The first ship load of slaves from the Benin Kingdom arrived America over 400 years ago in 1616 and the kingdom harvested richly in guns, gun powder, gun canons, whiskey, gin, mirror, regal sceptres, golden plates and cutleries and, of course, lots of money for slaves captured and sold. The Bini Kingdom after seven centuries of its migration from Oduduwa land is still thinking, nursing, brooding and conceptualising slave breeding, while most princes, princesses, heir apparents all over the world are de-emphasising kingship and kingdom affairs.
The Bini Kingdom still holds fast to this slave culture and mentality. The Binis have never stopped calling the Ijaws of Edo State slaves, an accusation they cannot prove. The Ijaws all over the world have never been anyone's slaves not even of the Binis who have been our neighbours, since their arrival from Ile-Ife.
The Ijaws have, therefore, vehemently rejected this label of slavery imprinted on them by the Binis as they (Ijaws) are the index and original owners of wherever they are domiciled in Edo State. The Ijaws are the indigenous owners of their ancestral lands in Okomu, Gelegele, Inikorowa, Gbelebu, Abere, Ofunama, Ajakurama, Ugboama, Safarogbo in Edo State, etc.
The great Bini historian, Chief
For speaking this undeniable truth several Bini historians castigated
It is, therefore, unthinkable, fallacious and grossly incongruous to think that the Binis are the ancestral owners of Ijaw ancestral homes and shrines whereas it is of universal knowledge that the Binis migrated from Ile Ife to their present places of abode. The Binis do not have any claim of ownership of any Ijaw ancestral lands situated in Edo State or elsewhere.
On the contrary, Ijaws have original ownership claims and rights of all Ijaws ancestral lands in Edo State. The Binis have deprived us of all the necessities of life since the existence of the nation called
The overriding influence of the various Obas of
The
The greatest injustice and travesty of justice is for the Bini monarchy through the machinery of state power to deny us of our full voting rights in a democratic 21st Century Nigeria. What the Edo State Government has granted the Ijaws in Edo State is called partial franchise. It's a government remotely controlled franchise which only allows you to vote for the Binis and never to be voted for. This is deviously perfected to deprive us of our rights to be voted for.
For instance, the local government structure is carved out to further compound our partial franchise, just like the local Jim Crow laws of post-slavery America which tried to frustrate and limit the franchise given in 1870 and 1920 respectively for male and female freed slaves. Despite the 19th amendments of
With a population of approximately one million people, the Ijaws have not been given full franchise in Edo State in a 21st Century Nigeria. In most of the Northern states of
The largest local government area in Adamawa State is Toungo Local Government Area with only 5,665.37sq metres while Okomu which does not even have a local government ward has over 25,000sq kilometres accommodating
This wickedness perpetuated by the Binis against Ijaws is further accentuated by the very aggressive, gestapo and military style response to any peaceful demand for our basic and fundamental human rights. In Edo State, the Ijaw man has no rights of any sort, fundamental or basic; they don't even have privileges.
Communities like Okomu Kingdom, Nkorowa, Safarogbo, Gbelebu, Ugboama and all the other smaller communities are more than enough to form Okomu Local Government Area. In Egbema Clan the towns of Ajakurama, Ofunama, Abere, Gbolukangan are more than enough to form two local government areas with Egbema as headquarters of one of them.
But instead of at least three local governments areas, all these towns above are unjustifiably and undemocratically merged with the Bini Local Government Area of Ovia South West Local Government Area. A very large town like Nikorowa is even lumped up with Ovia South West Local Government Area. Nikorowa alone can stand as a local government on its own. The other host local government area for Ijaw towns and communities is the Ovia North East Local Government Area which accommodates Ijaw towns like Gelegele, Ekenwan, Ikoro, Ikorikoro, etc.
With this undemocratic and ludicrously preposterous political gang up, all Ijaws in Edo State have been disenfranchised. The highest political position an Ijaw man can aspire to in Edo State is that of a local government councillor.
Even this is at the discretion of the Binis whereas the 1999
Chapter 1 section 7 of the Nigerian constitution under local governments system categorically defines conditions for the creation of Local Government Council Areas by the State. These are as follows. 1) The common interest of the community, 2) Traditional association of the community; 3) Administrative convenience. The first condition of common interest in the communities in both local governments is nonexistent. The Ijaws have not a single common interest with the Binis even in the remotest imagination.
The second condition of traditional association is also not applicable because Ijaws and Binis are two ends of a spectrum, two sides of a coin and parallel lines that can never meet. The Ijaws have a distinct culture and tradition that is diametrically opposed to that of the Binis. The Ijaws are a very peaceful people satisfied with the wealth and prosperity of their sea-based aquaculture and economy, whereas the Binis are highly belligerent, troublesome, restless and war mongering.
The third condition for the creation of local government is administrative convenience. What administrative convenience are we talking about when the citizen from Okomu has to undertake a tedious river voyage by canoe, row his boat to Arogbo in Ondo State. Take a taxi from Agadagba Obon to Ore.
From Ore he takes another taxi to
The alternative route of the Okomu trader to Iguobazuwa is a bush path which has been barricaded by the
All past governors have treated us alike except Prof
Another ruler of Edo State who planned well for the Ijaws was Navy Captain Anthony Onyearugbelem, (
But of all the governments of Edo State, the most disappointing and promise breaking is that of
The Ijaws clapped and praised
Governor
The website mentioned only four languages in Edo State and these are
This is one of the rudest shocks and travesties of human history from creation to date. And Governor
The Benin Kingdom was a land locked area until the Ijaws granted the Binis a free right to the sea via Gelegele after several emissaries to Gelegege Kingdom several centuries ago. Gelegele seaport and oil exploration activities are the greatest sources of economic and industrial sustenance in Edo State. Other sources of revenue for Edo State Government are
Today with only 18 local government areas, Edo State stands number 15 out of
When the Binis failed to wipe out Gelegele, they tried to divert everything going to Gelegele to Ughoton, a small Bini community near Gelegele. This Bini strategy failed as Ughoton did not have any oil deposits and Gelegele remains the only seaport in Edo State.
The same strategy was used against the people of Okomu. In 1990, the Federal Government gave
The Bini King through the Edo State Government sabotaged all our efforts to secure the 20 per cent shares and board membership approved for Okomu by the Federal Government. This is a great wickedness of Mephistophelian proportion. The Edo State Government dispossessed Okomu of both and acquired same for the Bini people.
The Binis also attempted to change
This new Oba of
All the Ijaws are asking for is representative democracy that guarantees and ensures that our preferences and interests are considered in the total contrivances of governance. It is a sad travesty of history and equity to deny approximately a million people their fundamental and basic human rights of democratic representation. For over 70 years, the Ijaws have voted for Bini politicians into their LGAs,
The Ijaws, as a result of lack of local government council area of their own have been intimidated, enslaved, oppressed and balkanised into two Bini local government areas, Ovia South West and
Any society that is not founded on the general will, people's sovereignty and the fundamental inalienable rights of the people is an illegitimate government and is not qualified to rule over an unrepresented people. It is highly ludicrous, a mockery of tremendous proportions to so flagrantly flout and rubbish democratic tenets that sustain the social contract between the government and the governed in this 21st century.
The Binis won this war of attrition over the Ijaws without firing a bullet but by merely depriving the Ijaws of education and all the basic accessories of life. I have always posited that depriving a man of education over a long period of time is the best method to destroy him completely. And that is the weapon of mass destruction the Bins have used against their hapless and frustrated Ijaw neighbours.
But I must confess that so many Ijaw leaders have become intimately complicit and guilty in this ceaspool of quagmire the Ijaw find themselves in Edo State. Some of these leaders threaten mayhem and brimstone only to be settled with fat envelopes at the Benin Government House. This special appeal is to every person of Ijaw origin in Edo State not to vote for any candidate during the forthcoming
Ijaw are not remembered for state recommended federal appointments like ambassadors, ministers, membership of state and federal boards. No Ijaw man has ever been appointed a state commissioner in Edo State. The deprivation can only be called slavery of the meanest and most demonic proportion.
To redress this abnormal situation, all governors, senators, representative members, all politicians and every person of the Ijaw ethnic group both at home and abroad should put pressure on the federal government of
Nanaghan is a social activist
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