Re: Response To Inaccuracies In The Wikipedia Article On Naa Gbewaa And The Origins Of The Mole-Dagbamba Kingdoms

The motive of the above article beats my intellectual understanding of historiography and anthropological construction of the origin of the Gbewaa States. It is apparently evident that the author appears more a neophyte seeking to fathom the unadulterated history of Naa Gbewaa and his children. Naa Gbewaa left a legacy for the Gbewaa states never for any fragmented supremacy of one over another. There is certainly wisdom from our elders for the youth to avoid delving too much into the making of history by the legend and his progenies for the unity, sanctity and sacred traditions bequeathed to our generation.

In an attempt to correct the historical inaccuracies attributed to one Winbeneti on Wikipedia, you ended up churning bigoted untruths smacks of dismantling the Gbewaa lineage and setting a new historiographical agenda for your readers. I do not hope that what you called "...the truth grounded in well-established oral traditions and respected historical research..." becomes a reference point for many who are seeking to learn the true history of the Gbewaa kingdoms and by extension the history of Dagombas, Mamprusi, Nanumbas and Mossis. I wish to put on record that this reply is not an endorsment of the inaccuracies by Winbeneti. It is indeed a reply to the inaccuracies in your response to that Wikipedia publication. Although you showed no reference in your article, I will, as much as possible, restrict this discussion to archives some of which emanate from Mamprusi authorities.

RELATED: Response To Inaccuracies In The Wikipedia Article On Naa Gbewaa And The Origins Of The Mole-Dagbamba Kingdoms

1. The Name "Yooba" to Refer to Dagombas

Throughout the article, you have constantly referred to Dagombas as Yooba; a name only found within Mamprugu to refer to Naa Shitobu and his descendants. While the Dagomba in Dagbon have maintained the original ethnonym 'Dagbamba' as applied ethnic identity of our ancestors, the Mamprusi have not only changed their original name from Dagbamba to Mamprusi but coined a new unauthorized name "Yooba" to refer to the people south of Mamprugu. i.e referring to Dagomba anglicized from the original name “Dagbamba”. Refer to Awendoba (2006), Iliasu (1970). While this name emanating from your territory may be a descriptive location of your neighbours south, the Dagbon people, there is a Mamprusi account of the origin of the name. This account chronicles how Naa Tohagu, after assuming leadership as heir apparent to Naa Gbewaa, relocated the capital from Pusiga to Gambaga from whence he referred Naa Shitobu to settle at a place which was a “forest area”. This forest area, called "Yoo", became Dagbon and the people living there i.e. "ba" became attached to Yoo; hence “Yoo” + “ba” = “Yooba”. This is depicted in your narrative that “The formation of Yooba kingdom was not a product of war but of migration driven by farming and expansion of the kingdom. As populations expanded and Shitobu still being bitter for his failed attempt, he eventually, moved southwards from Gambaga to a village near Diare called Yani-Dabari. Those who remained in Gambaga referred to Shitobu and his followers as “Yoodima” or Yooba”…while the indigenous people who Shitobu and his people met began to call them Dagbamba –the people from Gambaga or Mole-Dagbamba.”

On account that one accepts this to be the grounded historical fact, one would want to ask basic questions about the identity of the indigenous people who Shitobu and his people met around Diare. Research has disproved this linear theory that it was Naa Shitobu and his people who were Dagbamba. In fact, as far back as history has it, the people around the Diare area have been no other people than indigenous Dagbamba referred variously as aboriginal Dagbamba, Dagban Sabila or the Black Dagomba. So instead of the other way round, it was Naa Shitobu and his people who could have met aboriginal Dagbamba rather than they being other ethnic identity. You may want to refer to Tamakloe (1931), Staniland (1975), Mahama (2003:2020:2024), Fusheini (2014), Motariga (2024) etc.

The term “Yoo kingdom” is therefore unknown from both proper documented and oral archives. It is at best your own coinage, and a phraseology, without due historical diligence needed to address it. If indeed it were tolerable that anybody could sit somewhere and write any fable or insinuate ill-informed oral accounts about a people, history would have long lost its relevance. The term “Yooba” is unknown in Dagbon, Nanun, Mossiland and indeed the whole of Ghana and should be treated as a huge fabrication emanating from within your territory. If Dagbamba loosely refer to Gonjas as “Zabagsi”, or Asantes as Kambonsi, or Mamprusis as “Mampriginima” to wit “Separatists”, or Ewes as Aligbenima, etc, it does not imply that those ethnic groups must change their names and identities or history because Dagbamba in Dagbon referred to them so.

One would have thought that instead of painstakingly striving to enforce a new name, “Yooba” or “Yooba Kingdom”, on Dagbamba people in Dagbon, you would have used your judicious time to defend our true collective name and identity which seem to have been crucified lately by the new construction “Mamprusi”. We are told from the unadulterated account of the origin of the name Mamprusi, being referred to the successor, Naa Banmarigu, and his people when he relocated the old capital from the maternal village of Naa Tohagu i.e. Mamproug in Togo to Gambaga. We are told that when they arrived the people of Gambaga began to refer to them as “Mamprugudima” from which the words Mamprugu and Mamprusi evolved. The original identity of the Gambaga people possibly was not Mamprusi before Naa Banmarigu and his people arrived. Why not we stick to this original identity instead of the new name?

2. Shitobu not founder of Dagbon

Your point that Shitobu is not the founder of Dagbon is most weird and uninformed opinion of conjecture. From both oral and written accounts, Naa Shitobu was the first King after the separation of Naa Tohagu at Gambaga. Naa Shitobu metaphorically became first “King of the Forest” that is Yogutoli-lana, a title which Naa Nyagse and all succeeding kings have been referred to with reverence. In fact, the title became less applicable after Naa Titugiri relocated the capital from Yani-Dabari to the present Yendi.

In fact, among Dagbon drummers (lungsi) who have been custodians of the history of the rulers of Dagbon, there is a term called “Salaa Gmemanga” to refer to how Naa Shitobu gradually inadvertently formed Yogu which was later to be Dagbon. Naa Shitobu bore the title of first Yogutoli-lana until his final relocation to Bagali where he invested his son, Naa Nyagse, as successor of the kingdom. Some oral and written historians are therefore of the opinion that if Naa Shitobu had remained in Gamabaga and his son, Naa Nyagse had expanded the territories to today's Dagbon, and Shitobu died and was buried in Gambaga with his son, Naa Nyagse, succeeding him from that capital, Gambaga would possibly have been part of the expanded territory.

Prof Iliasu (1970), a renowned historian and a Mamprusi, noted authoritatively that “Strictly speaking, Nyagse consolidated rather than founded the kingdom of Dagomba; its true founder was Sitobu, the father of Nyagse.” This point is also made by Motariga (2024), Mahama (2020), Staniland (1975) etc. This authorized position is also well-grounded in oral narratives of drummers of Dagbon except if one is a neophyte in interpreting drum chants.

What is also unfounded in your article is the narrative discourse of the chronology of events. You set the dates of Naa Tohugu and Naa Shitobu as 11th or 12th Century, while Naa Nyagse's as 14th Century, and deducted wrongly that “It is therefore impossible for Naa Nyagsi to have been Shitobu's direct son.”

Before the 1900s, history of much of Africa, including the Gbewaa States was not written but preserved in the memory of drummers (lungsi) who originated from Dagbon. Aside these drummers, there were other categories of griots such as those blowing the flute, the African violin (gooje), among others. All these keepers of the history had very little understanding of what we call chronology and date setting. Because writing of history developed much later in most parts of Africa, and records were in most cases scarce and fragmented, historians and anthropologists have often been faced with the most difficult task of dating precisely. In fact, the most renowned scholars and academics, including Prof. A. A. Iliasu, who was a historian at the Department of History of the University of Ghana had to note that the dates provided by historians for the emergence of the Mossi-Dagomba states are tentative and vary widely. So one may ask, on what bases did you arrive at the dates for Naa Tohugu and Naa Shitobu and that of Naa Nyagsi to conclude naively that Nyagsi was rather a grandson of Naa Shitobu? This appears very deceptive, disingenuous and highly repulsive in the face of true historical writings.

3. Formation of Dagbon and Mamprugu after Naa Gbewaa

You made an opinion that “Contrary to false narratives of violent succession or regalia conflict at Pusiga, there was no chieftaincy conflict. Yes, Shitobu attempted challenging Tohugu's succession, but he failed in his false claim. Both lived under the same kingdom under Tohugu's kingship, where Tohugu had already established royal authority at Pusiga before relocating the traditional capital at Gambaga. The formation of the Yooba kingdom was not a product of war but of migration driven by farming and expansion of the kingdom.” Unfortunately, you failed to tell your readers the reason Naa Tohagu and his people left the capital at Pusiga and supposedly relocated at Gambaga.

While it is apt to shelve this account, it is inconceivable that you have attempted to cook this unpalatable narrative to protect the Mamprugu hegemony over Dagbon. This is not supported by facts from both oral and written archives. For the sake of the unity of the Gbewaa states, I will not disclose the oral accounts about this disturbing historical event.

Going into written accounts by Prof. Iliasu (1970), we can read about the events ensuing after Zirile's reign ended disputing your version. Indeed Iliasu notes that “Faced at once with external and internal disaster, and without a leader, the elders could afford neither the luxury of a funeral for Zirili nor the time-consuming but customary process of electing a successor. They therefore drafted Tohugu, the eldest surviving son of Gbewa to succeed Zirili. But Tohugu's brothers, inspired and led by Sitobu, challenged the constitutionality of these proceedings and a fratricidal struggle therefore ensued. …up in arms and uncertain of support from his subjects in the capital, Tohugu, upon the advice of the elders, fled to Mamprugu to solicit the support of his uncles. In this he set a precedent, for in later years, princes who either found themselves in situations similar to Tohugu's or were parties to disputed successions invariably appealed for assistance from their maternal uncles. So common was this practice that it became a convention amongst the princes of royal blood and the divisional chiefs, much to the benefit of the kingdom as a whole. But for this convention, civil wars would not have been what they actually were in the history of the Mamprusl kingdom, namely, fratricidal struggles involving a handful of mercenaries and the villages of the princes' uncles. And since it was not uncommon that most of these villages were of no consequence in size, these struggles were generally concluded in a matter of days, so that the kingdom was spared all the usual horrors of civil wars - ruined villages, plundered homes, downtrodden crops and attendant famine. Tohugu's flight took him first to Gambaga in the southeastern part of the kingdom and then eastwards to Mamprugu. Sitobu and his followers pursued him only to Gambaga and after a brief stay there, they proceeded westwards to Nabare and then southwards to Yendi Dabari.”

Comparing the quote of the Prof. Iliasu (1970) with yours, one is inclined to view yours as uninformed opinion of mere conjecture. One would ask if your narrative is able to account the event that led Naa Tohugu to Mamprugu and how it happened that he died and was buried at Mamprugu only after which his successor, Naa Banmarigu, is said to have moved the capital from Mamprugu to Gambaga at which time Naa Shitobu and the other children of Naa Gbewaa may have moved towards present day Dagbon and Nanun.

Your conjecture that the “…Yoo kingdom adapted [referring to Dagbon] the name Dagbon…” after the arrival of Naa Shitobu and his people lacks facts based on oral and written history. The name Dagbon emanated from the language Dagbanli. The name “Dagbanba” became an ethnonym referring to the people who spoke Dagbanli. So from Dagbanba, the name appear to have metamorphosed into the current spelling Dagbamba (with “m”) which later became anglicized as Dagombas. This name hasn't changed over time before and after the arrival of Naa Shitobu and his people who are the progenitors of the rulers of the dukedoms of Karaga, Sunson, Gundogu etc in Dagbon and Naa Mantambo's Nanun kingdom.

4. The Children of Naa Gbewaa

Your article lacks written and oral merit of the historiography of Naa Gbewaa and his children. Your statement that “The association of certain towns –such as Karaga, Salaga, Zoggu and others as founded by “children” of the legendary patriarch Naa Gbewaa is a historical inaccuracy is smacks of genuine interest in the oral and written history of Naa Gbewaa and his children. The oral account of Naa Gbewaa's children is liturgically chanted and Karaga (Biemoni), Sunson (Bugyaligu), Gundo-Naa (Kachagu), Kuga-Naa (Shibei Kpema), Salaga-Naa (Kayal-kuna) among others have been repeatedly mentioned as Naa Gbewaa's biological children.

According to Yerimea, a Royal of Mamprugu (late), a historian and author of “The Genesis of a Senseless War”, “Na Sitobu's brothers initially moved with him and so they had a stronger fighting force than Tosugu's faction. After the territorial demarcation at Bagale and Nyak'se succession of his father's (Sitobu) brothers moved out to found their own towns.

Mantambo, the 'bimbilla' mentioned above insisted that he should be given the land in the direction of Na Tosugu's hand as was specified at Bagale. He was given what was due him and his capital became known as Bimbilla. His people became known as Nanumba in reference to the direction of the Na's hand (Na nuu). The other contender to Sitobu's skin was Biemome. He took over and became the chief of Kar'ga. He married the female Tindana he met there. Bogoyelego, another younger brother of Sitobu became the chief of Sunsun. One of Sitobu's brothers called Na Sibie remained with Na Nyak'se and became his soothsayer. He was apparently part of the decision to pass the skin on to Na Nyak'se because he probably was not interested in or he was too old to embark on any adventure outside the capital. Na Sibie became the Kuga Na of Dagbon which literally means “chief of the stool” and every Na in Dagbon addresses the holder of this appointment as “Yaba” which means grandfather or ancestor. He takes cares of Dagbon in the absence of the Ya Na. These brothers were siblings of the same mother. The maternal relationship between them and the closeness of the geographic locations of their territories is largely responsible for the cohesiveness among their descendants. Refer to Mahama (2020), Tamakloe (1931), Staniland (1975), Fusheni (2013), Motariga (2024) etc for confirmation of these names as biological children of Naa Gbewaa.

5. Succession System from Naa Gbewaa's Era and Tiduma Nayiri's Authority

Your claim that succession to Nam in Dagbon and Mamprugu is rooted in cognatic primogeniture, where the eldest eligible male – typically a son or closest male relative –has the primary right to inherit Nam positions is NOT entirely the case. While it is not entirely possible to rule out cognatic primogeniture, it is not as well possible to implement it as a rule of succession. This is confirmed by both oral and written accounts that Naa Gbewaa's second son, Fogu, was preferred by Naa Gbewaa as his successor rather than Zirili who was elder to Fogu.

In your narrative about Nayiri's authority, you made a notable point that “No Nayiri has ever been enskinned by a Yaa Naa. The Nayiri has historically enskinned Yaa Naas, underscoring Mamprugu's authority” over Dagbon. While this is against the principle of authority that was instituted at Bagli, to the effect that the Nayiri, the Yaa Naa and the Bimbila Naa are equal in Nam authority, it beats my intellectual and interrogative imagination that the only Yaa Naa whose selection (not enskinment) was ever made with the help of the Nayiri was the youngest among the other contestants. All the oral and written narratives about the event of Naa Zanjina's ascension to Yani points to him being the youngest among the contestants. If Nam was cognatic primogeniture I wonder how the Nayiri supervised a mediation to select young prince Zanjina over elderly contestants.

This selection after it was made with the help of the Nayiri was brought home for the traditional enskinment rite at the Royal Mausoleum (Katini-duu). It is not therefore right to opine that Naa Zanjina was enskinned by Nayiri. This is similar to the recent mediation committee involving Eminent Kings viz the Asantehene, the Yagbon-wura and the Nayiri. It is this mediation which saw the final selection and enskinment current King of Dagbon, N'dan Ya-Naa Abukari II. It is disingenuous to assume that the Asantehene or the Nayiri or the Yagbon-Wura enskinned Yaa Naa Abukari II because they partook in a mediation to select a candidate to pass through sacred rites of tradition.

Conclusion

Mamprugu, Dagbon, Nanun and by extension, Mossiland have royals who trace their lineage to Naa Gbewaa. There are subjects among the Dagbamba in Dagbon, Nanun and Mamprugu who trace their lineage paternally or maternally or both to indigenous Dagbamba. The rulers and non-rulers have over the years assimilated into a complex group of the present amalgam of Dagbamba, Mamprusi, Nanumba and Mossi people. Any account which topples the ship of the history of Naa Gbewaa, his children or the Dagbamba people in general jettisons our identity and wrecks the consolidated trajectory of the Gbewaa states. Once again, this reply is not an endorsment of the inaccuracies by Winbeneti but an attempt to correct the inaccuracies in your article. I have tried thus far to avoid causing uneasy calm among the Gbewaa fraternity. I wish therefore to appeal to the voice of wisdom to avoid these kinds of narratives which call for replies. I apologize unreservedly for where I have gone wrong or where I have gone too deep in my little attempt to provide some education.

May Allah unite the Gbewaa brothers!
May Allah Unite and Prosper Mamprugu!
May Allah Unite and Prosper Dagbon
May Allah Unite and Prosper Nanun.
May Allah Unite and Prosper Ghana.

“…emancipate yourself from mental slavery…”

Written by: Abubakari Is-haq Motariga
Author: “The Untold History of the Dagbamba People”
Contact: 0244903765
Ishaqbukari2016@gmailcom

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