^-- Well, the SW has been screwed over before by alliances. In fact, most of the crappy governors we have are a result of an ill-fated alliance in 2003 that the AC made with the PDP. Obasanjo reneged on the alliance, rigged out the SW governors (part of the reason I strongly dislike the man.)

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice. . .

Basically, it makes no sense to enter an alliance unless you can have some control over its direction.

Anyway, I'm hesitant to call him selfish. Truth be told, aside from some recent events with his family members running for office, he has been anything but selfish.

Beaf:

Thunder Priye, or President Jomo?

Aigbofa:

Government Ekpemupolo!

Kilode?!:

Senator Heineken Lokpobiri (PDP, Bayelsa)

LMAO. Why not name your son Cheddar, Toothpick, or Ghana-Must-Go too 

On a serious note, I really wonder about how this trend started. Have they been doing this for a long time? Or is it a recent phenomenon?

My Ijaw friends here have pretty ordinary, African-sounding names. Or western names. Not Heineken or Coca-Cola 

heh.

I doubt they were planning on a suicide attack? Probably just plant the bombs and set them off.

Probably hit a roadbump on bad roads and went *POOF*

Hrm. . . why must anything be ruled out?

Beaf, rest your fearful little head  

Nobody is out to get you. Enjoy your Sunday.

See ya'll later.

E dey pain beaf o 

Now we see how to push his buttons!

If history had gone slightly differently, and what is now Kogi State had been in the Southern protectorate rather than the Northern one, things would be quite . . . interesting

I'm listening to their language right now on the Joshua project: http://www.joshuaproject.net/people-profile.php?peo3=12186&rog3=NI

If they'd been in the Southern protectorate, Igala'd probably be just considered "far eastern" Yoruba today.

Probably a fluent Yoruba speaker could learn Igala in two weeks, or a month.

@Aigbofa: Could you understand anything from the Igala video? Or is it non-intelligible?

Trying to figure out how close the languages are. See, fluent french/italian/spanish/portuguese speakers can understand each other's language pretty well.

Just wondering if Yoruba and Igala can understand each other as easily.

Though to be honest. . . probably the Kogi Yoruba can. Since they are neighbors with the Igala.

I wonder if there are any Kogi Yoruba on this forum. Hrm.

Igala:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVmTaWi_O1M

Unlike Itsekiri, I cannot understand much of it. But the language sounds. . . familiar somehow. And definitely the style of music, dress, clothes are very similar.

Makes sense that Yoruba and Igala are cousins. Separated by time. . . but not that far.

Very interesting.

Alj Uche:

this is itsekiri


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwQM0S3vBVc

Such a nice video and song! Itsekiri are definitely Yoruba, lol. Some words I didn't understand, but the other 90% was fine.

God bless 'em.

Hrm, no wonder my uncle enjoys living in Warri so much.

Very interesting, I'll have to buy this Professor Ayomike's book and read more about them.

I'm starting to wonder now about Igala. . . how much of that language I'll immediately understand. Very interesting stuff.

Beaf:

Like that wasn't your agenda all the while.
Unfortunately, una jam rock. No outsider is going to bring Nigeria's bigotted politics into Delta state. We are not crude people.

See, this is the problem I have with you. You simply are not an honest person.

For you, the end justifies the means. For you, you don't want Itsekiri people to identify more with Yoruba than with Delta, because you think it threatens your state. I guess due to the Olu of Warri thing and the damage that caused, you don't want them to identify with Yoruba. . . despite there being no real chance of that ever happening again.

So you are willing to distort history, lie about peoples you know absolutely nothing about. Even going so far as to call Yoruba descendants of Itsekiri  

Anyway, I understand your motivation. Just a bit surprised at how for you, the truth is irrelevant. . . pseudo-science, mummery, sham and dishonesty are acceptable if achieves your objectives.

There is no point discussing further with Beaf. He has an agenda, and will say anything to push it. Regardless of how many others (including actual Itsekiri like Professor Ayomike) contradict it.

Beaf:

Dude, Latin is to English as proto-Yoruba is to Igala, Itsekiri and Yoruba.

English? Wtf English is a Germanic language, not a Romance language (like Spanish, French, and Italian.)

I am Isoko/Urhobo with a huge dose of Itsekiri, both sides are Itsekiri. So, stop right there and keep your expansionist thoughts in check.

You are not Itsekiri, though. More importantly, you don't know their history and origin better than Prof Ayomike. Or are you claiming otherwise?

I just saw he is on twitter and started following him.

Any of ya'll on Twitter, go ahead and do the same.

http://twitter.com/tundefashola

^-- Ah, so the point is that I wanted you to define the terminology you are using (proto-Yoruba, in this case). I didn't want to start attacking a strawman. . . so wanted to be very clear.

Regarding American/UK. . . there were no claims made, simply questions asked.

Beaf:

As for your dance about Ayomike being Itsekiri, how do you know I am not?

You've already identified yourself as Urhobo, not Itsekiri. Who knows, it is certainly possible that you know more about Itsekiri and their origins than Prof Ayomike (an actual Itsekiri who appears to have written a book about his people), but I doubt it.

Especially given that you are saying things like, " if anything, the Itsekiri are progenitor of the Yoruba", lol 

Arab league are flipflopping b1tches.

What the hell did you think a no fly zone meant?!

Sagamite:

What rubbish are you chatting?

On what basis does Retardeen Jonathan [size=18pt]Goofluck[/size] use to refuse to enter a debate?

This cracked me up 

Beaf:

^
Itsekiri is a mixture of proto-Yoruba and Igala.

What on earth is proto-Yoruba? Do you mean Yoruba from the 1400s, 1500s? Or the language that the various Yoruba dialects descended from?

In any case, as Ayomike says, it seems to be a Yoruba dialect.

It is a language that is far closer to Igala than Yoruba;

Professor Ayomike, an Itsekiri man calls it a Yoruba dialect, yet you say it is closer to Igala? 

What linguistic evidence do you have to contradict Ayomike?

BTW, in case you are not aware. . . linguists classify Yoruba, Itsekiri, and Igala all under the Yoruboid family of languages.

more than that, the Igala also claim to to be the ancestors of the Yoruba (this is seemingly supported by anthropology).

That doesn't make any sense. How can one ethnic group be the ancestor of another? Certainly, we have a very close common ancestor. And both Yoruba and Igala are descended from that same ancestor yes. But that one child of that ancestor moved West and the other stayed doesn't mean the guy who left is descended from his cousin who stayed.

Your statement is like someone who understands evolution to mean man is descended from monkeys (which is wrong), rather than both having a common ancestor.

So, if anything, the Itsekiri are progenitor of the Yoruba,

Lol, wrong.

But let me play along with your game.

Yes, Yoruba, Itsekiri and Igala are all Igala.

Long live Greater Igalaland!

which makes any expansionist claims absolutely ridiculous.

Or not 

. . .By the way, your quote from Ayomike is miles out of context and has nothing to do with the current argument.

It was VERY relevant, as I showed above.

Good post Ibime. You are correct, seems way too much spent if the intent is just fertilizer.

The article is quite light on details though. Perhaps there is more planned. I'm trying to give the dude the benefit of the doubt.

Beaf:

Becomerich, go and sit down! Itsekiri is an older language than Yoruba, in case you don't know.

Older language than Standard Yoruba, which was developed in the 1850s and borrowed from various dialects? Yes, Itsekiri is older than that. As is Ekiti, Owo, Offa, Ijebu, Ibadan and all the local Yoruba dialects.

I would like to point out, btw, that Ekiti dialect is more challenging for say an Ijebu man to understand than Itsekiri is.

its like the US claiming England is American.

No, it is not, for the reasons stated above. Nobody is claiming that the Itsekiri are Yoruba. They were a mix of various groups, and speak a language that is very similar to Yoruba (it is even classified as Yoruboid by linguists.)

Time and being in close proximity has probably brought us closer together. But that is true of many peoples in Nigeria. My own Ekiti were constantly raided by the Ibadan and went to war with them in the late 1800s. . . but today we seek each other as one.

Unity is a good thing, not evil 

No clue why you are crying "expansionism."

Finally, let's here what Professor JOS Ayomike has to say about his people:

Now, we may first try to describe the Itsekiri peopl e whose kingdom is Warri. As already pointed out, the Dutch map of 1705 referred to above, marks their homeland as Awyri which over time had variously been spelt Iwere, Ouere, Oere, Warree, Wari. and now Warri. The Edo and the Yoruba call them Iwere. The people who constitute the Itsekiri tribe have diverse origins: early settlers from Ijebu, some from Igala and Aboh came to settle in various communities such as Omadino, Ureju, Ugborodo , Inroin, etc at various times out of human memory . Then a party from the Benin Royal family about the end of the 15th century set up a monarchy which constituted these erstwhile autonomous mini-communities into a nationality which it is today.

Prof. P. C Lloyd says that "in the English literature they are known as Warri or Jekri, though in the 19th century they were often referred to as Benin since contacts with them were first made on the banks of the Benin River". Here was a Kingdom founded by the royal party from Benin, but by the early sixteenth century through th e seventeenth, it had done so much overseas trade to match or exceed that of the mother - kingdom; the reason being its advantageous position within the empire on the rim of the Atlantic. The Itsekiri speak a Yoruba dialect whose vocabulary has been widened by the infusion of a large number of Portuguese, Bini and English words.

http://www.edofolks.com/html/pub123.htm

A welcome development by Goodluck.

Surprised this didn't get more attention.

Wow.

That is actually a strong endorsement of Buhari by the PDP.

With full control of the Petroleum Trust Fund, military dictator of Nigeria, all of that power he had and billions of dollars in his control. . .

. . .  and the worst they could find was 52 suitcases? 

Truly an upright man, Buhari.

I'm sure if we dig deeply into Goodluck's tenture in Bayelsa, we can find a lot more than that

@tiatma: Very cool video, thanks.

The problem of the Hausa man isn't too different from that of the Ekiti man. Just the magnitude of his problem is much, much higher.

Poor infrastructure effectively isolates us from profitable markets (e.g., Lagos), reduces our ability to make money through trade.

Lack of electricity means no ability to competitively manufacture valuable goods.

Only difference between the Hausa man and the Ekiti man is that he is much, much further away from the coast (and thus the world at large) than the Ekiti man is. We have a bit of an edge though due to some good human investments made in the past.

But ultimately, the solution to the problems of both peoples is the same.

Job creation is more important than illiteracy, imo.

Or is everyone going to be an accountant?  Who is going to hire all these dudes when they finish school?

They need investment and infrastructure. Imo, the biggest thing the Hausa man needs is:

A) Electricity working
B) Better infrastructure connecting his cities (Kano in particular) with the southern cities (road networks, railways, dredging of the River Niger, perhaps.)

I read somewhere before that it costs more money to ship a container worth of goods from Lagos to Abuja than it does from China to Lagos    If that is the case, you can imagine how much it costs to ship goods to Kano! Or from Kano to the South.

In a certain sense, the distance from Lagos to the US and China is less than that of the distance from Lagos to Abuja (or Kano)

As you can sort of tell from the Sanusi article, things became bad in Kano when electricity stopped working. This killed all the manufacturing. And when manufacturing dies, the jobs go with it. And every job lost likely destroys an entire family. . . who then become ripe targets for Islamic fundamentalism.

Basically, they deindustrialized like Detroit did. However, unlike Detroit (which died due to lack of competitiveness and will likely continue to hollow out), Kano can be saved if appropriate measures are taken.

These articles on gamji are pretty fascinating. The paranoia and fear the Northern elite seem to have about the south and Christianity. . . like, they blame the death of Kano's industry on Lagos, southern Christians, blablah


@Pharoh: I am starting to question how much employment farming can truly offer. Like, if you want to do it in an modern, internationally competitive way. Mechanized farming doesn't really offer a lot of jobs. Low-tech farming does, but isn't very efficient and competitive. . . so you'd need to prop it up with subsidies.

Honestly, manufacturing is what I think is the way to go to move the economy forward.

Farming these days requires some money to do well.

fstranger3:

This is very unfortunate!
I am beginning to suspect OBJ seriously.

+1. OBJ indirectly through his cronies is my guess.

The problem is she ran away. If she'd just turned herself in straight up, she'd have not done as badly.

But she really choose the worst of all possible worlds by running away and turning herself in.

Either run away or turn yourself in, don't do both

Truth be told, it is easier to turn a fixed amount of capital into something significant in Nigeria than it is where I live.

Most of the low-hanging fruit is gone here. Nigeria on the other hand, a lot of that fruit is still unplucked.

Pfft. O ye of little faith.

^-- Two hatin @ss niggas 

Kilode?!:

That girl is like eku_bear, too yankee to survive in Nigeria

Me? I am infinitely adaptable. Plop me in the middle of Afghanistan and I'll survive and prosper. . . not to talk of Nigeria