12/03/2026
REALITY OF QUESTIONING ODUDUWA IDENTITY
By Dr. Paul Osa Igbineweka
The following questions are the type of questions that help to bring out facts in historical context and analysis. They help to establish traditional relationship rather than the political relationship that tends to divide us.
Nuggets of questions on Oduduwa as Ekaladerhan:
"Pls can you relate his sojourner period to ife how many years interval who were his followers to ife how do benin people found out is him at ife how powerful he his that he couldn't set himself free to stand the truth i mean to unveil the truth then and where did he get that of power that make him descend from heaven to ife so that we can set the history straight." _ Ajibade Bolaji
Answering these questions in brief:
*_ Relating Oduduwa as sojourner period to ife:
PLEASE Pardon me to use Igodomigodo as contemporary of Ife, to address Ife-Benin connections.
1) How many years interval?
The prince of Igodomigodo who was found in exile at Ife, by name Ekaladerhan, who became Oduduwa migrated from Igodomigodo after his life was spared by the executioners from a setup allegation of altered divination report by his stepmother, Esagho.
Having been spared he wandered through many places. The period of the banishment of Ekaladerhan from Igodomigodo spanned through later part of 1075AD to 1100AD when he arrived at Ife to the time he sent Oranmiyan to Igodomigodo in 1170AD which was about 100 years interval.
2) Who were his followers to ife?
Those who were his followers to ife were just few from the initial abode as acquaintances, then some from Ughọtọn and some of the Igala where he got a wife at another Ife of Kogi area before he eventually settled at Ife of Ugboland. However, the people of Ugboland and Igodomigodo had established relationships between them during the establishment of Uhẹ /Ufe/Ife as pilgrimage centre of religious beehive before the arrival of Ekaladerhan as Oduduwa. Which informed the fact that there were Idu people who already settled in Ife before his arrival.
The Ifa/Iha priest that received him and his consultant was from Igodomigodo by name, Agbonniregun (Abiola, p. 34, 1976). There were Idu-Edo people already in Ife before Oduduwa's arrival. In the mixed people of Ife, Ilaje, Olukumi and Idu languages were means of communication. The Ugboland till date have established history connecting them with Igodomigodo.
3) How do benin people found him out at Ife?
Ekaladerhan as Izoduwa (Oduduwa) initially by change of name to Izoduwa /Oduduwa masked his identity. But in his revealing his true identity, never minced words about his true identity as the scion of the Ogiso dynasty (sky kings/kings of the sky) in reverence of God's attributes above, which the early Ogiso displayed in their ruling as Ogisos.
The initial route of his banishment was through the upper hill outlaying over the Ikpoba Hill overlooking the ancient Ogiso palace of Ihinmwinrin to the present day Third East circular territory. He then traversed many areas until he found initial abode at Orekegbezu (Erua). There he was fortified by the mystical power. And when his whereabouts became known to the initial search party he escaped through the forest to the Ughọtọn axis, where he established the Olokun deity of worship.
Then his whereabouts and true identity became revealed by the Dirge presented in songs of parable by the Chief executioner as "Ekaladerhan uo 2x, Novbiẹ Ogiso uo 2x, ke nu ya kpao iwe amẹ ma ghi rhọ ọ uo!....." (Ekaladerhan, son of Ogiso, since you left the rain did not fall....), and that was followed by the riddle that was revealed about the use of the Cockrell sacrifice to deceive his father that he was actually killed as ordered.
The revelation place was named Urhu-Ọkhọkhọ. Urhu-Ọkhọkhọ ẹrẹ aghi dẹre yi, ẹmwẹ Ekaladerhan (That on the neck of the Cockrell Ekaladerhan's issue was hung/placed).
When the Elders had sent out search parties severally, through three locations and established his escape from Ughọtọn to the Westward, they found out by both search party and divination at Ife. At this time the Evian who held sway as ruler tried to disrupt the king-installers (in the case of the heir apparent) or kingmakers (in the case of installing a placeholder/commoner), who were the Uzama, led by the Oliha.
This Elders' hierarchy started from the time of the Ogiso dynasty, the same Uzama that installed Evian as regent or placeholder or Republican administrator, took it upon themselves to visit Uhẹ/Ufe/Ife to ask Ekaladerhan to return to his rightful throne of his ancestors.
At this time he was very old, about 90 years, and he decided to test the Elders if they could be hospitable to whoever he would delegate to go to Igodomigodo in his stead. He then offered them lices, to be returned in three years time. The leader of the Elders had the lices, and placed them in the hair of his servant, and never to cutoff the hairs for the period of three years.
On their return to Ife after three years, Oduduwa then requested of his lices, and found that they did not only take care of the lices but were multiplied and robust. He then considered their request in another way, of sending his son Oranmiyan (Ọmọnọyan - pet child) to Igodomigodo as the return of Ododua N'Uhẹ and was bestowed with the Title of Ọba (Shining Light of the people), and relegated Ogie title to appellation, when Ogiamien who succeeded his father Evian was reluctant to relinquishing Ogie from being duplicated in one domain of a kingdom.
4a) How powerful he was that he couldn't set himself free to stand the truth?
His endowments with mystical powers is still envisaged under the two trees of divinity of male and female that can communicate life with incantations of fulfilling desire sought for that produced fire by the wand of a garland that sustained his wandering in the forest. Two sites of his shrine still preserved to date.
At every coronation of an Oba, the place is still useful as mystical rejuvenation sites. With such power, he dealt with the search parties that were sent to fetch him at Ughọtọn, but on their third attempt he ambushed them by digging a ditch that was covered that trapped them and had them killed. Then the elders gave up searching after him (see Egharevba, 1968).
Why was he reluctant to return to Igodomigodo initially? Because the executioners had warned him never to surface as what they had planned to take his life would be meted on them and his life will no longer be spared. He stood by the truth of who he was. Hence, as a prince he had to displace the ruler of Ife as the Kabiyesi to Ugbo as the Olugbo of Ugbo.
On his own while carrying out his ceremony a female maid committed an offence that could warrant death, but was pregnant and it is forbidden to sacrifice such in that condition and was spared to deliver the child. That spared child became his servant that was assigned to the shrine in Ife as the spared one (Ooni). That was also in relation to how his life was spared.
To mark the festival he remembered that Cockrell used by the executioners to spare his life. In Ife, the shrine of Ikedu Orisa (Ike-Idu Oisa) has all the incantations of Idu dialect and mixed with Ilaje and Olukumi (not Yoruba that was not in existence then). Then the people of Igodomigodo identity him as Ọghẹnẹ N'Uhẹ (the Supreme of Uhẹ/Ufe/Ife).
4b) I mean to unveil the truth then: Joseph in the Bible took 20 years in Egypt to reveal his identity to his brethren (for being maltreated). Ekaladerhan was maltreated by the Ogiso Owodo, his father, the Chiefs took decision that banished him, and though the executioners had pity on him to spare his life, yet he was warned never to return. The same reason he gave such names to the shrines where he fortified as "Egiesuma" and to the second shrine as "Erhẹn n'Erua".
However, he spoke the truth to his true identity, only that historians and oligarchies of the Southwest who were implementing the British template of subjugation over Benin since 1897 deliberately distorted traditional history for political history of dishonesty.
5) And where did he get that power that make him descend from heaven to ife so that we can set the history straight.
Oduduwa did not descend from heaven by the era of 1100AD, because they deliberately misconstrued the sky kings or kings of the sky of Ogiso dynasty and rendered it literally. Remember, Oduduwa must have given his direction of migrating from the territory that is Eastern to Ife, of which Igodomigodo (Benin) is down eastward of Ife.
Questions people do not bother to ask:
(i) Why did Oduduwa put the Elders to the test of hospitality?
(ii) Why did the Elders of Igodomigodo not go elsewhere except Ife whose Oduduwa was a stranger and migrant to Ife, if not from Igodomigodo?
(iii) Was Ugboland in isolation from the surrounding neighbourhood as Igodomigodo that historians decided to jettisoned traditional history for a political history of Oduduwa's origin from outside vicinity as far as Saudi Arabia?
(iv) As was said by some historians that Oduduwa descended from heaven in 1100AD, how can he be a progenitor over the existing people of Ugboland?
(v) What is the relevance of the symbol of the Cockrell if not from his ordeal where his life was spared?
(vi) If his life was not spared of what meaning did he compared the spared life of another to his title of Ooni the spared one?
(vii) Why did his arrival at Ife coincide with the time of Evian as placeholder in Igodomigodo?
(viii) When Igodomigodo was the Ogiso dynasty before Oduduwa, why did the historians of the Southwest treated that dynasty a myth to jettisoned every traditional history that existed before the arrival of Oduduwa to Ife?
