Royalty: ASHE implores Oba of Benin to push civilizationalism for Black Progress
By Prince Justice Faloye
ASHE Foundation think tank describes as depressing the tide that Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, relieved six Edo chiefs for statements made during a visit to the Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, which were innocently aimed at strengthening civilizational linkages between Edo dynasty and Ife origins. There is no point rehashing the fact that Oduduwa’s great grandson Oranmiyan started the Oba of Benin stool after the Ogiso theocracy had failed for over a century. According to ASHE Foundation, what is important is that the world is run as civilizational blocs, which we, the indigenous Africans need to articulate to unite our own, in order to gain global racial parity, not intra-civilizational monarchial supremacy.
Before the monarchy was established about a thousand years ago, there was the Obatala/Ogiso theocracy, both of which even don’t tell the full story of our common origins as indigenous African people. If Edo monarch has any DNA evidence that shows Edo DNA strain is older than those of Yoruba, computed by Reich Laboratory Harvard Medical School, to have split with San hunter gatherers 87,000 years ago, then it should be in public domain. More so, it’s not about who is older but that we belong to same indigenous African civilization that matters.
A civilization is made up of tribes with common genetic and cultural origins and shared philosophical and moral values, who come together as a bloc to advance their collective economic and political aspirations. The world is made up and advanced as civilizations – Abrahamic (European Christians and Afroasiatic Muslims), Buddhist (Asia) and Indigenous African based on Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa-Efa. The first two are well articulated, united and higher on the global ladder than the unarticulated Original African civilization made up of a continuum of dialects that spread from Southern Nigeria to Southern Africa, but balkanized into divisive tribes and nations by external factors.
Oba Ewuare II is making one wonder whether the guns of Prince Ogun, named Oba Ewuare I, used to subject over 200 surrounding towns, and breakup the Indigenous African civilization, is what is required as we are currently trying to articulate, unite and liberate the Indigenous African civilization from the arrested development of Afroasiatic and European Abrahamic civilizations. Therefore, the divisive colonially inspired ethnic and monarchial supremacy must be shelved to enable the Indigenous African civilization unite to uplift the Black Race.
For all intents and purposes, it is mind boggling how a single citystate can contest supremacy with Yoruba, a collection of several citystates, who all collectively agree that Ife is the origin of their civilization. And not only them, but there are mutual accounts of Ijaws, Igbo, Akan and many others tied to Ife. Unfortunately, Edo and Igala, two single stand alone Citystates armed by European weapons during the slave trade, are still pushing their now colonized military and political supremacy, and thereby preventing the understanding and unification of the two most populous Indigenous African ethnicities, Yoruba and Igbo.
The modern peoples of the indigenous African citystates will always hold their local monarchs as supreme in their political traditional institutions, but they all acknowledge Ooni of Ife, not because the stool is the oldest political traditional stool, but because Ife is regarded as the source of humanity. We have had the monarchies of Oyo and Benin Empires who are revered in our political history, but political institutions come and go, as we now have Nigeria, and only God knows what it will be next millennium. But what will never change is our common genetic and cultural origins, the source of our civilization.
Edo and Oyo kingdoms must refrain from using the Ogun political conglomerates built on slavery to sabotage the Osun unity and rise of the Indigenous African civilization, which will benefit all Indigenous African ethnicities regardless of their political history. This civilizational approach is what the Northern Afro-Arabic ethnicities have maturely adopted to give them hegemonic power over the Indigenous African ethnicities that constitute 70% of Nigeria’s population. If the Bornu Empire had stubbornly stuck to the fact that they were the first Afro-Arabic political institutions, and not unite with the larger populated Sokoto Caliphate, there won’t have been the Northern hegemonic power that gave it seven states in the NE region, more than Sokoto NW region.
Ewuare II should avoid the cycle of aggression within our civilization started by Prince Ogun, Ewuare I, which in the very long term has worked against us as a collective. With the help of European weapons, Ewuare I empire building based on intra-civilizational war had its karmatic effect of the 165 year Olokun cycle, being an Olokun dynasty. The 165yrs from Oba Ewuare produced 7 prosperous kings, followed by 165yrs when slavery and European involvement waned resulting in 7 lackluster kings of disputable lineage. The next 165yrs starting with Oba Akensua brought another 7 kings made prosperous by revamping slaves for arms trade with Europeans, until Benin was conquered and a new cycle of 7 normal kings with limited prosperity without slavery.
Just as the 165yr Olokun cycle that brought the 1849 fall of Ife, and Ojaja the first, is being reversed by Oonirisa Ogunwusi Ojaja II, using his Ogun essence to build Civilizational sociopolitical and economic bridges, and the 165yr cycle of Oyo Atiba from 1856 came to an end with the death of Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, and hopefully we will see more civilizational unity. Therefore we implore the current Oba of Benin to use his Ogun Ewuare essences to positively build civilizational bridges to break the current cycle of seven weak kings, and leave a legacy of continuous prosperity for both future generations of kings and citizens.
JUSTICE FALOYE is the President, ASHE Foundation and Afenifere Deputy Publicity Secretary
