A recent High Court judgement ‘reverted’ the traditional authority of Lokoja and environs to the Attah of Igala, following a case instituted by the previous Attah over a decade ago, during which only the Attah stool could provide any valid claim backed with documents and simple logic. The Alaafin of Oyo nor Oba of Benin never contested for Lokoja traditional authority.
The closest challengers were the Afroasiatic Emirs of Nupe and Zaria, but you find ignorant Eurocentric separatists trying to drive a wedge between Yoruba and Igala, the two oldest Original African groups – the Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family. In the Separatists superficial, serving attempt to appear as the true Vanguards of the tribe, they end up arrogantly antagonizing potential strategic alliances, like the Original African Kwararafa Confederacy. Just like Nnamdi Kanu abused and alienated Yoruba, Ijaw, Igala and all other members of his Original African family, which only worked in favor of the Afroasiatic and European hegemons.
Igala Empire map
Nupe Empire map
Oyo Empire map
Idah, the capital of Igala kingdom is the next town to Lokoja on the River Niger. Considering that Igala Kingdom was largely a riverine empire that controlled a few hundred miles upstream on both Rivers Niger and Benue from the Lokoja confluence, as well as downstream towards the coast, it is obvious why Oyo and Edo empires could never contest Lokoja.
The British using Lokoja as the initial capital of the Northern Protectorate led to the influx of Northerners. Igalas and other Kwararafans had fought and were in the process of repealing the Fulani/Nupe Jihadists when the British arrived to subject the Original Africans of the Middlebelt and placed them under indirect rule. The Emirs of Nupe and Zazzau(Zaria), the neighboring empires, closer than Oyo and Benin, came to an Afroasiatic hegemonic agreement over the Original African majority that included Yoruba, Ibira, Igala and others, that Hausas would be the paramount monarch, Maigari of Lokoja while a Nupe was to be the Chief Iman, and the Yoruba Olu of Oworro is now a Mallam Mohammed Adoga Baiyerohi that refuses to respect traditions and is a step away from turning it to an Emirship.
Therefore it could only be Igala that are 60% Yoruba and 40% Jukun, the homeland of the Benue Congo subfamily of the Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family, that could rjse to challenge the Afroasiatic robbery, especially since it was taken from the Igala empire.
The Attah of Igala and Olu of Oworro are chosen by the same Ifa divination, so instead of Yorubas being happy that control returned to Ifa, and for Ooni of Ife and Alaafin of Oyo working with the Attah of Igala to uplift and highlight the Olu into an Oba, ignorant Eurocentric separatists issue inflammatory public statements condemning the judgement. Little do they know there is a town called Ife in Igala land, and according to Ifa, Igala are Ogunda, Ogun creations that started and beat the migratory paths out of ‘Eden’ and across the world.
It is obvious how separatists out of ignorance end up doing the bidding of the Afroasiatic North when politicians known to be backed by Afroasiatic North powerbases also attacked the judgement as ‘Igala imperialism’, knowing fully well it was a reversal of Afroasiatic imperialism. Most Africans especially the Eurocentric scholars and seperatists don’t know the cultural geography of the territory they aspire to secede.
If they ever saw the maps of the kingdoms, they would never stand up to defend the undefendable. All the Odua and Biafrans do is go about tribal chest thumping with paper tigers like UNPO and fool the people with a Chinese film plot of one or two regions defeating 4 or 5 regions. They just want their own embassy where they can speak to the White master directly, and not about improving the economic and political existence of the masses.
They don’t even know the fundamentals of their culture, not to talk of its spread. Majority fail to recognize the simple fact that we, the Niger-Congo ethnolinguistic family, are a continuum of dialects that spread from Southern Nigeria to Gambia and South Africa. Initially some authors wrongly claimed that we spread from outside modern day Nigeria into Southern Nigeria, but DNA evidence has unequivocally shown that Yorubas were older than Igala and the spread was from the evolutionary rainforest mangrove coast to the savanna forests of the Middlebelt.
Igala kingdom is the melting pot of various groups to the northeast of Yorubaland, like Edo empire, to the southeast of Yorubaland includes both Yoruba, Igbo and other groups. If Benin was in the same state with Ondo and Ekiti states, it could also have gone to court to assert its historic claims. However, because Edo belongs to the same Original African cultural sphere, it is a needless movement, which is different from the Igala fighting against the Afroasiatic cultural imperialism taking over Original African cultural sphere.
Eurocentric separatists fail to understand that instead of Pan-tribal nationalism that would spill Original African blood for decades trying to cut the continuum of dialects into European styled nationstates, they should look to civilizational boundaries drawn at South Kaduna. Nnamdi Kanu has drove the Biafran movement into a cul de sac by trying to lay claims to other people’s lands. The problem is the colonial mentality that the concept of the nationstate is God given, desirable and justly achievable without leaving some of their tribe behind or taking other people’s land. This is our fathers land and we can’t put a knife to it like the Europeans and Afroasians that cut out territories without regards to the people’s cultural linkages
To put behind the economic and political deprivations of European and Afroasiatic imperialism, we must discard their concepts of caliphates and nationstates, and return to citystates whereby every local government is in direct control of its resources and culture in a continentwide loose confederation. Otherwise we would fight unending wars trying to split, and the only thing our future generations will inherit from us will be guns to continue the sibling warfare, not an industrialized egalitarian society.
A note of caution is that the separatists are not merely driven by ignorance, but sponsored by Afroasiatic and European influences that want to continue their divide and rule tactics. Nigeria can never have a fair and just political system and will continue limping on a one-legged system until the South and Middlebelt unite into a powerbase to serve as a balance to the Northern Afroasiatic powerbase. Original Africans that constitute 70% of the population and the majority in 4 out of the 6 regions. With two powerbases, the Middlebelt will act as the swing states whereby they can stop hegemonic tendencies of either side.
The puppet masters of the separatists push the propaganda that anybody that tries to build strategic alliances with other Original African groups is any enemy to his tribe. The Abrahamic academia and media have intentionally obscured the fact that Original Africans have the same cultural and genetic origins, which is why they downplay African philosophy, religion and culture as pagan, evil and redundant.
If Original African elites that know better shy away from intellectually challenging the wrong rhetoric being pushed by Separatists, we would all end up with the Nnamdi Kanu, Donald Trump and Buhari leadership types. Letting the separatists ill-conceived perceptions go unchallenged won’t only distract from the strategic implementation of our collective aspirations like restructuring. It would lead to distrust, acrimony and even an ill conceived war with our natural strategic allies, as we hear them threaten fire and brimstone in the courts, while working with Afroasiatic interests to incite the masses against Igala.
Well, we hope they don’t mess up the waters for cultural custodians like Ooni of Ife and Attah of Igala to raise the profile of their common traditions in the Olu of Oworro stool, which has been debased and obscured by Afroasiatic rule that put Olu Mallam Mohammed Adoga Baiyerohi in power. The two cultural custodians must continue to work towards the cultural unity of all Original Africans of which they are the two oldest full statured ethnic groups in the world.
