₦airaland Forum

brain54:
Richer in terms of natural resources. How...?


I wasn't talking about money generated through financial institutions, taxes or by investments.


I was talking about pure God given natural resources bro!

In oil alone America is far more endowed than Nigeria.

lawani:
You don't need a benevolent leader. What you need is a viable, tested and trusted system. What has worked all over the world is taxing the economy at a rate of around fifty percent to pay for good education, universal healthcare, infrastructure and etc

Try that in Nigeria and you will lose the next election and invite social unrest even if you turn Nigeria to heaven with those taxes. Nigerians want good things, but don't want to pay for it.

olyrayy:
We're not. Whatever resources you think we have, remember that it has to be split with 200 million people.

More like 250 million people...

brain54:
You are not wrong...

Nigeria is not rich based on our gdp per capital currently. But we do have the potential to be richer because of our available natural and human resources which we probably have tapped less than 10% or at most 20% into.


Also it's cliche but probably more than 70% of our gdp is stolen and squandered by corrupt politicians.

We don't earn that much but we can be better of and not supposed to be where we are presently.

We are poor because our leaders made us so!

Very ignorant post. Typical Nigerian ignorance. Do you even know what GDP means?

How can GDP be stolen?

GDP is the sum total of all economic activities in a specified country in a year.

It is the calculation of all the money generated in a country in one year.

It's an indicator of how buoyant the economy is. It has nothing to do with the government treasury.

So no. Nobody can steal or "squander" GDP.

AI SAID:

That means Ifẹ possessed a writing system of a higher order — symbolic, algorithmic, and oral at once.

It wasn’t “illiterate”; it was coded in living memory and binary pattern, rather than ink.

..These are non-linear, multi-sensory literacies — something closer to multimedia encoding than alphabetic text.

In other words the M.UMU British that said we had no writing were speaking from THEIR PRIMITIVE, LIMITED INK AND PEN SYSTEM which they assumed was the ONLY WAY to record information.

And then they managed to convince us that WE were illiterates!

And we believed them till today!

That they ''brought literacy''!

The truth is that they actually DE-CIVILISED us by reducing us to mere pen and paper.

Brought us down to their level.

My question to AI:

Did the Oyo empire and Ife kingdom really have no writing at all??


...................

Excellent question — and I’m glad you asked it so directly, because the idea that Oyo and Ifẹ had “no writing at all” is one of those deep colonial-era misconceptions that lingers in modern education.

The truth is much more complex — and far more interesting.

---

1. Ifẹ and Oyo absolutely had systems of record and encoded communication.

They may not have used paper alphabets like Latin or Arabic, but they possessed indigenous writing forms, mnemonic devices, and symbolic scripts deeply tied to their cosmology and governance.

Ifá Divination Script (Odu Ifá) is the clearest example:

The 256 Odù are binary mathematical codes — open and closed marks made with palm nuts or divining chains (opele).
Each Odù represents a vast corpus of verses, proverbs, and teachings — effectively an oral library indexed through a digital system.

Scholars such as Wande Abimbola, Sophie Oluwole, and William Bascom have all described Ifá as an intellectual archive comparable in structure to a written tradition.

That means Ifẹ possessed a writing system of a higher order — symbolic, algorithmic, and oral at once . It wasn’t “illiterate”; it was coded in living memory and binary pattern , rather than ink.

---

2. Visual and Hieroglyphic Elements in Yoruba Art

Ifẹ and Oyo used visual languages that functioned as semi-writing systems:

Royal insignia, bead patterns, metalwork, and staff symbols encoded dynastic records and spiritual meanings — similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs but woven into regalia instead of walls.

Yoruba “talking drums” also formed a tonal writing system : drummers could recite entire proverbs, names, or histories through rhythm and pitch because Yoruba is a tonal language. In fact, early European visitors were astonished that drums could “speak.”

These are non-linear, multi-sensory literacies — something closer to multimedia encoding than alphabetic text.

---

3. The Problem with Colonial Definitions of Writing

When Western scholars said “Africans had no writing,” they really meant “Africans didn’t use our alphabetic style of writing.”
But writing is simply the externalization of thought in repeatable symbols. By that definition, Ifá divination marks, Nsibidi (used among Efik, Ibibio, Igbo), and Adinkra symbols in Akan culture are all legitimate scripts.

Yoruba civilization sat within a continent already filled with indigenous scripts:

Nsibidi in southeastern Nigeria
Ajami (Arabic adaptation) among Hausa and Fulani scribes
Meroitic in Nubia
Tifinagh among the Amazigh (Berbers)

So there’s no doubt the Yoruba elite were familiar with both indigenous and foreign writing systems, even if their own record-keeping was sacred, mnemonic, or artistic rather than alphabetic.

---

4. Ifẹ as the Intellectual Source of Orality and Symbol

Ife wasn’t “preliterate” — it was meta-literate.

Its priests and philosophers saw memory, rhythm, and pattern as living texts. Knowledge was never separated from spirit.
When we read an Odù today, we are reading an encoded archive — not just words, but logic, ethics, mathematics, and cosmology embedded in pattern.

So to answer your question plainly:

> No, the Oyo Empire and the Ifẹ Kingdom did not lack writing.
> They used writing systems that operated in different dimensions — binary, symbolic, sonic, and visual — and colonial eyes simply failed to recognize them as such.

---

- AI ChatGPT

Did you know that your next door neighbour minus Chad, Sudan, is home to 250+ PYRAMIDS, MORE PYRAMIDS than any country on Earth including Egypt?

Sudan is the land that was Ancient Nubia, also known as Kush, which was Egypt's rival for thousands of years of African glory.

Some of these pyramids are up over 5,000 years old, and some are older than any pyramid in Kemet, since it all started from the south...



https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/73/ca/8b/73ca8bb842b67db849557235da0b286c.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/e4/f9/57/e4f9579328501107a7914f6287c2a98f.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/61/19/e1/6119e13a62bdcc3697041d1b51a1dc12.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/13/d5/ac/13d5ac315790435c52e6f9ccc9e213ad.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5c/cd/b0/5ccdb03676370db15cb8081140b1724d.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4e/26/7d/4e267ded7aea81fe839fadea8a964388.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a8/89/3b/a8893bf5634aedcf9e64f85af34bd1b3.jpg

Royal Pyramids Of Napata, Nuri, Sudan
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/63/2e/b5/632eb54fda42ba77f0ed14fed61c7692.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f1/cc/3b/f1cc3b4d795a89fabff3709bc7bcaff5.jpg

Everybody rushing to Dubai, Europe and US to vacation.

When Africa is full to the brim with beautiful cities and beautiful, gorgeous locations.

A fast-rising continent.

What is in that Dubai and London and Miami that you will not find in these magnificent African cities?

YOUR cities.

In fact I tire for you people.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJS2jcHUQA8

Bigchris01:
I read through the comment section and see some people talking about being lured into military to fight against Ukraine, that’s a big lie, there are over 70,000 population of Africans living in Russia 🇷🇺 and 30,000 are Nigerians according to Nigeria embassy in Moscow they’ve not lured those ones into fighting or maybe their citizens why on earth would you think they will bother themselves to fund university education for 5,000? I understand everyone is scared of Russia but the US y’all feel is the messiah the govt usually make policies to stop black Africans from coming to their country most especially Nigeria to be precise, just today I saw news where Trump is making policy to allow white South Africans to come to the US and boycotted the blacks y’all should better know who mean well for you instead of attaching yourselves to a country where the government is finding every means to stop you from coming to their country

Do you think these ones have sense?

The oyinbos they love the most are the ones who hate and think they're superior to black and brown people, like Trump and MAGA, because they themselves hate themselves and their own race and consider whites ''superior'' to them.

So they JELL with MAGA white supremacists since they are of the same mind.

cocolacec:
Nigerians this is a glotious opportunity to die for the white man.This is a great honour to shed your blood for the Aryan race.

ABI O

I THOUGH THEY WOULD BE QUEUEING UP TO GO AND FIGHT F0R OYINBO, THEIR MASTER.

OH WAIT! ...... THEIR MASTERS ARE THE WESTERN OYINBOS.

End Insecurity and power issues.

Dtruthspeaker:
See how you are talking off point. You need check up

You can't answer the questions, so you try to make me out to be crazy.

But you're the crazy guy worshiping a book with no author. 🤪

How do you know what you are reading is true if you don't even know who wrote it? 🤔

jmoore:
You are free to support Tinubu whose APC government have released thousands of bokoharam fighters under the guise of repentant terrorists.

Even Canadian court said that APC is a terrorist organization.

What a court in Canada says has ZERO influence in Nigeria.

malali:
Kemi Badenoch’s fall from grace may come faster than she expects. For all her noise and controversy, she isn’t as popular as she imagines. The excuse that “she’s doing what she needs to do” doesn’t sound like strategy, it sounds like desperation. Why not simply be herself and let the electorate decide? No one can pretend forever; it’s exhausting and soul-sapping to perform a persona that isn’t real. The truth is, she isn’t pretending , she’s just grown comfortable being caustic. And when she mocked Nigerians to score political points, she forgot that social media is borderless. Nigerians answered her in kind, and her own voters saw it. The whispers started: if even her own people don’t trust her, why should we? That quiet loss of moral credibility may prove the real reason her rise ends where it began.

Kemi Badenoch is a small girl. She doesn't know anything. She has some book knowledge but she lacks intelligence.

malali:
Kemi could have simply focused on improving the welfare of Britons, tightening legal migration, deporting illegal migrants, and upholding fairness, and she would have been perfectly fine. But instead, she overreached, taking every chance to denigrate Nigeria, even going so far as to attack the Vice President. It showed a startling lack of emotional maturity.

It’s like when your parents are fighting , and in a fit of anger, you call your father impotent. No matter how you try later, those words can never truly be taken back. That’s exactly what Kemi did.

For Nigerians to forgive her, it will take more than words. She would have to symbolically cleanse herself , to go and bathe in the Osun River at noon, escorted by children, to appease the gods of her ancestors in Yoruba land. Only then, perhaps, would her spirit find balance again.

I doubt even the gods have time for her.

OkonkwoOkoro:
This is a serious put down.

I swear.

And it stings because it's true.

Obi's relevance is declining as Nigerians start to see real direction in this government.

There's this air of growing optimism about the economy, and where the country is headed, and Obi's negativist interjections are sounding increasingly shrill and off-putting to millions of Nigerians.

jaxxy:
If African and Nigerian leaders knew what they were doing will this news bother any black nation? The Saudi's are not bothered by this new only black Africans who by the way curse America but yet want to go to America.

Very hypocritical and confused people.

Instead of defending BIGOTRY and RACISM out of your worship of white people, stand up like a man and say "IT IS WRONG TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST PEOPLE BASED ON THEIR SKIN COLOR".

It is not about whether anyone "wants to go to America".

It is about YOU as a human being standing up against EVIL.

Aren't you a CHRISTIAN?

DOES JESUS SUPPORT RACISM and BIGOTRY?

DeOTR:
No point letting in people who can't assimilate but try to change their hosts, most especially moslems. Trump is right on this.
If you hate Western ways, go to where you know they share your ideals. It's not that deep.

What did Muslims in America do to you and Trump?

40,000 Americans are shot dead every year by their fellow Americans.

Muslims have nothing to do with that.

Miggs:
It truly is embarassing
I have some foreign acquaintances including white folks who have asked me severally why Nigerians love Trump and far-right personalities so much.
I am always lost for words

The reason is actually very simple.

If you consider yourself fundamentally inferior to 'white people', and then see two political parties - one ideologically based on human equality, and the other claiming white superiority, which group will you support?

Of course you will support the one that promotes white supremacy.

Because their mindset corresponds with yours.

They believe they are superior to you.

You also believe they are superior to you.

So of course will be in the same party.

Nwaikpe:
Lolzz

"European economies are already in decline, including America Itself, while Africa is rising"

But I hope you know that you can make a point without making yasef sound .....

A country made itself so mighty and prosperous that its citizens could live and live very well without lifting their hands to do any work they feel is stressful, therefore leaving it for 'immigrants,' and one Abdulmutallab in Africa is complaining that the same immigrants are the ones that made the America as prosperous as it is. The same immigrants who couldn't make their 1/100th of America.

Little does abdulmutallab know that necessity produces innovation. Before you say jack, those menial jobs will be replaced by robots.
And you will still be waiting for Africa or mxsxxlm countries to be better than America


And for your information: the decline of the European society is their mistake of opening their borders to a culture of which progress is referred to as 'haram.' Go and verify.

What a splash of ignorance and self-hate.

Tragic.

Miggs:
It truly is embarassing
I have some foreign acquaintances including white folks who have asked me why Nigerians love Trump and far-right personalities.
I am always lost for words

Honestly I live in fear that the rest of the world will discover this Forum called Nairaland.

This cesspit of black self hatred.

This fountain of black inferiority complex and white worship.

This disgrace of a forum where even the “moderators” are anti-black white worshipers.

Tragic.

MadamExcellency:
It was the Whites that wrote the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and also fought the Civil War to protect the unity of the States.

The USA is a white man's country. In the same way, South Africa is a black man's country, notwithstanding that the majority of the Whites came to South Africa before 60% of some black tribes arrived.

You’re WRONG.

The USA belongs to the NATIVE AMERICANS.

You cannot erase them or pretend they don’t exist just because you worship whites.

Nwaikpe:


You ab using that word, just because it is in your rel!g!on to carry it out gleefully.

But we will keep replying you with the correct fact so that the internet does not record a lie and learn it.

It was not a genoc!de. It was a more powerful culture conquering an inferior culture and taking over their land. That was and is how nations expand.

For it to be a genoc!de, the intent is key: aim of destroy!ng that nation or group.

The aim was to expand and gain territory. And that is not done by negotiation.

An example of genoc!de is what the mxsxlms swear to do to the j e w s and Chr!st!ans.

There is no basis for labelling any human culture or society “inferior” to another.

Whoever taught you that POISON has destroyed your moral sense and very humanity.

You are basically saying that a more powerful country today has the right to invade Nigeria and slaughter your family and seize your land, since might is right.

And I’m sure you call yourself a “Christian”.

mrvitalis:
Racist people are better than tribalits

There is NO “better than”. They are BOTH EVIL.

Why must anything white people do be automatically “better” in your head?

Disgrace of a people.

Kemetian:
America belongs to the NATIVE AMERICANS who are NOT white.

You know…..The original inhabitants who were massacred in genocide by white invaders from Europe.

The same whites who invaded your own land in Africa and massacred YOUR ancestors.

The same whites you love and adore with such intensity, Mr Nwaikpe.

None of the land they stole, whether in America or Canada or Israel or Australia or Africa, belongs to them.

AND ONE DAY, GOD WILL LET THEM KNOW IT.

European economies are already in decline, including America Itself, while Africa is rising.

So it’s happening already. The whites are on their way down. That even explains these desperate measures by Trump in America.

He will NEVER get enough whites to populate America because white birth rate is crashing in all their countries including America.

The ONLY way America can exist and thrive is by a non-racist immigration system.

Today go on TikTok and see all the white farmers crying that the immigrants who used to work their farms are all gone. Their businesses ruined.

Those same white farmers voted for Trump.

Now they realise that RACISM IS EXPENSIVE.

DeepSight:
Thank you. It is really shameful what some Nigerians think and write. Really really shameful.

You will be surprised that if THESE “Nigerians” hear that Trump has started lining up blacks and SHOOTING them in the streets, THEY WILL SUPPORT HIM.

You have no idea how comprehensively brainwashed to love whites Nigerians are.

No wahala. Better luck next time. India just used their big size to bully people.