Research Article
A Review of Colonial Errors in Boundary Delineation and Impact on Medical Care Among the Okun-Yoruba People; 1892-1947
Aiyemowa Bamidele*
Issue:
Volume 2, Issue 5, October 2026
Pages:
132-139
Received:
28 July 2026
Accepted:
10 August 2026
Published:
12 November 2026
Abstract: This study examines how errors in colonial boundary demarcation between 1892-1947 disrupted the continuity of the cultural idea of medical care, broke the monopoly of traditional medical care but created new challenges of health infrastructural inequalities and services among the Okun-Yoruba People. Drawing on archival records from the national archives Ibadan, Kaduna and other secondary sources. Findings from the sources distilled discovered that mere lines drawn by colonial cartographers and surveyors, depleted social communal relations of the Okun-Yoruba and split their communities without consideration to ethnographic realities and ancestral healthcare networks. Despite this errors, this mere numbers and lines was backed with meaning and authority for arbitrary boundary creation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates of British colonial Nigeria. d. Colonial health failed in Okunland because propaganda was not in Yoruba. A 1947 correspondence between the Kabba Resident and the Secretary, Northern Provinces shows that 10,000 pamphlets were budgeted only in Hausa and English, with no Yoruba version. This linguistic exclusion meant monolingual Yoruba speakers could not access the information. Correcting the colonial error requires more than redrawing maps; it requires redrawing health policy, language policy, and funding formulas to align administration with culture, so that the Okun-Yoruba are no longer administratively Northern but medically isolate
Abstract: This study examines how errors in colonial boundary demarcation between 1892-1947 disrupted the continuity of the cultural idea of medical care, broke the monopoly of traditional medical care but created new challenges of health infrastructural inequalities and services among the Okun-Yoruba People. Drawing on archival records from the national arc...
Show More
