The Kwararafa cultural sphere holds the key to progressive Original African unity and global ascendancy. Within Nigeria, it is not only one of the legs of the tripod required to fight European and Arabic imperialism, but it is at the Frontline of the Original African cultural sphere under persistent attack by Islamists and their herdsmen.
Across Black Africa as a whole, we all know that the Bantu Migration theory clearly states that all Central, East and South Africans, known as Bantu, migrated out from Taraba/Adamawa Mambilla area.
Global racist academia and politics has prevented the realization and unity of a wider Original African cultural sphere by refusing to accept the true West African origin of Man despite archeological, genetic and cultural anthropological evidence. From oral traditions, Yorubas and Apa/Jukun, Igede, Agatu peoples are cultural linked just like Jukun-Igbo-Ibibio-Arochukwu connection. The people developed civilizations that extended from the Yoruba to Nok and Sao civilizations.
Abrahamic dogma and Eurocentric scholars have dismissed or covered up all evidence that humanity evolved on the Southern Nigeria coasts. They neglect the evidence that Toumai, the 7.5million year old skeleton found in Chad is the missing link between Man and other hominids. They illogically claim that a Pgymy from Southern African came to breed full statured Negroes in the indisputable cultural melting pot along Benue River, despite being obvious that genetic and linguistic dynamics of Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family flows from the older Volta-Niger subfamily to the Benue Congo subfamily. They conveniently overlook that the nearest conditions of a mangrove rainforest evolution point is in Southern Nigeria instead of a mythical Botswana.
The racist political bias is evident in the political gerrymandering by the British that cut the Original Africans in the Middlebelt to the Northern Protectorate, while dividing the Southern Protectorate that housed the largest Original African groups, Yorubas and Igbos, into West and Eastern regions. This was to ensure that Original Africans could never unite and would be susceptible to divide and rule tactics that will arrest our economic and political ascendancy.
Taraba/Adamawa states are the proto-Bantu homeland and they all speak the Benue-Congo group of languages, which is the largest branch of the Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family covering Black Africa. The Benue-Congo subfamily is divided into 3 subgroups: the Plateau grassland subgroup that extends northwest from Taraba into Plateau and South Kaduna, with further mix with Yoruba/Gwari: the second subgroup, Southern Bantu that extends towards the Efik coast, with further Igbo-Arochukwu mix and the Tiv backflow into Benue and Plateau: the last and largest group was eastward into Cameroon and Chad.
The Beti-Pahun languages of Cameroun are an extension of Taraba/Adamawa Jukunoid languages. The Beti became Fang in Gabon which in turn diffused to become Teke and Kongo of the Congo River basin. The Gbaya and Banda peoples of Central African Republic also state their heartland is in Taraba/Adamawa area. All Central Africans – Gabon, Central African and Congo Republics – trace their origins towards Nigeria.
The oldest Benue Congo languages Jukun, Tiv, Efik, Ibibio evolved between River Benue and Cross Rivers, which is the boundary of the Volta-Niger group of languages that include Yoruba, Igbo, Igala, Nupe, Gwari, Edo, Itshekeri etc. The Benue Congo ethnolinguistic family spread into the Middlebelt as the Berom, Tarok, Eggon and others known as the Plateau group. They also spread to Lake Chad and beyond where the Sara spread from Chad into Central African Republic and onto River Nile where they spread to Egypt and Ethiopia.
Despite the splintering of Nok and Sao civilizations that spread to Chad, the mainly small groups continued to understand and protect their common Original African cultural linkages. Known as Apa in Original African language, the Jukun label was given and popularized by Hausa meaning ‘peoples’. The Original African peoples, Jukun came together in the Kwararafa Confederacy, which fought back Islamists that first came through Lake Chad to overwhelm their Sao civilization.
With the collapse of Original African cultural sphere in Ancient Egypt and Ethiopia, Afroasians came in waves that eventually overran the Jukun Original African stronghold and capital, Ngazargamu near Lake Chad. Ngazargamu became the capital of Kanem Bornu Empire, resulting in Jukun moving southward into Gongola Valley and the Sara into Chad and Central Africa.
With Afroasian Islamists taking over Lake Chad they moved westward to Daura, but continued to face challenges from the various Kwararafa peoples that came together to defend their cultural identity. However being small groups, they gradually fell one after another to the cultural imperialism of the large Islamic cultural sphere. Original African groups like the Jukun, Igala, Idoma, Eggon, Berom continued the Kwararafa resistance based on cultural unity under the Aku Uka of Wukari, the new capital of Kwararafa confederacy. They checked the spread of the Bornu Empire southward, but another Islamic stronghold developed in the Northwest which was more Afroasiatic and aggressive.
The August 21 1415 Portuguese taking over of Ceuta Morocco coast, the beginning of European empires in Africa, led to a squeeze on the Upper Niger – Fulani Futa Jallon economic and political space, which in turn led to an influx of Afroasians into Hausaland from around 1431 under Abur Rahman and by 1491 the first Islamic king, Mohammed Korau in Katina and Mohammed Rumfa in Kano. Hausa evolved as an African pidgin trade language, a mix between Arabic and Original African languages. With Islamic trade barriers and political aggression, a process of Hausanization occurred, whereby for survival and upward social mobility, the Original African groups at the frontier had no choice but to speak Hausa and become Muslims, turning Hausa into the largest Afroasiatic language.
The numbers of Original Africans that lost their language and culture to become Afroasiatic Hausa increased to the detriment of the Original Africans of the Kwararafa confederacy. The regional instability made a lot of groups move towards Central and Eastern Africa. Most important was the failure of the two largest Original African groups, Yoruba and Igbo, to their South to back them and protect their collective Original African cultural sphere being eroded by the Arabic Islamic cultural sphere.
Worst than the indirect effect of Europeans on Afroasians across the Sahel, the Volta-Niger subfamily from which the Benue Congo subfamily, who could have boosted their numbers and muscle, were preoccupied with Christian European enslavers, dumping guns on their coasts to provoke anarchy and an arms race necessary for the trans Atlantic slave trade. At the end of it all, the British took the whole area and named it Nigeria. Being cultural imperialists of the same Abrahamist cultural sphere, the British favored and strengthened the Northern Islamists by breaking up the Original African cultural sphere, adding Kwararafans to the Northern Protectorate while breaking the Southern Protectorate into East and West.
Original Africans can never get true economic and political justice without articulating and unifying the Original African cultural sphere. The question is what are the unifying cultural traits that must be imbued into our collective Original African consciousness. The first is the popular understanding that we Southern and Middlebelt peoples all originated from the Southern coasts.
The second is the understanding that our languages are a mere continuum of dialects from Nigeria to Gambia and South Africa. The third is the popular understanding that we share the same Original African Information Retrieval system aka Ifa-Afa-Iha-Eha-Fa, the world’s first religion and database which formed the basis of our social organization, history, science, morals and philosophy.
The fourth is the understanding and robust defense of our naturally evolved belief system based on laws of retributive justice is the highest moral standard, higher than Abrahamic messianic justice. The fifth is the understanding that all civilization, past and present, are built on our Original African knowledge bank – modern medicine from Obaluaye/Osanyin, iron and steel started here around 2000 BC while the latest technology, computer technology is based on the 256 pulses of our Original African Information Retrieval system.
The sixth is the understanding and use of our leopard and crocodile cultural totems and institutions. The seventh is the understanding and fight for our collective aspirations, which is the protection and self determination of our cultural, political and economic identity preferably within a loose continentwide confederacy.
It is the duty of the paramount monarchs/cultural custodians of each ethnicity, like Ooni of Ife, Eze of Aguleri, Aku Uka of Wukari, Attah of Igala, Jaja of Opobo, Tor Tiv, Obong of Calabar etc, to teach their peoples about their Original African cultural linkages. The Yoruba versus Igbo, Wukari versus Tiv must stop. Rather than myopic Pan Tribalistic perceptions, which can’t singlehandedly stand against the giant European and Arabic cultural spheres, the custodians and other stakeholders of the Original African cultural sphere must empower their people with their cultural linkages that can help build strategic Original African alliances to save the cultural sphere.
A strategic Original African political alliance will account for over two thirds of the population and can democratically push their collective sociopolitical and economic interests. Without it, they will continue to be powerless and rely on divide and rule games.
Yoruba, Igbos and others should see and defend their Original African cultural boundary as Southern Kaduna and Bauchi, not their tribal demarcations. The motto should be ‘touch one Original African group, touch all’ otherwise they will be picked one after another over time. With the overwhelming population advantage, the cultural and political aggressors will back down and behave like true minorities that they are.
It is imperative we become conscious at the change of Ages and Civilizations brought about by a cascade of events started by Corona Virus that will see all global political and economic systems crash for the emergence of a new global social order based on Justice and a global Black ascendancy, the Age of Shango.
