To begin with, Bada (1966) claimed that Ogun founded Saki on the orders of Namurudu the father of Oduduwa and the brother of the legendary Kistra who migrated from the East of Egypt to Borgu the Ibariba country.  Writing in Yoruba, the author also claimed that Kistra and his brother were then in the west of the Niger (Borgu) where they first settled and founded some towns in Ibariba namely Nikki and Bussa among others.  It was from this account that we learnt that Ogun embarked on a hunting expedition from Borgu to the Yoruba country and founded Saki.

However, there are some historical accounts that refuted Bada’s narratives regarding the activities of Kistra in Borgu prior to when Saki was founded. 

Michael Crowther was of the opinion that Kistra never founded any town in Borgu. “Tradition has it that the Kistra party was welcomed by the indigenous inhabitants on the condition that they follow the latter’s funeral rights and respected their religion” (cited in Revolt in Bussa by Michael Crowther published by Faber and Faber London).   Hussaini Lafia seems to corroborate this fact in his book The Baatombu and their Culture where he had this to say:” The adventures of the Wassangari who were descendants of Kistra migration abandoned their own tongue and adopted Baatonum language.  They were believed to speak Nupe language before reaching Nikki Wenu” (p13). To Hussaaini Lafia the stronghold of the Kistra in Borgu might have been a tale spread by early writers to provide political justification for their royal patrons.  

According to him the name Wassangari, which was a contraction of Hausa language ”Wa Ya San Garin Su” meaning “Who knows their town or home” and referred to as the Kistra people might be members of small waves of migrants entering western Sudan from the East in medieval times.  He therefore concluded that” the idea of common origin of the aristocratic ruling class of Borgu through Kistra is false… the people of Borgu considered the migration waves of eastern adventurers as factual but considered Kistra as mythical” (2004:21-25).  Richard Kuba and Mora Mohammed Inuwa cited in Husainni (2004) also dismissed Kistra’s legend and assert that: “If we accept the notion that Bussa was founded in the 10th century A.C. the idea of Kistra being in Bussa or any other place is a wishful thinking, because the last Kistra, Yazdegerd III was crushed by the forces of Islam in 651 A. C (seventh century) and in the 10th century A.C. when Bussa was founded, there was no Kistra in the world” (2004:17). 

 But in another vein, there are other primary sources that corroborated Bada’s account which are relevant here. This is contained in the work of Mohammed Damisa and Nze P. Nze co-authors of a book titled Traditional Treasures of Borgu. Secondly, Oderinde et al (2005) posits that “Kistra was a warrior who was said to have left Arabia after a religious conflict.  Kistra was said to have crossed the Sahara desert making stops at Borgu before crossing River Niger and settled in Bussa.  Kistra had three sons namely Woru, Sabi and Bio.  The sons were said to have founded the three principal towns of Borgu viz: Bussa, Nikki and Illo”. (The Trumpet, vol 1 no 9, 2005).  Although this account did not make any direct reference to Saki, it afforded us the opportunity to apply some deductive reasoning as to when Saki was probably founded.  Given that Bada (ibid) claimed that Borgu major towns of Bussa, Nikki and Illo were founded just about the same time as Saki, we could possibly infer that since Bussa was founded in the 10th century A.C. (Mora Mohammed Inuwa (1994) cited in Hussaaini Lafia (2004), Saki must have been founded possibly at the same time or thereabout.   

We must not however shy away from some Bada’s narratives which had left us with more imponderables particularly as it regards Kistra’s activities in Borgu and by extension Ogun’s sojourn to Saki.  Writing in Yoruba (but translated into English here) he posits that: “The few people that Ogun met in Saki speak Yoruba and not Ibariba but were not called Yoruba before Oduduwa arrived the Yoruba country.  We did not know their name as at that time, we did not know the people that Ogun met except the Yoruba, but we knew he met the people who sold food to him and he Ogun sells meat to them in return being a hunter”  (1966:12).  The narrative raises some fundamental questions.  Who were the people that Ogun met in Saki?  Could Ogun have been the founder of the town if there were inhabitants already making a living as farmers?  How does this account fit into the divine role of Ogun in the creation story as contained in several books on Yoruba mythology?  It has to be noted at this point that the evaluative discourse of Bada’s account should not be presupposed as an affront to distort the universal truth that Ogun founded Saki.  Rather, my concerns are that Bada’s account was too assuming as it creates many loopholes; it has left too many critical questions unanswered and the account is somehow narrow and incoherent to be absolutely relied upon to validate the claim that Ogun was the founder of Saki.  It is on this basis that attempt is made here to use information obtained from other sources to present a plausible account of the historical origin of Saki, which might perhaps give more sense and meaning to the universal belief about Ogun as recorded in most Yoruba books.  To do otherwise is to negate the Yoruba beliefs about Ogun, which have been universally accepted.

Dudu_Negro:

http://www.sakiogunorokin.com/

seanet02:
dudu no dey tire

kettykings: Common poverty of Yoruba land !!!

dayokanu:

Ikengawo: This is dumb and childish. Do people think the oduduwa thing is more than a myth? I'm really starting to wonder if some among us believe this to be an account of factual events

eggheaders:


Did I except anything meaningful from you. You never disappoint with your windows -12 brain power.

sCun: Far better than your intel 8080 brain power. No wonder you don't know the difference between ''expect'' and ''except''.

eggheaders:


Did I except anything meaningful from you. You never disappoint with your windows -12 brain power.

Ikengawo: This is dumb and childish. Do people think the oduduwa thing is more than a myth? I'm really starting to wonder if some among us believe this to be an account of factual events