PART 2: The Igbo and Trauma from Genocides - Wars, Expulsion, the Slave Trade
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Many people read history without paying any attention to dates and historical timeline. When was Ile-Ife founded? The Ife Kingdom lasted from 1200 to 1420, meaning that Oduduwa arrived in Ile-Ife around 1200. HRM Agbogidi Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha, confirmed that the first market in Ile-Ife was set up by the Igbo. With the fall of the Ile-Ife kingdom, the Igbo elements that built the kingdom moved eastwards. That was what the Igbo migration out of Ile-Ife His Royal Majesty the Ooni makes references to. The Igbo were expelled from Ile-Ife.
The Ogiso Dynasty of Benin was set up around 1180. The name Ogiso means "king of the sky" which presupposes that the man came from somewhere. Eweka I, who presided over the kingdom's shift from the Ogiso Dynasty to the establishment of the Obaship, reigned from 1200 AD to 1235 AD, was the first Oba of Benin. Circa 1485, some Portuguese explorers led by João Afonso de Aveiro arrived in Benin when Oba Ozolua (c. 1481–1504) was on the throne.
In 1526, during the reign of Oba Esigie, (1504 – 1550) the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST) began. Oba Esigie’s mother was Queen Idia whose ivory head mask was made famous as FESTAC 77 insignia. This is no ancient history. There is no BC here.
With Portuguese firepower and military assistance, Oba Esigie attacked and enslaved non-Edo people. With this significant advantage in terms of weaponry and tactics, he defeated the Igala in 1516 (and installed an Atta), moved westwards into Yoruba land deposing rulers and installing his own as Oba, including that of Eko, now Lagos. He also moved eastwards to install some of the Obi in some of the Igbo towns like Aboh and Agbor. With the help of the Portuguese, Oba Esigie transformed Benin from a Kingdom to an Empire.
It is instructive to note that it was also during the reign of Oba Esigie that Eze Chima, a very influential Igbo adviser to the Oba was also expelled for allegedly insulting Queen Idia.
With all these military successes, one would have thought that Edo people would have a military tradition like the Jukun, Ohafia, and the Anioma of Ekumeku / Biafra / Nigeria. But there is nothing, no officers of the Nigerian Armed Forces, to show that Benin ever had Edo-born warriors. The British overan Benin in 12 days, February 9, 1897 to February 21, 1897.
For Eze Chima, it was a case of expulsion. He joined hundreds of other Igbos who were displaced from Igala by the Benin invasion. They all moved back on to both sides of the River Niger from whence they came.
The expulsion of the Igbo from the Benin Kingdom marked the commencement of the first genocide inflicted on the Black race, with the Igbo as the most impacted; the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade.
And the stories always ended the same way; suspicion, maltreatment, expulsion, and retreat to home.
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