THE OBA OF BENIN
OBA GHATOR'KPERE - ISE |
Oba Erediauwa I
(1979 - present) |
Oba Akenzua II
(1933 - 1978) |
Oba Eweka II
(1914 - 1933) |
Oba Ovonramwen Nogbaisi
(1888 - 1914) |
The Oba of Benin controlled the Benin Empire, an empire surrounding the West African city of Benin (now in Nigeria), from 1180 until 1897. In 1897, the British 'Punitive Expedition' destroyed the city of Benin and exiled Oba Ovonramwen, taking control of
...the area in order to establish the British colony of Nigeria. The expedition was mounted to avenge the killing of an official British delegation in 1896.The expedition consisted of indigenous soldiers and British officers. To cover the cost of the expedition, the Benin royal art was auctioned off by the British. The Oba was captured and eventually allowed to live in exile until his death in 1914.
According to oral tradition, the first dynasty of the Kingdom of Benin was Ogi-Suo (Ogiso). The second dynasty was founded by Oranyan, a prince from the city of Ife, Nigeria. His son Eweka I became the first Oba. The present Oba, Erediauwa I, is the 39th Oba of the dynasty.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, the Oba's power was at its peak and different monarchs of the dynasty controlled an area stretching from the Niger River in the north to the coastal area in the south. During this era, exquisite naturalistic bronze art was created to enhance and embody the power of the Oba. The art often depicted the ancestors in order to establish legitimacy. Only Obas were allowed to own the famous bronze heads of Benin.
List of Obas of the Benin Empire (1180-Present)
Pre-Imperial Obas of Benin (1180-1440)
1. Eweka I (1180 - 1246)
2. Uwuakhuahen (1246 - 1250)
3. Henmihen (1250 - 1260)
4. Ewedo (1260 - 1274)
5. Guola (1274 - 1287)
6. Edoni (1287 - 1292)
7. Udagbedo (1292 - 1329)
8. Ohen (1329 - 1366)
9. Egbeka (1366 - 1397)
10. Orobiru (1397 - 1434)
11. Uwaifiokun (1434 - 1440)
Obas of the Benin Empire (1440-1897)
12. Ewuare the Great (1440 - 1473)
13. Ezoti (1473 - 1475)
14. Olua (1475 - 1480)
15. Ozolua (1480 - 1504)
16. Esigie (1504 - 1547)
17. Orhogbua (1547 - 1580)
18. Ehengbuda (1580 - 1602)
19. Ohuan (1602 - 1656)
20. Ohenzae (1656 - 1661)
21. Akenzae (1661 - 1669)
22. Akengboi (1669 - 1675)
23. Akenkbaye (1675 - 1684)
24. Akengbedo (1684 - 1689)
25. Ore-Oghene (1689 - 1701)
26. Ewuakpe (1701 - 1712)
27. Ozuere (1712 - 1713)
28. Akenzua I (1713 - 1740)
29. Eresoyen (1740 - 1750)
30. Akengbuda (1750 - 1804)
31. Obanosa (1804 - 1816)
32. Ogbebo (1816)
33. Osemwende (1816 - 1848)
34. Adolo (1848 - 1888)
35. Ovonramwen Nogbaisi (1888 - 1914) (exiled to Calabar by the British in 1897)
Post-Imperial Obas of Benin (1914-Present)
36. Eweka II (1914 - 1933)
37. Akenzua II (1933 - 1978)
38. Erediauwa I (1979 - present)
THE BENIN EMPIRE
The Benin Empire or Edo Empire (1440-1897) was a large pre-colonial African state of modern Nigeria.
Origin:
According to one traditional account, the original people and founders of the Benin Empire, the Bini, were initially ruled by the Ogisos (Kings of the Sky). The city of Ibinu (later called Benin City) was founded in 1180 AD.
About 36 known Ogiso are accounted for as rulers of the empire. On the death of the last Ogiso, his son and heir apparent Ekaladerhan was banished from Benin as a result of one of the Queens changing the message from the oracle to the Ogiso. Ekaladerhan was a powerful warrior and well loved Prince. On leaving Benin he travelled to the west of the present day Nigeria to the land of the Yorubas. At that time the Yoruba oracle said that their King will come out of the forest and when Ekaladerhan arrived at Ife, he was received as a King.
He changed his name to Imadoduwa meaning "I did not misplace my royalty" and became The Great Oduduwa of The Yoruba Land. On the death of his father, the last Ogiso, a group of Benin Chiefs led by Chief Oliha came to Ife, pleading with him to come back to Benin to ascend the throne. Oduduwa's reply was that a King cannot leave his Kingdom but he had seven sons and would ask one of them to go back to Benin to rule as the next King.
Oranmiyan, the son of Ekaladerhan aka Oduduwa, agreed to go to Benin. He spent some years in Benin and came back to Ife after his wife gave birth to a son named Eweka. Eweka I became the first Oba of Benin. In 1440, Oba Ewuare (Ewuare the Great) came to power and turned the city-state into an empire. Around 1470, he named the new state Edo.
Golden Age:
Pendant ivory mask, court of Benin, 16th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art)The Oba had become the paramount power within the region. Oba Ewuare, the first Golden Age Oba, is credited with turning Benin City into a military fortress protected by moats and walls. It was from this bastion that he launched his military campaigns and began the expansion of the kingdom from the Edo-speaking heartlands. The lands of Idah, Owo, Akure all came under the central authority of the Edo Empire.
At its maximum extent the empire is claimed by the Edos to have extended from Onitsha in the east, through the forested southwestern region of Nigeria and into the present-day nation of Ghana. The Ga peoples of Ghana trace their ancestry to the ancient Kingdom of Benin.
The state developed an advanced artistic culture especially in its famous artifacts of bronze, iron and ivory. These include bronze wall plaques and life-sized bronze heads of the Obas of Benin. The most common artifact is based on Queen Idia, porpularly called the FESTAC mask.
Benin grew increasingly rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe; slaves from enemy states of the interior were sold, and carried to the Americas in Dutch and Portuguese ships. The Bight of Benin's shore soon came to be known as the "Slave Coast."
Government:
The empire was ruled by a regent called the Oba. Today, the Oba of Benin is still very respected in Nigeria though his powers are largely ceremonial and religious. The capital of the Benin Empire was Edo, now known as Benin City. It can be found in what is now southwestern Nigeria.
People:
The Benin Empire gets its name from the Bini people who dominated the area. The ethnonym may possibly derive from groups in western Nigeria, where the term "ibinu" means "anger" reflecting the warring nature of the Binis or from central and north-central Nigeria, where the term birnin means "gated" or "walled area." The city and its people are more properly called the Edo.
Today, this population is found mostly in and around modern day Benin City. It is from Portuguese explorers that we get the name the Benin Empire. However, the Bini name for the land and even the capital city was Edo.
European contact:
The first European travellers to reach Benin were Portuguese explorers in about 1485. A strong mercantile relationship developed, with the Portuguese trading tropical products, and increasingly slaves, for European goods and guns.
BENIN CITY (Nickname: City of Blood)
Benin City, a city (2006 est. pop. 1,147,188) in Edo State, southern Nigeria, is a port on the Benin River. It is situated 200 miles by road east of Lagos. Benin is the center of Nigeria's rubber industry, but processing palm nuts for oil is still an important traditional industry.
Founded around the 10th century, Benin served as the capital of the Kingdom of Benin, the empire of the Oba of Benin, which flourished from the 14th through the 17th century. No trace remains of the structures admired by European travelers to "the Great Benin." After Benin was visited by the Portuguese in about 1485, historical Benin grew rich during the 16th and 17th centuries on the slave trade with Europe, carried in Dutch and Portuguese ships, as well as through the export of some tropical products.
The Bight of Benin's shore was part of the so-called "Slave Coast", from where many West Africans were sold (usually by local rulers) to foreign slave traders. In the early 16th century the Oba sent an ambassador to Lisbon, and the King of Portugal sent Christian missionaries to Benin. Some residents of Benin could still speak a pidgin Portuguese in the late 19th century.
The city and kingdom of Benin declined after 1700, with the decline in the European slave trade, but revived in the 19th century with the development of the trade in palm products with Europeans. To preserve Benin's independence, bit by bit the Oba banned the export of goods from Benin, until the trade was exclusively in palm oil.
On 1 February 1852 the whole Bight of Benin became a British protectorate, where a Consul (representative) represented the protector, until on 6 August 1861 the Bights of Biafra and Benin became a united British protectorate, again under a British Consul.
On February 17, 1897, Benin City fell to the British. In the "Punitive Expedition", a 1200-strong British force, under the command of Admiral Sir Harry Rawson, conquered and burned the city, destroying much of the country's treasured art and dispersing nearly all that remained. The "Benin Bronzes", portrait figures, busts, and groups created in iron, carved ivory, and especially in brass (conventionally called "bronze"), were taken from the city by the British and are displayed in museums around the world.
The defeat, capture and subjugation of Benin paved the way for British military occupation and the merging of later regional British conquests into the Niger Coast Protectorate, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and finally, into the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria. The Benin monarchy was restored in 1914, but true power lay with the colonial administration of Nigeria.
In September 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, the city was part of the secessionist Republic of Biafra.
THE FALL OF BENIN KINGDOM
On February 17, 1897, Benin City fell to the British. On that fateful day in history, the city of Benin lost its independence, its sovereignty, its Oba (king), its control of trade, and its pride. The aptly-named "punitive expedition" totally humiliated the nation.
The city was looted and burned to the ground. The ivory at the palace was seized. Nearly 2500 of the famous Benin Bronzes and other valuable works of art, including the magnificently carved palace doors, were carried back to Europe. Today, every museum in Europe possesses art treasures from Benin City.
The defeat, capture and subjugation of Benin paved the way for British military occupation and the later conquest of adjacent areas with Benin, under British administration, being merged into the Niger Coast Protectorate, then into the protectorate of Southern Nigeria and finally into the colony and protectorate of Nigeria.
BENIN BRONZES
Two typical plaques. The left one portrays a warrior flanked by two shieldbearers.
The Benin Bronzes are a collection of more than 1,000 brass plaques from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin. They were seized by a British force in the "Punitive Expedition" of 1897 and given to the British Foreign Office. Around 200 of these were then passed on to the British Museum in London, while the remainder were divided between a variety of collections.
The seizure of the Bronzes led to a greater appreciation in Europe for African culture. Bronzes are now believed to have been cast in Benin since the thirteenth century, and some in the collection date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The Bronzes depict a variety of scenes, including animals, fish, humans and scenes of court life. They were cast in matching pairs (although each was individually made). It is thought that they were originally nailed to walls and pillars in the palace as decoration, some possibly also offering instructive scenes of protocol.
Nigeria, which includes the area of the Kingdom of Benin, bought around 50 Bronzes from the British Museum between the 1950s and 1970s, and has repeatedly called for the return of the remainder, in a case which parallels that of the Elgin Marbles.
Coombes writes in detail of the Benin Bronzes in the book Reinventing Africa: museums, material culture, and popular imagination in late Victorian and Edwardian England. In addition to an explanation of the effects of colonization, Coombes discusses how the display of the Bronzes by Europeans constructs particular images of the people of the Kingdom of Benin.
THE BENIN - IFE CONNECTION
By: Omo N'Oba Erediauwa
How and where this is done began with the arrival from Ile-Ife of Prince Oranmiyan, the son of Oduduwa of Uhe, about 1170 years ago
according to modem historians. Briefly, this is the account. Before the advent of Qranmiyan, the kings that ruled the people that came to be known as Edo or Benin were called Ogiso.
The title is said (by local tradition) to have derived (and abbreviated) from the description Ogie n 'oriso (meaning King in Heaven) and it originated from the wisdom in managing the affair
especially settling disputes as demonstrated by the first and second of the earliest rulers known as Igodo and Ere.
I must comment here, in passing, that I personally have never accepted the account of our late illustrious historian, Jacob U. Egharevba when he wrote in the very first edition of his now authoritative book
A Short History of Benin, the following:
Many, many years ago, Odua (Oduduwa) of Uhe (Ile-Ife) the father and progenitor of the Yoruba kings sent his eldest son Obagodo - who took the title of Ogiso - with a large retinue all the way from Uhe to found a Kingdom in this part of the world. And in the fourth (and now current) edition of the book, the late author wrote:
Many many years ago, the Binis came all the way from Egypt to found a more secure shelter in this part of the world, after a short stay in the Sudan and at Ile Ife. which the Benin people call Uhe.
The rulers or kings were commonly known as Ogiso before the arrival of Oduduwa and his party at Ife in Yoruba land, about the 12th Century of the Christian era.
It is this fourth edition of the book, which historians in the University of Ibadan assisted to re-write and was printed by the Ibadan University Press, that earned the late illustrious historian the doctorate from that university.
It is not the intention here to discredit Jacob U. Egharevba, an illustrious historian (and traditional chief), but since this write-up will bring in the historical link between Ife and Benin, it is impossible not to point out errors or contradictions in the extracts quoted. There are contradictions between the first edition and the fourth edition of the man's books. Apart from the fact that the Edo n 'ekue (Edo-Akure-.partly Benin partly Yoruba by birth) blood in the man manifested itself, the experts in the Ibadan University contributed to the contradictions.
Confining ourselves for now to the extracts quoted, it is necessary to point out that it is historically wrong to describe Odua or Oduduwa as the father and progenitor of the Yoruba kings. The knowledgeable (and one may add, the honest ones) among Yoruba traditional historians know only too well that the person who came to be known as Odua or Oduduwa had only seven children with Oranyan (or Oranmiyan) as the last and youngest. It is also a known historical fact that by the time Oduduwa emerged in Ife, from the east as modern Yoruba historians usually put it, there were many Yoruba communities in existence and who had their leaders or kings. So Odua or Oduduwa could not have been the father of Yoruba kings.
The mistake that modem historians (including Yoruba) made, as I have found from my own studies, is that they confused Oduduwa with Qrunmila, the bringer of Ifa divination. It was Orunmila who, according to traditional account, had sixteen children, each of whom he sent to rule over each of sixteen communities in his own world, among which were Ife and Ado (Benin).
Furthermore, Oduduwa could not have been the founder of Yoruba kings because, of his seven children, one became lame, one developed hunchback, and another turned to a river leaving four able-bodied ones. Every babalawo (whom love of money has not tainted!) knows these accounts. Still on the extract quoted above, it is also a known traditional historical fact that it was not his eldest son, but the youngest that Oduduwa sent to the Benin people.
That Oduduwa could not have been the father of Yoruba kings, or founder of Yoruba race as modern Yoruba historians now put it, is also borne out of the fact that the Ife account itself has it that there were five rulers in Ife before the advent of Oduduwa and this makes the reference to the 12th Century in Jacob U. Egharevba's fourth edition relevant.
Some apology for that rather lengthy digression; but it is necessary because of what follows here.
This is a convenient point to return to the issue I began this section with, which is where and how the future Oba of Benin chooses the title - name by which he is to be known at his coronation. As stated above, it all began with the arrival of Prince Oranmiyan from Ife. We have stated that the earliest rulers or kings in what is today Edo or Benin were known as Ogiso. The first was known as Ogiso Igodo and the last (of the thirty-one or so of them) was Ogiso Owodo.
It can be said that Ogiso Owodo's era ended the first period of kingship in our history. His was a long account of an unhappy reign but briefly it was that as a result of these events, which were traced by oracle to his only child and son, Owodo was advised by oracle, so it was said, to have the son executed. Owodo (unaware that he had been tricked about his son) got the Oka odionmwan (public executioner) to perform the act. But the executioner had pity on the son, and on reaching the outskirts of the city, let him off. From there the prince wandered into the world, settling alone first in Ughoton, where the elders gave him hospitality.
Ogiso Owodo passed away without an heir. In the period of interregnum that followed, powerful community leaders began to strive for the throne. Among the most powerful was one known as Evian. His attempt to usurp the throne was stoutly resisted by the Edion (the elders) of the Benin people. While this was going on, word came in that Ogiso Owodo's son (his name was Ekaladerhan) who was to have been executed was seen alive in Ughoton. Immediately, the elders sent out emissaries to look for him and invite him to come to take his throne.
When information got to him, he was stricken with fear that they were still after his head. So after consulting with his Ughoton hosts, he fled the village.
When the Benin emissaries got to Ughoton and reported their mission, the Ughoton elders told the emissaries that Prince Ekaladerhan had been there but had since left. When asked where to, the people said they did not know but that he went in that direction. The emissaries followed in that direction until they arrived at a village where they announced their mission like in the former village the people in this second village also said he was there but had since departed and went in that direction.
And so making enquiry from village to village and following in that direction the Benin emissaries emerged in a community they got to know as Uhe.
The local people, on sighting the strangers got frightened and ran to inform their village head who ordered that the strangers be brought to him. When they appeared before the village head, the Benin emissaries introduced themselves, narrated their mission and whom they were in search of.
Prince Ekaladerhan, who by this time had assumed new name, Oduduwa, said he was the one they were looking for. To be sure, the emissaries gave him a test by throwing at him some events back home in Benin which, to their surprise, their host recollected vividly and even narrated himself. This, indeed, was Ekaladerhan, and they fell on their knees to greet him.
The emissaries from Benin, having satisfied themselves of the man's identity, asked the next obvious questions: how had he become the village head of the people with the name they heard the people call him? Ekaladerhan (or Oduduwa) narrated his experience in Benin language thus: When he emerged from the bush into the village, he was led by the local people to their village head to whom he narrated his plight and how he wandered in the bush to get to the village. In answer to question as to his name, he told the village head imado d 'uwa (meaning, "I have not missed the road to good fortune") in allusion to the welcome hospitality he had received since he arrived.
The village head then asked what the stranger could do and he replied that he was a hunter and a herbalist. (He had acquired both, art or science, during his wandering through the forest).
The village head then handed the stranger to one of the local people to house him. (Note that the stranger was led by the local people to their village head, suggesting that the community did have a head - ruler or king - at the time Ekaladerhan who became Oduduwa emerged in their midst). It was while here that he demonstrated his knowledge of herbs: a pregnant woman was in difficulty and after all kinds of treatment had failed, words reached the stranger (Ekaladerhan or Oduduwa) who immediately offered to help.
He was led to the home of the woman, and after examining her, he went back home, prepared some medicine which he returned to apply to the woman. Soon after, the woman was delivered of her baby, safe and sound. Asked what his fee was, the stranger merely answered it was God's work and no fee. Soon his reputation as a "medicine man" became widely known, and patients were brought to him from within and outside Ife community, all of whom the stranger treated free of charge. This greatly endeared him to all.
The next episode in Ekaladerhan's (Oduduwa's) arrival in Ife must be very interesting to present-day Ife people as it answers the Benin emissaries' question as to how the stranger became the village head. The account is that a revolt broke out against the original settlers and the village head, who were said to be Ugbo - Ilaje. They were defeated and they fled to their original home in Ugbo. With the popularity Ekaladerhan (or Oduduwa) had established for himself as a powerful "medicine man" it was no difficulty at all for the victors in the revolt to invite him to assume leadership of the community as their new head, a position he accepted with humility. It is an historical fact known.
I believe, to present-day Ife people, that the original settlers whom Ekaladerhan (Oduduwa) met moved away from Ife to a place called Ugbo,- a very ancient Ilaje town in Okitipupa area. Ife elders, especially the traditional title holders, must know the rest of the Ugbo episode as it affects Ife and Oduduwa because Ife people today perform a ritual festival that re-enacts the events that caused the original settlers including their village head to flee from Ife and Ekaladerhan (or Oduduwa) to become the head of the community. So that is Ekaladerhan (or Oduduwa) in Ife.
We have again digressed a bit, but the digression was worthwhile in order to show that the person whom the Benin emissaries found in Ife was actually Prince Ekaladerhan, the son of Ogiso Owodo who was banished to be executed but spared by the executioner and wandered into the unknown, from Ughoton. The mission to search for him was to bring him home to ascend the throne and so end the period of interregnum.
The Benin emissaries delivered their message, but Ekaladerhan replied, as the emissaries reported back to the elders at home, that he was happy where he was and, in any case too old to travel; but he was prepared to send his youngest son if the Benin people would submit to a test that they would take good care of him. This is another lengthy account which we need not go into here. Suffice it to state that the Benin people did submit to and passed Oduduwa's test and so Oranmiyan (or Oranyan in Yoruba) came to Benin as the ruler of the people.
This is where we come to how and where the choosing of a coronation title by the future Oba of Benin originated, as stated earlier, from the arrival of Oranmiyan in Benin. Benin traditional account has it that Oranmiyan could not live in Benin: he spent only akia (three lunar months) before he packed and left in anger. The annoyance arose from three factors: first, he did not understand the Benin language; second, he found his Yoruba custom different from the Benin; thirdly, and it was this that really did it, he discovered that whenever he and his people from Ife were performing some secret rituals, Benin people, including some elders who had often wondered at the Ife people's secretiveness, used to climb walls to peep at them. Enough was enough and he decided to leave.
On his way, he stopped at the Enogie of Egor to leave his wife Erinmwinde in her parent's care. She was the daughter of the Enogie and was pregnant. As her pregnancy advanced her father, the Enogie of Egor sent reports to Oduduwa whom the Benin people called Oghene n'Uhe.
Oduduwa also sent emissaries to monitor his daughter-in-law's progress. As the pregnancy advanced, Ogie Egor decided to send his daughter, Erinmwinde, to Erinmwinde's maternal parents in Use, next door village to Egor, for better "medical" attention and to ensure some degree of privacy for the "King's wife." It was at Use, Erinmwinde (Oranmiyan's wife) put to bed and word was immediately sent to Oghene n'Uhe (Oduduwa) who sent two servants to minister to his daughter-in-law and grandchild. They were known as Olo or Olero, a native medicine man whose task was to counter any evil things; the other was "Adigi" whose task was to fetch firewood for the new mother. The Benin people corrupted "Adigi" to "Edigin" as it is called today; Olo is still Olo. Both are now traditional titles of the Oba of Benin.
Erinmwinde's son grew but could not speak and word was sent to Uhe (Ife). Oghene n'Uhe (or Oduduwa) then sent a babalawo by name Ehendiwo with seven medicinal "akhue" seeds used in playing a kind of game on the ground by Benin people. The seeds are arranged in lines on the ground with each player throwing his own to knock down the opponent's seed. The young (dumb) Prince was to participate in this game and Ehendiwo was to bring out his own seeds for the dumb Prince to use when all the players had exhausted theirs.
This was what Ehendiwo did; the Prince threw his medicinal seeds and succeeded in knocking down the opponent's remaining one standing seed, and when he hit it, he exclaimed in his father's tongue "OWOMIKA" (no doubt moved by the power of the medicinal seeds). "OWOMIKA" has been translated to mean "my hand has struck it" and from that moment the young Prince's tongue became loosened and he was then able to speak.
The Benin people corrupted "OWOMIKA" to "Eweka" and gave it as the title to Oranmiyan's son who thus became known to the Benin people as "Eweka." (Modern historians later made him Eweka 1). It was the ritual performed that gave Oranmiyan's son the title of Eweka that every subsequent Oba-to-be goes to Use to perform to this day.
Ehendiwo since became the Oba's principal Ifa priest, while Edigin (Adigi) and Olo are Oba's traditionul title holders in Use. It was the same place in Use I went to in February, 1979, to perform the age-old ritual to select the name "Erediauwa" that I now answer, by the Grace of God and my ancestors. I thank God and my ancestors and the functionaries that everything went smoothly and successfully. Having now chosen a name, the next item on the programme was the actual coronation.
PRINCE EKAL ADERHAN WHO BECAME ODUDUWA
Prince EKAL ADERHAN, son of the last OGISO OWODO of Benin, who became Oduduwa, the first OONI of Ife (Oduduwa was a Yoruba corruption of Imadoduwa - which means I did not missed the path to glory in Edo language) which Ekaladerhan proclaimed while celebrating his coronation.
Prince EKAL ADERHAN was born about 1070 AD by IMADE, the secret wife of OGISO OWODO. Due to intrigues by queen ESAGHO, he was banished and his life was spared along his mother IMADE.
He built a temple in UGHOTON, where he used water and sea creatures as symbols. This was the beginning of OLOKUN worship which spread far and wide. It was after the demise of his father and when in interregnum, Evian, and later his son OGAMIEN tried to assume the kingship , those who knew that EKAL ADERHAN was alive organized a search party to fetch him. It was his search party that emerged at Ile-Ife, only to find that he had become a king
According to T.A. OSAE and S.N Nwabara in a "Short history of west Africa 1000 AD - 1800 AD." The name much revered legendary ancestral hero of YORUBA is ODUDUWA. He is portrayed in several variants of the legends as an Eastern Prince, who driven out of his kingdom in the East finally entered Nigeria after a long march with his followers, when it is realized the great Benin is to the East of Ife. The BENIN oral history is further strengthened.
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