AreaFada2:
An interesting piece.

This again confirms that Benin Empire never had much appetite for slave trade. Of course, OP did not intend to say so.
I wish more tribes followed suit early to ban slave trade.

I have argued on NL for years that beginning with the rise of Oyo in about 1680/90s, slave trade volume increased. Up to about 1770s for sure. About the period that Oyabi and Alaafin Abiodun finally eliminated Bashorun Gaha.

Because there are some tribes who still insist that Benin traded in slaves massively. The duration was short and in fact slave trade in Benin persons or by Benin persons was outlawed quite early. Other tribes within Benin sphere of influence reserved the right to sell or by themselves as slaves.

Ghostwon
Samuk
Automaticmotors
Gregyboy

People need to understand what slavery was in the past. It was a means of accounting for everybody and slaves were not exported. Oyo were exporting their opponents as were doing other nations of west Africa. There was no slave port under the control of the Benin empire as far as I know. It was Oyo that dominated the trade. Any captive you can not keep us vest exported and they will include criminals and those that tend to attempt escaping

The main pre industrial empire that profited from the transatlantic slave trade was the Yoruba Oyo empire of West Africa that monopolized the trade for centuries by being in control of the Bight of Benin also known as the slave coast. Ajase (Porto Novo) was one of the big cities of the empire that was the headquarter of an Aare ona Kakanfo the head of the imperial army of the Oyo at one point. That was the Aare ona Kakanfo Oyabi who put down the Bashorun Gaha civil war at the Oyo ile capital by marching on the capital with the imperial army in support of the Alaafin Abiodun.
The main human merchandise of the Oyo empire were Muslims of the Savannah especially Hausas, Fulanis, Malians and people from Central Africa then fellow Yorubas who were opponents of the Oyo but over the first few centuries of contact with Europe and the Americas by the Oyo and other Yoruba, the traffic in slaves was not heavy and more or less all slaves departed from the Oyo controlled slave coast which is also called the Bight of Benin. Badagry also was an Oyo controlled slave port after it was taken by the Oyo after a blockade. It was under the control of the Oyo when the Oyo Ile civil war of Bashorun Gaha broke out and some children of the Bashorun Gaha fled to the city and their descendants are indigenes of the place today.
It was later that the Ashanti empire became a player in the slave trade but not long after that they came under the control of the Oyo empire and the reigning Asantehene was removed and replaced by a new one under the authority of the Alaafin of Oyo after the Atakpame war. Therefore it can be said that the transatlantic slave trade to a large extent was firmly under the control of the Oyo empire until the beginning of the industrial revolution or until the early nineteenth century and the human merchandize was mainly Yoruba and Muslims of the Sahel and the Savannah of West Africa to North Africa but there were others too. DNA tests will confirm this.

It was after the decline of the Oyo empire that the slave trade became a free for all and it also approximated the time the British started to fight against the trade. Oyo ile was burnt down by Ilorin jihadists and Ibadan became the most prominent Oyo city but without the traditional cutting edge of the empire’s military which was the calvary, the long arm of the empire. Dahomey declared independence, Lisabi rose in Egba and led a rebellion that killed hundreds of Oyo Ajeles within a few days. The Oyo empire became a shadow of itself and it was Ibadan piecing it together without using calvary when the colonization by Britain started by the invitation of the Yoruba themselves after seventeen years of the Kiriji civil war. Egba remained independent and joined Nigeria voluntarily in 1914.

When Oyo remained mainly Ibadan, Ogbomosho, Oyo Alaafin Iwo, Ede and etc including Ilorin under the Ajikobi after the defeat of Ilorin in Osogbo and Ibadan was struggling to unite the Yoruba in the forest area and the Savannah up to River Niger while in alliance with the Borgu, the slave trade fell under the control of the Dahomey, Ijebu, Awori Ijaw and the Calabar. It was during this time that the trade spiked and there was very great traffic but a few decades of spike can still not be compared with centuries of steady flow of human merchandize and free men. For example a Nupe named Oshodi Tapa in the employ of the Oba of Lagos was still recorded to have gone to Brazil in the 1890s on behalf of his principal. A 15th century Ijesa King Owa Atakunmosa spent eleven years abroad with seven of it in Brazil where he left two sons (personal research). He returned to Ijesa and was made the King at about sixty years of age. There were a number of Oba of Benin and Olu of Warri as well in the same category. At the time of the spike in the volume of the trade late in the nineteenth century the majority of the people sold were Yoruba followed by Igbo and others and raiders in the Yoruba country thrived because of the many wars. The raiders included Oyo, Fulani and Nupe Muslims as well as other Yoruba as it was a free for all. People were captured as slaves during wars and in farms or at home and by raiders raiding small settlements.. For example Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther who was a freed slave that later became the first African Bishop of the Niger and hence the highest representative of the British in West Africa at a point said he was captured by a mixture of Oyo and Fulani people and was passed hand to hand, exchanged for a horse at one point before getting into the hands of those in control of the coast who would have been Ijebu. He was sold to a slaving ship but was rescued by the British and raised in Sierra Leone. Testimony in Calabar say the majority of slaves sold through the city were Yoruba and I have read the account of an Ijebu noble man in Germany who was sold by Ijaw pirates. Ijebu on the Yoruba coast could not be sold in any slave market because after the fall of Oyo they were in control of the slave trade hence their proverb that can be translated as ‘Anybody can be found in a slave market except an Ijebu or a white man” but an Ijebu noble man was sold by Ijaw pirates. It would however have been in the slave market of Eastern Nigeria and not on Yoruba land.
The first few centuries when it was a normal trade of slaves and movement of free men to the Americas, the people that crossed would be Yoruba, Hausa, Fulani, Akan, Fon, Malians Kanuri, Bariba, Nupe, Chadians and hundreds of others and it was a steady stream until the decline began of the Oyo empire via the independence of Asante, Dahomey, Egba, Ilorin and etc. The fact that the Yoruba of Brazil contain a large segment of groups like Ijesa is testimony to the fact that many Yoruba aristocrats who did not arrive in the Americas as slaves are the foundation of the Yoruba community there but people who arrived the Americas as Muslims are more likely to have arrived as slaves and they were assimilated into the culture of their households
It was the second wave of the transatlantic slave trade that had as merchandize some other groups in Southern Nigeria like the Igbos and etc. I do not think any Igbo was sold at all in Badagry or Porto Novo throughout the centuries the ports were in operation for the slave trade but in Calabar they say the majority of human merchandize that passed through the place during the spike in the volume that happened in the nineteenth century were Yorubas and that would of course be because of the Yoruba wars. Many of the people did not get to the Atlantic but were bought by people in Eastern Nigeria in need of farmhands and their descendants are Igbos today.
The only reason Hausa is not well represented in the Americas is because they arrived there as Muslims sold by the Oyo in the main and not as free men. If DNA is checked all over the Americas it will be confirmed though to distinguish Northern Yoruba or Oyo DNA from Hausa, Nupe or Bariba may be difficult because of years of intermarriage and to a large extent the same is true for the other Yoruba nations. (The first settler in our Ere Ijesa town was a Nupe man who did not stay.).
The other major contributor to the traffic is Angola and many of them landed in Brazil as free men as well and their culture is very visible in Brazil as a result of that.

.

Summary

Before the industrial revolution, the slave trade was majorly under the control of the Oyo empire in the same way that the trade in gold, salt, African (Moroccan) leather and etc was under the control of Muslims and gold was money in Europe and etc and ithe enslavement of Muslims was one of the justifications for the Fulani jihad by the protagonists. The other non Oyo Yoruba states were also affected..

After the decline of the Oyo empire the trade became a free for all with Dahomey, Asante, Ijebu, Awori and etc controlling the western side

The Eastern side was controlled by the Ijaw, Calabar and among the Ijaws are the Igboid ones. The Ijaws on the western side were pirates and anybody could be captured by them. The Ijaws also controlled the palm oil trade on the Eastern side while the Yoruba controlled theirs when the palm oil trade became the most important commodity trade as palm oil was the lubricator of the machines of industrisl Europe. Palm oil was the first efficient oil of the industrial age.

The human merchandize on the western side after the decline of Oyo were mainly Yoruba while on the Eastern side it was a mixture of Yoruba, Igbo and other groups but after the decline of Oyo and during the Yoruba wars there was a great increase in the trade as would be expected.

That is a concise articulation of how I understand the transatlantic slave trade. It was a normal trade and if not for the industrial revolution, colonization of Africa and how Nigeria the giant of Africa turned out as a result of an unhealthy competition between the largest African ethnic nations, then there would have been no reason for the transatlantic slave trade to be a hotly debated issue while other slave trades like that of the Ottoman Turks and etc that occurred as a parallel of the transatlantic slave trade is not mentioned. In the past, whole cities were enslaved wholesale and sold in single deals and they did not see it as a big deal. Life must continue.

Navigator14:


Lol miscreant you don go change profile dey reply yourself, tax collector, imagine paying tax to looters and criminals who are already saturated with looted fund for them to loot more, only a fool gives money to the rich, I'd rather give the less privilege than funds criminals.

If the government want you to pay you will pay.

LanceO:
Really sad to see people's response on this matter.
Nigerians want to build castle in the air.
How can we in large numbers vehemently oppose people doing or trying to do the right things, or make the person out to be foolish for trying to do right, and we want a good country?
The people need to be upright if the country is to be upright.

It would be insane to carry your money by yourself and pay tax to Bola Tinubu without being threatened of jail or hell fire

onegig:
See why Nigeria can never move forward. We want overseas treatment and services but not pay the basic requirements of us. See all of them making noise about not paying taxes and skimming it and even calling someone who's asking to do the right thing names.

What makes you different from all the politicians stealing? Because not paying your due taxes is actually stealing. Taxes are a requirement as a citizen. If you are making money in Nigeria even though remotely you are required to pay taxes. Yes the services aren't optimal but roads(no matter how bad and limited), security are funded from taxes.

Can't wait for FIRS to sit up and start requiring mandatory tax return filings yearly. Tie NIN to Taxes. If you don't file taxes , you can't get any services from government, can't register kids in school, can't apply for passports, can't get mobile services etc.


@op. What you need to pay is the PAYE and would go to your state of residence. Reach out to your State LIRS.

You can calculate estimates using this app.
https://ng.talent.com/tax-calculator

Only fools pay tax themselves without being forced

redsun:


The Yorubas do not have to leave if they are contributing to the economic boom in Onitsha. That is what Onitsha needs to create more wealth.
Just because others think backward does not mean Igbos should follow suit. The Igbos need to create an environment that will be conducive to sustainable economic growth, and instead of fighting for Biafra,they should focus on how to develop that region socially and economically.

How does Nigeria serve Igbo interest?. Nigeria is a British country.
If you people want Nigeria to remain together, it has to be with rules established by the British. The one you have now is a zoo. States must be given on demand as the Midwest was granted añd they should be able to merge if they want, the name must be changed and official language must be a local language. Equity in government must be by the igr you can raise can be the only addition. If that is done, it will be a fair country with a good identity. If it is not done, it would break up at one point. Nothing unfair can be permanent

anu3:


Two wrongs don't make right. Through the years I've found just doing right pays a lot with God's approval. If they choose to be wrong , then we can choose to do good. Each one will reap what they sow... Choice...

Paying tax on your own without others paying is not going to help your country or do you think it will?. One tree can not make a forest

In a normal country you must register your business and must pay yourself minimum wage and if your standard of living is higher than the wages you pay yourself, you will receive a letter. It is not difficult for the government if the will is there. If you can not pay yourself the minimum wage then the government will find you a job

redsun:
He is very correct: The Igbos must do that to be able to bring sustainable economic value to the eastern region. Asaba is already moving in that direction. But the Yorubas should realise that when the Igbos leave Lagos, the commercial value of Lagos will slump. Omoniles will cease to exist.

Maybe after that, the Igbos will be replaced by the Congolese in Lagos.

Primitive bastards that failed to realise that evolution is not subject to tribal and religious affiliations.

If Igbos leave Lagos will Yoruba leave Onitsha, PH and etc? Lagos is just like two times of PH.abd like over three times of Anambra. No big deal in Lagos

Anybody he has wronged should be encouraged to publicly forgive him before it is too late

In a Yoruba country the name of the country will be rendered in the language like USA is rendered in English. Ijoba Apapo Ile Oduduwa IAIO is good just like the USA or Ijoba Apapo Iwo Oorun ile Afrika IAIOIA or something of that nature. Yoruba does not need to appear in the name nor does any English word

Swiftgrp:

It is Lagos Island (Lagos for short) that is being refered to in the screenshot that you attached here.

That's an estimated 11 percent of the 1964 population of Lagos Island (NOT Lagos State which has a larger landmass). Lagos State only came into existence for the very first time out of the 12 new states the General Yakubu Gowon's government created on May 27,1967.

More than 95 percent of the total landmass of what is now Lagos State was carved out of Western Region (Which later evolved into Western State on May 27, 1967) and merged with majorly Lagos Island to form Lagos State for the indigenes.

If all states were created by referendum as was the Midwest, the country would not have been in as much mess as it is presently.

Swiftgrp:

Bump.

Insightful.

He is not correct about Osogbo. There are Baloguns in Osogbo who are from Ibadan and Iwo that obviously came there during the Ilorin Ibadan war but the town itself is Ijesa. If you want to buy land in Osogbo today, those who will sell it will be Ijesa. Then it is either Osogbo stand alone or go with Ijesa when Nigeria divides. The King is a member of the Ijesa royal family and most of the population have Ijesa ancestry. Any Osogbo family with 200 years history is Ijesa. The old boundary was with Ede and even Ede used to be Ijesa land but they will form their own state

poseidon12:
None of those Nigerian billionaires mentioned are self made. It's all government money.

It's the South African ones that are self made.

If what you are producing is not more expensive than in foreign countries paying the same wages then there is no basis to describe the money as government money

SmartyPants:


Work does not necessarily mean salaried employment. If you don't want to understand it that way then simply take it that self made is the opposite of inherited or gifted.

Thinking and not work is what brings any kind of success. Nobody really works harder than others but you can think harder

SmartyPants:


Self made in this context simply means you worked for it rather than inheriting it.

It is still not correct because no amount of work can make you a high net worth individual. Ise ko ni owo.

Is it really right for somebody employing fifty people to be described as self made?. Given that artisans who do not employ at all can not really be described as self made because they had a master at one point.

LeonSaab:
sure citizenship is not forced, by the time they block you at the border your eye go clear.....

Only governments of primitive third world countries will need to block workers from entering their country if the whole globe were properly organized. If Ijesa is 2 million in population with 500,000 workers, efficient tax collection will give the government at least 500 million dollars per annum and plans will be made on that. If the population falls the money will not be complete

caracas:

There’s nothing like Igbo obsession with Lagos, but fact is fact . The igbos developed Lagos just like they have done in Abuja…

Yorubas built house in any city on Earth more than Igbos apart from Igbo cities. So why are they not saying they developed those cities?. That is the issue which you ought to understand is irritating. There is no sector in Lagos where Igbo is up to twenty percent. No industry except very narrow ones. So the claim is not right and even if right it is uncivilized to make. UAE, Dubai etc have majority foreign workers and those foreigners don't say such. East is full of Yorubas dominating several industries. High skilled industries which only Yoruba are into in the East and they are not insulting Igbos. It is unfair to be trampling upon your fellow human even if you have the status not to talk of when you don't and you continually do the verbal trampling. If you say you built Lagos, why not say exactly what you built? Such behavior is not civil at all

Imposed tariff is punishment and not taxation. There is no justification for tariffing anything not produced in the country at all

LeonSaab:
sure citizenship is not forced, by the time they block you at the border your eye go clear.....

The important part of citizenship is the right to participate in determining the direction and destiny of the nation. In a properly organized world, you need only one. The remaining right of a citizen should be the right to gainful employment but civilization has not reached that level yet but it soon will

LeonSaab:
Oga stop been an idiot....I thought maybe your sense had started coming together but please feel free to a stay a fool I've moved from you........total Indian population in India alone is 1.4Billion but for your mind it's impossible for 4 generations of Indians in Nigeria and of Nigerian Origin to be up to 800k......for your mind once born they have to wait for aregbesola to confer citizenship on them.....it's just like saying a child born in America will be counted as a Nigerian when they are doing census because they are born to Nigerian parents or carry a second passport......

Different countries have different laws but nowhere in the world is citizenship taken by force. All the Yoruba online shouting that PH, Onitsha, Aba are no man lands, Igbos are dirty, lazy, cowards and etc while working and making a living in Biafra should not be granted citizenship of Biafra because they will pour sand into the gari of Biafra but of course they can work

The foundation of Nigeria's problem is identity and people have to take their land and control.it before there can be sustainable prosperity. You must take your land as it was before colonisation and align it as you wish
Imagine there is no Ijesa state?. Ijesa is one of the most long standing states on Earth but now it does not even have autonomy. It is broken into pieces and they say they are not good enough to have their own police. So Nigerian is A British identity and it is not alright for any group in the country. It can't work. Each tiny nation of people must control it's land.

It must be noted that Yoruba investment in the East employing workers surpass Igbo investments in the west by far. If Igbo people are one million in the west, Yoruba will be 500k in the East because the west is more than double the East. The population is equally interspersed and if PH were Lagos, the Yoruba there will be by far more than Igbo in Lagos. If Yoruba are not complaining in the East, then there is no need for Igbos to complain in the west. Govt has said the majority of properties demolished were owned by Yorubas. If there is proof that Igbos were targeted, then it should be presented. Igbos were a closed community in the past apart from the Aro is part reason for all these issues that heat up the polity unnecessarily

If he meant ninety percent of farmers then he is correct at least in Southern Nigeria

Irony1:


Who was the Ijesa man that was king in Lagos. Bros cool down you are not making any point here. I for one cannot call Lagos a no man's land. And beside what they meant both Jakande and Wachukwu is that anyone can come to Lagos and make a living and make a name and actually hold a position, which is due to the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos.

That is how it should be. No Ijesa man was King in Lagos. You can not make an English man King in Germany unless sworn in properly. Ologunkutere the son of an Ijesa Babalawo is the founder of the current line of Lagos Kings. His father was an Ijesa born in Ijesa but died as an Awori and his descendants are Awori.

Irony1:


Can you just have small sense for once in your life. We are talking about the geo political demarcation of Nigeria in the 60s. Lagos as a capital territory was made to be carved alone and away from Western region. Are you this dull not to understand it. There are Yorubas in Osun and Oyo, but they are different states because of Geo Political demarcation. Try and be sensible and stop arguing like a 5 year-old.

Why the son of an Ijesa was made King in Lagos was because he did not call the place a no man's land and he wanted to return to Ijesa. He was prevailed upon to remain and his descendants are now Awori

2 million people are working in the federal and state civil services and at least 30 million receive salaries in the OPS while up to 30 million are in the informal sector as artisans and self employed including farmers. Total workers in the countey will be around fifty million people. Therefore the estimate is clearly wrong. Farmers in Nigeria are not up to ten percent of workers and workers are a maximum of sixty million. The rest are dependants

Irony1:


Come is there anything wrong with you. I just showed how Nigeria was demarcated in the 60s with lagos Island as the Stand alone capital territory away from Western Region. Guy Lateef Jakande called Lagos No Man's land ooooo and you people saw nothing wrong in it, but an Igbo man's own is making you angry. This is the height of inferiority complex and your mental insecurities. Guy go and get a decent job and stop spreading hatred, you are not a child abeg.

You are a mad man you bastard. Don't call another man's land a no man's land anymore. Go and learn manners

Irony1:


Can you just have small sense for once in your life. We are talking about the geo political demarcation of Nigeria in the 60s. Lagos as a capital territory was made to be carved alone and away from Western region. Are you this dull not to understand it. There are Yorubas in Osun and Oyo, but they are different states because of Geo Political demarcation. Try and be sensible and stop arguing like a 5 year-old.

Just like a university was sited in your village and it is not no man's land because of that, it is in the same way that Lagos island or part of it was made FCT and it does not make it a no man"s land. They have right like other lands. How is that difficult for you to understand?. A place that was well defended with cannons in the nineteenth century is a no man's land?. As small as they are they can be a sovereign state. They have more population than some sovereign states. I hope it is now clear to you. Again making anywhere a capital is just location of a government parastatal or institution but it is the biggest one is the only difference. When Nigeria breaks up Abuja will continue as Gwari land and how to hold it together will be Gwari headache.

Irony1:


I think you are the id@@t here. No man's land and referral territory are two different context. The capital territory of Lagos even from the colonial times has always been exempted from being lumped into the western region. The land owners of the Lagos capital territory in the 60s are the lagosians, just as Abuja land owners are the Gwari. You guys are the ones who are not Lagosians that feel threatened when this subject is brought. Bros try and have brain naaaa

Use your brains, Lagosians are Aworis with land in Lagos and Ogun states and have been at nation building for thousands of years. Aworis are Yorubas.

Irony1:


Come are you this dense or just fantastically dull? What we are talking about was in the context of the 60s, it is common sense that the federal capital territory is not tied to a region. You people should have sense when you are arguing, this is just foolishness at its height.

You are the idiot. Being a capital territory makes nowhere a no man's land just like a federal university in your own state does not make your state a no man's land. It is a privilege granted and it does not reduce the right of the landowners or traditional authorities but it helps their economy. It just the location for the admin and for embassies. Nothing more