A HISTORY OF OKRIKA-OGONI RELATIONS IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURY
IGBANI, ROBBINS OWEDE, Department of History and International Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Federal University Otuoke., Nigeria.
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Bulletin | Page 01 to 19
Abstract
The study examined the intergroup relations between the Okrika and the Ogoni people in the 19th and 20th century. The study made use of historical research design in both data collection and analysis. Thus, in sourcing for data the study made use of both primary and secondary sources such as oral traditions, oral history, archival materials, academic journals, text books and among others. The study revealed that during the 19th century with the end of the slave trade economy in 1807, and the rise of the legitimate trade for palm oil as the new article of trade, the Okrika people continued to play the role of middlemen like they did during the slave trade economy that lasted for 400 years. The Okrika middlemen, relied on their long-standing relations with the Ogoni people, to conveying palm produce from Ogoni to Bonny, where the products are then shipped abroad. The study further revealed that one remarkable trade relations between the Okirika and the Ogoni people was the high degree of exchange on pottery with Ogoni pot traders who regularly trade locally made waterpots and cooking pots for the Okirika people. The study also revealed that during the transatlantic slave trade, slaves procured from Igbo heartland passed through the major trade route of Ogoni to both Okrika and Bonny garrisons. Thus, the slaves that were taken to Okrika through the North-Eastern routes were first kept at the slave camp Agbonchia in Mboli (Eleme) and from the slave camp to Okrika through Alesa or Onne routes. It further revealed that the people of Ogoloma, through preventive diplomacy, have an age long covenant consummated through traditional oath with the people of Bodo, to live in peace and harmony and never to go to war with each other. Thus, regardless of the protracted land dispute between certain Okrika and Ogoni communities, the people have lived harmoniously over the years, from the pre-colonial to the post- colonial Nigeria.
Keywords: Economy, Intergroup, legitimate trade, Middlemen, Relations, Slave trade, Trade
‘A Voice Lost?’: Revisiting Nigeria’s Struggle for Africanity in the African Development Bank before the Era of Akinwnnmi Adesina
Festus Chibuike Onuegbu, Department of History and International Studies, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Nigeria
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Bulletin | Page 01 to 16
Abstract
Since the inception of the African Development Bank in 1963, Nigeria has been its major voice and contributor. However, very little is known about the Bank amongst Nigerians particularly the efforts and sacrifices the country has made to ensuring its survival and continued operation. Against this backdrop, this paper examines Nigeria’s efforts in defending the African identity of the Bank in the face of bourgeoning external influences. The paper argues thar contrary to the common views of ‘unguarded charity’ expressed by many Nigerians about the country’s benevolent commitments in Africa, the defense of Africanity in the Bank was an important demonstration of African solidarity and Pan Africanism to ensure collective progress of not just Nigerians but all Africans and the entire black race as a people. It was not only borne out of the altruistic spirit of solidarity and Pan Africanism but, also, to keep Africa safe from the entanglement of the Western imperialism and neo-colonization. Although the country’s pan African voice in the Bank currently appears to be overshadowed by the huge presence and influence of external powers, it is possibly not dead as a Nigerian in the person Dr Akinwunmi Adesina is currently at the helm of affairs of the Bank. The paper is a qualitative research. It adopts a narrative historical method, and uses both primary and secondary sources of information.
Keywords: African Development Bank, Nigeria’s Foreign Policy, Pan-Africanism, African Solidarity, External Influence / Neo-colonialism.
Women in Politics, A Decolonial Critique of the Politics of Affirmative Action in Uganda
Ashiraf Mugalula, Research Fellow, Makerere University |Al-Mustafa Islamic College.
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Bulletin | Page 01 to 31
Abstract
Drawing on Uganda’s critical gender and political debates, this essay introduces a decolonial critique of Affirmative Action policies. Moving beyond the established debate—which pits liberal proponents (e.g., Mwaka, 1996; Kadaga, 2013; Ahikire, 1994/2013) against feminist critics who highlight its structural limitations (e.g., Tamale; Goetz, 2002)—this paper argues that such policies must be understood as a continuation of the colonial logic of difference. Engaging Mahmood Mamdani’s (1996) analysis of the bifurcated state, I demonstrate how the colonial strategy of “define and rule,” which governed subjects through fixed racial and tribal identities, has been repurposed by the postcolonial state. By constituting “women” as a singular, state-managed political category for empowerment, Affirmative Action inadvertently replicates the foundational colonial practice of mediating citizenship through group identity. Consequently, this well-intentioned framework risks recognizing women not as full, unmediated citizens but as members of a state-defined group. This process, while addressing quantitative underrepresentation, reinforces the very architecture of differentiated rule that sustains the postcolonial state. Ultimately, the essay contends that this logic forecloses more radical, pluralistic, and emancipatory possibilities by tying political agency to a state-sanctioned identity, thereby reproducing the subject-making dynamics it seeks to overcome.
Keywords: Affirmative Action, Decolonial Theory, Colonial Logic of Difference, Postcolonial State, Gender and Citizenship.
“Kyapa Mungalo” and the Land Question in Buganda: Problematizing Neoliberal Reforms on Customary Tenure.
Ashiraf Mugalula, Research Fellow, Makerere University |Al-Mustafa Islamic College.
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Bulletin | Page 01 to 30
Abstract
The people of Buganda, the central region of Uganda, face a double system of formalization i.e. state-led through the Uganda Land Board (ULB) and another by Buganda Kingdom through Buganda Land Board (BLB). Since 2012, Buganda has been conducting a campaign dubbed “Kyapa Mungalo”1 which means “ Title-in-hand” to encourage tenants on customary land to get lease titles offered by the kingdom. Much as the campaign started earlier, the process of registration was launched in 2017 and people started registering their land with BLB. Despite Buganda providing a rare case of land titling, there has been no substantial discussion and critique of titling done by the customary authority since recent research has focused on state-centered titling. This paper will argue that any substantial discussion of neoliberal land reform needs to take seriously the institutions and structures that enforce the reforms. I also argue that the design and implementation of neoliberal land reforms especially titling has limited if any potential to promote development, gender equality and improve the status of gendered households. By not questioning the institutions especially the customary institution of Buganda and Mengo, we risk a wrong impression and interpretation of the reforms and the intensions for which they are established. Through preliminary critique of Kyapa Mungalo, the paper doesn’t only question the agency of Buganda kingdom in neoliberal reforms of customary tenure but also the structure within which it operates, and so its relationship with the state.
Keywords: Neoliberal Land Reform, Land Titling, Customary Tenure, Buganda Kingdom, Kyapa Mungalo Program.
The Puzzle in African History: Re-examining Pre-Colonial African History Via Nubia and the Nubians in the Making of Africa’s Civilisation.
Ashiraf Mugalula, Research Fellow, Makerere University |Al-Mustafa Islamic College.
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Bulletin | Page 01 to 22
Abstract
The writing of African history has time and again been an intellectual and epistemological struggle against European narratives regarding the fate and representation of the continent’s history in the world. The history of Africa’s civilisation long has been written as exogenous brought by external influence. In fact, some scholars have argued that Africa had no history and civilisation before its encounter with the western world and any traces of civilisation were not indigenous but Caucasian. These narratives came in the Hamitic hypothesis thesis and they kept on changing in their historical developments. Therefore, African history was attributed to those who invaded and antagonised the continent. Western historiography was based on grounds that render Africa a victim rather than an architect and source of history. Even African historians who tend to write precolonial history focus on the near past i.e., the 16th-20th centuries which accounts ignore the developments that took place in the far past (Richard Reid, 2011). As such, Africa has been denied the agency to define her own history. However, on the other hand, nationalist historians have time and again considered the history of Africa to have been created without any influence from outside Africa. I contend to the contrary that much as Africans had agency in their own civilisation, there were contributions from the outside world. Therefore, I re-examine the history of Africa and its civilisation based on the history of Ancient Nubia. Egypt’s Revival in Africa argues that Africa and Nubia in particular had a civilisation long before its encounter with the western world. I offer evidence from secondary literature to show the nature, character and dynamism of Nubia’s civilisation explaining the internal material and non-material developments engineered by the political, social, economic and cultural organisation and developments that took place in ancient Nubia by the Nubians were very relevant in the shaping of Africa’s history but such has often been denied if not stolen. As well as projecting relations with her neighbours in terms of trade, cultural exchange, intermarriages, conquests & wars. I employ both descriptive and analytical approaches.
Keyword: African Historiography, Hamitic Hypothesis, Ancient Nubia Civilization, African Agency in History, Precolonial African History.