The
documentation of the history of Ife-Olukotun is long overdue.
There is no doubt
that oral tradition will become skewed along the line if left undocumented for
too long.
The idea of
writing this book began in 1978 when the Ilorin Branch of the “ife-olukotun
Descendants’ Union” commissioned the late chief S. Ola Alimi and Chief J.I.
Ipinyemi to research into the history of Ife-olukotun and document such
findings for future guidance. This was a result of conflicting stories among
members especially on chieftaincy matters and generally on oral tradition. For
a long period after the early 1980s, there was not much zeal to carry on with
the research.
However, I was encouraged to resume work on the book in 2005
after I had read some inaccurate information about Ife-olukotun in the book
titled “a History of the yagba people” by E.B Iyekolo.
It is not an
easy task to elicit facts from people. It demands long patience and diligence
to ascert8ain facts devoid of and partisanship, hence the long delay in
publishing this book. Even now there are still some areas to be uncovered. It
is not helpful to the course of history to guess or place assumptions on such
issues.
They are better left as subjects of further research in future.
However, all that have been written in this
book were based on verifiable facts and established oral history rather than
fabrications to suit dreams.