Scapegoat Pt. 3
Scapegoat Pt. 3: Kings, Chiefs, or Jesters?
When the colonial ships docked on African shores, they didn’t just bring soldiers. They brought mirrors to blind, treaties to deceive, and gold to corrupt. And standing on the shoreline—proud in their regalia—were Africa’s kings and chiefs. Some resisted. Some negotiated. Others opened the gates.
But centuries later, when the ruins were counted and the blood dried, the question remained:
Who betrayed Africa? Was it the invaders? The rulers? Or was it the people who were never given a choice?
The Benin Kingdom: Royal Pride, Traded Flesh, and Brutal Betrayal
The Benin Empire—once a fortress of power, beauty, and bronze—was not always the innocent victim history likes to paint. In the 16th and 17th centuries, under kings like Oba Esigie, Benin entered trade with the Portuguese, and later, the British. First, it was pepper. Then ivory. Then human beings.
Benin kings, like many others, sold war captives into the transatlantic slave trade in exchange for guns, rum, and mirrors. Kingdoms rose on the backs of chained men. Palaces were gilded while villages were emptied.
However, as the centuries passed and the slave trade began to unravel, Benin tried to step back. Later, Obas resisted full cooperation. And when Oba Ovonramwen refused to be a puppet to British power in 1897, they didn’t negotiate—they burned his kingdom to the ground. Benin City was looted, its sacred bronzes stolen, and the Oba was exiled to die in shame.
Victim? Yes. But also complicit.
Yoruba Kingdoms: Warriors Turned Slave Lords
The Oyo Empire, mighty and organized, built its name on cavalry and conquest. But its economy? It was soaked in blood. Conquered people—sometimes Yorubas themselves—were sold to European traders on the coast. Chiefs and kings earned prestige through war, which was funded by selling their fellow Africans.
The slave ports of Badagry, Lagos, and Whydah became symbols of wealth for kings and cemeteries for the enslaved.
When Britain arrived, pretending to end slavery, it offered peace in exchange for submission. Many Yoruba elites accepted. Others fought, but in the end, colonialism didn’t need to conquer—it needed to buy. And it purchased loyalty with titles, protection, and survival.
The Yoruba kingdoms were left with foreign-made monarchies, weakened traditions, and a legacy still debated in whispers.
The Igbo: A People Without Kings, Yet Still Shackled
The Igbo had no kings. They governed themselves through councils, elders, and community consensus. The British saw this and were confused—how do you colonize a people who won’t kneel before one man?
So they invented kings.
Through the warrant chief system, the British handed crowns to men with no lineage, authority, or loyalty to the people. These fake chiefs enforced colonial laws, collected taxes, and destroyed Igbo political balance.
In 1929, Igbo women rose in rebellion in the Aba Women’s War, rejecting the fake system imposed on them. But by then, the traditional Igbo world had been cracked open, and colonialism poured in like poison.
Neo-Colonialism: The Chains Got Smarter
Today, we no longer see red-coated soldiers marching through African streets, but the war never ended. It simply changed its uniform.
The Oba’s bronzes still sit in Western museums, while Nigerian youth are told their heritage is primitive.
Warrant chiefs have evolved into elite power brokers, many still loyal to foreign donors and political paymasters.
Africa’s wealth is still taken on ships, and what comes back are debts, donations, and broken promises.
Colonialism taught our rulers that power is negotiated with the West, not earned from the people. That is neo-colonialism: when Africa looks free on paper but remains controlled in practice.
So Who’s the Scapegoat?
Was it the Benin king who traded bodies for bronze? The Yoruba chief who fed the slave ports to fatten his kingdom? The Igbo elder, erased and replaced by a British puppet? Or the people who were bartered, chained, and silenced?
We’re told to blame ourselves. To accept the idea that Africa’s fall was self-inflicted. But that is the greatest lie of all.
Because the true jesters of this tragedy were the colonizers—laughing as they bought our loyalty with beads, shattered our systems with treaties, and rewrote our history with lies.
Africa’s kings were once mighty. Its chiefs were wise. Its people were free.
But when the storm came, we were divided—and that division became our downfall.
Now, in this age of neo-colonial banks, foreign policy puppets, and cultural theft, we must ask:
Will we remain jesters in someone else’s court—or reclaim the thrones they burned?
