ABSTRACT
This chapter narrates the consolidation of the monarchy by focusing on the strategies as well as the tensions and contradictions by which centralization became formalized in Abeokuta. The immediate implication of the Ifole, the expulsion of Europeans and some of their congregants, was the loss of whatever power and influence the monarchy was garnering. The process by which Abeokuta became a monarchy and the peculiarities of its political system can be found in the ways elite actors legitimized the system and made it an Egba institution by locating it in Egba traditions. The Egba United Government (EUG) is usually reported as a British creation. The EUG was a triumph for the educated elite, their inroad and a stamp of their incorporation into local political systems. The educated elites in Abeokuta, Lagos and beyond became harbingers of the claims, through the books and newspapers they published, in their social clubs and in public statements.
