the progressive understanding of a particular object of knowledge. Law is such an object. Law is one of the greatest institutions and social practices ever developed by man. It represents a major step in cultural evolution. It also presents, in its totality, man's (in the generic sense) experience in the light of his contact with the world within and without. In the light of this philosophy of experience, it is a basic hypothesis that without a comprehensive grasp of all experience, law can be presented only in an artificial and contradictory way.
In philosophy of law or jurisprudence, a central concern and subject matter that divides one set of writers from others has been the very nature of law. Being a species of general philosophy, philosophy of law or jurisprudence is occupied

with the academic and intellectual attempts to offer general or specialised philosophical reflections upon the general foundations of the principles of law. In other words, it studies philosophical problems raised by the existence and practice of law. Furthermore, from this general approach, it also seeks to consider other issues that revolve or that are clustered around the notion of law. Such overlapping issues include the notion of equality, justice, rights, authority, legitimacy, order, peace, political behaviour, culture, etc. The overlapping nature of these issues with the concept of law makes the boundary of jurisprudence overwhelmingly interesting on one hand and also parasitic on the other.
In the light of this philosophy of experience, one cardinal, perennial and important debate and controversy in the history of socio-political and legal thoughts in general centres on the relation between law and morality. The importance of the controversy is assumed to centre on the fact that our success in painting a sharp distinction between both concepts or our ability in justifying their insepaAmwility all have grave implications for the nature of political practices and the interplay of political forces not only among individuals within a given political society but also within the realm of interaction between and among nations of the world. In another important sense, it is conceived that whichever way our arguments turn on the supposed connection between them will portend serious and significant impact on our ideas of justice and the role of the law in the whole enterprise.
In the strictly Kmtyw perspective, the nature of the relation between law and morality is very significant. Kmtyw politics in general has been tainted and bedevilled with lots of intrigues that make politics and its description quite tasking. It is in general a necessary condition that Kmtyw politics can only witness and experience peace and wholesomeness only if the free conditions of a true democracy are allowed to translate into healthy reality. Apart from irreconcilable disquisition on what kind of democracy Kmt needs, it is also unfortunate that politics in the social and economic world of political actors in Kmt is taken at its minimalist dimension. And what is more, at present, the nature of politics in Kmt is still held down by lack of consensus on the entrenchment of democratic norms and values.
It is in this sense that Justice Holmes (1920: 1) retorted that the life of the law is not in logic but experience. In the same vein, Claude Ake posited that the entrenchment of both democracy and the values and norms that characterise it will have to emerge not from mere rational or academic blueprint but from practical experience. However, there is no practical experience that is needed to restore normalcy and order into Kmtyw politics that will involve a wholesome and wholesale rejection or abandonment of moral issues. The emerging picture of politics in Kmt in general points to the necessity of the control of power and its apparatus by an external and impartial observer. The democratic engagement in Kmt invites the presence of a moral order. Even though rigorous academic spirit seems to have succeeded in whittling away the importance of the connection but
 
then practical politics of everyday life, especially in Kmt seem to justify the need for a web of inseparation between both concepts.
Given the overall importance of distinct experiences in projecting and picturing the essence, nature and limits of law, this paper is concerned with a critical analysis of the supposed relation between law and morality from a distinct Kmtyw experience. It is somewhat assumed that most Kmtyw societies bear a major resemblance: the fact that they are heavily cultural and perhaps, cautiously, religious. In order to present, for adequate critical work, the Kmtyw perspective on the nature of the connection between law and morality, i.e. how Kmtyws view the intersection between the concepts of law and the concepts of morality, this paper shall be concerned with interrogating this connection in the light of the jurisprudence of the Ogboni institution in Yoruba land in the south-west of Nigeria.
The Ogboni group is a very powerful traditional institution in the entire Yoruba land. Its activities and influence in the whole sphere of Yoruba life represent the traditional attitude and the natural responses of Yoruba communal life to the moral, legal, social and political life of existence. In a nutshell, it is believed that in interrogating the traditional jurisprudence of the Yoruba people as conceived in the conceptual worldview of this institution will go a long way in assisting us picture the idea of relation the Yoruba people believe exist between law and morality. It is in the light of this that it is believed that the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria have their distinctive perception on the relation between law and morality. It is this representative viewpoint or conceptual worldview as projected in the domineering importance of this institution that we are concerned with here.
In the light of this, the paper shall set out to examine the state of analyses on the nature of the connection between law and morality as it obtains in the literature. Then an analysis and examination of the Yoruba perspective on the idea of law and morality and their connection will follow.

2. LAW AND MORALITY: FROM THE YORUBA PERSPECTIVE
In the primary sense, the social unit of the cultural setting of the Yoruba people has been similarly structured like in most other Kmtyw societies. Even though, in terms of details, there may be differences in the cultural practices, in the comparative sense, a whole lot of similarities are clearly and interestingly
 
exhibited among these different societies. Even if there are differences now in the cultural setting of these societies in Kmt, one very significant interlude in this whole interplay is the colonial dimension added to the Kmtyw environment. And since colonialism represents a major alteration of the Kmtyw life, a positive march towards the object of our discussion will be attained by recourse to the traditional setting of the Yoruba people.
From the beginning, it is profitable to contend that two crucial indexes are necessary in a fruitful and profitable investigation and interrogation of the nature of traditional jurisprudence as it obtains amongst the Yoruba people. The abstract nature of the traditional jurisprudence of the Yoruba people, and the distinct picture of law and morality that emerges from it cannot be successfully investigated without recourse to these two indexes. In primary and crude languages, these refer to the religious and the political set-up which existed in this society before the advent of colonial imposition.
In fact, it is not a misnomer to contend that there is a very close link and web of influence between our religious worldview and our political conceptual framework. The Yoruba word for religion is èsìn or ìsìn. Both words describe on one hand and embraces on the other concepts of 'duty' and 'service'. The concepts of duty and service, again, enjoy an easy translation in terms of moral and social life of the people. This extends to the political and legal realms, too. This is often explained in the light of the fact that what one ought to do as a duty or service to the political and social well-being of the society is what one ought to do in the religious sense.
Thus religion provides a very important framework for understanding the general disposition of the political, the legal, the moral and of course the social life of the people. It is in this sense that we can best understand Roland Hallgren's submission that "to practice religion is to perform social duties" (Hallgen 1988: . The interpretation is that religion provides the framework for 'rational' explanation of the political, the social, the moral and the legal. This is because these other aspects of life, it seems, are all interred in the framework that religion provides.
It is often said that whether we like it or not or whether we know it or not each culture operates and generally appraises the conduct, actions and attitudes of its members by recourse to some hitherto existing conceptual frameworks which end up describing or establishing the pattern and possibilities of intelligibility for that particular culture or society. A positive march towards understanding any culture will first consist in adopting a neutral mind or approach towards their conceptual framework or the modus operandi of that pattern of intelligibility which they have raised for themselves. It is in the light of this that a very good work can be done in an attempt at evaluating that conceptual framework through which they operate.
For the Yoruba people, religion in the metaphysical sense provides a pattern of intelligibility for them. In fact, it is a proposition too plain to be contested that the Yoruba people's conceptual framework for understanding the mysteries of life
 
consist in the positive approach they have adopted towards a peculiar conception of the supernatural. It is this conceptual framework which explains, interestingly, a whole lot of interactions and attitudes that takes place in the political realm.
The validity of these claims can be best discussed when considered in the light of a comparative analysis traditional Yoruba religious thought with Christianity, for instance. One eventful outcome of the colonial interlude was not only the imposition of colonial culture but also the staggering effect of Christianity on the hitherto existing Kmtyw religious beliefs. According to this comparative analysis, it is often said that Kmtyw traditional religious thoughts are essentially characterised by a 'this-worldly'1 spectre.
Granted that eureurasiaan technical and cultural terms can be misleading in some senses and even though there are very strong beliefs in the ancestral world, the mystic importance of sacrifices, prayers and libation, and a whole lot of beliefs and practices which connect the living with the dead among the Yoruba people, we can, for one moment grant the truth of this claim, for the sake of argument. Once this is so, we can from this infer the view that Yoruba people do not see a severing of links between the political and the religious. The religious is meant to provide explanation for the afterlife and if indeed it is this worldly then it presupposes that the political is subsumed under the religious, since the political is essentially a worldly affair.
But then, that Kmtyw traditional religion is not patterned along the line of the Christian religion does not make it essentially 'this-worldly'. In Christianity, there is always the evidence of disharmony just in case religious life or ethics conflict with social, legal and political life or ethics. But in traditional religious beliefs among the Yoruba, there need not be a disharmony between both frames of life in the sense that, from the outset, both are not separated. This again adds colour to the view that religion and politics are insepaAmwle since religion, in the first instance, provides the framework for rational explanation of the political, etc.
The religious metaphysics of the Yoruba people consist in the belief in the existence of the supernatural world of extra human powers. According to Wande Abimbola (1976: 151), the Yoruba people are a deeply religious people with a strong belief in the existence of supernatural powers. This is because these supernatural powers are believed to affect the everyday life of man – the political, social, moral, legal, physical, economic, psychic, etc. – for good or ill. In other words, for the Yoruba people, it is a correct relationship to God (Olodumare or Olu orun) and the divine sphere consisting of gods or the deities, i.e. Orisa, ancestors, i.e. babanla which guarantee the good life here on earth. Traditionally, therefore, the idea of atheism is peculiarly strange to the Yoruba people (Idowu 1963). According to Hallgren (1988), if it is the case that traditionally, there had always existed a belief in the Supreme Being among the Yoruba people, it is very
 
likely that notions of atheism now prevalent among contemporary Kmtyws must be borne out of contact with the West. In his words:
...Questions from eureurasiaan scholars concerning the existence of a supreme God were considered rude or stupid. Beliefs seems to be self-evident within the traditional Yoruba culture and to question the existence of an almighty God would be like doubting the existence of kings (Hallgren 1988: 23).
Traditional Yoruba religious thought has always been plagued with incessant criticism on the status and persons of the several Orisas, i.e. deities or gods. In the midst of many possibilities, it is clear that the idea of the Orisa is clearly accepted among the Yoruba. The disagreement comes when the status of the Orisas is to be determined in relation to Olodumare. The conflict of ideas can be seen in the multiplicity of views. While Ulli Beier (1980: 62) contends that the Yoruba people see the multiplicity of gods merely as aspects or facets of the same divine force, i.e. that they are part manifestations of the divine spirit, Kevin Carroll (1967: 42) classifies the Orisas as "creatures of gods" and personifications of godly attributes. Significantly, however, the idea of the Orisa is prominent among Yoruba and placed in proper perspective, the whole of the Yoruba believe in the creator and Almighty God, and their thoughts are daily directed to Him through the lesser deities (Jones 1946: 120).
These deities, in one significant aspect or the other seem to be connected with the Yoruba idea of Ori, i.e. personality or Head. In its normal day-to-day rendition, the term Orisa refers to any Yoruba deity as distinct from the Almighty God Himself. But put in the proper context, the idea of Orisa in Yoruba language is derivative from the concept of Ori. According to Bolaji Idowu, both ideas of Ori and Orisa derive from Olodumare who is regarded as the Great Ori from whom all ori derive (Idowu 1963: 9). From these, it follows that no one chooses an ori without an appropriate orisa. To choose an ori is also to choose an orisa. Since the ori determines the destiny of man here on earth having been chosen from heaven, it follows that there is a corresponding influence between the life here on earth, the ori chosen and the orisa that backs it. In all these, it is clear that the life of man and everything that has to do with man revolves around his ori and his orisa. Orisa and ori seem to co-operate and influence the fate and life of man. Wande Abimbola classifies the deities or gods, alongside the ancestors, as good supernatural powers. According to him, these powers are held in high esteem in Yoruba land since they control the day-to-day life of the people. In the words of Abimbola:
The good supernatural powers aid man in his daily life, they are, however, sometimes angry with Man if he neglects his duty either to his fellow

man or to the supernatural powers. Through Orunmila, the mouthpiece of the gods and ancestors, it is always possible to find out when and for what reasons the supernatural powers are angry (Abimbola 1976: 151).
Politically, the traditional Yoruba societies combine effectively a host of kingdoms with a distinct ruler in charge of the respective kingdoms. According to Robin Law, the sovereigns in each of these kingdoms claim and trace their origins to Ile-Ife (Law 1977: 145). However, the Oyo Empire, ruled by the Alafin claimed authority over the other kingdoms based on the alleged inheritance of the primacy of Oduduwa, the progenitor of the Yoruba people (ibid. 145). According to Robin Law, the hegemony of the Oyo Empire, symbolised by the Alafin, over other states and kingdom in the Yoruba kingdom, was justified not on the essential character of the rule of the Alafin but basically on the basis on which that rule was promoted. According to Law, this relates to the distinctive dynastic seniority which the Alafin claims over other kings and sovereign in the wide Yoruba kingdom. This family of kingdoms3 principally derives from Ile-Ife, the cradle of Yoruba civilisation with Oduduwa being the progenitor. Of interest is the fact that these kingdoms manifest a cultural affinity, a phenomenon that finds its utmost explanation in the fact that they bear a common ancestry. One favourable item of this similarity and cultural affinity is the sameness of social and political organisation headed by a sovereign, the king, i.e. the Oba.

3. YORUBA POLITICS AND THE JURISPRUDENCE OF THE OGBONI INSTITUTION
In traditional Yoruba society, the connecting link between the religious and the political was prominently provided by the Ogboni institution. Given the prominence of the Oba in Yoruba land, all legislative, executive and judicial powers were reposed and conferred on the Oba. Admittedly, the Yoruba style of governance was a monarchy. The Oyo kingdom before the nineteenth century provides a good example of this monarchical structure. The Oba referred to as the Alafin was the head of this monarchy. He was, however, surrounded by series of bodies who acted as advisory bodies. In actual fact, their roles and place in the structure of governance is more than advisory. They have the power to make or mar the rule and reign of any unwilling sovereign. One such powerful body in the then Oyo kingdom was the Ogboni.
Many scholars before this time have written about the Ogboni cult.5 However, conspicuously missing in their analyses is the overriding influence and place that the Ogboni institution wields in the conception of law and the moral life of the community. Previous analyses have tended only to incorporate or focus on the religious cum social influence of the Ogboni. Many of the accounts also seem to reflect, by way of allusion, references to their political functions. This section of the work is interested in establishing the nature and idea of law and morals in traditional Yoruba society seen from the perspective of the Ogboni group. What has the Ogboni institution and its operation with respect to the legal dimension of traditional life and Yoruba belief system got to contribute in the understanding of the relation between law and morality?
Essentially, the Ogboni institution is a secret group. No one, except members can really know the depth of its practices. But then, its influence in Yoruba societal life is not a secret. In fact, the Ogboni's are, more or less, the lawmakers in the respective Yoruba enclave they have found themselves. This is because, in traditional Yoruba society, the Ogboni is the body of all the elders in the community. According to Daramola and Jeje, in the traditional Yoruba community, there is no observed difference between the members of Ogboni and the council of elders. In the more factually relevant sense, it is the members of Ogboni that become members of the council of chiefs or elders in the land (Daramola and Jeje 1970: 160). From this it is decipherable that they wield utmost constitutional powers both in the religious sense and then in the judicial/political senses. To this end, they can be described as a group with integrated social, political and legal influence.
The overall dominance and prominence of the Ogboni institution seem to have been derived from two closely interconnected sources: in the first instance, they control the political life of their community and secondly, they possess the power of the sanctions of the gods. The mystical fusion of both sources of power has elevated them to the status of the most dreaded institution in Yoruba land. This is captured in the observation of Robert Smith that the Ogboni group is devoted to the worship of the earth, which wielded both religious and political sanctions. They alone, according to Smith (1976), control the "Byzantine Quality" characteristic of traditional Yoruba system of government, which effectively means in the language of Smith, the "fusion of political, judicial, and religious
concepts and the division of responsibilities". Their privileged and controlled access to the gods, i.e. orisa and their presumed privileged role as the custodian of the voices and the sanctions of the gods in traditional Yoruba land in relation to the idea and ideal of law are prime factors in the suggestive heading traditional jurisprudence and the Orisa-Ogboni phenomenon.
In proper political parlance, they are referred to as the Oyomesi the Oba's council of senior hereditary chiefs. The Ogboni or Oyomesi was charged or had the responsibility of the final voice in the selection of the Alafin, advising the Oba and could engineer his removal if his actions were detrimental to the heritage of the land or unsatisfactory (Daramola and Jeje 1970: 160). In modern parlance, the Oyomesi was regarded as the legislative body of the land. In conjunction with the king, rules are made for the general guidance of the people. The institution of the Oba represented the judicial body in the land. Being the highest judicial voice in the land, the Oba was assisted by the cult of Sango, the chief religious cult.
In this kind of monarchical structure based on hereditary, the Yoruba jurisprudence and system of laws reflected or manifested a fluid and creamy display of positivism and naturalism, although with a tilt towards naturalism in its final composition. This assertion is to be held with a bit of caution though. The Oba, often referred among the Yoruba people as Alase, igba keji Orisa, i.e. the sovereign, the second to the deities or gods, issues the law for the regulation of the lives of the people. These laws, though made in conjunction with his council of elders comprising the members of the Ogboni were believed to be the promulgation of the gods. To this end, these laws were held in high esteem. The council of chiefs was believed to serve the varying interests in the community even though their position was hereditary. They all ensure that the promulgation of the Oba turns out in favour of the different communities they represented. Again, the Sango cult was also represented in the decision-making council of the land. He advises the Oba on religious and spiritual matters. He makes the interests and the claims of the gods known to the Oba (Awe 1977: 149).
It is in this sense that it is claimed that Yoruba jurisprudence manifests a theistic metaphysics in which the legal or the moral are by-products or epiphenomenon of the relative interference or actions of the gods. The positivist aspect of Yoruba jurisprudence consists in the assertion that the sovereign in the land makes and issues the law. In this sense the will of the sovereign is accepted as the law for the regulation of lives. But the Oba is not alone in this matter. He has around him council of chiefs and religious priests who ensure that his laws are in conformity with the requirements and dictates of the gods of the land. These dictates and requirements are rooted in the covenant between the original settlers and the gods. In most cases, these covenants contain dos and don'ts for the land. In the process rules, laws and moral regulations were invented for the guidance of the society.
The picture one gets concerning the relation between law and morals consist in the view that, in traditional Yoruba society, laws and morals are closely and necessarily related. This is so because in Yoruba thought system, as exemplified in the importance of the Ogboni cult, laws are expected to and must conform to the demands of the gods. Whatever positive laws or actions are put forth by the sovereign, i.e. the Oba, the Ogboni cult, as custodians of the divine oracle and laws, ensure that the sovereign does not exceed its authority. The seriousness of this conceptual connection between legal rules in terms of positive laws and moral rules in Yoruba worldview is often projected and demonstrated by recourse to the practice of what is called 'the opening of the white calabash with egg'. Daramola and Jeje described this practice thus:
In the olden days, when a particular community wants to demonstrate the masculinity or masculine prowess of its monarch, the council of elders gathers together to prepare 'the egg' in a white calabash for the monarch. Once the monarch succeeds in opening the calabash and actually sees the egg in this white calabash, the end is a 'glorious' exit from earth (Daramola and Jeje 1970: 160).6
The basis for this practice consists in what Daramola and Jeje describes as a conflict between personal sovereign pride as exhibited in his actions, laws and reign and communal expectation and tradition. In the traditional sense, law and morality are not differentiated especially as means of social and communal control. This is because they (the laws and moral injunctions) not only reflect and embody the traditions of the people, but also in the sense that they have over the years come to represent a vital, moving force or aspect of traditional culture. In this traditional culture, it is unlikely that what is forbidden by the moral life of the community will be found enjoined expressly in their laws. The impossibility of the converse also stands. In this kind of traditional society, laws and morals bear the essential character of taboos and therefore have the same source: the gods of the land.
In fact, conformity to established tradition7 best describes the basis for which the practice of opening of white calabash is done. As conceived so far, Hart's sepaAmwility thesis that "it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain demands of morality, though in fact they have often done so" does not hold in this kind of traditional jurisprudence. In fact, the structure of traditional jurisprudence as conceived among the Yoruba so far posits the view that it is a necessary truth that law and morality must necessarily coincide. The necessity is borne out of the fact that, among Yoruba people, whether in traditional or modern times, the concept of Iwa is so paramount.
The most important pursuit and standard way of life consist in the concept of Iwa. Among the Yoruba, Iwa ordinarily means character, but in a deeper sense, without the qualifier, good Iwa, an average Yoruba man or woman has the understanding of the concept of Iwa. As the most important pursuit, embedded in the concept of Iwa is the idea of a good moral standing in the society. This is reflected not only in interpersonal relations but also in public and communal life. The concept of Iwa is a standard or aspiration in-built into the framework of societal institutions. In other words, Iwa must be reflected in the laws of the society, the collective aspirations of the societal norms and regulations. It appears very strong a view that in Yoruba land, the basic standard for which every attempt at and enterprise of communal and collective is to be evaluated and judged consist in the approximation and reflection of the concept of Iwa. This is true in marriage, dressing, in communal service, kingship matters and legislation, religious worship and family affairs. The necessity of the concept of Iwa in these various strands of communal life explains a lot about the incessant warfare between the council of chiefs and elders and the Alaafin, the Oba in the then old Oyo Empire.
The main goal of the Ogboni institution, looked at from these judicial and legal perspectives, is the promotion of law and order in the community according to the laws of the gods. The awareness is created that sin, that is, an offence against the norms of the society is punishable. There are sanctions against offenders. Acts of sacrifice and rites of purification only remedy serious crimes against the norms of the gods. Therefore, in order to maintain harmony with oneself, the community and the environment of which one is actively engaged in interaction, one is expected to adhere strictly to the norms, rules and customs of the land, as enunciated by the elders, that is, the Ogboni cult who are seen as the custodians of the cultural tenets of the people. This belief is premised on the ideal understanding that when one member sins against the gods, the consequences do not stop with him alone but also to the family and the immediate community.
Admittedly, in this traditional legal structure, laws and morals have the same source: from the gods, the orisa. It is this that the Ogboni cult strictly enforces. In union with the gods, the Ogboni cult ensures that moral injunctions and laws of the gods are observed while strict punishment is brought to bear on the person who violates the rules and regulations (custom) of the people. In the functional sense, therefore, the Ogboni cult is seen as an integrative force in Yoruba land since it is the champion of human law and morality emanating from the gods. It is in this sense that Morton-Williams contended that the Ogboni cult sees the source of the moral law as emanating from the Earth and the ancestors.9 It is in this vein that William Bascom (1969: 92) sees the Ogboni as an Earth God while Daryll Forde (1951: 18) on his part classifies the earth as the orisa of the Ogboni.
the Igbo's reverence for "Ala" law and order was guaranteed in traditional Igbo society, and legal sanctions were imposed on the people from the world of the Sacred".
Interestingly, the idea of sanctions does help in differentiating morals from laws simply because in traditional Yoruba land, punishment and sanctions are the sole prerogatives of the gods. If any one goes contrary to the legal and moral prescription of the land, it is not too necessary that he or she be caught. Every member of the community is aware of the grave danger inherent in breaking the laws and rules of the gods. The gods visit such offender in the relevant way.10 This also explains why, in Yoruba land, the Ogboni group is regarded as an esoteric group because of the extra human powers at their disposal to visit punishment and sanctions on erring members even if they are not caught breaking the rules or laws of the land.
The philosophical vision or conception of the relation between law and morality that emerges out of the jurisprudence of the Ogboni among the Yoruba people can be conveniently sketched in the Ogboni idea of the relation between Heaven and Earth. While it appears that Heaven and Earth are opposites, in actual fact, according to Ogboni cult, they co-operate together in harmony. This harmonious interaction is often projected by the Ogboni's image called edon. The edon consist of two brass or bronze figures, one male and the other female. This image is seen as a harmonious union between man and woman. Being different sexes, they are dissimilar, but necessarily bound to each other, chained and dependant (Hallgren 1988: 56).
Interpretatively, this image represents the harmonious relation between Heaven and Earth where the king represents the earth and impliedly, the law while the Ogboni represents the Heaven and impliedly, morals. Morals do not change just as the Heavens do not change speaking of the character of the deities and the Almighty God while law will have to change reflecting its conformity with the Heavens, i.e. morals. In this kind of philosophical vision, "power is divided between the king who represents the earth and its laws and the Ogboni representing Heaven" (Hallgren 1988: 66) and its morals that laws will have to conform to. On the whole, co-operation between law and morals is needed, just as co-operation is needed between Heaven and Earth, and between a man and a woman, to ensure justice, social continuity and harmony.
 
4. CONCLUSION
Even though the Ogboni institution is still practised in these modern times, it is no doubt true that its overall importance as it existed in the traditional Yoruba legal structure has diminished significantly. A relative corroboration of this can be discerned in the fact that many of the laws in operation and enforcement today in Yoruba land have all been taken over by the presence of the modern state. Again, a major clue to its diminished influence consist in the fact that many of the laws that the Ogboni institution protected and tried to enforce as the custodians of the divine oracles are branded as customary laws in the present dispensation and many of such laws are branded as repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience.
More importantly, the status, position, authority and power of the Ogboni and its place in the structure of traditional Yoruba jurisprudence is and has undergone rapid change, in part due to foreign cultural influences, introduction of cash economies, modern technology, industrialisation and the changing patterns of population consequent upon rural-urban migration.
In conclusion, whatever way in which it is conceived, the argument and the analyses so far have been highlighted to prove the point that before the advent of colonial rule, traditional Yoruba society had its own system of laws and the procedures for their administration. That a system of laws and their administration in totality was not as sophisticated as the structure in western countries is not a basis for the denial of the legal characteristic which the dwellers of such societies believe them to possess. For, there is a world of truth in the statement that, no matter how simple looking a belief system or culture is, from which their laws, taboos and customs originate, the fact of their survival as a people, with a distinct sense of culture, is enough evidence of their ability to engage in critical examination of their own beliefs and significantly, of the worth of their laws in guiding and regulating their destinies.

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