ezeagu:

Why did Fredrick Lugard refer to the port as 'Diobu' and 'Iguocha' and not 'Okrika'?

He cannot answer that question, because he knows he is lying.

Ibime:

Ikwerre and Okrika boys don't bother themselves with inane arguments over who owns what, only upland interlopers like yourself.

That's all that needs to be said; unconcerned harping on non-existent boundary issues.

ChinenyeN:

That's all that needs to be said; unconcerned harping on non-existent boundary issues.

You say that, but your family did not have to go through the abandoned property saga. My family did, so PH remains as important to us as many hinterland Igbos. We bought the land fairly and no one will take it away from us again.

That is why it would seem you do not understand how important PH is to many Igbos. It is not about oil, it is about pride and we will not allow that type of disrespect happen to us again. That is why I fight viciously against those who say Iguocha is not an Igbo town.

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Sometimes I feel like the Ndigbo are attacked on all fronts. Even from within as can be seen in ChinenyeN and his "Aba state."

ta i magh agha nu?

Only beast of no nation would be claiming to be from PH, Anambra, Rivers, Cross Rivers, Cameroun and even Sabon Gari.

As for us, we only have one town, which is our homeland.

I think we should apply the Solomon wisdom as used on the two women who claimed the baby. Those of us with only one baby are the true owners of the baby.

As for previous questions raised on Diobu, I have already said that Diobu is one of the original lands purchased by Lugard, perhaps the most important piece of land.

It doesn't take a historian to know where the original PH is. Travel from Diobu through Lagos Bus Stop, through Aggrey Road, through Churchill and Harold Wilson and what you see is old colonial architecture. Of all these areas, only Diobu is Ikwerre.

From D-Line up to Chiba is all new buildings, showing how PH has spread north into Ikwerre lands, and don't be surprised if PH expands to reach Aba one day. In my childhood, even Elelenwo was considered outskirts until the building of oil mill market, now PH has extended through to Elele, Choba, Oyigbo etc. In my fathers day, PH did not extend past D-Line. Our family house in D-Line was virgin bush when it was purchased in the 50s, so I guess Rumuola, Rumuomasi, Artillery and the rest were still villages then.

@Ibime and Ezeuche.There is no need arguimg the obvious.Port-Harcourt was formerly Okrika and Ikwerre mixed land on equal basis.The majority of the population dwelt at Diobu while most important buildins and offices were at Okrikaland.Diobu housed the lower class who were more numerous.Okrika owns from Mile 1 to Borokiri.Some Kalabari were also at some parts of Diobu waterside.

The problem with Port-Harcourt is this complex ethnic composition.This is why it is better to refer to it as Okrika and Ikwerre instead of Igbo and Ijaw.

At the moment it is more or less Ikwerre because 85 percent of the present PH is on Ikwerre soil.

Ibime:


From D-Line up to Chiba is all new buildings, showing how PH has spread north into Ikwerre lands, and don't be surprised if PH expands to reach Aba one day. In my childhood, even Elelenwo was considered outskirts until the building of oil mill market, now PH has extended through to Elele, Choba, Oyigbo etc. In my fathers day, PH did not extend past D-Line. Our family house in D-Line was virgin bush when it was purchased in the 50s, so I guess Rumuola, Rumuomasi, Artillery and the rest were still villages then.

Yeah, back in the days, Elelenwo used to be outskirts and there was a clear gap between there and Obigbo. From the other side, Rumuokwuta was towards the out skirts and  not many years ago FGC PH ( near MCC) was also in the outskirts and Igwurita was clearly not in PH. Even Choba was on its own.

Has it expanded to Elele these days ? Last time I knew, it was pushing towards Omagwa. You are right, one day, only the Imo River bridge would be able to define the boundary between metropolitan PH and Aba, afterall they are only 60km apart; center to center and less than 30 km apart outskirts to outskirts with some small towns filling in the gaps.

I also think that the original town must have started from "Town" i.e Aggrrey Road side and areas around there like Mile 1 Diobu judging from the types of buildings around there. My mum used to stay in Churchill Street with her uncle b4 the war, but he lost all his properties in Churchill after the war but he bounced back.

I used to rock PH badly when I was in school (sec and Uni) and my sec school hols always ended with spending 3 days in PH and boarding a reserved train to KD.

,

Ibime:

Original PH was from Aggrey Road to Nnamdi Azikiwe road. 80% of original PH is Okrika land whilst only Diobu-Rebisi ws Ikwerre land. Contrary to the assertion of fake-PH boy EzeUche, PH never extended into Okrika land. PH extended into Ikwerre land. You cannot expand into water. There is no Ikwerre settlement beyond Diobu, whilst the Colonial buildings on Aggrey Road should tell you that was the administrative hub of old PH.

It is funny you stumbled into truth when you wrote “Contrary to the assertion of fake-PH boy EzeUche, PH never extended into Okrika land. PH extended into Ikwerre land. You cannot expand into water”.  Okirika is water not land. It is what gave rise to Canoe Houses. I remembered my series of Launch travels to what used to be Yenegoa. When in the town, It was a paddling exercise from one canoe house to another.   

Thanks to revisionists. We now have Elelenwo instead of Elelenwa. I use to take train ride to Eke Elelenwa market to buy suger cane in those old days. I used to ride my auto-bike from Obigbo to Umuebele and Iriebe.

Ekt_bear, I do have to apologize for twice delaying responding to this for weeks, but I have been occupied in real life, and I couldn't really find a way to actively keep up with the forum.

I would quote the report, but since I can't highlight and copy the text (because of the way it was digitized), and since I don't feel like taking 50 screenshots, I'll just list my specific objections to some of the reasoning and some of the claims.


1. My first response will dwell on some historical/political claims, my next response will be about some more of the political claims, and I will post a response on the economic claims later (two or three days from now). The response on the economic claims is slightly lengthy, however. But since you seem to be particularly interested in that aspect of my retort, rather than only posting the full response days from now, I might as well give away one of the most fundamental objections I have (but definitely not the only objection) now, so as to spare you the wait or suspense.

The basic gist of one of my main objections is that the claims of the report with regard to the economic viability of rubber and cocoa are extremely false.

By condoning the flawed economic approach of the Western region with regard to cocoa, the British advisers from that commission were actually recommending that the Western region follow a very volatile cash crop (cocoa) which had been declining in value as the 60s approached, which would plummet significantly in value on the world market from 1960 to 1965 (Ghana under Nkrumah learned from this the hard way, and it was part of the reason he was overthrown, but Nigeria had oil to keep regions afloat whose crops (groundnut or cocoa or palm oil) were were becoming less and less important) and which declined heavily in production in Nigeria in the 1970s, into a path of economic ruin or stagnation for the Western region.

By contrast, rubber production in Nigeria took off in the mid 60s and rubber became very lucrative by the 1970s, although it declined in the mid 70s (as cocoa did as well before the federal government went to great lengths to attempt to keep it alive the early 80s). I will go into detail about this and provide sources, but you might as well know now, that the members of the commission were actually recommending economic doom for the Western region with their strange reasoning about relying on one volatile crop. If you're going to rely on volatile cash crops, it makes sense to rely on more than just one, but somehow this very basic reasoning eluded the authors of that report.

Taking oil out of the equation (both the Western region (Ondo state) and the Midwest (Edo state and Delta state) have oil in significant commercial quantities), if the Yoruba parts of the Western region had continued to rely mainly on cocoa while the Midwest relied mainly on rubber and timber, rather than either group using oil, then the Midwest would have risen in the coming decade while Yorubaland would have stagnated and been unable to repay its many loans or meet its developmental goals.

(Of course there is rubber and timber in Yorubaland, just as there is cocoa in the Midwest (contrary to the image presented in this report), but I'm talking about what the different regions mainly focus on.)

The whole "focus heavily on cocoa" alone approach was senseless. It ruined an already troubled Nkrumah, and if an independent Yorubaland had towed that line, it would have ruined them too.

A wiser government or wiser British advisers would have been screaming "diversify!" at the top of their lungs, knowing that other crops could be used to offset the possible decline in the value of cocoa.

When I compare the efforts Thailand and Malaysia expended to make rubber a viable cash crop for their countries to how Nigeria settled for mediocrity in that area, it's just another reason to be disappointed in the direction that the economy of Nigeria took after oil became the mainstay.  

But to read where people (who don't even seem to have economic backgrounds) are trying to argue that rubber is dismissible because of something as risky as cocoa is just silly.

Thailand is making money and Cote d'Ivoire is making money. Is Cote d'Ivoire jealous of Thailand's dominance in rubber or Thailand envious of Cote d'Ivoire's dominance in cocoa? Of course not, because they're both making a lot of money off of two very profitable resources.

It would be better:

to have the option of exporting tons of rubber when cocoa is low in value or to be able to export tons of cocoa when rubber prices drop (an okay/tolerable scenario),

or to be able to export both rubber and cocoa when both are doing well (the best case scenario),

or to be able to export both in significant amounts when prices drop for both (the worst case scenario; to at least be better able to stay afloat)

than to use one thing alone when you have access to both.

Another interesting claim of the report was that cocoa could not be grown in commercial quantities in the Midwestern region of Nigeria. I have seen this fantastical claim about soil quality and cocoa repeated as though it were actually true in several other places besides this report, yet I have not seen the actual supporting evidence. This claim in particular made me think that the authors of the report had just been fed a line or conjecture by the AG government and went along with it without bothering to see if it was actually true. I don't think anyone is claiming that Edo or Delta state cannot grow large amounts of cocoa today, so I wonder if the soil transformed over a few decades, or whether the people making these claims decided to consider only one or two cities (the peculiar reddish soil of Benin city and its environs may be what they had in mind) to use as a sample to represent whole provinces. Either way, there is some sort of incompetence involved on the part of the authors of the report with this cocoa claim.

I have found out about the backgrounds of the authors, and I am yet to come across an actual businessman or economist among them, so you should not necessarily take their economic speculations as being authoritative. While they all seemed to be accomplished civil servants, and they obviously performed very competently in their assignment of finding out as much (as outsiders) as they could about the relationships between the different groups and making the strongest case that they could against the creation of new states (that was one of the implicit goals of the report, by the way; not merely to "allay the fears" of the minority groups, but to prevent any new states from being created - Chapter 4 pretty much makes this clear), I do not think they really knew what they were talking about economically.

The authors of that report, in addition to being inherently biased, probably did not have the economic expertise to see the huge risk in relying on a single "boom crop" to sustain millions of people.

It is very telling that, apart from oil, the only two economic exports of Nigeria that have/had any real significance in modern times are cocoa and rubber. (You can confirm this yourself, look around a bit). Cocoa and rubber remain the largest non-oil exports of Nigeria to this day. Not cocoa alone, but cocoa and rubber. That's just the reality. It's particularly ironic then, that they were arguing for the suppression of additional government focus on Nigeria's rubber center.

But the full response on the economic issue and on the claim of subsidies will come later.




2.)

a) I find very strange the scenario presented in chapter 2 and 4 of the report where the Binis and the Urhobos alone are somehow portrayed as the lone cause of the Midwest movement. This is misleading for the simple fact that those groups did not have the numerical strength or political clout to single-handedly, or in joint combination, make the other groups in the Midwest opt for a Midwest state against their objections.

There are definitely other individuals from the other ethnic groups of the Midwest who were very much for the creation of the Midwest and the efforts on the part these people from other groups to see the Midwest created are well known now, but this was perhaps not obvious at the time of the writing of this report or it was deliberately suppressed by the authors who were trying to paint a certain picture for their arguments.

b) It claims that the Urhobos are "favorable" to the "Benin tradition" but neglects to mention whether there is any uneasiness (as with the Esan) about any association with Benin on the part of the Urhobo. They probably declined to go into detail here not only because it's mostly irrelevant and tangential to the whole issue of the Midwest creation, but also because they don't really know what they're talking about here. For one thing, I don't see how they had evidence that there was more uneasiness on the part of the Esan than the Urhobo with an association with the "Benin tradition" and it would be good if they could actually cite their sources or provide footnotes.


The Esan, relative to the Urhobo are more "favorable" to the "Benin tradition" and more interconnected with it for reasons which I won't get into in really great detail. I will only note that almost all (maybe all, actually) of the traditional rulers in Esan derive from either Ogisos or Obas of Benin by actual descent or in terms of who appointed them to their titles, according to their own accounts of history. This is not the case for the Urhobos. Like I said, I won't get into too much detail on the ancient history part of it, but this write up (which wrongly claims that the Esan are not a separate ethnic group from the Binis), gives some idea of the extent of that connection:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NaijaExcel/message/11325

You definitely don't have to read the whole thing (it's a bit long), but you get the idea.


c) The long time political leader of the Esan, from before the time that this report was written up until recent times, Anthony Enahoro (who was married to a Bini woman), an Action Group stalwart, said that he was "of the Edo tribe" as early as 1965, later criticized the current Oba of Benin (whose mother was Esan) for not doing enough to bring about complete unity between the different Edoid groups, and was the leader of the Edo unity movement, even going so far as requesting that the different groups try and fuse all their dialects into one standard language that could be used for discussion and deliberation in government houses.

While there seem to be very real undercurrents of some sort of sibling rivalry between the Esan and the Bini, I would also say that a few sentiments here and there from a few Esan expressing contempt or dislike for the Binis does not necessarily equate to the people in large part being averse to the "Benin tradition" that the report vaguely defines on a historical basis. If anything, they are the most amenable group and the most connected group to the Benin tradition out of any non-Bini group in Nigeria. Therefore, claims/insinuations in this report of some sort of historically based Esan opposition or aversion to a union with Binis in a new state are not really on firm ground. There could be opposition for other reasons, but not because of an aversion to the "Benin tradition" or the ancient Benin kingdom. The report should have steered clear of insinuating that there was any real correspondence between political alignment with the AG or NCNC and being averse to or embracing what it refers to as the "Benin tradition".



d) With regard to the statements #2 through 9 in "Chapter 2: Historical and Political Background" I think I detect a little bit of bias in there, but as I can't be bothered to retype every statement in the report, I think you should reread this particular section and see if it's only concerned with reporting the facts.

This is one statement (the part in bold) from #2 which caught me off guard:

"Ife is regarded as the oldest of the Yoruba kingdoms; it may once have been the sole kingdom, but by the time Europeans came to the country there were a number of Yoruba chiefdoms all acknowledging in some degree at least the spiritual and traditional authority of Ife, but politically distinct and sometimes at war with each other. Today the Yorubas are a vigorous and versatile people with a strong sense of tribal solidarity and a high level of education."

While there is nothing about the actual content of that sentence in bold to which any definite objections could raised, the way the sentence was written and the way these descriptions came out of nowhere after a previous discussion focusing on ancient history (rather than a description of the people and their character) is somewhat surprising.

One would think that some sort of effort would be made not to employ the kind of tone that they did there, but maybe they felt that this really helped their argument.

I came across another interesting statement that caught me off guard:

"The Benin brass work cannot equal the best productions of Ife but an Ivory mask from Benin changed hands recently for over £17,000 and this tradition of craftsmanship, together with their ancient military successes, has produced in Benin itself a spirit of pride in the past and of resentment to the idea of subordination to another people."

The tone here and the conjectures are also strange.

e) The Ife brasses are masterpieces and everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinions on art.
But the tone of that art statement in Chapter 2 is a bit strange. It seems to betray a bias on the part of the authors. This could possibly be attributed to how impressed they were with the competence of the Yoruba Western region officials that they spoke with. I've notice that when some whites encounter highly competent African blacks, when they have not previously encountered "impressive" blacks, they start fawning over some of them. I think a little bit of that may have transpired here.

As for the specific claims, the alleged technical (not artistic) superiority of some of the Ife brasses over some of the Benin brasses (as stated by some art historians) would strike me as irrelevant to presenting the historical backgrounds of the different groups.

Also, there were other minorities in the Midwest who resented "subordination to another people" who had no famous art tradition or had art traditions that were not even really known (the lower Niger bronze industry), and there is not any evidence that an art tradition or past military history or conquests would have been on the mind of any pro-Midwestern Benin man or woman.

In fact, when calling for a Benin-Delta state, neither Oba Eweka II nor Oba Akenzua II made any reference to art or to past military conquests, but rather to the shared ties between the groups in the region, so it's strange to hear that the reason for opposition to "subordination to another people" is based on art or former military glory. I don't think that when a minority group anywhere desires some form of autonomy, they are motivated primarily by artistic or former military "credentials." I think current politics is the defining issue.

Second, the report's comments on art also requires that the authors have looked through the thousands of Benin brasses and also all of the hundreds  of Ife brasses. This is obviously not the case. In fact, many Benin brasses had not been located, photographed, or studied and several Ife brasses had not even been found and excavated at the time of the commission. It is irrelevant to the main discussion, but I found their mention of this artistic detail curious.

I'm also skeptical of the insinuation that mere Bini nationalism was the chief factor at play here in Benin for the Midwest movement. Gaius Obaseki and Ighodaro were AG members who opposed the creation of the Midwest, yet Obaseki's father had been the Iyase (a very high ranking official - second in command after the Oba - who was somewhat analogous to a prime minister) of Benin under Oba Eweka II, and Ighodaro himself had been the Iyase of Benin under Oba Akenzua II. So could it really be claimed that those Binis who supported a unified Action Group controlled West and opposed the NCNC were any less proud of their culture or were not also proud of their Benin heritage? I really doubt that.

These authors just wanted to blindly assign that motivation to the Binis in particular to wanting freedom from subordination as being due to pride in their history, but this is really unwarranted and even irrelevant. Like I said before, I have not seen where Oba Eweka II or Oba Akenzua II was talking about art or about the past conquest of Lagos when talking about a Midwestern state.

I have not seen any evidence that S. Y. Eke, Dalton Asemota, Gauis Obaseki, Samuel Ighodaro, [url=http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/rarticles/revisiting%20nigerias%20political%20history.htm]Valentine Edobor-Osula[/url] (don't know much about him actually, but his life seems pretty interesting), Jacob Uwadiae Egharevba, or other Bini Action Group stalwarts were any less proud of their Benin culture and heritage than Humphrey Omo-Osagie and those who wanted a separate Midwest or disliked "subordination to another people."



f) With regard to some of the comments in chapter 4, I don't think the full story is being told there.

It does not mention whether the people of Asaba, Kwale, Aboh, etc. preferred being in the Western region or whether they would prefer to be in the Midwestern region. Obviously what they wanted was union with the other Igbo groups across the Niger and/or a separate state rather than either West or Midwest and it mentions this, but it's strange that no mention is made of what their opinion on staying in the Western region was.  I don't know why the full opinions of the Binis or Urhobos on staying in the West are given such precedence over that of all the other groups.

Instead of mentioning how all of those other groups felt about staying in the West, it only mentions what their ideal arrangement would be (such as reunion between the Eastern and Western Ijaws). This could give a misleading impression that these groups would actually be fine with staying in the Western region over the Midwest if their most ideal arrangement (neither West nor Midwest) is not met. I am not certain that there is actually any evidence for this being the case, so the opinions of the other groups not merely on the creation of Midwest, but also on the issue of staying in the West, should have also been mentioned

g) I am not sure that their conclusions about which minority groups would be "dismayed' at the creation of the Midwest have much grounding in reality. It's obvious with hindsight that the voting pattern when the actual referendum was taken completely trashes their claim, but even without the advantage of this later information, one has to ask how they could know that the Ijaws would be "dismayed' at the creation of the Midwest rather than indifferent (although the voting pattern of the Ijaw also showed support, rather than complete indifference). And on the issue of the Itsekiri, the voting pattern when the votes were counted for Warri was pretty clear there. Obviously the Olu of Warri, who was against the division of the West, had more influence among the Itsekiri than Okotie-Eboh (who was instrumental in the creation of the Midwest) or Arthur Prest, but I think that there is no really conclusive evidence to show that the Itsekiri as a whole would be "dismayed." I think they are stretching their theories a little too much here to make these claims.

People rewrite history a lot you know,

It saddens me that anyone will want to claim another man's land as theirs by referencing to past visits to such land solely on conquest,

The funniest part is the way many Benin centric people will lay claims not just to Lagos, but also boast about an hypothetical conquest of Yoruba land by them,

The Yoruba kingdom is very vast and it took enemies from all corners of the present Nigeria/Benin rep for the Yorubas to actually unite,

The Elite Bini people don't talk about conquering Yoruba land at all because they know it is a fallacy. Why do I have to read a report by some biased white folks to know my history? When clearly there was favoritism,

Yoruba and Bini people are exclusive kingdoms,  Ask yourself, if Yoruba towns that are just a couple miles away from Bini kingdom were not conquered, how can you state that there was war between them?

Also, the adua story, How were they so sure the adua was same as Oduduwa. Oduduwa came into Yoruba land, fought for the people, became part of them and was made king. And it was a prophecy too.

Why don't binicentric writers want to admit that neither Yorubas nor Bini ruled each other out of conquest or submission?

Though the Adua story was true, it doesn't necessarily mean he is same as Oduduwa. Why are people so bias?

Benin and Yorubas have been interacting with each others for ages. Although the title in Benin changed from Ogiso dynasty to Oba dynasty, it doesn't mean it was by conquest,

The change only makes sense when you see that Adua, the prince who was expelled from Bini sent his son who to Benin to be the king when his father died because he was too old. You don't expect the son to speak Bini language,

He therefore referred to himself as Oba.  The queen mother who is called "Iyaoba" which is also a Yoruba term for Mother of the king. The king was still a Bini man just that he was raised in Yoruba land simple,

It doesn't mean Yoruba ruled over Bini or vice versa and it was only normal for the king to introduce the artwork he learned in Yoruba land to Bini and Yorubas will be exposed to that of Bini because the interaction was inevitable since the king's father was in Yoruba land and the king was born and raised in Yoruba land too,

Centrism should only be used for positive reasons like empowering people etc,  not to create superiority complex,  Europe still battles ignorance today because of centrism,

Nice post.

Yeah, so I'll only respond to #2e, since that is what interests me the most there. So my question for you is this, is it at all plausible that someone like an Oba would explicitly state "We don't want to be in the West because we did this 200 years ago?" Probably not. But it might be the sentiment of the common people.

So I'm not sure that you can rule it out so simply just because nobody prominent came out and said it explicitly. Were I in their positions, I'd have that sentiment but would be hesitant to say it aloud.

Anyway, I don't think it should be ruled out that easily.

Now, regarding #1:

1. My first response will dwell on some historical/political claims, my next response will be about some more of the political claims, and I will post a response on the economic claims later (two or three days from now). The response on the economic claims is slightly lengthy, however. But since you seem to be particularly interested in that aspect of my retort, rather than only posting the full response days from now, I might as well give away one of the most fundamental objections I have (but definitely not the only objection) now, so as to spare you the wait or suspense.

The basic gist of one of my main objections is that the claims of the report with regard to the economic viability of rubber and cocoa are extremely false.

By condoning the flawed economic approach of the Western region with regard to cocoa, the British advisers from that commission were actually recommending that the Western region follow a very volatile cash crop (cocoa) which had been declining in value as the 60s approached, which would plummet significantly in value on the world market from 1960 to 1965 (Ghana under Nkrumah learned from this the hard way, and it was part of the reason he was overthrown, but Nigeria had oil to keep regions afloat whose crops (groundnut or cocoa or palm oil) were were becoming less and less important) and which declined heavily in production in Nigeria in the 1970s, into a path of economic ruin or stagnation for the Western region.

Having now read a bit about the situation in Ghana (http://countrystudies.us/ghana/63.htm, http://www.nek.lu.se/Publ/mfs/198.pdf and http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9888.pdf), I am starting to see why your concerns are at least in theory plausible. However, from those references, a lot of the problem seems to have:
A) heavy borrowing by the Ghanaian government, thus making them even MORE exposed to fluctuating cocoa prices. What they did is the equivalent of someone taking a 0% equity loan to speculate on real estate in Florida.
B) Poor price controls by the Ghanaian FG that distorted the market (see the example of cocoa smuggling in the second and third link)
C) General economic mismanagement (in second link)

In a nutshell, (A) seems to have been the biggest issue. Now, did the Western region heavily borrow against future cocoa revenues like Ghana did? I don't know off the top of my head, but I doubt it.

Finally, in addition to it not being clear that the Western region was guilty of (A), (B) or (C), even assuming equal levels of leveraging by Ghana and Yorubaland, I think the Western region was less exposed to fluctuations in the cocoa market for the following two reasons:
1) In 1960, Nigeria accounted for 18% of the global cocoa market, while in 1972 it was 16% (see the book Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975, page 31.) It appears that Ghana otoh was at 35% of the world market in 1960 (see Section II of http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9888.pdf).
2) Of course, the above is not really important unless we also know what share of the GDP cocoa makes up. I doubt cocoa ever made up a quarter of Yorubaland's economy. I don't know what this is for the Western Region, but for Ghana cocoa was 20-25% of GDP (see same reference above.)


Now, so we've dealt I think with the differences between Ghana and Yorubaland, and why Yorubaland is less exposed to fluctuations in the cocoa market, yes?

Well, let us examine some of the historical data for cocoa exports. Fortunately, I recently got the book Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975, so can post Table 3.5 on page 30 from it:



I've added an additional column (Column D) that describes the average farmer income per ton. At any rate, aside
from the terrible year of 1966, would this cocoa strategy have really been so bad? Notice that prices and farmer incomes
recovered after the terrible year of 1966.

And here is a plot of international cocoa prices from 1970 to present:

(from here: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/commodity/cocoa)

It looks as if 1966 was probably the worst year for cocoa in probably the past 60 or 70 years. But that bad year alone and what happened in Ghana imo doesn't suggest that cocoa is a bad crop to invest in.

Stitching together the data from Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975 and the above plot, the cocoa business did not that badly from 1960 or so to present.

Hrm, I just noticed what appears to be a typo in that book. For 1965, 67, and 68, amount of cocoa exported and amount produced seems to have been flipped? Or at at least I don't know how otherwise it is possible to export more than you produced. . . unless there is some sort of smuggling going on.

By contrast, rubber production in Nigeria took off in the mid 60s and rubber became very lucrative by the 1970s, although it declined in the mid 70s (as cocoa did as well before the federal government went to great lengths to attempt to keep it alive the early 80s). I will go into detail about this and provide sources, but you might as well know now, that the members of the commission were actually recommending economic doom for the Western region with their strange reasoning about relying on one volatile crop.

Hold on a second here. Where exactly are you getting your data from for rubber?

Here is Table 3.9 on page 35 of Economic Survey of Nigeria, 1960-1975:


Rubber had one great year in 1974, but overall I don't think this argument of yours of one crop declining and the other prospering is supported by the data. At least the data from 1960-1974. Here is a plot of the export prices:


And here is a plot of amount exported (subject to the caveat that there may be a typo in this source I got it from for 3 years):

Taking oil out of the equation (both the Western region (Ondo state) and the Midwest (Edo state and Delta state) have oil in significant commercial quantities), if the Yoruba parts of the Western region had continued to rely mainly on cocoa while the Midwest relied mainly on rubber and timber, rather than either group using oil, then the Midwest would have risen in the coming decade while Yorubaland would have stagnated and been unable to repay its many loans or meet its developmental goals.

(Of course there is rubber and timber in Yorubaland, just as there is cocoa in the Midwest (contrary to the image presented in this report), but I'm talking about what the different regions mainly focus on.)

This argument is NOT supported by the data above. Regarding loans, how much debt did Yorubaland have?

The whole "focus heavily on cocoa" alone approach was senseless. It ruined an already troubled Nkrumah, and if an independent Yorubaland had towed that line, it would have ruined them too.

A wiser government or wiser British advisers would have been screaming "diversify!" at the top of their lungs, knowing that other crops could be used to offset the possible decline in the value of cocoa.

When I compare the efforts Thailand and Malaysia expended to make rubber a viable cash crop for their countries to how Nigeria settled for mediocrity in that area, it's just another reason to be disappointed in the direction that the economy of Nigeria took after oil became the mainstay. 

But to read where people (who don't even seem to have economic backgrounds) are trying to argue that rubber is dismissible because of something as risky as cocoa is just silly.

Thailand is making money and Cote d'Ivoire is making money. Is Cote d'Ivoire jealous of Thailand's dominance in rubber or Thailand envious of Cote d'Ivoire's dominance in cocoa? Of course not, because they're both making a lot of money off of two very profitable resources.

It would be better:

to have the option of exporting tons of rubber when cocoa is low in value or to be able to export tons of cocoa when rubber prices drop (an okay/tolerable scenario),

or to be able to export both rubber and cocoa when both are doing well (the best case scenario),

or to be able to export both in significant amounts when prices drop for both (the worst case scenario; to at least be better able to stay afloat)

than to use one thing alone when you have access to both.

I don't disagree with most of this point. It makes sense to diversify. But as you can see from the above chart, one of the crops was far more economically important than the other. And for all we know, far more profitable than the other (I dunno what the production costs looked like for a ton of cocoa versus a ton of rubber.)

Another interesting claim of the report was that cocoa could not be grown in commercial quantities in the Midwestern region of Nigeria. I have seen this fantastical claim about soil quality and cocoa repeated as though it were actually true in several other places besides this report, yet I have not seen the actual supporting evidence. This claim in particular made me think that the authors of the report had just been fed a line or conjecture by the AG government and went along with it without bothering to see if it was actually true. I don't think anyone is claiming that Edo or Delta state cannot grow large amounts of cocoa today, so I wonder if the soil transformed over a few decades, or whether the people making these claims decided to consider only one or two cities (the peculiar reddish soil of Benin city and its environs may be what they had in mind) to use as a sample to represent whole provinces. Either way, there is some sort of incompetence involved on the part of the authors of the report with this cocoa claim.

I am not sure that this is true. It looks like even as of 1975, "about 95 per cent of the total cocoa output of Nigeria is from the Western State." Similarly, "about 90 per cent of Nigeria's rubber is produced in the Mid-Western State." (see pages 30 and 35 of Economic Survey of, 1960-1975).

Perhaps there is something fundamentally different about the agricultural potential of each region. I'm not any sort of agricultural expert, but I highly doubt that if it were that easy to grow rubber in Yorubaland or cocoa in the Midwest, it wouldn't have been done. Surely the Midwesterners would have invested heavily in cocoa during the boom times of the 40s and 50s if this were the case.

It is very telling that, apart from oil, the only two economic exports of Nigeria that have/had any real significance in modern times are cocoa and rubber. (You can confirm this yourself, look around a bit). Cocoa and rubber remain the largest non-oil exports of Nigeria to this day. Not cocoa alone, but cocoa and rubber. That's just the reality. It's particularly ironic then, that they were arguing for the suppression of additional government focus on Nigeria's rubber center.

But the full response on the economic issue and on the claim of subsidies will come later.

Looks like about 300-350k tons of cocoa exported per year (http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5555947-146/nigerian_cocoa_exports_rise_8.3_in.csp), 60k or so tons of rubber (http://rubbermarketnews.net/2011/03/nigeria-exports-60000-tons-of-natural-rubber-yearly/).

Looks like the price of cocoa has been well above $2k/ton since January 2008, so a $600 million+ market.

Since January 2008, let's say 150+ cents per pound. So $3300/ton or so, so a $198 million market.

Hrm, yeah, I guess it seems likely that these are going to be Nigeria's two largest non-oil exports. Not sure off the top of my head what would be larger.

Really is crazy to me how much more important oil is than pretty much any sort of crop one can grow

2 million barrels of oil per day has the same street value as Nigeria's rubber production in a year or 120 days worth of cocoa.

And the margins on oil are far higher. . .

We've got a long way to go in the SW (minus Ondo, I guess)

<quote>Why don't binicentric writers want to admit that neither Yorubas nor Bini ruled each other out of conquest or submission?<Quote>



Why are Yorubas ever ready to yield and concede arguments, even when truth is rightly on our side to stand on?

Its frustrating!! Every time we are faced with some slight confrontation we are quick to find compromise.

Its one thing to be peace loving but its stupid when we dash out and bow down to others less grand than the history we stand on.

There is nothing equal between Ife and Bini ok! Nothing!! A father is not equal to his son.

Ife gave birth to Bini Kingdom. Its a Yoruba custom that the King be buried and entombed with his fathers. We are the only people in sub saharan kingdoms that practiced this rites and that's because the custom came with them from, as I have said repeatedly, Afro Asia.

Early Bini kings were taken to and buried in Ife with their fathers. Following that same custom, early lagos kings were also taken to Bini for burial with their fathers.

Now if Ife is not father to Bini, then Bini is not father to Lagos.

For thousands of years the history has never been contradicted in its oral record, not in Ife, not in Bini. We all got degrees now and we are loosing our minds about who our fathers are and using white mans warped record to point wrong fingers at our ancestry.

If Bini find it uncomfortable that they are from Ife tell them to go exhume their kings and take back to their own kingdom for burial. Simple! Please Yoruba sons and daughters stop yielding your position, please!!

I know there are some strong and resolved ones but majority of us are unsure of their footing.

What the fvck!

@ PhysicsQED

That is a very rudimentary analysis of commodity prices. Cocoa, like other commodities is subject to volatile prices. Whilst it isn't advisable for any economy to be completely dependent on one income stream, there are several countries that are dependent on just one commodity, just take a look at the middle East. Today, Brent Crude is trading at approximately $115 per barrel but it reached a low of approximately $10 per barrel in 1986. Yet Saudi Arabia, or any other Oil producer for that matter, didn't collapse.

Apart from low prices in the mid-60s and in 1971, Cocoa prices have risen significantly since the hey days of the Western regional government. The average price per metric tonne in the last 40 years has been in excess of $1700. Today, Cocoa is trading in excess of $3200 per metric tonne.
Ekt_Bear has done justice to the rest of your post.

It is certainly the case that there was at some point Influence of Bini Oba across much of the southern part of SW Nigeria including Lagos and extending into modern day Benin Rebublic. Many traditions acknowledge Bini influence in the Royalty of Lagos e.g. The Oba of Lagos and other white cap chiefs in that area were at some point subordinate to Benin who appointed Obas and Obas were returned to Benin for burial. It is noteworthy that the Oba of Lagos is not an "OBA Alade" (Crowned king) in the so-called"Yoruba" tradition.


Those who like the Idea of a Yoruba nation are cluctching a myth without foundation. The reality is there are many nations in the SW of Nigeria who NOW trace ancestry to Ife and speak languages that are mutually intelligible today though it is likely that the riverine peoples especially in Ogun,Lagos,Ondo are ethnically different and have been to some extent swallowed by Northern migrants from Oyo,Ife and similar places. I am persuaded that there has long been coastal interaction from Warri to Lome between a multitude of small,disparate ethnicities which were quite easily subsumed with time.The idea that Migrants from Ife,Oyo came into virgin uninhabited territories is not true. Eventually as big nations emerge it is usual to airbrush inconvenient details but it is just not true that Yorubas derive from Ife in the "Concrete" sense any more than they do from the GARDEN of Eden.

There was no such thing as Yorubaland before Nigeria.Those that were generally known as Yoruba are the Oyo people.It is for this reason that those Yorubas outside Nigeria are addressed as Anago,Lucumi or any other term but Yoruba. Of course history is dynamic and nations rise and fall so e.g. Austria is a Germanic nation but is NOT Germany it is important to be aware of facts,fiction and outright distortion. Prior to Nigeria the so-called Yorubas never lived under one nation. The fact that peoples speak the same language and have the same culture tells us little about their origins as many Nairalanders often posit.

This thread reminds me of the past when nairaland used to be where you read people debating without name-calling. Nowadays, we don't even know who/what is who/what. Capitalism I guess, has its own demerits.

funny people

EzeUche1:
Interesting discussion about the Ijaws. As I have stated previously, the Ijaws are probably the old inhabitants of modern day Nigeria, but were pushed into the creeks by the Igbos and other big groups such as the Edo speaking groups and Yorubas. Interesting indeed. . . 

It also seems the Benin Empire claimed "overlordship" over the Ijaws.

The Itsekiri seem to be an interesting group, in which their language is similar to the Yorubas, but their culture and customs resembles Benin. Warri has always been a contentious place even back then. The seeds of the Warri Crisis could be seen, in which the Itsekiri did not want the other tribes in the city to vote or even participate in local government.

Wishful thinking. The Ibos were never a "big group" before Nigeria. There was no single example of Ibo existence and political organization beyond the "Umunna" level. Simple reality . At any rate there was no such thing as Ibo or Igbo people before Nigeria.So how they could have pushed Ijaws into creeks is a strange fantasy. Ijaws are fishermen and are likely not one homogenous groups but have strong historical ties with their different neighbours