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Tarano's Posts

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PoliticsRe: Africa's Political Situation Is Caused By The Low IQ Of The People. by tarano: 6:31pm On Nov 30, 2015
It is called social evolution.
PoliticsRe: "Blame Northern-Nigeria Muslim Elites For Boko Haram" - Bishop Matthew Kukah by tarano: 6:27pm On Nov 30, 2015
Well the political shariah just energized "Latent radicals" in the population. politicians should stop playing with religion and ethnicity.
PoliticsRe: What Zamfara Man Saw In Remi Tinubu Five Days Ago by tarano: 6:20pm On Nov 30, 2015
With the way political murders (i.e Audu) are going about will you allow evil people to poison people in your house.
Dude the world is a dangerous place.
Caution is needed.
PoliticsRe: Boko Haram Raids Borno Village Of Foodstuffs Then Sets It Ablaze by tarano: 11:56pm On Nov 06, 2015
Awon elebi...hunger stricken m....f..kers.
LiteratureRe: Bashorun Gaa - Cruel Tyrant Or Misunderstood Freedom Fighter by tarano: 6:43pm On Oct 17, 2015
The Oyo Kings and princes were tyrants and unjust. Bashorun Gaa always play the princes against each other. After the death/suicide of three kings in a roll. The princes consolidated their power and closed ranks. Oyo went through a period of instability... From Abiodun to Arole...
1 Like
PoliticsRe: How Afonja (yorubas) Lost The Ilorin Throne by tarano: 6:25pm On Oct 17, 2015
A study of history of OYO will reveal to you that the Oyo kings were absolute monarchs and largely unjust to their subjects. To curb the excesses of the Alafin of Oyo, some chiefs became very strong and there by stabilize the kingdom. For instance, Bashorun Gaa gain notoriety for cutting Kings who were intoxicated with power to size. Gaa was removing and installing kings at will. He would reel out orders side by side with the king and any king that wanted to assert his authority would be dealt with by Gaa’s Army.

My point is the Oyo Kings just like the Habe Kings, Nupe Kings, Gbari Kings were not fair and just. Revolt was already in the air. From the Egbas to Dahomeh.
PoliticsSen. Umaru Kurfi (APC, Katsina Central) Questions Nominee Kemi Adeosun by tarano(op): 1:50am On Oct 17, 2015

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

Start at 7:50

This baba is thinking in Arabic and explaining it in English... Shame..... confess, shame, shame Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
PoliticsRe: Photos Of Abobaku Senators by tarano: 8:47pm On Oct 06, 2015
CelebritiesRe: Meet The Man Elected To Be Buried With Ooni Of Ife (abobaku) (see Here) by tarano: 8:32pm On Oct 06, 2015
If you want to learn about "Abobaku" read the play "The Death and the King's Horseman" Wole Soyinka


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXgYPOL0gbY
CultureRe: Ijebu Monarch Funso Omo–Ogunkoya Is Dead by tarano: 8:29pm On Oct 06, 2015
If you want to learn about "Abobaku" read the play the "The Death and the King's Horseman" Wole Soyinka



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXgYPOL0gbY
PoliticsRe: Abobaku And The Northernisation Of A Federal Republic, By Steve Ayorinde by tarano: 5:41am On Oct 06, 2015
PoliticsRe: Abobaku And The Northernisation Of A Federal Republic, By Steve Ayorinde by tarano: 5:40am On Oct 06, 2015
PoliticsRe: Abobaku And The Northernisation Of A Federal Republic, By Steve Ayorinde by tarano: 5:39am On Oct 06, 2015
PoliticsRe: Photos Of Abobaku Senators by tarano: 5:37am On Oct 06, 2015
PoliticsRe: Photos Of Abobaku Senators by tarano: 5:36am On Oct 06, 2015
PoliticsRe: Abobaku And The Northernisation Of A Federal Republic, By Steve Ayorinde by tarano: 8:05pm On Sep 23, 2015
If you want to know more about Abobaku read [b]Death and the King's Horseman [/b]play by Wole Soyinka.
PoliticsRe: Photos Of Abobaku Senators by tarano: 8:00pm On Sep 23, 2015
If you want to know more about Abobaku read [b]Death and the King's Horseman [/b]play by Wole Soyinka.
CelebritiesRe: Seun Kuti Curses Any Nigerian Who Defends Politicians Going On Trial by tarano: 8:00pm On Sep 23, 2015
If you want to know more about Abobaku read [b]Death and the King's Horseman [/b]play by Wole Soyinka.
PoliticsRe: Tinubu Dumbfounded Over Saraki’s Victory - Daily Independent by tarano: 9:55pm On Jun 09, 2015
Saraki employed the principle of War. Exploit your enemies weakness and get total defeat. Art of War...Amashing an enemy is comparable to smashing an egg with a bolder...Sun Tzu
PoliticsRe: Respect The Party’s Decision, Oyegun Tells Saraki, Dogara by tarano: 4:41am On Jun 09, 2015
Saraki should be ignored. Saraki is a light weight in national politics. Saraki only controls Kwara central. Saraki will lose. More so Saraki is fulani yoruba. The president is Fulani. The vice president is Yoruba. We don't need a Fulani or Yoruba as the senate president. Let the Senate President be Lawan or Akume.
PoliticsRe: Saraki Boycotts APC Leadership Meeting, Calls Osinbajo A Mere 'Commisioner'. by tarano: 4:38am On Jun 09, 2015
Saraki should be ignored. Saraki is a light weight in national politics. Saraki only controls Kwara central. Saraki will lose. More so Saraki is fulani yoruba. The president is Fulani. The vice president is Yoruba. We don't need a Fulani or Yoruba as the senate president. Let the Senate President be Lawan or Akume.
PoliticsRe: Breaking Rumors: Saraki Dumps APC For PDP by tarano: 6:09pm On Jun 08, 2015
Lawan is Bade. A chadic language.

Akume is a Tiv.
PoliticsRe: Breaking Rumors: Saraki Dumps APC For PDP by tarano: 5:09pm On Jun 08, 2015
Saraki will lose. Saraki is a Fulani - Yoruba from Ilorin. The president is fulani. The vice president is Yoruba. The senate president can not be Fulani - Yoruba. Lawan or Akume should take the senate president.
PoliticsRe: NASS Leadership Tussle: Dogara, Saraki Threaten APC by tarano: 5:08pm On Jun 08, 2015
Saraki will lose. Saraki is a Fulani - Yoruba from Ilorin. The president is fulani. The vice president is Yoruba. The senate president can not be Fulani - Yoruba. Lawan or Akume should take the senate president.
PoliticsRe: APC Seeking Postponement Of National Assembly Leadership Elections by tarano: 5:06pm On Jun 08, 2015
Saraki will lose. Saraki is a Fulani - Yoruba from Ilorin. The president is fulani. The vice president is Yoruba. The senate president can not be Fulani - Yoruba. Lawan or Akume should take the senate president.
PoliticsRe: Saraki Group Rejects APC Primaries As Lawan Emerges Winner, See Press Release by tarano: 3:08am On Jun 07, 2015
Saraki! Saraki!Saraki!

Really Saraki has lost this one. Saraki is a light weight in national politics. Saraki is only relevant when the Northwest is against the Southwest. This guy only controls and dominates 1 State or 1 senatorial district. Which is kwara Central. Not a match for Jagaban.
EducationRe: Funaab Sug President Was Beaten And Harrased By The Nigerian Police by tarano: 3:32am On Jun 03, 2015
That's normal if you want to follow the path of radicals then it comes with a cost. Ask Oshiomole what he suffered to lead against oppression.
PoliticsRe: Proposed National Conference: A Case For Kwara State by tarano: 12:13am On Jun 03, 2015
A pragmatic analysis of “Emir,” “Sarki,” “Oba” and “Chief” in Nigerian English

When I reviewed Nigerian social media chitchat in the wake of the death of the Emir of Kano and the appointment of his successor,
I noticed that Hausa-speaking Nigerians almost never use the word “Emir” to refer to the Emir of Kano when they write in Hausa. They use “Sarkin Kano,” sarki being the Hausa word for king. They only use “Emir” when they write in English.
This seems like an obvious, self-evident, banal observation. But it’s not—at least from a pragmatic point of view. (Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that studies how social contexts affect the meaning of language). To start with, many southern Nigerians invariably associate the term “emir” with Muslim northerners. Many southern Nigerians, in fact, think “emir” is a Hausa word. Yet it isn’t natural for Hausa-speaking northerners to refer to their traditional rulers as “emir” when they converse in Hausa. Saying “emir” while speaking Hausa is generally understood as code-mixing, that is, interspersing a conversation with foreign words.
In other words, “emir” is a foreign word in Hausa. It was introduced to Hausa-speaking Nigerians by British colonizers, which is kind of interesting, even a bit ironic, considering that “emir” is derived from an Arabic word that has historical roots in Islam. As most linguists know, “emir” is the Anglicization of the Arabic “amir,” which literally means “leader” or “commander.”
The successors to the prophet of Islam (called “Caliphs” in Islamic literature) were often called “amir-ul- muminin,” which roughly translates as commander of the faithful (i.e., Muslim faithful). (Interestingly, Hausa people don’t call the most prominent traditional ruler in the Muslim north the Sultan of Sokoto; they call him “Sarkin Musulumi,” which translates as leader of Muslims—obviously a domestication of “amir-ul-muminin”; it’s also more natural for Hausa speakers to say “daular Usmaniyya” than to say “Sokoto Caliphate”).
Well, the linguistic journey of the word “emir” into English was a little tortuous. It was the French who first domesticated “amir” to “émir.» Then the word came to English as a French borrowing. As the reader can see, the English rendering of the world is unaltered from French, except for the dropping of the grave accent on the letter “e.” Etymologists say the first appearance of “emir” in English can be traced to 1593. Another prominent, widely used derivative of “amir” in English is “admiral.” It is derived from the Arabic “amir-ul-bahr,” which translates as “commander of the sea.”
Nonetheless, although “emir” is an English word, it evokes connotations of Hausa-Fulani Muslim overlordship in Nigeria. That is why Yoruba nationalists who want to “reclaim” Ilorin resent the labeling of the traditional ruler of the town as “Emir of Ilorin.” Every so often, Yoruba cultural nationalists spearhead the advocacy for the appointment of an “Oba of Ilorin.”
When I was a reporter for the Weekly Trust in 2000 I was assigned to cover an engineered controversy over the calls for an “Oba of Ilorin.” In the course of my investigation, I spoke with people from all classes of the Ilorin society.
One thing that struck me throughout my stay in Ilorin for the story was that everybody in the town, including members of the ruling family, called their traditional ruler “Oba” when they spoke in Yoruba. “Emir” sounded strange, even forced. Like Hausa people up north, the Ilorin people don’t relate well to the word “emir” unless they are putting on airs or speaking in English.
A particularly insightful encounter for me was an interview I had with an old, uneducated man who identified himself as a descendant of Afonja, the Yoruba founder of Ilorin who lost power to the progenitor of the current ruling family. I asked him if he wanted an “Oba of Ilorin.” He was genuinely befuddled. His response, in Yoruba, was: “what are you talking about? We already have an Oba.” Using the categories that have been popularized by the Nigerian news media, I said, “no, you don’t have an Oba; you have an emir.” His comeback threw me off. He didn’t know what an emir was. “Kilo je be? [what is that?],” he said.
That was when it dawned on me that “emir” is an English word that only western-educated northerners use to refer to their traditional rulers when they speak in English. Just like Hausa speakers call their traditional rulers “sarki,” Ilorin people call theirs “oba.” Every Ilorin person calls the emir’s palace “ile Oba” (which literally translates as “the Oba’s house”). The biggest market in Ilorin, which is close to the emir’s palace, is called “Oja Oba,” which translates as “the market of the Oba.”
So “emir” is rarely used in Ilorin—as in other northern Muslim places—outside official communication and in English-medium conversations. A more appropriate question for the old man should have been “do you want an Oba who is Yoruba rather than this Oba whose ancestors are Fulani?” I actually did rephrase my question like that after realizing that the old man couldn’t relate to the term “emir.”
How about “chief”? In southern Nigeria, a chief isn’t a traditional ruler; he is just someone who has been conferred with a traditional title by a traditional ruler. But Westerners, particularly Americans and Britons, tend to think Nigerians who prefix “Chief” to their names are kings who have dominion over communities. When I lived in the US state of Louisiana about 10 years ago, I read the newspaper profile of a cocky Nigerian resident of a Louisiana city who was described as the “ supreme king in absentia” of three different Nigerian communities because he told his interviewers that he was a “triple high chief,” whatever in the world that means. The editor of the paper was embarrassed when I later told him that a “chief” is merely a traditional title holder in southern Nigeria.
In northern Nigeria, however, “chief” is a politically loaded term and has a completely different meaning. It can mean a non-Muslim traditional ruler of any rank. It can also mean a low-ranked or unranked Muslim ruler in northern Nigeria, usually one whose lineage has no direct link with the Sokoto jihad. Increasingly, Muslim traditional rulers whose status has been elevated prefer to take on the title of “emir” in official documents. For instance, when the recently murdered Emir of Gwoza in Borno State was promoted to a second-class (and later first-class) traditional ruler, his title changed from “Chief of Gwoza” to “Emir of Gwoza.” In northern Nigeria it is offensive to call a Muslim traditional ruler a “chief” if he has been elevated to an “emir.” An acquaintance of mine, who is the son of the traditional ruler of Jere, didn’t take it kindly when I referred to his dad as the “Chief of Jere.” He had recently been elevated to an “emir,” although the people of Jere call him “Sarkin Jere” irrespective of his official designations.
While an “emir” has notional jurisdiction over an “emirate,” a “chief” rules over a “chiefdom.” In my part of Borgu, which is predominantly Muslim with Songhai-descended rulers whose “emirates” predate the Sokoto jihad by more than 100 years, we didn’t get the memo that a “chief” was a somewhat inferior ruler in Muslim northern Nigeria. In my hometown of Okuta, for several years, our traditional ruler was called a “chief” in official communication and his palace was called the “chief’s palace.” Of course, like everywhere else, natives call him “suno,” the Baatonu word for king. When my people became familiar with the pragmatic signification of “chief” in northern Nigerian officialese, they quickly changed the official title of the traditional ruler to “Emir.” The “Chief’s Place” became the “Emir’s palace.”
All this point to the context-dependence of the meanings of the linguistic markers we deploy for everyday communication.
PoliticsRe: Why Do Fulanis from Kwara Like Adopting Yoruba Names: Like Kolapo And Bukola by tarano: 12:11am On Jun 03, 2015
A pragmatic analysis of “Emir,” “Sarki,” “Oba” and “Chief” in Nigerian English

When I reviewed Nigerian social media chitchat in the wake of the death of the Emir of Kano and the appointment of his successor,
I noticed that Hausa-speaking Nigerians almost never use the word “Emir” to refer to the Emir of Kano when they write in Hausa. They use “Sarkin Kano,” sarki being the Hausa word for king. They only use “Emir” when they write in English.
This seems like an obvious, self-evident, banal observation. But it’s not—at least from a pragmatic point of view. (Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that studies how social contexts affect the meaning of language). To start with, many southern Nigerians invariably associate the term “emir” with Muslim northerners. Many southern Nigerians, in fact, think “emir” is a Hausa word. Yet it isn’t natural for Hausa-speaking northerners to refer to their traditional rulers as “emir” when they converse in Hausa. Saying “emir” while speaking Hausa is generally understood as code-mixing, that is, interspersing a conversation with foreign words.
In other words, “emir” is a foreign word in Hausa. It was introduced to Hausa-speaking Nigerians by British colonizers, which is kind of interesting, even a bit ironic, considering that “emir” is derived from an Arabic word that has historical roots in Islam. As most linguists know, “emir” is the Anglicization of the Arabic “amir,” which literally means “leader” or “commander.”
The successors to the prophet of Islam (called “Caliphs” in Islamic literature) were often called “amir-ul- muminin,” which roughly translates as commander of the faithful (i.e., Muslim faithful). (Interestingly, Hausa people don’t call the most prominent traditional ruler in the Muslim north the Sultan of Sokoto; they call him “Sarkin Musulumi,” which translates as leader of Muslims—obviously a domestication of “amir-ul-muminin”; it’s also more natural for Hausa speakers to say “daular Usmaniyya” than to say “Sokoto Caliphate”).
Well, the linguistic journey of the word “emir” into English was a little tortuous. It was the French who first domesticated “amir” to “émir.» Then the word came to English as a French borrowing. As the reader can see, the English rendering of the world is unaltered from French, except for the dropping of the grave accent on the letter “e.” Etymologists say the first appearance of “emir” in English can be traced to 1593. Another prominent, widely used derivative of “amir” in English is “admiral.” It is derived from the Arabic “amir-ul-bahr,” which translates as “commander of the sea.”
Nonetheless, although “emir” is an English word, it evokes connotations of Hausa-Fulani Muslim overlordship in Nigeria. That is why Yoruba nationalists who want to “reclaim” Ilorin resent the labeling of the traditional ruler of the town as “Emir of Ilorin.” Every so often, Yoruba cultural nationalists spearhead the advocacy for the appointment of an “Oba of Ilorin.”
When I was a reporter for the Weekly Trust in 2000 I was assigned to cover an engineered controversy over the calls for an “Oba of Ilorin.” In the course of my investigation, I spoke with people from all classes of the Ilorin society.
One thing that struck me throughout my stay in Ilorin for the story was that everybody in the town, including members of the ruling family, called their traditional ruler “Oba” when they spoke in Yoruba. “Emir” sounded strange, even forced. Like Hausa people up north, the Ilorin people don’t relate well to the word “emir” unless they are putting on airs or speaking in English.
A particularly insightful encounter for me was an interview I had with an old, uneducated man who identified himself as a descendant of Afonja, the Yoruba founder of Ilorin who lost power to the progenitor of the current ruling family. I asked him if he wanted an “Oba of Ilorin.” He was genuinely befuddled. His response, in Yoruba, was: “what are you talking about? We already have an Oba.” Using the categories that have been popularized by the Nigerian news media, I said, “no, you don’t have an Oba; you have an emir.” His comeback threw me off. He didn’t know what an emir was. “Kilo je be? [what is that?],” he said.
That was when it dawned on me that “emir” is an English word that only western-educated northerners use to refer to their traditional rulers when they speak in English. Just like Hausa speakers call their traditional rulers “sarki,” Ilorin people call theirs “oba.” Every Ilorin person calls the emir’s palace “ile Oba” (which literally translates as “the Oba’s house”). The biggest market in Ilorin, which is close to the emir’s palace, is called “Oja Oba,” which translates as “the market of the Oba.”
So “emir” is rarely used in Ilorin—as in other northern Muslim places—outside official communication and in English-medium conversations. A more appropriate question for the old man should have been “do you want an Oba who is Yoruba rather than this Oba whose ancestors are Fulani?” I actually did rephrase my question like that after realizing that the old man couldn’t relate to the term “emir.”
How about “chief”? In southern Nigeria, a chief isn’t a traditional ruler; he is just someone who has been conferred with a traditional title by a traditional ruler. But Westerners, particularly Americans and Britons, tend to think Nigerians who prefix “Chief” to their names are kings who have dominion over communities. When I lived in the US state of Louisiana about 10 years ago, I read the newspaper profile of a cocky Nigerian resident of a Louisiana city who was described as the “ supreme king in absentia” of three different Nigerian communities because he told his interviewers that he was a “triple high chief,” whatever in the world that means. The editor of the paper was embarrassed when I later told him that a “chief” is merely a traditional title holder in southern Nigeria.
In northern Nigeria, however, “chief” is a politically loaded term and has a completely different meaning. It can mean a non-Muslim traditional ruler of any rank. It can also mean a low-ranked or unranked Muslim ruler in northern Nigeria, usually one whose lineage has no direct link with the Sokoto jihad. Increasingly, Muslim traditional rulers whose status has been elevated prefer to take on the title of “emir” in official documents. For instance, when the recently murdered Emir of Gwoza in Borno State was promoted to a second-class (and later first-class) traditional ruler, his title changed from “Chief of Gwoza” to “Emir of Gwoza.” In northern Nigeria it is offensive to call a Muslim traditional ruler a “chief” if he has been elevated to an “emir.” An acquaintance of mine, who is the son of the traditional ruler of Jere, didn’t take it kindly when I referred to his dad as the “Chief of Jere.” He had recently been elevated to an “emir,” although the people of Jere call him “Sarkin Jere” irrespective of his official designations.
While an “emir” has notional jurisdiction over an “emirate,” a “chief” rules over a “chiefdom.” In my part of Borgu, which is predominantly Muslim with Songhai-descended rulers whose “emirates” predate the Sokoto jihad by more than 100 years, we didn’t get the memo that a “chief” was a somewhat inferior ruler in Muslim northern Nigeria. In my hometown of Okuta, for several years, our traditional ruler was called a “chief” in official communication and his palace was called the “chief’s palace.” Of course, like everywhere else, natives call him “suno,” the Baatonu word for king. When my people became familiar with the pragmatic signification of “chief” in northern Nigerian officialese, they quickly changed the official title of the traditional ruler to “Emir.” The “Chief’s Place” became the “Emir’s palace.”
All this point to the context-dependence of the meanings of the linguistic markers we deploy for everyday communication.
PoliticsRe: God Will Punish Afonja For Giving Ilorin To Marauders by tarano: 12:08am On Jun 03, 2015
http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/sunday/index.php/politics-of-grammar/17150-a-pragmatic-analysis-of-emir-sarki-oba-and-chief-in-nigerian-english

A pragmatic analysis of “Emir,” “Sarki,” “Oba” and “Chief” in Nigerian English

When I reviewed Nigerian social media chitchat in the wake of the death of the Emir of Kano and the appointment of his successor,
I noticed that Hausa-speaking Nigerians almost never use the word “Emir” to refer to the Emir of Kano when they write in Hausa. They use “Sarkin Kano,” sarki being the Hausa word for king. They only use “Emir” when they write in English.
This seems like an obvious, self-evident, banal observation. But it’s not—at least from a pragmatic point of view. (Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that studies how social contexts affect the meaning of language). To start with, many southern Nigerians invariably associate the term “emir” with Muslim northerners. Many southern Nigerians, in fact, think “emir” is a Hausa word. Yet it isn’t natural for Hausa-speaking northerners to refer to their traditional rulers as “emir” when they converse in Hausa. Saying “emir” while speaking Hausa is generally understood as code-mixing, that is, interspersing a conversation with foreign words.
In other words, “emir” is a foreign word in Hausa. It was introduced to Hausa-speaking Nigerians by British colonizers, which is kind of interesting, even a bit ironic, considering that “emir” is derived from an Arabic word that has historical roots in Islam. As most linguists know, “emir” is the Anglicization of the Arabic “amir,” which literally means “leader” or “commander.”
The successors to the prophet of Islam (called “Caliphs” in Islamic literature) were often called “amir-ul- muminin,” which roughly translates as commander of the faithful (i.e., Muslim faithful). (Interestingly, Hausa people don’t call the most prominent traditional ruler in the Muslim north the Sultan of Sokoto; they call him “Sarkin Musulumi,” which translates as leader of Muslims—obviously a domestication of “amir-ul-muminin”; it’s also more natural for Hausa speakers to say “daular Usmaniyya” than to say “Sokoto Caliphate”).
Well, the linguistic journey of the word “emir” into English was a little tortuous. It was the French who first domesticated “amir” to “émir.» Then the word came to English as a French borrowing. As the reader can see, the English rendering of the world is unaltered from French, except for the dropping of the grave accent on the letter “e.” Etymologists say the first appearance of “emir” in English can be traced to 1593. Another prominent, widely used derivative of “amir” in English is “admiral.” It is derived from the Arabic “amir-ul-bahr,” which translates as “commander of the sea.”
Nonetheless, although “emir” is an English word, it evokes connotations of Hausa-Fulani Muslim overlordship in Nigeria. That is why Yoruba nationalists who want to “reclaim” Ilorin resent the labeling of the traditional ruler of the town as “Emir of Ilorin.” Every so often, Yoruba cultural nationalists spearhead the advocacy for the appointment of an “Oba of Ilorin.”
When I was a reporter for the Weekly Trust in 2000 I was assigned to cover an engineered controversy over the calls for an “Oba of Ilorin.” In the course of my investigation, I spoke with people from all classes of the Ilorin society.
One thing that struck me throughout my stay in Ilorin for the story was that everybody in the town, including members of the ruling family, called their traditional ruler “Oba” when they spoke in Yoruba. “Emir” sounded strange, even forced. Like Hausa people up north, the Ilorin people don’t relate well to the word “emir” unless they are putting on airs or speaking in English.
A particularly insightful encounter for me was an interview I had with an old, uneducated man who identified himself as a descendant of Afonja, the Yoruba founder of Ilorin who lost power to the progenitor of the current ruling family. I asked him if he wanted an “Oba of Ilorin.” He was genuinely befuddled. His response, in Yoruba, was: “what are you talking about? We already have an Oba.” Using the categories that have been popularized by the Nigerian news media, I said, “no, you don’t have an Oba; you have an emir.” His comeback threw me off. He didn’t know what an emir was. “Kilo je be? [what is that?],” he said.
That was when it dawned on me that “emir” is an English word that only western-educated northerners use to refer to their traditional rulers when they speak in English. Just like Hausa speakers call their traditional rulers “sarki,” Ilorin people call theirs “oba.” Every Ilorin person calls the emir’s palace “ile Oba” (which literally translates as “the Oba’s house”). The biggest market in Ilorin, which is close to the emir’s palace, is called “Oja Oba,” which translates as “the market of the Oba.”
So “emir” is rarely used in Ilorin—as in other northern Muslim places—outside official communication and in English-medium conversations. A more appropriate question for the old man should have been “do you want an Oba who is Yoruba rather than this Oba whose ancestors are Fulani?” I actually did rephrase my question like that after realizing that the old man couldn’t relate to the term “emir.”
How about “chief”? In southern Nigeria, a chief isn’t a traditional ruler; he is just someone who has been conferred with a traditional title by a traditional ruler. But Westerners, particularly Americans and Britons, tend to think Nigerians who prefix “Chief” to their names are kings who have dominion over communities. When I lived in the US state of Louisiana about 10 years ago, I read the newspaper profile of a cocky Nigerian resident of a Louisiana city who was described as the “ supreme king in absentia” of three different Nigerian communities because he told his interviewers that he was a “triple high chief,” whatever in the world that means. The editor of the paper was embarrassed when I later told him that a “chief” is merely a traditional title holder in southern Nigeria.
In northern Nigeria, however, “chief” is a politically loaded term and has a completely different meaning. It can mean a non-Muslim traditional ruler of any rank. It can also mean a low-ranked or unranked Muslim ruler in northern Nigeria, usually one whose lineage has no direct link with the Sokoto jihad. Increasingly, Muslim traditional rulers whose status has been elevated prefer to take on the title of “emir” in official documents. For instance, when the recently murdered Emir of Gwoza in Borno State was promoted to a second-class (and later first-class) traditional ruler, his title changed from “Chief of Gwoza” to “Emir of Gwoza.” In northern Nigeria it is offensive to call a Muslim traditional ruler a “chief” if he has been elevated to an “emir.” An acquaintance of mine, who is the son of the traditional ruler of Jere, didn’t take it kindly when I referred to his dad as the “Chief of Jere.” He had recently been elevated to an “emir,” although the people of Jere call him “Sarkin Jere” irrespective of his official designations.
While an “emir” has notional jurisdiction over an “emirate,” a “chief” rules over a “chiefdom.” In my part of Borgu, which is predominantly Muslim with Songhai-descended rulers whose “emirates” predate the Sokoto jihad by more than 100 years, we didn’t get the memo that a “chief” was a somewhat inferior ruler in Muslim northern Nigeria. In my hometown of Okuta, for several years, our traditional ruler was called a “chief” in official communication and his palace was called the “chief’s palace.” Of course, like everywhere else, natives call him “suno,” the Baatonu word for king. When my people became familiar with the pragmatic signification of “chief” in northern Nigerian officialese, they quickly changed the official title of the traditional ruler to “Emir.” The “Chief’s Place” became the “Emir’s palace.”
All this point to the context-dependence of the meanings of the linguistic markers we deploy for everyday communication.
PoliticsRe: I And My Family Have Changed Our Minds After Listenning To Prof. Osinbajo. by tarano: 2:10am On Feb 17, 2015
Well If Osinbajo was the presidential candidate. No brainer I will confidently vote Osinbajo....bye bye Jona...But Why APC come bring Buhari that can't speak english. Government is not Graagraa.[size=22pt][/size][color=#990000][/color] smiley smiley smiley smiley smiley smiley smiley smiley
PoliticsRe: Another Nigerian Soldier Has Fallen....... by tarano: 10:56pm On Feb 12, 2015
I know it is painful but does anyone know the statistics of the number of Nigerian Police Officer that was killed.

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