Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Nigeria: Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, Reluctant to Clarify Anti-Igbo Comments

Ibrahim Abdullah

Thanks for the history lesson. It is a very Eurocentric history. No doubt I did not know it. "As an ethnic description, the word "Yoruba" was first recorded in reference to the Oyo Empire in a treatise written by the 16th-century Songhai scholar Ahmed Baba.” (wiki) For your information, the term Yoruba came from Arabic from the encounter with Arabs, not German missionaries and it is almost half a millennium before the German missionaries you suggest invented it— where in the world did you get this fable from, by the way?  When you said the others were Ekitis, Egbas, etc you forget that the Yorubas are a Confederacy and at the height of the Old Oyo empire, its rule was over all those territories that now stretch across Nigeria, Benin, perhaps Togo and beyond. It was the might of the Oyo Empire that Ahmed Baba referenced that protected the Yorubas earlier during the slave trade. To claim that such an empire that thrived as an advanced culture and political system at the time there wasn’t even Germany as a nation and when the English were still Barbarian, to claim it was invented by German missionaries is the very definition of Eurocentrism. As for Ife being mythology: "The dynasty of kings at Ife, which regarded the Yoruba as the place of origin of human civilization, remains intact to this day. The urban phase of Ife before the rise of Oyo, c. 1100–1600, a significant peak of political centralization in the 12th century)^[21][22] is commonly described as a "golden age" of Ife.^[23]"   I would recommend to you the Essay Before Oduduwa.

On 4/8/15, 9:40 AM, "Ibrahim Abdullah" <ibdullah@gmail.com> wrote:

The nomenclature Yoruba was strictly speaking used with reference to Oyo. The others---Ekiti, Egba, Ijebu et al--were not Yorubas. This is basic History 101! The compilation of the Yoruba dictionary by Crowther and his collaborators and the translation of the bible constitute the first steps in that invention from above. But this is not peculiar to the Yorubas. It is also true of the Igbos and Hausa. So what you call ancient Yoruba kingdoms did not exist. The evidence we have of Ile Ife is archeological. Oduduwa is mythical. Only Oyo Ile is grounded in history.
There was no Igbo identity before 1900. What we had in Hausa land was a series of city states---Zaria, Kano, Katsina---that were cobbled to constitute the Sokoto Caliphate by 1810. The Hausa language and Islam were the unifying markers but identity was city centred: BaKanu/BaKatsine /Danzaria et al.
Hope this helps!
Ib Abdullah
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On 8 Apr 2015 13:03, "Bode" <ominira@gmail.com> wrote:

"The Yorubas were invented by German missionaries in nineteen century Freetown---they did not exists before 1870—"

 "Ibrahim Abdullah” 

Could you elaborate on this, Please? The ancient Yoruba Kingdoms, empires and confederacies did not exist before German missionaries came?

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