By Prince Justice

The Igbo-Ijaw, Tiv-Jukun and other territorial rifts are the greatest threat to the unity of Original African civilization unity necessary to uplift Nigeria and the Black Race as a whole.

Fortunately, as a people we have eventually completed the collective intellectual Israelites journey to understand that only the unity of South and Middlebelt groups can successfully challenge Northern Afro-asiatic and European imperialism.  At this point we, Original Africans, must seat down to articulate our true political and cultural linkages to resolve disputes and strengthen our unity. Therefore regardless of the anticipated barrage of criticisms, we must endeavor to tell the truth to our Original African civilization brothers and not be afraid to offend any section/group as long as it’s the truth.

The greatest obstacle to the empowering South and Middlebelt unity is the Abrahamic cultural imperialism that misconstrued our histories and colonially inspired a Pan Tribalistic perspective which is divisive to our Original African civilization. Fortunately, recent DNA, linguistics and other anthropological evidence has shown without an iota of doubt that South and Middlebelt groups are a mere continuum of dialects that belong to the same genetic and cultural origins, and civilization, that spread across Africa.

Modern humans and civilization originated on the south coasts of what is now Nigeria. While Ijaws remained on the coast, as firstborns of Oduduwa as recounted by renown Ijaw historians like S.K Owonaru, according to DNA evidence a larger group migrated inland that later differentiated into Yoruba, Igala, Igbo, Nupe, Gwari known as the Volta-Niger subfamily of Niger Congo ethnolinguistic family. For thousands of years, we stayed at the fringes of the rainforest where we could still get wild Yams while we slowly developed grassland agriculture. Our population grew and diverged along the Niger-Benue where another language family evolved between Niger and Cross Rivers to spread into the Plateau grasslands and across Africa known as the Benue-Congo subfamily. 

Basically, the South and Middlebelt groups are genetically and culturally one people, who evolved into different dialects as they dispersed over tens of thousands of years, but whose respective initial social organization was based on Ifa-Afa-Iha-Eha-Fa, and have the same genetics, cultural foundations and worldview. Our economics and trade was geared towards the Trans Sahara trade route, so our population centered and dispersed towards the North. Therefore it wasn’t until Europeans arrived tens of thousands later with trade that we started facing the coast that was sparsely populated by those that sold salt, fish and cowries since antiquity. 

The European slave trade from the 1500s made Igbos disperse from their Nri civilizational heartland in today’s Northern Igboland around Aguleri-Awka-Owerri-Abakaliki triangle towards the coast where they met the Ibibio and Ijaw. So Igbo claims of owning the Ijaw or Ibibio coastlines is imperialistic to serve the purpose of getting a port for the Biafra dream, which sadly is the continuation of Original African sociopolitical derailment and change from citystates to territorial states inspired by the slaves for arms trade, as fully discussed below. 

The derailment and disunity of our Original African civilization didn’t start with the 1900s Awolowo-Azikwe pre-independence era, nor with the 1800s Kiriji Wars, but from the 1400s advent of European Christian imperialists. Some will argue that it started in the 800s AD arrival of Arabism at Lake Chad and establishment of Bornu, but from evidence of Kwararafa Confederacy, the Original African civilization was united in challenging and repealing the Afroasians. The Afroasiatic arrival ultimately didn’t bring new weapons to start an arms race to change the citystate political structure of the Original African civilization as a whole. The Jukun-Tiv rift belongs to the subsequent period of European imperialism. 

It was the advent of gun trotting Europeans that indirectly and later directly struck the disabling blow to the Original African civilization. The 1415 European takeover of Ceuta Morocco, the main trade post of Afroasians where they sold West Africa gold and products, caused a ripple effect by making the Senegambia Afroasians, like Fulani, to migrate to the source of goods if they could no long control the port outlet. Yorubas and other Original African groups sold gold and other products to the Hausa who sold it to the light skinned Afroasians, so the Afroasians immediately migrated to Hausaland and Northern Nigeria to take it over around 1430 and by 1491 had the first Islamic kings, Mohammed Korau in Katsina and Mohammed Rumfa in Kano. This resulted in a push southwards both by Original groups running from the new harsh regimes, as well as the Afroasiatic regimes looking for slaves, thus increasing militarization of the subregion, albeit calvary. 

It was the Europeans dumping of guns on the Western Africa coasts and riverbanks from early 1500s that was to corrupt and shift the Original African civilization based on citystates, to territorial kingdoms and empires. The most popular historical recount of direct intervention was the arming of slave soldiers from Sao Tome to back an illegitimate prince to become Mane Kongo, named King Alfonso who gave Europeans unfettered access to carry out slave raids in the Kongo hinterland which later led to an uprising and destruction of the Kongo royal Court, thereafter shifting regional power to Ngola to its South. 

In what became present day Nigeria, the most devastating action was the dumping of guns on River Niger, which broke up the agelong Kwararafa confederacy that had held at bay Afroasiatic cultural imperialism, as Igala sought to establish its own independent polity. Apart from the well known wars between Igala and Benin, the ancient Nri civilization was derailed as groups on the Rivers Niger and Benue and the coast got guns to raid the Ndigbo heartland and population center in the Onitsha/Aguleri – Owerri – Abakaliki triangle.

Every human society evolves from being a theocracy to become a monarchy, a process whereby leadership moves from a meritocratic hierarchical system based on those that push and sustain civilizational ideals, to one whose leadership is based on dynastic inheritance of the leadership throne. Despite the egalitarian ideals of the theocratic system, it couldn’t withstand the foreign civilizational onslaughts as good as the monarchial system whose heirs to the throne will continue to uphold and fight for the system under attack even from exile. 

In Edo, the theocracy of Ogiso had evolved into Olokun dynastic of Obas, just as Oduduwa had led Ife and Yoruba land from Obatala theocracy. This is why across the Niger the Original African civilization survived when Nupes attacked Oyo citystate, leading to the shift of the royal Court to Igboho in 1520s, and its return to build what became Oyo Empire with the 1535 establishment of the Aare Onakankanfo stool and expansive military infrastructure. This began the fundamental change from culturally linked citystates of the Original African civilization that existed for tens of thousands of years to one based on territories for exploitation of human and natural resources. A change from an Osun system of shared ancestry and brotherly love to one of Ogun, ferocious war. 

With Benin and Oyo citystates dragged into the arms (Ogun) for slaves (Osun) race and territorial expansion, constrained by the arms buildup across the rivers, they set on forcefully amalgamating citystates towards the Ife center. At the point that Ife was to be overwhelmed, like in Kongo 300yrs earlier, the whole Yorubaland imploded into the longest Civil War only ended with British colonization. Though the monarchial system had spread to Onitsha, Awka and northwestern fringes of the Ndigboland, the attacks on the Nri civilization from groups on Rivers Niger/Benue led to the mass Igbo emigration towards the coast where they took over traditionally Ibibio trade post on Cross River to create the Arochukwu Confederacy. To the South Central/Niger Delta, the influx of Igbo slaves and establishment of new slave canoe houses led to destabilize the subregion. 

The destabilization of the area led to the Tiv move from between east of Cross River and Cameroun mountains northwards into Kwararafa Confederacy already split into two with the Igala and Idoma Volta-Niger groups on one side and the Jukun Benue Congo subfamily towards central Nigeria and Plateau groups. Initially the Tiv fought alongside the Jukun and Kwararafa peoples to repeal Fulani Afroasiatic invasions, however British colonization froze and institutionalized the imbalances created by the guns for slaves anomalies of 300yrs, creating problems till today with a false sense of Pan Tribalism instead of the pre-slavery pre-1400s civilizational perspectives and cultural unity of the citystates. 

While the West of the Niger was able to keep vestiges of its traditional systems through monarchs, the destruction of the Nri civilization based on Ifa-Afa-Iha-Eha-Fa was permanentized with the help of Western educated Igbo scholars and politics by ostracizing the traditionalists as Osu caste and absorbing them into the Catholic Church like monks. This robbed and continues to rob the Ndigbo of long term stakeholders that can only come from the ranks of their traditional institutions, and not short term often self-serving professional politicians.

Although the West of the Niger River survived, the supremacy battles of the Ogun inspired Oyo and Benin empires against the Ife heartland, the source of their civilizational citystates and monarchy continues to destabilize and disunite them as seen with the 1960s political mayhem of the Western region and end of the first democratic dispensation. The disunity continues till date because of the continued emphasis on territories instead of people, a case of property rights over human rights in a current global consciousness of Might is Right.

However, with the change of global consciousness to one of Right is Might in the incoming 2000yr era of Shango, age of global cultural justice, effective from 2023, we need to correct the shift of the last two global consciousness, Ogun (territorial war) from 2000BC to 1AD and Olokun (era of religious and political dogma, monarchy) from 1AD to 1999/2023AD.

Modern management and governance studies shows that the best approach is a bottoms up/grassroots system, one that devolves power to the local level to invoke participative democracy. Therefore not only would clamoring for regions and nation states continue the onslaught against and within the Original African civilization, it will continue to yield poor governance and the people will continue to have their economic and political development arrested. 

The real power of the people is at the local level and often represented by the cultural custodians and monarchs. The Original African civilization is a continuum of dialects so the large Pan Tribalistic settings are products of the slave for guns to build territories era. Basically the South and Middlebelt peoples are one people with Ifa-Afa-Iha-Eha-Fa at the foundation of their political and philosophical pillars. Post neo-colonization, to effect real change to free and empower the people, the local governments should be allocated 60% of national revenues while states and federal arms are to split the remain 40%. As a loose continent wide parliamentary confederacy of self determined city states and ethnicities, there would be no intertribal skirmishes that comes with territorial claims of separatists and regionalists.

Ultimately to get enough demographic and democratic power to change and implement a more favorable people’s constitution, the Original African civilization of South and Middlebelt must unite against the Northern Afroasiatic hegemony and European colonists that prefer a centralized polity that makes it easy to exploit and deprive the majority. But this won’t be possible if we don’t resolve issues dividing us.

Justice is a social critic wrote from Lagos. He is the Presidents ASHE foundation.