The role of the elite has always been central in Yoruba society. In traditional Yoruba conception and in the actual practices of the total organization of Yoruba society, the elite, known as borokini, are seen as the legitimate leading actors in society, known as awujo, particularly the political society, often captured as ilu. They are the ones whose activities and precepts largely set the tone and tenor of the politics of the society representing "the most deeply embedded continuities of social life". In contemporary times, the Yoruba elites have re-appropriated and reproduced the traditional saliency of their role in Yoruba society and projected it, against the backdrop of the political history of Nigeria, to the national space in re-articulating the "Yoruba agenda" in national politics, defending this agenda and contending with the power elites of the other ethnic nationalities. The dominant section of this particular power elite was denied access to the highest office for much of Nigeria's post-independence history, encouraging the structuring of its political sensibilities in certain directions. However, the emergence of President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, as president in the Fourth Republic changed the political parameters of the structuring of this sensibilities and pushed the Yoruba power elite into unusual and often uncomfortable terrains in which the assumed solidity of their agency has been challenged by emergent realities. What are the core elements of the emergent reality of Yoruba politics as structured by the power elite? What implications does this have for the position of the Yoruba in national politics? What are the consequences of the social reproduction of this logic of awujo for the future of Nigeria?