₦airaland Forum

adconline:
Terracota.

I am soo sorry for my poor grammar. English is not my first language.” Maybe" is soo unEnglish. Thanks for teaching me.

No need to apologize to me--I didn't teach you how to write, so I can't accept fault or praise for your handling of the language. I do wish people would stop resorting to the old excuse that English is not their papa's tongue though. It's not mine or Chinua Achebe's either, after all. In this area, I'd definitely refer you to Chinua Achebe's expertise and recommend his essay titled "The African Writer and the English Language", which is sitting on my desk as we speak

So, back to the point. You listed some of OBJ's wonderful achievements and I listed some of his failures and you went ballistic.

I know you're eager to score points, but this is a bit too much exaggeration, isn't it? "Ballistic" for where Cool down, man.

A comparison is based on two or more known conditions. Why do I have to prove to you that exchange rate was at @ N88 per dollar before OBJ came into office? Why don’t you provide contrary evidence as I have done?

You ignored any factors that might explain why the naira has depreciated. The elimination of the dual exchange rate/parallel market, where 22 naira bought a dollar for government officials while everyone else paid 85 naira or so being but one reason. Why would I want or need to contradict your faulty analysis? Please--simply provide some proof that Nigeria is at its "lowest level". Otherwise I'll have to assume that this is just typical uninformed, unproven Naija hyperbole, which brings me back to the Tuface-Achebe comparison. A great novelist is no more qualified to gauge economic and social progress than a great pop singer, a great dancer, you (assuming you're not a professional economist, sociologist, or something along those lines) or I. It's wonderful that Achebe has an opinion on Nigeria, but it's not newsworthy when it's backed by little other than personal preferences.

Ninetofive--I'm sincerely happy to see you make it through one post without referencing my ethnicity or your's. Unfortunately, you still haven't added anything useful to the discussion. I appreciate your effort, though.

McKren--right on the money, jare. Anambra's hardly alone in mago-mago politics--Fayose in Ekiti, Alao-Akala and Adedibu in Oyo, Dariye in Plateau, Alams in Bayelsa--the list goes on. Simplistic minds will see the invisible hand of Obasanjo in everything instead of placing blame squarely at the feet of the vampires sucking their states of birth dry. Either way, that old soldier will vacate Aso Rock next month and I'll be tired about debating his pros and cons. Later all.

Egbon--interesting quote . Can you give us a direct link to the original UNESCO page?

Ninetofive--I trust that you will find some kind of ethnic angle in every possible discussion on this website, so I'll probably be ignoring your contributions to this thread. I'll try to address the comparison you made between Russia and Nigeria by quoting from today's Moscow Times: "Corruption is one reason why the government prefers to keep its oil wealth under lock and key, rather than spend it. But fiscal prudence is hard to sell in a country where roads are bad, power cuts are common and monthly pensions average $80.

Helped by high prices for oil, the economy is booming and capital investment is growing at an annual rate of 20 percent.

Few private investors want to upgrade infrastructure that has crumbled since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, however.

The condition of the country's roads has historically been an obstacle to development: There is still not a single paved road linking European Russia with the Far East."

Remind you of any other oil-rich, corrupt country trying to shed the label?

BlackMamba:
What a bunch of crap. I hope you didn't mean to express this, judging that you're literate enough to log on the internet.

If you're literate enough to read what I wrote, you should be able to understand my meaning clearly. Everyone else in this thread seems to have had no problem doing that. Don't waste your time with petty insults when it comes to me--I don't care any more about your opinion than I do about Achebe's. Just debate the issue at hand or watch from the sidelines.

ADConline-- No dearie, I don't live in space . Why is it so hard for you people to stick to the simple-ass topic instead of trying to score some cheap 'humorous' points? I can sit here yabbing your poor grammar all day or we can talk seriously about the meat of the matter. You've made more concrete accusations against OBJ than Achebe did in his statement, which was precisely my point. Whether Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka hate Obasanjo means nothing to me, personally--I don't particularly like the guy either. But I'm not interested in popularity contests and if OBJ naysayers can't provide more evidence that Nigeria is at its "lowest level" than their personal preference, it's not really worth a discussion.

I'd suggest that you make those comparisons and run the figures for us. The onus is on you (or Achebe) to prove your point that Nigeria's at its lowest. Otherwise, it's just more message-board blather with no basis in reality.

4 Play:
You can attack the substance of a man's views without attacking the substance of the man.Like I noted earlier,had Achebe made contrary comments,comparisons with TuFace would not surface.


Nobody has seriously addressed the substance of the comments.The facts alleged have not been challenged nor has the opinion deducted been comprehensively analysed.

All we have is a facile debate about the relative merits and demerits of the political opinion of writers and musicians

Then you've missed my initial issue with his statement by a mile--Achebe's point itself is facile and isn't backed up by anything substantial, hence it is no more deserving of debate than if Tuface had offered the same opinion. On what basis did he compare today's Nigeria to the past? What economic indexes did he consult to show that the country's at its "lowest level"? Where does he suggest that he had done any other intellectual work than grousing about Anambra's political quagmire? Anything about paying off the national debt, putting more than $40 billion in external reserves, liberalizing the banking industry, prosecuting high-level officials for corruption etc? He makes the same point about EFCC and ICPC's "selective" prosecution as many other people, but defends Ngige as the 'people's governor'? Ngige that admitted to stealing the mandate of Anambra, visiting shrines in the dead of night with his godfather to swear away his state's funds? Sorry--this stuff isn't worthy of in-depth commentary. As it is, his piece is on most Nigerian web sites I've visited today, and that's purely a function of his celebrity, not because of some profound truth. If he'd had anything new to add to the discussion about Nigeria, perhaps I'd have something more to say in response

adconline:
Tercotta@
^{His perspective on Nigerian politics is no meaningful than DBanj or Tuface or some other celebrity. In fact, I'd be more likely to listen to those two since they've actually lived through OBJ's two terms in office.}

If u were writing a paper on Nigerian politics and you quoted TuFace and your friend quoted Achebe, your friend would have an authoritative citation because Achebe was involved politically in Nigeria. He was a member of a political organization, wrote a book “The Problem with Nigeria"

Achebe's opinion on politics is no more profound than Obasanjo's opinion on literature. You're mixing up respect for someone's accomplishments in their chosen field with political savvy or analytical accuracy. Writing a book and joining a political organization doesn't make you an infallible expert. OBJ has written several books and is a member of a political organization too, but I doubt that you'd be co-signing his opinion on Achebe, right?

4 Play:
@TerraCotta

Am sure his political views would be more meaningful if they were closer to yours

No more meaningful than your's, Ramsey Nouah's, or Seun's, whether they were closer to my opinion or not. There's nothing special about Achebe's opinion and that's the bottom line.

Coltrane's various "My Favorite Things" renditions are my favorites--very accessible for non-jazz heads, and a beautiful way to show people how to appreciate the improvisation and riffs on a standard tune that characterizes the best jazz.

Other favorites are "In A Sentimental Mood" by Coltrane and Ellington, and "Autumn Leaves" with Miles Davis. Free jazz in general is a little harder to appreciate for me . . .

McKren:
Achebe can say what he wants while we can call what he says nonsense.

Perfectly put. I don't know why people think that just because someone is famous, well-spoken etc., his opinion is more meaningful than the average agbero in the street. Chinua Achebe's one of my favorite writers, but that doesn't make him some political sage. His perspective on Nigerian politics is no meaningful than DBanj or Tuface or some other celebrity. In fact, I'd be more likely to listen to those two since they've actually lived through OBJ's two terms in office.

I see oil bunkerers and Niger Delta rebels full ground here

My brothers--woman no be petroleum o. This una metaphor get k-leg. I know what I know, sha

4 Play:
Queue?She dey sell fuel at official rate?

I get am for low, low insider price.

David---berra jejely take your place behind Jos

JosBoy4Lif:
TOH is the hottest girl on nairaland

JosBoy--get in line, jare. The queue starts behind me

Relax - J*Davey (remake of the best Tribe Called Quest song ever)

There's a great book on the Ohafia war dance and precolonial Ohafia (and related Abam, Abiriba etc.) culture called "Dancing Histories".

simmy:
@dblock
i never said the hausas were superior, i said they FELT superior, and the fact that they were more developed (due to arabic influence) reinforced the feelings of superiority and thts y they refered to the people in the south as 'Yoruba', thugs of the south, or 'our uncouth neighbours to the south',

@ wesleyan A

informative writeup, but your sourceascribed blame of the slave trade to the yorubas, thats a classical case of the whiteman rewriting history. True, yoruba warlords sold off warcaptives to whitemen as slaves, they also could be quite cruel and inhuman in their feelings to their captives, but the yoruba concept of slavery was a million times more human than the western idea of slavery. most of these warlords had absolutely no idea what horrible fates lay in store for the slaves they sold,

Both of these are myths and what linguists call false etymologies (sometimes folk etymologies). That's when the original meaning of a word has been forgotten and people try to make sense of it through guesses. Why would a supposedly Hausa word meaning 'slaves of the king' be explained using a Yoruba translation (Oyo-eru-Oba)? I'm familiar with the Internet source of this story and t's not something that any legitimate historian would endorse.

Neither did Hausas arbitrarily name people, especially when Yoruba are not directly to the south of Hausa-speakers. Nupes, Baribas, and other Middle Belt groups are south of the Hausa, and fought long wars against the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate. So did other Middle Belters like Idomas. Why weren't they also called 'thugs of the south'? Hausa mythology considered Oyo to be related to the Hausa states (specificially the city of Yauri) through the myth of the Hausa bakwai, as someone already mentioned. This was probably for economic reasons, since Oyo was a major trading city-state between the savannah land of the north and the forests of the south. There are similarities between some Oyo markings and some northern groups like the Kanuri, however.

I think the following theory explains the source of the word 'Yoruba' and why it became widely accepted in English-speaking West Africa. It's not the only possibility, but it makes a lot of sense. The similarity between the word 'Yoruba' and the ethnic name 'Oyo' are not coincidental. When Hausas want to describe the inhabitants of a place, they add the suffix 'wa' to the end of the place name. Hence, people from Bornu are Bornuwa, all Hausas are Hausawa etc. It's equivalent to adding the suffix "ian", i.e. Lagosians, Indians and so on. It's possible that the word "Yoruba" is an English version of the Hausa term "Oyo-wa" or "Yowa", i.e. 'people of Oyo'. The Oyo empire was the largest political entity in the Yoruba-speaking area and one of the largest in West Africa during its height, so it would have been the best known city-state to northerners. This origin has been forgotten in Hausa today, probably because the -wa ending was transcribed into English as 'ba'. Phonetic English transcription 'errors' like this are common in Nigerian history--Urhobo was written in English script as Sobo, Izon/Ijaw was spelled Ijo, Itsekiri was spelled Jekri, Igbo was Eboe or Ibo and so on. Oyo-wa or Yowa was likely to have been spelled as "Yoruba" using the English alphabet.

Where did the 19th century Yoruba historians find this compound Oyo-Hausa term? In history books by Muslim scholars like Ahmed Baba. Muslim written history on West Africa goes back to 1000 AD through the tarikhs al-Sudan, much further than European sources, which made them the best historical source for West Africa at that time. It was a conscious choice on the part of pioneering Oyo historians like Samuel Johnson and Ajayi Crowther (even though they were converted Christian missionaries) to adopt the term 'Yoruba' from these sources, which they learned from studying the histories of literate Hausas. The Oyo missionaries knew that the word 'Yoruba' was synonymous with 'Oyo, and it's likely that they thought it would be less offensive to other sub-groups like the Egba or Ijebu if they used a somewhat 'foreign' term to describe the whole group. It's the same rationale (good or bad) that prompted the use of the foreign language of English as the official 'Nigerian' language; it prevents the major or minor ethnic nationalities from feeling dominated by another one.

Through its use in books and by missionaries trained by Ajayi Crowther and co., the term spread to encompass all the other speakers of the same language. As the first group of Nigerians to embrace Western education in large numbers, they wanted to create a cohesive national identity that could be compared to the classical nations like ancient Greece, which were also made up of individual city-states. It took some time though, as Lawani mentioned. People like the Ijesa general Ogendenge and his Ekitiparapo army fighting the Ibadan army (mostly of Oyo ancestry) considered the terms 'Oyo' and 'Yoruba' interchangable even until the late 19th century, and would not have used the word to describe themselves. In the end though, the educated missionaries won out. Today, they are all described as 'Yoruba'.

folem:
Yoruba is claimed by some historians to be an Hausa word describing the Oyo people i.e a corrupted form of [b]Oyo Eru Oba to describe the relationship between the people and the King.
[/b]
Yoruba were a Migrating people and the question to ask next will be - Who are the Aborigines of the Yorubas .
It may possibly be the Igbos and Mitochodrial DNA research may actually be able to tell us that we are all related and then put a stop to ethnic bickerings.

The Masquerade that Moremi found the secret of is actually an Igbo Masquerade.

This is another case of folk etymology (see above) turning into internet myth. Yorubas and Igbos are certainly related (along with Edos, Efiks, Igalas etc.--don't think mDNA's really needed to show that), but not in the way you think. Yoruba and Igbo belong to the same language family along with most southern Nigerian languages. They are related in the same way French and Spanish or Portuguese and Italian are related to Latin, and many of the words have the same meaning. "Forest" in English is "foret" in French, "bush" in English is "bosque" in Spanish. In the same way, the word "Igbo" in Yoruba means "bushes" and/or "forest", and I believe "Ugbo" in Igbo means the same thing. The "Igbo" people described in the Moremi myth literally means "forest people", meaning people from outside the city of Ife who eventually intermarried into the city's population. It does not describe the modern ethnic group called "Igbo", the majority of whom did not use that word to describe themselves until the 19th century anyway. As with the Ijebu, Egba, Ketu etc., "Igbos" considered themselves citizens of Aro, Nri, Aboh, Nkwerre etc. according to their independent village/clan group network. There are studies on this subject too--if people are interested, we can talk about it in a new thread on Igbo origins.

In French-speaking West Africa (particularly Republic of Benin), the ethnic name for what we would call Yoruba speakers is 'Nago', and it developed through a similiar process. The Anago are a "Yoruba" subgroup in the region, and their ethnic name was expanded by the French and the Fon people (the ethnic majority in Benin Republic) to describe all people speaking the same language. It's also the term common in Brazil and Haiti to describe "Yoruba" culture and religion, probably because the earliest Yoruba people in those countries came from the area of this sub-group in Benin Republic and Togo.

ikamefa:
_{*scratching head*} how?

Research. Any other answers will cost you some shots of paraga.

mukina2:
why are you cryin then?

Shey I need your permission to cry

I'm kidding--it was a goal of mine, but it's less appealing lately.

I no be teesha o--I just play one on Nairaland . Not currently a student, either. I'm somewhat involved with the field though.

I have it on good authority that TOH is an undercover Brooklyn-lover. Don't mind her--she knows the whole borough from Brooklyn Bridge to Brighton Beach.

ThiefOfHearts:
by all means please kiss her ass even more.

Apparently that's the pasttime of Brooklyn-ites.

Maybe some Applebottoms are sweeter than others?

I keeeeeeeeeeeed.

ikamefa:
ROFLMAO! " "

Ika--don't mind these country bumpkins. They know Brooklyn's where it's at . . .

At your service:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA0cyUMS5SE

Nay_Low is right--there was no common name for all Yorubas before the 19th century. As with most major ethnic groups in Nigeria, they would have considered themselves as belonging to a city-state or what we think of as sub-ethnicities today--Oyos, Ifes, Egbas, Ijebus and so on. There was no need to have a larger group name, since they were politically independent areas with their own identities. The term Yoruba originally referred only to the people of Oyo, but literate Yorubas (mostly returnees from Sierra Leone who were of Oyo ancestry) like Rev. Samuel Johnson started to use the term to refer to all the people who could understand each other's dialects. In Sierra Leone, they called themselves 'Aku' because the greeting 'Eku ishe" was common to all Yoruba-speakers, so it was a way to identify themselves as ethnically-related amongst all the other groups. Yorubas began to feel a need to identify themselves as a single ethnic nationality because of the 19th century wars against the Fulani, which forced many people into slavery or to take refuge with neighboring groups. After many of these enslaved people were able to make their way back to Nigeria, they wanted to promote the same type of group unity at home that they had abroad. Educated Yorubas like Bishop Ajayi Crowther and Rev. Samuel Johnson consulted with Hausa historians, who were literate in Arabic and had books by Muslim scholars like Ahmed Baba that mentioned Oyo/Yorubas etc. They popularized the word as a description of the whole group in books like "History of the Yorubas".

There has been speculation that the term Yoruba is originally Hausa, as you said. It's likely that it's a version of the name for a northern Yoruba-speaking groups (Yagba or Oyo) that was adopted by the Hausa, just as the term Nago/Nagot in French-speaking West Africa/Brazil/Haiti is used for all Yorubas and adapted for the group name from one Yoruba-speaking group, the Anago. These Anagos were (and still are) from modern-day Benin Republic, and they were among the first Yoruba-speaking people in Brazil, so their ethnic name was used to refer to all people that spoke the same language. However, people still specified where exactly they were from by adding their sub-group name; an Ijebu would call him or herself Nago-Jebu, while one from Ketu would be Nago-Ketu etc.

To give a parallel from another part of the world, Italians considered themselves as citizens of independent city-states--Venetians, Milanese, Romans and so on--until the 1800s, even though they acknowledged their cultural and linguistic ties. Groups of young Italians in the early 19th century started promoting Italian unification to get the country out of the grip of Austrians, Napoleonic France, and other larger nations that had come into their territory, which is how the modern country of Italy was born in the late 1800s after a series of wars. The same thing can be said for countries like Germany and Greece that were formerly independent provinces, cities etc. and went through the same process of unification and developing a group name in the 19th century.

uyai:
the genre is called ndombolo not soukous

You're right, but ndombolo is a sub-type of soukous, just like kwassa-kwassa or old-school rumba. The point is that makossa's from Cameroon, not Congo.

Another decent song/video: Fally Ipupa's Droit Chemin--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA0cyUMS5SE

ov:
U can't compare them with UNITED fans or arsenal fans. UNITED WE STAND UNITED WE FALL

Same could be said for all the Johnny-Come-Lately Man U, Arsenal etc. fans if you ask me. Those clubs have the most groupies because they have winning records, not out of any real loyalty. Abi how many die-hard West Ham fans are there in Naija, talk less of QPR or Crystal Palace? All London sides that nobody gives a toss about, for the most part.

LOL @ people getting defensive in a thread about stereotypes. How does going to the Caribbean determine your knowledge of generalizations about the people You'd probably know and remember more stereotypes about people you've never had any contact with.

Day Tripper - Jimi Hendrix

Vincentians are little more than bootleg Trinidadians.

One of my favorites as well, but the other video for it is way better: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eUfF8PelXkM

"O se, o se baba"

I think Awilo's music is technically soukous, not makossa. Naijas tend to lump it all together, but Congolese music (soukous) is different from Cameroonian music (makossa) even though they're similiar.

I'm terrible at it, but the music's great--salsa, merengue, bachata etc. as well. I'm surprised to see so many classes in Naija.