ABSTRACT

A short cut to making money is through stealing. The Yoruba have always witnessed cases of theft, leading to rampant rate of armed robbery, since the 1970s. The abundant data and archival resources on crime in southwestern Nigeria 1 have hardly been used, not even for straightforward administrative history, not to mention the more complicated social issues. In an elite conception of history like the one that has dominated Yoruba studies, an investigation into crime is relegated to the background except in cases when the elite intervened to restore order, as in the judiciary or the police which have received significant scholarly attention. Crime should, however, be understood because it is partly a reaction and a response to the state, the economy, and the law. Either for protest or any other motive, crime enables a better understanding of social order, the nature of conflicts, and the norms of legal and cultural behavior. An understanding of crime enriches popular history, one in which the elite enters the picture from the perspective of the masses.