In this issue, Jeremiah Arowosegbe makes a number of valid and important observations about the challenges facing the humanities and social sciences in Nigeria. But while he recognizes the importance of the political sphere by discussing the unequal and asymmetric landscape of global knowledge production, he locates most problems of knowledge production in Nigeria within the academy. Focusing on individual and generational responsibility and morality, Arowosegbe also suggests that recent generations of Nigerian academics have been ‘complacent and nonchalant’ in their engagement with global theoretical and methodological debates, and thus bear responsibility for the apparent decline of Nigerian academia.
Abstract:The existing body of literature on the origin of the Idepe-Ikale suggests a Benin provenance and an ethno-cultural identity for the generality of the Idepe-Ikale. This paper argues that this claim has largely been sustained by the excessive reliance on archival sources for the reconstruction Ikale pre-colonial history. It, therefore, draws primarily on evidence from praise poems and partly from historical linguistics and ethnography in its examination of the ethnic identity of the Idepe-Ikale, a major Ikale sub-group in southeastern Yorubaland. With this methodological shift, the paper establishes the fact that culturally and linguistically, the Idepe-Ikale are of the Yoruba ethnic stock rather than of Benin extraction. Thus, the paper casts doubts on the prevailing consensus on Idepe's Benin origin and identity and concludes that palace promoted and colonial-backed constructions of ethnic identities should be thoroughly scrutinised to correct mistaken notions about identity formation.
The Akoko-Ikale constitute a significant part of the Ikale sub-ethnic group in southeastern Yorubaland. However, as far as Yoruba historiography is concerned, the Akoko-Ikale and indeed the larger Ikale nation have suffered from neglect because they remain one of the least researched groups in Yorubaland. As a result of the dearth of serious academic works on the Ikale people, official and hegemonic accounts of Ikale's origin and ethnic identity that became institutionalized during the colonial era have become the abiding mantra in Ikale contemporary historical discourse.3 For instance, the Akoko-Ikale, as well as the generality of the people of Ikale, who are culturally, linguistically, and biologically of Yoruba stock, are widely perceived to have originated from Benin and so are Edoid people.The need to address and underscore the threat to identity posed by Ikale's historigraphical neglect and its fundamentally flawed Edo identity constitutes the major plank for this study. It is against this backdrop that this paper finds it expedient to focus on the origin and ethnic identity of the Akoko-Ikale. This important Ikale sub-group is singled out for scrutiny because of my belief that a systematic attempt at tracing the origin and pattern of migration of specific and very significant Ikale lineage groups such as the Akoko-Ikale represents the best way to discredit Ikale's widely alleged Edo identity and Benin ancestry.
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