WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Toyin Falola
WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
BY
Odia Ofeimun
I am a Republican, not a Royalist. But, in a country in which we have all conceded the coexistence of Republican and Royalist values, it should be considered quite unseemly to watch one set of the interacting values being rough-handled, muddied or treated with improper decorum without feeling a need to intervene on behalf of rectitude. I have been so challenged since the eruption of the controversy ignited by the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, who allowed himself to do a ranking of Yoruba Obas that placed the Oba of Benin as third in the hierarchy. In one sense, as Chief David Edebiri, the Esogban of Benin, immediately retorted, it is wrong to rank the Oba of Benin among Yoruba Obas because the Oba of Benin is not a Yoruba and therefore cannot be placed on a list of Yoruba Obas. I call it 'in a sense' because the Esogban's position may be disputed on the grounds, as will soon be clear, that there is too much siblinghood between Yoruba and Benin traditional rulers for the ethnic difference between them to be rendered in cast-iron terms.
The special relationship between Yoruba and Benin obas, not unlike the relationship between Benin and Onitsha kings, or between Lagos and Edo kings, makes it all the more impolitic to do a ranking of the Benin monarchy in Yoruba royal affairs without abiding by certain inter-subjective and shared norms. And let me note, very quickly, that it is the presence of such norms that makes it quite normal for Chief Edebiri to put the Oba of Benin as Number One without appearing to contradict himself. In his response to the Alake, Chief Edebiri has argued, quite simply, that the term oba was not used to describe Yoruba kings until the Oba of Benin got there. This may well be disputed. Except that it has the merit of being close to verisimilitude when he argues that the king of Ibadan was called Olu, the king of Abeokuta was called Alake, the king of Oyo was called Alafin; only the Benin monarch was Oba. With the backing of glotto-cultural studies, however, we should be able to impute that the term, oba, is a root word shared by both the Yoruba and the Edo languages and that among the sixteen kings that reigned in Ile-Ife before the arrival of Oduduwa's party, many had oba as prefix to their names. To say this amounts to jumping ahead of the argument a little. But let me add, for those who are not familiar with this piece of anthropology, that Oduduwa, the acknowledged founder-ancestor, the progenitor of the Yoruba nationality, was a stranger who met a historical line of obas in Ile Ife, the last of whom was Obatala, the leader of the Igbo, the autochthons , later deified as god of creativity or creation, sometimes synced with Orunmila, for wisdom. Make your pick.
Let me also add that, from the studies of the Ifa divination system made by several scholars, as imbibed from traditional Ifa devotees, it is those sixteen elders whom Oduduwa met in Ife that provided the sub-structure of Ifa as a formal system of wisdom into which people could be initiated in the way that we all go to tertiary institutions to learn philosophy, jurisprudence and mathematics. Or mathemagics, if you like. It is of very grave significance in this narrative that we should acknowledge that the Ifa Divination system, before the intervention of Islam, Christianity, and Lord Frederick Lugard's balkanization and regionalization of traditional gnosis, was based on the existential patterns or prowess of the sixteen elders, or kings, who formed the planks upon which the wisdom of the people, by ritual accretions, was organized. Every good student of Ifa should know that in the Edo Divination system of Igwega, two of the sixteen elders have been displaced by Edo personages who are not to be found in the Ife version as designed by Agbonmiregun, the Master, who went from Ekiti to Ile Ife and established the rounded system of Ifa Divination as passed by other masters between the Edo, Nupe, Igala and Yoruba devotees. It can be imagined that, as a matter of ritual, they gathered at Ife, which was quite the centre of their world, for a divination that transcended ethnicities but was based on a common worship of the earth mother, Efa. All the forest peoples, from Dahomey to the Cameroon mountains, across the Nri of Igboland and past Ogoja, were devotees of one form or other of Ifa Divination. The historian, Ade Obayemi, has imputed that so many concepts in Yoruba Ifa, which some devotees may regard as mumbo jumbo, are actually Nupe terms that proper glotto-cultural analysis and translation could redeem. This partly explains why Benin Kings could induct or abduct and adopt Igbo medicinemen who became part of the common national culture, as Egharevba, the Benin historian vouchsafes. What a linguistic, glotto-cultural analysis tells us is that, in Ile-ife, before the dispersal occasioned by Oduduwa's emergence, the Yoruba language, as one among many in the Kwa language complex, was once the same language with others including Igbo and that they still share common root words beyond the simple ones like Omi and miri.
So if Chief Edebiri's resort to linguistic analysis wont help a resolution of the ranking of the Yoruba obas, what will? I suppose it is the discomfort of trying to answer such a question, and the fear of being wrong-footed in a bid to dabble into what appears to be quite esoteric, that has warded off many of the dignitaries who have been asked by journalists to respond to the controversy. Some of them think it a needless controversy that could detract from more worthwhile issues of the moment. True, there are crying problems that our society needs to face and resolve. Some political entrepreneurs who require a united front in order not to disperse collective energies have been quick to advise against worsening of the already existing inter-ethnic divisions in our midst. Somehow, they do not consider that to ignore the controversy or down play its driven logic, could harden the ranking that has been attempted and, to that extent, make it quite affirmable with the accretion of time. Of course, those who are already convinced of its veracity and have lived in the shadow of its ritualized affirmation, all their lives, would want the ranking to remain as they know it. Hence, they act bored by the controversy and would therefore wish that we move on quickly to other matters. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) the controversy won't go away.
At any rate, this is not the first time it has visited or reared its head. The ranking, as it happens, is so deeply rooted in the ethnic unconscious of some people that there is good reason for the palace in Benin City to wish, with each eruption of the controversy, to put the records, or lack of records, straight. It happens to be the case that the ranking of the obas takes on a life of its own within every effort to build a sense of common nationality among Yoruba people. Every bid by the Yoruba to unite under a common leader or in conformity with a presumption of common ancestry, has always yielded one form of such ranking or the other. It has become part of a modernist or modernizing project which nation-builders escape only when they are able to put the knowledge industry at the centre of their quest. Especially, with the establishment of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa on home ground in 1948, the business of building up such a knowledge industry, creating a formal historiography to get it right, has been part of every bid at nation-building. With bounding successes in research and publications, everything seemed to be going fine before the regression that came with political crisis in the sixties and the virtual abandonment of the enlightenment project that Obafemi Awolowo is still rightly praised for.
Frankly, it has since boiled down to the old saw about putting things in books if you want to hide them from Africans. Otherwise, too many scholars, Yoruba and non-Yoruba, in our midst, unrecognized by a thoroughly philistine, anti-enlightenment elite, have sweated their lives out researching and correcting the whimsical, myth-suffused folklore and the ultra-parochial rendering of the past, that many of our leaders regard as history, with a capital H. The result is that, with so much cultural illiteracy abounding, we all go mucking around with woolly and crooked thoughts about ourselves and our neighbours to the detriment of social and political projects that could save our part of the world from backwardness and decay. Specific to the ranking of the Yoruba obas: So deeply ingrained is the ranking among not only the Obas, but many Yoruba big wigs! The palace in Benin City has had to be effusively vigilant, on perpetual watch, as it were, rebutting every indication of a resurgence of the claim. It happens to be a claim that many, including Professors of History, lacking the requisite cultural literacy have humoured with shrugs and incipient concordance in order not to be wrong-footed by popular opinionating. Surely, being only too willing to wish the sleeping dog of history back to sleep whenever it is roused by controversy, they wittingly or unwittingly, contribute to allowing the already stated position to remain the unspoken but reigning truth of the matter. The implication, even if unintended, is that they withdraw enthusiasm from the need to clear the mushy debris of insupportable folklore that masquerades as history. They contribute to the death of historical consciousness in our part of the world.
What must be borne in mind in the case of the Alake's recent pronouncement on the ranking of Yoruba obas, is that it happened during a visit by the newly crowned Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, who has been making commendable representations on behalf of Yoruba unity since his elevation to the throne. His definitive un-jinxing of the hiatus between the Ife and Oyo monarchies, by a visit that dammed several decades of distancing, has raised enormous and quite salutary vibes across the country. Much beyond Yorubaland. One wishes that it was actually always the case that we had obas, like him, who would stop distracting their people with arguments about the past that divide rather than bring people together. As such, it was to be expected that visits between kings of different communities swearing descent from a common ancestor would yield some brag, and even some luxuriating in sheer grandiloquence, for the sake of ethnic pride and national self-glorification. Quite understandable. In such situations, all traditional cultures in the world, seeking to have their day in the sun, have tended always to confer even other-worldly features on their monarchs as a form of self promotion for the tribe, nation or race. In particular, new Obas have tended to attract a hyper inflation of oriki and other panegyrics in order to match the character sketch of an igbakejiorisa, a virtual divinity. Such moments in history inspire what, in his essay on The Monarchical Tendency in African Political Culture, Ali Mazrui describes in the context of the quest for aristocratic effect, the personalization of authority, the sacralization of authority and the quest for a royal historical identity. In the case of the Ooni Ogunwusi, until the Alake's 'goof' which the Benin Palace has rebutted, something ethereally all-accommodating, sanguine, and salutary seemed to be attending to his forthright bid for unity wherever he went. Now, clearly, what has been pulled out of the bag by the Alake, even if returned to the bag, can no longer spell in a way that will make all comfortable.
It calls to be taken in hand and dealt with in a manner that will not continue to put the Nigerian Project at the mercy of poorly designed ethnic projects. Indeed, now that the Alake, through his media spokesman, has insisted that his ranking of the obas is bam on the mark, and not retractable, it calls for a serious engagement of the issues beyond reliance on work-a-day folklore. To be sure, his insistence may be quite benign in the context of intra-ethnic muscle-flexing which may cause only mild grating, such as when the Alafin of Oyo haggles with the Ooni over decades, as to who is superior. But when the matter goes inter-cultural, applied in a multi-ethnic situation, it can get truly pernicious, with grave repercussions; enough to unsettle the balance of respect between neighbours. This is especially so when all the verifiable propositions to the contrary are dismissed without a second thought; such that the cooping of ethnic self-assurance, on the one hand, is turned into a means of thumbing noses at or down-grading neighbours who, on the other hand, have been no less illustrious from antiquity to the present.
The core issue is that, whether intended or not, the ranking of the obas across ethnic boundaries implies an attempt at a form of suzerainty of one ethnic group or nationality over another. By imputing a vertical ordering of sorts, it puts a dubious historical stamp on sheer fictions that could be truly disorienting. In an age when, as we know, aspiring internal colonialists begin the quest for assimilation or overcoming of others by, first, having to invent whimsy as a verity of times and tides, it can get quite far reaching. Who needs to be told that such tides must be stemmed before they harden into inscrutable canon! Or, let me put it this way: that as someone with an instinctive intellectual empathy with all ethnic groups craving for self governance, seeking unity in their ranks or working to disperse the succubus of a unitarized federalism that rampages across and assaults our God-given and highly creative diversity, I would seriously invite all Nigerians to abhor the over-parochial presumption that seeks to put others down in the process of crafting a new sense of self for any ethnic nationality. Who can tell what could be made of a cunningly designed myth of ethnic super-ordinance as a means of turning the freeborn into a non-citizen in his father's house? This is not just a matter of rhetoric. It raises questions, not to be taken lightly, in the face of a new Ooni, preaching unity of the Yoruba people, at a time when dithering Yoruba elites, annoyingly self-deprecatory in normal times, have been finally goaded by hard times, to reach the point of agreeing to join in forging a united economic front around the Odua Investments; with Lagos joining the fold. It begins to serve as a warning or a threat, however, when a paramount Oba, such as the Alake, claiming fourth position in the hierarchy of Yoruba Obas, chooses to flaunt one myth that has been permanently disputed by a neighbor for as long as it has surfaced. Even for people who do not normally care about such things, it begins to grate, when it is realized that such ranking is based on myths that cannot even bear forensic scrutiny.
Let's face it: between the Edo and the Yoruba, those who wish that all of us should live by myths can be seen as strategically roughening up the insuperable distinctiveness of the Edo people within a notion of the siblinghood of their palaces. What they may not realize, and therefore need to be told, is that it gets truly atavistic, when others claim you as sibling only in order to degrade or down-grade what you are. It has the same kind of feel as the myth which makes a distinction between Hausa Bakwai and Hausa Banza with a peculiar cunning of history built into it. It could be worse when it comes from a very unnecessary wish to assimilate others while negating their interests through a cold indifference to facts, thus turning whimsical mythology into history.
The good part is that, in an age when History is being displaced by so much cant, ignored and muddied by those who prefer to re-invent the past as a means of achieving modern ambitions at other people's expense, there are criteria of ascertainment of knowledge which can be deployed to test the veracity of narratives. No matter how cleverly or high-mindedly such narratives try to overcome what is already known or knowable, the point is that they can be defeated by invoking the awesome wealth of information at the behest of contemporary knowledge industries. I dare say that on this matter of the ranking of the obas, the saving grace is that all the information needed to decide one way or the other can be found in debates that have been going on, for decades, among historians and anthropologists, disquisitions between cultural philosophers and the search for balance between literary critics.
In my book, In Search of Ogun: Soyinka In Spite of Nietzsche, (published in 2014) I have pooled together a number of the strands in order to indicate the necessity for movement away from metaphysical dead ends and the parochial dredge of many of the arguments which over privilege inward-looking ethnic issues rather than their universalistic implications. The point is that ethnic solidarity may be quite a good workshop for developing values that are relevant for wider activism in the promotion of shared human values, but the latter must always be properly minded to obviate the tendency for self-apprehension to be turned into the case of a snake eating its own tail unto death. I see it as a case for unveiling supposedly esoteric or secret knowledge, making public property of arcane issues of cults and conclaves, such that, for instance, we can appreciate the reality of Yoruba people who may worship a deified Edo personage; Edo people who are devotees of a Yoruba god; and the treason of history which can confront people of different ethnic groups, even enemy nationalities, with the reality of a common ancestor. In Soyinka In Spite of Nietzsche, I contend with principles and values that promise astute approaches to management science and management of society by looking through and beyond positions that are derivable from the gods our ancestors worshipped. I am concerned that it is because we do not always keep the right perspectives on such matters that, adding the ranking of obas, we run into major altercations. For the purpose of this write-up, my intention is to dwell less on metaphysics and issues of cultural philosophies. I wish to engage current issues by recalling and engaging one of the many altercations that came to a head in 2004, yielding a big blow-out between Ooni Olubuse and Oba Erediauwa, after the latter's publication of his autobiography, I REMAIN, SIR, YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT in which he devoted a chapter to 'The Benin-Ife Connection'.
In that particular chapter of the book, Oba Erediauwa questions the veracity of the two versions of the origins of the Benin monarchy that came from Egharevba's authoritative and highly regarded A SHORT HISTORY OF BENIN. In the first edition, Egharevba wrote: "Many many years ago, Odua (Oduduwa) of Uhe (Ile-Ife), the father and progenitor of the Yoruba kings sent his eldest son Obagodo - who took the title of Ogiso - with a large retinue all the way from Uhe to found a Kingdom in this part of the world".
..."And in the fourth (and now current) edition of the book, the late author wrote: "Many, many years ago, the Binis came all the way from Egypt to found a more secure shelter in this part of the world after a short stay in the Sudan and at Ile-Ife, which the Benin people called Uhe...The rulers or kings were commonly known as "Ogiso" before the arrival of Oduduwa and his party at Ife in Yorubaland, about the 12th century of the Christian era".
Anyone reading the two versions in the first and fourth editions will be tempted to agree with Erediauwa that there were interpolations that amounted to a bias in the narrative. One may not agree with Erediauwa's claim that Egharevba's "Edo ne'kue (Edo-Akure - partly Benin partly Yoruba....) blood in the man manifested itself" or that the editors, "the experts in the Ibadan University contributed to the contradictions". But it is too obvious that something happened to the narrative that is quite out of sync with the authority on display. Erediauwa simply avers that "the earliest rulers or kings in what is today Edo or Benin were known as "Ogiso". The first was known as Ogiso Igodo and the last (of the thirty one or so of them) was Ogiso Owodo, the father of Ekaladeran who became known as Oduduwa in Ife. In essence, Oduduwa came after the Ogisos. Not before. According to Erediauwa, the idea of a Benin Prince choosing a title in order to be king did not even begin in Benin History until after Oduduwa's youngest son, Oramiyan, fathered a child, the dumb one, in Benin, who literally gave himself a name when on winning a game of akhue he gave a shout of victory, OWOMIKA,"my hand has struck it", his first intelligible speech. The Benin people corrupted the name and it became Eweka. Also, it became tradition, thereafter, for every king-to-be to go to Use, the site of the game of akhue, to choose a name before climbing the throne. So to say, Egharevba, whom we all owe so much, got it all mixed up. As Edo traditions have it, Ogiso Owodo was advised by the oracle to have his son Ekaladeran executed for being the source of the unhappiness in the land during his reign. Unaware that he was being deceived, he sent the public executioner, Oka Odionmwan, to do the job. But the executioner decided to have pity on Ekaladeran and "on reaching the outskirts of the city" let him off. From there the prince wandered into the world, settling alone, first in Ughoton, where the elders gave him hospitality, before he moved to a village on the outskirts of Ile-Ife. When his Igodo people first learnt of his being alive and went searching for him, they found him living as leader in one of the stranger settlements outside the main bowl of Ife. 'Oke Ora (Ora Hill) between Ile Ife and Ilesha', insists Ade Obayemi. Although Adebanji Akintoye in his A HISTORY OF THE YORUBA PEOPLE, does not attend to the claim that Oduduwa came from Benin, he posits that it was from the settlement outside the Bowl of Ife that Oduduwa moved down into the city with his party to occupy one of the key stranger quarters, pooling them together until he became leader of all the stranger elements. He moved against the autochthons, and seized power. The seizure of power is acknowledged by all the authorities on Ife history. It led to the exile of Obatala and his party of autochthons; it led to famine as can be imagined if the earth tillers go on awwol. Even after the crisis appeared resolved and Obatala returned, he had to function under Oduduwa's authority. Many of his followers, like Obameri, moved to Oduduwa's side. Diehard supporters of Obatala like Obawinrin who could not take it and continued to fight, were beaten out of the Ife Bowl into Igbo Igbo of the rain forest. As Erediauwa puts it: "It is a historical fact, known I believe to present-day Ife people, that the original settlers whom Ekaladeran (Oduduwa) met moved away from Ife to a place called Ugbo, a very ancient Ilaje town in Okitipupa area. Ife elders, especially the traditional title holders, must know the rest of the Ugbo episode as it affects Ife and Oduduwa because Ife people today perform a ritual festival that re-enacts the events that caused the original settlers including their village head to flee from Ife and Ekaladeran (or Oduduwa) to become the head of the community".
For that matter, it is claimed by some contemporary Nigerian historians that many of the areas which answer Igbo in their names across Yoruba land were redoubts of resistant groups belonging to the Igbo, led by Obatala. Adiele Afigbo, not by any chance a frivolous historian, has argued that the expulsion of the Igbo from Ife was not just myth but history as the movement of Igbo people from the western side of the Niger to the eastern side of the river was a consequence of that fracturing, terrorism, a virtual mfecane, that took place with Oduduwa's overcoming of the indigenes. In the end, both Obatala and Oduduwa were deified and some kind of patching up of the narratives have been attempted by successive generations to hide the fact that there was a grand fissure. But that is where myth comes into its own. Such that on page 57 of his book, Adebanji Akintoye, without dwelling on how it was possible, comes to the conclusion that "It is on the soil of Yorubaland that Oduduwa was born and raised; it is only in that soil that his roots can be found". We may well shrug. Such an understanding obviously led Ade Ajayi in a Vanguard inteview on May 16, 2004, to insist that although more researches still need to be done, "people cant just wake up one day and say that Oduduwa must have been a Benin Prince that they wanted to execute, ran and ran to a village and you call Ife a village?" Ade Ajayi adds: "Who is the Oba of Benin to come and tell the Yorubas what they should believe about themselves? I think it is very very wrong and impertinent to assume that you know more about the Yoruba people than the Yoruba know about themselves. On what basis? What information could he have? When he says from his studies, what did he study? What books? Is it in the colonial days or before then or its the books written by educated Yoruba people of the 19th century?"
What cannot bear scrutiny, because it must crumble, is Egharevba's Obagodo hypothesis which attempts to impose a theory of Yoruba origins on the kings of Igodomigodo in a period that shares parallel sorties with the era of the first sixteen kings of Ife before the arrival of Oduduwa. That era, of which Obatala was the last of sixteen kings in Ife and Owodo, the father of Oduduwa, was the last of thirty one kings in Igodomigodo, ought to be properly matched, not confused, if only because it puts in proper perspective the arrival of Oduduwa's son, Oramiyan, and his three lunar months as ruler, that changed the name of the city from Igodomigodo to Benin, before the city was renamed as Edo by the great great grand child, Ogun Ewuare, in the 15th century. At any rate, talking serious history, rather than mythologies, no self-respecting historian, in our century, buys the hoary stuff about the Yoruba progenitor coming from Egypt, Mecca, the Sudan or which ever zone is supposed to provide aristocractic effect or ancient, sacralized, historical identity that affirms greatness of a people. Whether in Johnson's History of the Yoruba, Biobaku's valiant efforts or F. Ade Ajayi's embarrassingly un-researched put-down of Erediauwa's narrative as uninformed, they amount to the purveyance of a Hamitic thesis, a local variant of which I have called the Obagodo hypothesis, which have been smashed by dedicated Yoruba historians since I. A. Akinjogbin and his co-revolutionary historians.(See CRADLE OF A RACE) They have long moved beyond all the romantic historicism of the earlier foragers in oral traditions. Ade Obayemi, in particular, was among the first radical dissenters from the received myths who realized that Oduduwa could not have come from outside the world of the Niger Benue confluence. Keen dredgers of the history of Ile Ife like Isola Olomola, reached the same conclusion: Ife was a centre that attracted people from far and wide before Oduduwa came amongst them and literally scattered the system of cooperative governance under the chairmanship of Obatala who would later be deified as god of creation or creativity, a lover of wine whose devotees are advised against alcohol.
The question no one has answered is how it was possible for Oduduwa to have been born in Yorubaland and still be described as a stranger by all Ife traditions, by Ifa, and those who like Olubushe II, accept the romance that Oduduwa came from Mecca, Egypt, Sudan or from the sky, with a chain. What cannot be escaped is that not knowing where Oduduwa came from is at the heart of the matter. Rejecting, instead of researching, what must now be called the Erediauwa thesis which argues that Oduduwa was a Prince of Igodomigodo, does not help matters. Once the ranking of the obas in Yorubaland comes into the picture, the issue gets over-loaded. The Erediauwa/Benin story just happens to be the only one available that tells Oduduwa's story with some certitude. Reject it or not, it still does not affect the critical aspect of the narrative which indicates that Oduduwa actually sent his youngest son, Oramiyan, to Igodo whether in response to a distress call or because he saw a vacuum and decided to fill it. Oramiyan's three months in Benin was too full of troubles that he could not resolve. He left in annoyance, damning the people as a people of intrigues and quarrels, Ile-ibinu, which only a child born amongst them could tackle or accommodate. But he left a pregnant woman behind whom Oduduwa had to send procurers and minders for until she delivered. The child turned out dumb and could not speak until that famous game of akhue when he gave a shout of victory that earned him the name, Eweka, which started a dynasty.
What all the traditions, and therefore History, vouchsafes is that Oramiyan, on his return journey made stop overs at various stations but pooled his forces together at Kaltunga/Oyo where he begat the Alafin, and started another dynasty. He eventually returned to Ife and and became the king after the death of Oduduwa. Shall we say, he rounded the circle. From Ife back to Ife. What is not denied by any authority is that all the Kings of Benin, Oyo and Ife, thereafter had the same ancestor. Unless, ethnic pride, sheer narrative mischief and ugly cult disorders enter the picture, how is it possible in the narration of the folklore, myth, or history, to rank the three dynasties and not follow the order in which they were established and acknowledged at Ile Ife! Which odu of Ifa tells us a different story other than the one that accepts the chronology just adumbrated! So, there is no denying it: whether you believe the Ekaladeran story or not, you have to accept that Oduduwa sent his youngest son who thereafter displaced all the older sons, overtook them, and made them invisible to the claims of history. Those who are not Oramiyan's children may well kick and seek another ranking that puts them in the picture. But they have no locus because it is actually Oramiyan's children who built the empires that survived the ravages of history. Among those children, as has always been accepted by ALL AUTHORITIES, the Benin Monarch came first. To do a somersault about it and seek to make Eweka appear like the third in the hierarchy is simply jiggery pokery, rigging, and sheer distortion of History. When Ade Ajayi says that Oba Erediauwa's "own father used to attend and meet at the conference of Yoruba obas regularly during colonial rule", he is quite right. Ajayi adds, truculently however that Oba Akenzua, Erediauwa's "own father did not object to this but he (Erediauwa) from his own point of view of politics thinks it is a departure from his own status ....." and " that Ife monarchy is derived from Benin monarchy".
The truth of the matter is that even if anyone rejects the fact "that Ife Monarchy is derived from Igodo monarchy", it changes nothing about the reality that the Monarchy in Benin City is still Number One among Oduduwa's children. I mean: let it be assumed that Oduduwa came from Egypt, Mecca, Sudan, Ethiopia (where the Oromo Region has a nationality fraction called Oromiyas) or from Orun, as heaven or a place we do not know, with a chain made of iron if not some other metal, it does not change the fact that the dumb one who learnt to talk by naming himself OWOMIKA, 'my hand has stuck it', the first Benin monarch after the Ogisos, was the first child of Oramiyan whose children built the empires that our part of the world remembers.
No question about it: there is the other significant issue that whoever becomes the Ooni of Ife is closest to the Opa Oranyan, and therefore must be deemed the preserver of the family grain, the shrine of nativity. A special place may therefore be reserved for him in the celebration of the family business which monarchy always is, in every culture where it exists. It does not however remove from the eldest child the imprimatur that age provides. At any rate, Edo culture has been, for centuries, a strict upholder of the principle of primogeniture and therefore some remove from parleying with those who have no respect for the firstborn adult male in the matter of monarchical rule. The reality is that whenever the Oba of Benin sat among Yoruba obas, he knew he was the eldest. He did not have to say it for it to be true. Those who deny him his place may stand on ethnic arrogance, which is hollow. The rest of the world knows that if there are other forms of prowess that can grant suzerainty, superiority or primacy to a king, the Edo king had and has it. In a century when governance is based on democracy by numbers, it may well be argued that the Edo people do not have as much population as the Yoruba to decide the matter. But matters pertaining to monarchies are not resolved by a democracy of numbers. A king is a king because he is the child of who he is. Or if he can impose his will, by rod and staff. If the latter is the tack of those who continue to engage in the ranking of Yoruba obas, the average Edo can then invoke the Edebiri principle which advises that the Oba of Benin is not a Yoruba and therefore cannot be placed on a list of Yoruba Obas.
.
Ayotunde Bewaji
Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indiess
Mona Campus
Kingston 7
Jamaica
Email: john....@uwimona.edu.jm (alternate)
tunde....@gmail.com (alternate)
tunde...@yahoo.com
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ibdu...@gmail.com
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2016, at 1:53 PM, "'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
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Obadiah Mailafia
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Salimonu Kadiri
The word OBA is a typical Yoruba word from which Bãlé (OBA ILE) = the head of the family or husband and Bãlè (OBA ILÈ) = district head are derived. Benins have neither BÃLÉ nor BÃLÈ therefore the word OBA as applied to their king is borrowed from Yoruba. Before the current Oba of Benin ascended the throne, his real name was Solomon Aisiokhuobo Igbinoghodua Akenzua. But when he ascended the throne he acquired the name, Omo N'Oba N'Edo Uku Akpolokplolo Erediauwa. In Yorubaland the jurisdiction of the Oba is permanent and is always stated before his title and name. Thus, we have Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, Awujale of Ijebu-Ode, Oba Sikiru Adetona etc. The Yoruba word for King is Oba and the Yoruba word for Crown is Adé. The two words have nothing to do with Benin as historical revisionists will like us to believe.
S. Kadiri
From: ibdu...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 15:22:29 +0000
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Jibrin Ibrahim
16 A7 Street,
CITEC Mbora Estate,
Jabi/Airport Road By-pass,
P.O.Box14345, Wuse
Abuja, Nigeria
Tel - +234 8053913837
Twitter- @jibrinibrahim17
Facebook- jibrin.ibrahim
Rex Marinus
I'm just curious, Tunde and ibdullah: what exactly is the "training" of a historian, or for that matter, a "literary guy"? Who is a "practicing" historian or "logician"? Ofeimun has cited Afigbo and Obayemi, and the various authorities in anthropology and history. Perhaps it might be more productive, Tunde, if you challenge Odia's claims with better authority rather than a rather general, ungrounded dismissal of his claims. Odia is a writer, and in the interdisciplinary grounds of his work as a trained political scientist, a poet, a journalist, and generally a widely read and educated man in the modern letters, from philosophy to history to Literature, it is ridiculous to dismiss Odia Ofeimun simply because you think he's not practicing as a "historian." I mean as poet, J.P. Clark's Casualties, for example, or Okigbo's "Path of Thunder" yields more historical narrative, as would in fact, Soyinka's memoir of his Ibadan years: Ibadan: the Penklemesi Years and You Must Set Forth At Dawn. Achebe's The Trouble With Nigeria, is a clear book of political Philosophy as indeed it is an account and interpretation of aspects of Nigeria's political history. Literary historians, in taking account of significant moments of Nigeria's experience of nationhood might find more in these texts, as well as in Achebe's memoir, There Was a Country, or in Madiebo's War memoir or Soyinka's The Man Died, or even Odia's book of poems, The Poet Lied, in its contestations with Clark's Casualties, than any other work done in this era by any "professional historian." The chronicles of our time constitute, all told, the accounts of all our strivings. That is the meaning of history. Any man or woman well educated enough in the humane letters to discern these accounts need no other tag. So, again, I ask: who is a historian, a logician, and what is a "literary guy"?
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2016 11:47 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Uyilawa Usuanlele
From: ogunl...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:47:51 +0100
Salimonu Kadiri
The institution of Oba or traditional rulers in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is dirty and sacrilegious in our culture and should have been weeded out long time ago. Before the advent of Slave trade, an Oba carried the responsibility of leading his community, in defending and repulsing external aggressors, humans or wild animals; and in agricultural labour. When those Oba began to ravage neighbouring communities to capture and sell fellow black man as slaves to Europeans, they lost their dignities and rights to be Oba of their communities. After the end of classical slavery, the colonialists came knocking and the Obas surrendered to become subordinate to foreign power. Consequently, the institution of Oba became useless to Nigerians where ever Oba, as traditional rulers, existed. Whether we like it or not, the truth is that we were colonized by Britain who initially ruled through the Emirs in the North and Obas in the West. In the East there were no traditional rulers as in the North and West, therefore, the colonialist created Warrant Chiefs as substitutes for Oba and Emirs. Premised on this historical fact it would not have made any sense for Akenzua II to suggest Enugu as meeting place for the Obas in the South under the supervision of the Colonial masters, when there was no Oba in Enugu (Remember the saying Igbo enwe Eze or Ezebuilo Igbos have no Kings or The-King-Is-An-Enemy).
From: big...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Okechukwu Ukaga
Executive Director, Northeast Minnesota Sustainable Development Partnership
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Richard Buckminster Fuller
Rex Marinus
Okey, the word "Eze" does not mean "king" in Igbo land. It is a specific title, like 'Igwe" which also has been appropriated by contemporary monarchists in Igbo land. Igbo authority system is clear: the man is king of his home, and "Oha" is king of the Igbo under the Umunna system. Simply, the "king" of the Igbo is the people themselves gathered at the public square to deliberate and decide on their affairs. There is no history of any kingdom in Igbo land. EzeNri is a high priest, whose power is spiritual rather than political authority. Even the Obi institution in Onitsha is a modern creation of the 19th century. The Obi was more like the rotating head of the Agbalanze, historically, the council of the oldest titled men from all the clans of Onitsha. Its formalization into a monarchical institution is much like the early twentieth century formalization of the Olu 'badan as a monarch. Historically, the Ibadan were as much hardy republicans like the Igbo, each subscribing only to the head of the individual compounds of that old city, made up of migrants who came to settle long after that Igbo man, Lagoelu, had settled up in the hills.
In any case, Obatala was no "king." He was leader of a land of an autochtonous people who fought in defence of a republican ethos over the intrusive monarchist movement in Igbomoku, now known as Ife, according to certain authorities of the Ifa. The records of the Ifa give us but a good glimpse of the nature of that conflict. But to return to the assumption of the Igbo and "kings": you have, I'm sorry to say, just reproduced a fallacy of contemporary Igbo monarchists, who think that the absence of the monarchy reduces Igbo history and culture somehow. But to see the Igbo in its clear light, you need to read, say, Achebe's Arrow of God. It does reveal something of traditional Igbo authority system. The Chief priest, Eze Ulu, was no king, even though he bore the high Ozo title of "Eze." The word "Ezedinma" does not quite translate into "the king is good." It simply suggests that aspiration towards a great and noble life is of great value. In traditional Igbo community gathering, there was no high table. People sat in a circle, according to their peers, guilds, kinships, and so on. There was no head of a table or head of the land. "Onye Ji Isi Ala" or "Onye Isi Ala" was keeper of the chief shrine or temple of the land, whose authority is as good as the fidelity of the god. For as long as the god serves the land with fidelity, the people will honor it, but if the god becomes too burdensome, the Igbo will abandone it and make a new God for themselves. A peope who say, of even gods, "if a deity begins to over assume its importance, we, the people will just show it the tree from which it is carved," do not make kings. If it came time for the Chief priest to talk, he would talk. If it came time for Olelewe to talk, he would talk. If it came time for Jadum to talk, even he, whose inspired madness might just be the voice of the gods too, will be allowed to talk. If it came time to summarize the general talk, the elders of the land will summon such and such known for a great oratorical capacity to speak on behalf of the people, who himself at the end of his speech, will ask the people if he spoke the peoples mind. If he did, people will say, "kponkwem!" If he missed something, someone might say, "let me add just one or two things to your voice," and so it is with the Igbo.
A man may be "Eze oti" or "Di Oti" - Master Vintner, or "Di Ogu" or "Eze Ogu" - great warrior or "Eze Umara" - captain of the boat, or even, "Eze Ndi Ara" - leader of the mad people. Eze does not mean king. Eze Ala, actually means, PRIEST of the Earth deity. Not king of the land. To prove this point of the individual domain of kingship: every man in Igbo land assumes the authority of his home in presenting kolanut, that sacred and bitter fruit of friendship and kinship with which the Igbo ritualize (a) their belief in the kinship of all men, and (b) the sacred communion with the divine and the uniqueness of the individual's "Chi" which when brought together through the communion, invokes the great union of the Godhead called, "Chukwu." Once the journey of affirmation of the Kola is complete in the circle, the last recipient would say, "Oji Eze laara Eze," - simply put, "let the king's kolanut return to him." The king at that moment is the owner of the home. When the Igbo gather in public, each eldest surviving first born son (Di Opara/Okpala/ Okpara/ Di Okpa/ Opara Nna) of the various clans of the town comes to the public forum bearing the "Ofo Ndi Iche" or "Nne Ofo" ( The "Mother-ofo" as it is sometimes called)of his clan, and if a decision has been made, these elders one after the other will bring out their Ofo and lie it on the ground according to the hierarchy of the clans, from the oldest to the youngest. Each Ofo however is Equal, irrespective of agnatic hierarchy. As the Igbo say, "Ofo Ha Otu" - there is no bigger Ofo than the other. If it comes time to affirming the law as it is collectively agreed, "Isu Ofo" - each head of the clan picks up the Ofo of his family, and follows the ritual to beat it four times on the earth as is required in concert with the rest. This is the basis of Igbo lawgiving. The shadow power of the Igbo are those eldest first born sons (Ndi Okpara), and because they are required to take the highest tirtoles of the land, they are also "Ndi Nze"n (the collective name of those who take the 'Eze' or 'Obi' or 'Igwe' or 'Di(m)") titles - Ndi Riri Nzere/ Ndi Oli Nze (those who are inductees into the highest sacred rites). There is no law of the kings. The word, "Iwu Nze" or "Iwu Eze" simply means, the laws guiding and sanctioning the society/rites of titled men. It does not mean the "law of the king." I think it is important to understand the nuances of these words and their semantic authority in Igbo before transposing and (mis) interpreting them. "Igbo Enwegh Eze," means exactly what it says: the Igbo have no kings - in spite of what contemporary revisionists say. It does not mean that Igbo have no leaders. They have LEADERS but they do not do well under A LEADER. Every Igbo male or woman is a potential leader of his/her society, based on the principle of "Iga Ozi" - community service. The only time the sovereign will is collapsed under a single leader is in war: A war leader, "Di Ogu" or "Di Ike" emerges and is invested with the authority of the elders and the divinities of the land. Once the war is over, he returns to this place as another citizen, "Di Ala," after he goes through the ritual of cleansing, "Isa Aka." But beyond that, truly, Igbo enweze.
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2016 6:09 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Okechukwu Ukaga
Obi,
Yours is one perspective. Mine is another. Obviously I disagree with you on this one. Perhaps it is s matter of interpretation, including what is a king. Take care.
Okey
Segun Ogungbemi
Sent from my iPhone
Uyilawa Usuanlele
From: ogunl...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
dAme jOo
Salimonu Kadiri
African leaders (Kings) in collaboration with Europeans freely depleted the continent of millions of its most able manpower through slave trade. Please note that I am not blaming only the Oba of Benin of that period of terrible betrayal of our people. The transformation of classical slavery into colonialism, nationalism and now globalization is depleting Africa of its forest and mineral resources. In Nigeria, just like other countries in Africa, we have surrogate political regimes (slave overseers indeed) doing the biddings of slave masters abroad, thereby causing us the natural resources rich countries of Africa to be poor and natural resources poor countries abroad to be rich. I think this is the greatest challenge for you and me, in fact, for all of us to tackle and not the rankings of Oba in the old Western Region.
However, a people without a history is a people without a past and a people without a past will never have a future. Deep knowledge of our history as a people would help us not only to correct past mistakes but to develop. Odia, like myself is a republican but in his intervention on the rankings of Obas in the old Western Region he wrote fiction and not history. If you have read me with open mind, you would have understood my pictorial image of his fiction as expressed in dogs being the progenitors of lions. Had I averred that the world is upside-down in Nigeria where the Supreme Court could declare that two-third (2/3) of nineteen (19), mathematically, is twelve (12) perhaps, you would not have extrapolated Supreme Court of Nigeria on Benin or Edo as you have done with the dogs being the progenitors of lions.
You referred to Egbe Omo Oduduwa as an ethno-nationalist organization but that is completely false. Egbe Omo Oduduwa was a Yoruba socio-cultural organization that embraced all Yorubas irrespective of their political party affiliations. Henry Oladipo Davies was a member of Egbe Omo Oduduwa as one of the founding fathers but he was a strong member of the NCNC. On the contrary, all members of 'Ibo Federal Union' which later became 'Ibo State Union' were automatic members of the NCNC. You may wish to remember that Ibo Federal Union was formed in 1943 whereas Egbe Omo Oduduwa was formed in 1948, the same year Jam'iyyar Mutanen Arewa was formed in the North. Even in the East, Professor Eyo Ita formed Ibibio Federal Union which later changed its name to Ibibio State Union in the same year as Ibo Federal or State Union. That is not to say that many members of the Action Group were voluntary members of Egbe Omo Oduduwa.
From: big...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Akin Ogundiran
My brothers, Uyi and Mr. Kadiri, please let’s cool it down. This diatribe is not necessary and you have both taken things too far. Ok, so far, you have both focused on the colonial and postcolonial history of power. That's ok. Let's take this back a little.
First, in recent years, the Ife-Benin (or is it Yoruba/Edo?) historical debates in the pubic square have become painful to read or hear because the argument is rarely about historical evidence but about ideology. It is even more painful when historians are involved in this debate and all they do is make up stories that support the political elite’s ideological positions instead of paying attention to the historical scholarship. So, we cite Johnson, Egharevba and some of the outdated archaeological speculations whenever they suit us. Our royal fathers have vested interests in these fabrications but what about historians? There are some very basic facts that we must pay attention to. These facts concern what was or what happened, not what we thought happened. I am trying to respond to the remarks that several people have made based on what I can remember over the past three days or what my time currently allows.
1. Benin’s royal dynasty was part of the Ife-centric dynasties for more than 700 years but not all Yoruba-speaking areas were Ife-centric, especially between 1000 and 1500.
2. The Ife-centric world was not simply a Yoruba-speaking world, it included Edo-speaking, via the Oba of Benin dynasty.
3. The word ọba did not originally mean “divine king”. It meant natural leader of a family or Big House. The term, on linguistic ground, originated among the first Yoruba-speakers in Okun area ca. 100-500 AD before it passed through Ekiti to Ife as a result of migrations. It was in Ekiti that the term possibly first metamorphosed into the idea of “divine kingship”.
4. Archaeological evidence shows that the people of the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries from Ife to Benin, including Ondo, Ijesa, and Owo, made use of broadly the same stylistic and formal properties of material culture, and spoke dialects of Central Yoruba, Southeast Yoruba, and Edo (Benin) languages in their respective areas. However, their cognitive and cultural practices were basically the same.
5. The Yoruba, Igbo, or Edo did not migrate to their present area from Egypt. These peoples created their cultures and societies out of the Late Stone Age and Early Iron Age cultures of Central Nigeria. The Yoruba and Igala were speaking the same language as late as 250 BC, before the former began to expand from their homeland. There is no evidence of any direct connection to Nok.
Odia’s piece stirred this current soup of Yoruba-Edo history. He didn’t add any ingredient or even water into the burning historical pot but there is an important question that his piece raised. Is Oba of Benin number One. My Answer: Absolutely Yes! But I will also add: so is the Ooni of Ife. So is the Alaafin of Oyo. Even, the Awujale of Ijebu-Ode. Any Oba in the context of colonial Nigeria can claim number 1, and new titles have been created since 1900 to assert No. 1 in different domains. Even “kings” have been created all over Nigeria to assert No. 1. Why not Oba of Benin?
But this ranking business is not new. Colonialism did not introduce the headache of ranking the ọba in the Yoruba-Edo world. Centuries before colonialism, the dynasties of the region debated hierarchies among themselves. They fought wars to settle those debates, and sometimes they negotiated those hierarchies through diplomacy. Of course, at the core of the struggle for number 1 (or, near number 1) was access to resources: control of trade routes, markets, raw materials, tributes, labor, etc.
During the 16th century, there was an Ife-centric brotherhood of dynasties that included Benin, Oyo and several Ekiti kingdoms. Interestingly, I doubt whether the Alake of Ake (who supposedly put the pot of history on fire) would have been listed among the sixteen top dynasty-brothers in the region ca.1500. About two-thirds of that list would have gone to Ekiti Kingdoms. In the 14th century, the configuration might not even have included Oyo. But Benin and Ọwọ were at the forefront of the brotherhood as early as the 13th century. Today, Alake claims a seat among the sixteen principal kings. Time has changed.
My point is that time matters. Let’s stop looking at the past as if what we see today has always existed deep in the past. With this in mind, the Ọba of Benin can claim today that he is no longer part of the Ife-centric world. In 1480, he dared not say so because that would have negated his legitimacy. This is a different time, and indeed, within Edo state, the Oba of Benin is Number One. Within Osun State, the Ooni of Ife is Number One. Alaafin claims the same in Oyo State. In Ogun State, about five royal fathers are fighting out number 1 status among themselves. All these claims are attached to appropriating the state resources – salaries, cars, prestige, and power.
Aside, there are folks on this thread who have declared one group as republican, and the other as royalist. These terminologies are irrelevant for discussing precolonial African history. Let’s create terms that best represent the experience of the African past. For example, the republicanism embedded in Yoruba royalism of 1000 AD put the so-called republican practices of Athenian Republic of 500 BC to shame.
My final point on this. Whenever I read many children of colonial and postcolonial Nigeria, I am always amazed at how successful colonialism was in making "tribes" out of us. Interestingly, our ancestors of the 12th, 13th, through 18th centuries were far more cosmopolitan than many us. The court of Benin thrived in the 16th century with many dialects of Yoruba, Nupe, and Edo languages. The same in Ife and Ilesa. In Oyo-Ile, Baatonu, Nupe, Yoruba languages flourished. And people of different language communities were appointed to positions of authority. This idea of singular identity was foreign to them. If you spend some time in Benin, Owo, Ife, Ilesa, Oyo, or Nupe today, you will see this legacy of mixed heritage. Let us cultivate the cosmopolitan spirit of those forebears. They were not perfect, and they indeed made many mistakes but we are not fighting their fight by creating rigid boundaries of national ethnicities, etc. It is our own 21st century colonial mentality and preoccupation with elite power/privilege that is driving the need to create and maintain these boundaries. Perhaps, this is why precolonial history is reduced to opinions and conjectures.
Respectfully,
Akin Ogundiran
UNC Charlotte
On Monday, February 15, 2016 at 8:55:26 PM UTC-5, Toyin Falola wrote:
WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
BY
Odia Ofeimun
...
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Okechukwu Ukaga
Rex Marinus
Sent: Sunday, February 21, 2016 7:34 PM
Ezinwanyi Adam
Dear Prof. Salimonu,
Please just to point out that the meaning given to the word Ohaneze ndi Igbo is mere transliteration and not exact translation of the word used for 'the entire people / indigenes of Igbo land', or 'the great people of Igbo'. The word 'oha' doesn't mean ordinary people but depicts the entirety, integrality and totality of the people. Thank you.
Ezinwanyi
Cornelius Hamelberg
Amended.
This reverential aside from the fun-da-mentalist Ogbeni Ignoramus Cornelius is meant to be pre-emptive.
“Charity” they say, “begins at home” and only a few miscreants would be inclined to disagree with that and maybe want to substitute “Charity begins wherever you are” or “Charity begins anywhere” and for the global citizens and universalists and those accustomed to intergalactic travel and properly speaking, have no home base, perhaps, “Charity begins everywhere”
For some who live in the diaspora home is where the heart is and as Jesus is reported to have said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”
I was told by an expert that the Hausa are naturally adept at spoken English because Hausa is closer to English phonology than e.g. Yoruba, Kalabari . So , it’s just a matter of curiosity in this day and age of Pan-Africanism and African Unity : We know that there are all kind of Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo professors of both Her Majesty the Queen Elisabeth II ‘s English and the other varieties such as American English, Canadian, Australian, Indian, Nigerian, “Broken” English etc. but how many ( if any) Yoruba Professors of the Igbo language, do we have ? A quantitative answer is not called for; just a rough idea will do.
As to the neologism/neo- nomenclature “Prof. Salimonu” no matter how sarcastically meant, personally speaking, for me and for many others Ogbeni Kadiri is an ocean of knowledge ( both in his mother tongue Yoruba and in Her majesty’s English among other things about the history of Nigeria 1960-1970 for example, but obviously he is not a Professor of everything ( not even 1,000 PhDs could guarantee that) and in this instance, certainly not of the Igbo language where
“shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Speaking of language – the queen’s or the lack thereof, Ogbeni Kadiri succeeded in converting me to holding the late Pa Michael Imoudu in the highest esteem…
Last week I purchased Robert Graves’ “ Oxford Addresses on Poetry” ( Cassel. London Published 1962) and yesterday read the lecture entitled “ The Word Baraka” ( pages 99-107) staring with the sentence “The vocabulary of Islam contains an important and powerful word : BARAKA” and ending with “Is it unrealistic to hanker after an economy of thrift and the restriction of verse to a thin golden trickle?”. Graves having taken me through the many fascinating dimensions of the word ( in and out of poetry, ”In poetry it can cast an immortal spell on the simplest combination of words” ) I desperately want to share this essay with among others, His Excellency Farooq Kperogi - but cannot find the essay in its entirety on the net.
Just like Baraka I guess so too “OHANEZE “probably cannot just be simply reduced to “Ordinary and Elites pf the Igbo people”
...
Chika Okeke-Agulu
Chika