paramakina202:


The egyptian civilization I am celebrating is it not African heritage? Ethiopia is not great African civilization. If you visit you go see evidence.

Thoughtless. Do you think it is a coincidence that Ethiopia was never colonised?

That's why they retain many of their ancient structures till date.

Egypt was so coveted by the whites that instead of destroying it, they claimed it was THEM that built it. A rancid LIE they still perpetrate till this day in cahoots with their fellow Arab land thieves who today call themselves 'Egyptians'.

Of there are many great african civilizations that are worth of mention not your juju mud
hut civilization that couldn't stand the test of time.

Always glad to educate an illiterate.

Let's start off with Benin, which you just insulted with your little mental midget lips.

Benin city was a city of multi-storeyed public buildings and monuments.. They built with MUD BRICKS, which were the most commonly used building materials in West Africa all the way up to Pharaonic Egypt and Nubia.

You are a child, so you don't know that MUD BRICKS were respected and durable building materials in the ancient world, right up till this day. Huge multi-storeyed monuments are built with them.

This is a drawing of Benin City in 1847 by the English visitor, Mary Evans.

This was 50 years before it was invaded by the British.



According to scholars,

''At the end of the 13th century, a European traveler encountered the great metropolis of Benin in West Africa (present nigeria, Edo State), writing: “The town seems to be very great. When you enter into it, you go into a great broad street...which seems to be seven or eight times broader than the Warmoes street in Amsterdam…The King's palace is a collection of buildings which occupy as much space as the town of Harlem, and which is enclosed with walls. There are numerous apartments for the Prince`s ministers and fine galleries, most of which are as big as those on the Exchange at Amsterdam. They are supported by wooden pillars encased with copper, where their victories are depicted, and which are carefully kept very clean. The town is composed of thirty main streets, very straight and 120 feet wide, apart from an infinity of small intersecting streets. The houses are close to one another, arranged in good order. These people are in no way inferior to the Dutch as regards cleanliness; they wash and scrub their houses so well that they are polished and shining like a looking glass.” (Source: Walter Rodney, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, pg. 69)

The medieval Nigerian city of Benin was built to “a scale comparable with the Great Wall of China”. There was a vast system of defensive walling totalling 10,000 miles in all. Even before the full extent of the city walling had become apparent the Guinness Book of Records carried an entry in the 1974 edition that described the city as: “The largest earthworks in the world carried out prior to the mechanical era.”

Sadly, in 1897, Benin City was destroyed by British forces under Admiral Harry Rawson. The city was looted, blown up and burnt to the ground. A collection of the famous Benin Bronzes are now in the British Museum in London. Part of the 700 stolen bronzes by the British troops were sold back to nigeria in 1972.

Here is another account of the great Benin City regarding the city walls “They extend for some 16 000 kilometres in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They cover 6500 square kilometres and were all dug by the Edo people. in all, they are four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops. They took an estimated 150 million hours ..to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet.” - Source: Wikipedia, Architecture of Africa.” Fred Pearce the New Scientist 11/09/99.


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

WHY BENIN CITY WAS DESTROYED.

(By the way, ANY ancient city in Europe or Israel could easily be destroyed and all traces of it eliminated, if there is a colonial intent to do so. No building materials can withstand bombardment)

Over 100 African cities were DESTROYED, BOMBARDED AND BURNT DOWN BY EUROPEAN COLONIAL INVADERS.

Benin City was one of them, and was destroyed in 1897.

HERE IS WHY IT WAS DESTROYED: It was called the 'TERRA NULLIUS' directive.

According to scholars,

''Europeans invaders have destroyed most of the African cities either as punitive actions or under the scramble for Africa ‘Terra Nullius’ law.

During the scramble for Africa by Europeans, the main way to prove that a land was qualified for colonization or take over was ‘Terra Nullius”, a Latin expression deriving from Roman law meaning “land belonging to no one”, which is used in international law to describe territory which has never been subject to the sovereignty of any state, or over which any prior sovereign has expressly or implicitly relinquished sovereignty. Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius may be acquired through occupation”

Many islands were acquired that way when it was possible to slaughter the small population and easily prove that the land was empty before the arrival of colonial powers.

But very soon, the colonial powers were in difficulty to find “land belonging to no one”. Africa was not a Terra Nullius. Consequently, the terra nullius law was altered to include land inhabited by 'savages and uncivilized people'.

Again, very quickly the colonial power found it difficult to prove that Africa was a land of savages and uncivilized people. Instead they found, as demonstrated above, queendoms and kingdoms with great palaces and highly developed political and social norms.

At this stage, the colonial power had to DESTROY any sign of civilization, to establish Terra Nullius.

From then on, the colonial power spent a lot of energy to destroy and burn African cities, historical buildings and monuments, slaughtered the African elite of engineers, scientists, craftsmen, writers, philosophers, etc.

There is a museum in Paris with 18 000 human heads of people killed by the French colonial troops and missionaries. It’s called “Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris”.

Among the heads are the ones of African kings, kings’ families, African engineers, writers, army officers, spiritual leaders, but also ordinary men, women, children that the french found unusual, exotic enough or interesting to kill to enrich their Museum of natural history...

France was not alone in the european competition to behead the maximum of variety of exotic people. The skulls and heads of many Africans still could be found in museums and unusual places around Europe.

Another consequence of the Terra Nullius law defined as a land inhabited by savages, lead to the capture of Africans to display in zoos and public events around Europe, in primitive conditions, to demonstrate the 'inferiority and barbarism' of the African people.

From that moment till now, most Europeans still think Africans are savages, inferior, grotesque, unintelligent people. They more an African would display features that would fit that stigma, the more he or she would be liked by them.''

https://corespirit.com/articles/100-amazing-african-cities-that-were-completely-destroyed-by-europeans


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


Now can you see the desperate levels the Europeans went to eradicate all traces of black civilization?

IF YOU, based on their destructive actions, have been made to believe you had no civilization in the past, the JOKE IS ON YOU.

They've manipulated YOU.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

Lagos is one of the most expensive cities to live in nigeria. in recent years, property and living cost have risen tremendously. The development of Lagos into a mega city has seen an upswing in the cost of property. Expensive estates are springing up in all parts of the city.

ASABA — Residents of Okuama, Omosuomo, and other communities in Ughelli South Local Government Area, Delta State, still confined in the forests since the ongoing Army clearance operations in their domains over the killing of 17 soldiers on March 14, weekend, sent distress signals to President Bola Tinubu and Governor Sheriff Oborevwori to save their lives.

They complained that many are dying of hunger, and require urgent medical care in their hiding places.

The residents struggled to contact the leadership of their communities and relatives living in Warri and other cities to pass their message to President Tinubu and Governor Oborevwori.

Similarly, the facilitator of Niger-Delta Democratic Union, NDDU, and Warri-based lawyer, Dr. Akpo Mudiaga-Odje, has called on the Federal Government and the National Boundary Commission, NBC, to demarcate the boundaries of all communities in the country, and gazette them to stem the inter-communal crises rocking the country.

Correspondingly, another Delta lawyer and activist, Lawrence Oseya, declared yesterday that it is wrong for the Army to deny the governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori, access to the Okuama community where the tragic incident happened

Fleeing residents still hiding in the forests – Okuama indigene
An indigene of Okuama, who lives in Warri, told Vanguard: “Most of my relatives are still hiding in the forests because of the unfriendly military men. They have abandoned their phones and communicate strictly from person to person now.

“My uncle and cousins that escaped and would ordinarily have come to my family house in Warri could not do so as not to invite trouble for us.

Our relatives taking cover in the bush – Abizor, Omosuomo chair
The chairman of Omosuomo Federated Communities in Ughelli South, Chief Henry Abizor, in a communication, entitled “Okuama killings: Attack on Omosuomo Federated Communities by the Military and razing down buildings, we are calling on both state and federal governments to come to our rescue.”

The letter read: “We, the peace-loving people of Omosuomo Federated Communities, from Ewu Clan in Ughelli South Local Government Area of Delta State, unequivocally call on the government of Delta State, under the leadership of Sheriff Oborevwori, and President of the Federal Republic of nigeria, President Bola Tinubu to come to our aid.”

“Most of our people remain in the bush for days running, for fear of the military coming for another operation.

“Our people are seriously in pain and psychological trauma, receiving both native and unorthodox treatments to recover from the shock.

“We condemn taking of human life, especially that of innocents. We sympathize with the families of those military personnel killed at Okuama by some criminal elements. To the innocents who died during the ugly incident at Okuama, we sympathize and pray that all the departed souls, rest in peace.

“The invasion of Omosuomo Federated Communities twice on March 20 and 24, 2024, resulted in looting of residents’ properties, money amounting to millions of naira from locked-up stores as they came in with five war boats with uniformed men, who disembarked with sporadic shootings that sent residents running for their dear lives.

“Locked doors were broken as they searched homes and around without seeing anything they were searching for. The soldiers assembled those, who could not run away in the community town hall where the initial statement of peaceful visitation turned to mass beating, humiliation, and molestation of both the aged men and women.

“The young ones who could not take refuge in the communities were tortured to stupor. Our people are living very far from Okuama and Okoloba. We do not share land boundaries with any of these communities.

“Buildings were set ablaze, with properties worth millions of naira destroyed. This is painful and oppressive.”

Gazette boundaries of all communities —Mudiaga-Odje, lawyer
Speaking, constitutional lawyer, Dr. Mudiaga-Odje called on the National Boundary Commission, NBC, to come out with a map and survey plans, which the Federal Government should gazette, designating well-identified and settled boundaries of communities in nigeria.

“This is the gravamen of the matter, which is our collective quest and aspiration to forestall future recurrence of this kind of avoidable trajectory of tragedy.”

“The National Boundary Commission is a body established by law and vested with the exclusive authority to demarcate territories or communities within nigeria.


“Accordingly, we now expect a more proactive approach from the commission to establish with arithmetic certainty, all lands and boundaries of every community in nigeria.

“It should come out with a map and survey plans, which should be gazetted by the Federal Government, reflecting such well cut out and negotiated boundaries of our communities in nigeria.

“This will go a long way to avert future community clashes as in the Okuama/Okoloba debacle.

“Indeed, most communal crises are because of land and boundary claims. Contending communities lay claim to each other’s enclaves, especially where there is a mineral and natural resource of economic value on the land.

“These contending communities, in a bid to outwit each other, usually draw up shylock boundaries that go beyond their real territorial boundaries,” he said.


He pointed out, “Equitable demarcation and accurate boundary adjustments through negotiable settlements will forestall future communal crisis in nigeria.”

It’s wrong to prevent Oborevwori from accessing Okuama — Oseya, lawyer
Another lawyer, Frank Oseya, said, “The role of the Army in the aftermath of the ugly incident so far leaves a stale taste in the buds.

“To have razed the Okuama community ( scene of a crime) and to have gone ahead to burn neighbouring communities along the coastline down to Bayelsa State is not only an erasure of critical evidence, but it is also an act preemptive ( wrongly so ) of investigation.

“To have disallowed the Governor of Delta State- the Chief Security Officer- of the State from gaining access to the community for on-the-spot assessment of the situation is patently discourteous of protocol.

“I have looked at our laws, just to be sure I did not miss the latest amendment, and I am yet to find where the Nigerian Army is donated with investigative powers. The police have that power. It is a strange procedure that the King of Ewu, declared wanted by the military authority, turns himself in, and the police hand him over to the Army. For the Army to do what exactly?


“Let it be made clear that the Army is an interested party in this whole brouhaha, it cannot be the investigator, the prosecutor, and the judge in its cause. As spooky as the events of March 14th and 15th in the Okuama community, we cannot say for certain- at least for now – who the masterminds were. There are still too many accounts, and no less grey areas and questions begging for clarification and answers.

“This is a clarion call, therefore, and a reiteration of the call for the Federal Government to set up a high-powered investigation panel or a commission of inquiry to unravel the immediate and remote causes of the Okuama sad event.

“Meanwhile, the muted idea to turn the Okuama community into a military barrack must be roundly condemned too, as that would amount to ethnic cleansing. The Federal authorities must be careful in going about this whole thing not to worsen an already bad situation.

“Fish out the few unscrupulous elements that killed those officers, and men of the Nigerian Army, yes! However, in doing so, we must not set the children’s teeth on edge because their fathers have eaten soured grapes.”

https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/04/okuama-residents-trapped-in-forests-send-sos-to-tinubu-oborevwori/

Was created because of me

Too show lagos people, they are people not living the nigerian dream like them, so they can feel sorry for them
And to create under cities for lagos people to visit
And too make nigeria look like a country


I am special

But sad special

Reflect7:


SCHOOL DROPOUT, I JUST SHOWED YOU THE GREAT WALL OF BENIN WHICH IS THE LARGEST SINGLE MAN MADE STRUCTURE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

YET YOUR LOW IQ CAME OUT WITH NONSENSE ABOUT ''NO EVIDENCE''?

DRUNKEN SELF-HATER. SO STUPID AND DUMB HE CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE LAST POST OF EDUCATION HE RECEIVED.

EGYPT AND ISRAEL WERE OUR BLACK AFRICAN ANCESTORS, SO THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS ARE OUR ACHIEVEMENTS.

REGARDING THE WORLD FAMOUS BENIN BRONZES, MANY OF WHICH WERE STOLEN BY THE BRITISH, AND NOW SELL FOR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in VARIOUS COLLECTIONS AROUND THE WORLD, HERE'S WHAT THE GUARDIAN UK WROTE:

''At the height of its greatness in the 12th century – well before the start of the European Renaissance – the kings and nobles of Benin City patronised craftsmen and lavished them with gifts and wealth, in return for their depiction of the kings’ and dignitaries’ great exploits in intricate bronze sculptures.

“These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique,” wrote Professor Felix von Luschan, formerly of the Berlin Ethnological Museum. “Benvenuto Celini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him. Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace


......

WHEN FOREIGNERS KNOW, RESPECT, AND APPRECIATE YOUR OWN HISTORY BETTER THAN YOU, IT'S A CLEAR SIGN THAT YOU HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY BRAINWASHED TO HATE YOURSELF AND YOUR BACKGROUND BY COLONISERS, AND YOU ARE A DISGRACE OF A PERSON.

FELA HAD MENTALLY COLONISED PEOPLE LIKE YOU in MIND WHEN HE SANG HIS EPIC SONG, 'COLOMENTALITY'..

Colomentality
E be say you be colonial man
You don be slaveman before
Dem don release you now
But you never release yourself



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6ouP7qRoQ&ab_channel=FelaKuti

What evidence do you have this mumu boy?

Even ants will make a better mould than that anthill in in your juju kingdom.
This Egyptian structure is almost 4000 years old.That is civilization not some ant mould you have in bini and called it largest earth structure.
Second picture is Aya Sofia built in 537 AD by the Greeks in Constantinopole now Istanbul by Emperor Constantine the great.
Keep crying!

I just saw a thread on ABA, how the government is trying to construct abandoned roads.What I saw is cringy,the reconstructed roads only have functional signifance aside that it made no difference to the development of the city,the city still looks as bad as it always was,this goes for every other city in nigeria, including Lagos. Except Abuja.

Despite efforts by some governors to reconstruct roads and bridges, it feels like pouring water into a basket.

Most state capitals were totally unplanned,and allowed to be dilapidated severely.
even the former nations capital Lagos was unplanned and is now beyond repair especially the mainland.

This goes with my gross with the older generation who watched and oversaw the gradual disintegration and dilapidation of these cities.

Nigerian cities are gone,they are too dilapidated to be repaired, all the major cities especially in the south and Middlebelt are gone except Abuja,they are in such dysfunctional state they are at best upgraded slums.

All Nigerian cities are so full of shacks,dirts,stenchy open gutters,old buildings etc.

It's so messy it can't be recovered,its like trying to beautify a dumbsite.

Instead of wasting billions on useless roads and bridges, these monies should be used instead on the gradual development of new capital cities in nigeria that will be planned from inception,otherwise nigeria will remain a ugly mess forever.

Fulaniguy01:
cowards .

any time I saw news like this Israeli air strike I wonder why these sons of perdition ( in Sha Allah ) cannot go groundly and fight the ones they targeted but they only airstriked them. look air strike fight is for inglorious cowards , come out face to face and fight if you are the real bastards . weak people.

But they are on ground in Gaza, winning skirmishes upon skirmishes, and destroying the city. While Hamas military force have turned tails, hiding under rocks, human made caves and houses, failing to defend their cities.

And @Fulaniguy, here you are in nigeria making threat against IDF, while the common Boko Haram and insurgents enemies at your backyard for the past 15 years, you cannot muster force to defeat them.

Or maybe you are one of them, and if you are, don't ever dare the IDF. NEVER!

paramakina202:


If you go to Rome,Constantinopole(Istanbul)Egypt,Israel in fact you will see 2000 years old evidence of christian religeous civilization.But you have no evidence that bini ever existed as an empire except some Oka made bronze artifacts

SCHOOL DROPOUT, I JUST SHOWED YOU THE GREAT WALL OF BENIN WHICH IS THE LARGEST SINGLE MAN MADE STRUCTURE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

YET YOUR LOW IQ CAME OUT WITH NONSENSE ABOUT ''NO EVIDENCE''?

DRUNKEN SELF-HATER. SO STUPID AND DUMB HE CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE LAST POST OF EDUCATION HE RECEIVED.

EGYPT AND ISRAEL WERE OUR BLACK AFRICAN ANCESTORS, SO THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS ARE OUR ACHIEVEMENTS.

REGARDING THE WORLD FAMOUS BENIN BRONZES, MANY OF WHICH WERE STOLEN BY THE BRITISH, AND NOW SELL FOR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in VARIOUS COLLECTIONS AROUND THE WORLD, HERE'S WHAT THE GUARDIAN UK WROTE:

''At the height of its greatness in the 12th century – well before the start of the European Renaissance – the kings and nobles of Benin City patronised craftsmen and lavished them with gifts and wealth, in return for their depiction of the kings’ and dignitaries’ great exploits in intricate bronze sculptures.

“These works from Benin are equal to the very finest examples of European casting technique,” wrote Professor Felix von Luschan, formerly of the Berlin Ethnological Museum. “Benvenuto Celini could not have cast them better, nor could anyone else before or after him. Technically, these bronzes represent the very highest possible achievement.”

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace


......

WHEN FOREIGNERS KNOW, RESPECT, AND APPRECIATE YOUR OWN HISTORY BETTER THAN YOU, IT'S A CLEAR SIGN THAT YOU HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY BRAINWASHED TO HATE YOURSELF AND YOUR BACKGROUND BY COLONISERS, AND YOU ARE A DISGRACE OF A PERSON.

FELA HAD MENTALLY COLONISED PEOPLE LIKE YOU in MIND WHEN HE SANG HIS EPIC SONG, 'COLOMENTALITY'..

Colomentality
E be say you be colonial man
You don be slaveman before
Dem don release you now
But you never release yourself


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6ouP7qRoQ&ab_channel=FelaKuti

SoNature:


You people should stop making baseless assertions on Nairaland.

The most popular states and cities of nigeria are the fastest growing ones; these are Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Nigerians and foreigners invest billions of naira in those places, their governments are doing relatively well, and their real estate industries are about to explode.

fastest growing cities from data is neither what you wrote or what the person you quoted said
https://twitter.com/StatiSense/status/1774093058688053757?t=HylbIhRuFFPJTIjWgFSSjA&s=19

Check the greatest increase in built up area and the cities mentioned

SoNature:


You people should stop making baseless assertions on Nairaland.

The most popular states and cities of nigeria are the fastest growing ones; these are Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Nigerians and foreigners invest billions of naira in those places, their governments are doing relatively well, and their real estate industries are about to explode.

Your talking from your emotions and not your brain

Ofodirinwa:


you could be right, these aren't static things. Owerri is growing faster than any Nigerian city and has been for a while so it makes sense

So with your input i would say

Owerri
Aba
Enugu
Onitsha

in that order.

You people should stop making baseless assertions on Nairaland.

The most popular states and cities of nigeria are the fastest growing ones; these are Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Nigerians and foreigners invest billions of naira in those places, their governments are doing relatively well, and their real estate industries are about to explode.

Tellmeastory:


The MOST IMPORTANT STRUCTURE THERE STILL STANDS.

The Great WALL of Benin, which was in the 1974 Guinness Book of Records, and is recorded as being 4 tmes lomngert than the Great Wall of China, and as being the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet!

Only visible in its entirety from OUTER SPACE!



https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

paramakina202:


Nothing left of your juju empire because it lacked solid structures.The Romans completely destroyed Jerusalam in 70ad but the ruins of that city is still there till today.You can visit the Jewish temples etc....

The MOST IMPORTANT STRUCTURE THERE STILL STANDS.

The Great WALL of Benin, which was in the 1974 Guinness Book of Records, and is recorded as being 4 times longer than the Great Wall of China, and as being ''the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet''!

Only visible in its entirety from OUTER SPACE!



https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

Tellmeastory:


AFRICANS, like other sensible people around the world, built their dwellings with the most readily available materials, ie MUD BRICKS.

What were they supposed to do, ''INVENT STONE QUARRIES''?

in places where stone quarries existed, AFRICANS built with stone. Such as in the Great Zimbabwe ruins, below:




Regarding the greatness of Benin, there is no better proponent of this than the people who destroyed the city - the British:


Benin City, The Mighty Medieval Capital Now Lost Without Trace


Guardian Newspaper, UK

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace


With its mathematical layout and earthworks longer than the Great Wall of China, Benin City was one of the best planned cities in the world when London was a place of ‘thievery and murder’. So why is nothing left?



This is the story of a lost medieval city you’ve probably never heard about. Benin City, originally known as Edo, was once the capital of a pre-colonial African empire located in what is now southern nigeria. The Benin empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in west Africa, dating back to the 11th century.

The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era. According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops [in Egypt]”.

Situated on a plain, Benin City was enclosed by massive walls in the south and deep ditches in the north. Beyond the city walls, numerous further walls were erected that separated the surroundings of the capital into around 500 distinct villages.

Pearce writes that these walls “extended for some 16,000 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They covered 6,500 sq km and were all dug by the Edo people … They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet”.

Barely any trace of these walls exist today.

Benin City was also one of the first cities to have a semblance of street lighting. Huge metal lamps, many feet high, were built and placed around the city, especially near the king’s palace. Fuelled by palm oil, their burning wicks were lit at night to provide illumination for traffic to and from the palace.

When the Portuguese first “discovered” the city in 1485, they were stunned to find this vast kingdom made of hundreds of interlocked cities and villages in the middle of the African jungle. They called it the “Great City of Benin”, at a time when there were hardly any other places in Africa the Europeans acknowledged as a city. Indeed, they classified Benin City as one of the most beautiful and best planned cities in the world.

in 1691, the Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

in contrast, London at the same time is described by Bruce Holsinger, professor of English at the University of Virginia, as being a city of “thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market made the medieval city ripe for exploitation by those with a skill for the quick blade or picking a pocket”.

African fractals

Benin City’s planning and design was done according to careful rules of symmetry, proportionality and repetition now known as fractal design. The mathematician Ron Eglash, author of African Fractals – which examines the patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa – notes that the city and its surrounding villages were purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with similar shapes repeated in the rooms of each house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: “When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganised and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn’t even discovered yet.”


At the centre of the city stood the king’s court, from which extended 30 very straight, broad streets, each about 120-ft wide. These main streets, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water. Many narrower side and intersecting streets extended off them. in the middle of the streets were turf on which animals fed.

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other,” writes the 17th-century Dutch visitor Olfert Dapper. “Adorned with gables and steps … they are usually broad with long galleries inside, especially so in the case of the houses of the nobility, and divided into many rooms which are separated by walls made of red clay, very well erected.”

Dapper adds that wealthy residents kept these walls “as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors. The upper storeys are made of the same sort of clay. Moreover, every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water”.

Family houses were divided into three sections: the central part was the husband’s quarters, looking towards the road; to the left the wives’ quarters (oderie), and to the right the young men’s quarters (yekogbe).

Daily street life in Benin City might have consisted of large crowds going though even larger streets, with people colourfully dressed – some in white, others in yellow, blue or green – and the city captains acting as judges to resolve lawsuits, moderating debates in the numerous galleries, and arbitrating petty conflicts in the markets.

The early foreign explorers’ descriptions of Benin City portrayed it as a place free of crime and hunger, with large streets and houses kept clean; a city filled with courteous, honest people, and run by a centralised and highly sophisticated bureaucracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

Nothing left of your juju empire because it lacked solid structures.The Romans completely destroyed Jerusalam in 70ad but the ruins of that city is still there till today.You can visit the Jewish temples etc....

paramakina202:


That is long story and nothing like inferiority complex, do you know how many foreign powers that invaded egypt? The last to do so was Arabs who now occupied the land.
So tell me any thing of significant left of your juju empire? Millions of touris visit Greece to see Ancient civilization of the Greeks dated thousands of years. Britain destroyed your juju mud houses because it easy to destroy.

AFRICANS, like other sensible people around the world, built their dwellings with the most readily available materials, ie MUD BRICKS.

What were they supposed to do, ''INVENT STONE QUARRIES''?

in places where stone quarries existed, AFRICANS built with stone. Such as in the Great Zimbabwe ruins, below:




Regarding the greatness of Benin, there is no better proponent of this than the people who destroyed the city - the British:


Benin City, The Mighty Medieval Capital Now Lost Without Trace


Guardian Newspaper, UK

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace


With its mathematical layout and earthworks longer than the Great Wall of China, Benin City was one of the best planned cities in the world when London was a place of ‘thievery and murder’. So why is nothing left?



This is the story of a lost medieval city you’ve probably never heard about. Benin City, originally known as Edo, was once the capital of a pre-colonial African empire located in what is now southern nigeria. The Benin empire was one of the oldest and most highly developed states in west Africa, dating back to the 11th century.

The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin City and its surrounding kingdom as the world’s largest earthworks carried out prior to the mechanical era. According to estimates by the New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops [in Egypt]”.

Situated on a plain, Benin City was enclosed by massive walls in the south and deep ditches in the north. Beyond the city walls, numerous further walls were erected that separated the surroundings of the capital into around 500 distinct villages.

Pearce writes that these walls “extended for some 16,000 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They covered 6,500 sq km and were all dug by the Edo people … They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet”.

Barely any trace of these walls exist today.

Benin City was also one of the first cities to have a semblance of street lighting. Huge metal lamps, many feet high, were built and placed around the city, especially near the king’s palace. Fuelled by palm oil, their burning wicks were lit at night to provide illumination for traffic to and from the palace.

When the Portuguese first “discovered” the city in 1485, they were stunned to find this vast kingdom made of hundreds of interlocked cities and villages in the middle of the African jungle. They called it the “Great City of Benin”, at a time when there were hardly any other places in Africa the Europeans acknowledged as a city. Indeed, they classified Benin City as one of the most beautiful and best planned cities in the world.

in 1691, the Portuguese ship captain Lourenco Pinto observed: “Great Benin, where the king resides, is larger than Lisbon; all the streets run straight and as far as the eye can see. The houses are large, especially that of the king, which is richly decorated and has fine columns. The city is wealthy and industrious. It is so well governed that theft is unknown and the people live in such security that they have no doors to their houses.”

in contrast, London at the same time is described by Bruce Holsinger, professor of English at the University of Virginia, as being a city of “thievery, prostitution, murder, bribery and a thriving black market made the medieval city ripe for exploitation by those with a skill for the quick blade or picking a pocket”.

African fractals

Benin City’s planning and design was done according to careful rules of symmetry, proportionality and repetition now known as fractal design. The mathematician Ron Eglash, author of African Fractals – which examines the patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa – notes that the city and its surrounding villages were purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with similar shapes repeated in the rooms of each house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: “When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganised and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn’t even discovered yet.”


At the centre of the city stood the king’s court, from which extended 30 very straight, broad streets, each about 120-ft wide. These main streets, which ran at right angles to each other, had underground drainage made of a sunken impluvium with an outlet to carry away storm water. Many narrower side and intersecting streets extended off them. in the middle of the streets were turf on which animals fed.

“Houses are built alongside the streets in good order, the one close to the other,” writes the 17th-century Dutch visitor Olfert Dapper. “Adorned with gables and steps … they are usually broad with long galleries inside, especially so in the case of the houses of the nobility, and divided into many rooms which are separated by walls made of red clay, very well erected.”

Dapper adds that wealthy residents kept these walls “as shiny and smooth by washing and rubbing as any wall in Holland can be made with chalk, and they are like mirrors. The upper storeys are made of the same sort of clay. Moreover, every house is provided with a well for the supply of fresh water”.

Family houses were divided into three sections: the central part was the husband’s quarters, looking towards the road; to the left the wives’ quarters (oderie), and to the right the young men’s quarters (yekogbe).

Daily street life in Benin City might have consisted of large crowds going though even larger streets, with people colourfully dressed – some in white, others in yellow, blue or green – and the city captains acting as judges to resolve lawsuits, moderating debates in the numerous galleries, and arbitrating petty conflicts in the markets.

The early foreign explorers’ descriptions of Benin City portrayed it as a place free of crime and hunger, with large streets and houses kept clean; a city filled with courteous, honest people, and run by a centralised and highly sophisticated bureaucracy.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/18/story-of-cities-5-benin-city-edo-nigeria-mighty-medieval-capital-lost-without-trace

Racoon:
Same way Remi and Tinubu overhyped Buhari under the same APC

25 years of holding 20 million smart Lagosians by their balls, has he made Lagos better with ordinary water and toilets in their homes

A 45-year-old resident and father of three, Mr.Fatai Lamide told PUNCH HealthWise that no building in the community has toilet facilities.

The Oyo State-born mechanic said, “We don’t have toilet in this area, including our compound. This canal that you see serves as toilet to all of us living in this area. We defecate inside nylon and throw it inside the canal.

“For people that don’t want to use nylon, they have a special bucket that they use after which they pour it inside the canal too.

https://punchng.com/cholera-outbreak-looms-in-lagos-communities-as-residents-use-canal-lagoon-as-toilet/

itubaba001:
Lagos, the commercial hub of nigeria, has been ranking as one of the worst places to live in the world for the nine straight years, a BusinessDay analysis shows.

Data from the 2019 Global Liveability Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the world’s leader in global business intelligence, shows the city has been within the range of 137th-139th position out of a total of 140 cities in the world from year 2011-2019.
>
>
The EIU examines the quality of health care, education, infrastructure, stability, and culture when assessing living conditions of each city. More than 30 factors are taken into account when calculating each rank, which are then complied into a weighted score between one and 100.

https://businessday.ng/uncategorized/article/lagos-ranks-amongst-worst-cities-to-live-in-for-nine-straight-years/

Statisense recently released the stats of the size of the urban areas in each geopolitical zone as of 2023.

The South West, despite being the 2nd smallest geopolitical zone in the country has the largest urban landmass in nigeria at over 9,100km², larger than all other geopolitical zones in nigeria.

in the same twist, the South East which is the smallest geopolitical zone in nigeria (over 2 times smaller than the 2nd smallest geopolitical zone, SW) has a larger urban area than the North West and North East geopolitical zones at over 4,500 km².

in comparison to the total landmass of each geopolitical zone, the South East is the most urbanized geopolitical zone in nigeria with 15.6% of it's landmass being urban. The South West follows as the 2nd most urbanized geopolitical zone in nigeria with 11.65% of it's landmass being urban.

Here is the full stat:

BUILT-UP AREA BY LANDMASS

Urbanization:
1 South West: 9,146 Km²
2 North Central: 6,927 Km²
3 South South: 5,776 Km²
4 South East: 4,521 Km²
5 North West: 3,838 Km²
6 North East: 2,460 Km²


Urbanization: Percentage of Area
1 South East: 15.60%
2 South West: 11.65%
3 South South: 6.77%
4 North Central: 2.99%
5 North West: 1.72%
6 North East: 0.85%

__________
Built Up:
-- Human made structures
-- Major road and rail network
-- Large homogeneous impervious surfaces including parking structures, office buildings and residential housing

Examples: Houses, dense villages/towns/cities, paved roads, asphalt.

#Statisense
(UNDP nigeria, 2023)

https://twitter.com/StatiSense/status/1774390648981877046

https://twitter.com/StatiSense/status/1774096222568984665


Moderators: Mynd44, fergie001 please do the needful.

christejames:
You mean as tiny as Lagos state is compared to other states in nigeria 🇳🇬 together with the huge population, about 66% of the land is still left fallowed? Omonile, we still have more work to do


Imo State even though the second smallest state in the East in terms of landmass with quite a huge population made an impressive developmental impact



Enugu that I think with its level of development and numbers of cities and towns in the state and how popular it is still has more than 90% of fallowed areas ? Well, the state has quite a fair landmass in size; largest in the East.





As for the Northern region, the huge landmass amongst most states made any developmental impact a drop in the ocean ;, so make we cut them some slacks!

lolz I don laff tire on top this ya comment especially that a 'drop in the ocean'

you get mouth shaa

opamoses1:
🇳🇬BUILT-UP AREA BY LANDMASS

Urbanization:
1 South West: 9,146 Km²
2 North Central: 6,927 Km²
3 South South: 5,776 Km²
4 South East: 4,521 Km²
5 North West: 3,838 Km²
6 North East: 2,460 Km²

__________
Built Up:
-- Human made structures
-- Major road and rail network
-- Large homogeneous impervious surfaces including parking structures, office buildings and residential housing

Examples: Houses, dense villages/towns/cities, paved roads, asphalt.

#Statisense
(UNDP nigeria, 2023)

Some parts of Yorubaland is in North central and Benin Republic's ajase

untamedd:


It's indeed cheaper to live in non big cities and non touristy places but you may not like it there. Most of the time, the people and the system there are not used to foreigners so you may find it difficult to integrate or get things done especially with the language barrier.

Personally, I feel the south is the best to live because of the exposure, development and opportunities. I don't know much about Rio but I can tell you about São Paulo in detail.

The city of São Paulo is located in the State of São Paulo and it's just one of the 645 cities in the state. Yes, the state alone is over a quarter of nigeria's land size with a population of 45m. It's very possible to find and live in cheaper cities within the state of São Paulo. You can explore cities that are close to São Paulo city. It's not always a traveling distance, you might just be crossing a street to enter the next city.

There are also cities categorized as São Paulo interior, they are farther from main cities but they are cheaper, you may get bored there too depending on your personality. For example Campos do Jordão, it's a touristy interior city about 3 hrs drive from the city and very hilly, if you like nature, you may like it there.

You may stay in any of these cities and move to SP City later if you want, it's more feasible to move within a state than to move inter state. Brazil is too big that moving from North to South for example will be a big headache. There are places that will take you 3 days by road to get there, even Rio to São Paulo is 7 hrs by road

Another city you can check out is Curitiba in the state of Paraná. It's conducive and relatively cheap.


Rio and São Paulo are expensive especially with accommodation but food and transportation isn't a problem in SP. São Paulo is more developed than Rio but more crowded. São Paulo is the New York of Brazil. Rio is more of an older city with older buildings and lots of graffiti but the people are generally perceived to be nicer.

I hope I answered your questions.

If you want to live in Sao Paulo you can check out these Municipals, it's cheap to live there and they are safe but you have to travel by Train or Bus for 1hr30mins to get to Sao Paulo Grande (Capital)

Maua
Itaquaquecetuba
Itapevi
Embu das Artes
Guarulhos (Some Bairros)
Suzano
Mogi das Cruzes

gammarays:

Just like the Jews and Europeans, they're widely spread across various areas in nigeria with valuable entities to their names.
Turning forests and uninhabitable areas into bustling cities
A blessing from the most High

lol..

You people are never serious.