Cultural Wars and
National Identity
- The Saga of the
Yoruba and the Bini-Edo
By
Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD
Alukome@aol.com
Burtonsville, MD, USA
May 19, 2004
_____________________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
Recent discussions about the relationships - or non-relationship - of the Yoruba
and the Bini-Edo have been quite interesting, but in some instances pretty
disconcerting.
On April 29, 2004 at the Lagos launching of his
forty-year-in-the-making autobiography, "I remain, Sir, Your Obedient Servant",
the Omo N'Oba N'Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Oba Eradiauwa, threw a stink-bomb onto the
Yoruba cultural space by claiming on Page 205 that the Yoruba progenitor Oduduwa
was really the run-away prince Ekaladerhan from Igodo (Benin), then being ruled
by his father Ogiso Owodo who ascended the throne about 1068. Ekaladerhan,
reportedly born in 1070 and exiled in 1084, the story was that about 70 years
later, still without a royal male heir to rule after the death of Owodo, a
pleading Bini-land sent off to now Ooni of Ife Oduduwa to be their king.
Pleading old age, he instead sent his (oldest or youngest?) son Oranmiyan
(alternatively called Oranyan, and according to the Bini, corrupted from the
Bini name "Aigbovo Omonoyan.") Unable later on to assert his royal authority
despite the invitation, Oranmiyan reportedly left Bini-land in 1163 AD after two
years and returned to Ife in anger, but not before re-naming Igodo(migodo) "Ile-Ibinu"
(the land of anger) and sir-ing a son Eweka, who, being born by a Bini princess
on Bini soil, became accepted as the first Oba of Benin Eweka I around 1180.
[Oranmiyan was by tradition reported to move on to found Oyo - or was it his son
Oranyan?]
The dynasty of the Ogisos thereby gave way to the dynasty of the Obas around
1180 AD.
This story has been told before, no doubt, but coming anew in writing from the
Omo N'Oba in the year 2004 has been a little too much to bear for the Yoruba.
Certainly, the Ooni of Ife, Alaiyeluwa Oba Okunade Adele Sijuwade (Olubushe II)
would hear none of it - and promptly denounced it as he was obliged to as
modern-day hagiography - nor would the eminent Professor of History Jacob F.
Ade Ajayi, who has now been commissioned by the Yoruba Council of Elders (Igbimo
Agba Yoruba) to do a scholarly rebuttal
Mind you, the Oduduwa-Oranmiyan-Eweka connection between Ife and Benin from the
side of the Yoruba history is also well-agreed, but to the Yoruba, certainly
Oduduwa came from the Eastern Sky on a Chain from Heaven. In short, the Yoruba
are uncertain where he came from, but he certainly did not come with a Bini
twang, breathing heavily with would-be-executioners on his tail. To make such a
claim smacked of both cultural hegemony and imperial arrogance on the part of
the Bini-Edo - not to talk of a hint of monarchical superiority - a notion now
assigned to a disingenuous attempt to permanently re-write history on the part
of the Omo N'Oba. Whether the mythical Oduduwa-from-the-Sky (in Yoruba
creationism) got conflated with a human Oduduwa who later performed political
and mystical wonders at Ile-Ife - as speculated by E. Bolaji Idowu - remains a
mystery, which the Bini cannot, should not, dare not thereby try to solve for
the Yoruba.
The Bini (not the Edos actually) are free to make all kinds of cultural claims,
but are not free to annoy the neighboring people around them - the Urhobos,
Itsekiri, Etsako, even the Ishan and Owan, or the Yoruba for that matter. In
fact, as some of the discourse has since revealed, some of these neighbors, even
those termed "Edoid", have over the years tactically been bailing themselves out
of these "neo-colonial" claims.
THE INFLUENCE OF EMPIRE AND MIGRATION
The fact of the matter is that otherwise autochtonous but geographically-nearby
indigenous people have, over many centuries, received waves and waves of Bini
immigrants. These immigrants were displaced either because of internal
oppression within Bini-land (whether as Igodo, or Ile-Ibinu, or Ibini or Ile or
Edo), or else assigned as resident overseers after numerous external aggression
campaigns during various great empire periods of the Ogisos (ending with Owodo
in about 1091) and of the Obas (starting with Eweka I in about 1180), with an
interregnum of non-royal administrators. This statement is not a reflection on
the Bini people but on their monarchs; it is axiomatic that the history of
people should not be confused with that of their monarchs, nor should the
villainy of the monarchs be confused with that of their often-time
victim-subjects.
These indigenous peoples have naturally been influenced by both Bini language
and culture, only later to be described as "Edoid" by foreign linguists seeking
patterns of language, much to the chagrin to those who know, but strangely
welcomed by some of them who are ignorant of their own hi-story,. Sometimes
"high-story" has thereby turned into "low-story." To have what has been
classified an "Edoid" language does not make you "Edo" just as to have a
"Germanic" language does not make you German, or "Slavic" language make you - a
Slave! :-)
The Etsako language and the Bini language are for example mutually
unintelligible, but they are both classified "Edoid" because fragments of Bini
language and culture can be found in Etsako-land (Afenmai)! The very Bini
language description "Ivbiosakon" ("The people who file their teeth") from which
"Etsako" is purportedly derived is either the complimentary appellation of a
commendable hygienic practice, or else the derogotary characterization of a
primitive engagement.
On the other hand, the Urhobo appear to trace their migrant relationship to the
Bini to the Ogiso period that is notoriously remembered in their folklore. In
fact, to them there is this one single proverbial "Ogiso" whose first wife was
the troublesome "Inarhe", making all troublesome Urbobo women "Inarhes"
according to Urhobo men. Whether this Ogiso was Iwodo whose "amazon" wife
Esagho tried to get her stepson and heir to the throne, the 14-year-old
Ekaladerhan, killed on wrong accusation of infanticidal witchcraft is unknown
and unknowable - or is really one of two female Ogisos (out of a total of 31) -
is purely my speculation!
My point is that the Bini to many of these people are like what the English are
to say Wales, Scotland and (Northern) Ireland. Outside the UK or Great Britain,
"British" or "English" are virtually the same, to the unknowing or to the
careless or carefree. For example, many of the British colonialists were Welsh
and Scotsmen, but who cared? They were all "Oyibo" to many a Yoruba, although "Geesi"
became "English" as the Yoruba got wiser to their antics. But call a "Welsh"
person "English", and watch out: he might just punch you out!
EPILOGUE
In all my cyberspace contributions on this interesting saga - which predate this
latest Ooni/OmoN"Oba royal spat - I have borne in mind my own proud triple
heritage as an Ekiti-Yoruba (on my father's side, from Ode), Western Ijaw (on my
mother's father's side; from Ikoro) and an Owan-Edo (from my mother's mother's
side; from Arokho). My maternal grandfather's mother was Itsekiri and his
first two wives were Itsekiri before he married my Owan grandmother, so the
Itsekiri culture is strong, almost overwhelming in my mother's family. My first
four years in life were spent at Ekpoma (Ishan-land), ward of my grandmother
while my parents went abroad to seek the "golden fleece". So I spoke Esan
before I could speak a single word of Yoruba.
Consequentaly, my abiding principle has been simple: any
cultural people can make all kinds of INTERNAL CLAIMS that they want, however
fantastic, including their progenitor climbing down a chain from Heaven (as the
Yoruba claim Oduduwa to have done). However, they must be VERY CAREFUL to be
sensitive when such claims cross their own cultural borders and intersect the
history of others, else they degenerate into claims of superiority or
inferiority, which are the first bus stop to hatred and wars, which we really
cannot afford.
For example, I cannot prove or disprove whether Oduduwa and Ekaladerhan are the
same person or not. But for the Bini, particularly a high person like the Omo
N'Oba, to make such an assertion without being able to prove it - and to make it
so positively - is to invite major angst, which will not go away very soon.
We should all remain vigilant, and confront with class and civility any attempts
at cultural hegemony and revanchist internal re-colonization. All of these have
some bearings on what it really means to be at the same time both a local
indigene AND a national citizen of Nigeria with inalienable rights. It is
the lack of resolution of these knotty issues that has had some disastrous
consequences in Ife-Modakeke, Aguleri-Umuleri, Warri (among the Urhobos, the
Itsekiris and the Ijaws), in Ogoni-land, in Zaki-Biam as well as in
Yelwa-Shendam, just to name a few ethnic hotspots in Nigeria,
By the way, in closing, I am not a monarchist, and would not miss a moment of
sleep if the Obas and Emirs and Obi/Ezes etc. all walked away from their thrones
and shed their bejewelled crowns. But that should be the democratic choice of
their "subjects" who currently tolerate them, not mass regicide by decree.
Best wishes always, and farewell to these particular arms.
_____________________________________________________________________________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlukoArchives/message/297
The Benin-Ife Connection - Oba Erediauwa
April 29, 2005
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlukoArchives/message/292
Ooni Faults Omo N'Oba's Claim on Oduduwa
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlukoArchives/message/311
How the Oba of Benin Goofed - by the Ooni of Ife
May 2, 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlukoArchives/message/316
"You Can't Just Wake Up and Say Oduduwa was a Benin Prince " - Prof. J. F. Ade
Ajayi
May 16, 2004
http://www.waado.org/UrhoboHistory/Addresses_Lectures/Ogiso-Oba.htm
"Ogiso Times and Eweka Times: A Prelim History of Edoid Complex of Cultures (I)"
By Peter Ekeh [Fourth Chief Jacob U. Egharevba Memorial Lecture, under the
auspices
of the Institute for Benin Studies, 14 December, 2001]
http://www.edofolks.com/html/pub74.htm
The "Ile-Ibinu" Question by Nowa Omoigui
"Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief", E. Bolaji Idowu (1994; Wazobia Press.) First
published in 1962
