Badenoch in the Midst of Kperogi and Nwankwo:  An Account of Intellectual Partisanship -By Ismail Misbahu

The Lede

“I find it interesting that everyone defines me as a Nigerian. I identify less with the country than with my specific ethnic group. I have nothing in common with the people from the North of the country—the Boko Haram, where Islamism is. Being Yoruba is my true identity, and I refuse to be lumped with northern people of Nigeria, who were our ethnic enemies, all in the name of being called a Nigerian” ~ Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch, the leader of the British Conservative Party.

Being a British of Nigerian origin (or as Badenoch may choose to say, of ‘Yoruba origin’), her tirade of abuse has created an unpleasant intellectual atmosphere in Nigeria. It promotes intellectual contestations in the midst of a thriving historical presentism, widening the historiographical scope of ‘ethnic representation’ and ‘ethnic supremacy’. In Nigeria history is only relevant if it can be used for defence against, or for someone’s ethnic or religious group. But like religion, Nigerian history, if approached with genuine and patriotic vision, can promote peace, foster unity and progress. It can however, be manipulated to promote hatred and enmity in the same way religion is used to promote communal divides, tension and conflicts. No doubt this explains the reasons that, whenever the concern about teaching history in our secondary schools is raised, experts in the field remain sceptical as to which type of histories, and from which type of history teacher, could such a knowledge be rightly imparted. The thriving culture of conflicts of identities and contestations—all in the name of identity reconstruction—are the major obstacles currently challenging any attempts (and approaches) aspiring to instil in the children’s moral philosophy, a culture of historical consciousness, patriotism, love, unity and the progress of their nation.

Contestations in identity reconstruction is also the reason why selectivity in scholarship is becoming intense and unavoidable. It is the reason why there has been so much rejection and neglect of the most respected and widely-acknowledged authorities of high repute. Two examples stood out recently to illustrate this very clearly. The first were the two responses of professor Farooq Kperogi—one to Mrs Badenoch’s utterance—and another a rejoinder to his friend, Dr. Lasisi. The second was in the form of diatribe by Dr. Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, attacking the intellectual maturity, capacity and of course, the personality of professor Kperogi. While Kperogi’s delving into history clearly demonstrates his sincere commitment to love and unity of Nigeria, Nwankwo’s historical profession is but a partisan display of intellectual dishonesty and arrogance. No doubt he ended orating histories that have no concrete basis in history—some of which he cited without any tangible evidence—a tell-tales he’s been hearing from his vehement, unfriendly religious and ethnic atmosphere. At some instances, both Nkwanwo and Kperogi patronise selectivity of sources, normal as it is, but also neglecting other relevant authorities. Scholars like late Dr. Bala Usman, have impressed in their writings truly approachable insights that could help make sense of historical reconstruction in a more meaningful and sustainable manner. Yet people like Nwonkwo may, of course, see scholars like Bala as fitting into the Badenoch’s imagery of ‘Northern enemy’ and, perhaps, an uncomfortable authority in Kperogi’s mind.

Using Bala Usman as an example, I will illustrate how selectivity and neglect of relevant authorities mislead the historical accounts of both Kperogi and Nwankwo. Remember, the subject matter is Kemi Badenoch.

Late Bala Usman (1945-2005) was a historian of high repute but also understood by many in different ways. Those who built friendship, mentorship, or tutorship with him, differ in opinions—some were in the affirmative while others in disagreement. In most cases, those who refute his philosophy of history and historiography were either in opposition to his views as is typically the case in every academia, or stood in defence of his critiques against them. The bulk of ‘others’ refuting his ideas tends to have built their (mis)understanding on others’ opinions about him, not necessarily based on his informed philosophy, scholarly treatises and ideas.

Kperogi in Bala Usman

Badenoch, which Kperogi recently wrote about, has since her mindless utterances on the ‘North’ and ‘its religion’, become a subject to write history about. A lot about Yoruba history has been re-visited. A lot more that connects the North and South, cuts across cultures and ‘ethnic boundaries’ has also resurfaced and queried. Not least was the very question of the origin of the name ‘Yoruba’, which professor Kperogi reminded us of its origin and from where and which people it was first heard of. Yet, in all his attempts to prove the exonym in the name ‘Yoruba’, and the origin of its derivation in association with other languages outside ‘Yorubaland’, Kperogi did not cite a very well-known and respected authority in Nigerian history especially on a subject relating to 20th century formation of collective identities such as the ‘Yoruba.’ What actually constitutes the meaning of ‘ethnic categories’ in the definition of peoples’ agencies and their identities is at the core of Bala’s panoptic philosophy of history and nation building.

Kperogi, though captures Bala’s impression in many ways, he might have made his view crystal clear had he bothered to look for one or two of Bala’s works. To make his substance a little more limpid, I cite three of his scholarly works in addition to the references he made available. Two of these works were authored by Bala Usman viz: “The Misrepresentation of Nigeria”, and a collection of his in-depth historiographical treatises titled “Beyond Fairy Tales”. The third was authored by Elizabeth Isichie, “Genetics Markers in Nigeria”, cited in one of Bala’ articles: “The Violent Communal Conflicts in the Central Nigerian Uplands and the Middle Benue Basin in a Historical Perspective”—a paper he presented at the Presidential Retreat on Peace and Conflict Resolution, Kuru, 2002—also included in the second enlarged edition of “Beyond Fairy Tales”, 2014. I cite a few passages from these works to make the substance truly more resounding.

In his response to his friend, Dr. Lasisi, on his article Borgu, Northern Nigeria, and Yoruba History, Kperogi points to the fact that contrary to Kemi Badenoch’s claim, “the Yoruba and the ‘North’ have had and still have a lot in common.’ That the notions of collective identity with definite ethnographic boundaries are relatively new all over the world.” He claims that “Yoruba, the collective name for the people of Western Nigeria, ‘is an exonym that traces etymological provenance from what is now called northern Nigeria and that it originally referred only to people from Oyo, not other subgroups such as Ijebu, Ondo, Ijesa, Egba, etc.”

He presents three versions before his readers, accounting for the origin of the name ‘Yoruba’. Firstly, he points out that, a report in a newspaper which came into existence in 1859, establishes in its saying a clear difference between the Egba and Yoruba: “Iwe Irohim fun awon Egba ati Youruba (Yoruba for newspaper for the Egba and Yoruba).”

In the second version, while citing Professor Biodun Adediran, Kperogi argues that the term ‘Yoruba’ wasn’t native to Yoruba and was, in fact, a word first used for Oyo people by ‘Northerners.’ Quoting Adediran, he argues that the term [‘Yoruba’]

“First appeared in Arabic sources and in European accounts based on information from the Hausa country. … That it was probably the Hausa who first gave the name ‘Yarribah’ to their Yoruba-speaking neighbours. Since the Oyo were the sub-group the Hausa came most frequently in contact with, the name easily became synonymous with ‘Oyo’, therefore, the term ‘Yoruba’ initially remained confined to “the dictionary of those who invented it” and gained broader use only in the early 19th century due to increased interactions between the Yoruba and their northern neighbours.”

The third version speaks of the connection between the name ‘Yoruba’ and the Baatonu people of Borgu. From the evidence he discovers in Dr. Hussaini Abdu’s work, Kperogi asserts that “the Hausa themselves borrowed the term Yariba (or versions of it) from the Baatonu people of Borgu, known to the Yoruba as ‘Bariba’, ‘Baruba’, or ‘Ibariba’, who are Oyo’s northwestern neighbours.” That, the Baatonu, refer to the Oyo people as “Yoru” (singular) and ‘Yorubu’ (plural), with ‘Yoruba’ used in third-person references.” He also points to the spread of the name ‘Yoruba’ to Songhai-Borgu interactions, which was later reinforced by interviews with Baatonu slaves in Sierra Leone and popularized through European travellers and missionary records, such as Samuel Johnson’s 19th-century writings.

Another important authority cited by Kperogi is Professor Rasheed Olaniyi, re-establishing the fact that the older Hausa name for Yoruba people was ‘Ayagi’ not ‘Yariba’, perhaps suggesting that the exonym ‘Yoruba’ was one among many.

Given the relative strengths and significance of the historical versions presented so far, I refer the reader to pages 40 to 47 of Bala’s “Misrepresentation of Nigeria”, where he, of course, dedicated a chapter “The Example of the Yoruba” and a sub-section “The Definition of Yoruba” to substantiate Kperogi’s argument. Specifically in page 41, Bala observes:

“The fact is that the earliest record we have of the use of the very name ‘Yoruba’ was in the Hausa language and it seems to have applied to the people of the Alafinate of Oyo. This came from the writings of the seventeenth century Katsina scholar, Dan Masani (1595-1667), who wrote a book on Muslim scholars of the ‘Yarriba’. But it was from a book of the Sarkin Musulmi Bello, written in the early 19th century, that the name became more widely used. Bishop Ajayi Crowther, Reverend Samuel Johnson and his brother Obadiah Johnson, among others, came in the 19th century, to widely spread this Hausa name to the people who now bear it, in their writings.” [emphasis emboldened].

Bala adds that names like ‘Lukunmi’, ‘Aku’, ‘Nago’, and ‘Anago’ were also applied to the same [Yoruba] people. This adds to the strength of Kperogi’s emphasis on Olaniyi’s point that the older Hausa name for Yoruba people was ‘Ayagi’ not ‘Yariba, but which from the light of Bala’s findings, ‘Ayagi’ might be ‘another’ name in the series of many. In all the exonyms, Bala points out that being the most widely prevalent and accepted name, “Yarriba” has not been rejected by even among those who complained Abuja was given a Hausa name, approving the receptivity of this usage (‘Yarriba’) above any sense of derogatory. Still, while the fact that Hausa borrowed from Baatonu is silent in Bala Usman, the references to Dan Masani and Sarkin Musulmi Bello quoted in Bala were found missing in Kperogi’s copious yet ‘less accessible’ literature. These sources also add strength to Nwankwo’s claim that the spread of the name ‘Yarriba’ to Songhai through the writings of Ahmad Baba who first mentioned it in his 1613 essay titled “Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāfmajlūb al-Sūdān.” It appears, however, that Bala’s reference to Dan Masani (1595-1667) seems to have been much earlier than Nwankwo’s account. Using these sources would therefore surely enrich our knowledge as most of Bala’s works and others of his time were made available and distributed widely across Nigerian Universities.

Bala’s writings were ‘across-the-board’, coherently capturing the interconnectedness (as exemplifies by the etymological connection of Yarriba with Baatonu) of Nigeria’s linguistic, cross-dialectical borrowing, cultural, religious, economic, political and aesthetic relations of Nigerians at various levels. His unending inquiries—method of questioning the questions, have till today, remained the most unique in their kind and quality. His reference to the work of Elizabeth Isichie, provides rather more convincing genetic evidence in support of such connection on the one hand, and in defiance of the notion that ethnic groups in Nigeria (as for instance, the case of Egba and Yoruba), are two different, and necessarily ‘distinct’ ethnic groups. Isichie:

“Many years have gone by since historians first appreciated the value of genetic evidence from the study of blood constituents in historical analysis. Blood constituents lie entirely outside human volition; the light they shed on past relationships is therefore invaluable. The frequency of any varies from population to population, but they are known to be almost identical in populations related to one another. The incidence of any particular gene in any population remains relatively constant and stable for many centuries and this has provided a basis for genetic studies in various populations.”

On Nigeria, Isichie wrote:

“A cursory look at the provisional genetic map of Nigeria constructed from the available data shows that there is some similarity in the genetic constitution of most of Nigeria’s people. Although differences may be seen between certain communities within the continent of Africa itself. So, it is possible that the original people in the area now regarded as Nigeria were descended from the same ancestral stock and that the difference in the genetic pattern within the country may be due to bombardment by external genes. These facts together with the overall similarity in the genetic pattern showing in most of Nigeria’s people confirm in essence the picture which historians have reached on other grounds, rejecting any idea of dramatic migration from far afield and emphasising the great antiquity and stability of settlement. Nigeria’s peoples are probably descended from quite small Stone Age populations living pretty much within the country’s present boundaries.”

Also, understanding the fact that “local wars fostered sub-group pride, and many non-Oyo groups have come to reject ‘Yoruba’ as a foreign name’, has exposed the absurdity of making the Egba assume a different ethnic group outside the Yoruba. A sub-section still in “The Misrepresentation of Nigeria” titled “The Ife-Modakeke Conflict” will help enrich the reader’s insight on this.

Nwankwo’s Misrepresentation of History

Dr. Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe’s article titled “Kemi Badenoch and Farooq Kperogi’s exonymic historical Ignorance constructed on quixotic Borgu-Fulani mentality”, published by The Street Journal, January 16, 2025 is a good example of partisan portrayal of intellectual dishonesty rooted in the art of ‘drip strategy’ and a blatant twist of facts to settle scores. As the Odogwu of Ibusa and President of International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN), one would of course, expect to receive intellectual hostility rooted in the predisposed name his organisation is bearing. His 4,360 words attack, of which about 2,500 words were but a muddiest, mismatched and confused response to Kperogi, with about 930 words of flattering ignorance about the complex nature of Nigeria’s insecurity while 255 words ended in praise-singing, must stand the chance of winning the 2025 Badanoch’s Award of Ethnic Champion!

Presentism is at the core of Nwankwo’s barefaced remark:

“There is therefore obvious evidence that Kperogi does not understand what the North, which forms Rt. Hon. Kemi Badenoch’s basis of argument, stands for in the context of present Nigerian politics.” Did Kperogi in his logical sense of a scholar attempt to ask if the Yoruba of the same Northern Nigeria are included among the Northern people of Nigeria Rt. Hon. Kemi Badenoch described as her ethnic enemies? Did Kperogi ask which Northern ethnic groups are the real ethnic enemies of the Yoruba Rt. Hon. Kemi Badenoch spoke about, judging from extant historical precedents?”

It seems Nwankwo is desperate on trying to ‘save’ Kperogi from the Boko Haram of the North and the Islamism of its Hausa/Fulani, pleading the guilty in the above quotation that Badenoch’s meaning of the ‘North’ does not imply Kperogi’s Borgu-Yoruba etymological association. Unfortunately for Nwankwo, Kperogi is not an ethnic champion and that is why he devoted attention to various historical accounts—those of Professor Biodun Adediran and Dr. Hussaini Abdu especially—to speak of the fact that ‘Yoruba’ was, in fact, a word first used for Oyo people by ‘Northerners’ and also relate well with the name’s association with Baatonu, all in his attempt to demonstrate how various historical accounts suggest that there’s SOMETHING as opposed to Badenoch’s claiming of having NOTHING in common, with the North.

It seems Kperogi understands history better than the person who pseudofiles historical professionalism. It reads in one of such files that

“Historically, the North by British colonial delineation is ethnographically made up of no less than two hundred and fifty ethnic groups of which the Yoruba form a part in the present Kwara and Kogi States.” [Emphasis emboldened].

The North and Yoruba of Kwara and Kogi were not made up of 250 ethnic groups. The myth of 250 ethnic groups has already been resolved by the likes of scholars Nwankwo will not love to hear from. I am referring you to two important works of Bala Usman: “The Formation of the Nigerian Economy and Polity” in Mahadi, Kwanashie and Yakubu, Nigeria, the State of the Nation and the Way Forward: Proceedings of the National Workshop Organised by Arewa House Centre for Historical Documentation and Research, Kaduna, 1994, 35-52. In pages 45-6 of this chapter, Bala well interrogated the question of 250 ethnic groups, arguing that James Coleman who is quite thorough in his documentation did not cite the source from which he got clear the existence of 250 ethnic groups. Richared Sklar too, only cited Coleman as his source. Bala observes that the impression of 250 ethnic groups possibly comes from Joseph Greenberg’ 1963 linguistic monograph, The Languages of Africa, and he did not list in particular the languages of Nigeria. Bala shows that it was just Greenberg’s mapping of the languages that placed about 250 ethnic groups within the Nigeria-Cameroon border, therefore making it difficult to be precise. Bala also shows how linguistic studies developed after Greenberg in the 1960s and 70s and a group of linguists have produced an ‘Index of Nigerian Languages’ published in 1976, which suggests 394 languages in Nigeria including Pidgin English. Still, in chapter six of his Misrepresentation of Nigeria, titled “The Ethnic Geography of Nigeria”, pp 36-39, Bala fetched out the latest update, of 111 more languages discovered on top of the 394. Bala:

The latest available list of Nigerian languages by Keir Hansford, John Bendor and K.Stanford, updated to May 2004 by the more recent scholarly researches including those of D. Crozier, R. Blench, B. Connel and U. Siebert, published in Ethnolougue:  Languages of the World,14th Edition of 2004, as “Languages of Nigeria”, have identified 505 living languages in the country as shown in fig.8.

Confused Tautologies: Nwankwo’s ‘Drip Strategy’

Nwankwo, in the service of Badanoch dares “to what extent does this matter of etymology of the word “Yoruba” contradict Rt. Hon. Kemi Badenoch’s assertive statement that the North are the ethnic enemies of the Yoruba?” seeing history from the lens of enmity and derogatory, Nwankwo dim-wits:

Does the origin of a people’s name debar the same people from having the originators of the name as their enemies? Is there any historical law that outlaws a group from giving their enemies names? The name “Nigeria” was a British colonial geographical expression, to parody the great sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to describe hundreds of culturally, linguistically, and politically diverse ethnic nationalities bonded together to form an incompatible nation-state. So was the Rt. Hon. Kemi Badenoch not right when she emphatically asserted that she considers herself as a Yoruba and not Nigerian; and that she has no business being bonded together with her northern ethnic enemies? [Emphasis emboldened].

Interestingly, the same etymological approach Kperogi employed to show there’s something in common between Yoruba and Northern Nigeria, also employed by his critique, Nwankwo, using the name ‘Nigeria’ to show that it was a British exonym first ‘intended’ to be assigned to ‘Muhammedan Habe (the Hausa-Fulani)’, which according to Nwankwo justifies the Awolowo’s claim that ‘Nigeria is a mere geographical expression.’ Yes, it is true that the name ‘Nigeria’ was intended to be applied to the northern parts of the country, in order to distinguish them from the rest of the Lagos Colony and Niger Coast Protectorate as expressed in a letter wrote by Lugard’s wife, Flora Show, dated 8th January, 1897 and published in The Times of London. But this is not the case with Nwankwo. His apparent illustration is not only to justify Badenoch’s claim of a ‘less Nigerian identity but more of Youruba’, but also to propagate the ancient idea that inter-group relations in Nigeria were good-for-nothing, which is absolutely ignoble. He demonstrates this in his almost 930 words of flattering ignorance, relating his presentist approach to the complex nature of Nigeria’s insecurity with the Fulani—whom he stills misrepresents in the following:

Generally, to the Hausa, the present people collectively known as Fulani are made up of two different ethnic groups sharing one common Fulbe language—the real Fulani known as the Bororo who are the depository of cattle herding, and the Toronkowa or Torodbe who represent the sedentary Fulani ruling class.

For Nwankwo, and for the Hausa whom he says believe in the above, I refer you to pages 29-38 of Bala’s chapter in his collection of writings Beyond Fairy Tales, titled “The Problem of Ethnic Categories in the Study of the Historical Development of the Central Sudan: A Critique of M.G. Smith and Others.” In this chapter Bala demonstrates the absurdity of taking hold-of-assumptions that a common historical ancestor had existed—from which a distinct ethnic group could trace its genealogy. Even at the level of clans and lineages, Bala shows that Fulani, as of course the case with other ethnic groups in Nigeria, is of diverse origins. This is the reason why he realises in his work, the existence of ‘two identity origin’ in history: genealogical and territorial. Given the incomprehensibility of genealogical origin in tracing the ancestral origin of an ethnic group, Bala emphatically suggests using territorial origin to identify Nigeria’’ diverse, socio-cultural and linguistic groups: Kanawa, Zage-Zagi, Sakkwatawa, Katsinawa, the people of Ile-Ife, the people of Kwara, the Lagosians etc as all of these incorporate cultures outside their ‘homes.’ Understanding the impressive significance of ascribing cultural and linguistic groups with ‘territory from which they are incorporated is enough to stabilise Nwankwo’s hammering that Danfodiyo was not a Fulani but Tukulor. Quoting Prof B. O. Oloruntimehin, in his book, The Segu Tukolor Empire Nwankwo boldly asserts that Danfodiyo “was never a Fulan but a Tukolor of Futa Toro located in the present Republic of Senegal.” By rejecting the realities of migration and the accompanying reconstruction of identities at so many levels, Nwankwo hastily concludes:

It is therefore right to state that both ethnically, physiognomic sense and even culturally, Shehu Usman dan Fodio and his descendants, including all the members of the present Fulani ruling class—the Sultan of Sokoto, Emirs and all those in high government positions who parade themselves as Fulani in Nigeria today are not truly Fulani in the ethno-linguistic sense of Fulani ethnic identity but ethnic Tukolor.

His daring that “the main ethnic Fulani are the Bororo Fulani herdsmen” seems to make his first claim that this categorisation was the architect of the Hausa, more suspicious. Since Nwankwo did not cite any source in support of his claim that Hausa sees Fulani in respect to two different ethnic groups—not in the form of clans and lineages as clearly impressed in various scholarly works—we must assume therefore that this categorisation, of the Fulani into two distinct groups: Bororo and Toro-Tukolor which he claims composed variously of Torodbe, Torodo and Toronkawa is his architect, obviously exposing his perception of Nigerian history as necessarily that of conflicting often antagonistic tribes and ethnic groups. To show that Nwankwo is not ready to demonstrate altruistic historical profession, after spattering all his confused facts and jargons, he still comes back to where he actually belongs. He of course, belongs to his ICAC-GEN school, and cannot see outside what’s already known to be its common ideology:

The Fulani domineering oligarchy in these States are not only ethnic enemies to the Yoruba as Rt. Hon. Kemi Badenoch rightly asserted but collective enemies to the entire Nigerian Christians. … That Badenoch’s definition of the North and Northern ethnic enemies is anchored on the ethno-religious complexities of the geo-political Northern Nigeria in which the Fulani-led Muslim oligarchy defines itself as the real Northerners, while the non-Muslim mainly Christian minority ethnic groups are considered second-class citizens and not real Northerners.

Conclusion

It is just easier to pin-point how Nwankwo’s mind-set works out well in his practical professionalism. Altruistic historical reconstruction can be evinced from his accounts only if he accepts what he was trying to hide and sets the record straight. For instance, he says:

“Like Farooq Kperogi who is ethnically Fulani but currently claims Baatonu of Borgu identity, and Gambari-Fulani of Ilorin bearing Yoruba names and speaking Yoruba language while retaining their Fulani cultural identity, the Yoruba-speaking people of Igboland bear Igbo names, claim Igbo ethnic identity, and speak Igbo, while retaining their Yoruba language and cultural identity. The same sequence of nomenclature equally applies to Farooq Kperogi’s Baatonu people of Borgu who are variously known among the Yoruba as he aptly noted, by the names “Bariba, Baruba, or Ibariba.” … In historical terms, every original identity or name associated with any individual, town or ethnic group is an exonymous derivative. Every individual is given a name without his consent from birth.”

If Nwankwo could demonstrate his comprehension of the complex nature of Nigerian history as he portrays it above, then there’s no ground for coming to challenge a barren idea that there is nothing in common between the North and Yoruba, or for that matter, the Yoruba and Fulani, or the North and South, or Islam and Christian etc. But to muddy all these in the name of dismissing ‘an unprofessional historian’ while creating a horribly turbulent intellectual atmosphere, is just a waste of time.

When we accept, for instance, the claim by a ‘professional historian’, Nwankwo but who also gives no evidence of his source in the same way ‘an unprofessional Kperogi’ did, that it was the Hausa who gave the Tiv the name “Munshi”, the question we should ask is that ‘what influenced this naming and what historical and cultural pride stood behind it? The same with the term “Hausa” which, still without source, Nwankwo says, was ‘imposed’ by Arab traders against their original names of Habe, Arewa and Maguzawa. He says this without any convincing explanation as to how such ‘imposition’ occurs! The term ‘Fulani’ Nwankwo ‘tells’ without citing any evidence “was alien to pre-colonial Nigeria and even today, most West and Central African nations outside Nigeria originated from a Hausa “derogatory” reference to Fulani Islamic mendicants (beggars) begging for Fura (Millet cake balls) to supplement their Nunu (Cow milk).” He sees the exonym Fulani as a derivation of Hausa derogatory but without at least, an example of the abuses that made the Fulani consider such a name an offensive one. There is not even an explanation in his muddied piece about the eye-catching, beautiful historical impressions behind the exchange of Fura da Nono between the Fulani and Hausa.

Still, because Nwankwo only sees through the lens of enmity, his partisan presentism has underhand his professional writing of history to only touch upon separating, as opposed to uniting, versions of Nigerian history. He could not differentiate between what’s accepted as a historical pride and what’s considered as presently derogatory. Did Fulani consider the name derogatory? Was the term ‘Yoruba’, whose receptivity Bala emphasises “has not been rejected by even among those who complained Abuja was given a Hausa name” considered derogatory? Nwankwo’s art to make this appear as though Kperogi is saying “even the Igbo ethnic group should be grateful to the Hausa for giving them the name ‘Inyamiri’ is just nonsense. The term ‘Inyamiri’ has been understood widely as a derogatory name and is increasingly gaining the attention of the ordinary Hausa folks who grew up not even knowing it is ‘derogatory.’ But the interesting thing is that not all Igbos are as sensitive as Nwankwo violently advocates. Many do not care hearing ‘Inyamiri’ from an ordinary ‘Hausa Aboki’—with whom they together exploit his environment for good.

In fact, a word ‘derogatory’ only assumes an abuse by the manner in which it is uttered. There are excuses in respect to ‘Aboki’ who pronounces ‘Inyamiri’ without any sense of disdain, as is also the case with the latter pronouncing ‘Aboki’ as an expression of friendship as opposed to mockery. Unfortunately, Nwankwo’s blind-folded presentism has shown a clear opposition to all these exceptions.

Ismail is a Postgraduate student of history based at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria.