By Aigbokhaleode K. Asimiafele
The issue of ethnic claims of ownership of land in Edo North is an interesting one, to the extent of causing death and wanton destruction of properties, which raise great cause for concern. It is a historical fact that Edo remains the big host of different ethnic groups in the nation, called Nigeria.
Importantly, the history of Edo state or the Bini Kingdom has given Nigeria and the black race a prideful place in the continent and world history. The fact remains that though many people in their wisdom and academic attainments wrote about Benin, what they documented is not enough, but it is good to be thankful to them for what have been done, no matter how little it may be.
Interestingly, Benin studies require funding and research to unearth many unknown aspects of the history and culture of the great people of the present Edo state, Nigeria.
The materials of a research I started thirty years ago are yet to be published due to lack of funds. When published, it would reveal a lot about the greatness of Benin Empire. The title of the work is the “Three Es of African History: Edo, Egypt and Ethiopia.”
Considering, element of historicity, I digress to bring to mind the vital nature and notion of the Northern Edo migration, as it is very vital and necessary for the Nigerian historians to do less on teleology of history. There are seven types of migration to Edo North, which remain fundamental factors of tracing the gazological facts of inter connectedness of each Northern Edo ethnic groups to Bini. Many historians have come with assembly of stories as to what may be the likely reason or reasons for the connectivity. Anthropologists try to situate our historical facts on periodicity to enable our memories decode some of the facts presented or reported.
To a very large extent, the three most vital ethnic groups that have cultural commodities of the Edo in the Northern Edo state are the Esan, Ora and the Unemhe, whether spelt Ineme or not the actual word as spelt and commonly used is Unemhe, which refers to the people while the language is called Uneme. These three ethnic groups have interconnectedness, cultural commonality and linguistic commonality with the Binis and Edo folks generally.
One unmentioned aspect is the common cosmological world view of these people with the Binis, hence their ideologies and cultural norms of ‘don’tism’ or forbidden things are almost the same.
In view of the common misused word of ownership or ‘indigeneship’ of land or place in present days’ volatile events; several factors responsible for migration to Northern Edo can be traced to the Ogisos dynasties that lasted between 900 to 1000 years. During the Igisos era, an Ogiso deployed his power to ascertain the extent of his empire’s power and influence. This stemmed from Ogiso consultation with the traditional oracle to look into the universe to enhance the knowledge of the people that were next to him. To enable him understand whether he actually owns the land from sea to sea.
Ogiso’s enquiry about his territorial space was a common practice in Bini/Edo cosmological philosophy from time immemorial. This is the first aspect of migration that can be noted as migration cum exploration that led to many people’s movement to the West and East of the Bini Empire. Of course, some of the great hunters, medicine men, great fighters and energetic men were sent on this type of mission. Some returned to the King to brief him while some later went back to the new places they discovered, due to the nature of the land suitability for farming or available rivers for fishing and other raw materials for their crafts. This type of cosmological enquiry that led to migration was a natural exploration of various Kings and Empires all over the world. This factor may not have been considered by many of our historians while writing historical facts.
Another factor responsible for migration is expulsion or banishment. This aspect remains a common phenomena in the Benin history, when the system of discipline, law and order was the watch word of the empire. During the empirical days, the judiciary stood for equity and instant justice as opposed to the current situation in the land. As a matter of fact, this is the common happening responsible for the Esan, Ora and Unemhe in the Northern Edo migration from Benin (Edo Empire), though they still strengthen the Kinship system with the Esan, Ora and Unemhe to their commonheritage and commonality of customs, traditions and linguistic relationship.
Chief E.T. Obaigbe Orhewere, states that “banishment, when it was in vogue in Edo land was not pronounced on any person for fun. A number of reasons were put together at the night time to pronounce it on Okpame, and this by implication meant his leaving Edo land, not to any particular destination. It was only so far he moved away from the land to survive or to die,” (page 60).
Okpame, despite being a Prince was banished from the Kingdom. The offence he committed was a great crime, so much that he was not be pardoned inspite of being the son of a King. According to Amu Joe, occasionally, the Oba’s sons and other palace boys were ordered to trim any over grown branches of trees that were supposed to adorn the interior of the palace court yard. This kind of palace duty was under the supervision of Oshodi. Okpame took a matchet, sharpened it and in order to test its sharpness for good job, he went outside the palace premises and chopped off the head of a young passerby. In Amu words, “to test it (the sharpness of the cutlass) he went into the street, and got hold of a beautiful youth and cut off his head,” (page 57).
In many cases, such type of disrespectful crime, which brought disrepute to the throne, attracted the punishment of banishment. His own banishment as a prince was royal in nature because he was shown leniency by being allowed to leave with his retinue of friends. Orhewere, E.T. Obaigbe Chief, states that, “being a prince, he was followed by many people from Edoland. The large group of persons did not necessarily comprise men and women close to him and friends,” (page 60).
Hence, factual crimes like this were part of the reasons and circumstances that led to expulsion of offending folks within the nucleus of the Benin Kingdom. It was such offences that led to the banishment of the Esan and Unemhe folks, though the circumstances varied periodically. E.T. Obaigbe states that Okpame heard some sound, “certain that he had left the domain of some earlier settlers (e.g. the Aigan or Esan people in particular and was confronted with far off land depression on where he went.” Importantly, from the foregoing, one can see the interconnectedness of similar circumstances that befell Ora and Esan folks.
Interestingly, Okpame a banished Prince in the 14th Century who later became a great King, signed a treaty with Umemhe due to their proficiency in iron making and weaponry based on the assessment of great work and fairly large size of people. It is therefore surprising that in present day Northern Edo, the Unemhe whom a banished prince signed a treaty with are being erroneously tagged as people with no land. The questions that comes to a rational thinking person would be- how come he signed a treaty with the Unemhe if they had no land, and was it not because he was banished from his ancestral home, hence he signed a peace treaty with the Unemhe?
Orhewene, E.T. Obaigbe Chief also posits that Okpame correctly accessed the fairly large size of people, their confidence in iron works and friendliness. After due consultation during their short period of interaction, Okpame “signed” a treaty of understanding and cooperation with their leaders. Thereafter, most of the guns, traps, hooks, swords and farm implements used in Odorlerle came from these people- Unemheans. The name iron-smiths produced weapons and tools of various descriptions. Their hoe-blades being greatly patronized by Ora farmers made them refer to the iron-smiths as ‘Ineme no gb’egue.’ There were many more iron products by them, being in great demand (page 97). Evidence of this ancient happy interaction between Ora and Ineme is also found in the many common words in their language. Based on the uniqueness of the cultural commonality of kith and kin from Edo state, the Esan, Ora and Unemhe are closely connected; therefore, telling the Unemhe in this modern age that they are not Edo or have no land is very ridiculous and begs the question about who they are. Okpame’s confidence and friendliness with their iron work made him sign a treaty with their leaders. If in the 14th century Ora and Unemhe were seen as cousins with peaceful co-existence, why did some people rise and invade Unemhe and killed them in the 21st Century while the current Governor of Edo state remain mute to a very wrong claim by the invaders that Unemhe people have no land? As a matter of fact, Esan, Ora and Unemhe dominated the activities of Edo North until about 18th Century.
On the issues of expulsion, record has it according to Egharevba, that “Oba Eweka sent Omorodion or Odion (as he did with some of the quarrelling princes) to be Chiefs of various villages,” (page 85).
Pointing proudly to the Edo history and people’s migration to its northern region, the version of expulsions on banishments or self-exiles were various ways through which our old societies depopulated. Asimiafele, A.K. an anthropological expert found out during a research work that “oral history has it that an Unemhe hunter killed a lion, an elephant and tiger after a tedious hunting expedition and refused to give the heads and tails to the Oba. This angered the throne, who ordered Osagie and Osoro, the chiefs of staff to punish the hunter for disobedience. The news got to the Unemhes and they mobilized and moved out of Benin before the ultimatum date given to the hunter. Only the detachment leaving in the present day Igun Quarters in Benin remained.”
In view of all these embassy of facts that show the various ways the people migrated from Benin, it is not sufficient to say that all migrations went to northern Edo. Some headed to west, east and southern part of the old Benin Empire now the nucleus area of the present Edo state. The relevance of these facts is to put the historical record straight to avert misrepresentation that will result to fallacy. Historical facts and commonsensical evaluations of this issue clearly show the great relationship between the actual originality between these three ethnic groups- Esan, Ora and Unemheans from central to northern Edo.
Another factor is that, the draconian rules and high handedness of a particular King can also provide reasons for mass migration from any Kingdom. In some instances, the death of Eware the great threw Benin into poor administration. According to Eghareva, “Oba Olua was impudent,” though, Eghareva had reasons to describe him as kind and generous; yet he concluded by saying “The Chiefs gave Olua no peace because their sons had been taken to sea coast,” (page 21).
It was this type of bad administration that caused self-migration and disaffection for the throne. Orhewere, E.T. Obaigbe Chief also states that the aforementioned Omorodion, “in consequence, left Benin city in anger, with his family and followers… saying ‘I am going to find abode in Uwoha (or bush) rather than be called (just) a prince in Benin,’…” In short these various issues were really responsible for some of the migration into various parts of the northern area of Edo and other parts of the present day Edo State.
Internal wars were also part of the reasons people also migrated. The great virtue of the Edo Empire rested in very powerful Odions, Ogisos and Obas (Kings) that knew what it takes to build an empire, considering the expansion of old Benin Empire to the present day Ghana. One can imagine the great ambition of the Kings or the rulers of the kingdom in the olden days. Based on traditional law, it was the Oba that led people to battle. The death of the King marked an end to this rule. This encouraged migration when territories were gained. There must be people to take control of the area newly gained area like the Gaza strip presently occupied by Israelis which the Palestinians have been agitating to reclaim over the years to no avail in the Middle East for instance. The Idah Benin war remains an important variable that put people in that part of Edo North, with the Benin Junkuns encounter in Kogi, which caused a great settlement in Northern Edo - Unemhe-Uzannu and Unemhendochi which have boundary with Benue state. These historical facts are very important to younger historians to widen their scope in the pursuit of enquiries into the whys and ifs of Edo (Benin) vital historical greatness.
External wars also caused migration to northern Edo. This was an aspect the Benin considered about 1,000 years before the white fallout shelter system came to the minds of the whites; the Edo had created their moats, which gave maximum security to the kingdom and Empire.
It was external wars of the Nupes or the intense religious wars that attacked the northern part of Edo, which created cultural pluralism in the present Edo North. The invaders came at the time the world history was collapsing in Africa in terms of scramble for Africa, slavery and the Jihad. These factors made the invasion of northern Edo happen easily without formidable resistance force. To a very large extent, this brought about miss-generation and cultural pluralism to the extent that historians are now calling for Edoid, a concept pregnant with confusion of minds and souls. You are either Edo or Benin or others.
Finally, the most significant factor that led to various migrations of folks to northern Edo was the Wilberforcian migration. This term is necessary to advance the course of intellectualism in the discourse of ourselves and our people.
When the British parliament passed the Willberforce law of 1807 abolition of slavery, the legal implication was felt around the world and the oceans of the world were monitored to ensure no ship carries any slave or persons on board as slaves were set free. The consequential effect was that, Nigerians who were waiting in Lokoja to be taken to Lagos onward to West Indies as slaves, were set free. As various ethnic slave-nationalities assembled export were left and set free by this action, many walked to Okene towards northern Edo to settle, as we can be able to see today the varying cultural patterns of such people from the original indigenes of Edo North, as kith and kin of the Benin people are known for their cultural linguistic commonality.
In conclusion, the current issue of Okpella and Unemhe stands to point at the fact that nobody can state categorically that Unemheans have no land in Edo North. The real Edo North folks know themselves. The many migrants we accommodated show the fact we are not wicked people, as Igarra, the local government area, has no common cultural commonality in Edo. The Okpella leader, Chief Afegbua’s physique and facial marks represent those of Zamfara folks, which neither share no traits with Okpame, in Ora, nor Omorodion, Nwoha, Odion of Eraremhe. The simple sense is to let peace reign in Edo north and the entire state, as no one will gain more in banal wars and wanton killing of people and destruction of property as the recent incidence portraying some people as landless is tantamount to wickedness. For such act to rear its head in Edo in this jet age is not good for the image of the state.
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