Sunday, 4 February 2018

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The Traditional Political Institution in Nigeria
The first well documented state in the northern region was the kingdom of Kanem Bornu, which emerged east of Lake Chad in what is now southwestern Chad by the 9th century ad. Kanem profited from trade ties with North Africa and the Nile Valley, from which it also received Islam. The Saifawas, Kanem’s ruling dynasty, periodically enlarged their holdings by conquest and marriage into the ruling families of vassal states. The empire, however, failed to sustain a lasting peace. During one conflict-ridden period sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries, the Saifawas were forced to move across Lake Chad into Bornu, in what is now far northeastern Nigeria. There, the Kanem intermarried with the native peoples, and the new group became known as the Kanuri. The Kanuri state centered first in Kanem and then in Bornu, is known as the Kanem-Bornu Empire, hereafter referred to as Bornu.
The Kanuri eventually returned to Chad and conquered the empire lost by the Saifawas. Its dominance thus assured, Bornu became a flourishing center of Islamic culture that rivaled Mali to the far west. The kingdom also grew rich in trade, which focused on salt from the Sahara and locally produced textiles. In the late 16th century, the Bornu king Idris Alooma expanded the kingdom again, and although the full extent of the expansion is not clear, Bornu exerted considerable political influence over Hausa land to the west. In the mid- and late 18th century, severe droughts and famines weakened the kingdom, but in the early 19th century Bornu enjoyed a brief revival under al-Kanemi, a shrewd military leader who resisted a Fulani revolution that swept over much of Nigeria. Al-Kanemi’s descendants continue as traditional rulers within Borno State. The Kanem-Bornu Empire ceased to exist in 1846 when it was absorbed into the Wadai sultanate to the east.
PRE-COLONIAL HISTORY OF THE FOREST AND COAST (YORUBA)
Nigeria’s oldest archaeological site lies in its forested region, at Iwo Eleru near Akure in southwestern Nigeria. Stone tools and human remains at the site date from 9000 bc. The first well-documented kingdom in what is now southwestern Nigeria was centered at Ife, which was established as the first of the Yoruba kingdoms in the 11th or 12th century. Over the next few centuries, the Ife spread their political and spiritual influence beyond the borders of its small city-state. Ife artisans were highly skilled, producing, among other things, bronze castings of heads in a highly naturalistic style. Terra-cotta, wood, and ivory were also common media.
Shortly after the rise of Ife, the kingdom of Benin emerged to the east. Although it was separate from the Yoruba kingdoms, Benin legends claim that the kingdom’s first rulers were descended from an Ife prince. By the 15th century, Benin was a large, well-designed city sustained by trade (both within the region and, later, with Europe). Its cultural legacy includes a wealth of elaborate bronze plaques and statues recording the nation’s history and glorifying its rulers.
At about the same time as Benin’s ascendance, the major Yoruba city-state of Oyo arose. Situated northwest of Ife, Oyo used its powerful cavalry to replace Ife as Yoruba land’s political center. (Ife, however, continued to serve as the spiritual center of Yoruba land.) When the Portuguese first arrived in the late 15th century, it was the Oyo who controlled trade with them, first in goods such as peppers, which they secured from the northern interior lands and transferred to the southern coast, and later in slaves. In Oyo, as elsewhere throughout coastal West Africa, the traffic in slaves had disastrous results not just on those traded, who were largely from the interior, but also on the traders. As African nations vied for the lucrative commerce, conflicts increased, and other forms of advancement, both agricultural and economic, fell by the wayside. As a result, when Britain banned the slave trade in the early 19th century, Oyo was hard-pressed to maintain its prosperity. The Oyo state of Ilorin broke away from the empire in 1796, then joined the northern Sokoto caliphate in 1831 after Fulani residing in Ilorin seized power. The Oyo empire collapsed, plunging all of Yoruba land—Oyo, Ife, and other areas into a bloody civil war that lasted for decades.
THE IGBO
The igbo people live in the area between Benin and Igala, the Cross-River and Niger Delta city-sistates. They were divided into five major cultural groups: the western or Rivera in, northern or Awka, Owerri, Cross River and Ogoja Igbo. These cultural groups could be considered the ‘tribes’ of the Igbo nation but since they did not possess a central government nor act together politically they were not ‘tribes’ in the sense in which that word is used to describe for example ithe Egba or Ijebu ‘tribes’ of the Yoruba people.
Regardless of cultural differences between the groups there were certain characteristics typical of Igbo society. The igbo respected age and leadership came from the elders. Respect was not servility and was balanced by the belief that birth did not confer advantage on any man. The Ibos/Igbos were individualistic and egalitarian, every man considering himself as good as everyone else and demanding a voice in his local affairs. In Igbo land everyone has a right to rise in the society thus their culture emphasize competitions in every aspects of their lives.
They are not unique in the type of government they created. In West Africa some community like Liberia, Konkomba of Togo land, Talensi of Ghana, Tiv in Benue etc. possessed closely political organization closer to those of the Ibo/Igbo than the Yoruba, Dahomey, Mossey Assente systems.   The political organization without a central government is described as segmentary  system. It is headed by single person (King, Emperor, Almami, Sultan etc.) 
In southeastern Nigeria, archaeological sites confirm sophisticated civilizations dating from at least ad 900, when fine bronze statues were crafted by predecessors of the modern-day Igbo people. These early peoples, who almost certainly had well-developed trade links, were followed by the Nri of northern Igbo land. With these exceptions, Igbo land did not have the large, centralized kingdoms that characterized other parts of Nigeria. A few clans maintained power, perhaps the strongest of which was the Aro; the Aro lived west of the Cross River, near present-day Nigeria’s southeastern border, and rose to prominence in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Aro were oracular priests for the region and used this role to secure large numbers of slaves. The slaves were sold in coastal ports controlled by other groups such as the Ijo.
The Onitsha Kingdom, which was originally inhabited by Igbo, was founded in the 16th century by Igbo migrants from Benin. Later groups like the Igala, and Igbo traders from the hinterland, settled in Onitsha in the 18th century. Another Igbo kingdom to form was the Arochukwu kingdom, which emerged after the Aro-Ibibio wars from 1630-1720. The Aro Confederacy dominated southeastern Nigeria with pockets of influence in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.


1 comment:

  1. READ IN PREPARATION OF YOUR CBT MORE WORK TO COME LATER

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