Category: Banji Akintoye

In the past two weeks, I have highlighted the distinctive existence and virility of the many nationalities that make up our country. The reason for this is that the central government of Nigeria since independence has operated on the dangerous agenda that our nationalities should be subdued and destroyed in order to build a united Nigeria. For this reason, we often hear some prominent Nigerians telling us that we should detest our identities as Yoruba, Igbo, Urhobo, Kanuri, Nupe, etc, and identify ourselves only as Nigerians. For this reason also, the federal government has followed policies aimed at destroying our nationalities – by, among other things, accumulating all power and resource control in the federal centre, by turning the states of our federation into impotent entities, and by banning the teaching of our nations’ histories and languages in our schools. The thinking behind these policies is that when our nationalities’ languages become extinct and we forget our nationalities’ histories, our nationalities will die out and Nigeria will emerge united and strong.

But assuming that we can build Nigeria upon the ruins of our nationalities is a false and dangerous assumption. Countries that are homes for many nationalities are many in the world – such as Britain, Spain, Belgium, India, Switzerland, Indonesia, etc. In some of these countries, the nationalities have lived side by side for hundreds of years. In not a single known case has any of the nationalities died out. In every case, the wise policy pursued is to let each nationality enjoy some freedom or autonomy to manage its life according to its culture – and thereby make its own kind of contributions to the prosperity of the country to which it belongs.

Part of this wise policy is that India restructured its federation properly after independence, allows much autonomy to its states, recognizes 22 national languages and supports their being taught. Even the Union of South Africa has now recognized 11 national languages. Britain pursues a policy of devolution – meaning, giving much autonomy to each nationality. It is only in the countries of Black Africa that the rulers are trying to destroy their indigenous nationalities – and the result has been conflicts and bloodshed. Those who think that destroying our own nationalities in Nigeria is the way to build Nigeria are trying to create a time bomb that may someday destroy Nigeria. It is in the interest of our posterity to resist and stop this evil agenda and make our country pursue the path of sanity.

To show how virile and worthy of respect our nationalities really are, we have looked at our three giant nations – Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. But virility does not belong to these giants only; very many of our smaller nations are strong and respectable too. Today, we will highlight the Kanuri and the Edo.

The Kanuri people in the Lake Chad valley had, by as early as the 14th century, evolved into a large empire, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, ruled by emperors who bore the title of Mai. Very successful farming in the lands of the lake and its rivers made this empire a land of prosperity and thick population. To this prosperity, long distance trade contributed enormously. Northwards, trade routes connected the empire with the Mediterranean territories to the north, and with the lands of the Nile and Arabia to the north-east. With such connections later came the religion of Islam, and with it came literacy in Arabic. Westwards and southwards, trade routes linked this rich empire with the lands of the Hausa and of Mali and, later, of Songhai, and, across the Niger, with the countries of the Yoruba and other forest peoples of West Africa. Before the 16th century, probably most of the trade of the peoples of the country now known as Nigeria with the outside world through the Mediterranean passed through the lands of Kanem-Bornu as centre of exchange. By the late 16th century, the government of Kanem-Bornu maintained regular diplomatic relationships and embassies with the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean world. The court officials of one Mai who ruled in the first years of the 17th century gave the world perhaps the earliest history book written in the interior of West Africa.

This empire suffered some decline in the course of the 18th century. In the early 19th century, the Fulani-led jihad movement in Hausaland made a bid to conquer Kanem-Bornu, but the old empire defended its territories successfully. While defending itself, the empire revived much of its old strength and glory.

Without doubt, by the late 19th century when the European imperialists began to come, this empire of the Kanuris was a coherent and strong state, a state with a lot of proud history. But the British and French empire builders came in the last years of the 19th century, seized the area, set up boundaries of their own making, and created new countries. The heart of the old Kanem-Bornu kingdom was ultimately incorporated into British-owned Nigeria and the rest into French possessions to the east and north. European imperialism thus snuffed out a strong and beautiful nation-state that had existed for many centuries.

Next, we will look at the Edo nation in the deep forest country to the southeast of Yorubaland. Here, the old Edo kingdom of Benin was, by the 19th century, a rich land of commerce, culture, power and pride. Its capital city boasted broad streets, great market centres, a splendid palace and collections of art, gorgeous royal ceremonies, and an impressive system of city walls. Its central province was the homeland of the Edo nation, and its subordinate provinces the territories of Edo-related peoples (like the Ishan and the Afenmai). Altogether, territorially, it was larger than many of today’s nation states of Europe – such as Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and the Republic of Ireland. It undoubtedly commanded a first-rate capacity to become a prosperous nation-state or country in the evolving modern world.

The Benin kingdom had been one of the foremost centres of trade with Europeans along the West African coast since as early as the late 15th century. Benefiting massively from the trade, the kingdom had evolved into a powerful commercial empire, with commercial tentacles reaching out for hundreds of miles in neighbouring counties.

Alarmed by the news of the activities of European imperialist agents in other parts of West Africa in the course of the 1890’s, the Benin kingdom adopted a defensive mode. While still fully welcoming trade with the Europeans, the Benin authorities tried to limit contacts with agents of European imperialism operating on the coast. But the British were already active in seizing territories in West Africa, and were determined to seize the Benin kingdom.

In 1897, the British asked for permission to send a delegation to the Benin palace, and the Benin government refused to grant the permission. In defiance of the explicit Benin refusal, the British sent envoys from the coast to the palace of Benin, accompanied by some troops. Benin’s security forces ambushed and wiped out the intruders. Seizing on that as declaration of war, the British mounted a massive invasion, and overran the Benin kingdom. This proud kingdom was ultimately forced into the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and then into Nigeria – where it became one of the many small nationalities in a large multi-nation country.

Last week we considered the Hausa-Fulani and the Igbo. Today, we consider the Yoruba. The Yoruba are the largest nationality in the tropical forest country south of the valley of the River Niger. In land area and population, they are larger than most of today’s countries in the world. Their distinguishing characteristic in their history has been their urban civilization. Much more than any other people of Black Africa (indeed more than most other peoples of the world), the Yoruba have lived in towns and walled cities throughout the past 1,200 years.

By the time the first European explorers navigated the sea passage to the coast of West Africa in about 1450, most of the large Yoruba towns were already flourishing. In the 19th century, some more towns were founded – like Ibadan, Abeokuta, Shagamu, Modakeke, new Oyo, Aiyede-Ekiti, Oke-Agbe in Akoko, etc.

The first Europeans to penetrate into the interior of Yorubaland did so in the early 19th century. In 1825-6, the English explorer, Hugh Clapperton and his team entered Yorubaland from Badagry and travelled north to the great city of Oyo-Ile near the Niger. What they found surprised them, because it was considerably different from the rest of tropical Africa. Towns existed at short distances from one another in all directions. According to the explorers, many of these towns were “densely inhabited”, and were “remarkable for their cleanliness”. Most were “clean habitations’, were “delightfully situated”, and were approached “through a beautiful walk of trees” or “through a spacious avenue of noble trees”. Very good roads connected town to town. The explorers recorded that the roads were, in many parts, “a long broad and beautiful avenue”, were “as level as a bowling green”, and were well protected and “carefully watched by overseers”.

In the context of this urban civilization, the Yoruba had long developed a very rich economy – in agriculture, artisanship, crafts, manufactures, commerce and the arts. All along the roads, the Yoruba people’s strength as farmers was obvious. The countryside was  richly farmed – with “fields of Indian corn”, “plantations of cotton”, “extensive plantations of corn and plantains”, “rich plantations of yams”, “acres of indigo”. The explorers summed up their impression by writing that the Yoruba were indeed “an industrious race”.

Yoruba crafts and manufactures were highly sought in many parts of tropical Africa. The Yoruba also had the greatest art culture in Black Africa. In every town, the Clapperton group saw large numbers of sculptures decorating public buildings and family compounds. They remarked that the Yoruba people “appear to have a genius for the art of sculpture” and that Yoruba artistic productions “rival, in point of delicacy, any of a similar kind” that they had seen in Europe.

In every town, the explorers saw large and crowded marketplaces where innumerable kinds of merchandise from various ends of the earth were spread out for sale. They counted as many as seven large marketplaces in one large town. On a busy market day, the collective swell of bargaining in any of these marketplaces could be heard from many miles away like the roaring of the sea. Some market places specialized in night-time trading, with every trader using an oil lamp to illuminate her merchandise. When one approached one of such marketplaces in session, it was as if one was heading towards a sea of stars.

Other European and American explorers later in that century confirmed all that the Clapperton group had seen. In particular, these had much to write about Yoruba trade. They were greatly impressed by the ancient Yoruba institution of trade caravan (made up of many traders and their porters travelling together). One British Anglican missionary estimated that a caravan that he travelled with near Ibadan in 1854 consisted of “not less than 4000 persons”. The American missionary, William H. Clarke, who travelled all over Yorubaland in 1854-8, wrote:

“The trade in native produce and art keeps up continual intercommunication between the several adjacent towns, the one interchanging its abundance of one article for that of another. Thus on those smaller routes may be seen caravans of fifties passing almost daily from one town to another, acting as the great reservoirs of trade. (On the longer routes) a network of trade is carried to a distance of hundreds of miles, and with an energy and perseverance scarcely compatible with a tropical people. Hundreds and thousands of people are thus engaged in the carrying trade”.

Clarke added that whenever some caravans happened to merge, “a correct idea of the extent of trade may be found in the imposing numbers that stretch over several miles in length” on the road.

Most of the trading happened in the marketplaces, but there were various types of travelling traders – the owners of the caravans. Two of the richest traders in Yorubaland in the century were women – Madam Tinubu in Lagos and Chief Efunseyitan Aniwura, the Iyalode of Ibadan. The Iyalode owned not only one of the largest commercial businesses in the country but also a large farming enterprise which, in the 1870’s, employed more than 2000 workers. In the port towns of Lagos and Ajase (Porto Novo), very many rich merchants grew up, and some of them even owned shipping lines.

According to the Clapperton group, the Yoruba people lived under very respectable government and paid “the greatest respect to the laws”. Yoruba people were also happy and wonderfully hospitable. “We experienced as much civility from them as our own countrymen would have bestowed upon us in our own native land.” In every town or village, the explorers were thronged by inquisitive crowds who “were, generally speaking, neatly dressed…and very clean in their personal appearance”, and “pleasing in their manners” and self-respecting. The explorers wanted to pay money to young men to carry their ailing leader (Clapperton) in a hammock, but found, in town after town, that no Yoruba youth would do such a thing for anybody; the boys always responded that it was “a task fit only for horses”. However, rich Yoruba folks as well as the chiefs and kings were always ready to help the explorers and to lend them the use of horses.

At the bottom of all this prosperity, order and peace, was Yoruba cultural unity. Though the Yoruba lived in many sovereign kingdoms, they were united by a common culture in language and patterns of life, powerful traditions that “proved” a common national origin and identity, and a common national pride as a superior civilization.

The very sophisticated Yoruba political and governmental system had a significantly democratic character. Unlike among most other monarchical peoples, Yoruba kings were not automatically succeeded by their biological sons, but were selected by their subjects from the pool of eligible princes of the royal lineage. The chiefly lineages also selected the chiefs.  The culture demanded serious respect for the right of speech for all, and had a uniquely strong kind of respect for women. Rich Yoruba women traders were regularly among Yorubaland’s richest and most influential people. And every Yoruba kingdom had traditional women chiefs. All these made the individual Yoruba a confident and freedom-loving person.

The Clapperton explorers noted repeatedly that Yoruba rulers were dignified, professional and highly respectable. William Clarke wrote that, surprisingly, the Yoruba had long mastered the principle and practice of “balance of powers” in governance – probably better than many European peoples.

Then in the second half of the 19th century, the strengths of the Yoruba nation were powerfully reinforced by new, non-indigenous, cultural assets. European Christian missionaries had started to bring the Gospel message and Western education to Black Africa by the middle of the century – and the Yoruba had immediately jumped far ahead of the rest of Black Africa in taking advantage of the Western education. Yoruba language became a written language. By the 1870s, a Yoruba literate elite (of lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists, accountants, etc) had risen and was expanding, and Yorubaland already had newspapers. Among other things, the literate elite initiated a movement of Yoruba Cultural Nationalism which promoted studies and writings in Yoruba culture and history, and which greatly added to Yoruba national unity.

All in all, the Yoruba nation was a large Black African nation absolutely able and ready to evolve into a nation-state or country of its own in the modern world. European imperialism did the horrible harm of pre-empting that. Nigeria is now engaged in the horror of attempting to suppress and destroy the Yoruba nation and other Nigerian nations. Denial, by Nigeria’s so-called “federal” centre, of the existence of the Yoruba and other Nigerian nationalities, and banning the teaching of their languages and histories in the schools, are abominations that can only boomerang someday – to the huge detriment of Nigeria.