摘要：This paper challenges the idea that pre-colonial Egba society was hierarchical, immutable and stable by pointing to the struggles and contestations among elite identities over power. It challenges the myths of royal absolutism and underscores the fact that power was fluid with elite structures challenging and complementing one another. That power was fluid accounts for the relative ease with which educated Africans found space to carve an ambiguous elite identity and to participate in power. The paper concludes that such complex engagements among elites better explain the political history of Abeokuta than a transition model which sees the modern displacing the traditional
