ODUDUWA: A Rejoinder to Chukwu Eke By Femi Olawole Delaware, U.S.A. Since
the beginning of the Yoruba-Bini ethnic origin imbroglio, there have
been several vain attempts by some non-Yoruba and non-Bini individuals
to cash in on the issue. One
such individual was Chukwu Eke who wrote, in the Vanguard of June 3,
2004, an article titled “Oduduwa: Saving history from ethnic
propaganda”. That one
Chukwu, in writing such a ridiculous tale, could jump into a bandwagon
even while being ignorant of its destination did not really come as a
surprise. What else would
one expect of a Chukwu in a matter between the Yoruba and the Bini? I
was however surprised that an organization going by the name Media Watch
Nigeria would forward the Chukwu Eke article to me.
What could have been its motivation?
As champions of an ethnic interest, the faceless members of the
group have their antecedents in a previously failed campaign to make me
answer to a different name (Femi Fani-Kayode).
My first reaction was to wonder if any of my articles in recent
times had made me step on their paranoid ethnic toes again?
It occurred to me that I had not even written anything about the
raging Yoruba-Bini palaver. Therefore
I could only arrive at two conclusions:
That the organization had gone into all that trouble merely to
gloat because I’m one Yoruba they love to hate.
Or they probably have assumed (again?) that I was the writer of
that article parading as Chukwu Eke. As
far as the forwarded article was concerned, here, in a nutshell are my
views: By
writing that piece (Chukwu Eke), being an Igbo man, did not achieve
anything except to shoot himself in the foot.
Although, his primary target was the jugular of the Yoruba
ancestry, he also did not spare the Bini who he described as merely
“having lesser of the Yoruba sin of making spurious historical
claims.” Worse still,
that article, if anything, was not a compliment to the Igbo race.
It was just a confirmation of an oral history that the Yoruba
people, at one time, occupied the land of a people who were branded
“ara Igbo” (bush people), so-called because they lived as barbarians
in the bush. To the Yoruba
of those days, any race of people without a King or organized way of
life was viewed with scorn. Just
as the lawless barbarians of old constituted themselves as a nuisance to
the civilized Roman people, so also did these Igbo (according to the
Yoruba history) constituted themselves as a menace to the Yoruba people
of Ife. These bush people
never followed the norms in warfare.
Rather, they would pretend to be evil spirits while launching
sporadic attacks against the Ife people, mostly women and children in
market places until the matter got to a head.
To unravel the mystery and stop their menace once and for all, an
Ife woman (Moremi), who also had roots in Offa (in the present day Kwara
State), offered to go on a special espionage mission into the Igbo land.
To achieve this feat, she allowed herself to be captured by the
Igbo. The
leader of the Igbo fell in love with the beautiful woman and being a
“woman wrapper” that he was he unwittingly exposed the secret behind
the raffia costume of his women-attacking marauders.
With this secret in hand, the woman escaped from Igbo land to
leak the secret to her people. Upon
their subsequent “visit” the raffia costume of the Igbo marauders
were simply touched with fire and this resulted in their massacre.
The Ife Army subsequently invaded Igbo land, captured their
leader and enslaved the people. If
Chukwu Eke’s article was intended to ridicule the Yoruba, it was
unwittingly a rude joke on his Igbo race.
Here are samplers: 1.
If he (the writer) insists that the name “Oduduwa” is not
legitimate just because the “autochthon (sic) Igbo” he colonized had
a different name for him, are the Yoruba supposed to address their
progenitor by the nickname given to him by the subjects in his colony?
2.
The writer wanted us to accept that the “aboriginal
inhabitants” of Southwest were Igbo. From where then did the Yoruba come to invade them, the
Southeast? In line with
Yoruba history however, the said Igbo marauders were from “Ila orun”
(land of the rising sun). 3.
Quoting ignorantly from one Robert Smith (an American for God’s
sake!), to back his claim, Chukwu asserted that the conquest of the Igbo
had since been celebrated by the Yoruba at the annual Eid festival.
Yet, “Eid” not being a Yoruba word can only be linked to Eid
El Fitril, an Islamic festival.
My
question now is why an Igbo man would gleefully give publicity to such a
self-immolating story all in a vain attempt to make a silly claim that
the Yoruba had their roots in Igbo land?
And going by Chukwu Eke’s “historical excursion”, since
when has a group of conquerors had their roots in a conquered land?
Really, what was Chukwu thinking while writing that article? And what did an ethnic interest-championing group such as the
so-called Media Watch Nigeria expect to gain by forwarding such a
boomerang of an article to me?
And
now that I’ve been dragged into the Yoruba-Bini issue, I might as well
make my own contribution. The
Oba of Benin has spoken. And
the number one descendant of Oduduwa (the Ono of Ife) has disputed the
claims of the Benin King. More
so, all the known and unknown Ph.D holders in History from both sides
have treated us to several academic lessons on the issue.
I would therefore like to be objective here.
In doing so, the views of both sides will be treated as
assumptions, subject to some tests of logic: The
Oba of Benin wrote among other things that, “…Owodo was advised by
oracle, so it was said, to have the son (Oduduwa) executed.
Owodo (unaware that he had been tricked about his son) got the
Oka Odionmwan (the executioner) to perform the act. But the executioner had pity on the son and…let him
off…” In
Lagos of the 1960s, there was a house on Herbert Macaulay Street in
Ebute Metta that had a bold inscription “A JI SE BI OYO” (we who
wake up to imitate the Oyo people).
These words did lend credence to a very interesting adage of the
proud people of the old Oyo empire that “a ji se bi Oyo la nri.
Oyo o se bi enikeni” (we only see those who try to imitate the
great Oyo people. The Oyo
people have no cause to imitate anyone). Let
us now assume, as the Oba stated in his book that Oduduwa was a Bini
prince who ran away to escape from a set up and ended up founding a
place called Ile-Ife where he ruled over the people.
Logically therefore, one would expect the founded town to bear a
Bini name. Going further,
the Yoruba people should have assimilated the Bini culture and in fact
be speaking the Bini language instead of what they speak.
Whereas, there is absolutely no trace of Bini culture in core
Yoruba land. This,
precisely, is the rug or carpet on which the entire argument should
rest. Going
by the Yoruba version of the history however, the relationship between
the Yoruba and the Bini commenced when Oduduwa sent his son, Oranmiyan,
to rule over the Bini. This
has been responsible therefore for the Yoruba cultural presence in Bini
land up till now. Even
there are some highly titled Bini Chiefs and several Bini men and women
bearing Yoruba names. Yet,
there is nothing like vice versa in this scenario.
For instance, there are no real Yoruba with Bini names.
And neither do we see any King in Yoruba land having a title that
has a cultural or linguistic bearing to Bini land.
On the other hand, even the King of Benin is called Oba (a Yoruba
title for King). Does this
not strongly suggest something in support of the Yoruba version of the
History? We
can also draw some examples from Ilorin in Kwara State where the Yoruba
once extended their influence. Till
today, there are many descendants of Alimi (the progenitor of the
Northern ruling house in Ilorin) who are bearing Yoruba names.
Even the current Emir has a Yoruba name.
The mother of Sango, one of the most powerful Aalafin of Oyo
empire was from Tapa land. And
before ascending the throne, the great man once resided in Tapa land.
It’s not surprising therefore to see some elements of the
Yoruba culture among the Tapa people and vice versa till today. There is also the Itsekiri part of Warri where their King
bears a Yoruba title (Olu) and the people speak a language that sounds
like that of the Remo people of Yoruba land.
These are empirical evidences that no one can fault.
It will however be grossly unfair and indeed offensive for
anyone, even a King in Ilorin, Tapa land, Itsekiri or wherever else to
suddenly wake up one day to state that the Yoruba progenitor came from
his part of the world.
Just
last week, some friends (both fellow Yoruba and non-Yoruba alike)
wondered why almost everybody is suddenly embarking on an ego trip at
the expense of the Yoruba. And
my answer was in form of a question:
Which other ethnic group in Nigeria is really worth riding on its
back by a different group? This
clearly explains why some other Nigerians would readily blame the
political, economic and social woes of their ethnic groups on the
Yoruba. The
Yoruba civilization is comparable to those of the old Greeks and the
Romans. Here are a pace
setting people not only in Nigeria but also in the whole of Africa.
As I stated in an article written sometimes in 2003, every Yoruba
kingdom was based on a parliamentary system of government.
The Yoruba were the first to have a textile industry…when many
other Africans were still going about stark naked. The Yoruba were the first to use modern weapons of war such as bazooka, artillery guns and automatic rifles during their intra tribal wars. This was a time others were still going to wars with cutlasses bows and arrows. The Yoruba were the first to adopt a modern military hierarchy from “eso to Are Ona Kakanfo” (soldier to Field Marshal). The Yoruba were the first to have a television station, the first to have an Olympic stadium, the first to build a sky scrapper (Cocoa House), The first to set up Free Primary education etc etc. A people that could achieve all these pace-setting feats have no cause whatsoever to take the historical accounts of their great ancestry from outsiders. More so, when such outsiders are, themselves, victims of identity crisis that borders on inferiority complex. |