A Professor of History and Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Olukoya Ogen, has charged Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, to champion the establishment of the Yoruba Historical Research Foundation.
He said such a foundation would be a platform for funding Yoruba history fellowships, research grants, and prizes.
Olukoya gave the charge while delivering the 21st Inaugural Lecture of Osun State University, Osogbo, recently.
He spoke on a topic titled “Reconstructing a silenced past: Echoes of revisionism and counter-hegemonic history.”
According to him, it is high time for Afenifere to broaden its mandates to incorporate the promotion of Yoruba historical research and cultural rejuvenation.
While commending the organisation, particularly for prioritising the socio-economic and political development of Yorubaland and its people across the world, the don also advocated the production of alternative, non-statist, counter-hegemonic history that is capable of recovering the suppressed and historically marginalised voices in the region.
Speaking further, Prof. Ogen, who was a pioneer dean of the Faculty of Humanities at UNIOSUN and former provost of Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, mentioned the lingering controversies surrounding the historical dynamics of Ife-Benin-Ugbo intergroup relations.
He declared that, to the best of his knowledge, the controversies had already been laid to rest.
This summation, he explained, was based on his findings on an extensive collection and comparison of Ife, Benin, and Ugbo cultural artefacts, the in-depth ethnographic survey of the study areas, and evidence from dialectology and anthropology, relevant ancient and extant literatures, as well as navigational maps of coastal Yorubaland dating back to the 15th century and Portuguese and Dutch travel records from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
The don affirmed that the Ugbo headed by the Olugbo of Ugbo were the original inhabitants of pre-Oduduwa Ife and that this fact was also confirmed by the 46th Ooni of Ife, Oba Adelekan, Olubuse l, who reigned from 1894 to 1910 in an interview he granted the then Assistant District Officer, John Wyndham, which was later published in London in 1921.
The lecturer, in his paper, however, dismissed Benin’s longstanding claim that the Benin monarchy does not owe any cultural allegiance to Ile-Ife and that its Yoruba cultural influences are derived from its cultural relations with the Ugbo.
On this, he posited that the LF claim of cultural influence over the Benin monarchy is absolutely correct and that the denial by the Benin traditional elite is unstainable given their open admission that Ugbo had an overarching influence on the Benin royalty.
Drawing conclusion, Prof. Ogen maintained that since there is evidence that the Ugbo migrated out of Ile-Ife, it follows then that Yoruba cultural influence on the Benin monarchy is still lfe-derived.
The lecture, which was streamed live, brought together an assemblage of renowned academicians, including university administrators, royal fathers, African leaders, top government officials, captains of industry, and so forth.
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