Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

[Windows Live 2018]

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

HRH OAA.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

Biko

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[Biko Agozino]

OAA

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

Biko

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[Windows Live 2018]

Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbk position )on .monarchies.) Alas if is still with us.  So.e have put in reforms.  Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom .We can speak of as having g their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render. The institution will surely outlast you and I

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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OAA

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[Windows Live 2018]

EDITED

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

[Biko Agozino]

OAA

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

Biko

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On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[Windows Live 2018]

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

[Biko Agozino]

Windows

Baba Soyinka was not just expressing a view from the Igbo neck of the igbo or woods. It is neither an American nor an Igbo worldview that human life is a fundamental human right. Cultural relativism does not apply here. Soyinka used the play to rebuke educated Yoruba elites like you to stop calling Elesin a traitor for refusing to kill himself in honor of a dead king. The Yoruba were not always monarchical and the Elesin was not always expected to commit suicide in Yoruba folklore. If you have a problem with the play, take it up with the bard but do not blame anything on the Igbo. 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Fri, Jun 1, 2018 at 8:40 AM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[Ibrahim Abdullah]

Oguntumisin—the late Ibadan scholar gave us a typology of political systems in so-called Yoruba land. 

Sent from my iPhone

On 1 Jun 2018, at 14:27, Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdu...@gmail.com> wrote:

The Yoruba’s were not always monarchical?

Biko: There were different types of political arrangements in pre-capitalist South-West( I use South-West deliberately because the notion of Yoruba was a twentieth century invention). From the mini to mega states to paraphrase Ade Obeyemi; and much more complex than that if you use the Ibadan formulation. 

No group of people can claim a particular form of political arrangement; the so-called village republicanism of the Igbo is a myth invented by Afigbo. There was no single political arrangement in what us today called Igboland. Political arrangements are a reflection of the development of productive forces. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Ibrahim Abdullah]

The Yoruba’s were not always monarchical?

Biko: There were different types of political arrangements in pre-capitalist South-West( I use South-West deliberately because the notion of Yoruba was a twentieth century invention). From the mini to mega states to paraphrase Ade Obeyemi; and much more complex than that if you use the Ibadan formulation. 

No group of people can claim a particular form of political arrangement; the so-called village republicanism of the Igbo is a myth invented by Afigbo. There was no single political arrangement in what us today called Igboland. Political arrangements are a reflection of the development of productive forces. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Okechukwu Ukaga]

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

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OAA

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

HRH OAA.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

Biko

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[Biko Agozino]

Ibrahim

Afigbo did not invent the Warrant Chiefs in Igboland, he only studied the successful war that Igbo and Ibibio women waged against that imposition. As a matter of fact, Afigbo wrote that Nationalist Historiography fell into the trap of trying to prove to Europeans that we also had kings and queens and so we must be equally civilized. Such mythology misleads young historians who should be concentrating on things like the history of textile arts that has nothing to do with monarchies, for instance. See his collected works on Myth, History & Society edited by Falola.

You may be right that parts of Igboland were going through state formation. The word, Eze, is an Igbo word for king but the common usage is Ohaneze or that the Community is King for the Igbo proudly proclaim that they know no king. Uchendu also theorized that the institution of the monarchy was an intrusive trait in parts of Igboland and Nzimiro studied such Igbo kingdoms to see why the peasants support them.

Of course, the Yoruba were not always monarchical. Their origin stories never said anything about Oduduwa being an Oba from the start. There is no society that was always monrachical. Engels theorized The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State with the thesis that communalism was a more common origin before the invented traditions of slavery and feudalism. Rodney added that Africa did not rely on slavery as a mode of production and that despite different levels of monarchical state formation, large parts of Africa continued practicing direct democracy contrary to the assumption among many in the African Diaspora that they descended from royalty as they compete to see who would be crowned the king of reggae, calypso monarch, king of pop or beauty queen.

Evolution is not a straightforward social Darwinisn since a new social formation may be retrogressive while an earlier form like democracy may be the future. Soyinka said so in his Nyerere lecture and indicated that this is why he admired the Igbo and the Kikuyu because their tendency towards democracy will be a better model for Africa than monarchism and militarism. If you disagree with him, ask him to explain why he admires the Igbo and he will tell you that it does not mean that Igbo culture is perfect. No culture is perfect because culture is always a struggle between those who dominate and those who resist domination.

Finally, this thread is about the pseudo tradition of fighting to the death to determine the Black Panther of Wakanda. I dismissed that as what Soyinka called neo-Tarzanism but highly educated people started citing Death and the King's Horseman as evidence that Soyinka loved African despots. I disagreed and offered the original interpretation that Soyinka used the play to oppose monarchism and any tradition that prescribed suicide as the only way to honor a dead king. Having just emerged from solitary confinement for opposing the genocidal war against the Igbo that was led by genocidist intellectuals, Soyinka used the play to ask what is wrong with the Yoruba mind to make highly educated men and women to act as the cheer leaders of ritual suicide in the modern world? Soyinka spared the life of Elesin in defiance. 

If you disagree with this and want to volunteer to commit suicide just like the highly educated son of Elesin, Soyinka is reminding us that suicide is a crime and that police officers will be justified to arrest you and place you in protective custody. 

Achebe agreed that suicide is an abomination among the Igbo and Okonkwo was told off for killing a child that called him Papa just because an Oracle asked him to do so. When Okonkwo committed suicide, he was buried like a dog. Do you think that suicide bombers should be glorified as heroes?

Biko

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[Toyin Falola]

On suicide: many precolonial formations had a concept of aristocratic suicide. In my city, there were many cases in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Windows Live 2018]

Than you for this additional information

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>

Date: 01/06/2018 17:53 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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On suicide: many precolonial formations had a concept of aristocratic suicide. In my city, there were many cases in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, June 1, 2018 at 11:12 AM

 

Sent from my iPhone

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Windows Live 2018]

I do not blame the Igbo for there is no Igbo essentialism here. After all  the Igbo have Obi of Onitsha supporting the overwhelming groundswell of monarchism in Nigeria. I blame your reading.  Yes Baba Soyinka promotes the sanctity of life but he also cherishes respect for cultural integrity and loathes traitors.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 15:27 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Windows

Baba Soyinka was not just expressing a view from the Igbo neck of the igbo or woods. It is neither an American nor an Igbo worldview that human life is a fundamental human right. Cultural relativism does not apply here. Soyinka used the play to rebuke educated Yoruba elites like you to stop calling Elesin a traitor for refusing to kill himself in honor of a dead king. The Yoruba were not always monarchical and the Elesin was not always expected to commit suicide in Yoruba folklore. If you have a problem with the play, take it up with the bard but do not blame anything on the Igbo. 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Fri, Jun 1, 2018 at 8:40 AM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[Windows Live 2018]

EDITED

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 14:03 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I ñ mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructing Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies iare NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you call 'force' is the demand of tested tradition subscribed to by Eleshin bimself only to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West  the Obi of Onitsha and the Amanayabo of South South (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

[Rex Marinus]

Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

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Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
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[Windows Live 2018]

Okechukwu,

Thank you for this critical overview of the Igbo nation.

IOAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>

Date: 01/06/2018 17:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

OAA

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

HRH OAA.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Toyin Falola]

Obi:

In different parts of the world, people recognize a distinction between academic and public discourse. For instance, scholars will say 13 million Africans were funneled into slavery, but the public—as in the Nation of Islam-- will say 100 million. The academic side never argues with such claims but it moves on.

In Nigeria, the boundary between the public and the academic is blurred. While eating pepper soup, a Nigerian professor can make a view that is not different from that of the “public.” Consequently, it is very hard to engage in debates that require specific historical contextualization.

The widespread claim that the Igbo had many kings is tied with the nature of political competition in “federal Nigeria” with all its complications. It used to be that non-centralized societies were celebrated for their egalitarianism, similar to early democracies in ancient history, but not anymore, as we now patriarchalize societies and focus on the “big men”.

Today, you see crowns, made of Chinese beads, on so many heads. My city prided itself for doing away with monarchy—it became a republic, building a large empire. In the 1880s, it was able to mobilize a volunteer army of over 50,000 fighting on 5 different fronts. Fast forward, it now has a king with a beaded crown. And a reckless governor now created a king and crown for lineages and segments of the city. I cannot wait for my turn to become the OniUI of UI, wearing my crown!!!

TF

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, June 1, 2018 at 1:04 PM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

[Windows Live 2018]

Obi

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

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[Windows Live 2018]

Because of the temporal contiguiyy of Death and the Kings Horseman to the incarceration of the playwright and the Civil War does not mean the play is about these events.  If you want to consider the authors play that stemmed from his incarceration and the Civil War that play is Madmen and Specialists (which I consider his greatest dramatic masterpiece).

You are right in drawing attention back to the Black Panther origins of the thread.  That portrayal is fallacious of the workings of the African monarchical  system and is a reflection of the grafting of American presidential primaries race  on to an inappropriate locale.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 17:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Ibrahim

Afigbo did not invent the Warrant Chiefs in Igboland, he only studied the successful war that Igbo and Ibibio women waged against that imposition. As a matter of fact, Afigbo wrote that Nationalist Historiography fell into the trap of trying to prove to Europeans that we also had kings and queens and so we must be equally civilized. Such mythology misleads young historians who should be concentrating on things like the history of textile arts that has nothing to do with monarchies, for instance. See his collected works on Myth, History & Society edited by Falola.

You may be right that parts of Igboland were going through state formation. The word, Eze, is an Igbo word for king but the common usage is Ohaneze or that the Community is King for the Igbo proudly proclaim that they know no king. Uchendu also theorized that the institution of the monarchy was an intrusive trait in parts of Igboland and Nzimiro studied such Igbo kingdoms to see why the peasants support them.

Of course, the Yoruba were not always monarchical. Their origin stories never said anything about Oduduwa being an Oba from the start. There is no society that was always monrachical. Engels theorized The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State with the thesis that communalism was a more common origin before the invented traditions of slavery and feudalism. Rodney added that Africa did not rely on slavery as a mode of production and that despite different levels of monarchical state formation, large parts of Africa continued practicing direct democracy contrary to the assumption among many in the African Diaspora that they descended from royalty as they compete to see who would be crowned the king of reggae, calypso monarch, king of pop or beauty queen.

Evolution is not a straightforward social Darwinisn since a new social formation may be retrogressive while an earlier form like democracy may be the future. Soyinka said so in his Nyerere lecture and indicated that this is why he admired the Igbo and the Kikuyu because their tendency towards democracy will be a better model for Africa than monarchism and militarism. If you disagree with him, ask him to explain why he admires the Igbo and he will tell you that it does not mean that Igbo culture is perfect. No culture is perfect because culture is always a struggle between those who dominate and those who resist domination.

Finally, this thread is about the pseudo tradition of fighting to the death to determine the Black Panther of Wakanda. I dismissed that as what Soyinka called neo-Tarzanism but highly educated people started citing Death and the King's Horseman as evidence that Soyinka loved African despots. I disagreed and offered the original interpretation that Soyinka used the play to oppose monarchism and any tradition that prescribed suicide as the only way to honor a dead king. Having just emerged from solitary confinement for opposing the genocidal war against the Igbo that was led by genocidist intellectuals, Soyinka used the play to ask what is wrong with the Yoruba mind to make highly educated men and women to act as the cheer leaders of ritual suicide in the modern world? Soyinka spared the life of Elesin in defiance. 

If you disagree with this and want to volunteer to commit suicide just like the highly educated son of Elesin, Soyinka is reminding us that suicide is a crime and that police officers will be justified to arrest you and place you in protective custody. 

Achebe agreed that suicide is an abomination among the Igbo and Okonkwo was told off for killing a child that called him Papa just because an Oracle asked him to do so. When Okonkwo committed suicide, he was buried like a dog. Do you think that suicide bombers should be glorified as heroes?

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Fri, Jun 1, 2018 at 10:48 AM, Ibrahim Abdullah

<ibdu...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Rex Marinus]

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM

[Rex Marinus]

TF, perhaps the "democratization" of monarchies is by itself an irreversible process by which, one day, every compound will have its own "monarch," as it in fact used to be in Igbo land, called "Di Opara/Di Okpala/Di Okpa." The many "ancient kingdoms" in Igbo land today are responding to the impulse of democracy, mark my word. From a central authority, all men shall seek their own "autonomous communities." Until we arrive at the true autonomy of the self. This is what is happening in Republican Ibadan. One day, the descendants of that Igbo man, Lagelu, will make each of the compounds in Ibadan, a seat of a monarchy to challenge the British created Olubadan:-) Mark my words, Prof.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:15 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

[Toyin Falola]

Who is the Igboman called Lagelu? It is when you make a statement like this that undercuts your good arguments and reasonable people get turned off.

Ibadan was founded in the 1820s, following the fall of Oyo Empire. It does not fall into a mythological time period as in the older places.

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

[Rex Marinus]

I meant to say that what Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu is the idea of "Ezebuiro" - his discourse of the antinomy of kingdoms among the Igbo. Ezeulu's status is not of kings. He is not a priest-king. He is a "highpriest" doing the bidding of the gods on behalf of the people. But the people made the gods, and a god, and the people must be one. The Igbo say, if a god becomes too arrogant and impulsive, we show it the tree from which it was carved. Period. It is the theory of power. Ezeulu did not fully understand this, thus his tragedy.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Rex Marinus]

I'm attempting forensic historiography, Prof, to make some assumptions:) I am studying the story of Lagelu, and there are some very startling correspondences. When I finish, I shall pass it on to you. Promise.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:22 PM
To: Rex Marinus; usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[Kenneth Harrow]

Obi, I wonder if we are locking ourselves too tightly into an English vocabulary in describing igbo institutions? King seems quite differen from oba, say; priest is not really the same. Words like these don’t translate very accurately, so why not simply use the igbo ones?

 

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday 1 June 2018 at 19:25
To: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>, usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

I meant to say that what Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu is the idea of "Ezebuiro" - his discourse of the antinomy of kingdoms among the Igbo. Ezeulu's status is not of kings. He is not a priest-king. He is a "highpriest" doing the bidding of the gods on behalf of the people. But the people made the gods, and a god, and the people must be one. The Igbo say, if a god becomes too arrogant and impulsive, we show it the tree from which it was carved. Period. It is the theory of power. Ezeulu did not fully understand this, thus his tragedy.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM

To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OU

 

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Toyin Falola]

Sure...

But it is even far more complicated as words travel, even within the same culture group, to acquire different meanings over time. The Bible, for instance, has changed the meanings of many words wherever it is introduced to. In incantations, for instance, we generally do not know what many words mean, as in speaking in tongues in Pentecostal churches.

TF

Sent from my iPhone

[Michael Afolayan]

"Obi, I wonder if we are locking ourselves too tightly into an English vocabulary in describing igbo institutions? King seems quite different from oba, say; priest is not really the same. Words like these don’t translate very accurately, so why not simply use the igbo ones?" Ken H

Totally in agreement with Ken here. I cringe each time I see many of a folk translate the Yoruba monarch, the Oba, as "king" as well. There are a million and one of such untranslatable concepts. We need a metalingual conference on African concepts to sort these out. Wouldn't you say?

Just thinking loud . . .

Michael

On Friday, June 1, 2018, 8:42:49 PM CDT, Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

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[Ibrahim Abdullah]

Afigbo’s chapter in Groundwork on Nigerian History talks about “village republics” in reference to pre-capitalist socio-economic formations in what came to be called Igbo land. Gloria’s dissertation in the 80s speaks to that reality. That is the invention am talking about: invoking communalism as democracy!

My principal concern is with the backward looping strategy: there were no Yorubas or Igbos in the nineteenth century. And what Achebe presents in Things Fall Apart is not Igbo or African society. What Achebe gave the world is communal society in a part of what came to be called Igboland. There has never been an African society at any point in time; there were always African societies. 

If we agree that communalism existed in almost every society in the world——we have to also agree that arrested development in Africa does not make such categories exceptional. Today black nationalists talk about Ubuntu referencing communalism as suis generis to Africa. What they forget to add is that not everywhere in Africa was communal when it came into contact with Europe.

Such pitfalls have to be avoided if we really want to come to terms with what is “Africa” and what is universal and peculiar to all human societies throughout history. Invented categories are as problematic as narratives they spew.

Sent from my iPhone

[Kenneth Harrow]

Good point. In any event, words acquire and retain meaning only in their context. The context of a word like king, or priest, seems overdetermined in English.

We code switch in Africa all the time, so oba can still be used, even if its meaning morphs with time, like all words

[Rex Marinus]

Ken, just thinking aloud, what is the German word for "King"? Better still, what is the Hebrew word for "king"? Or are you suggesting that the words "king" or "priest" cannot be used in this context, because those concepts do not exist in Igbo or Yoruba? The conceptual question of the monarchy does not resist description. In fact, the description is inherent in the meaning, and can very quickly and easily transcribed to effect semantic inclusivity in societies where they exist and function. We draw parallels every time to establish concurrence.  So that, if you know the language well enough, you would understand that the expression, "my lord," for instance, can very easily be understood as " Di m" in Igbo. That I think is how language works, and why translations are possible.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 2, 2018 2:00 AM
To: usaafricadialogue

[Toyin Falola]

Obi:

Too many wahala on words and the past, words and institutions.

1. The politics of approximations!

So, in Nigeria, it is now His Royal Highness, The Imperial Majesty of ====.  This is an approximation. Of course, you can look for words for them, but this tells us nothing if it is not grounded in the politics that made it up. What is imperial majesty and where does it come from? When does he become an emperor and does a city state become an empire? You can give me as many Igbo words as you want on imperial, majesty, highness, etc. but this tells me little to nothing until you add the politics that produced the titles.

2. Grandiosity in the age of Nollywood—they have created new forms and formats, and they now creep into the use of language. In Nollywood, Obi can now travel from New York to Kigali by invoking some Igbo words and chewing a piece of bitter nut. Repetitions now embed it in various conversations.
3. Abuse of words. All words can be abused, as you can twist them to serve any purpose or agenda. For instance, the Yoruba gave the name Atlanta to the American city in Georgia. In Yoruba, it means ata-la-nta! –we sell pepper.  And it is just for convenience that they change it to Atlanta! And you wrap a story around it. Such stories abound in so many land claims, mainly false and made up. Okokere, an edo name, can be converted to Yoruba to mean the one with the small penis! Other than in the zone where there is very limited Arabic sources, what we know of precolonial, to a large degree, is mainly on the 19^th century. Archaeologists will have to assist us. We know about mythologies and why they are constructed. No problem. We can do extrapolations and conjectures, but they will lack integrity if there is no evidence. I can say that the Yoruba people founded the entire Igboland, and I can give you words to back it up. This is a piece of crap that should not even come out of my mouth when I am drunk. But all these silly craps are now all over the country.
4. Magical realism—the Internet in various forms is now producing all sorts of histories, making things up. What I plead is that they should use their talents for fiction. In fiction, the entire Africa belongs to the Falola family, as one Fa, who appeared from Fa la la, produced 54 giants, each planted as a King Lo in every land! Fiction is fine. Fake history is very dangerous.
5. Faith—I have no problem with it if anyone presents the Book of Genesis to me, and God rested on the Sabbath day. Faith is important. No problem.

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

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OU

OU

 

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Rex Marinus]

Prof, there is a place in Ibadan, as you know, called "Ekotedo" - very old quarters, I think of the Idu in Ibadan. One can make a few extrapolations, starting with the name. Certainly, archeology would seek to either support or dismantle any presumptions, myths, or speculations built over time on the exact origin of that place in Ibadan, using more material evidence. I do not suggest that names/language alone should reflect the facts, I think we can use them to raise questions, and follow footprints, which is what archeology does best.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Saturday, June 2, 2018 1:09 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

[Chielozona Eze]

Obi,

Good to think aloud, and in so doing also laugh aloud. I think that some translations end up bungling the original meaning of some words which are better left untranslated, because they are, well, untranslatable. They may be untranslatable because there is no equivalence in the language that seeks to appropriate it.

If, “My Lord,” translates as “Di m” in Igbo, meaning “my husband,” how would you expect a man to use that expression in Igboland? Wouldn’t my village people disown me if I start calling a man “Di m?”

Chielo

 

Chielozona Eze
Professor, Africana Literature and Cultural Studies, Northeastern Illinois University
Fellow - Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa
https://neiu.academia.edu/ChielozonaEze

www.Chielozona.com

On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 7:32 AM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Ken, just thinking aloud, what is the German word for "King"? Better still, what is the Hebrew word for "king"? Or are you suggesting that the words "king" or "priest" cannot be used in this context, because those concepts do not exist in Igbo or Yoruba? The conceptual question of the monarchy does not resist description. In fact, the description is inherent in the meaning, and can very quickly and easily transcribed to effect semantic inclusivity in societies where they exist and function. We draw parallels every time to establish concurrence.  So that, if you know the language well enough, you would understand that the expression, "my lord," for instance, can very easily be understood as " Di m" in Igbo. That I think is how language works, and why translations are possible.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Rex Marinus]

Chielozona, the word "Di" does not mean, "husband" alone in Igbo. But if I were to follow your advise, I might just as well say, the word, "husband" is reductive, and cannot fully translate itself into any Igbo ideas, for instance. After all, no Igbo can call himself the "husband" of an "animal" as in "Animal husbandry." But we can of course have something like, "okpa okuko." All we can do is find correspondence. Besides, the word "Di" refers to, something close to "mastery" - "Di nta" - master hunter, " Di oti" - master vintner, " Di mgba" master wrestler, etc. You get the drift.

Obi Nwakanma

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[Salimonu Kadiri]

Okechukwu Ukaga,

As the end of the first half of the 21st century is fast approaching, I do not fancy debating appropriateness of nursing and nourishing Kings (Oba, Eze, Emirs/Sultan, etc.) in a Federal Republic of Nigeria with a President, when Nigeria is not a Royal or Federal Kingdoms headed by a King or a Queen. Traditional rulers, in whatever name we choose to identify them in Nigeria, lost their rights as defenders and protectors of their communities when they started raiding neighbouring communities and capturing their fellow black people as slaves to Europeans in exchange for pittance. When slavery was transformed into colonialism by European powers, African monarchs were instrumental to the partition of Africa and its conversion to European possessions. Nigeria became the property of Britain through the aid and collaboration of our traditional rulers. Those who refused to surrender the sovereignty of their territories were either forcibly removed and banished, as exemplified by King Kosoko of Lagos and King Ovonramwen of Benin, or killed as in the case of Sultan of Sokoto, Mohammed Attahiru 1, who was replaced by the British with his more complaisant cousin, Mohammed Attahiru II.

The British colonialist never recognised traditional rulers in Nigeria as Kings but as chiefs. Therefore, they created House of Chiefs in each region along with elected members of regional House of Assembly and a government led by a Premier. Constitutionally, the Oba, as traditional rulers are called in the Western part of Nigeria, exist at the mercy of the regional government which, at will can remove any Oba. Practically and symbolically, I think Nigeria's traditional rulers have outlived their usefulness starting from the formal slave trade era to the current indirect enslavement of Nigeria. No Nigerian should be proud of any Oba, Emir, Sultan, Eze etc., that accepted to be a subject under a foreign king which despitefully called them traditional chiefs. However, while narrating the true history of Nigeria, we should bear in mind that the British colonialist met each of the present day ethnic group in Nigeria at various level of human developments. Igbo enwe Eze, is an adage  coined by the Igbo themselves. Therefore, you appear to be inventing history when you wrote, "There are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo." To begin with, there was no tribe known as Igbo in Nigeria until after the end of the civil war in 1970. The majority tribe that constituted Biafra, before and at the end of the war, was world-wide known as Ibo. In his HOME & EXILE, published in year 2000, Chinua Achebe wrote, "In all probability, they (the Igbo)* would not wish to, and made no secret of their disinclination, in the expression, EZEBUILO, meaning a King is an enemy (p.16)." *(my emphasis). Further in his swan-song, THERE WAS A COUNTRY, Published in year 2012, Chinua Achebe wrote, "The Igbo people expressed a strong  antimonarchy sentiment - Ezebuilo - which literally means, a king is an enemy. Their culture illustrates a clear-cut opposition to kings. …. So the Igbo created all kinds of titles that cost much to acquire … (p.246)." Lack of the institution of Monarchies in what was originally known as EBOE-LAND and later as IBO-LAND and after the civil war, that ended on 15 January 1970, as IGBO-LAND was confirmed by Professor Chidi Osuagwu in the online Nigerian Vanguard, of September 2013 thus : The Igbo identity crisis began in 1929. The British had just introduced the warrant chief system to enhance their colonial administration in Eastern Nigeria. In the North and West, the monarchs made the system work. But the East had no monarchy with such overwhelming powers as in the other two (North & West)*. They (the British),* therefore, created warrant chiefs for that purpose. This is the root of many traditional rulers and autonomous communities in Igboland, with their attendant boundary and chieftancy violence *(my emphasises). www.vanguardngr.com/2013/09/aba-women-riot-split-igboland/ 

The warrant chiefs created by the British colonialist in the then Iboland, now Igboland, was what metamorphosed into EZE. Take note that it is the same red cap which Lugard imported from Morocco to distinguish the warrant chiefs from ordinary Ibo that became a crown for an Eze. In Yorubaland, the word for crown is ADÉ and the word for a cap in Yoruba is FÌLÀ. Thanks to Lugard, a cap which anybody can wear is equal to a crown in Igboland. That is a true history Okechukwu Ukaga.

S. Kadiri    

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Ämne: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OU

OU

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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OAA

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

HRH OAA.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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[Kenneth Harrow]

Better still, how do you say king in latin, oh ruler

Konig.

King in Hebrew is malek and angel is almost exactly the same, malak.

Anyway, it isn’t the “concept” where the meaning resides, I believe, but the context. And king is used in somewhat different contexts, I would guess, in all cultures.

You are right, we can translate.

However, I firmly believe all translations are approximative, never exact., never, because there are a host of contextual usages that develop over time in each language, and as I said, king in English has tons of connotations that are not in other languages. Culturally and specific usages that create nuanced differences in meaning. And as African societies are often quite different from European, the word for the ruler must be somewhat different in people’s minds as well.

I wonder what Farooq thinks of this issue

[Salimonu Kadiri]

It is amusing to read Obi Nwakanma's fable about 'Lagelu.' There are many things in past history of Nigeria that the current generation should be ashamed of, but that should not lead us to inventing history to white wash our dirty historical past. Obi Nwakanma may not like the history of the Igbo people as he grew up to meet and read it, but that does not license him to put a positive spin on the Igbo's primitive past history at the expense of other ethnic groups in Nigeria. For reasons best known to Obi Nwakanma, he is rewriting  our past history not as it really was, but as he wishes it to be. He wrote: The many "ancient kingdoms" in Igboland, today are responding to the impulse of democracy, mark my word. From a central authority, all men shall seek their own "autonomous communities." …//… This is what is happening in Republican Ibadan. One day, the descendants of that Igbo man, Lagelu, will make each of the compounds in Ibadan, a seat of a monarchy to challenge the British created Olubadan.  

This Obi Nwakanma who once stated on this forum that the Igbo had no Kings because they were not inclined to postrate and bow down before any human being as the Yoruba do, is now referring to ancient kingdoms in Igboland. Can Obi Nwakanma tell us the name of a place and a King that ruled in one of his ancient kingdoms in Igboland and during which period of years did he rule, mark you, just one? Monarchy as we have it in today's Federal Republic of Nigeria may seem ridiculous but, it is democratically allowed and controlled by the government. The autonomous communities which Obi Nwakanma wants to establish in Nigeria was what obtained in Igboland when the British arrived. That state of anarchy in Igboland where people lived in small hamlets and isolated from one another has wrongly been classified by the likes of Obi as Igbo preference for Republicanism. If Igbo are republicans, which year did they abolish monarchy, I mean the ancient kingdoms in Igboland? If, according to Obi, the British created Olubadan, how long had Ibadan existed, and how was it governed before the arrival of the British in Nigeria? Was the Igbo man, Lagelu, the republican ruler of Ibadan before the arrival of Britain? When was Olubadan created? I see something psychotic about the Lagelu's fable and I guess that in some years to come, Nigerians would be told by the likes of Obi Nwakanma that Adegoke Adelabu was an Igbo man and his real name was Adogwe Adonwu. 

S. Kadiri 

 

  

---

Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Skickat: den 2 juni 2018 01:22
Till: Rex Marinus; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

[Farooq A. Kperogi]

Ken,

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

More than five decades after independence, Anglophone Africans still call their traditional rulers "chiefs," especially in non-Muslim northern Nigeria, and address them as "His Royal Highness," as if they were British princes. In southern Nigeria "chief" has been reappropriated to approximate what the British call "knight," that is, someone, usually of no royal bloodline, who is honored with a title by the traditional ruler on account of some personal achievement.

Anyway, I don't see how "king" falls short of encapsulating the sociolinguistic properties of the Yoruba "oba." As far as I'm concerned, "king" is the proper lexical and semantic equivalent of "oba." But "chief" isn't. It's true that there are always problems of equivalence in interlingual translation, but this isn't one of them. The goal of all interlingual translation is to achieve what translation scholar Anton Popovic calls "expressive identity," and I think "king" achieves that in relation to "oba."

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperog

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

On Sat, Jun 2, 2018 at 2:56 PM, Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

Better still, how do you say king in latin, oh ruler

Konig.

King in Hebrew is malek and angel is almost exactly the same, malak.

Anyway, it isn’t the “concept” where the meaning resides, I believe, but the context. And king is used in somewhat different contexts, I would guess, in all cultures.

You are right, we can translate.

However, I firmly believe all translations are approximative, never exact., never, because there are a host of contextual usages that develop over time in each language, and as I said, king in English has tons of connotations that are not in other languages. Culturally and specific usages that create nuanced differences in meaning. And as African societies are often quite different from European, the word for the ruler must be somewhat different in people’s minds as well.

I wonder what Farooq thinks of this issue

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday 2 June 2018 at 08:32
To: ken harrow <har...@msu.edu>, usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken, just thinking aloud, what is the German word for "King"? Better still, what is the Hebrew word for "king"? Or are you suggesting that the words "king" or "priest" cannot be used in this context, because those concepts do not exist in Igbo or Yoruba? The conceptual question of the monarchy does not resist description. In fact, the description is inherent in the meaning, and can very quickly and easily transcribed to effect semantic inclusivity in societies where they exist and function. We draw parallels every time to establish concurrence.  So that, if you know the language well enough, you would understand that the expression, "my lord," for instance, can very easily be understood as " Di m" in Igbo. That I think is how language works, and why translations are possible.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Kenneth Harrow]

Thanks, Farooq. Great info. What about colloquial usage? In francophone Africa, calling someone “chef” would be like calling someone “boss” in the states (don’t know u.k. usage). Yes boss, slangily, for a friend, like oui chef. Boss—you the man, sort of thing. King never used that way.  But I’ve heard oga used like that all the time, like “chef” or “boss.” Or even “chief” is used here in the same way.

(I think I was getting oba and oga mixed up)

Then you have emir and fon….

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

 

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

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On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

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Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Kenneth Harrow]

Another thing that occurred to me is that the American use of “chief” must derive from native americans, and have no connection to African usage. If true, it would explain its use in the u.s. and Canada,  and not the u.k.

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

 

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Farooq A. Kperogi]

Well, "chief," "indigene," "tribe," etc. all fall under what I like to call vocabularies of racialist differentiation and condescension in English. Contemporary white people never have "chiefs" or "tribes"; only nonwhite people do. They are subtle but nonetheless discernible markers of notions of racial inferiority. 

I agree with you, though, that the words change meaning in colloquial contexts. Even "king" can meaning someone who is preeminent in any activity, as in "Michael Jackson the king of pop."

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperog

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Windows Live 2018]

Obi,

This is a very educative piece about Igbo culture.  I did not say Achebe equated Ezeulu to a king. I only drew attention to the fact that it is one of the strands in any society that could lead to monarchism.  In the Igbo example presented by Achebe (which I agree with the novelist is his greatest masterpiece) which may not be representative of all Igbo communities potential monarchism was roundly rejected.

I also quite admire your allusion to the Obatala/Oduduwa struggle.  In the prefatory essay to my translation of Moremi I came to a similar conclusion that rather than see Oduduwa as First Man (In the Biblical Adam sense) we must see him as the head of a band of warriors most likely from north east Ekiti country rather than Mecca or the Middle East ( by reason of etymological analysis) who conquered the original inhabitants of Ile Ife established the If a corpus they brought with them and syncretized it with the cult of the pre-existing Yoruba-wide earth Goddess Esu (similar to Christianity and the Trinity in the hands of Emperor Constantine and his following)

Yes theocracy may not be invariably be a prelude to monarchism as my citation of Achebe proves it may well be as the case of Yoruba and ancient Egyptian history demonstrate.  In the Igbo imagination monarchism is not consistent with the doctrine of the equality of men  ( In the United States a vagrant has the probability of becoming the American president as the elephant the capacity to fly ; ditto for first generation immigrant or a Yoruba resident in Anambra of becoming its governor- so much for equality in the Igbo imagination of your presentation!)

There is nothing in the history of republicanism from Rome to Washington that indicates  it is superior to Monarchism.  There were slaves in Rome and Greece as well as the United States until the 100 years struggle for emancipation in the latter.  The United Kingdom has demonstrated that the monarchy is not inconsistent with democratic values. 

 There are equally evils in non monarchical societies.  If rights are equal in republican societies there would not be presidential and governorship immunities.

[Toyin Falola]

OAA:

A small comment: with what fact and evidence can you say that someone is “the head of warriors most likely from north east Ekiti rather than Mecca or the Middle East”?

As I told Obi in a private mail, scholars and serious people, and I count you as one, do not dabble into fields so specialized, to make any comment. Only archaeologists can say this, after digging.

You cannot “think” about “proto history”. Nothing in your knowledge and brain, as well as in mine, can “think” like that. So, when Obi talks about an Igbo that is called Lagelu, this is not science, education, knowledge, fact or history, but share fiction that knowledgeable people should simply dismiss.

TF

 

 

Toyin Falola

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

[Windows Live 2018]

The Yoruba also have the view of Godhead which you cite of the Igbo. They say Orisa bo le gbemi semi bio se bami.  ( if you cannot support me as intended then I have no use for you.)This is  what led to the creation of more Orisa till they became Irunmole (irinwo imole) or four hundred deities and more.  The corollary you may ask is why did both societies bother to invent Gods all?

[Kenneth Harrow]

Right. Good example. Recently saw a movie about elvis, called “the king”

 

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 13:18
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Well, "chief," "indigene," "tribe," etc. all fall under what I like to call vocabularies of racialist differentiation and condescension in English. Contemporary white people never have "chiefs" or "tribes"; only nonwhite people do. They are subtle but nonetheless discernible markers of notions of racial inferiority. 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (yagb...@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafric...@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Windows Live 2018]

It is the transition from a high priest to a priest king that I alluded to and share your view of how that community resisted the transition.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 02/06/2018 00:26 (GMT+00:00)

[Windows Live 2018]

It really depends on which Eurooean community. The English will not what the movie and think that monarchies portend

evil and ask for the heads of their aristocracy on a platter.

[Windows Live 2018]

Obi

The British did not create the Olubadan.  Republicanism was not founded by the Igbo.  This is a myth you undercut by the admission that the Igbo may have had monarchs in the past.  Rome started out as a village community became a monarchy swore to abolish the monarchy improved on the Greek democracy to form a republic, slew Julius Caesar for attempting to bring back Monarchism but accepted his nephew as it's first emperor.

American vowed to establish a shining republic on the hill to rival Rome (replete with slave labour)...

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>

Date: 02/06/2018 00:26 (GMT+00:00)

To: rexma...@hotmail.com, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (toyin...@austin.utexas.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

Who is the Igboman called Lagelu? It is when you make a statement like this that undercuts your good arguments and reasonable people get turned off.

Ibadan was founded in the 1820s, following the fall of Oyo Empire. It does not fall into a mythological time period as in the older places.

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: Friday, June 1, 2018 at 6:19 PM

To: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>, dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

TF, perhaps the "democratization" of monarchies is by itself an irreversible process by which, one day, every compound will have its own "monarch," as it in fact used to be in Igbo land, called "Di Opara/Di Okpala/Di Okpa." The many "ancient kingdoms" in Igbo land today are responding to the impulse of democracy, mark my word. From a central authority, all men shall seek their own "autonomous communities." Until we arrive at the true autonomy of the self. This is what is happening in Republican Ibadan. One day, the descendants of that Igbo man, Lagelu, will make each of the compounds in Ibadan, a seat of a monarchy to challenge the British created Olubadan:-) Mark my words, Prof.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:15 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

Obi:

In different parts of the world, people recognize a distinction between academic and public discourse. For instance, scholars will say 13 million Africans were funneled into slavery, but the public—as in the Nation of Islam-- will say 100 million. The academic side never argues with such claims but it moves on.

In Nigeria, the boundary between the public and the academic is blurred. While eating pepper soup, a Nigerian professor can make a view that is not different from that of the “public.” Consequently, it is very hard to engage in debates that require specific historical contextualization.

The widespread claim that the Igbo had many kings is tied with the nature of political competition in “federal Nigeria” with all its complications. It used to be that non-centralized societies were celebrated for their egalitarianism, similar to early democracies in ancient history, but not anymore, as we now patriarchalize societies and focus on the “big men”.

Today, you see crowns, made of Chinese beads, on so many heads. My city prided itself for doing away with monarchy—it became a republic, building a large empire. In the 1880s, it was able to mobilize a volunteer army of over 50,000 fighting on 5 different fronts. Fast forward, it now has a king with a beaded crown. And a reckless governor now created a king and crown for lineages and segments of the city. I cannot wait for my turn to become the OniUI of UI, wearing my crown!!!

TF

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, June 1, 2018 at 1:04 PM

To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Dear Okey Ukaga,

OU

OU

 

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Kenneth Harrow]

Some of the English. A large number hate the heritage society thing, and the billions of dollars held by that rich family.

And they effectively got rid of monarchical rule starting way back with the magna carta

[Rex Marinus]

Yinka, I have right here before me two books, Ruth Watson's very detailed account, Civil Disorder is the Disease of Ibadan, and Post and Jenkin's The Price of Liberty from which I draw my conclusions about Ibadan chieftaincy affairs. I will need you to first disprove them, and then revert to me. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, June 3, 2018 5:46 PM

[Windows Live 2018]

Ken

 you are quite right.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

Date: 03/06/2018 18:17 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (har...@msu.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

Another thing that occurred to me is that the American use of “chief” must derive from native americans, and have no connection to African usage. If true, it would explain its use in the u.s. and Canada,  and not the u.k.

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

 

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Windows Live 2018]

There are no chiefs in the UK. It's boss like the US.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

Date: 03/06/2018 18:17 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (har...@msu.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

Thanks, Farooq. Great info. What about colloquial usage? In francophone Africa, calling someone “chef” would be like calling someone “boss” in the states (don’t know u.k. usage). Yes boss, slangily, for a friend, like oui chef. Boss—you the man, sort of thing. King never used that way.  But I’ve heard oga used like that all the time, like “chef” or “boss.” Or even “chief” is used here in the same way.

(I think I was getting oba and oga mixed up)

Then you have emir and fon….

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

 

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Windows Live 2018]

Obi.

I will pass you over to Prof. Falola. He is the expert on Ibadan. I defer to him. If he says you are right then you are right.

[Windows Live 2018]

Wonders will never end!

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 02/06/2018 00:41 (GMT+00:00)

To: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (rexma...@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

I'm attempting forensic historiography, Prof, to make some assumptions:) I am studying the story of Lagelu, and there are some very startling correspondences. When I finish, I shall pass it on to you. Promise.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:22 PM
To: Rex Marinus; usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Who is the Igboman called Lagelu? It is when you make a statement like this that undercuts your good arguments and reasonable people get turned off.

[Windows Live 2018]

I like your phrase " the democratisation of monarchies"  The Council of Oba must ensure it does not compromise integrity and probity in the time honoured tradition of Yoruba monarchs.  

IThe creation of  more Oba by the governor must have been done to have monarchs who can help galvanise grass root support for his party.  This is the politicisation of the impartial role of  the Oba in contemoirary politics.  Tony Blair tried the same trick in the UK  by appointing Labour voting peers into the  House of Lords.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 02/06/2018 00:26 (GMT+00:00)

To: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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[Windows Live 2018]

Magna Cata did not end monarchical rule.  It broadened the base of monarchical rule to include the aristocracy but excluded the commoners.  The commoners were included only from 1830s onwards.

[Windows Live 2018]

Mr Moderator

Obis was clearly a light banter.  I have given serious thought to Yoruba myth of origins   over the years and my conclusion is that it was a pre-existing European colonial imposition when it was kool to be associated with the then colonial master in Saudi Arabia.  Yes, Africa has always had trade and cultural links with the Middle East (as the late I. A. Akinjogbin emphasized in my undergraduate days) that itself dies not provide any incontrovertible evidence supported by archaeological facts that the Yoruba come from thMiddle East any more than the hypothesis that the Igbo were originally Jews.

At any rate the Yoruba have a competing myth of creation cited by Chief Awolowo  on the eve of the Civil War(re- presented by IBK to the forum last year) that the world was created in Ile- Ife. (Again any such myths of geographical specificity as U just replied to Oga Cornelius with regards to the Judeo- Christian tradition must be put in brackets in scholarly communities.)

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>

Date: 03/06/2018 18:47 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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OAA:

A small comment: with what fact and evidence can you say that someone is “the head of warriors most likely from north east Ekiti rather than Mecca or the Middle East”?

As I told Obi in a private mail, scholars and serious people, and I count you as one, do not dabble into fields so specialized, to make any comment. Only archaeologists can say this, after digging.

You cannot “think” about “proto history”. Nothing in your knowledge and brain, as well as in mine, can “think” like that. So, when Obi talks about an Igbo that is called Lagelu, this is not science, education, knowledge, fact or history, but share fiction that knowledgeable people should simply dismiss.

TF

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of agbetuyi <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 12:27 PM

To: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>, dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi,

 

This is a very educative piece about Igbo culture.  I did not say Achebe equated Ezeulu to a king. I only drew attention to the fact that it is one of the strands in any society that could lead to monarchism.  In the Igbo example presented by Achebe (which I agree with the novelist is his greatest masterpiece) which may not be representative of all Igbo communities potential monarchism was roundly rejected.

 

I also quite admire your allusion to the Obatala/Oduduwa struggle.  In the prefatory essay to my translation of Moremi I came to a similar conclusion that rather than see Oduduwa as First Man (In the Biblical Adam sense) we must see him as the head of a band of warriors most likely from north east Ekiti country rather than Mecca or the Middle East ( by reason of etymological analysis) who conquered the original inhabitants of Ile Ife established the If a corpus they brought with them and syncretized it with the cult of the pre-existing Yoruba-wide earth Goddess Esu (similar to Christianity and the Trinity in the hands of Emperor Constantine and his following)

 

Yes theocracy may not be invariably be a prelude to monarchism as my citation of Achebe proves it may well be as the case of Yoruba and ancient Egyptian history demonstrate.  In the Igbo imagination monarchism is not consistent with the doctrine of the equality of men  ( In the United States a vagrant has the probability of becoming the American president as the elephant the capacity to fly ; ditto for first generation immigrant or a Yoruba resident in Anambra of becoming its governor- so much for equality in the Igbo imagination of your presentation!)

 

There is nothing in the history of republicanism from Rome to Washington that indicates  it is superior to Monarchism.  There were slaves in Rome and Greece as well as the United States until the 100 years struggle for emancipation in the latter.  The United Kingdom has demonstrated that the monarchy is not inconsistent with democratic values. 

 

 There are equally evils in non monarchical societies.  If rights are equal in republican societies there would not be presidential and governorship immunities.

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 02/06/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OU

OU

 

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Kenneth Harrow]

Two more, for interest:

King sunny ade

Prince nico mbarga.

 

And of course we have our own American “Prince” who becomes “XXX, the artist formally known as prince”

 

And lots and lots of dogs named king, queenie, prince, etc.

ken

 

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

 

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Windows Live 2018]

Obi.

In total agreement with you on this one

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 02/06/2018 14:04 (GMT+00:00)

To: har...@msu.edu, usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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[Windows Live 2018]

Oga Kadiri.

Obi Nwamama has traced the Exe title beyond the British colonial cinvenience

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>

Date: 02/06/2018 17:30 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: SV: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Okechukwu Ukaga,

As the end of the first half of the 21st century is fast approaching, I do not fancy debating appropriateness of nursing and nourishing Kings (Oba, Eze, Emirs/Sultan, etc.) in a Federal Republic of Nigeria with a President, when Nigeria is not a Royal or Federal Kingdoms headed by a King or a Queen. Traditional rulers, in whatever name we choose to identify them in Nigeria, lost their rights as defenders and protectors of their communities when they started raiding neighbouring communities and capturing their fellow black people as slaves to Europeans in exchange for pittance. When slavery was transformed into colonialism by European powers, African monarchs were instrumental to the partition of Africa and its conversion to European possessions. Nigeria became the property of Britain through the aid and collaboration of our traditional rulers. Those who refused to surrender the sovereignty of their territories were either forcibly removed and banished, as exemplified by King Kosoko of Lagos and King Ovonramwen of Benin, or killed as in the case of Sultan of Sokoto, Mohammed Attahiru 1, who was replaced by the British with his more complaisant cousin, Mohammed Attahiru II.

The British colonialist never recognised traditional rulers in Nigeria as Kings but as chiefs. Therefore, they created House of Chiefs in each region along with elected members of regional House of Assembly and a government led by a Premier. Constitutionally, the Oba, as traditional rulers are called in the Western part of Nigeria, exist at the mercy of the regional government which, at will can remove any Oba. Practically and symbolically, I think Nigeria's traditional rulers have outlived their usefulness starting from the formal slave trade era to the current indirect enslavement of Nigeria. No Nigerian should be proud of any Oba, Emir, Sultan, Eze etc., that accepted to be a subject under a foreign king which despitefully called them traditional chiefs. However, while narrating the true history of Nigeria, we should bear in mind that the British colonialist met each of the present day ethnic group in Nigeria at various level of human developments. Igbo enwe Eze, is an adage  coined by the Igbo themselves. Therefore, you appear to be inventing history when you wrote, "There are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo." To begin with, there was no tribe known as Igbo in Nigeria until after the end of the civil war in 1970. The majority tribe that constituted Biafra, before and at the end of the war, was world-wide known as Ibo. In his HOME & EXILE, published in year 2000, Chinua Achebe wrote, "In all probability, they (the Igbo)* would not wish to, and made no secret of their disinclination, in the expression, EZEBUILO, meaning a King is an enemy (p.16)." *(my emphasis). Further in his swan-song, THERE WAS A COUNTRY, Published in year 2012, Chinua Achebe wrote, "The Igbo people expressed a strong  antimonarchy sentiment - Ezebuilo - which literally means, a king is an enemy. Their culture illustrates a clear-cut opposition to kings. …. So the Igbo created all kinds of titles that cost much to acquire … (p.246)." Lack of the institution of Monarchies in what was originally known as EBOE-LAND and later as IBO-LAND and after the civil war, that ended on 15 January 1970, as IGBO-LAND was confirmed by Professor Chidi Osuagwu in the online Nigerian Vanguard, of September 2013 thus : The Igbo identity crisis began in 1929. The British had just introduced the warrant chief system to enhance their colonial administration in Eastern Nigeria. In the North and West, the monarchs made the system work. But the East had no monarchy with such overwhelming powers as in the other two (North & West)*. They (the British),* therefore, created warrant chiefs for that purpose. This is the root of many traditional rulers and autonomous communities in Igboland, with their attendant boundary and chieftancy violence *(my emphasises). www.vanguardngr.com/2013/09/aba-women-riot-split-igboland/ 

The warrant chiefs created by the British colonialist in the then Iboland, now Igboland, was what metamorphosed into EZE. Take note that it is the same red cap which Lugard imported from Morocco to distinguish the warrant chiefs from ordinary Ibo that became a crown for an Eze. In Yorubaland, the word for crown is ADÉ and the word for a cap in Yoruba is FÌLÀ. Thanks to Lugard, a cap which anybody can wear is equal to a crown in Igboland. That is a true history Okechukwu Ukaga.

S. Kadiri    

---

Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Skickat: den 1 juni 2018 17:54
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Ämne: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OU

OU

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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OAA

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

HRH OAA.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Windows Live 2018]

Queen Bee (Beyoncè)  soon in your of the UK with hubby Jay-Z ( Billion dollar music royalty

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

Date: 03/06/2018 20:34 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Two more, for interest:

King sunny ade

Prince nico mbarga.

 

And of course we have our own American “Prince” who becomes “XXX, the artist formally known as prince”

 

And lots and lots of dogs named king, queenie, prince, etc.

ken

 

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

 

Interestingly, British colonialists  discouraged their African "subjects" from using the word "king" to refer to their traditional rulers; they insisted that they be called "chiefs." A king is a sovereign monarch, and only the British could have a "king"; the colonized could only at best have a "chief," who is understood as merely the head of a "tribe" or a "clan" with no sovereign powers--and with all of the racialist condescension that suggests. By the same token, African "chiefs" couldn't prefix the "His Royal Majesty" honorific to their names since they weren't "kings"; at best, they were the equivalents of British "princes," so they could only use "His Royal Highness" before their names. ("His/Her Royal Highness" is reserved for princes, not kings or queens, in Britain).

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

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[Salimonu Kadiri]

If we are not talking of wish-for-history, the introduction of warrant chiefs by the British preceded Eze title. Have you ever heard of Eze of Onitsha?

S. Kadiri 

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Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Skickat: den 3 juni 2018 21:52
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: SV: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

[Windows Live 2018]

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 03/06/2018 21:54 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

Queen Bee (Beyoncè)  soon on tour of the UK with hubby Jay-Z ( Billion dollar music royalty

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

Date: 03/06/2018 20:34 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

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Two more, for interest:

King sunny ade

Prince nico mbarga.

 

And of course we have our own American “Prince” who becomes “XXX, the artist formally known as prince”

 

And lots and lots of dogs named king, queenie, prince, etc.

ken

 

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday 3 June 2018 at 12:07
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken,

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Ken, just thinking aloud, what is the German word for "King"? Better still, what is the Hebrew word for "king"? Or are you suggesting that the words "king" or "priest" cannot be used in this context, because those concepts do not exist in Igbo or Yoruba? The conceptual question of the monarchy does not resist description. In fact, the description is inherent in the meaning, and can very quickly and easily transcribed to effect semantic inclusivity in societies where they exist and function. We draw parallels every time to establish concurrence.  So that, if you know the language well enough, you would understand that the expression, "my lord," for instance, can very easily be understood as " Di m" in Igbo. That I think is how language works, and why translations are possible.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

Sent: Saturday, June 2, 2018 2:00 AM
To: usaafricadialogue

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Good point. In any event, words acquire and retain meaning only in their context. The context of a word like king, or priest, seems overdetermined in English.

We code switch in Africa all the time, so oba can still be used, even if its meaning morphs with time, like all words

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday 1 June 2018 at 21:39
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Sure...

But it is even far more complicated as words travel, even within the same culture group, to acquire different meanings over time. The Bible, for instance, has changed the meanings of many words wherever it is introduced to. In incantations, for instance, we generally do not know what many words mean, as in speaking in tongues in Pentecostal churches.

TF

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 1, 2018, at 8:31 PM, Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

Obi, I wonder if we are locking ourselves too tightly into an English vocabulary in describing igbo institutions? King seems quite differen from oba, say; priest is not really the same. Words like these don’t translate very accurately, so why not simply use the igbo ones?

 

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Professor Emeritus

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

517-803-8839

har...@msu.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday 1 June 2018 at 19:25
To: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>, usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

I meant to say that what Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu is the idea of "Ezebuiro" - his discourse of the antinomy of kingdoms among the Igbo. Ezeulu's status is not of kings. He is not a priest-king. He is a "highpriest" doing the bidding of the gods on behalf of the people. But the people made the gods, and a god, and the people must be one. The Igbo say, if a god becomes too arrogant and impulsive, we show it the tree from which it was carved. Period. It is the theory of power. Ezeulu did not fully understand this, thus his tragedy.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 11:09 PM
To: Windows Live 2018; usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Yinka, I think you have completely misread Achebe in Arrow of God. What Achebe demonstrates with Ezeulu, who is not the status of a king, it is in fact, the high priest's resistance to the idea of making him a king! His rival, Ezeidemili, priest of Idemili of course, ironically mocks his pretentions to absolute interpretation of the will of the gods. In the Igbo idea, Ezeulu has his place as the mediator of the moral order of the world. When it comes to do the work of the gods, he is Ezeulu, and when the gods are not in their season, he is anoter ordinary citizen of Umuaro. The fight ultimately is between Umuaro and Ezeulu, and the people's will triumphs, against the background of shattering change constructed as the rupture in agnatic time in AOG. 

 

And you are wrong, Theocracy is not a prelude to monarchy in the evolution of systems. In any case, the Igbo is not a theocracy. It is the government of the "Umunna." And the Igbo in fact had ritualized the end of the monarchy long before, dramatized in the Ozo rituals, and found in the ancient fable of Kamalu N'ozuzu, who took the title of "Amadioha." So, there may have been a time, long past living memory, when there may have been kings in the Igbo world. But after Amadioha, the Igbo made a covenant of peace; enacted a compact that forbade the making of kings and the creation of a central dominating ethos or power, subsumed the idea of a single dominating God, to the principle of "Chi Awu Out" - the idea that the divine is individuated, and each human carries a unique piece of the divine; the idea that men can take any titles they wished to take, for as long as they did the rituals of "Oha." But no man could take the title of king, unless they basically, as final rites, defied gravity. 

 

This story is so well preserved in the story of Amadioha and of Anukili n'Umuguma. They Igbo had transcended, according to their story, the stage of the monarchy, and established the law of the republic, in which all men are born free and equal, and were endowed with purpose by their individual "Chi." To cede that "Chi" to another - by saying "Chi wam" - is considered the highest "nso" against the divine agent.

 

On a different note, we read in Ayandele's history of the Yoruba that following the 100 years civil war with the collapses of the Oyo Empire, the Yoruba were moving very rapidly towards republicanism by the 19 c. until that move was halted by British colonialism. The Ibadan are evidence of this evolution in Yoruba political sociology. Biko Agozino is thus right. Indeed, if we go through the Ifa, we recognize that the fight between Obatala and Oduduwa, was a fight in which Obatala and his followers resisted the imposition of the monarchy, and the rituals of Obatala to this day, affirms it. The modern, liberal Yoruba rejected the monarchy and saw it as a draw-back to Yoruba modernism and progress. Another half embraced it as the basis of group cultural and political mobilization. That half of the Yoruba apparently includes you. Monarchists, like you, must understand that it is the kind of right wing culture that limits the rights of man, that has also upended, because it is the current ethos of Nigeria, this feudal-monarchical subculture, on which a kind of hybrid democracy is imposed, that has resulted in the under development of Nigeria. It has alienated the public. It has concentrated power on a very narrow, self-regarding, and presumptuous elite, who consider themselves above the law of the land. We strive towards the equality of man: that is wat the republic promises - all men are born free and equal, there is none greater than the other. Each person brings their talent to the service of the greater good, and there is none of whom the gods ordained by birth to eternal or permanent rule. Igbo forbid that kind of presumption.

Obi Nwakanma

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 6:40 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Obi

 

Thank you for this intervention.  We cannot claim as Biko did (rightly) that the Yoruba was not always monarchical but evolved the institution over time (as most civilizations did) and not want to extend the same courtesy to the Igbo.  China Achebe reminds us in Arrow of God of a similar state of becoming among an Igbo group with the story of Ezeulu and and Umuaro.  I have said before that in many early civilizations the stage of priest-king is often the prelude to full monarchical.  You just confirmed that.

 

Many commentators on Igbo essentialist republicanism do so from a pro-marxian mindset handed down from the Marxist heydays of the 60s and 70s.

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 19:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

When Biko talks about his neck of the woods, I hope he and readers take that to mean his village or town and not the entire Igbo land as their are Igbo communities like Nri with kings/queens dating back hundreds if not thousands of years before encountering the British and Obasanjo. This is the fact despite what folks like Biko and Kadri would want us to believe. Further, given what democracy had done to (not for) Nigeria, I am not sure that it makes sense to defend democracy anymore. It is certainly not better than the traditional systems of government we had before..

OU

OU

 

 

On Jun 1, 2018 7:40 AM, "Windows Live 2018" <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

No! It is not a matter of 'you dey craze '.  In your Nigerian neck of the woods it is a restoration  of status quo ante , in mine it isn't. I  mine the status quo ante is moarchical.  As to my American experience Nigerians are not bound to see their country as the clone of America or existi g at the pleasure of America

 

I don t understand what you mean by the British instructi g Obasanjo to impose anythi g. Your use of the word ' force' betrays your mindset.  It's a question  of mind set. Your mind set is conditioned by your Igbo  background which finds fulfillment in the American system. British system (and Yoruba world) view demonstrates that monarchies is NOT inconsistent with democracy

What you calm 'for ce' is the Dr.and of texted tradition subscribed to by esi  bimself o ly to use the excuse of the colonial condition to wriggle free from his obligations.

 

  To the Yoruba elders in the play that is shameless sacrilege! It's somewhat like Jesus quoted as saying that the moment of his sacrifice passing over him so he could avoid death then realising his folly and saying 'father thy will be done'; it is a bit like Aare Abiola quoted initially saying 'I can't die because of June 12' and then realizing the time to prove he was indeed  a true Aare Ona Kakanfo had come, updating his WILL ( realizing he might never come out of captivity alive) and giving himself up to the Abacha goons.

 

The only word to describe Eleshins act is treachery.  Monarchism is alive and kicking  in most of  the North through the emirate system and all of the South West (more than 3/4 of Nigeria.) How can it be on its way out?

 

 

OAA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 01/06/2018 12:21 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

OAA

 

Institutions are made for the people, people are not made for institutions. If the people do not like an institution, they have the power to dismantle it and reconstruct preferred institutions. If an institution does not like the people, it has no power to dissolve the people and elect new ones. Africans yearn for democratic institutions and not for nonarchical ones. 

 

By some kind of coincidence, Soyinka published Death and the King's Horseman in 1976, the very year that Obasanjo obeyed the British instruction to impose traditional rulers across the country. Prior to that my people had no traditional ruler and not long afterwards, the traditional ruler abdicated under the pressure of traditional democracy. Thus the people were there when the tradition was imposed and the people will outlast the tradition. 

 

That was the point that Soyinka made in the play by sparing the life of Elesin while highly educated Yoruba men and women cheered him on to commit death. Elesin outlasted the King and the monarchy was almost ignored in the drama.

 

Now, whatever the tradition you follow, I am sure that you will agree with Soyinka that any tradition that forces a man to commit ritual suicide in honor of a dead king is not worthy of support especially not by highly educated Africans. That is the hegemonic message in the play. Would you disagree even after living in the US for 30 years? You dey craze?

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Thu, May 31, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

EDITED

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

-------- Original message --------

From: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 31/05/2018 13:46 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2058167277545087&id=100000555046445

 

Biko

 

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin

[Okechukwu Ukaga]

Dear Obi,

I already gave you one example (Nri). Notably, Eze Nri held both political and religious authority/power (not just religious as you say suggested). Next time you are in Nigeria, visit the community and interview the current Eze about the history of that position dating back to the 13th century or so. Warm Regards!

Okey

On Jun 1, 2018 1:03 PM, "Rex Marinus" <rexma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Dear Okey Ukaga,

I would like you to tell me which communities among the Igbo had kings and Queens before the arrival of the British. First, you must know that "Eze Nri" was not a king. He was more like a "High Priest" with no monarchical powers until the British encountered Obalike. Igbo theocracies had many "Eze Mmos"/  - high priests who had ritual authority, but not monarchical power. Often people cite the "Obi" of Onitsha. But the Obi of Onitsha was actually not a king until the British arrived. He was at best, the head of the "Agbala Nze" - the guardians of the land, or the Onitsha agnacy, represented by the oldest title holders of each clan in Onitsha. The "Eze Aro" - is actually also not a king. The "Eze Aro" - is a cognate council of three - and not an individual. When the three gather, you have the "Eze Aro." It would, in current terms, be described as a committee of three heads of a mafia system of trading houses or clans. I have used these three as an example. But I'd like to know which place in Igbo land had a sustained system of monarchs before 1895/1900. The Igbo authority system is wide and recognizable. The true leaders of the Igbo are the first born sons of the land meeting in a council. They are also often men of titles, each with their individual ofo. When the ofo is placed equally on the ground, the authority of the clan is established. Perhaps you have a different example, and I shall be very happy to learn. I salute you.

Obi Nwakanma

 

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>

Sent: Friday, June 1, 2018 3:54 PM

[Kenneth Harrow]

Good one.

Truly, sadly, money is king, queen, everything these days. The rest is pretentiousness.

Walcott’s unforgettable satire:

So, crown and mitre me Bedbug the First —
the gift of mockery with which I’m cursed
is just a insect biting Fame behind,
a vermin swimming in a glass of wine,
that, dipped out with a finger, bound to bite
its saving host, ungrateful parasite,
whose sting, between the cleft arse and its seat,
reminds Authority man is just meat,

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (har...@msu.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

[Windows Live 2018]

Beautiful quote. Sums up the unrelenting reign of Capitalism.

Respite though:  Capitalism is the crucible whose alchemy turns raw talent into gold. (Chidi Anthony Opara might as well put that in his quotes for today) Witness the wealth and fame of footballers and popular musicians alike and their rags to riches narratives.

So all hope is not lost!

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Kenneth Harrow <har...@msu.edu>

Date: 04/06/2018 09:01 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (har...@msu.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

Good one.

Truly, sadly, money is king, queen, everything these days. The rest is pretentiousness.

Walcott’s unforgettable satire:

So, crown and mitre me Bedbug the First —
the gift of mockery with which I’m cursed
is just a insect biting Fame behind,
a vermin swimming in a glass of wine,
that, dipped out with a finger, bound to bite
its saving host, ungrateful parasite,
whose sting, between the cleft arse and its seat,
reminds Authority man is just meat,

ken

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (har...@msu.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

[Biko Agozino]

Toyin,

You are making up a curious history if you suggest that the Igbo and the Yoruba are not historically related. The linguistic evidence of one Niger-Congo family of languages supports Obi's claim that there must have been ancestors in common. It is ridiculous to say that there was never a historically relationship between such close neighbors when the Yoruba Ifa says that their ancestors were the children of Igbo. But the issue is not about prehistory. The issue raised by Soyinka is more contemporary: why did the Yoruba enthusiastically participate in the genocide against the Igbo when the Igbo have never participated in the genocidal killing of their Yoruba brothers and sisters? Soyinka warned that the Archeologists will poke and poke for flora and fauna and the Sociologists will come with their erudite irrelevances while ignoring the rivers of fresh blood flowing in the Niger. What sort of intellectuals would keep silent in the face of tyranny, asked Soyinka?

Biko

[Toyin Falola]

Biko:

I would like to assume that all mediocre historians know what is called inter-group relations. And I should also assume that all magicians know the founders of all African settlements during the early Stone Age. Igbo means in Yoruba, “Indian Hemp” What does it tell us? It also means the “forest” So, as a magician, I can connect both to make a historical analysis about the Igbo, a people, a nation and an identity.

TF

 

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, June 11, 2018 at 5:51 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Toyin,

Error! Filename not specified.Error! Filename not specified.This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (rexma...@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

OU

OU

 

 

Error! Filename not specified.Error! Filename not specified.This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (yagb...@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

Biko

I'm familiar with your (and IIgbo position )on .monarchies. Alas it is still with us! Some have put in reforms.   What you represent as Soyinkas position is actually Fagunwas position in The Riddle of the Divine  (Adiitu Olodumare) based on his adoption of Christian (colonial ethos.

 

  It was perhaps Fagunwas position that was the motivation for Soyinkas more nuanced position.  Fagunwas position perhaps underlined the end of the practice in Yoruba land so cows are now substituted symbolically in a move that mirrors end of Jewish child immolation symbolized by Abrahams injunction to spare Isaacs life and sacrifice a ram instead.

 

My most robust defense of the Kings horseman came in a paper I wrote in 2001 and I reoresent the points here.  It is perhaps a similar mindset that informs Soyinkas position in ElesinOba: It is a well known axiom that the older generation makes wars but it is the youths that die in them in large numbers being mobiluzed by naive notiins of service to the fatherland.  The Europeans have waged senseless wars since the middle ages in which hundreds of thousands iof the youths are sent to certain death knowing fully well that half of them will not come back alive and Reason did not prevent  them from continuing in this past time till the Iraq invasiion.  

 

Now a culture appoints a dignitary as the internal equivalent of the Aare On a Kakanfo as the head of the internal intelligence and security network who enjoys similar opulence to the king and sees that the king is not sent to an untimely death by his internal enemies. The dignitary understands this position and is ready to accompany his benefactor to the Great Beyond and western barbs and snipers shots are aimed at the system. Between the lives of countless youths who represent the future being sacrificed on the battlefront and the life of a spent man who originally entered a pact to follow his benefactor to the Great Beyond which is more odious?

 

Princes and princess are not paid frrom public funds. They have their day jobs.  So more than teachers it is them whom we can speak of as having  their rewards in heaven for the unpaid public services they render.  Some of the opulent princes who make it to the throne  like the last Ooni Sijuwade and the Awujale actually enrich their kingdoms with their business connectiins and their personal riches Some actually promote your academic class by endowing a Chair with part of their personal wealth.  The institution will surely outlast you and I

 

OAA

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 28/05/2018 00:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

Error! Filename not specified.Error! Filename not specified.This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafric...@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

OAA

 

You are entitled to your opinion about the meaning of Soyinka's work to a monarchist like you. However, there is nothing in the opus of Baba Sho to support the burial of a living man as human sacrifice to a dead king. Such human sacrifice remains part of what he called the Open Sores of a Continent.

 

It was not the meddlesome colonizers that wrote the script with which Elesin renounced the tyranny of ritual suicide. Everything that Soyinka wrote was a challenge to arbitrary rule and monarchism and a plea for equality. 

 

Agreeing to meet with the young Ooni is no endorsement of monarchism for it is doubtful that Soyinka will lie down on the floor as a mark of respect to the young man. 

 

I would prefer to see all traditional rulers deposed and replaced with elected town mayors and town councils with term limits. This is not just the preference of the Igbo who proudly declare that they know no king and that all heads are equal, it is the expectation of the republican federalist constitution with no room for natural rulers who fight and kill brothers to ascend the throne, as in Black Panther, instead of seeking the electoral mandate of the people.

 

I also admire the Cultural Studies contributions of BJ but I was surprised that he did not highlight the most radical thrusts of the play - resolute opposition to human sacrifice and to monarchism as Williams and Hall would have done.

 

Biko

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

 

On Sun, May 27, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Windows Live 2018

<yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Biko. 

I am lost in your connection between killmonger in Black Panther and the death of monarchies which has not delivered on the provocation in the title and the little excerpt shared with non members of Facebook on this forum. I'm guessing I'm one of the implied targets of the piece ( The Yoruba say ' Bija ba jo teni ta o le fohun... )

 

Many people quote Soyinka out of context but it may interest you that only a few months ago he let it be known that he was due for an urgent summit with the much younger Ooni of Ife.  That was not the action of a person dismissive of monarchies.  I will align myself with the summation of Biodun Jeyifo with whose highly perceptive  critical judgement I have been privileged to be associated for more than 40 years.

 

Death and the Kings Horseman appears to be Soyinkas seminal statement about the meddlesomeness of colonial officials in matters they did not even begin to comprehend.  That he strove to stage it in America means he wanted the American world to know that there are other effective modes of governance in Africa other than than the presidential system.

 

Iranse ni mo je. (I'm only a lowly prince, the messenger of such Principals as the Alaafin, the Ooni and the Council of Obas).  When I left Nigeria more than 30 yrs ago my fathers only injunction was: 'Remember whose child you are.'  Like the college pastor of the college where I taught in the US puts iit in another matter. It was like a young maidens apparel : long enough to cover the essentials brief enough to leave out the irrelevancies.

 

HRH OAA.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/05/2018 19:05 (GMT+00:00)

To: Usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

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[Ibrahim Abdullah]

How funny. You just don’t make connections for connections sake; there has to be a concrete material basis for doing that—the current penchant for invention not withstanding. History os not propaganda; nor is it lies or ideology—though it can be both.

IB

-------------

OU

OU

 

 

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[Toyin Falola]

Ibrahim:

This is exactly my point! How and why all the nonsense started,  I don’t know. You go to your “tribe”, take some words and names, then work them into the histories of a time in history that only archaeologists and DNA experts can give us evidence, and call that “History”. So, I can wake up in the morning and write about a million years ago based on whatever I can “make up!”

I was eating my food quietly one day when someone said amala, the food made from yam powder, is derived from the Igbo name of the goddess of ala. Even the Ogbomoso people don’t know what amala means! Usually, I don’t say anything, but this person is a University lecturer. How do you begin to have a conversation? Iresi, the name of a town in Osun State, becomes iresi (rice!).

Scholars should not join in this kind of nonsense unless they are making some jokes over beer and everyone treats it as such!

 

 

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

[Biko Agozino]

Iwin,

So they were just clearing the bush when Benjamin Adekunle said that his troops were ordered to shoot everything that moved and even things that did not move? They were just starving Indian Hemp of manure when Jeremiah Awolowo and Anthony Enahoro bragged that all is fair in warfare and that starvation was a legitimate weapon of war? 

I believe that the Yoruba pronounce Igbo differently from igbo or weed quite unlike the white man who is learning Igbo and who said that his bottom, ike, is finished, when he meant that his strength, ike, is finished or just like the English words, read in the present tense and read in the past tense. 

I would not expect that Obatala (he has entered) and Oduduwa (leader of the world) would identify themselves as the children of Indian Hemp. Would you?

The relationships between Igbo and Yoruba are not inter-group relations given that they belong to the same family of languages, they are intra-group in the wider context of the cultural unity of Africa. Abi na lie?

You can do all the Africadabra you like but you will never avoid answering the haunting question posed by Baba Sho: How could you lead the genocide against your own brothers and sisters or be the cheer leaders of genocide and still call yourselves intellectuals or even human beings? This kind of question is not a magical one to be answered with mago-mago, wuluwulu, juju, gra-gra or voodoo. 

All Nigerians and all Africans, indeed, all human beings, are related to such an extent that genocide is defined as a crime against humanity. Hence the truism: The Man Dies in All Who Keep Silent in the Face of Tyranny. Except that in the case of genocide, the children, men and women did not just die, the masses were genocidized. What sort of intellectuals are you if you would join the educated ones in Death and the king's Horseman to demand that the pseudo tradition of ritual murder must be adhered to? Oya, answer Soyinka. Why would you not join him in denouncing the genocide against the Igbo and demanding reparations?

Biko 

[Femi Kolapo]

 

Current Issue

Vol 7 No 2 (2018): Curriculum, Student Achievement, and Teacher Performance

 

• Mentor teachers’ feedback role in improving the training of Grades 1-3 student teachers in South Africa - Anna Johanna Hugo
  

• Language Anxiety and Achievement among First Year Students of Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia - Bekau Atnafu Taye
• Responding to English Grammatical Challenges: The Design and Development of Exemplary Material for Form One Learners in Tanzania - Fancis William, Gilbrita John Hamaro
• Family Socioeconomic Status, Religiosity and Alcohol Use among Secondary School Adolescents in Bushenyi Ishaka Municipality, Uganda - Athanansio Spencer Bashaija, Aloysius Rukundo
• Accounting Teachers’ Quality of Use of Pre-Tertiary Accounting Curriculum in Ghana’s Secondary Schools -Joseph Tufuor Kwarteng
• Curricula in Teacher Education for Diversity in the University of Namibia - Beatrice Sinyama Sichombe

______________________________________________________

Femi  J. Kolapo,  

 University of Guelph

 

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Please (Biko), I crave your indulgence to intrude into your exchanges with Toyin Falola. Yesterday, you asserted thus, "The issue raised by Soyinka is more contemporary : why did the Yoruba enthusiastically participate in the genocide against the Igbo when the Igbo have never participated in the genocidal killing of their Yoruba brothers and sisters? Further to that question which you attributed to Soyinka, you thus requested below from Toyin Falola, "Oya, answer Soyinka, Why would you not join him in denouncing the genocide against the Igbo and demanding reparation?"

May I know from you, in which book (don't forget the page) and in what media did Soyinka raise the issue that the Yoruba participated in the genocide against the Igbo? May I know from you which International or Local Tribunal/Court, conclusively decided that there was genocide against the Igbo in which the Yoruba people participated?

While waiting for your reply I wish to refer you to the BBC News of 13 January 2000, where one Barnaby Philips interviewed Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, with the Headline, Biafra : Thirty Years On. Ojukwu was asked, "Do you take responsibility for what went on? Ojukwu replied rhetorically, "How could I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and saved the people from genocide? No, I don't feel responsible at all. I did the best I could." This BBC interview was still assessible in 2013, when I last checked, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/596712.stm.  

BBC News | AFRICA | Biafra: Thirty years on news.bbc.co.uk The BBC's Barnaby Phillips looks back at the Biafra conflict - one of post-independence Africa's first and most bloody wars.

If Ojukwu the Igbo leader of Biafra war of secession said that he saved the Igbo people from genocide, it would amount to pure intellectual rascality for anyone to claim that there was genocide against the Igbo people during the Nigerian civil war of 1967-1970.

S. Kadiri 

---

Från: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Skickat: den 12 juni 2018 02:49
Till: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

 

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Baba Kadiri: They say,“the road to hell is paved with good intentions”

Of course we should not use the word Genocide loosely

Not in scripture, as events in history of war or as poetry.

Genocide after all is always a purposeful evil, intentional

not incidental

Can we say, some survived, many survived,

therefore there was no genocide?

Could sound like a command or commandment : Nor should we read unintended meanings into what other people say and we should certainly not read any unintended meaning or meanings, convenient or inconvenient, into what Emeka Ojukwu could have meant when - in a certain context in which he reportedly said that he ( or even the blood of Jesus) saved his people from genocide, holocaust, annihilation, starvation or mass execution.

At whatever point he was or could have been stating the bald-faced facts , he too could have been merely expressing a personal opinion, even if it sounds or sounded like a final judgment, or a last fatal judgment.

If Mr. Okukwu had said that he had saved his people from “annihilation” would you have interpreted his words differently? Or if he had said that he “stopped “ an on-going extermination by hunger, who would have reared his ugly head?

To my mind, ( i.e. with the fine details of historical events in mind), Ojukwu could have meant that if he had not capitulated at the point when he did, then his people would have been wiped out ( totally), genocided or annihilated and that surely does not mean or could not mean that there was nobody, child, man woman or beast left standing, after the event?

As to moral high ground and moral higher ground, “The brightest heaven of invention “ ( make belief) not speaking from the highest heaven , and here let Biko and Obi be the judge; This is what Chief Obafemi Awolowo said while he was still here on earth :

“I saw the kwashiorkor victims: If you see a Kwashiorkor victim you'll never like war to be waged “

https://www.google.de/search?q=I+saw+the+kwashiorkor+victims%3A+If+you+see+a+Kwashiorkor+victim+you%27ll+never+like+war+to+be+waged&trackid=sp-006

Chief Obafemi Awolowo : "The ending of the war itself that I am accused of starving the Igbo, I did nothing of the sort. You know shortly after the liberation of these places, Calabar, Enugu and Port Harcourt, I decided to pay a visit... But when I went there, what did I see? I saw the kwashiorkor victims. If you see a kwashiorkor victim you'll never like war to be waged. Terrible sight, in Enugu, in Port Harcourt, not many in Calabar, but mainly in Enugu and Port Harcourt. Then I enquired what happened to the food we were sending to the civilians. We were sending food through the Red Cross, and CARITAS to them, but what happened was that the vehicles carrying the food were always ambushed by the soldiers. That's what I discovered, and the food would then be taken to the soldiers to feed them and so they were able to continue to fight. And I said that was a very dangerous policy, we didn't intend the food for soldiers. But who will go behind the lines to stop the soldiers from ambushing the vehicles that were carrying the food? And as long as the soldiers were fed, the war will continue, and who will continue to suffer? Those who didn't go to the place to see things as I did, you remember that all the big guns, all the soldiers in the Biafran Army looked all well fed after the war, it's only the mass of the people that suffered kwashiorkor. You won't hear of a single lawyer, a single doctor, a single architect, who suffered from kwashiorkor. None of their children either, so they waylaid the foods, they ambushed the vehicles and took the foods to their friends and collaborators and to their children and the masses were suffering. So I decided to stop sending the food there. In the process the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers suffered most... when you saw Ojukwu's picture after the war, did he look like someone who is not well fed? But he has been taking the food which we send to the civilians, and so we stopped the food."

-------------

To: Windows Live 2018 <yagb...@hotmail.com>, usaafricadi...@googlegroups.com

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Impressive.Congrats.

GE

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
 www.africahistory.net

www.gloriaemeagwali.com

www.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html

Chief Editor- "Africa Update"

www.vimeo.com/user5946750/videos

Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on

Africa and the African Diaspora

8608322815  Phone

8608322804 Fax

---

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Femi Kolapo <kol...@uoguelph.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2018 12:02 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - African Journal of Teacher Education Current Issue Vol 7 No 2 (2018): Curriculum, Student Achievement, and Teacher Performance

 

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Rabbi Hamelberg, war has never been a game in which combatants bombard one another with buttered bread and gem. Only those who need to be tested for their grade of Stupidity Quotient (SQ) would consider blockade of food to Biafran soldiers during the civil war as genocide. That is why Awolowo was correct when he stated in the London Financial Times of 26 June 1969, that "All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder." Neither in its direct meaning nor in any other sensible interpretation of the aforementioned statements of Awolowo can it imply committed genocide or intent to commit genocide as it is defined by you, the book people. In WRITING THE NIGERIA-BIAFRA WAR, edited by Toyin Falola & Ogechukwu Ezekwem, one of the contributors, Bukola A. Oyeniyi wrote on page 112 thus, "On the food blockade, Awolowo revealed in a radio and television interview, that when he visited Igboland during the war : I saw the kwashiorkor victims ….." Later in note no.3 on page 113, Mr Oyeniyi referenced thus, "Obafemi Awolowo quoted in 'Response of Late Pa Awolowo to the new book of Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country.' Unfortunately, there was no radio and television interview in which Awolowo personally explained his statement in the London Financial Times of 26 Juni 1969 which was even culled in the London Daily Telegraph of 27 June 1969. Awolowo's supposed explanation of his statement, "All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapon. I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder" surfaced in October 2012, in connection with Achebe's new book, There Was a Country, that accused Awolowo, on page 233, of having committed genocide against the Igbo during the civil war. You classified the purported statement of Awolowo which you excerpted from the google as what he said when he was still alive, whereas there was never any such publication by him, not even in his newspaper, the Nigerian Tribune. In fact, the google from which you excerpted had this headline : Awolowo Speaks From The Grave, Replies Achebe, Says I Am Not a War Criminal … Ojukwu And His Men Stole Food Sent By Red Cross And Caritas. Those that made Awolowo to speak from the grave honestly claimed that the said statement credited to Awolowo was made at a town-hall meeting at Abeokuta in 1983 and not at a radio and television interview as suggested by Mr. Oyeniyi.

How was the war situation for Biafra by May 1969 before Awolowo commented in the London Financial Times that all is fair in war and starvation is one of the weapons of war; I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder? Owerri and the adjoining towns of Ogbaku, Mbieri, Ikeduru, Isu, Osu, Obowu, Ahiara, Mbaise, Umuaka, Ihiala Orlu and Uli Airport which constituted less than 5% of the size of Biafra when it was proclaimed on 30 May 1967, remained under the control of the Biafran army. Within the Federal Government, there were intrigues about if the final military push against Biafra should be carried out or await capitulation of Biafra which was completely surrounded and contained in a small enclave. Then came Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen to the aid of Biafra with Minicons military aircrafts with which he bombed positions held by the Federal forces in Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu and Ugheli Power Station, in May 1969. Until the air-craft bombings of Nigeria by Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen, the Federal government had instructed its forces to turn blind eyes to the illegal flights into Biafra by international relief organisations. Although Geneva Convention, to which Nigeria was a signatory but not Biafra, permits relief supplies in area of conflict, it is in-alienate right of a  signatory to Geneva Convention in conflict to supervise transportation of relief supplies to their destination. The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), had no right to violate what is internationally recognised as the Nigerian air space. Due to von Rosen's bombings in May 1969, the Federal government informed all humanitarian organisations flying relief supplies to Biafra that they should land first in Nigeria for inspection before flying into Biafra. In the evening of June 5, 1969,  a plane marked ICRC entered the Nigerian air space and was ordered by a Nigerian Air Force plane on surveillance to land either in Port Harcourt or Calabar for inspection before flying further into Biafra. The name of the Nigerian Air Force pilot was given as Captain Gbadamosi King. Despite repeated order and warning , the pilot of the ICRC marked plane refused to obey order and the plane was shot down near Eket. The ICRC plane was exposed of trafficking weapons into Biafra with military hardwares, and not relief supplies to civilians, which were scattered around the wreckage of the plane. The three pilots in the Red Cross plane died and the ICRC admitted ownership of the weapon trafficking plane. Consequently, the Federal Military Government on 14 June 1969, declared the Director of ICRC in Lagos, Dr. August Lindt, persona non grata for engaging in military aids to the Biafran rebels. Shortly afterwards, the ICRC in Geneva issued a statement accusing Biafran soldiers of invading refugee camps and seizing food and that very often they beat up relief-agent's drivers and commandeered their trucks to transport arms. Moreover, Biafra's army deserters were said to be using their weapons to waylay relief trucks and to steal food. The war events from April to June 1969 were the cause of Awolowo's comment, 'all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war; I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder,' in the London Financial Times of 26 June 1969. It is an indisputable fact that Awolowo did not say that civilian Igbo should  be starved of food but the fighting Biafran soldiers. The comment was personal to Awolowo and did not constitute policy statement of the Federal government of which he was only a member and not the Commander-In-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces empowered to give order to enforce any type of blockade against Biafra. Thus, no sensible person could interpret what Awolowo said as a policy of aiming to commit or of having committed genocide against the Igbo ethnic group. That there was no federal government's policy to starve civilian population of Biafra to death was confirmed by Chinua Achebe when he wrote, "The diplomatic battles had reached a fever pitch by the middle of 1968. Gowon, ….. decided to open up land routes for a supervised transport (by the ICRC) of relief. To the consternation of Gowon, Ojukwu opted out of land routes in favour of increased airlifts of food from São Tomé by international relief agencies." Despite of Ojukwu's arrogant demand, Gowon's government allowed the international relief agencies to be flying in and out of the Biafran enclave according to the wish of Ojukwu. Yet, there was wide spread hunger in Biafra in 1969, a year after Ojukwu had opted for increased airlifts of food by the international relief agencies instead of through internationally supervised land routes. Starvation in Biafra in 1969 could imply that the relief agencies were either unable to airlift enough food for the hungry civilian Biafrans or that they were airlifting weapons instead of food. It should not be forgotten that air traffics, in and out of Biafra, were permitted by the federal government until von Rosen began to bomb Nigerian forces on behalf of Biafra in May 1969 which caused the federal government to claim its international right to pre-inspect all air traffics into Biafra. The enforcement of that right led to the shooting down of the ICRC plane on 5 June 1969 which exposed the ICRC of trafficking in weapons into Biafra. In the aftermath of the shooting down of the ICRC plane by the Nigerian Air Force in 1969, Von Rosen was interviewed in the London newpaper, the Observer of 6 July 1969, if he did not regret that his bombing of Nigeria on behalf of Biafra caused more sufferings to the Biafran. He said that at Christmas in 1968 in Biafra, "I soon realised that every priest, every doctor, every Black and White man in Biafra was praying for arms and ammunition before food…" Mass deaths by starvation in Biafra was not caused by Awolowo but by Ojukwu whose responsibility it was to feed citizens under his territorial control. That is the plane truth which some dishonest Nigerian intellectuals refuse to accept till date.

Back to the core issue of this discussion, 'Death of Monarchism,' Obi Nwakanma claimed that he had discovered an Ibadan man named Lagelu with Igbo ancestral origin who, somehow, ruled Ibadan before the British came to create Olubadan monarchy. Toyin Falola responded by explaining the danger of constructing history around words and warning that Lagelu in Yoruba may not mean the same thing in Igbo. He gave example that the word Igbo in Yoruba would translate to weed or forest. Biko Agozino gave a Marxist flavour to Obi Nwakanma's constructed history of an Igbo Lagelu of Ibadan by maintaining that Obi was only emphasizing that both the Igbo and Yoruba had common ancestors in the past, which would have been a progressive history. Contrary to Biko's Marxist interpretation of Lagelu, Mr. Obi Nwakanma is an ethnic warrior, whose purpose was to fabricate history and establish his Igbo tribe superiority, in this case over the Yoruba. That is why he came up with the history of a supposedly Igbo Lagelu the champion of republican style of governance in Ibadan  which the British annulled on arrival in Nigeria. Obi Nwakanma cannot claim that because there is an Igbo name known as Lagelu, therefore, a name of any person or a masquerade called Lagelu in Ibadan must be an Igbo or a descendant of an Igbo. The word Igbo itself depending on how it is pronounced means different things in Yoruba language, for example, forest (weed), head-fight (as rams do) and a particular type of vegetable.  Mr. Nwakanma first name ÒBÍ depending on how it is pronounced can mean different things in Yoruba language, for instance, OBÌ is cola nut, and OBÍ means female, while ÒBÍ means parents. A fabricator of history, like Obi Nwakanma, may conjure up history that the Yoruba people descended from an Igbo man named ÒBÍ from which the word for parents in Yoruba language originated. Biko Agozino might have been incensed by Toyin Falola's translation of the word, Igbo, into Yoruba to mean weed or forest but that does not license him to put words into the mouth of Wole Soyinka, asking why did the Yoruba enthusiastically participate in the genocide against the Igbo, when the Igbo have never participated in the genocidal killing of their Yoruba brothers and sisters? Thereafter, Biko demanded from Toyin Falola: Oya, answer Soyinka, why would you not join him in denouncing the genocide against the Igbo and demanding reparation? I am not aware of any genocide against the Igbo in which the Yoruba had participated. I am not aware either that Wole Soyinka had, at anytime, accused the Yoruba people of participating in genocide against the Igbo. Since it would appear as if you are holding brief for Biko Agozino who had kept mute over my questions to him, I hereby request you for the following information : In which court or tribunal, national or international was it decided that there was genocide against the Igbo and that the Yoruba people participated in the said genocide?;  In which book or media (printed or electronic) did Soyinka raise the issue that the Yoruba enthusiastically participated in genocide against the Igbo? A mere perusal of Nigerian history will show that millions of people of Igbo ethnic group had been living in Yoruba part of Nigeria for ages without any ethnic riot occurring between the Igbo and their Yoruba host. All the ethnic clashes between the Igbo and their host in Nigeria had happened in Northern Nigeria. Chronologically, the indigenes of Jos rioted against their Igbo guests in 1945; there was mayhem against the Igbo in Kano, in 1953; mayhem all over Northern Nigeria in 1966; again in Kano, in 1980; in Maiduguri, in 1982; in Jimeta, in 1984; in Gombe, in 1985; in Kaduna and Kafanchan, in 1991; in Bauchi, Katsina and Kano, in 1991; Zango-Kataf, in 1992; in Funtua, in 1993; and again in Kano, in 1994. All the afore-stated mayhems in the Northern part of Nigeria involved huge loss of Igbo lives and properties but for unknown reasons, some ethnic Igbo Mandarins consider all Yoruba as enemies of the Igbo people. Yet, many of the  Yoruba people risked their lives to defend and protect the lives of their Igbo brothers and sisters during and after the horrific revenge coup of 29 July 1966 planned and executed mainly by soldiers from the Middle-belt, that then constituted majority in the Nigerian Army, on behalf of Northern Region. After the revenge coup had succeeded in Lagos, the coup makers were looking for Chinua Achebe because they felt that he was complicit in the 15 January 1966 coup, based on the leaflet, A Man of the People, that he published a week before the first coup. Chinua Achebe had written on page 147 of the leaflet about a fictitious corrupt country thus, "But the Army obliged us by staging a coup at that point and locking up every member of the Government. The rampaging bands of election thugs had cost so much unrest and dislocation that our young Army officers seized the opportunity to take over." Yoruba people did everything possible to hide Chinua Achebe from the marauding northern soldiers who wanted him for interrogation for predicting our young Army officers seized the opportunity to take over. When his personal safety was becoming impossible to guarantee, Yoruba people helped to drive him zig-zag from Lagos, in order to escape detection by soldiers, to Asaba for further journey to Onitsha. When Chinua Achebe narrated his ordeal in Lagos and how he escaped from his military traducers in his book, There Was a Country, he painted the entire Yoruba people as vicious and cruel. Although, he admitted that soldiers were searching for him, he at the same time placed himself visibly at public motor-packs in Lagos where he could hear Lagosian jeered at the departing Igbo, "Let them (Igbo) go; food will be cheaper in Lagos. (p.68, There Was a Country)." He also wrote that there were reports of massacres not only in the North but West and Lagos. The well-known Chinua Achebe that was being looked for by soldiers, placed himself in his personal car, drove from Lagos towards Benin, passed through many roadblocks jointly manned by soldiers and police for check and search without being captured, arrested or killed. What an unintelligent way of taking glory out of the heroic people who risked their lives to hide, protect and to finally drive him to safety in Benin, the capital of Mid-West Region as it was then known. Till date, those whose stupidity quotients border on imbecility, assert that there was genocide against the Igbo during the Nigerian civil war that ended forty-eight years ago and in which Yoruba enthusiastically partook.  I beg to disagree.

S. Kadiri      

---

Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 14 juni 2018 14:28
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series

--

[Windows Live 2018]

Toy in Adepijus.

I hope this long piece part of which Baba Kadiri has given before clarifies what you say baffles you about Awos role in the Civil War, the role of ICRC as a partial 'umpire' and the role of Ojukwu and the Biafran soldiers in the starvation of non combatant innocent Igbo people.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>

Date: 18/06/2018 21:08 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Death of Monarchism

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (ogunl...@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

Rabbi Hamelberg, war has never been a game in which combatants bombard one another with buttered bread and gem. Only those who need to be tested for their grade of Stupidity Quotient (SQ) would consider blockade of food to Biafran soldiers during the civil war as genocide. That is why Awolowo was correct when he stated in the London Financial Times of 26 June 1969, that "All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder." Neither in its direct meaning nor in any other sensible interpretation of the aforementioned statements of Awolowo can it imply committed genocide or intent to commit genocide as it is defined by you, the book people. In WRITING THE NIGERIA-BIAFRA WAR, edited by Toyin Falola & Ogechukwu Ezekwem, one of the contributors, Bukola A. Oyeniyi wrote on page 112 thus, "On the food blockade, Awolowo revealed in a radio and television interview, that when he visited Igboland during the war : I saw the kwashiorkor victims ….." Later in note no.3 on page 113, Mr Oyeniyi referenced thus, "Obafemi Awolowo quoted in 'Response of Late Pa Awolowo to the new book of Chinua Achebe, There Was a Country.' Unfortunately, there was no radio and television interview in which Awolowo personally explained his statement in the London Financial Times of 26 Juni 1969 which was even culled in the London Daily Telegraph of 27 June 1969. Awolowo's supposed explanation of his statement, "All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapon. I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder" surfaced in October 2012, in connection with Achebe's new book, There Was a Country, that accused Awolowo, on page 233, of having committed genocide against the Igbo during the civil war. You classified the purported statement of Awolowo which you excerpted from the google as what he said when he was still alive, whereas there was never any such publication by him, not even in his newspaper, the Nigerian Tribune. In fact, the google from which you excerpted had this headline : Awolowo Speaks From The Grave, Replies Achebe, Says I Am Not a War Criminal … Ojukwu And His Men Stole Food Sent By Red Cross And Caritas. Those that made Awolowo to speak from the grave honestly claimed that the said statement credited to Awolowo was made at a town-hall meeting at Abeokuta in 1983 and not at a radio and television interview as suggested by Mr. Oyeniyi.

How was the war situation for Biafra by May 1969 before Awolowo commented in the London Financial Times that all is fair in war and starvation is one of the weapons of war; I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder? Owerri and the adjoining towns of Ogbaku, Mbieri, Ikeduru, Isu, Osu, Obowu, Ahiara, Mbaise, Umuaka, Ihiala Orlu and Uli Airport which constituted less than 5% of the size of Biafra when it was proclaimed on 30 May 1967, remained under the control of the Biafran army. Within the Federal Government, there were intrigues about if the final military push against Biafra should be carried out or await capitulation of Biafra which was completely surrounded and contained in a small enclave. Then came Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen to the aid of Biafra with Minicons military aircrafts with which he bombed positions held by the Federal forces in Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu and Ugheli Power Station, in May 1969. Until the air-craft bombings of Nigeria by Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen, the Federal government had instructed its forces to turn blind eyes to the illegal flights into Biafra by international relief organisations. Although Geneva Convention, to which Nigeria was a signatory but not Biafra, permits relief supplies in area of conflict, it is in-alienate right of a  signatory to Geneva Convention in conflict to supervise transportation of relief supplies to their destination. The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC), had no right to violate what is internationally recognised as the Nigerian air space. Due to von Rosen's bombings in May 1969, the Federal government informed all humanitarian organisations flying relief supplies to Biafra that they should land first in Nigeria for inspection before flying into Biafra. In the evening of June 5, 1969,  a plane marked ICRC entered the Nigerian air space and was ordered by a Nigerian Air Force plane on surveillance to land either in Port Harcourt or Calabar for inspection before flying further into Biafra. The name of the Nigerian Air Force pilot was given as Captain Gbadamosi King. Despite repeated order and warning , the pilot of the ICRC marked plane refused to obey order and the plane was shot down near Eket. The ICRC plane was exposed of trafficking weapons into Biafra with military hardwares, and not relief supplies to civilians, which were scattered around the wreckage of the plane. The three pilots in the Red Cross plane died and the ICRC admitted ownership of the weapon trafficking plane. Consequently, the Federal Military Government on 14 June 1969, declared the Director of ICRC in Lagos, Dr. August Lindt, persona non grata for engaging in military aids to the Biafran rebels. Shortly afterwards, the ICRC in Geneva issued a statement accusing Biafran soldiers of invading refugee camps and seizing food and that very often they beat up relief-agent's drivers and commandeered their trucks to transport arms. Moreover, Biafra's army deserters were said to be using their weapons to waylay relief trucks and to steal food. The war events from April to June 1969 were the cause of Awolowo's comment, 'all is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war; I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder,' in the London Financial Times of 26 June 1969. It is an indisputable fact that Awolowo did not say that civilian Igbo should  be starved of food but the fighting Biafran soldiers. The comment was personal to Awolowo and did not constitute policy statement of the Federal government of which he was only a member and not the Commander-In-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces empowered to give order to enforce any type of blockade against Biafra. Thus, no sensible person could interpret what Awolowo said as a policy of aiming to commit or of having committed genocide against the Igbo ethnic group. That there was no federal government's policy to starve civilian population of Biafra to death was confirmed by Chinua Achebe when he wrote, "The diplomatic battles had reached a fever pitch by the middle of 1968. Gowon, ….. decided to open up land routes for a supervised transport (by the ICRC) of relief. To the consternation of Gowon, Ojukwu opted out of land routes in favour of increased airlifts of food from São Tomé by international relief agencies." Despite of Ojukwu's arrogant demand, Gowon's government allowed the international relief agencies to be flying in and out of the Biafran enclave according to the wish of Ojukwu. Yet, there was wide spread hunger in Biafra in 1969, a year after Ojukwu had opted for increased airlifts of food by the international relief agencies instead of through internationally supervised land routes. Starvation in Biafra in 1969 could imply that the relief agencies were either unable to airlift enough food for the hungry civilian Biafrans or that they were airlifting weapons instead of food. It should not be forgotten that air traffics, in and out of Biafra, were permitted by the federal government until von Rosen began to bomb Nigerian forces on behalf of Biafra in May 1969 which caused the federal government to claim its international right to pre-inspect all air traffics into Biafra. The enforcement of that right led to the shooting down of the ICRC plane on 5 June 1969 which exposed the ICRC of trafficking in weapons into Biafra. In the aftermath of the shooting down of the ICRC plane by the Nigerian Air Force in 1969, Von Rosen was interviewed in the London newpaper, the Observer of 6 July 1969, if he did not regret that his bombing of Nigeria on behalf of Biafra caused more sufferings to the Biafran. He said that at Christmas in 1968 in Biafra, "I soon realised that every priest, every doctor, every Black and White man in Biafra was praying for arms and ammunition before food…" Mass deaths by starvation in Biafra was not caused by Awolowo but by Ojukwu whose responsibility it was to feed citizens under his territorial control. That is the plane truth which some dishonest Nigerian intellectuals refuse to accept till date.

Back to the core issue of this discussion, 'Death of Monarchism,' Obi Nwakanma claimed that he had discovered an Ibadan man named Lagelu with Igbo ancestral origin who, somehow, ruled Ibadan before the British came to create Olubadan monarchy. Toyin Falola responded by explaining the danger of constructing history around words and warning that Lagelu in Yoruba may not mean the same thing in Igbo. He gave example that the word Igbo in Yoruba would translate to weed or forest. Biko Agozino gave a Marxist flavour to Obi Nwakanma's constructed history of an Igbo Lagelu of Ibadan by maintaining that Obi was only emphasizing that both the Igbo and Yoruba had common ancestors in the past, which would have been a progressive history. Contrary to Biko's Marxist interpretation of Lagelu, Mr. Obi Nwakanma is an ethnic warrior, whose purpose was to fabricate history and establish his Igbo tribe superiority, in this case over the Yoruba. That is why he came up with the history of a supposedly Igbo Lagelu the champion of republican style of governance in Ibadan  which the British annulled on arrival in Nigeria. Obi Nwakanma cannot claim that because there is an Igbo name known as Lagelu, therefore, a name of any person or a masquerade called Lagelu in Ibadan must be an Igbo or a descendant of an Igbo. The word Igbo itself depending on how it is pronounced means different things in Yoruba language, for example, forest (weed), head-fight (as rams do) and a particular type of vegetable.  Mr. Nwakanma first name ÒBÍ depending on how it is pronounced can mean different things in Yoruba language, for instance, OBÌ is cola nut, and OBÍ means female, while ÒBÍ means parents. A fabricator of history, like Obi Nwakanma, may conjure up history that the Yoruba people descended from an Igbo man named ÒBÍ from which the word for parents in Yoruba language originated. Biko Agozino might have been incensed by Toyin Falola's translation of the word, Igbo, into Yoruba to mean weed or forest but that does not license him to put words into the mouth of Wole Soyinka, asking why did the Yoruba enthusiastically participate in the genocide against the Igbo, when the Igbo have never participated in the genocidal killing of their Yoruba brothers and sisters? Thereafter, Biko demanded from Toyin Falola: Oya, answer Soyinka, why would you not join him in denouncing the genocide against the Igbo and demanding reparation? I am not aware of any genocide against the Igbo in which the Yoruba had participated. I am not aware either that Wole Soyinka had, at anytime, accused the Yoruba people of participating in genocide against the Igbo. Since it would appear as if you are holding brief for Biko Agozino who had kept mute over my questions to him, I hereby request you for the following information : In which court or tribunal, national or international was it decided that there was genocide against the Igbo and that the Yoruba people participated in the said genocide?;  In which book or media (printed or electronic) did Soyinka raise the issue that the Yoruba enthusiastically participated in genocide against the Igbo? A mere perusal of Nigerian history will show that millions of people of Igbo ethnic group had been living in Yoruba part of Nigeria for ages without any ethnic riot occurring between the Igbo and their Yoruba host. All the ethnic clashes between the Igbo and their host in Nigeria had happened in Northern Nigeria. Chronologically, the indigenes of Jos rioted against their Igbo guests in 1945; there was mayhem against the Igbo in Kano, in 1953; mayhem all over Northern Nigeria in 1966; again in Kano, in 1980; in Maiduguri, in 1982; in Jimeta, in 1984; in Gombe, in 1985; in Kaduna and Kafanchan, in 1991; in Bauchi, Katsina and Kano, in 1991; Zango-Kataf, in 1992; in Funtua, in 1993; and again in Kano, in 1994. All the afore-stated mayhems in the Northern part of Nigeria involved huge loss of Igbo lives and properties but for unknown reasons, some ethnic Igbo Mandarins consider all Yoruba as enemies of the Igbo people. Yet, many of the  Yoruba people risked their lives to defend and protect the lives of their Igbo brothers and sisters during and after the horrific revenge coup of 29 July 1966 planned and executed mainly by soldiers from the Middle-belt, that then constituted majority in the Nigerian Army, on behalf of Northern Region. After the revenge coup had succeeded in Lagos, the coup makers were looking for Chinua Achebe because they felt that he was complicit in the 15 January 1966 coup, based on the leaflet, A Man of the People, that he published a week before the first coup. Chinua Achebe had written on page 147 of the leaflet about a fictitious corrupt country thus, "But the Army obliged us by staging a coup at that point and locking up every member of the Government. The rampaging bands of election thugs had cost so much unrest and dislocation that our young Army officers seized the opportunity to take over." Yoruba people did everything possible to hide Chinua Achebe from the marauding northern soldiers who wanted him for interrogation for predicting our young Army officers seized the opportunity to take over. When his personal safety was becoming impossible to guarantee, Yoruba people helped to drive him zig-zag from Lagos, in order to escape detection by soldiers, to Asaba for further journey to Onitsha. When Chinua Achebe narrated his ordeal in Lagos and how he escaped from his military traducers in his book, There Was a Country, he painted the entire Yoruba people as vicious and cruel. Although, he admitted that soldiers were searching for him, he at the same time placed himself visibly at public motor-packs in Lagos where he could hear Lagosian jeered at the departing Igbo, "Let them (Igbo) go; food will be cheaper in Lagos. (p.68, There Was a Country)." He also wrote that there were reports of massacres not only in the North but West and Lagos. The well-known Chinua Achebe that was being looked for by soldiers, placed himself in his personal car, drove from Lagos towards Benin, passed through many roadblocks jointly manned by soldiers and police for check and search without being captured, arrested or killed. What an unintelligent way of taking glory out of the heroic people who risked their lives to hide, protect and to finally drive him to safety in Benin, the capital of Mid-West Region as it was then known. Till date, those whose stupidity quotients border on imbecility, assert that there was genocide against the Igbo during the Nigerian civil war that ended forty-eight years ago and in which Yoruba enthusiastically partook.  I beg to disagree.

S. Kadiri      

Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 14 juni 2018 14:28
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Baba Kadiri,

I have not got back to you earlier, because World Cup Football has enslaved us, albeit only temporarily...

It could be true that some of us who were merely born, were born “bloodthirsty”

“Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you...” etc. etc.

So, this sentence from Chinua Achebe's “Things Fall Apart”still haunts me:

“Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood.”

It strikes a chord close to home, home being the place where the heart is usually beat-ing. What is troubling for those of us who “cannot bear the sight of blood” is that surely, this doers not make cowards of us all, as in Hamlet's To be or not to be soliloquy : “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all” - the main dread being ( but not for the suicide bomber) :

“the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns...”

About the Biafra War too - according to your own several illuminating disagreements with mostly Biafran Brethren over certain details about that war whilst it was being waged and the postmortems on that event , we cannot escape the probable truism that "The first casualty of War is Truth”

Achebe's own truth as he saw and probably felt it , was so deeply entrenched that he vehemently denied AWO the honour of a national funeral on the grounds that he ( (AWO) according to Achebe, “was not an Igbo God”

If we are looking for some kind of moral equivalence somewhere, then the most immediate comparison that comes to mind is the moral example that we derive without any moral ambiguity regarding the Gaza - Israel War , namely Israel's supply of food and other necessities to the Gazansand this is also happening during “the blockade”. Of course it would be suicidal for Israel to supply the Gazans weapons and ammunition too. Hamas of course is still investing much of the financial aid that they receive on weapons, building tunnels, teaching incitement, and even as you read this Hamas is still firing rockets into Israel, instead of using the aid money for what the aid money was intended for. It's doubtful that should a referendum be held in Gaza  the result would be that "every imam, every doctor, every man and woman in Gaza is praying for arms and ammunition before food"

Israel always being held to a higher standard than anyone else in the world, if Netanyahu had uttered the words attributed to Awo, to wit . “All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder.” I'm sure that you would have added your voice to the worlds outrage for such words from the leader of the Torah 's Nation!

Once again the ball is in your court....

Of interest : The Yoruba of Sierra Leone

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Baba Kadiri,

First of all Mighty Congratulations and a resounding round of applause to the Super Eagles for doing all of us proud by wiping out Iceland, the new kids on the block, by a decisive 2 – zero victory , thus establishing some RESPECT for Nigeria and all Africa. By now most Icelanders ( and they are not that many, only about 300,000) know that there is a country known as Nigeria and there's a very dangerous guy known as Ahmed Musa. It's expected that the most happy President Buhari will be beaming on TV this evening and beating his chest, saying “ Alhamdulillah! Nigeria, Ah Nigeria ! Glorious Super Eagles, we did it again!”

The midsummer party I was at, we listened to THIS , soon after the referee declared Nigerian Victory !

But back to the past. Not too long ago you stated unequivocally that

(a) “It is an indisputable fact that Awolowo did not say that civilian Igbo should be starved of food but the fighting Biafran soldiers. “

(b) “Mass deaths by starvation in Biafra was not caused by Awolowo but by Ojukwu whose responsibility it was to feed citizens under his territorial control. That is the plane truth which some dishonest Nigerian intellectuals refuse to accept till date.”

(c) “It is an indisputable fact that Awolowo did not say that civilian Igbo should be starved” - by which you mean that first and foremost, the Biafran soldiers who you allege had stolen all the food should have gallantly surrendered all the food at their disposal, to the civilian population.

You do of course realise that everybody must be fed ?

I have been looking at what you have said about starvation

I know that you disdain foreign religions , but how does one answer these two questions posed by Jesus of Nazareth:

If you brother asks for bread, will you give him a stone?

If your son ask you for a fish, will you give him a serpent instead?

We are given an estimated “about 2 million people were killed during the war in Biafra and that most of them Igbo” but we are not given an estimate of how many survived in the same Biafra enclave.

Therefore, the following lack of facts for your kind consideration: In order to get a more accurate picture of the war ravaged and starved Biafra could you please try to ascertain for us what was the Biafran population during the Biafra war ? Once we have that accurate figure we then know how many people had to be fed....

Question : Since the civilian population and the soldiers were in need of food, was Ojukwu to ensure that the food supplies got to the civilian population and not the soldiers?

(d) “The comment was personal to Awolowo and did not constitute policy statement of the Federal government of which he was only a member and not the Commander-In-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces empowered to give order to enforce any type of blockade against Biafra”

Question : You do understand that we must not underestimate the political influence that AWO could have had on even military decisions, strategy.

Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have said, “ Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”

A much later Orthodox Rabbi ( a spiritual descendant of the Pharisees) is reported to have said,

“ Father, forgive them for they know nothing!”

Just like Socrates, Rabbi Cornelius Ignoramus knoweth not. He was not there. He is only, kindly asking Baba Kadiri's esteemed opinion...

Steel Pulse : Soldiers

On Monday, 18 June 2018 22:06:15 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Dear Rabbi Hamelberg,

I do not understand the information you are trying to convey by your double talk beneath. Regardless of what Awolowo might have said on the case of starvation in Biafra, my questions to you and others are : (i) Did Awolowo's statements in question constitute genocide? (ii) Was genocide committed against the Igbo during the Nigerian civil war? (iii) And which Court/Tribunal, National or International declared that the federal government of Nigeria committed genocide against the Igbo during the Nigerian civil war?

You exemplified the moral value in war with Israel's supply of food and other necessities to the Palestines in Gaza despite blockade by Israel. It was the same moral responsibility that Gowon took in the middle of 1968, as confirmed by Chinua Achebe in his, There Was a Country, when Gowon proposed international supervised land routes of relief supplies from Port Harcourt and Calabar into Biafra which Ojukwu rejected. What do you think would happen to the civilian population in Gaza today if their leaders reject all food supplies that have passed through Israel's territory? Should Israel be blamed under such circumstance if there is mass starvation and death of civilians in Gaza? May I draw your attention to the 2010 incident championed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then Prime Minister of Turkey, in which he considered the Gaza strip as the greatest concentration camp in the world. Therefore, he decided to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza by sending a ship, Mavi Marmara, with relief supplies to Gaza. When the ship entered the territorial water of Gaza on 31 May 2010, Israeli Navy boarded the ship by force and ordered it to sail to a port in Israel for inspection. In the ensuing fracas, 9 civilian crews of Mavi Marmara were killed while 55 were seriously wounded. Turkey reported Israel to the Security Council of the United Nations which exonerated Israel from any wrong doing. The Security Council declared that Israel was in a state of war and as such had the right to inspect all air and sea traffics into Gaza, in order to ensure that arms were not smuggled into Gaza. That was the exact right Nigeria claimed over Biafra between 1967 and 1970. Kindly do me a favour by answering the questions I posed above, so that this question of genocide against the Igbo or not can be resolved once and for all.

S. Kadiri     

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Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>

Skickat: den 22 juni 2018 21:54

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Dear Baba Kadiri,

Is what I'm saying so difficult to understand?

Do not stand idly by, whilst your brother's blood is being shed, even if you don't belong to the same tribe.

Rabbi Hamelberg religiously holds fast with the principle of Pikuach Nefesh

Vayikra 19:16

What a silly question! “(i) Did Awolowo's statements in question constitute genocide?”

You are fond of this lengthy kind of altercation. In the meantime, you have studiously avoided answering the questions that I asked. Do you honestly think that sufficient food supplies were being sent to the starving masses in Biafra? What effect do you think Chief Obafemi Awolowo's statement (“why should we feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder”) have on the prosecution of the war against the people of Biafra?

You know this ayah of the Quran 2: 74

“Then, even after that, your hearts were hardened and became as rocks, or worse than rocks, for hardness. For indeed there are rocks from out which rivers gush, and indeed there are rocks which split asunder so that water floweth from them. And indeed there are rocks which fall down for the fear of Allah. Allah is not unaware of what ye do.”

The visually documented footage of starving Biafran children in all it's heart-wrenching and heart-breaking episodic details does not seem to have had an effect on the perpetrators who continued with such a “why should we feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder” starvation war policy – which as you well know is against the terms of the Geneva Convention. The fact that over a million Biafrans died as a result of starvation means that the genocidal policy that we are discussing, actually succeeded.

That was man's inhumanity to man on a vast scale. As you are fully aware, if Ojukwu had not capitulated when he did, then man's inhumanity to his fellow Nigerian human being would have continued on an even vaster scale. In the circumstances, understandably, with close to two million Igbos already dead, Ojukwu did say that he had consequently saved his people from genocide.

You are aware of The Judgment of Solomon - also the basis of Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle ( which I saw performed at the courtyard of Mensah Sarbah Hall, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana, in February 1970, directed by James Gibbs...)

Baba Kadiri, have a heart!

Bad Man

There's no comparison between Gaza and Biafra so don't conflate the two issues.

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Baba Kadiri,

Ojukwu could have mean that he had consequently saved his people from further genocide

So that you can no longer accuse me of not answering your questions, although you have not answered mine , please read on. I know that you are going to be very happy when you read this, up to a point:

Even as you accuse me of “double talk” you are the one shooting out of both sides of your mouth. Please make up your mind :

So, Awo's rationale of “why should we feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder” is being replaced by “We should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder”?

You asked, “What do you think would happen to the civilian population in Gaza today if their leaders reject all food supplies that have passed through Israel's territory? Should Israel be blamed under such circumstance if there is mass starvation and death of civilians in Gaza? “

So, the Federal Nigerians did not want to force food on the starving Biafrans? Are you faintly suggesting that the starving Biafrans rejected all food supplies, even manna from heaven passing through Federal Nigerian territory? Does that make sense to you?

As usual, it seems that you want to have your cake and eat it too.

You wrote: “The Security Council declared that Israel was in a state of war and as such had the right to inspect all air and sea traffics into Gaza, in order to ensure that arms were not smuggled into Gaza. That was the exact right Nigeria claimed over Biafra between 1967 and 1970. “

Please tell us exactly what happened. Ignoramuses need clarity on this matter. Again, are you faintly suggesting that the Federal Government having inspected and verified that no arms would be smuggled into Biafra in the containers of food supplies, the starving Biafrans thereupon rejected all food supplies? They preferred to starve than to receive any food aid coming through Federal Territory?

In some earlier statements did you not accuse the Biafran soldiers of stealing all the food meant for the starving civilians? In that case there must have been mountains of excess/ surplus food being hoarded by the Biafran soldiers, and kept out of sight of the starving population don't you think? Just to punish their civilian population? Millions of them. You know, I met people who told me that in the end they were hunting lizards, for meat. And where were the Biafran soldiers hiding all this excess food? The Federal forces inability or failure to find or locate the alleged stolen supplies of food that you are alluding to sounds like the futile hunt for Saddam's non-existent weapons of mass destruction...

Baba Kadiri, Have a heart!

Rejoice whilst you can because in my next response I am seriously thinking of delivering the coup de grâce that would resolve your genocidal dilemma for once and for all

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Dear Rabbi Hamelberg,

I never knew that you are such a great pettifoger, capable of arguing that 'Ojukwu could have meant that he had consequently saved his people from further genocide.' Had it not been that I know that the Secretary to the Government of Biafra led by Ojukwu was Mr. N.U. Akpan, I would have mistaken you for the Secretary to Ojukwu and therefore accept you as an authority on the interpretation of what Ojukwu meant when he answered rhetorically to a direct question thus, "How could I feel responsible in a situation in which I put myself out and saved the people from genocide?" Well, in this world ruled by 'ELÉGBARÀ,' the Yoruba god of mischief, the word further has been introduced to precede Ojukwu's stated genocide as if to say the genocide against Biafra was carried out in instalments. Certainly a non-pettifoger would have understood Ojukwu as having said that he prevented genocide from being committed against his Igbo people. To the disappointment of you and your fellow propagandists accusing Nigeria of having committed genocide against the Igbo during the civil war, it was not only Ojukwu that asserted that there was no genocide against the Igbo people when he claimed that,  he put himself out and saved the Igbo people from genocide, but also Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe who dismissed the accusation of genocide by Nigeria against the Igbo as a heartless propaganda designed to exploit the fear of traumatised Igbo people.

You may wish to know that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was among the delegates sent by Ojukwu to Paris in September 1968 to solicit for more arm supplies from the French government. Realizing that no amount of arms support to Biafra could reverse the military fortune of Ojukwu controlling less than 5% of its original Biafran territory, the French government declined to increase its military support to Biafra. While other delegates to France returned to Biafra, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe absconded and sought asylum in Britain. On August 17, 1969, Nnamdi Azikiwe visited Nigeria and toured the country, including the liberated parts of Biafra. On August 28, 1969, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe addressed a press conference in London at which he uttered the followings among other things, "Knowing that the accusation of genocide is palpably false, but bearing in mind the widespread killing of 1966, which must always hunt our memories, why should some people continue to fool our people to believe that they are slated for slaughter, when we know that they suffer mental anguish and physical agony as a result of their being homeless and their places of abode having been desolated by war and their lives rendered helpless?" Nnamdi Azikiwe's statement on false accusation of genocide committed by Nigeria was based on the fact that Ojukwu had told the Igbo that if they stayed behind in the Igbo towns captured by the federal forces, they would be killed. Therefore, many Igbo civilians voluntarily followed retreating Biafran soldiers from towns captured by the Nigerian Army. Whatever version of Awolowo's statement in circulation about starvation in Biafra you choose to accept as being rationale, you still need to confirm if the statement in question constitute, intent to commit or commission of, genocide. 

You should not joke about serious issue by purposefully misreading me to derive personal fun. The Israeli government has kept and is still keeping Gaza on air and sea blockade. Much as Israel is obliged, under international law, to see to it that passage of relief supplies to civilians in Gaza are not blocked, any cargo by air or sea ferrying relief supplies to Gaza must be subjected to the inspection of Israeli authorities, according to the same international law. The point here, which I know that you are clever not to grasp is that the receipt of relief supplies by people of Gaza is attached with condition, which is pre-inspection of cargoes to Gaza by the Israeli. You must, therefore, understand, through your own Jehovah given wisdom, that if the ruler(s) of Gaza should reject any food or relief supplies that have passed through Israel's inspection, the resulting self-promoted mass starvation of Gaza civilians by its ruler should not be blamed on Israel as an act of genocide. 

You asked, "So, the Federal Nigerians did not want to force food on the starving Biafrans?  Are you faintly suggesting that the starving Biafrans rejected all food supplies, …, passing through Nigerian territory? Does that make sense to you?" The starving Biafrans living in the territory under the control of the Biafran Army and its leader, Ojukwu, had no choice but to rely on their leader. There was no way the Federal side could militarily enforce supplies of food to the starving Biafrans under Ojukwu's control as you insinuated.

Implicitly or faintly, I have never suggested that starving Biafrans rejected all food supplies passing through Nigerian territory. The Biafran leader, Ojukwu, took that decision on behalf of his people in 1968 and made it public to the whole world when he declared that food and relief supplies into Biafra were unacceptable to him, unless they came from sources and through channels that had no connection with the Federal government of Nigeria. That was why he rejected Gowon's plan for international supervised land route corridors from Port Harcourt and Calabar for transportation of relief supplies to civilians in Biafra. Instead, Ojukwu wanted the international relief agencies to increase airlifts of food into Biafra from São Tomé (see p. 211, THERE WAS A COUNTRY By Chinua Achebe). Your questions do not make sense to me and I don't think they will make sense to anybody, because starving Biafrans did not, could not, and were not in position to, reject food that had passed through Nigerian territory. Evidently, the Biafran leader, Ojukwu, made that decision and mass starvation of Biafrans should be blamed on his government.

The oppressed and persecuted Semites in Gaza threw pebbles against their oppressive and persecuting fellow Semites in Israel. The Semites in Israel responded by perforating the bodies of fellow seventy-five Semites in Gaza to death. Was that genocide, my dear Rabbi with a big clean heart?

Since I do not want to keep repeating myself, this would be my last response to you on this issue unless you answer to my previous questions restated here forthwith. (i) Did what Awolowo say constitute a policy of genocide or an act of genocide? (ii) Whose responsibility was it to feed the Biafrans, the Biafran government or Nigerian government? (iii) In which Court/Tribunal was it established that the Federal Government of Nigeria committed genocide on the Igbo and that the Yoruba ethnic group partook in it? The music of civil war stopped playing on 15 January 1970 but those that are deaf still keep dancing on to the civil war music. 

S. Kadiri

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Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>

Skickat: den 23 juni 2018 06:46

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[Cornelius Hamelberg]

To the ever obdurate Baba Kadiri:

I don't label you a "pettifoger" but I wonder why you should want to elevate your attested spirit of mischief to the status of a Yoruba deity/ Yoruba God-ship?

“And when it is said unto them: "Make not mischief in the earth", they say: "We are peacemakers only.”

I only crave your patience. I intend to deliver the coup de grâce towards the end when you yourself finally admit Q.E.D. that you have exhausted all futile prevarication and your own systematic refusal to acknowledge the plain meanings of words and the logic inherent in them has come to an end. Finito.

Let us agree that the factual accuracy of what actually happened does not depend on Baba Kadiri's truthfulness or what the truthful Chief Obafemi Awolowo or Emeka Ojukwu or Nnamdi Azikiwe or Comrade Gowon said.

To the first of your questions:

You asked, (1) “Did what Awolowo say constitute a policy of genocide or an act of genocide?”

As Fela sang,

“Well well, na true I want talk again o
Na true I want talk again o
If I dey lie o
Make Orisha punish me
Make Ifa dey punish me o
Make Edumare punish me o
Make the land dey punish me o
Make Edumare punish me o “

What do you Baba Kadiri understand by the word “incitement”?

At the risk of sounding as pedantic as you usually are, when it is to your advantage, what do you Baba Kadiri understand by these words quoted by you and attributed to AWO ;

“... So I decided to stop sending the food there. In the process the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers suffered most... when you saw Ojukwu's picture after the war, did he look like someone who is not well fed? But he has been taking the food which we send to the civilians, and so we stopped the food."

As a result of the deliberate policy of “so we stopped the food”, close to two million Biafran People died through hunger and starvation and not by Federal army gunfire. How does Baba Kadiri answer this question in good conscience: If the Biafrans were Chief Awolowo's Yoruba people would he have “ stopped the food”?

It is only a conjecture on my part that what Ojukwu could have meant by he “saved “ his people from genocide, is that he saved them from the ongoing hunger and starvation - the inhumane/unhumanitarian and calculated genocidal effects of the starvation policy which we are to assume would have continued to kill Igbos if he had not capitulated. In that sense he could have meant that he saved his Igbo people from the ongoing genocide which would have increased the number of dead Igbos from two million to a number that's too hideous to even contemplate, hypothetically speaking.

You think that the goddess of Yoruba smartness is guiding your senses and your SQ when you write , “Well, in this world ruled by 'ELÉGBARÀ,' the Yoruba god of mischief, the word further has been introduced to precede Ojukwu's stated genocide as if to say the genocide against Biafra was carried out in instalments.“

Baba Kadiri, cynics say that “ Rome was not built in a day”

Nota bene : Concerning the unholy trinity of Hitler , Eichmann and Dr, Mengele, the instigators, authors, architects and perpetrators of The Final Solution , do I need to further inform and correct you and the holocaust deniers that  just as in the case of the Biafra genocide so too the Holocaust was definitely “carried out in instalments”

...

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Baba Kadiri ,

Where I'm coming from, another look at man's inhumanity to man  and the hope that lives on :

This al-Jazeera program , WITNESS about the amputees that survived :

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/

...

[Salimonu Kadiri]

Rabbi Hamelberg,

I observe your pretence of answering one of the questions that I posed to you as a condition for my further engagement with you on this subject. Derived from Fela's song, you swore to be punished by the Almighty God if you told lie just because you are sure that God no longer cares about deadly lies human beings commit everyday here on earth. How I wish God is still as active as He was when He caused Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, in the Acts of Apostles, Chapter 5, New Testament, to be struck to death with thunder and lightening for lying and fraudulently concealing a basket of wheat from the Church in order to avoid being taxed. With such consequence, you would not have dared swear falsely as you have done in your response.

One of my questions which you pretended to be answering was in relation to the statement of Obafemi Awolowo in the London Financial Times of 26 June 1969 and which was culled in the London Daily Telegraph of  June 27, 1969. The papers quoted him thus, "All is fair in war, and starvation is one of the weapons of war. I do not see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for them to fight us harder." It was this particular statement that Chinua Achebe took up on p.233 of his book, There Was a Country, and dubbed it a diabolical policy on the part of Awolowo to reduce the population of the Igbo. Awolowo died on 9 May 1987, but Achebe's book in which Awolowo was accused of applying a diabolical policy to reduce the population of the Igbo during the war was published in 2012, good 25 years after the demise of Awolowo.  In your post on this forum, Thursday, 14 June 2018, you attached google links to support your claim that Awolowo defended himself against the accusation of genocide while he was still alive with us on this earth. I opened all the links and observed that you have quoted specifically from this link : www.igbofocus.co.uk/The-Biafran-War/Obafemi--Awolowo/My-role-in-the-civil-war/ The source of information about the purported Awolowo's statement on his role in the civil war was disclosed by the online Igbo Focus as Punch of October 10, 2012. All the links agreed that Awolowo made the purported statement at a town hall meeting in Abeokuta during the 1983 presidential election campaign, but none gave the date of the meeting. There were no audio or video recordings of Awolowo uttering the purported statements on his role in the civil war. Responding to your links on Awolowo's statements on starvation, 18 June 2018, I debunked the statements as fake since Bukola A. Oyeniyi in a book, Writing The Nigeria Biafra War, claimed that Awolowo made the statements in a Radio and Television interview, while other links claimed it was at a Town Hall meeting in Abeokuta. Moreover, no one ever heard of the statements until 2012, and in response to Achebe's postulation in his book. In order to back up your lie, you asked, "What do you Baba Kadiri understand by these words quoted by you and attributed to AWO?" Thereafter, you quoted the tail end of the Igbo Focus online publication on the subject which was not included in other links supplied by you. Certainly, there was reason for you to prefer quoting just from the Igbo Focus online. I will now reproduce in full what you quoted in your post of 14 June 2018, which is, "The ending of the war itself that I'm accused of starving the Igbo, I did nothing of the sort. You know shortly after the liberation of these places, Calabar, Enugu and Port Harcourt, I decided to pay a visit. … But when I went there, what did I see? I saw the kwashiorkor victims. If you see a kwashiorkor victim, you'll never like war to be waged. Terrible sight, in Enugu, in Port Harcourt, not many in Calabar, but mainly in Enugu and Port Harcourt. Then I enquired what happened to the food we are sending to the civilians. We were sending food through the Red Cross and CARITAS to them, but what happened was that the vehicles carrying the food were always ambushed by the soldiers. That's what I discovered, and the food would then be taken to the soldiers to feed them, and so they were able to continue to fight. And I said that was a very dangerous policy, we didn't intend the food for soldiers. But who will go behind the line to stop the soldiers from ambushing the vehicles that were carrying the food? And as long as the soldiers were fed the war will continue and who will continue to suffer? Those who didn't go to the place to see things as I did, you remember that all the big guns, all the soldiers in the Biafran army looked all well fed after the war, its only the mass of the people that suffered kwashiorkor. You won't hear of a single lawyer, a single doctor, a single architect, who suffered from kwashiorkor? None of their children either, so they waylaid the foods, they ambush the vehicles and took the foods to their friends and to their collaborators and to their children and the masses were suffering. So I decided to stop sending food there. In the process the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers suffered most … when you saw Ojukwu's picture after the war, did he look like someone who is not well fed? But he has been taking the food which we send to the civilians and so we stopped the food." All the online media that published the above purported statement of Awolowo, except the Igbo focus that claimed the Punch as the source of its publication, ended it with two sentences : So I decided to stop sending food there. In the process the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers will suffer most. Obviously Igbo Focus had mischievously changed the soldiers will suffer most to but the soldiers suffered most. Realizing that Awolowo had no power to decide and implement the statement, 'So I decided to stop sending food there', the Igbo forum then made Awolowo to accuse Ojukwu thus, "But he has been taking the food which we send to civilians and so we stopped the food." The Igbo forum must have noticed that the author of, My role in the civil war by Awolowo had made him to enquire, 'what happened to the food we were sending to the civilians?' The Igbo forum must have noticed also that the author of the statement made Awolowo to say, 'We were sending food through the Red Cross and Caritas to them; we didn't intend the food for soldiers,' and finally discovered that Awolowo who was made to talk in collective pronoun, we, implying the federal government of which he was only a member but not the leader, could not personally have claimed, 'So, I decided to stop sending food there.' Consequently, the Igbo Forum carelessly retained the claim that Awolowo personally and singlehandedly decided to stop sending food to Biafra while at the same time adding to it that Ojukwu 'has been taking the food which we send to civilians and so we stopped it.' With this explanations, only those talented with unlimited SQ will still maintain that Awolowo referred to himself simultaneously as 'I and we in the decision to stop sending food to civilians in Biafra.

Among the links forwarded by you that published the purported statements of Awolowo on starvation in Biafra, beside Igbo Focus, are: (i) Nigeria Village Square.com of 7 October 2012, under the headline - Chief Obafemi Awolowo On Biafra In His Own words. The source of the information indicated, posted by NVS. (ii) Arise Nigeria. Org, with the headline - Awolowo Speaks from the Grave, Replies Achebe, Says I Am Not A War Criminal, Ojukwu and his men Stole Food Sent By Red Cross and Caritas. It gave the source of the information as Pointblank News. (iii) ireport.com/docs/DOC-854578, posted on 7 October 2012 by jide001 under the headline - Response of Late Pa Awolowo to The New Book Of Chinua Achebe - There Was a Country. The publisher seemed attached to the CNN with caution to readers thus, About This iReport, Not verified by the CNN. That implies that the information contained in the publication was not audio or video recorded and as such not reliable . My dear Rabbi Hamelberg, even if cyber touts can thumb your nose with fake news, they cannot remove your spectacles and deny you the right to read and detect their fake news. Take note that not every information in the google is true. The statement of Awolowo in the London Times of June 26, 1969, objected to giving food to enemy's soldiers so that they would not be able to fight harder, but Ojukwu's Ahiara Declaration of June 1, 1969 under the subtitle, SHAKING OFF NIGERIANISM, revealed the lifestyle of the Biafran elites at that time. Ojukwu said, "We accuse Nigerians of inordinate love of money, ostentatious living and irresponsibility, but here, even while we are engaged in a war of national survival, even while the life of our nation hangs in the balance, we see some public servants, who throw huge parties to entertain their friends; who kill cows to Christen their babies. We have members of the Armed Forces who carry on attack trade instead of fighting the enemy. We have traders who hoard essential goods and inflate prices….." There were two types of Biafrans, the Di-Ala and the Osu. While Di-Ala were throwing parties to entertain their friends and killing cows to Christen their babies; and while soldiers were using their weapons to commandeer Red Cross relief supplies, called attack trade by Ojukwu, and traders were hoarding food and increasing prices, the Osu were dying of preventable starvation in Biafra.

As a self-styled professor of truth and champion of the Igbo's rights, you elevated, from your high pedestal, the catastrophes of the World War II to the same level as Biafra/Nigeria war. To the best of my knowledge, the Jews in Germany did not have a Jewish military leader with a standing army that declared a part of Germany, a sovereign state for Hebrews, and declared his readiness to fight against the rest of Germany. German civilian Jews and Jews in other parts of Europe were just gunned down or sent to concentration camps to be gassed to death. 26 million Russians who were non-Jews died in that war in which Britain, France and the USA expended the lives of over ten million Black people as mine sweepers in their war Nazi Germany. After the end of that tragic war, another holocaust was committed when millions of Palestine people were murdered and evicted from their ancestral land. Berlin wall fell but a 720 kilometre long and 8 metre high wall, twice as high as the Berlin wall, was erected in the West Bank. Lest, I forget, there was Nuremberg Tribunal that investigated, prosecuted and punished Nazi offenders for their crimes, not against the Jews alone since the cause of the war was not the Jews, but entire humanity. In his book, The Holocaust Industry, Norman G. Finkelstein, whose parents sat in the German concentration awaiting to be gassed to death, has reflected on the exploitation of Jewish suffering and the reduction of the World War II to just the persecution of Jews. That is not to deny  the atrocities of the World War II as it affected the Jews. Unlike the Jews, the Igbo had a military leader, Ojukwu, who declared part of Nigeria a sovereign state of Biafra, contrary to international law and the constitution of Nigeria. He declared his readiness to fight a war with Nigeria. The Federal government prosecuted the war under the supervision of International Observers from the UN, the then OAU, Poland, Sweden, Britain and Canada. The reports of the Observers never indicted Nigeria for military misconduct or genocide. In fact, the Nigerian civil war was the only war in the world in which a party to war had invited a team of international observers to trail the steps of its soldiers at the war front so as to ascertain good conduct. I refrain from using the word I have in mind to describe you for equating World War II to Biafra War because as Yoruba people say, A KÌ T'ORÍ WÉRÉ-WÈRÉ PÁ ÒBUKÓ, literally meaning, we don't crucify a he-goat for being restless. That of course emanate out of our understanding that he-goats are naturally born to be restless.

S. Kadiri      

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Från: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> för Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>

Skickat: den 24 juni 2018 19:31

--

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Son of Ogun thunder and lightning, 

 

" The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away "

You are probably unaware that my affectionate name for you (Sali) is the name of a famous Jewish Rabbi , Baba Sali

By the way, the church is not my abode and the so called “ New Testament” is not my book , so you are wasting your time throwing some of its verses at me.

Perhaps this should keep you entertained / distracted ?

Either deliberately or due to a low SQ you have misunderstood what I quoted from Fela's I.T.T. It was Fela speaking, not me. Why should I take an oath on any other name but the name of the God that I believe in?

You are familiar with the old Kabbalistic prayer which you probably know as “ the Lord's prayer” with the part that goes “ and lead us not into temptation” and now in the name of “Olodumare “ you are trying to tempt me?

 For your perusal : The 12th  Blessing of  the Amidah ( you should be praying that it does not apply to you) 

It's 1.20 a.m. If I'm still alive I will read your epistle carefully and only then do I intend to respond to all that you have said. Sleep well, dear Baba, and have no fear, the coup de grâce is not yet and even then, you will not be humiliated....

On Wednesday, 27 June 2018 00:14:51 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:

Rabbi Hamelberg,

I observe your pretence of answering one of the questions that I posed to you as a condition for my further engagement with you on this subject. Derived from Fela's song, you swore to be punished by the Almighty God if you told lie just because you are sure that God no longer cares about deadly lies human beings commit everyday here on earth. How I wish God is still as active as He was when He caused Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, in the Acts of Apostles, Chapter 5, New Testament, to be struck to death with thunder and lightening for lying and fraudulently concealing a basket of wheat from the Church in order to avoid being taxed. With such consequence, you would not have dared swear falsely as you have done in your response.

...

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

S. Kadiri  alias "Ogunlakaiye" / son of Ogun's thunder and lightning showing his fangs again and exhibiting his genocidal tendencies for all to see . He doesn't wish well, with neither mercy nor compassion, such as " and forgive us our trespasses , as we forgive those who trespass against us ", he writes :

“How I wish God is still as active as He was when He caused Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, in the Acts of Apostles, Chapter 5, New Testament, to be struck to death with thunder and lightening for lying and fraudulently concealing a basket of wheat from the Church in order to avoid being taxed.”

On Wednesday, 27 June 2018 00:14:51 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:

Rabbi Hamelberg,

I observe your pretence of answering one of the questions that I posed to you as a condition for my further engagement with you on this subject. Derived from Fela's song, you swore to be punished by the Almighty God if you told lie just because you are sure that God no longer cares about deadly lies human beings commit everyday here on earth. How I wish God is still as active as He was when He caused Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, in the Acts of Apostles, Chapter 5, New Testament, to be struck to death with thunder and lightening for lying and fraudulently concealing a basket of wheat from the Church in order to avoid being taxed. With such consequence, you would not have dared swear falsely as you have done in your response.

...

[Cornelius Hamelberg]

Song of Ogun,

Respect begets respect. So, it is only out of personal respect for you that I am replying.

I have read your diatribe.

Abi or maybe, na your song be dis :

"Well well, na true I want talk again O
Na true I want talk again O
If I dey lie O
Make Orisha punish me
Make Ifa dey punish me O
Make Edumare punish me O
Make the land dey punish me O
Make Edumare punish me O "

As Fela said, “I never tell you finish”

If I told you that I heard Kenneth Dike say such and such , I would not be necessarily lying... or would I ? As to what Awo said or never said, I assume that you were not there and that you were probably in Sweden at the timer such words were being attributed to him, right? Or if I said ( word against word) I heard Baba Kadiri say this or that, I would not necessarily be lying, would I? A lot of history including some of the New Testament is made up of the kind of stuff known as gossip, right? In fact very few verifiable, first person witness accounts. And then even in the realm of literary studies there all types of biographical heresies...

Your words : “...fraudulently concealing a basket of wheat from the Church in order to avoid being taxed.” Let me tell you this : The Ananias story is yet another anti-Semitic Shylock type of libel in your so called “New” testament - another mischievous and malicious fabrication which the loathsome missionaries have deceived you into believing is “the word of God”

Word of God my foot. Just as in this case as you present it, even the more mundane “word of AWO” cannot be proved. Your main bone of contention is that it cannot be proved that the words attributed to AWO were said by him either when he was alive or from the grave or from the ethereal spheres of of the Hereafter , right? This does not mean that in his lifetime AWO never talked about the hunger and starvation of Biafra, outside of the inverted commas attributed to him or deny the possibility of verifiable sources attesting to the veracity of any such remarks – in which case all you are asking for is that such a statement pass the litmus test of cross -examination which would permit such words to be legal tender in this case if he were (God forbid) to be tried posthumously, for crimes against humanity. And about Yoruba gods business, your words again, your multiple references such as your “ world ruled by 'ELÉGBARÀ,' the Yoruba god of mischief “ and I guess your other deities of the Yoruba pantheon, which the bona fide Muslims refer to as the unforgivable sin shirk of the Mushrikun...

After the Sweden – Mexico match, I'll get back to you. I'm looking forward to getting back to you. I intend to relish the moment and I hope that you will enjoy it too. Before that, pray for us, this is not Nigeria versus Biafra this is our Sweden versus Mexico. You know that we need to win this one..

Another song

On Wednesday, 27 June 2018 00:14:51 UTC+2, ogunlakaiye wrote:

Rabbi Hamelberg,

I observe your pretence of answering one of the questions that I posed to you as a condition for my further engagement with you on this subject. Derived from Fela's song, you swore to be punished by the Almighty God if you told lie just because you are sure that God no longer cares about deadly lies human beings commit everyday here on earth. How I wish God is still as active as He was when He caused Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, in the Acts of Apostles, Chapter 5, New Testament, to be struck to death with thunder and lightening for lying and fraudulently concealing a basket of wheat from the Church in order to avoid being taxed. With such consequence, you would not have dared swear falsely as you have done in your response.

...