Permit me to relay this like a prayer, like a song.
As do the Griots, the Jeliw who I inherit.
The greatest scripture were oral collections, committed to memory.
They say, in spoken narrations there is a power writing fails to
convey.
Till books of these verses are printed, may our students memorize.
And
while I tell it to you, as is tradition, someone say: Naamu, yes,
Naamu (yes).
I was taught that in 1796 Mungo Park discovered the Niger river.
A very important discovery to the Europeans.
A very important
discovery for the Europeans.
Naamu
Though the bards had already long told the tale.
Of course, the
discovery for us was thousands of years stale.
Along its course we
established our towns and empires,
gold, slaves, kola nuts, horses, cloth, salt and cowries we traversed
the river to retail.
Naamu
Running from the hills of Guinea and Sierra Leone, we called its upper
course, Joliba, “the great river.” Its middle we called Isa Eghirren,
and our Hausa people christened the lower stretch that emptied into
the sea, Kwara. Oya, it is called by the Yoruba; Orimili, meaning,
“great water,” is how the Igbo know it. Isa Ber, “the big river,” the
Songhai called it and in Tuareg we call it Egerew Nigerewen, “river of
rivers” evidently from which Mungo Park got the inspiration to
christen it “Niger.”
Naamu
Perhaps Mungo Park would have discovered (for the European) the course
of the River had he not unfortunately died on the river, mistaken for
a Muslim raider and shot at, before he could plot its course to the
sea. Eastward it flowed, he said: “We were riding through some marshy
ground, when someone called out ‘See the water!’ and, looking
forwards, I saw, with infinite pleasure, the great object of my
mission, the long sought for majestic Niger, glittering to the morning
sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the
eastward.” Mungo Park, 20th July 1796.
Naamu
On the course of the river, our caboceers correctly explained to
Claperton that the Kwara flowed past Jebba, through rocks, south into
the Bight of Benin. Unlike the rumors of the one-eyed giants, the
Cyclops that supposedly inherited sub-saharan Africa, what Mungo Park
confirmed to the Europeans was that there was indeed a giant River.
And that is it.
Naamu
Africa as it is taught began the day the colonialist set foot ashore.
The International African Association legalized colonization on the
premise that we are dark and uncivilized. Contrary proof must be
destroyed.
Naamu Our textbooks teach our children that Mungo Park discovered our very
own Egerew Nigerewen. While American pupils are fooled that the native
Indians, or rather Injuns handed over the new land to the westerner
over a cup of coffee. It is His-story, written by him who wishes to
rule over his own and others, others who he confuses and then uses.
Naamu Adapted from Leopold’s 1883 letter to the Colonial Missionaries
Let your evangelization inspire above all Belgium interests.
Your principal objective in our mission is never to teach the niggers
to know God.
They already know God and His commandments; have courage to admit it.
Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials.
Go to interpret the gospel in ways to best protect your interests in
that part of the world.
Therefore dis-interest our savages from the richness that is plenty in
their underground.
So you can avoid that they dream and compete to one day overthrow you.
Preach Gospels to make them love poverty, like “Happier are the poor
because they will inherit the heaven” and, “It’s very difficult for
the rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Focus on their youth, for they won’t revolt when the recommendation of
the priest is contradictory to the teachings of their fathers.
Learning that Mungo Park discovered my very own river Niger, I was
taken aback in awe at the super qualities of the white master. I am
worthless I thought; my people were mere barbarians who could not even
see a river, nor follow its course. Little did I know that the
opposite was the truth and that the liars were the only barbarians.
European colonization was not merely an occupation or exploitation.
Naamu
Discovery, I discovered is a contextual word-tool, so though when
Columbus got to America (the new land), he found Native Americans
including black Africans there; he ‘discovered’ the new land.
Naamu
Having discovered the end of the river Egerew Nigerewen (Niger) was
actually our ancestors’ inspiration to discover America. You see,
according to the manuscripts of Egyptian scholar, Ibn Fadi Al-Umari
(1342)–among other things–believing that since the Niger river had
its end, so also the Atlantic ocean would have its inhabited end,
while also being a possible sea route for pilgrimage to Mecca; in 1311
Mansa Abubakari II, the brave conqueror abdicated his throne to Mansa
Kankan Musa and set sail with 1000 ships, each with a gifts and
provisions supply ship attached, arriving at the ‘new world’, the
America’s in 1312. Naamu
Proof of his voyage is found in the re-naming of places after the
Malian conquerors. In Haiti you have Sierre de Mali, Mandinga Bay,
Mandinga port to name a few locations our ancestors christened.
African writing, language and artifacts have also been found. Black
Injuns, Black Caribs, Black Guanini’s, the Honduras Almamys (Imams)
and graves of black men are also characteristic of the America’s. West
African cotton, “almaizar” and West African cloth-as-money, which
became the currency of the entire America’s, as it was used in North
Africa, were also their records. Indeed as was finally portrayed on US
TV–to woo over black support during the Obama elections
experiment–Columbus in 1492 had at least one African navigator who
showed him the way and how to conquer the Atlantic’s two currents, a
negro prominent in portraits of the voyage who went by the name, Pedro
Alonso Nino. Columbus also wrote of blacks he met in America and a
mosque-like building he found.
Naamu
Sorko, Lords of the Sea
The Sorko dugout canoes by hollowing out trunks of trees.
Drilling
holes in planks and binding them together, they made the Kanta, larger
ships strong enough to conquer the seas.
The Sorko capital was Kebbi
in today’s Nigeria; it was there they laid down the keel.
Bound tight with twine and leather strips, holes were plugged with the
burgu plant seal.
From Kebbi, Kanta were built and brought up the
river to Gao, the Songhai capital.
The Sorko, masters of the sea were
ready to go intercontinental.
With these great ships did the
indomitable Songhai set sail.
The new land, the America’s the
adventurers of Timbuktu did unveil.
Naamu
You see, in Africa’s unwritten pre-colonial history are great voyages,
six-storey buildings above and under-ground; inventions like
arithmetic, cultivation, mining, cheques, finest cloth, glass windows.
Orthography: Our ingenious writing scripts were many, Mandombe,
Ethiopic, Hieroglyphic, Meroitic, Bassa, Vai, Afan Oromo, Nsibidi,
Tifangh, Bamun, N’ko. While the European does not have a single
writing script to his credit, Greek orthography–father of Latin
alphabets in use today–being derived from Phoenician abjad, the
Northern Semitic writing exports of the Mediterranean and North
Africa.
Naamu Monuments, including the world’s largest, the Bilkisu (Queen Sheeba)
Sungbo Eredo moat in Nigeria’s Ijebu-land. Great cities rivaling the
Great Wall of China like Benin, Surame, and Ngazargamu, capital city
of Kanem-Borno. Autopsies, successful Caesarian sections in Uganda;
sewage and toilets in Kenya, pavement in Ile-Ife. Business in Kano,
which exported 10 million sandals every year. Education, with the
world’s first universities in Timbuktu and Egypt. Pyramid technology,
Nubian Sudan having the most pyramids of any country. It’s an endless
list of wonders that are not chosen for the Guinness Book.
Naamu
I believe that not knowing who we are is a reason for much of the
tribulations we face. Africa was never dark, it was only covered. To
abandon our history is a crime and teaching a false history is a sin.
Our betrayal and failure to inherit our essence, opens us up to
imbibing the most criminal essences of those who came to plunder us.
We have been traded ignorance, corruption and capitalistic greed to
replace our ancestral knowledge, prowess and virtue ideals. I narrate
this that someday curricula will be drawn, books will be written and
films made so the great students of Africa can finally learn who they
are and who to become.
Naamu
Plant a tiny seed of guidance; it will grow a mighty tree
Boats are not made to be ridden by fish
Nor planes, to be flown by birds
To know what you need
You must first know who you are and where you come from.
Naamu
No, Mungo Park did not discover our very own river Niger; but we
actually did discover America.
Naamu
Dr. Peregrino Brimah wrote from drbrimah@ends.ng.
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