₦airaland Forum

6)I base my own research on what I see and from all the years I have been in Yorubaland I have never seen the breadfruit as a food item.Yours however is based on stories written by others without authenticating these so-called claims.I judge with what I see and not what people have written.I will only accept that a tiny population of the Yoruba having been exposed to Igbos living in their villages got to appreciate the nutritional value of the food.I have got several instances.I have a friend from Ugep and he sincerely told me that though they have the tree in their community, it was when he got to Imo state that he got exposed to the food.There is also another case of a lady from Apoi/Ikale( incidentally in the same state where FUT Akure is located ) told me that breadfruit whose occurence in greater in riverine environments was not originally a food item in their place she she grew up in the village(Gbekebo) but it was Igbo people in their midst that introduced it and it has now been accepted as a food item in their community.We are not talking abt the nutritional contents of economic trees , we are talking history here and there are evidence that in Yorubaland they did not consider the breadfruit as a source of food until recently.
My guy your laughter dey expose your ignorance oooohhhh, Abeg try reduce your google small, Come over and get your facts from your own research Ok.It is just an advice.

1. This is starting to get ridiculous. So they merely named the fruit, but didn't ever use it for food, until they met Igbos or other groups?

2. Do my own research? I already said I'm not going to bother asking around because it's irrelevant.

For one thing I don't believe that Yorubas named the fruit but never ate it.

Next, I don't believe that each one of those four researchers, are so ignorant of their own culture and cuisine that they erred in writing what they did.

Finally, the theoretical error in your whole reasoning which you can't get around is that there cannot even be a date attached to the first eating of breadfruit among certain groups so it's irrelevant to the issue of ancient contact, ancient expansion, or ancient moats. For all you know any supposed "breadfruit eating" interaction in which the habit of eating breadfruit was spread from any one group to another only took place in 1200 or 1500 AD or any other date and not necessarily in some really ancient time like you keep trying to assume.

Now how hard is that to comprehend? Go somewhere else with that weak fruit theory of yours.

And by the way, I doubt very much that you base all of your claims on what you see, given some of your previous statements and claims on this thread.

Ogbuefi 1: 5)Why do you keep comparing Edo to Delta in those reports ? I said you should make comparisons between Edo and the Anioma part of Delta State simple.Are you shy to do that ? Considering your love for lenghty posts which have often been held by the spam box I will expect you eduacte me via your analysis of the report itself. I am not the author of the report and the authors some of whom were Edo people were commissioned by the United Nations.I therefore have every justification to use it as evidence.I am yet to get any response , Just name 10 projects of note, I have been waiting.Even the rating of Edo is cosmetic because like I noted earlier there is large urbanized population which is very cosmopolitan and that ill brought up boy Exothief have always pointed to that fact.
I have challenged you severally to post whatever you want in bits so that we can expose ourselves but you keep complaining of spam box.Or could that be an excuse ? After all I posted some which did not reflect yet never complained.

1. Do you have such enormous problems with reading comprehension that somehow, you still don't understand that the data for Anioma LGAs was also based on state (Delta) HDI (it was used as a benchmark to make estimates) and that the GDP index data for the LGAs was similarly based entirely on state GDP and not local GDP? Did you actually read the report or did you miss the part where it said oil revenue was factored into calculating this same state GDP which affects several of the other relevant statistics (such as HDI)?

There is nothing like any independent study of the individual LGAs of the states in that UN report and you should stop trying to mislead people into thinking that there are.

2. And so what if an Edo person was one of the authors? I don't think my own people are infallible. I also insist that you have some reading comprehension problems, or are a deliberate propagandist because the report insists in multiple statements that its indices are not really reflective of what's on the ground.


3. Where did I say "mega-infrastructural projects" were completed in Edo state? I already said Delta state was one of the major oil states in Nigeria, so I'm not surprised at their being able to carry out any large projects in any area of Delta state. As for Edo state and oil money, as I said before, Edo state is barely using its oil, but this is not necessarily an issue just now.

Ogbuefi 1: Clearly a belated case of fabrication. It reminded of what I heard one day abt Asaba town, The Edo historian said it comes from "Aisaba" because the Edo warriors could not cross the river. Whereas the original name of Asaba is AHABA (Asaba being the Aboh pronounciation since the colonialists penetrated via Aboh) and the foundation of the town has nothing to do with Edo warriors.

3. I don't care about all these claims by people I've never spoken to or interacted with. And their claim must have been about Aisabor (we can't go beyond this) not Aisaba (Aisaba - we can't do this- is also valid as a name, but would not make literal sense as easily), but this has nothing to do with my statement about Alilehan.

I really doubt that it's a coincidence that

a) Alilehan is Edo speaking (not merely Edoid, but specifically, they speak a variant of the Bini (Edo) language)
b) there is a perfect correspondence between their name and an old Bini name
c) you can't explain the meaning of their name, despite being an "expert" and despite attempting to explain the first part of their name

That's all I'm saying.

4. I recall you claiming that the Esan claiming of Inyelen was particularly faulty because there was nothing like "ny" in the Esan language. Now, I don't care whether the claim is faulty or not because that's not what I'm debating, but I think you should apply the same reasoning that you used for Inyelen to the town of Alilehan.

Is there actually anything in the entire Igbo language that actually sounds like Alilehan? Unless you can provide any evidence, I think you should just admit that it is not an Igbo name. The people themselves are not Igbo anyways.

5. In terms of unbelievable stories about names, I don't think you can possibly complain here, considering  how strongly you advocate that story about Chime (a very standard Igbo name that has nothing to do with Benin influence) needing to be an Igbo version/interpretation of Ikhime (an Esan name), the name of a man from Udo. You already explained how a few Esan turn "kh" into "ch" but that has little bearing on Udo as there is no evidence of this linguistic trait among people there nor is there evidence that they ever used the name Ikhime (unless you start constructing theories of arbitrary ancient migrations from Edo central (Esan) into Ovia southwest (Udo), which makes the story even more shaky.)

Anyways, I find Ehima --> Chima to be more plausible than Ikhime ---> Chime.

But I don't see how you can complain about the false Aisabor ---> Asaba story yet advocate so strongly for the Ikhime ----> Chime story when the same criticisms apply.

This is little different from how some people were insisting that Eweka comes from Owomika, but if you told them Oduduwa came from Izoduwa or Imadoduwa they responded as if you were crazy. There are other pure Edo names like Aduwa or Oduwa or Okhoduwa or Odowa that could actually fit the bill much better than Izoduwa, but people shouldn't object so strongly to one story (the Izoduwa story) but then advocate another story (the Owomika story) that can be objected to on the same grounds. That's what I think you're doing here with this Ikhime and Aisabor thing. I don't believe for a minute that Asaba comes from "Aisabor" but don't insist on your Ikhime story (which even Abagworo doesn't believe) and act as if others are ignorant because they don't accept that specific name.

that you came up again with a new invention "Ailelehan" for Alilehan , I dey laugh oooohhhh.Then let me name the second one for you, Alisor becoming "Ailelisor "  I suppose and even the completely assimilated village of Alibudo originally could have sounded as "Ailebudo", You no try abeg. So if it was Ailelehan all the while , why did not point at it from the beginning ?

1. Wait, wait, wait a minute. I think there is some real confusion here. Not only did I not make up that name (Aileleihan), it's a bonafide, 100% genuine Edo name that has existed before I was born. I don't know how you concluded  that I made it up or that I was making claims on any other Ika speaking towns that use the prefix "Ali". My point was that you could not explain the name, although you had already attempted to explain the first part of it, despite the fact that you are an Ika speaking person yourself and even an expert.

I would not be surprised if you cooked up some Nollywood story now about a certain "Lehan" in an attempt to give a meaning for the rest of it or if you went on to talk about the "land of Lehan" or something next, although you had no idea about the meaning of the rest of the name initially and when Lehan is not a name among Igbos or Edos.

And I'm not talking about any of those other communities. I'm only talking about the actual Edo speaking communities (Oza nogogo, Alilehan, Alisor)

Aileleihan is a real Bini name with a very clear meaning and you can confirm that with other people. You don't have to take my word for it at all.

As for Alisor, I have already read where an actual Oza nogogo man has said that it's real name is Evboesor (Esor community/people) and that it is "popularly called" Alisor, i.e., the Ika speaking people call it Alisor. In other words they both call it community/land of Esor, but the Ika speaking peoples' designation is popular rather than the name used by the Edo (Oza) speaking peoples (the actual people themselves). How true is this?

2. For you to accuse me of making up a name that has existed before I even existed is just absurd.

As for the "i" that you think I'm adding, that is just another assumption. Some Edo remember to keep the i in some names, while others drop it. For example the name Ayobahan is a mispelling of Aiyobahan. The name is Aiyobahan rather than Ayobahan, yet one will encounter Binis bearing the name Ayobahan. The habit of some Edo people (when using the Latin alphabet to express the language) to drop some vowels here and there does not mean that the same name is not being referred to. And if a native born Bini man in the heart of Benin city can start calling his name Ayobahan instead of Aiyobahan, then certainly a relatively small and relatively isolated group of Bini speakers in Aniomaland can start dropping vowels in their spelling as well.

In truth, the fact that Binis in Benin city itself already drop some vowels in their names that may seem superfluous only makes the case even stronger for Alilehan to be a Bini word.

(And in case you are wondering (and you should be) how I was so easily able to identify it as probably being an actual Bini name, here's a hint: the end part of the name (han) was a something of a giveaway. Of course there are other ethnic groups that will have names with similar endings, but I have come across it too many times among Binis to not suspect that it was Bini, especially given that the town itself speaks a variant of Bini.)

Your problem is pride , to accept that most of your points have been countered by me. You claim that I am an "expert" I will say yes on Anioma history and culture(I thank Abagworo for reminding me ) and exposing your lies. It was after you failed to prove that Ala and Ali mean the same thing

1. I did not say "Ala and Ali" mean the same thing, rather I thought they were different. Then Andre Uweh explained that they were really the same thing but only different because they were used among different groups.


2. You telling me that my problem is pride is just unbelievable. It's really just ridiculous.

4)Why do you lie so much ? Go through your posts again and see your conclusion after all the "deliberation" on "Chi" and "Ehi", It is your conclusion that matter and not what you have deliberated earlier.

1. I've never said anything definite in this thread about Chima himself being Igbo. I actually thought it was implausible at first (but not impossible) for him to be Edo, but then I saw a possibility when bokohalal brought up Ehima a while back in another thread, but even then I did not make any definite pronouncement on what he was. I don't recall ever discussing Chime/Chima's exact ethnicity with you earlier than my last response to you. My only discussion of that subject prior to my previous response to you was in other threads with other posters. The only thing I claimed was that the other people who migrated with Chima were probably Igbo to begin with since they went to the very Igbo heartland (Onitsha). This is what I believed even prior to this thread simply because it explains the story of the migration well enough to me.

I don't really care what he was or wasn't in terms of ethnicity and I have already told you the implications of any claim about his migrating to somewhere after assaulting an old woman over some yams.

The role of an Omu is to take care of the king spiritually( and taake care of the markets)  along with the Ezedibie and Sekute( or Ohenukwu) who is his chaplain.We donot give or have  any political role to  any member of the kings family    neither   his wife nor his mother and in the past an Omu never marries, That of course cant be the case in Benin and the  Iyoba. Let me ask one simple question, in Benin before Idia what was the fate of all Queen mothers in Benin ? I will like you to use your expert knowledge (like  you do of Benin moats) to educate us .

1,  The fate of queen mothers? There were no queen mothers, but only queens. But if you are referring to some claim that the mothers of kings had to die before the king could ascend the throne, I think you should go back and see if that claim holds up to scrutiny. Did Erinmwinde have to die? Try and think these things through first. When the second Benin dynasty was created, the Uzama did not make any rule about Princess Erinmwinde needing to die. I am familiar with the sources for these claims, and as with Egharevba, I don't believe everything written when it doesn't make sense. In the coronation rituals of an Oba, which were developed by Oba Ewedo long before Oba Esigie and Queen Idia lived, I have not read anything about the alleged killing of any queen mother.

The decision of a few people to claim, only when recounting stories about Queen Idia, that the other queen mothers were killed before her is obviously a detail added for dramatic effect and contrast between her importance and the insignificance of previous mothers of kings.

In fact, the specific claim doesn't even make any sense. Apart from the fact that Princess Erinmwinde was not killed, and that there is no mention of any other king's mother being killed in any other coronation ritual, there is the glaring question of how Queen Idia was even alive at the time of the Idah war if she was supposed to have been killed before her son could ascend the throne. Try and apply a little common sense to these kind of claims next time.

Supposedly, the queen mothers had to be killed before the son could ascend the throne, yet there is no mention of this alleged tradition in any story or tradition that is not about Queen Idia, and Queen Idia herself was not killed before Esigie could become Oba.

2. On Benin, there's no need to mislead anybody. Nobody has really claimed that every single Benin king and soldier was righteous and valiant and pure and all that fairytale crap you see written about kings and soldiers of any kingdom in some books or shown in movies. Didn't I already bring up Oba Ohen who committed  a grave crime in ordering the murder of an Iyase and was stoned to death (rather than asking a loyal retine to carry him somewhere and found a town, he accepted his fate like a man) for his crime? Please, nobody is under the impression that [b]every single Oba of Benin was all righteous and nobody has said anything like that. When the first history book published on Benin lists at least three kings who are remembered as erring greatly, and subsequent books uphold these traditions, I think it's clear that nobody is making such claims. In Benin, as in every other kingdom, there were good and bad rulers.

3. I'm not interested in later claims about why the Omu title was created, all I know is that since it has foreign inspiration, there is no sensible claim anyone can make about it being inspired by a woman who was supposedly loathed by the Obi of Obior's ancestor. Your elders can construct stories about the Iyoba having servants who farmed outside of her territory and other claims but it's not going to convince anybody that any particular title was adopted in imitation of someone who was loathed, overstepped their bounds, or who was responsible for their ancestor fleeing in the night from punishment for his crimes.

@ OP

My answer to the question in the title is YES.

c) There is a very marked difference between "living rough" and beating up old women because a few crops are trampled on or harvested without permission. In fact, this Chima must have been a very beggarly and wretched prince or soldier for him to go haywire over a few yams.

The story that you insist upon paints a very clear picture. If you believe that story then the man was a poor criminal (thug) and possibly even a psychotic.

I don't think there is anything to take back. I think that the people who made up that story should have thought harder about it when they devised it and I think you should stop practicing a double standard where you get to make offensive statements about a person who lived less than a century ago as long as they aren't from your group, but you start demanding apologies over interpretations of stories about people from hundreds of years ago who are not as clearly understood.

I really don't understand how it is that Oba Ohen goes down in Benin history as a wicked king for the killing that he ordered, but Chime goes down in some parts of Anioma as a culture hero for assaulting an old woman over a few yams and then running away with his tail between his legs.

If you think people should accept that story about an old woman being flogged over some crops by some goon, then Chime/Chima was a social degenerate, a criminal, an ancient area boy, and a misfit.

Not only will I not take anything back, I will expound on the esteemed harbinger of civilization called Chime even further.

a) Who assaults an old woman because he thinks that her servants or workers started farming on his land? In the story, was there even an attempt made at diplomacy? Was there any attempt made at getting things cleared up between the servants who supposedly overstepped their boundaries, the Queen mother, and Chima/Chime and his people? No!

When the story is looked at objectively, and not just seen as some weak attempt to say that the Iyoba of Benin was once flogged, the story clearly seems to be about the barbarous nature of a certain lowlife called Chima.

b) You say that people lived rough back then. True, but the story about the earlier killing of even a king (Oba Ohen) in that very same Edo land that Chima was in, tells us that in some places, even when people "lived rough" they still got what they had coming to them if they were too rough. The order of the murder of the Iyase by Oba Ohen is remembered as a crime and he got and took the punishment for his crime and did not have a small loyal retinue carry him away somewhere when the rebellion happened, despite the fact that he was the king. This tells us that in some ancient societies, despite how rough people were living, there was still retribution for crimes.

Now in what particular society does "servants trampling on crops" or "servants harvesting other people's crops without permission" result in a grandmother being "flogged mercilessly" as a proper retribution?

In what society is the said grandmother accosted and assaulted without any extended period for a negotiation/compromise/settlement and without any evidence being brought that the alleged farming servants even existed or that they actually did what was claimed?

3)On the claim Eze Chime being a " brianless thug" I just could not stop laughing.He assaulted an old woman and what is the big deal considering the kind of lives they were living those days, Life was about survival of the fittest and most of the people some of us claim to be heroes today had unacceptable characters judging from the modern perspective of civilization. One simple question , what can you say of your Obas ? They were so kind and far from being despotic I guess, My guy just keep that emotions elsewhere.One of the Obas was so kind hearted that he demanded that his people should mourn his dead sons for three years.That is just an example.I will insist you apologise for using that word "thug" for the founder and first Obi of Obior, or else .We will just thrash out the dirts of our pasts and I bet you , the past/history of Benin is very dirty in this regard.
The principal reason for creating the Omu title is because the Obior and Issele Uku people wanted to create for their kings , a matriarchical figure who saved Benin from the invading Igala warriors.The title was not even created by Eze Chime himself !

1. Wait just one minute. Why would I take the statement back? It might be extremely offensive to you, all the people descended from him, and all the people who say that he led their ancestors away from Benin, but your statement about one of Oba Eweka II's wives being used for sacrifice, was that not offensive?

What is there to take back in a discussion with someone who was very deliberately attempting to mislead people into thinking that Oba Eweka II used one of his wives for human sacrifice because of some affair?

If you had brought some story about some ancient Oba from many centuries back using somebody for human sacrifice, I would not even have blinked and I wouldn't see it the way I see this Oba Eweka II story that you tried to perpetuate. The difference is that while all sorts of cruelties can be attached to the names of lots of figures from hundreds of years ago (such as Oba Ewuare the Great who is not viewed favorably by some non-Bini groups), and while there is no way to decisively confirm or decisively refute the claims of cruelties without additional material evidence, Oba Eweka II lived and reigned less than a century ago and was not in any way a vague figure.

It might not have occurred to you, but Oba Eweka II - as the king who restored the Benin monarchy despite some obstacles - is thought very highly of among the Edo. And you are here talking about the Obi of Obior, descended from Chima/Chime, what about the descendants of Oba Eweka II? Your hypocrisy here is just startling.

alj_harem:
.

Lol, you originally posted here (before you edited) that the dialect was "mixed with Bini."

Did you edit because is makes your Nairaland character more liable to be seen as a 100% Yoruba man or because the claim about the Ekiti dialect was completely false? Just wondering.

Ogbuefi 1: 2)On the Oba of Lagos issue, I personally knw that a neophyte like Exothief will bring up the matter because the title is just an example that can easily be made.I did not personally go deep into that because I personally enjoyed the post by Negro not because I agree with all the points he made but rather I saw a little info which no matter how insignificant is worth appreciating.
Exothief using a cheap example of Lagos cannot be a match for me.The title of the rulers of Lagos have always been Olueko(Eleko).The reason why it became convenient to have the title of "Oba" of Lagos is that Lagos itself is not the actual name of the town. It would sound better to have an Oba of Lagos than an Eleko of Lagos. Another reason was possibly the colonialists simply used the title "Oba'' to describe the king and that title which is the generic names of all rulers in Yorubaland ( Benin borrowed theirs therefrom) got stuck with the rulers of the town.I will give an example , de Brazza the founder of modern Congo Brazzaville from what we were told had signed treaties with "King Makoko" but in the Teke language Makoko simply means king.I will advice you take a comprehensive research of the titles of Olu Eko and Eleko(Google will help) before you start your whines over here.

1. Who is asking you,about the Oba of Lagos? I asked actual Yorubas and they told me what I wanted to know. You were wrong, period. Eleko (Olu Eko) quite simply means ruler/lord of Eko. Your whole thesis there was rubbish. Now see how you're backtracking and rambling about the Congo.

2, The problem here is that you're just such a huge neophyte but you keep parading yourself as an expert.

The word "Ogiso" is a specific title, not some sort of general designation for a king and I don't see how anyone could think that Ogie-Iso is the general kingly word unless they were completely clueless about the language.

3. It is a fact, that in the very first edition of A Short History (in which he tried to claim that the entire Benin ethnic group came from Ife) Jacob Egharevba wrote that when Obagodo (Obagodo means "high king" so it is not a literal name, by the way) came from Uhe he later "took the title Ogiso."

So I don't see how people feel the need to try to use Egharevba for their claims about the monarchy's origins, but aren't willing to accept that Egharevba believed that Ogiso was merely a specific title of the earliest Obas.

All this stuff about the Yoruba Obas having unique titles in contrast to the Edo Obas is a fairytale from ignorant neophytes like yourself. The Edo kings (Ogisos) had unique titles just as early as the Yoruba kings (Oonis), but the title of the unsuccessful first dynasty was dropped.

4. You actually claimed that "praise/honor" was a secondary meaning of ogie. This is stark ignorance.

How can "praise/honor" come from "king"? This is not something that you will manage to circumvent.

I will explain the very very simple idea that exotik was trying to get you to comprehend, but this time using a language you should have a little more familiarity with.

In the English language, there is a certain word, "noble"

What is the primary meaning of "noble" and what is the etymology of the word?

Does it have anything to do with a certain land owning, title holding aristocrat in a medieval English kingdom? No.

If you trace the etymology of the word in any dictionary, you will ultimately come to find out that the root of "noble" is the idea of being known or well-known (i.e., prominent), not being an aristocrat.

What is the secondary meaning of "noble" (that is due to how the meaning of the word was used to refer to a certain rank)? The secondary meaning is a medieval aristocrat.

Now the million dollar question, is the primary, fundamental, and original meaning of the word noble, "an aristocrat"? No! But for obvious reasons, the same word was used to designate a rank.

Exotik schooled you here, but you refused to take correction.

8 lies, 15 errors, and still going! There are even more errors (if I were to go through all your posts in detail) but I can't be bothered to point them all out.

And you have the nerve to compare yourself to me.

Make sure to go back to "father's library" and reread the material you base your propaganda on before you embarrass yourself again. Your problem is arrogance.

15. You claimed that I called the Igbos "cannibals"

More reading comprehension problems. I simply have never said any such thing. The belief that slaves were eaten by Europeans was a belief that was not only found among the Igbo but also among the Nupe and other groups. My point is that if one believes that people are "cursed" for the actions of groups of their ancestors, then it ought to occur to one that many groups on the planet are cursed and that certain people who are talking about the curses on others should take a look at their own group's history.

But I really am not interested in unsupportable and unfounded claims by Europeans or other Africans about cannibalism in certain areas of Africa and I would not start claiming that "Igbos were cannibals" without any actual tangible evidence. It is not in my interest to start claiming that any Africans were cannibals.

12. You claimed that one had to be an "assimilated Edo" to receive any title.

More ignorance. At least two complete foreigners have received titles. You're the one who hasn't done any research.

13. You claimed the Enogie of Obayantor was Prince Edun Akenzua when it is not.

14. When I brought up the odionwere practice you naively assumed that I was saying that they were once appointed by the Oba of Benin.

This is yet more ignorance on your part. Yes it's true that the Oba of Benin confirms and removes odionweres today, but the odionwere practice precedes any Benin monarchy (Ogiso dynasty or the second dynasty).

My point about odionweres is that the odionwere practice only comes from people of actual ethnic Edo descent! It's not a practice that could be adopted through mere trade or something and other non-Edo groups have other unique and original names for the head elder of a village so the presence of odionweres means that at some point they mixed with actual ethnic Binis, they were actual ethnic Binis to begin with, or that the Oba was appointing the odionweres. I was arguing for the former points, not claiming that the Oba was appointing odionweres, but you constructed some silly argument that assumed that I meant the latter.  I would advise you to go and read up on the council of odionweres that preceded the Ogisos, since you claim to be an expert.

I don't know how you got the impression that the odionwere practice truly derives from the Oba of Benin, but you should make sure to excise whatever gave you that impression from your library. There is no way that an ancient practice which precedes the monarchy can have been created by or derived from it.

smh

9. You said that the capital of Edo state was backward, then you admitted that you were contradicting yourself and said

"Like I said and I am contradicting myself, Benin land apart from the capital is very backward, this is fact."

Which is just silly.

10. You claimed that Edo state had a status as one of the least viable states in Nigeria when your beloved UN Niger Delta report strongly disagreed with that claim throughout ALL of the report. I'm really wondering if you read that report like you claimed.

11. You said there were "many" other Ijaw villages in Edo state besides the few you initially listed, but when you saw the tiny list of Ijaw communities listed for Edo state by an actual Ijaw website written by Ijaw people, you got evasive and started claiming that the list was incomplete.

Here is yet another (different)Ijaw site by Ijaw people:

http://www.ijawland.com/history-and-culture/58-ijaw-clans.html

EDO STATE

Abere
Ayakoroma
Gbelebu
Gelegelegbene
Ikoro
Ikusangha
Inekorogha
Ingileuba
Ofoniama
Polobubo
Siluko
Ukomu
Zide

^^^^

13 settlements and they're asking for 3-4 LGAs? Is that even enough for one LGA? No. The Ijaws themselves are listing their less than twenty towns in Edo state (neither Siluko, "Ukomu" or Gele gele should be credited to them, though so it's just 10) and you are making claims about the list being incomplete or that there are "many" other Ijaw settlements in Edo state.

3. The meaning of ogie is primarily king.

Yet another error born out of ignorance and pride. You told exotik to go use google and find out what the primary meaning of ogie was and to find out about the Oba of Lagos title. You could have used it yourself (but you apparently have difficulty using a simple search engine) and you would have come across something like this:

http://edoworld.net/Edo_Africa_names_dictionary_O.html

Read the definitions claimed there for words with "ogie" in them and tell me how many times the word "king" or anything like it appears and what the meaning of ogie is there. Does the meaning claimed there (prominent/exalted) fit more with exotik's definition (honored/praised), or the definition that you claimed (king) as a primary meaning as an ignorant assumption? You can't try to blame exotik here. The primary and original meaning of ogie IS NOT king. End of discussion, take correction here and be quiet and stop exposing your ignorance.

Andre Uweh corrected me on the meaning of Ali and I immediately accepted his correction. Exotik corrected you some pages and many posts ago and you're still here blabbing about what you don't know.

4. Oba Eweka II or Oba Akenzua II approved the "slave named Edo story" from Egharevba.

More assumptions without bothering to actually find out when and where the claim came from.

5. The word Ado among the Yorubas is necessarily much younger, because "Edo" did not exist until the 15th century

Didn't think things through at all.

6. The Idu in Idubor and Idumwonyi comes from Idu being an "ancient" and original variant on Edo

Too arrogant/prideful to ask if Idu has a primary and original meaning other than what you naively assume that it does. The overwhelming majority of names with Idu in them make no reference whatsoever to the Edo people and the notion of Idu being the "original name" among the Edo people is a recent (modern) concept.

7. The Olu Eko of Eko, has a unique title for his throne, unlike the Omo n'Oba n'Edo

Too arrogant/prideful to ask any Yoruba what Eleko means!

8. (Your most recent one) Nwanze has more citations that Osagie.

Too arrogant/prideful to ask how to use google properly!

ERRORS from Ogbuefi:

1. Percy Talbot was a woman.

A strange assumption to begin with, since Percy is almost always used by males.

2. The Iyoba is not considered a queen before becoming Iyoba, but is only a "king's consort".

Yet another error born out of ignorance.

The unibrow is universally considered ugly.

5. You said there were Benin sacrifices where pregnant women were killed!

Too senile to even remember what you read about that ceremony with a masquerade imitating pregnant women and with the women sent out of the city. Reread Bradbury's book if you're going to start pretending to be an expert. If you're going to read something and store it in your memory so that you can start calling yourself an "expert" on the Midwest, try to actually remember what you read before you criticize others for more trivial things like forgetting dates.

6. I made up the name "Aileleihan"

This is what you think I made up??

"Ailele - One who refused a wrong decision.

Aileleihan - One who refused to take wrong way.

http://edoworld.net/Edo_Africa_names_dictionary_A.html

That name has existed before I was born! I didn't make the Edo language.

7. You claim that I said that Chime must have been an Igbo man.

You confused me with somebody else and then started ranting about some claim that I didn't make and don't even care about. My only belief is that the overall group (his followers) was Igbo. I didn't discuss Chima's exact ethnicity. See below for details.

8. Professor Maduemezia was nominated for a Nobel prize

Who even told you this? I'm stunned by the gullibility and ignorance displayed here. My goodness. Please familiarize yourself with the work of those physicists who have won or were actually being considered for a Nobel prize before mouthing off like this. See my next posts for details.

Ogbuefi 1: @Physics,
1)I think you are the one who is being dishonest here not me.I lost count of the times I have corrected you when you deliberately tried to misrepresent facts on this thread and the language I usually see is either "mix up" , "error" and so on , Instead of admiting that your attempt to mislead (via lies ) the readers of our  comments have met a brick wall.Dont think I will leave this thread for you.No way, After all what is being discussed here was the ethnographic status of the Anioma people.

Do you actually want to compare the number of lies and errors on your part to my own errors?

Errors from me:

1. Saying that Urhobo are the group with several clans of Igbo origin when it is actually Isoko.

(Was wrong there, but the Urhobo did not have any really serious ancient conflict with the Igbo, so there was no ancient turbulent relationship there as with Benin.)

2. Forgetting that the moats were 8th century, not 7th century

(Trivial)

3. I posted a quote by some source claiming that Awolowo did something for the Oza nogogo, but there is no direct source for that provided in the article itself.

(I was too trusting of that writer there.)

4. Saying Ala and Ali do not refer to the same thing in Igbo, when it turns out that they are variants of the same thing among different subgroups.

(A complete error. Nevertheless, you couldn't explain the name Alilehan if your life depended on it.)

5. Forgetting to state that the first primary school in the Midwest in Benin city was the first non-missionary primary school, rather than the first one outright.


6. Misinterpreted the "40,000 killed" as referring to the 1967 Midwest killings alone when you meant for the entire 1966-1970 period.

(This had more to do with your vagueness in what you were referring to, actually. We were discussing the Anioma Midwestern massacres of 1967 and you instead brought up all the killings from 1966 to 1970 that I was not discussing.)




Now, here are some (but not even all) of your mistakes and deliberate lies. I noticed at least 8 lies and at least 15 errors.

Lies from you:


1.  You said every Benin historical figure in Benin is traceable to a specific family or lineage. This is so absurd and such a blatant lie that I almost can't fathom how you cooked it up.

What family was Akurankuran (the native doctor) from?

What family was Oba Ozolua's general, Laisolobi, from?

What family was the diviner Azagbaghedi from?

What family was the Iyase Ogina (the Iyase who rebelled against Oba Ohuan) from?

What family was Iken (the war hero from Uselu who inspired the title of Edaiken) from?

You have said that you are not a neophyte, but an expert on the Midwest, so I would like to think that you are sensible enough not to pretend that whatever bizarre stipulation that you can think up (such as claiming that every single Benin historical figure could easily be associated with a certain family) is actually sensible.

The problem here is that you claim to be an expert on the Midwest, but you hadn't really attempted to study all of the cultures in the Midwest.


2. Ijaws are really the ones who call Gele Gele "Gilly Gilly"

This is a blatant lie.

When I brought up the fact that Ijaws call Gele Gele by the name Gelegelegbini/Gelegelegbene and not its real name, you lied and said they called it Gilly Gilly simpy because in the 1906 quote I provided by Dennett, he decided to spell it Gilly Gilly! This same quote said a whole province of Benin had been named for Gilly Gilly in precolonial times and you're here telling people that this was all named after one Ijaw village! Rubbish.

What's even more ludicrous is that you didn't even know that Gilly Gilly vs. Gele Gele is just a matter of spelling convention based on the (audial) interpretation by those who heard the name pronounced and not any actual difference in the name that is being called or referred to.

The only people I have ever seen spell it as Gilli Gilli (which is the same as Gilly Gilly) were Binis some other Europeans, and that R.E. Dennett guy. I have NEVER seen any Ijaw source spell it Gilly Gilly.  They either refer to it as Gele Gele (how most, but not all Binis spell it) or by their own name for it, which is Gelegelegbene/Gelegelebini (which is also the name that those Ijaw historians that wrote Izon of the Niger Delta used to designate it in chapter 18 of their book). I don't know how, when there is a wealth of evidence showing that Ijaws appended bini/bene (water) to the name, you are going to try and mislead people into thinking that Ijaws are the ones who call it Gilli Gilli.

How anybody can slip such an easily identifiable lie in here and start putting on airs as some sort of expert or start accusing others of propaganda is beyond belief. That Ijaws often appended bini/bene to GeleGele, rather than always calling it by its true name is beyond dispute.

I do not care even the least bit about how the dispute was "presented to the public" by whatever worthless newspaper you read in Delta state that gave such a presentation. In one of these same toilet rags pretending to be newspapers, a certain Mr. Igini, from Delta state, commenting foolishly on the Uniben VC issue, tried to claim that Anthony Osagie was a "mediocrity" because he was a Bini. How the hell is a biochemist that was ELECTED by his peers as PRESIDENT of Nigeria's biochemistry society a "mediocrity" when compared to those who have NEVER headed an academic department in their university (they were never Dean of Science in their university, for example), and are nowhere near qualified to be elected president of the professional/academic organization of their discipline in their country?

Whoever presented the dispute as a dispute as a dispute between the "Benins of Ughoton" and the "Ijaw of Gelegele" is more worthless than Mike Igini and should not be mistaken for a human being.

3. You claimed that I said that the Jan. 1966 coup was an Igbo coup!

I have never posted anything at any time even remotely implying that the first coup was an Igbo coup, let alone saying that it was an Igbo coup but your horrible reading comprehension led you to interpret the exact opposite of what I wrote.

4. You claimed that I said that Igbos were celebrating when the Jan 1966 coup happened.

See above. More reading and comprehension problems.

Ekt_bear, I do have to apologize for twice delaying responding to this for weeks, but I have been occupied in real life, and I couldn't really find a way to actively keep up with the forum.

I would quote the report, but since I can't highlight and copy the text (because of the way it was digitized), and since I don't feel like taking 50 screenshots, I'll just list my specific objections to some of the reasoning and some of the claims.


1. My first response will dwell on some historical/political claims, my next response will be about some more of the political claims, and I will post a response on the economic claims later (two or three days from now). The response on the economic claims is slightly lengthy, however. But since you seem to be particularly interested in that aspect of my retort, rather than only posting the full response days from now, I might as well give away one of the most fundamental objections I have (but definitely not the only objection) now, so as to spare you the wait or suspense.

The basic gist of one of my main objections is that the claims of the report with regard to the economic viability of rubber and cocoa are extremely false.

By condoning the flawed economic approach of the Western region with regard to cocoa, the British advisers from that commission were actually recommending that the Western region follow a very volatile cash crop (cocoa) which had been declining in value as the 60s approached, which would plummet significantly in value on the world market from 1960 to 1965 (Ghana under Nkrumah learned from this the hard way, and it was part of the reason he was overthrown, but Nigeria had oil to keep regions afloat whose crops (groundnut or cocoa or palm oil) were were becoming less and less important) and which declined heavily in production in Nigeria in the 1970s, into a path of economic ruin or stagnation for the Western region.

By contrast, rubber production in Nigeria took off in the mid 60s and rubber became very lucrative by the 1970s, although it declined in the mid 70s (as cocoa did as well before the federal government went to great lengths to attempt to keep it alive the early 80s). I will go into detail about this and provide sources, but you might as well know now, that the members of the commission were actually recommending economic doom for the Western region with their strange reasoning about relying on one volatile crop. If you're going to rely on volatile cash crops, it makes sense to rely on more than just one, but somehow this very basic reasoning eluded the authors of that report.

Taking oil out of the equation (both the Western region (Ondo state) and the Midwest (Edo state and Delta state) have oil in significant commercial quantities), if the Yoruba parts of the Western region had continued to rely mainly on cocoa while the Midwest relied mainly on rubber and timber, rather than either group using oil, then the Midwest would have risen in the coming decade while Yorubaland would have stagnated and been unable to repay its many loans or meet its developmental goals.

(Of course there is rubber and timber in Yorubaland, just as there is cocoa in the Midwest (contrary to the image presented in this report), but I'm talking about what the different regions mainly focus on.)

The whole "focus heavily on cocoa" alone approach was senseless. It ruined an already troubled Nkrumah, and if an independent Yorubaland had towed that line, it would have ruined them too.

A wiser government or wiser British advisers would have been screaming "diversify!" at the top of their lungs, knowing that other crops could be used to offset the possible decline in the value of cocoa.

When I compare the efforts Thailand and Malaysia expended to make rubber a viable cash crop for their countries to how Nigeria settled for mediocrity in that area, it's just another reason to be disappointed in the direction that the economy of Nigeria took after oil became the mainstay.  

But to read where people (who don't even seem to have economic backgrounds) are trying to argue that rubber is dismissible because of something as risky as cocoa is just silly.

Thailand is making money and Cote d'Ivoire is making money. Is Cote d'Ivoire jealous of Thailand's dominance in rubber or Thailand envious of Cote d'Ivoire's dominance in cocoa? Of course not, because they're both making a lot of money off of two very profitable resources.

It would be better:

to have the option of exporting tons of rubber when cocoa is low in value or to be able to export tons of cocoa when rubber prices drop (an okay/tolerable scenario),

or to be able to export both rubber and cocoa when both are doing well (the best case scenario),

or to be able to export both in significant amounts when prices drop for both (the worst case scenario; to at least be better able to stay afloat)

than to use one thing alone when you have access to both.

Another interesting claim of the report was that cocoa could not be grown in commercial quantities in the Midwestern region of Nigeria. I have seen this fantastical claim about soil quality and cocoa repeated as though it were actually true in several other places besides this report, yet I have not seen the actual supporting evidence. This claim in particular made me think that the authors of the report had just been fed a line or conjecture by the AG government and went along with it without bothering to see if it was actually true. I don't think anyone is claiming that Edo or Delta state cannot grow large amounts of cocoa today, so I wonder if the soil transformed over a few decades, or whether the people making these claims decided to consider only one or two cities (the peculiar reddish soil of Benin city and its environs may be what they had in mind) to use as a sample to represent whole provinces. Either way, there is some sort of incompetence involved on the part of the authors of the report with this cocoa claim.

I have found out about the backgrounds of the authors, and I am yet to come across an actual businessman or economist among them, so you should not necessarily take their economic speculations as being authoritative. While they all seemed to be accomplished civil servants, and they obviously performed very competently in their assignment of finding out as much (as outsiders) as they could about the relationships between the different groups and making the strongest case that they could against the creation of new states (that was one of the implicit goals of the report, by the way; not merely to "allay the fears" of the minority groups, but to prevent any new states from being created - Chapter 4 pretty much makes this clear), I do not think they really knew what they were talking about economically.

The authors of that report, in addition to being inherently biased, probably did not have the economic expertise to see the huge risk in relying on a single "boom crop" to sustain millions of people.

It is very telling that, apart from oil, the only two economic exports of Nigeria that have/had any real significance in modern times are cocoa and rubber. (You can confirm this yourself, look around a bit). Cocoa and rubber remain the largest non-oil exports of Nigeria to this day. Not cocoa alone, but cocoa and rubber. That's just the reality. It's particularly ironic then, that they were arguing for the suppression of additional government focus on Nigeria's rubber center.

But the full response on the economic issue and on the claim of subsidies will come later.




2.)

a) I find very strange the scenario presented in chapter 2 and 4 of the report where the Binis and the Urhobos alone are somehow portrayed as the lone cause of the Midwest movement. This is misleading for the simple fact that those groups did not have the numerical strength or political clout to single-handedly, or in joint combination, make the other groups in the Midwest opt for a Midwest state against their objections.

There are definitely other individuals from the other ethnic groups of the Midwest who were very much for the creation of the Midwest and the efforts on the part these people from other groups to see the Midwest created are well known now, but this was perhaps not obvious at the time of the writing of this report or it was deliberately suppressed by the authors who were trying to paint a certain picture for their arguments.

b) It claims that the Urhobos are "favorable" to the "Benin tradition" but neglects to mention whether there is any uneasiness (as with the Esan) about any association with Benin on the part of the Urhobo. They probably declined to go into detail here not only because it's mostly irrelevant and tangential to the whole issue of the Midwest creation, but also because they don't really know what they're talking about here. For one thing, I don't see how they had evidence that there was more uneasiness on the part of the Esan than the Urhobo with an association with the "Benin tradition" and it would be good if they could actually cite their sources or provide footnotes.


The Esan, relative to the Urhobo are more "favorable" to the "Benin tradition" and more interconnected with it for reasons which I won't get into in really great detail. I will only note that almost all (maybe all, actually) of the traditional rulers in Esan derive from either Ogisos or Obas of Benin by actual descent or in terms of who appointed them to their titles, according to their own accounts of history. This is not the case for the Urhobos. Like I said, I won't get into too much detail on the ancient history part of it, but this write up (which wrongly claims that the Esan are not a separate ethnic group from the Binis), gives some idea of the extent of that connection:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NaijaExcel/message/11325

You definitely don't have to read the whole thing (it's a bit long), but you get the idea.


c) The long time political leader of the Esan, from before the time that this report was written up until recent times, Anthony Enahoro (who was married to a Bini woman), an Action Group stalwart, said that he was "of the Edo tribe" as early as 1965, later criticized the current Oba of Benin (whose mother was Esan) for not doing enough to bring about complete unity between the different Edoid groups, and was the leader of the Edo unity movement, even going so far as requesting that the different groups try and fuse all their dialects into one standard language that could be used for discussion and deliberation in government houses.

While there seem to be very real undercurrents of some sort of sibling rivalry between the Esan and the Bini, I would also say that a few sentiments here and there from a few Esan expressing contempt or dislike for the Binis does not necessarily equate to the people in large part being averse to the "Benin tradition" that the report vaguely defines on a historical basis. If anything, they are the most amenable group and the most connected group to the Benin tradition out of any non-Bini group in Nigeria. Therefore, claims/insinuations in this report of some sort of historically based Esan opposition or aversion to a union with Binis in a new state are not really on firm ground. There could be opposition for other reasons, but not because of an aversion to the "Benin tradition" or the ancient Benin kingdom. The report should have steered clear of insinuating that there was any real correspondence between political alignment with the AG or NCNC and being averse to or embracing what it refers to as the "Benin tradition".



d) With regard to the statements #2 through 9 in "Chapter 2: Historical and Political Background" I think I detect a little bit of bias in there, but as I can't be bothered to retype every statement in the report, I think you should reread this particular section and see if it's only concerned with reporting the facts.

This is one statement (the part in bold) from #2 which caught me off guard:

"Ife is regarded as the oldest of the Yoruba kingdoms; it may once have been the sole kingdom, but by the time Europeans came to the country there were a number of Yoruba chiefdoms all acknowledging in some degree at least the spiritual and traditional authority of Ife, but politically distinct and sometimes at war with each other. Today the Yorubas are a vigorous and versatile people with a strong sense of tribal solidarity and a high level of education."

While there is nothing about the actual content of that sentence in bold to which any definite objections could raised, the way the sentence was written and the way these descriptions came out of nowhere after a previous discussion focusing on ancient history (rather than a description of the people and their character) is somewhat surprising.

One would think that some sort of effort would be made not to employ the kind of tone that they did there, but maybe they felt that this really helped their argument.

I came across another interesting statement that caught me off guard:

"The Benin brass work cannot equal the best productions of Ife but an Ivory mask from Benin changed hands recently for over £17,000 and this tradition of craftsmanship, together with their ancient military successes, has produced in Benin itself a spirit of pride in the past and of resentment to the idea of subordination to another people."

The tone here and the conjectures are also strange.

e) The Ife brasses are masterpieces and everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinions on art.
But the tone of that art statement in Chapter 2 is a bit strange. It seems to betray a bias on the part of the authors. This could possibly be attributed to how impressed they were with the competence of the Yoruba Western region officials that they spoke with. I've notice that when some whites encounter highly competent African blacks, when they have not previously encountered "impressive" blacks, they start fawning over some of them. I think a little bit of that may have transpired here.

As for the specific claims, the alleged technical (not artistic) superiority of some of the Ife brasses over some of the Benin brasses (as stated by some art historians) would strike me as irrelevant to presenting the historical backgrounds of the different groups.

Also, there were other minorities in the Midwest who resented "subordination to another people" who had no famous art tradition or had art traditions that were not even really known (the lower Niger bronze industry), and there is not any evidence that an art tradition or past military history or conquests would have been on the mind of any pro-Midwestern Benin man or woman.

In fact, when calling for a Benin-Delta state, neither Oba Eweka II nor Oba Akenzua II made any reference to art or to past military conquests, but rather to the shared ties between the groups in the region, so it's strange to hear that the reason for opposition to "subordination to another people" is based on art or former military glory. I don't think that when a minority group anywhere desires some form of autonomy, they are motivated primarily by artistic or former military "credentials." I think current politics is the defining issue.

Second, the report's comments on art also requires that the authors have looked through the thousands of Benin brasses and also all of the hundreds  of Ife brasses. This is obviously not the case. In fact, many Benin brasses had not been located, photographed, or studied and several Ife brasses had not even been found and excavated at the time of the commission. It is irrelevant to the main discussion, but I found their mention of this artistic detail curious.

I'm also skeptical of the insinuation that mere Bini nationalism was the chief factor at play here in Benin for the Midwest movement. Gaius Obaseki and Ighodaro were AG members who opposed the creation of the Midwest, yet Obaseki's father had been the Iyase (a very high ranking official - second in command after the Oba - who was somewhat analogous to a prime minister) of Benin under Oba Eweka II, and Ighodaro himself had been the Iyase of Benin under Oba Akenzua II. So could it really be claimed that those Binis who supported a unified Action Group controlled West and opposed the NCNC were any less proud of their culture or were not also proud of their Benin heritage? I really doubt that.

These authors just wanted to blindly assign that motivation to the Binis in particular to wanting freedom from subordination as being due to pride in their history, but this is really unwarranted and even irrelevant. Like I said before, I have not seen where Oba Eweka II or Oba Akenzua II was talking about art or about the past conquest of Lagos when talking about a Midwestern state.

I have not seen any evidence that S. Y. Eke, Dalton Asemota, Gauis Obaseki, Samuel Ighodaro, [url=http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/rarticles/revisiting%20nigerias%20political%20history.htm]Valentine Edobor-Osula[/url] (don't know much about him actually, but his life seems pretty interesting), Jacob Uwadiae Egharevba, or other Bini Action Group stalwarts were any less proud of their Benin culture and heritage than Humphrey Omo-Osagie and those who wanted a separate Midwest or disliked "subordination to another people."



f) With regard to some of the comments in chapter 4, I don't think the full story is being told there.

It does not mention whether the people of Asaba, Kwale, Aboh, etc. preferred being in the Western region or whether they would prefer to be in the Midwestern region. Obviously what they wanted was union with the other Igbo groups across the Niger and/or a separate state rather than either West or Midwest and it mentions this, but it's strange that no mention is made of what their opinion on staying in the Western region was.  I don't know why the full opinions of the Binis or Urhobos on staying in the West are given such precedence over that of all the other groups.

Instead of mentioning how all of those other groups felt about staying in the West, it only mentions what their ideal arrangement would be (such as reunion between the Eastern and Western Ijaws). This could give a misleading impression that these groups would actually be fine with staying in the Western region over the Midwest if their most ideal arrangement (neither West nor Midwest) is not met. I am not certain that there is actually any evidence for this being the case, so the opinions of the other groups not merely on the creation of Midwest, but also on the issue of staying in the West, should have also been mentioned

g) I am not sure that their conclusions about which minority groups would be "dismayed' at the creation of the Midwest have much grounding in reality. It's obvious with hindsight that the voting pattern when the actual referendum was taken completely trashes their claim, but even without the advantage of this later information, one has to ask how they could know that the Ijaws would be "dismayed' at the creation of the Midwest rather than indifferent (although the voting pattern of the Ijaw also showed support, rather than complete indifference). And on the issue of the Itsekiri, the voting pattern when the votes were counted for Warri was pretty clear there. Obviously the Olu of Warri, who was against the division of the West, had more influence among the Itsekiri than Okotie-Eboh (who was instrumental in the creation of the Midwest) or Arthur Prest, but I think that there is no really conclusive evidence to show that the Itsekiri as a whole would be "dismayed." I think they are stretching their theories a little too much here to make these claims.

,

Thanks for the explanation.


The reason for asking is purely curiosity. When I come across Asian names that sound like curse words or funny phrases, I sometimes want to know what the name is really supposed to convey to those who understand that particular Asian language. Usually, I'm not able to find out online. The same thing applies here with some Nigerian names, but it never occurred to me to just ask until the issue of the VP's name came up.

Alright, I have new question for Yoruba and Igbo speakers.


What's the meaning/etymology of the name "Animalu" in Igbo?

What's the meaning/etymology of the name "Shittu" in Yoruba? Also, the name "Bimbo"?


Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks in advance.

@ Negro Ntns and Maple, thanks for the information. I was just very curious about that name as I hadn't heard a similar sounding Hausa name before.


@ knotty, I am not the same as Rhino.5dm, and I don't speak any Hausa. Please desist from these kind of nonsensical claims.

Yes. There should be an SNC quickly. The stuff I'm reading about boko haram is disturbing.

On a completely unrelated note, his hat seems to be running away from his head. Why is his hat so tall?