KillIgbohoN0W:
Wow
So Igbos transformed Afonjaland and took them away from their primitive ways with mind-blowing inventions.

KillIgbohoN0W:
Wow
So Igbos transformed Afonjaland and took them away from their primitive ways with mind-blowing inventions.

BKayy:
If one conducts thorough research, he will realise that ancient Ndigbo were moving around civilising alot of nations in Africa and Yoruba people are not left out.

9Pluto:
I thought I was an informed Nigerian, but with what I have discovered this past weeks including this information I think the Nigerian government owes it as a duty to teach it citizens of their proud history. Despite the unfortunate blight of the civil war. There's a lot to be proud of.

I have always thought that claims of igbo people as great blacksmiths was a ruse. But this confirms it. Contrary to claims and assumptions, igbo indeed have a proud history.

Thank you OP @bomb24 for this piece of history, the term Oka made now begins to make sense.

KillIgbohoN0W:
Wow
So Igbos transformed Afonjaland and took them away from their primitive ways with mind-blowing inventions.

bomb24:


Igbo is civilization, civilization is Igbo! you're welcome Nwanne.

9Pluto:


At the rate you are going, you guys would soon unearth the first igbo man to get to Lagos.

BKayy:

Until lions tell their story, the tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

Now let me shock you. Do you know that the Anglo-Aro war in Igboland cost Britain more resources, time and soldiers than what they call Bini Empire?

1. Aro expedition took 5 months while Bini took 9 days.

2. Aro expedition was fought on more than 10 fronts with major battles numbering 7, while Bini was two massacres, one was deliberate while the second was as a punishment.

3. Arọ shocked Britain by digging trenches to evade bullets while Bini didn't show any invention.

4. Arọ expedition cost Britain advanced weapons and manpower numbering 1,550 soldiers of which at least 700 died while the Bini expedition cost Britain 1,200 soldiers no mortar or advanced weaponry and barely recorded any casualty.

Now, answer me one question, between Aro and Bini, who is qualified to call herself an Empire?

bomb24:


There were about 2000 plus British soldiers who took part in the expedition. The resistance put up by The Aros was a fierce one.

bomb24:
Early Igbo Sojourners in Eastern Yorubaland.

The attached pictures depict people at a masquerade dance. The masquerade is the famous Mgbedike masquerade, popular in the Nri-Ọka area. In Picture 1, a man can be seen wearing a hat, with ichi marks on his face.

But these pictures were not taken in Igboland. They were taken in the village of Okitipupa, in the Ondo area of eastern Yorubaland in the 1940s by British colonial officer Edward Harland Duckworth. Who were these people and what was Mgbedike doing in Yorubaland in the '40s?

Ọka tradition relates that their itinerant blacksmiths had penetrated into Yorubaland at some undetermined time in the past. Professor O. N. Njoku says this happened sometime between the 1890s and 1904. But it was in the Colonial Period, from the 1930s, that they began to appear there in significant numbers for Yoruba tradition to take notice of their presence.

It was their skill in gun-smithing that enabled the Ọka to penetrate Yorubaland. While Yoruba gunsmiths used nails and riveted their gun parts, Ọka smiths used screws. Ọka guns could thus be taken apart, cleaned, and re-assembled.

The best-known of the Ọka smiths in Yorubaland in the 1930s was one Godwin Okafọ who settled in Igede Ekiti. Ekiti people didn't even know his name and simply called him Ọka. He brought innovations and enriched the smithing tradition of Igede, just as his fellow Ọka crafts workers were changing the face of the profession in other towns in Ekiti.

This is what an elder from Igede, Chief Akande, had to say about Godwin and his 'brothers':

"These Isobos [a name originally referring to Urhobos, but extended to anyone from the Eastern Region] came and began to make heavy-duty guns that could kill 2 or 3 animals at once. They were the first to seriously start producing knives, cutlasses hoes, and others in large quantities for sale. Look at Awka [i.e., Godwin Okafọ], he is small in stature but stronger than many around us. He was the person who first started producing short, rather than the usual long, guns here. Not only that, these Awka people performed their smithing activity by producing, for the first time, double-barrel guns that could kill a whole district if there is war..."

(" Economic History of Ekiti People in Nigeria, 1900 - 1960" by Jumoke Oloidi Ph.D. Thesis, UNN)

copied @Igboid.

cc. lalasticlala, OAMJ, mukina, mancoconut, bkayy, eastlink, Slayerforever, 9pluto.

bomb24:


There were about 2000 plus British soldiers who took part in the expedition. The resistance put up by The Aros was a fierce one.

BKayy:

It was more than that if you include reinforcements. They continue to narrow it down so they settled for this number.

But anyhow they put it, if you look at the number you will notice that Aro took out more than half of the soldiers.
So they understood that they were dealing with civilised people unlike in Bini where they marched unchallenged, massacred and burnt down houses only to turn around and glorify them in bid to downplay those that stood up to them so that there won't be any repetition.

Imagine if Ndigbo grew up learning these histories, knowing how courageous their ancestors were, do you think that we will tolerate nonsense from anybody?
This is why Britain glorified those that made it easy for them, people like Bini and The Caliphate.

You won't see Britain glorify Igbo

mancoconut:


Are you aware Aro warriors and powerful traditional medicine-men also helped our Western Igbo brothers during their Ekumeku resistance against the British? a friend and historian from Ibusa actually told me this...the Aro influence across Igboland was MASSIVE.

bomb24:
Early Igbo Sojourners in Eastern Yorubaland.

The attached pictures depict people at a masquerade dance. The masquerade is the famous Mgbedike masquerade, popular in the Nri-Ọka area. In Picture 1, a man can be seen wearing a hat, with ichi marks on his face.

But these pictures were not taken in Igboland. They were taken in the village of Okitipupa, in the Ondo area of eastern Yorubaland in the 1940s by British colonial officer Edward Harland Duckworth. Who were these people and what was Mgbedike doing in Yorubaland in the '40s?

Ọka tradition relates that their itinerant blacksmiths had penetrated into Yorubaland at some undetermined time in the past. Professor O. N. Njoku says this happened sometime between the 1890s and 1904. But it was in the Colonial Period, from the 1930s, that they began to appear there in significant numbers for Yoruba tradition to take notice of their presence.

It was their skill in gun-smithing that enabled the Ọka to penetrate Yorubaland. While Yoruba gunsmiths used nails and riveted their gun parts, Ọka smiths used screws. Ọka guns could thus be taken apart, cleaned, and re-assembled.

The best-known of the Ọka smiths in Yorubaland in the 1930s was one Godwin Okafọ who settled in Igede Ekiti. Ekiti people didn't even know his name and simply called him Ọka. He brought innovations and enriched the smithing tradition of Igede, just as his fellow Ọka crafts workers were changing the face of the profession in other towns in Ekiti.

This is what an elder from Igede, Chief Akande, had to say about Godwin and his 'brothers':

"These Isobos [a name originally referring to Urhobos, but extended to anyone from the Eastern Region] came and began to make heavy-duty guns that could kill 2 or 3 animals at once. They were the first to seriously start producing knives, cutlasses hoes, and others in large quantities for sale. Look at Awka [i.e., Godwin Okafọ], he is small in stature but stronger than many around us. He was the person who first started producing short, rather than the usual long, guns here. Not only that, these Awka people performed their smithing activity by producing, for the first time, double-barrel guns that could kill a whole district if there is war..."

(" Economic History of Ekiti People in Nigeria, 1900 - 1960" by Jumoke Oloidi Ph.D. Thesis, UNN)

copied @Igboid.

cc. lalasticlala, OAMJ, mukina, mancoconut, bkayy, eastlink, Slayerforever, 9pluto.

Christistruth00:




We Sent them Christianity with Bishop Ajayi Crowther and they Sent us Masquerades with their local devils in return


Jesus Christ have Mercy on us all

BKayy:

We gave you science and Innovation.
Did you bother to read the thread at all?

You just jumped in and started rumbling about how you helped white people to spread the chain of religion.

Please go back and read the article before you embarrass yourself further.

Igboid:
Good one OP.
I opened a thread on this some time ago.
I was hoping it could get to front page.
But it didn't.
If it were the reverse, it would be in front page.

https://www.nairaland.com/6765286/early-igbo-sojourners-eastern-yorubaland
Let's hope it gets to front page this time around, but I'm not holding my breath, soon they would shift it to either culture or tribalism session.
Anything that portrays Igbo race in spotlight is not something that pleases those who run this forum.

Christistruth00:



[s]When God used Bishop Ajayi Crowther to take Cassava and Garri to the East

Garri became an instant Smash hit and SuperStar

They Loved it
They are still fighting each other over their share of Garri and Akpu almost 200 years later[/s]

bomb24:




stale come up with something reasonable. your so-called ajayi Crowther never met the Igbos hungry.

Christistruth00:



When God used Bishop Ajayi Crowther to take Cassava and Garri to the East

Garri became an instant Smash hit and SuperStar

They Loved it
They are still fighting each other over their share of Garri and Akpu almost 200 years later

Christistruth00:



Bishop Ajayi Crowther met them in a Food Crisis

Yam was the main Diet

Once the Yam Harvest was bad You had all had it

BKayy:

I want you to understand something.

Cassava was introduced to Ndigbo and Yoruba people the same year.

Now look at both of us.
Ndigbo have used the cassava given to them to develop "Abacha, garri, akpụ for swallow etc and in the Biafran war brewed Beer from it.
But you, almost hundred years since it was introduced to you yorubas you have not developed anything from it apart copying Igbo garri that till now you haven't learnt from us how to make it yellow to reduce the toxicity of it.