Stuff African People Hate

When I say democracy, I’m not talking about the actual principle or theory of it; most African countries enjoy perpetrating democratic governments that are ruled fairly and equally.  When I nominate democracy, it is because democratic rule has made monarchies dwindle and has undermined the strength and power that they may once have had.  This has become a huge problem because African men and women everywhere have made a habit of making oblivious friends believe the following: that they are a Prince or Princess back home.

I was on the web yesterday and saw this picture of actress Sanaa Lathan and NFLer Adewale Ogunleye:

They are both pretty good looking and seem to be really into each other.  The interview that followed, however, quotes Lathan saying, “He’s a Nigerian prince.”  The first thing I did when I noticed the name was I counted in my head how many Nigerian friends I had with the same name.  Then, I tried to recollect how many of them had led me to believe that they were from a royal family.  I had to laugh before calling a friend of mine to ask her about it.  Her voicemail instructed me to call her after nine.  So, I thought, perhaps Sanaa was just using it as a term of endearment.  After all, don’t we all call our significant others kings and queens?  I found out later on that Ogunleye’s grandfather is, in fact, the king of the Nigerian City of Emura. 

So how does that work?  How does an African democracy exist alongside monarchies?  And doesn’t a monarchy imply rule under one family/entity?  Why do I have so many royal friends from the same country?  

The Oba & the Lipa

King Mswati III rules Africa’s last remaining absolute monarchy in Swaziland.  Most of the other countries hold democratic elections and elect a President from various political parties.  However, in Nigeria for example, each village and city has it’s own king, or Oba or Lipa.  The titles are passed down through generations, traditionally to the family of the first-born male off-spring.  Oba’s are generally extremely wealthy businessmen, head of various community organizations, and recognized by the government (with car license plates that read Lipa).  There are also the historical chieftancies of each the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Zaria, Gobir, Ife, Oyo, Ijebu, and Ibo ethnic groups to name a few.  When you count all of the cities, villages, historical ruling ethnic groups and royal houses, you may have around one-hundred (or more) kingdoms.  The children from royal families have traditionally come to the United States or gone to London to study, then they go back home to begin families, and become the Obas or Lipas or their city/villages, if they choose.  Although as a royal, marrying a non-royal is perhaps not as taboo as it used to be, there are still people that are entrenched in the culture and heirarchy, and would rather have their children marry from other royal families. 

The Slave-Trade Empires

When Kingdoms went to war, the losing tribe was taken as captives by the winning tribe.  As the Atlantic Slave trade began, these kingdoms would sell their war captives to slave traders for weapons, luxuries, etc.  When the tribes ran out of people to sell, slave traders would raise the offer of goods so that the ruling kingdoms would enter the African interior and capture weaker tribes to trade.  Of this, kingdoms like the Asante of contemporary Ghana, the Vai of contemporary Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the Oyo of contemporary Nigeria, grew dominant in their regions.  The trade increased the wealth of many of these kingdoms, but was so destructive to the overall African economy that many of their reigns did not last past colonialism and the democratization of West-African territories.  The Vai people of Liberia, however, still may consider themselves of royal ancestry since the tribe gained so much wealth and land during the slave-trade years.  The legend is that when the Vai had no more of their servants to sell, grew tired of traveling the interior, and suspected that there was something wrong with the greed and ambition with which the slave-traders visited the coast, they stopped dealing with them.  Then, a trader looked at a Vai King and pointed to his kingdom and said “What about these men?” And the king said, “They are royal.  They are free men.”  During colonialism when the inhabitants of some African territories inherited English last names, the Vai, from this encounter, kept the surname Freeman.  Many Freemans (and Fahnbullehs) from West Africa trace their ancestry to the slave-trade empires, and thus, also consider themselves royal.

The Ethiopian Dynasty

The Ethiopian  Kingdom was founded some time around 9th or 10th century B.C. by Solomon’s son Menelik I.  Ethiopia is one of the most ancient and rich cultures in the world, in that its documented history scans theological, archaeological, educational, and linguistic recollections of the early world, placing Africa on the map way before people like to admit it.  Although contemporarily the country is a Federal Democratic Republic that’s monarchy was abolished in 1975, those who can trace their blood lines back to former Kings and of course, Emperor Haile Selassie, are still considered the Ethiopian royal family.