ODUDUWA WAS NOT A YORUBA MAN By Ndagi Abdullahi

Nupe Reverend Samuel Johnson wrote in his ‘History of the Yorubas’ that Oduduwa came from outside Yorubaland.¹

Oba Obateru Akinruntan the monarch of Ugbo kingdom in Ondo State stated that Oduduwa was not a Yoruba man.²

And Dr. Jacob Abdullahi wrote that even the name Oduduwa is not a Yoruba name.³

If Oduduwa came from outside Yorubaland, if Oduduwa was not a Yorubaman, then where did Oduduwa came from and what tribe or ethnicity was he? Professor David Laitin wrote that Oduduwa did not come from Mecca or the Middle East.⁴

Dr. Constanze Weise wrote that the ‘Mecca’ mentioned in the Yoruba traditions actually referred to the Niger-Benue Confluence area of Nupeland.⁵

Similarly, Professor Bethwell Allan Ogot wrote that the ‘Mecca’ from which Oduduwa was said to have come actually referred to Nupeland.⁶

Then, Professor Bethwell Allan Ogot emphatically wrote that Oduduwa came from Nupeland.⁷

While Farouk Martins Aresa admitted that Oduduwa was of Nupe blood,⁸

both Professor David Laitin and Professor Bethwell Ogot categorically wrote that Oduduwa was a Nupe man.⁹

References:

1 – Johnson, S. (1921). The History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate. Lagos: C.M.S. Bookshops, p. 3.
2 – “Oba Drops Bomb on Yoruba Nation…Oduduwa Not Progenitor” in Younewsng.com , September 17, 2016, http:// www.younewsng.com/2016/09/17/obat-drops-bomb-on- yoruba-nation-oduduwa-not-progenitor/
3 – Abdullahi, J. (2006). The First Nigerian People. Anyigba: Winners Studios, p. 20.
4 – Laitin, D.D. (1986). Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Change Among the Yoruba. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 111.
5 – Weise, C. (1965). Governance and Ritual Sovereignty at the Niger-Benue Confluence: A Political and Cultural History of Nigeria’s Igala, Northern Yoruba and Nupoid-Speaking Peoples to 1900 CE, A dissertation submitted for Doctor of Philosophy in History, U University of California, Los Angeles, USA, 2013, p. 170.
6 – Ogot, B.A. (1999). Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, University of California Press, p. 224.
7 – Ogot, B.A. (1999). Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, University of California Press, p. 224.
8 – Martins, F. (2017). The Ogiso of Benin and Ijaw Came from Ile Ife, Newsrescue.com, 28 August 2017, http:// newsrescue.com/ogiso-bini-ijaw-came-ile-ife-farouk-martins- aresa/#axzz4wFfhwEOl
9 – Laitin, D.D. (1986). Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Change Among the Yoruba. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 111; Ogot, B.A. (1999). Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century, University of California Press, p. 224.