Nigeria’s nations or peoples: Who we really are (SERIES) OUR nations and peoples in Nigeria are all going through awful times.It is sad the way our children see the nations and societies in which they are growing up. Every one of our nationalities seem sunk in poverty – depressed, unsure which way to turn, like the huddle of a defeated army. From the largest and strongest of our nations – the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo –to the smallest ones in the Middle Belt and the South-south, the condition is the same. All are going through a fog of disarray. But there is one thing we know for sure – and that is that we have not always been like this. We were not like this before the British came and pushed all of us together into one country called Nigeria. Nigeria has become like a graveyard of all that was good and strong in us before the British made us Nigerians. I will show this by touching upon the lives of a few of our nations prior to our becoming members of Nigeria. I start with the Kanuri nation in our far northeast. The Kanuri are among the most illustrious peoples in the pre-colonial history of Sub-Saharan Africa. About the beginning of the Christian era, they began to establish a number of kingdoms in the country of the Lake Chad. The foundation of this early prosperity was an advanced agriculture, based on the waters and fertile soils of the Lake Chad area. The Kanuri people also developed into fine craftsmen and artisans, and great traders – trading to most parts of West Africa and Central Africa, and northwards to the Nile Valley and the shores of the Mediterranean. All these resulted in the rise of an empire, the Kanem-Bornu Empire. This empire early received Islam and became a great Islamic civilization. Itproduced some of the first books ever written on the soil of Black Africa. By the 17th century, the rulers of Kanem-Bornu regularly established embassies with the rulers of the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean world. By that date, this empire stood equal in many things with the leading countries of the Europe of the time – such as Spain, Portugal and England. Then the Hausa-Fulani nation. The Hausa nation, the largest single nation in the grassland interior of West Africa (the Western Sudan), had, by about the 13th century, established a number of kingdoms in its expansive country, all based on a rich agriculture, livestock rearing, and trade. The products of Hausa artisans and craftsmen were widely sought in the lands of the Sudan. And Hausa traders were very important in the trade of West Africa in general – east with Kanem-Bornu, west with the countries of the Upper Niger, and south with Yorubaland. The trans-Saharan trade also brought wealth and Islamic civilization. Then in the early 19th century, a reformist Islamic movement led by immigrant Fulani people resulted in the unification of Hausaland (henceforth Hausa-Fulani country) into one Sultanate. Following upon this revolution, trade and Islamic literacy and scholarship blossomed. The Hausa-Fulani Sultanate was, by the end of the 19th century, the largest state in the wide Western Sudan, and in all of Black Africa. And finally (due to space limitation), the Yoruba nation. The Yoruba are the builders of the greatest urban civilization in the whole of Black Africa. By the time the first Portuguese explorers came to the coast of West Africa in about 1480, Yorubaland was already the home of tens of large towns, most of them walled. As of that date, no country of Europe could boast of as many towns and cities as Yorubaland. This growth of urbanism enormously advanced Yoruba civilization in general. The first Europeans to enter into the Yoruba interior came in 1825. They described the towns as heavily populated, and as generally “clean habitations” in which public places like palaces and shrines were richly decorated with beautiful works of art. After seeing many Yoruba towns, they concluded that the Yoruba people had “a genius for the art of sculpture”. They described the entry to most towns as through “a spacious avenue of noble trees”, and the Yoruba countryside as a country filled with “fields of Indian corn”, “plantations of cotton”, “extensive plantations of corn and plantains”, “rich plantations of yams”, “acres of indigo”. And they described Yoruba people as “an industrious race”. It was also a land of great productions in crafts, artisanship, and manufactures of various kinds. Cloth and mats woven by the Yoruba were highly sought in most parts of West Africa. So were Yoruba beads and garments. Yorubaland also owned the greatest artistic tradition, and the only naturalistic art tradition, in Black Africa. Yoruba naturalistic art is universally acclaimed today as among the greatest products of the artistic heritage of the human race. A leading modern art historian, Frank Willet, says of Yoruba naturalistic art productions that they “stand comparison with anything which ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Rome, or Renaissance Europe, had to offer”. The 1825 explorers described Yoruba people as very hospitable people. In every town or village, the explorers were thronged by inquisitive crowds, and the people in the crowds were “generally speaking, neatly dressed - - - and very clean in their personal appearance”,“pleasing in their manners”, self-respecting, well-fed and happy. Every king or village ruler whom they met was dignified and professional as ruler – and very helpful. In one town, the Oba was holding a meeting with his chiefs when the explorers arrived. The explorers described that meeting as “the most venerable-looking group of human beings” they had ever seen. Yorubaland was also a land of great trade and great traders. Trade routes interconnected the whole country. Usually, Yoruba traders and their porters travelled together in large groups, orcaravans. An American missionary, William H. Clarke, who travelled extensively in Yorubaland in the 1850s, reported that he met caravans of traders everywhere, and described Yorubaland as “a land of caravans”. He gave some details as follows: “The trade in native produce and art keeps up continual intercommunication between the several adjacent towns, the one interchanging its abundance of one article for that of another. Thus on those smaller routes (between towns) may be seen caravans - - - passing almost daily from one town to another - - -” Then he added that on the long-distance routes across the country,“a network of trade is carried to a distance of hundreds of miles. - - - Hundreds and thousands of people are thus engaged in the carrying trade.- - -.” Each Yoruba town had large marketplaces that were crowded on their market days. When one approached a town where a market was on, one could hear from many miles away the huge humming of voices as if one were approaching the sea. Some marketplaces specialized in night-time trading. Clarke wrote that in all Yoruba marketplaces, one could buy “the articles from the Mediterraneanand Western (European)coasts - - - and the productions of the four corners ofthe globe”. I love telling these stories of our nations. I am thinking of writinga simple little book of these stories for the benefit of our children. It will tell our children how our nations used to be stronger and more prosperous than they now are. It will show them that weare innately better and stronger peoples than we now look. And it will urge them to dedicate their lives to making us, someday, stronger, better and prosperous again.-APATA
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 15:41:57 +0000
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