Right of Reply – Re: Southern Rulers Council by who, for who? 

By JUSTICE FALOYE

In the interest of cultural harmony and enlightenment, ASHE Foundation deems it necessary to answer questions raised by Ochereome Nnanna’s article, ‘Southern Rulers Council by who, for who? Though Ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi responded that the Southern Nigeria Rulers Council is optional, it is necessary to answer some pertinent questions to elevate our collective intelligence from prebendalist tribalism to civilizational reality since people fail to see the point.

 Fortunately, Ochereome Nnanna recognised the need to have a Southern bloc that can demographically challenge Northern hegemony. However, he let his judgement be clouded by snide remarks that Oonirisa was planning to make a Chief of Chief Sunday Igboho, a prominent Modakeke mercenary in the 1998 Ife-Modakeke war, who also personally insulted Ooni Ogunwusi when in 2021 he took up the fight against Fulani herdsmen. 

Comparing the impact of Sunday Igboho with that of Nnamdi Kanu is tribal baiting and blackmail taken far below the level of public discourse expected. The pertinent questions are the necessity of setting up Southern Nigeria Traditional Council and its permanent leadership of Ooni.

Long before President Bola Tinubu came to power in 2023, the Ooni of Ife was the permanent Co-Chairman with the Sultan of Sokoto, of the Nigerian Traditional Council. This decision by the Nigerian State was based on the civilizational reality that Nigeria is made up of two civilizations: Afroasiatic Islamic civilization and Indigenous African (Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa) civilization.

Civilizations are based on shared tribal genetic and cultural origins and values and there are four main civilizations in the world – Western Christian European, Asian Buddhist, Afroasiatic Islamic and Indigenous African Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa.

The Sultan of Sokoto is the head of the Afroasiatic civilization and Ooni of Ife is the head of the Indigenous African Civilization. While the Sultan of Sokoto leadership is based on Jihadi conquest and the genetic closeness of the Fulani to the Arabs, the Ooni of Ife leadership is based on soft cultural power of Ifa and shared genetic origins of Indigenous African peoples.

From the same Enugu State that the monarch questioned Ooni of Ife’s leadership, in a June 7, 2019 visit to Ile-Oodua palace by HRH Igwe Cyprian Mmaduabuchi Nevobasi, Ezeani III of Mmaku, Enugu State and other prominent Igbo leaders, they stated that Yorubas and Igbos were one and if all Black people were Catholics, Ooni of Ife would be the Pope.

According to various global comparative genetic DNA analysis, (S.Tishkoff 2009; S.Mallick 2016) those now labelled Yorubas have the oldest DNA of full sized humans (0.932), followed by Igala (0.931) and then Igbo (0.920) before spreading along rivers to East and South Africa. Before the advent of Abrahamic imperialists, we were one people who not only shared the same genetic origins but spoke the same continuum of dialects and with shared cultural traits like the sixteen sector Indigenous African Knowledge Bank – Yoruba-Ifa, Igbo-Fa, Edo-Iha, Igala Fa etc Oduduwa which cosmologically means Earth, in Igbo translates into Spiritual Leader of the World – Odu D Uwa. All Igbo monarchs called Obi wear an Oduduwa crown from Ife via Edo.

Yoruba and Igbo identities are colonial constructs created by the linguistic tampering of the Niger-Congo continuum of dialects. The word Yoruba initially specifically referred to the Oyo dialect, but the British used Bishop Ajayi Crowther to write a Yoruba Bible in Oyo dialect that was institutionalised through colonial schools and other institutions. Nowhere in Ifa knowledge bank is the word Yoruba mentioned, and was initially rejected by most Yoruba citystates. Bishop Ajayi Crowther was also commissioned to write the Igbo dictionary in which he mischievously used different linguistic rules to make the dialects appear distant and unrelated. Up to 1920s Igbo Union, most Igbo towns resented and rejected the Igbo label.

Like in other civilizations, collective leadership starts with theocracy before evolving into monarchy, constitutional monarchies then Republicanism. However, the evolution from theocracy to monarchy was disrupted by the European inspired slave raids from the banks of River Niger into the Nri heartland, dispersing the Igbo homeland around Onitsha-Aguleri-Okigwe, making Igbos migrate towards the Ijaws and Ibibios where they also joined the slave trade. The modernist claims of Igbo Republicanism and Jewish ancestry is nothing more than a civilizational erasure ruse to blur the genetic and cultural linkages with their neighbours.

Unfortunately, the Abrahamic European colonists left the Abrahamic Afroasiatic civilization united, while they balkanised and erased the indigenous African civilization into divisive tribes with epistemicide and institutional violence.

The Northern Afroasiatic civilization was left compacted in the Northern Protectorate, while the Southern Indigenous African Civilization of the Southern Protectorate was broken into Eastern and Western regions. The civilizational injustice started with wrongly adding the indigenous African peoples of the Middlebelt to the North, where they have suffered policide and genocide ever since then.

Instead of the indigenous African people being civilizationally united to fight for the proper placement of their Middlebelt civilizational kin to increase political demographic power, the colonial elite swallowed the regionalism bait by the British colonists to become divisive Awalokan tribalists that couldn’t challenge the Northern hegemony based on population might that unfairly included the Middlebelt.

It is unfortunate that while other civilizations are rallying together for global positioning in the new incoming multipolar world order, the two most populous indigenous African people, Igbo and Yoruba, are distracted by tribal rivalry.

In a recent speech in Munich, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, received a standing ovation from European political elite when he outlined how the USA, the leading regime of the Western civilization, is rallying civilizational unity to recolonise the Indigenous African civilization. Closer to home, the Afroasiatic civilization has unleashed murderous herdsmen, engage in policide and erasure of our civilization.

Rather than get bogged down in colonially inspired decivilized tribal rivalry, the job at hand before we can get global civilizational parity is to recivilize and unite indigenous Africans after 165 years of colonial psycho-cultural damage. This is why the SNTRC is a welcome step towards civilizational survival, regardless of misgivings of the Tinubu administration.

The response of the Ooni of Ife that SNTRC is optional is true to the indigenous African civilizational spirit that doesn’t forcefully amalgamate other people. In actual fact, the contemporary divisiveness didn’t originate from the paramount monarchs and cultural custodians that know their cultural linkages, but from Eurocentric scholars and prebendalist ‘Awalokan’ politicians.

We must end the sibling rivalry between indigenous African ethnicities that empowers outsiders with divide and rule tools. The Afroasiatic civilization can unite two regions: North-West and North-East for collective aspirations, while the South can’t unite any.

However, if any group or monarch thinks that they are better suited to be the SNTRC permanent chairman, based on civilizational leadership, let them present their genetic and cultural credentials, not based on misguided Western civilizational democratic rules that don’t apply to the Pope, Sultan or other civilizational leaders. Otherwise, let the group create an alternative civilizational grouping and let us see which will be bigger, more efficient and inclusive of the 300 indigenous African ethnicities than that of Ooni of Ife.

For several years, Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has been the Chairman of African Sociocultural Harmony and Enlightenment Foundation Board of Trustees that include Obi of Onitsha, Attah of Igala, Amayanabo of Opobo and Aku Uka of Wukari stools, a think tank set up to increase our collective intelligence required to unify and uplift the indigenous African civilization. This is a task that must be done to prevent African civilizational erasure by other civilizations in the new world order. 

*Prince Faloye is President ASHE Foundation think tank

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