₦airaland Forum

samuk:
The Yoruba can believe whatever they want to believe but they should try as much as to limit their beliefs to themselves.

There is absolutely no basis for comparing Benin iron cast history that was bath and watered with thousands of blood of both fallen heroes, heroines, including kings and victims for centuries with Ife recycled myths of 19th century.

The written history of Benin up till 1897 can't be changed by mere wishful thinking of detractors, the best they can do is to conjure and misrepresent what was written, it's left for the Benin that come across such fabrications to always point out that there was nothing written about Benin/Ife relationship in the first four hundred years of Benin history.

It has been proven here that Benin written history made no mention of Oduduwa, Ife and Oranmiyan for the first four hundred years.

Oduduwa, Ife and Oranmiyan came into Benin history after the fall of Benin in 1897. All recycled myths and inconsistencies in the accounts of the origin of Oduduwa have carried on since.

In the past 100 years Oduduwa has assumed various forms and personalities, from being a mythical figure from the sky, Mecca indigine, Benin prince and most recently Ife indigine.

Those that want to continue debating myths as history are free to do so.

There will always been indisputable facts until proven otherwise.

1. Benin had nothing to do with Ife for the first four hundred years of Benin written history.

2. Benin kingdom influence was felt for centuries in what is today, Western, South Eastern, South Southern and Middle Belt Nigeria.

3. After the British put an end to Benin empire in 1897, the Oba of Benin continue to remain the custodian of the Benin culture, spiritual head and guardian.

4. Some of those the British freed from the clutches of the Benin empire have found new religious, political and spiritual leadership in the Sultan of Sokoto. Nothing to be jealous about because Benin, a southern minority had their turn for 500 years. The Northern minority Fulani caliphate is less than 250 years into their political, religious and spiritual subjugation and are yet to influence majority of the south southern and south eastern people.

5. Whenever Nigeria is restructured, Benin will continue to maintain it's independent religious and spiritual identity and those that want to steal Benin history will continue to look up north for religious and spiritual guidance.

There are absolutely no basis to compare Benin empire history to Yoruba history and Oba of Benin to any Yoruba Oba because most Yoruba people and Obas are under the Sultan of Sokoto religiously and spiritually.

To some, anyone that doesn't agree with their recycled 20th and 21th centuries myths and fabrications are ignorant and illiterate.

The Yoruba had the opportunity in 1897 to chat an independent course after the fall of Benin but they refused, they should stop dragging Benin history into the mould with their inferiority complex and religious and spiritual slave mentality.

They come here to parrot Ife and Ooni as the cradle of Yoruba civilisation but look to the caliphate for spiritual guidance. They can't begin their annual religious and spiritual practice without their supreme leader, the Sultan of Sokoto siting the moon and give the go ahead.

Myths hardly stand the test of time, the reason the myth of Ife and Oduduwa being the religious, spiritual and cultural homeland of the Yoruba have crumbled is less that a century.

They are quick to point to the Igbos as having no history, if you have concrete history that are not myths, why would it crumbled already.

Benin real history is growing stronger in spite of all that have been thrown at it.

Yes the Benin people are stubborn in protecting their history and heritage.

Sarah20A:
we know oduduwa as Izoduwa ...his name was changed by the yorubas to oduduwa and his descendants are still ruling Benin

davidnazee:
Your knowledge of events and history is really very limited. Maybe you should ask Bradbury which parts of Benin Kingdom Ibadan raided, he will tell you it’s the Yoruba parts because even Bradbury and all the the scholars u will quote all agree with facts that Great Benin Kingdom ruled over vast parts of your Yoruba Kingdoms including; ondo, Akure, osogbo, idanre, Ekiti, ado Ekiti, ilesa, Ikere, Efon-alaiye, ikare, owo, Ijebu ode, ore, ijebu-Igbo, ise, ikole, ila, iwo, ede..
Some of these Great Benin vassal states were the ones Ibadan raided.
So like I said earlier, it’s brother raiding brothers..

As for Ife, your failure (not ur fault tho becos there’s nothing to say) to give any traditional account of any Yoruba Kingdoms describing ife’s rule over them just goes to show Ife was not great as you like to say.
I bet a greater percentage of Yorubas will deny Ife ever ruled their kingdoms.

MightySparrow:
The discourse poses more questions. The truth can at this juncture can only be reasoned out by logic not tribal sentiments. A true scholarly research should not based on sentiments

MightySparrow:
Which Oba?

MightySparrow:
No scholarly evidence given. The most detailed history of yorubas written by dr Samuel Johnson published in 1921 (you could download pdf) has this record.

TAO11:
You keep unveiling and magnifying your ignorance and illiteracy for the world to see and clear their doubts.

To burst your bubble, every Yoruba (and every literate Bini who reads) already know that in Yoruba accounts, "Okanbi" is none other than Oduduwa's only child.

Secondly, what makes you think normal sane people care what you BeLiEvE??

lawani:
centuries ago, an ife man was made king by the oracle in Benin, the story is in the ifa corpus under odi meji, if you know any babalawo you may ask them, the story is there. That man brought thousands of Yoruba with him and made Yoruba the lingual franca of the new empire he built, he called his capital Ife Ibinu which was later corrupted to Benin. Yoruba was the lingual franca of the empire. The oba was only addressed in the Yoruba language. The people of ugbodu delta migrated from Benin and they still speak a Yoruba dialect like that of owo.

MightySparrow:
There is certainly a part or both not being honest in this issue. If giving analyses to the history as giving by their historians especially the Benin side all I have read are abuses and accusations not particularly scholarly write - ups.

hayoholla:
Which intellectual authority do stand onto to say any recent work on Ife-Benin history should not be quoted or referenced. Guy Walai you are such a joke and embarrassment to education. Tao11, Ogbo Ato. Abeg leave this guy alone. He seems to be stiff-necked to knowledge. His likes are in the north posing as extremist and fanatics. So you want to tell the whole wide world that in any field of research, any academic work that are recently reviewed, revised and updated should be discarded altogether because they won't fit your own subjective narratives? And you can boldly say you went to school, got a college degree and you came out spewing this trash? Jesus of oyingbo! you must be a joker

MightySparrow:
Any achaeological evidence presented must not give room for any doubt and even if doubt is to be given it must be given reasonable convincing explanation.
OP I don't really know which of the divide you belong but what you are asking for is near impossible. However, reasonale deductions could be made from the set up and history of each. The Yorubas claim their leader came from Mecca, how much of arab culture influence do we see in Yoruba? Benin history has not really told us how it started. the only meaningful influence is how they influence Yoruba and some part of Igbo and few others. Is their similarity in dressing, worship, organizition? Who got what from whom and how, and when? In all human history a lesser civilization gets something from better. the core values are almost opposite.

OgboAto:

AreaFada2:
Interesting to see what will come or not come up.

TAO11:
Saving face as usual. I allow you little boy.

How old are you again?

Cos the last time I checked you're only a kid going by your picture which you pulled down only recently.

And you're still a UNIBEN boy, abi? ... Struggling to have your first degree. Lol.

TAO11:
It's abusive that the lingua-franca of Benin Kingdom was Yoruba language ??

It's abisive that the language of palace administration at Benin kingdom was Yoruba language??

I think you should try another cheap face-saving excuse, this one is already stale.

OgboAto:
His mum was Benin. He stated his genealogy in the second page following the coverpage of the book. Man, you're lucky I don't have it here with me, I would have put up a picture where he described his background. It was as if the man knew y'all would deny him at some point. His work was sanctioned & approved by your Oba of that period.

OgboAto:
Roupell stated Ife-Benin connection according to your people in 1897, period!

Should I also show you were it said he went back to correct it because he was working with the King? And yet while working with the King and editing his work he still retained that the monarch origin was Ife. Do you want to see it?

And no, I am not projecting Ife favouritism I've only put out a bit of the records I have for you to reprocess your own history. And yes, I think you are all dumb.

TAO11:
Another one below:

(1) Yoruba language was the Lingua Franca of Benin Kingdom

(2) Yoruba language was the language of the palace administration of Benin Kingdom.


cc: lawani, OgboAto

OgboAto:
You're lucky I left that Egharevba's book in Ife.

1. He was from Benin

2. His father was an original Benin

3. His mother was a serious Benin with prominent ancestry.

4. His wife was a proper Bini woman with better Benin ancestry

5. He schooled and grew up in Ondo.

6. You were not there when he handed the book to the press. Don't regurgitate roadside uneducated rumours.

Finally, Egharevba got all of his data from Benin people in Benin & also Benin palace.

OgboAto:
You're lucky I left that Egharevba's book in Ife.

1. He was from Benin

2. His father was an original Benin

3. His mother was a serious Benin with prominent ancestry.

4. His wife was a proper Bini woman with better Benin ancestry

5. He schooled and grew up in Ondo.

6. You were not there when he handed the book to the press. Don't regurgitate roadside uneducated rumours.

Finally, Egharevba got all of his data from Benin people in Benin & also Benin palace.

lawani:
earlier Benin princes exposed to education were all Yoruba. The Benin palace was a big complex housing over 50 thousand people and Yoruba was their lingua franca. The edo people recently overwhelmed Benin from the suburbs.

OgboAto:
This paper attempts to provide an overview of the works written on Bini history. Apart from Roupell's paper, it appears that the first work written on Bini was by Egharevba & his fellow Bini brothers much later.

OgboAto:
Chief that account was given by your people to Roupell.

If you check other accounts in different periods, some said it was Oronmiyan, some said it was Ekalederhen.


Now fast forward to 1950s when you people began to change narratives, the accounts were not stable & you wonder why or what the problem is with Bini folks.

samuk:
If you read the screenshot by OgboAto, you will notice the inconsistency about how Benin got its name from Ibinu to the claim of Ile-Ibinu.

The account claimed Eweka was the one that came to Benin not Oranmiyan as currently being claimed.

Oral history could pose serious problems for those that are interested in real history devoid of myths and unsubstantiated claims. But Luckily for Benin history there are written eyewitness accounts to examine and interrogate our oral history.

samuk:
You already know the history of Egharevba and the circumstances he wrote the first edition of his book. Since then there have been numerous revisions.

Unless Benin people wake up and start taking their history serious by examining the wealth of materials available to them and start to write their history themselves pointing out the distortions currently being made by so called scholars, a time will come Benin children will be learning Benin history from the Yoruba revisionist versions.

How can someone point to a Benin artworks depicting a Nupe/Igala man and change it to a messager from Ife when Ife is not mentioned anywhere in Benin history during that period.

The Yoruba examine the vast European writings on Benin, saw the mention of Ogane kingdom in the east and claim it's Ife in the West.

The Benin people are now lethargic about their history and suffering from the fatigue of empire building, we seem not aware or are very unconcerned about the population ethnic politics that are being played around us using Benin history as tool.

The average Benin are far interested in travelling to Europe, America and other countries today than anything else, at this rate, we may soon become like the Jews who where all over Europe and America for millenniums without a homeland until 1949 because the arabs and muslims have taken over Israel in their absence. You can already see some frictions in areas of Edo lands that have sizeable populations of other tribes.

How can you be an Enogie and hardly resides in your domain, those they leased their lands to are now fighting them over their lands, just the way others are now fighting us over our history.

Today, the headquarter of christianity is the vertical in Rome and the Pope is the holiest Christian or man living but christianity didn't start in Rome and not by Europeans but by Jews in Jerusalem.

How did the Europeans manage to take over christianity and turned it to their private property, show me any jew that has been Pope for almost two thousand years of Catholic/Christian history.

samuk:
Is OgboAto a woman? She claimed to have the reference of European writers mentioning Ife in their Benin history between 1475 to 1897, don't you want to see the reference? Insults is how they get out of difficult situations
Benin were the ones who startedthisshit
The whole point is people will begin to see that there was no mention of Ife in Benin history for the first four hundred years and begin to question what they read about Benin/Ife relationship instead of just believing everything they are being told.

People may begin to correct a lot of the current distortions in Benin history. I don't know how any scholar will change Ogane from east to west. It's a shame not enough Benin writes Benin history. We just leave it to others to distort.