The Southern alliance with the Middlebelt was based on fairness for all at the 2014 Confab. The Middlebelt is the most diverse region with about 300 ethnicities. If we are to follow the Yoruba and Igbo logic that each ethnicity deserves its own political unit, then we should be expecting 300 states, regions or nations.
However, the Middlebelt proposed having 9 states, and probably 2 regions, in order to free them from the unfair Caliphate and British demarcation, that split groups and cultural linkages to different Afroasiatic outposts called regions and states. Southern Kaduna, Taraba, Southern Adamawa and parts of Bauchi deserve to be part of the Middlebelt regions, not northwest or northeast.
The European labelled us Nigeria, the Negro Area, because we are truly the Negro genetic, economic, demographic and economic heartland. We must educate ourselves that despite the thousands of ethnicities that make up Africa, there are only two cultural spheres – Original African (Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family and hunter gatherers) and Afroasians.
While Original Africans come from the same genetic and cultural origins, the Afroasians are products of various Asiatic imperialism that continue cultural annihilation of Original Africans being witnessed in Middlebelt and Northern Nigeria. Therefore it is imperative that all Original Africans in South and Middlebelt unite to protect their collective Original African civilization.
Original Africans, the Niger-Congo ethnolinguistic family, are a continuum of dialects that spread from Nigeria to Gambia and South Africa. They are broken into subfamilies – the Volta-Niger subfamily of Yorubas, Igala, Igbo, Idoma, Gwari etc which are the world’s first family, over 87,000yrs old, that spread from the forests into the grasslands around Rivers Benue and Niger, where the Nok Civilization and the Benue-Congo subfamily evolved Cross and Benue River.
The Jukun-Ibibio corridor appears to be the cultural origin and spiritual center of the Benue-Congo subfamily that consists of two main branches:
The Middlebelt – (or Platoid) languages, spoken mostly in Nigeria, whose well known Kwararafa confederacy was led by Jukun
AND
the Bantoid–Cross languages, spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon and most of Sub-Saharan Africa, since they contain the Bantu languages (through the Southern Bantoid branch).
The Middlebelt consists mainly of the Plateau grasslands languages like the Jukun, Berom, Tarok, Eggon and hundred others. The Middlebelt has an extension of Bantuoid Cross branch which includes the Cross River branch (Ibibio, Efik, Anang) branch and the Bantuoid branch of the Tiv, Chamba and other Adamawa groups that spread into Cameroun, Gabon down Sangha River to the Congo River basin, before filling up East and South Africa.
The Plateau Branch is divided into 3 – plataeu, kainji and grasslands. The plateau includes the Berom, Adara, Tarok of South Kaduna, Plataeu, Nassarawa that should a region. Then we have grasslands of the Jukun and Kwararafa. To the West we have the Kainji groups that have largely mixed with the Southern Nupe Volta-Niger subfamily and the Northern Afroasians.
The Tiv, Chamba and other Adamawa Bantuoid groups are also a region.
Ultimately, we must restructure to enable each group manage its culture and resources to the best of their abilities in a loose confederate of self determined ethnicities.
Distributions of Benue–Congo branches in Nigeria
Cross River branch – Cross River, Akwa Ibom, and Rivers States
Bendi branch – Obudu and Ogoja LGAs, Cross River State
Mambiloid branch – Sardauna LGA, Taraba State; Cameroon
Dakoid branch — Mayo Belwa LGA, Taraba State and adjacent areas
Jukunoid branch – Taraba State
Yukubenic branch – Takum LGA, Taraba State
Kainji branch – Kauru LGA, Kaduna State and Bassa LGA, Plateau State; Kainji Lake area
Plateau branch – Plateau, Kaduna, and Nasarawa States
Tivoid branch – Obudu LGA, Cross River State and Sardauna LGA, Taraba State; Cameroon
Beboid branch – Takum LGA, Taraba State; Cameroon
Ekoid branch – Ikom and Ogoja LGAs, Cross River State; Cameroon
Grassfields Branch – Sardauna LGA, Taraba State; Cameroon
Jarawan branch – Bauchi, Plateau, Adamawa, and Taraba States
