There's nothing circular about it at all. Some of it is clearly sarcasm.

The truth is some people write without thinking. If there is nothing impressive about past military expansion, then don't let me see anybody bringing up Oyo empire again. I am proud of several aspects of the Oyo empire, as an African, but I take some exception to hypocrites insinuating that there is necessarily some sort of huge problem or possibly "tribalistic" motivation in saying Benin conquered this or that place, meanwhile people will do the exact same thing (claims about certain conquests, a few of which don't stand up to scrutiny) for Oyo that somehow draws criticism when it's done with Benin.

Also, anybody who is interested should read Robin Law's book The Oyo Empire, c.1600-c.1836: a West African imperialism in the era of the Atlantic slave trade to see how strongly some of the claims about Oyo's conquests over some fellow Yoruba groups and even a few non-Yoruba groups are contested or dismissed outright by those groups not only back then, but up to this day. Both empires had legitimate and actual imperial expansion, but both also have a few claims about the extent of their conquest that are merely "inventions of history" but for some reason there is mostly only criticism of some of the doubtful Benin claims.

PhysicsQED, I admire your attempts to analyze objectively.

Concernnig past military expansion, I was referring to how some Nigerians seem to be using it blindly to fuel tribalism. My point also is, where has that got us today?

I was just speaking from my perspective about why mentioning conquest of some sort is unavoidable when talking about those ancient empires, regardless of whether one wants to be a chauvinist or not.

But, yeah, tribalism has gotten Nigeria nowhere, and I do understand your disdain for using ancient history for present day tribalism and chauvinistic claims.

I have a suggestion.

For any thread about the military activities of any Nigerian ethnic nationality on this forum to be taken seriously, such should include
(a) accounts of military expansion and accompanying reasons;
(b) accounts of military defeat/retreat and accompanying reasons; and
(c) accounts of the rise and fall of the concerned kingdoms.

I'm sure this would contribute to getting our history and histories right.

How did elephants even vanish from southern nigeria sef.

the forests are still there, just no elephants.

too black i guess.