gregyboy:


Hmm....lol....my friend can you come with logical prove...i told ur broda who is hiding under a female account that links are irrwlevant but raw proves ...ao come out with raw fact then i will believe you anyone can claim anything i bet you know that

we brought civilization to you people through Benin.. Benin belong to ife....ile ibinu..Oranmiyan could not tame the beast so he left but left behind IDA Oranmiyan as symbol of his authority .. We are the light to you forest mongrel.. We brought clothing culture beads glass making iron/ metal crafting to you people and religion .. you should be grateful..

Unlimitk:

I'm ekiti and I noticed d Bini influence in my state
Many Yoruba towns up to kwara had Bini influence, including bishop oyedepo town omu aran,I've seen d pic of first king of omu aran dressing like oba of Benin in 1945
I've seen d influences of Bini in ekiti and ondo states clearly
But as time went on u have to understand people change with religion and environment as factor
Bini empire was great no doubt,but everything Has changed
I'm ekiti but I don't hear or speak ekiti dialect
Most Yorubas now only speak d popular central Yoruba we all speak, even I've seen Yorubas of kogi west complaining of losing their dialects to central Yoruba
That's just how it is
For now the only thing d bini ppl have is their past, no other tribe claim them because they want to b part of big 3 tribes in Nigeria, it is also happening to northern minority with d Hausa stuff
I'm sorry but that's just d fact

what are you saying bro,,, You will say ekiti dress like typical ife people ..Benin royal dressing is ife ...beads dressing and wrapper tying

hii

Shinjitsu:





awolowo the donkey that we saved lol...awolowo the idiot that licks the ass of the foolanis lol...when you talk about cannibalism I want you fool to to show me where it's written down in your foolish history book that we feed on flesh ...what do you have to say about this stupid and foolish Ogoni Cannibalism...I deal with facts I don't make noise like you fool I don't

You bastards are slave to the foolanis and will always be..idiot tell the world how you cowards loss kwara state ..History is there to tell the world how foolish and stupid you donkeys are lol

Laughing , How old are you ? maybe you were not born in the east because if you were born in the east you would know this . Why are you deceiving yourself you can't deceive the world ..your people are known cannibals . Accept it .. your people are among the tribes in Africa that made the white-man tagged us cannibals

Shinjitsu:





awolowo the donkey that we saved lol...awolowo the idiot that licks the ass of the foolanis lol...when you talk about cannibalism I want you fool to to show me where it's written down in your foolish history book that we feed on flesh ...what do you have to say about this stupid and foolish Ogoni Cannibalism...I deal with facts I don't make noise like you fool I don't

You bastards are slave to the foolanis and will always be..idiot tell the world how you cowards loss kwara state ..History is there to tell the world how foolish and stupid you donkeys are lol

i can't respond to your kind, ....Look how stupid you are "loss kwara state to fulani.. ilorin was just a safe haven for Muslims radicals and escape slaves way back then .. No point in history yoruba were ever under the fulanis.. Have you been to ilorin?.. Do they speak fulbe ? why would slaves not speak their master's tongue ..The war was nothing but yoruba Oyo war one side was under the banner of islam to secede ..

Shinjitsu:



Yourbas are illiterate history is there for you to see that Nri is the oldest empire in Nigeria...I can see how foolish and stupid you are lol

You idiot said we are cannibals right...let go down to history and see how you bastards eat human heart fool

Following reports that the Sarun, otherwise known
as Abobakun, was on the run to escape being buried
with the late Ooni of Ife, Ife chiefs have denied these
as untrue. According to the Lowa Adimula of Ife,
Oba Joseph Ijaodola, who is the Head of Inner
Chiefs, he said, “No one was caught during the Oro
festival, it is all lies. It has never been done in Ife
land that somebody must be killed or buried with
the Ooni.” The Secretary of the Royal Traditional
Council, High Chief Adekoye Odewole, also said, “We
don’t use human beings for rituals in Ile-Ife. We can
use rams, goats or other animals, but not human
beings.”
Meanwhile the Araba of Osogboland, Chief Yemi
Elebuibon has said the heart of the late king would
not be fed to the next Ooni.In his words, “The eating
of the heart of a departed King by an incoming one
belonged to the past. It no longer exists. People still
make this insinuation because many are barred
from witnessing the burial of a king. What the
incoming king will eat is the heart of an animal and
not that of a human. Nobody would be buried with the Ooni. Nobody would be killed for any form of sacrifice.”

History will always say that you fools are Of mixed origin, that you fools were the product of periodic waves of migrants. Your Fulani master had sex with you mothers to give birth to cowards and slaves lol

We the ibos don't like you yourba coward slaves cause you bastards eat human flesh and lick the ass of Fulani with hair lol....

Oldest empire in Nigeria Empire my butt hole ,,you are an Ape ,accept it ..Monkey self dey act like human ,show me your hairy ass and tail ibo boy, will you flat skull,?. if your grandfather were barely clothe and naked less than 100yrs ago living on trees , your forefather were clothe in raffia and leaves go and do the research ,how could they have built empire 1000years ago when the look like early man 70yrs ago..No clothing culture no defined ruling social strata ,nothing of such just bunch of naked people roaming the forest eating themselves for dinner..The visitors were major casualty of your cannibalism ,that is the reason most yoruba never want to visit your monkey kingdom or empire
What ever you called it for fear of being eaten ...You people were massively clothe by Awolowo go and do your research

Shinjitsu:



You see how stupid and foolish you are..if Nri is kingdom of ape which I know is not then the stupid Oduduwa is the kingdom of slaves which I know cause you cowards lick the ass of your masters the foolanis

You people dug up ruins of earlier igala villages before what is called anambra state you tagged it Nri kingdom to make you feel better in history ..Look at the pictures i posted earlier Picture of your grandfather ," cannibalistic homind caged in evolution of mankind "people who claim to have kingdom 1000yrs ago even claim to be Hebrew so jews are naked people ?. those pictures are are less than 70yrs ago.. Those are your ancestors embrace them ,that is who you are . you people need to evolve... that is why you ibos find it hard to co exist with people around you always have bitter hatred to people outside your clan.. How could people that haven't reached kingship level have a kingdom.. You ibos migrated to nigeria from the deep forest of South Africa that is the reason you ibos have history of cannibalism, that is peculiar to people from thick forest of central- Southern africa region .. ...

ibos are not aborigine of the east region of now Nigeria they moved to eastern part of Nigeria from southern eastern dense forest of African , their relatives are in equatorial quinea .. little they know is from the IGALAS and idomas ... Aboriginal people do reflect their environment and land ibo are in conflict with theirs .

Shinjitsu:
Ooni and the whole yourba nation are very mad and stupid..Let me teach them cause the are illiterate

The Nri Kingdom in the Awka area was founded in about 900 AD in North Central Igboland, and is the oldest Kingdom in Nigeria. The Nsukka-Awka-Orlu axis is said to be the oldest area of Igbo settlement and therefore, homeland of the Igbo people. It was a center of spirituality, learning, and commerce. They were agents of peace and harmony whose influence stretched beyond Igboland. The Nri people's influence in neighboring lands was especially in Southern Igalaland and Benin kingdom in the 12th to 15th centuries


Historically the Yoruba have been the dominant group on the west bank of the Niger. Of mixed origin, they were the product of periodic waves of migrants.[1] The Yoruba were organized in patrilineal groups that occupied village communities and subsisted on agriculture. From about the 8th century adjacent village compounds, called Ilé, coalesced into numerous territorial city-states in which clan loyalties became subordinate to dynastic chieftains. The earliest known of these city states formed at Ilé-Ifẹ̀ and Ijebuland. Urbanization was accompanied by high levels of artistic achievement, particularly in terracotta and ivory sculpture and in the sophisticated metal casting produced at Ilé-Ifẹ̀. The Yoruba placated a luxuriant pantheon headed by an impersonal deity, Olorun, and included lesser deities who performed various tasks. Oduduwa was regarded as the creator of the earth and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. According to myth, Oduduwa founded Ife and dispatched his sons to establish other cities, where they reigned as priest-kings. Ile Ife was the center of as many as 400 religious cults whose traditions were manipulated to political advantage by the Ooni of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ (king).

Your stupid ooni and foolish yourba nation should go and fix himself first before talking trash

nkri kingdom i laugh die Nri kingdom of apes ..your people were barely clothed till the 40s and 50s your people were known as ONI IHOHO naked people .. nothing like Nri kingdom stop it

i believe everything in the bible also believe my ancestors ..is ease not to believe what is not yet into your understanding i will pardon your limited intellect and understanding.rational mind only help you to find the truth i pray you find the truth and prove all things soon the truth will unveil itself ..it was once believed that matter can't be created non destroy now Matter can be created and destroyed. matter can be spin out of nothingness void..physicist are now talking of multi universe and multiple dimension IN TIME AND SPACE ,"Do you know what that means, what my ancestors have known for 1000s of years

davidnazee:


I never told u I believe the whiteman story of Elijah and the chariot as true.. i doubt if it really happened like that. but your own story is insane..
like I said earlier, marijuana and codeine are doing their work in ur head lol.

Mr David do you believe in multiple dimensions..? physics

davidnazee:


Marijuana and codeine doing their work..

Yes you are high on white man's mentality you easily believe that Elijah ascend to heaven through chariot of fire also all the mysteries in the Bible but you can't believe Our own claim just because we are blacks ...Yorubas are different bro we are black but different genetically scientifically proven by your white lords ...ORUNMILA too ascend to heaven we are also waiting for the day he will return back "ELA RO WA'' but he left ifa to communicate with the unseen dimension to resolve our problems and challenges

Dartilo:
Pls let's b realistic, Jesus christ d son of the most high GOD didn't jump from heaven...
Oduduwa met pple at ife, so how is he the symbol of creation...
Oduduwa is not indigenous to ife

Go and study ifa Orunmila is the only historian of ile -ife Oduduwa was there from beginning of creation... Oduduwa the king descend believe it or not ..Oranfe Onile ina too descend from heaven like oduduwa... prehuman stage of life existed in ile-ife before human acquire mortal body .Science can't fathom it now but they will later

Dartilo:

Like oduduwa falling from the sky abi

Laughing .. Oduduwa is a symbol of creation.... if oduduwa the king descend from the sky what is big deal in it ..Elijah used chariot of fire to ascend to heaven lot of mysterious and supernatural things happened in the bible that defiles common sense/ logic ,science and rational mind still yet we believe it wholeheartedly .. Yoruba's are powerful and mystical people we are ancient being we are the first .. Genetically we are different

Fairy tale..laughing..

davidnazee:


I’m not talking about European accounts.. don’t try to dodge the question.. give me a list of renowned great Yoruba kings that existed..
don’t call Sango that turned to thunder ooo, that is a lie.

Too many great kings have ruled and made the name of yoruba known all over Africa From Mali to shore of Mauritania and Senegal , morocco bornu , and Sudan and through out west Africa.. Oyo kings have always been revered and praise as the lord of Niger to upper Volta river Oyo empire stretched from western Nigeria to Ghana conquered Ashanti kingdom stopped them from extending their kingdom to Togo and Benin republic /Dahomey . shared boarder with Songhai/Mali empire when northern Nigeria were under great Songhai empire still yet Oyo were raiding the north using them as slaves till today yoruba see the north as slaves Niki kingdom baribas were under oyo empire ,vassal state of Oyo even Nupe at a point in time ....,.African greatest scholars Ahmed baba wrote about Yoruba and Oyo also Moroccan historian and world traveler ibn battuta gave his own account
. Hadn't been for European Benin wouldn't be known moreover the glory of Benin belong to Ile-ife / Oranmiyan

davidnazee:


I don’t want to stretch ur brain past it’s limits, so I need to argue with u about founding a place and colonizing a place. But you can choose which of the 2 adjectives best describes Great Benin exploits in Eko (Lagos)..
Great Benin is known to have founded Lagos and also known to have colonized Lagos.

coconut head founded ... laughing

Olu317:
It is the truth on the Yoruba language as being the language of gods and nature's language, which is the reason Yoruba named many animals after their behavioral pattern that is known according to the bow-wow theory, that all words are echoic, some grunting caveman's attempt to capture the essence of a thing by its sound. Capturing sound by these ancient men affirmed to the Yoruba approach toward her methods used in calling animals by it echoic sound. Infact,it is also applicable to all other things be it animate or inanimate in Yoruba land.i

However, the mutation of yoruba didn't really changed the language but effected through alteration as a result of relocation to new environment,which is supported by, Einger Augen in the book ecology of language,who postulated that language changes as a result of migration and as being borrowed from a teacher's language . So in effect, Yoruba language didn't actually changed because the archaic language is retained in the different yorua dialects.

thank you somuch Sir

gregyboy:


You also want to claim pounded yam and eguisi too are for the Yoruba's wonders shall never end the lady in the picture wore a beeded hair dress with coral beeds this alone will tell you olokun worship is foreign to the yorubas....
How did eguisi and pounded yam seem yoruba lets start from there who colonized who ? Four yoruba state where under Benin territory and you open your mouth to lie openly even when the pictures speaks the truth the question you should ask yourself now is why are the people on that pictures dressing like the benin royals instead of yorubas ...ooh god you're forefathers should be blamed for this. they where busy fighting civil war and selling themselves as slaves to the whitemen for penny instead of documenting thier history now the children are busy claiming others peoples history

These are pictures of benin queens below

that dressing of your queen is ife dressing if you don't know we taught you beads making which is foreign to forest mongrel that roam naked in the jungle also cloth weaving ..bronze making .. please separate Benin from edo .. benin was established or founded by ife prince

goalernestman:


Show me proof picture of the prince, oromiyan picture with it.

And you also wonder why oduduwa, ile fa, ile ife is it a Yoruba words but have meaning in Benin words.

First tell me the meaning of Ada in Yoruba?

Ada is sword I ... DA .....A ... Da.. break , cut....how come edo bear yoruba names ..Ola shola ..ADESUA.. might sound somuch edo to you but if you are moving towards ondo ilaje ADE is universal They make use of the word SUA more than the central yoruba

goalernestman:


We are both omo ogiso owadu

Ogiso laughing ..where are the gods of Ogiso owadu? Ogiso worshiped Ogun and Obatala Olokun his Ancestors

you can't separate Benin from us we are both omo Odua.... Ede ife now known as Yoruba language is the languages of the gods,is the mother of all languages .. Language mutates

goalernestman:


Please tell me the story of how Yoruba gives the Benin the Ada and Eben

Symbol of Oranmiyan conquest and authority..Ada or Ida Oranmiyan. Curved sword .Ada ti baba fin se oko alai gbo ran...benin no dey hear word..

yoruba language is mother of all languages...even Benin language contains some archai yoruba words that are no more in use generally by the yorubas .. .likewise every yoruba tribe have some words which are peculiar to them alone which other tribes can't fathom or understand pre-yoruba language Ede -ife ..Oro -ife we also have oyelagbo.

gregyboy:



See ozuor....it is nor spelt olocun it is spelt olokun
And it is worshiped in a village in benin in orhonigbe it is more of thier traditional worship
In benin every village have their indigenous Oracle they worship....you saying yorubas gave us olokun you must be deluded
you should go and say that in orhonigbe in benin where it is worshiped if they wont stop the fake worshippers of it in yorubalands. a benin man had to be there to show them how it is worshiped they all had to dress on benin coral beeds and white linen to worahip it just as they way benin dress .you soon forget those yoruba territories under the benin empire where allowed to worship our gods that's how it spread all over the yoruba state the food that would be given to olokun wont be be amala and ewedu it will be a benin food pounded yam and eguisi .you have no argument here youngman

egusi and pounded yam na Edo food abi ??..you are not even edo if you were probably you have the ibo blood running in your vein because i smell ibo in you .Your forefathers see the Yorubas as their kinsmen but you newer generation have been totally ibonized full of hatred for yorubas yet you worship OGUN SANGO OBATALA ,ORUNMILA OLOKUN

ibos!! you na love to dey lick yoruba arse..you can't live in your own region..flooding to lagos by day ..very soon we go send you back home

.
I should also mention that even though this was clearly an Igbo coup there was one Yoruba officer who was amongst the ringleaders by the name of Major Adewale Ademoyega. It was a very bloody night indeed. Amongst those killed were the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, the Premier of the Western Region, Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Federal Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Brigadier Zakari Maimalari, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, Colonel  Ralph Shodeinde, Lt . Colonel  James Yakubu Pam, Lt. Colonel Abogo Largema and numerous others. They did not just kill these revered and respected leaders but in some cases they mocked, tortured and maimed them before doing so, took pictures of their dead and mutilated bodies and killed their wives and children as well. For weeks after these horrific acts were carried out, the Igbo people rejoiced and celebrated them in the streets and markets of the north, openly displaying pictures and posters of the Saurdana’s mutilated body with Nzeogwu’s boot on his neck, loudly playing a famous and deeply offensive anti-northern song in which northerners were compared to goats and listening to it on their radios, jubilating that they had brought an end to what they described as ”northern rule and Islamic domination” and openly boasting that they themselves would now ”rule Nigeria forever”. Though the first  coup failed the matter did not end there.

The very next day after the Jan.15th mutiny and butchery had failed and did not result in Ifejuana taking power in Lagos, the Igbo people set their ”plan B” in motion and they were the FIRST to carry out a successful coup in Nigeria just one day later on Jan. 17th 1966. This was when the Igbo Major-General J.T,U. Aguiyi-Ironsi (who was Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Army and who had inexplicably and suspiciously not been murdered by the young Igbo officers in their violent mutiny and killing spree the night before) in collusion with the Igbo Acting President Nwafor Orizu and the entire Igbo political leadership of that day, invited the remnants of Sir Tafawa Balewa’s cabinet to a closed door meeting, threatened their lives and took power from them at the point of a gun. Aguiyi-Ironsi did not just ask them to give him power but he took it from them by force by telling them that he could not guarantee their safety if they refused to do so. Meanwhile Orizu point blank refused to do his duty as Acting President and swear in Zana Bukar Dipcharimma as the Acting Prime Minster when the members of the cabinet and the British Ambassador (who was also at the meeting) implored him to do so since by that time there was a power vacuum because the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, had gone missing and had probably been murdered. It was in these very suspicious circumstances and as a consequence of this murky and deep-seated Igbo conspiracy that General Aguiyi-Ironsi came to power. Amongst those that were present at that famous ”meeting” that are still alive today are Alhaji Maitama Sule, Chief Richard Akinjide and President Shehu Shagari who were all Ministers in Balewa’s cabinet . Those that doubt the veracity of my account of this meeting would do well to ask any of them exactly what transpired during that encounter.

Yet the seeming success of the conspiracy was short-lived. Only six months later, on July 29th 1966, General Aguiyi-Ironsi and no less than 300 Igbo army officers reaped the consequences of their actions and plot when they were all slaughtered in just one night during the northern officers revenge coup which was led by Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed,  Major Abba Kyari, Captain Martins Adamu, Major T.Y. Danjuma, Major Musa Usman, Captain Joseph Garba, Captain Shittu Alao, Captain Baba Usman, Captain Gibson S.Jalo and Captain Shehu Musa Yar’adua  as they then were. Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon was put in power by this group after that and a few weeks later between September 29th 1966 and the middle of October of that same year approximately 50,000 Igbo civilians were attacked and slaughtered in a series of horrendous pogroms in the north by violent northern mobs as a reprisal for the killing of the northern leaders, including Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Saurdana of Sokoto, by Major Nzeogwu, Major Ifejuna and other junior Igbo officers on the night of Jan. 15th 1966. Please note that despite the fact that a number of Yoruba leaders were killed on that night as well no Igbo civilians were massacred anywhere in the west by mobs in reprisal killings throughout that period.

The Igbo understandably left the north in droves after those terrible pogroms and fled back to the east from whence they came. And perhaps that would have been the end of the story but for the fact that they also declared secession and sought to dismember Nigeria.  They then made their biggest mistake of all by provoking a full scale military conflict with Nigeria when they launched a vicious and unprovoked attack against the rest of the south attacking and conscripting the eastern minorities , storming  the Mid-West and attempting to enter Yorubaland through Ore to capture it. Thankfully they were stopped in their tracks by the gallant efforts and courageous fighting skills of the Third Marine Commando (which was primarily a Yoruba force and which was under the command of the great Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, ‘the Black Scorpion’), prevented from entering the west, driven out  of the Mid-West, pushed back into the East, defeated in battle after battle and were eventually brought down to their knees and forced to surrender to the Federal forces in Enugu.

The Igbo and their Biafra fought Nigeria and killed Nigerians for three hard years in that brutal civil war in which over one million courageous, loyal and faithful sons and daughters of the Federal Republic lost their lives at the war front trying to stop Biafra from seceding from the federation, from taking our land and from  taking the minority groups of the Mid-Western Region and Eastern Region and our newly-discovered oil with them. Yet despite our massive casualties and the monumental loss of life that the Federal side suffered (a total of 2 million died on both sides) the Igbo people were welcomed back into Nigeria after the war with open arms. Yet it was only in Yorubaland and especially in Lagos that they were given all their ”abandoned property” back  and welcomed back as brothers and sisters without any reservations or suspicions whatsoever. Everywhere else in the country for many years they were denied, deprived, shunned, attacked, killed, discriminated against and humiliated but never in the southwest or Lagos.  It is the Igbo people more than any other that have complained about marginalisation in Nigeria, forgetting that there is no other country in the world in which there was a major civil war and yet only 10 years after that war ended the losing side produced the Vice President for the whole country in a democratic election in 1979 in the distinguished person of Vice President Alex Ekwueme.

Some have described my submissions in this debate as being ”inflammatory” and have claimed that I am ”not a true progressive” for making them. I reject these labels and I wonder whether those people that conjured them up described the comments of my dear friend and brother Chief Orji Kalu as “inflammatory” and whether they labelled him as ”not being a true progressive” when he erroneously claimed that the Igbo generated 55 per cent of the revenue and owned 55 per cent of businesses in Lagos and that they are effectively the owners of the state. Unlike most of those that are attempting to label me and brand me as a tribalist I know the history of Lagos and the Yoruba very well.

We will not let anyone poison the minds of our Yoruba youth or dispossess them of their heritage by keeping silent when we witness the irresponsible and dishonest propagation of the most desperate and despicable form of historical revisionism that some Igbo leaders are suddenly churning out. If anyone thinks that they can intimidate us into keeping quite when their leaders say such things then they will have the biggest shocker of their lives. We shall not be silenced and they shall not pass. Lagos and the Yoruba generally have much stronger historical, cultural and trading ties with the Bini, the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, the Isoko, the Hausa-Fulani, the Tapas, the Nupes and the Ijaws than they do with the Igbo. The input of those other major ethnic groups to the development of Lagos and their stake in her is far greater than that of the Igbo. Whether anyone wishes to accept it or not that is the bitter truth. We will not let anyone distort history and we will not keep silent when we hear the irresponsible and disrespectful effusions of those that seek to substitute truth with falsehood. When it comes to Lagos it is time that everyone respected themselves and knew their place. The Igbo particularly should display a much higher degree of respect and gratitude to those who were gracious enough to accept them in their land as equals when things were very difficult for them and who treated them with love, respect and kindness after the civil war when hardly anyone else was prepared to do so.

We the Yoruba have accommodated others in Lagos and throughout the South-west and we have let them live in peace for the last 100 years. As a matter of fact we have been glad to do so because as far as we are concerned that is one of the hallmarks of civilisation- the ability to accommodate other faiths, other cultures, other races and other nationalities and to create an equitable and just racial melting pot where equal opportunities are available to all. It is a great and noble virtue to be open and tolerant but that does not mean that we are fools and it does not mean that we do not know who we are, where we are coming from, what is ours and what our heritage is.

The fact that we have allowed others to thrive and settle in our land and share it with us does not mean that we have stopped owning that land. The suggestion that Lagos is a ”no-man’s land’ and that the Igbo or any other nationality outside the Yoruba generate up to 55 per cent of it’s revenue or business is absolutely absurd and frankly it has no basis in reality or rationality. It is not only a dirty lie but it is also very insulting. Guests, no matter how welcome, esteemed, cherished and valued they are, cannot become the owners of the house no matter how comfortable they are made to feel within it. Those guests will always be guests. Lagos belongs to the Yoruba and to the Yoruba alone. ALL others that reside there are guests, though some guests are far closer to us than others. The Igbo are the least close, the most distant and the least familiar with our customs and our ways. They ought to be the last to be claiming our heritage and coveting our land and neither can they claim to have made any real input to our glaring success. For them to think otherwise is nothing but delusion

Forward this to all your Igbo friends. Premium Times Nigeria

The Bitter Truth About The Igbo, By Femi Fani-Kayode





Permit me to make my second and final contribution to the raging debate about Lagos, who owns it and the seemingly endless tensions that exist between the Igbo and the Yoruba. It is amazing how one or two of the numerous nationalities that make up Nigeria secretly wish that they were Yoruba and consistently lay claim to Lagos as being partly theirs. Have they forgotten where they came from? I have never heard of a Yoruba wanting to give the impression to the world that he is an Igbo, an Ijaw, an Efik or a Hausa-Fulani  or claiming that he is a co-owner of Port Harcourt, Enugu, Calabar, Kano or Kaduna. Yet more often than not, some of those that are not of Yoruba extraction but that have lived in Lagos for some part of their lives have tried to claim that they are bona fide Lagosians and honorary members of the Yoruba race.

Clearly it is time for us to answer the nationality question. These matters have to be settled once and for all. Lagos and the South-west are the land and the patrimony of the Yoruba and we will not allow anyone, no matter how fond of them we may be, to take it away from us or share it with us in the name of ”being nice”, ”patriotism”, ”one Nigeria” or anything else. The day that the Yoruba are allowed to lay claim to exactly the same rights and privileges that the indigenous people in non-Yoruba states and zones enjoy and the day they can operate freely and become commissioners and governors in the Niger Delta states, the North, the Middle Belt and the South-east, we may reconsider our position. But up until then, we shall not do so. Lagos is not a ”no-man’s land” but the land and heritage of the Yoruba people. Others should not try to claim what is not theirs.

I am not involved in this debate for fun or for political gain and I am not participating in it to play politics but rather to speak the truth, to present the relevant historical facts to those that wish to learn and to educate the uninformed. That is why I write without fear or favour and that is why I intend to be thoroughly candid and brutally frank in this essay. And I am not too concerned or worried about what anyone may think or how they may feel about what I am about to say because I am a servant of truth and the truth must be told no matter how bitter it is and no matter whose ox is gored. That truth is as follows. The Yoruba, more than any other nationality in this country in the last 100 years, have been far too accommodating and tolerant when it comes to their relationship with other nationalities in this country and this is often done to their own detriment. That is why some of our Igbo brothers can make some of the sort of asinine remarks and contributions that a few of them  have been making in this debate both in the print media and in numerous social media portals and networks ever since Governor Fashola ”deported” 19 Igbo destitute back to Anambra state a while ago.  In the last 80 years, the Igbo have been shown more generosity, accommodation, warmth and kindness and given more opportunities and leverage by the Yoruba than they have been offered by ANY other ethnic group in Nigeria. This is a historical fact. The Yoruba do not have any resentment for the Igbo and we have allowed them to do in our land and our territory what they have never allowed us to do in theirs. This has been so for 80 long years and it is something that we are very proud of. As I said elsewhere recently, to be accommodating and generous is a mark of civilisation and it comes easily to people that once had empires. The reason why many of our people take strong exception to the apparent outrage of the Igbo over this ”deportation” issue and the provocative comments of my friend and brother Chief Orji Uzor Kalu when he described Lagos as being a ”no man’s land”  is because the Igbo have not only taken us for granted but they have also taken liberty for licence.

We cannot be expected to tolerate or accept that sort of irreverent and unintelligent rubbish simply because we still happen to believe in ”one Nigeria” and we will not sacrifice our rights or prostitute our principles on the alter of that ”one Nigeria”. Whether Nigeria is one or not, what is ours is ours and no one should test our resolve or make any mistake about that. ”One Nigeria” yes but no one should spit in our faces or covet our land, our treasure, our success, our history, our virtues, our being and our heritage and attempt to claim those for themselves simply because we took them in on a rainy day. It is that same attitude of ”we own everything”, ”we must have everything” and ”we must control everything” that the Igbo settlers manifested in the northern region in the late 50’s and early and mid-60’s that got them into so much trouble up there with the Hausa-Fulani and that eventually led to the terrible pogroms where almost one hundred thousand of them were killed in just a few days. Again it is that same attitude that they manifested in Lagos and the Western Region in the late ’30’s and the early and mid-40’s that alienated the Yoruba from them, that led to the establishment of the Action Group in April, 1951 and that resulted in the narrow defeat of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe in the Western Regional elections of December, 1951. As a matter of fact they were the ones that FIRST introduced tribalism into southern politics in 1945 with the unsavoury comments of Mr. Charles Dadi Onyeama who was a member of the Central Legislative Council representing Enugu and who said at the Igbo State Union address that ”the domination of Nigeria and Africa by the Igbo is only a matter of time”.

That single comment, made in that explosive and historic speech, did more damage to southern Nigerian unity than any other in the entire history of our country and everything changed from that moment on. To make matters worse, in July 1948, Chief Nnamdi  Azikiwe made his own openly tribal and incendiary speech, again at the Igbo State Union, in which he spoke about the ”god of the Igbo” eventually giving them the leadership of Nigeria and Africa. These careless and provocative words cost him dearly and put a nail in the coffin of the NCNC in the Western Region from that moment on. This was despite the fact that that same NCNC, which was easily the largest and most powerful political party in Nigeria at the time, had been founded and established by a great and illustrious son of the Yoruba by the name of Herbert Macauley. Macauley, like most of the Yoruba in his day, saw no tribe and he happily handed the leadership of the party over to Azikiwe, an Igbo man, in 1945 when he was on his dying bed. How much more can the Yoruba do than that when it comes to being blind to tribe? Can there be any greater evidence of our total lack of racial prejudice and tribal sentiments than that? If the NCNC had been founded and established by an Igbo man, would he have handed the whole thing over to a Yoruba on his death bed? I doubt it very much.

Again when northern military officers mutinied, effected their ”revenge coup” and went to kill the Igbo military Head of State, General Aguiyi-Ironsi on July 29th 1966 in the old Western Region, his host, the Yoruba Col. Fajuyi (who was military Governor of the Western Region at the time), insisted that they would have to kill him first before taking Aguiyi-Ironsi’s life and the northern officers (led by Major T.Y. Danjuma as he then was)  promptly obliged him by slaughtering him before killing Aguiyi-Ironsi. How many Igbo know about that and how many times in our history have they made such sacrifices for the Yoruba? Would Aguiyi-Ironsi, or any other Igbo officer, have stood for Fajuyi, or any other Yoruba officer, and sacrificed his life for him in the same way that Fajuyi did had the roles been reversed? I doubt it very much. Yet instead of being grateful the Igbo continuously run us down, blame us for all their woes, envy our educational advantages and resent us deeply for our ability to excel in the professions and commerce. Unlike them, we were never traders but we were (and still are) industrialists and when it comes to the professions we were producing lawyers, doctors, accountants and university graduates at least three generations before they ever did. That is the bitter truth and they have been trying to catch up with us ever since. For example the first Yoruba lawyer Christopher Alexander Sapara Williams was called to the English Bar in 1879 whilst the first Igbo lawyer, Sir Louis Mbanefo, was called to the English bar in 1937. Again the first Yoruba medical practitioner, Dr. Nathaniel King, graduated in 1875 from the University of Edinburgh whilst the first Igbo medical practitioner, Dr. Akannu Ibiam, graduated from another Scottish University in 1935.

Yet despite all this and all that they have been through over the years and despite their terrible  experiences in the civil war we are witnessing that same attitude of ”we must control all”, ”we must own all” and ”we must have all” rearing its ugly head again today when it comes to their attitude to the issue of the deportations from Lagos state and when you consider the comments of the Orji Kalu’s of this world about the Igbo supposedly ”owning Lagos” with the Yoruba and supposedly ”generating 55 per cent of the state’s revenue”. It is most insulting.

And I must say that it is wrong and unfair for anyone to lay the blame for the perennial suspicion and underlying tensions that lie between the two nationalities on the Yoruba because that is far from the truth. We are not the problem, they are. Pray tell me, in the whole of Nigeria who treated the Igbo better than the Yoruba after the civil war and who gave them somewhere to run to where they could regain all their ”abandoned property” and feel at home again? Who encouraged them to return to Lagos and the West and who saved the jobs that they held before the civil war for them to come back to when the war ended? No other tribe or nationality did all that for them in the country- only the Yoruba did so. And the people of the old Mid-West and the Eastern minorities (who make up the zone that is collectively known as the ”south-south’ today) have always viewed them with suspicion, have always feared them and have always resented them deeply. From the foregoing, any objective observer can tell that we the Yoruba have always played our part when it comes to accommodating others. This is particularly so when it comes to the Igbo who we have always had a soft spot for and who we have always regarded as brothers and sisters. It is time that those ”others” also play their part by acquiring a little more humility, by knowing and accepting their place in the scheme of things and by desisting from giving the impression that they own our territory or that they made us what we are.

Now, let us look at a few historical facts and one or two more Igbo ”firsts’ that many may not be familiar with to buttress the point. The Igbo people were the FIRST to carry out a failed coup on the night of Jan 15th, 1966 under the leadership of Major Emmanuel Ifejuna, Major Chukuma Kaduna  Nzeogwu, Major Christian Anuforo, Capt. Ben Gbulie, Major Timothy Onwatuegwu, Major Donatus Okafor, Capt. Ude, Capt. Emmanuel Nwobosi, Captain Udeaja, Lt. Okafor, Lt. Okocha, Lt. Anyafulu, Lt. Okaka, Lt. EzedIgbo, Lt. Amunchenwa,  Lt. Nwokedi, 2nd Lt. J.C. Ojukwu, 2nd Lt. Ngwuluka, 2nd Lt. Ejiofor, 2nd Lt. Egbikor, 2nd Lt. Igweze, 2nd Lt. Onyefuru, 2nd Lt. Nwokocha, 2nd Lt. Azubuogu and 2nd Lt. Nweke in which they drew FIRST blood and openly slaughtered and butchered leading politicians and army officers from EVERY single zone in the country except their own.
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EBLABOR:
Just listen to us. We speak as if money is what Makes us complete. The billionaires can never speak like this. We speak as though money will make us fulfilled . But everybody knows that our hearts wants happiness and joy and love. These can only be found when we are contented and grateful and fear God and shun evil. Yes, God wants us to do well but we must not all be billionaires to be contented. I am a multi millionare by his mercies but I appreciate my problems and I'm glad that Jesus is teaching me how to follow him. That's the best thing ever. Jesus is THE ONLY WAY TO FUFILLMENT

bless people are around you who is in need the less privilege ...Help Jesus please !!give alms to the needy help the poor.

Monkey dey brag with banana and peanut.. Evacuate southwest..you are doomed.. Who will accommodate cannibals and Apes.. you people need evolution..

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Amujale:
Oduduwa is the Legendary father of Yoruba. A war machine force of nature in his own right; and a remarkable ruler.

Oba Oduduwa is Yoruba probably hailing from Oke Ora or the Okun areas in Nigeria. He couldn’t have come from Saudi Arabia because there was no people living in Asia at the time.

The Mecca story is probably the work of earlier Arabic scholars trying to wipe out their fathers culture; but it won’t work in 2019.

Oba Oduduwa ..that's derogatory statement..