Talk:Owodo/GA3: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

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Nominator: Vanderwaalforces (talk · contribs) 21:44, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Catjacket (talk · contribs) 05:57, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Vanderwaalforces, I’m going to review this. I’ve seen the discussions from the first two GANs, but need to go back through them in detail. I note in particular the discussion about RSs in the 2nd one, which I think is a key issue here. I will update you soon. This is my first GA review, but I have worked a decent amount on related content, so if I miss something in the process plz let me know.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Lead:

• Benin should link to Edo people, not Benin Kingdom. Confusing to describe a kingdom using its successor as an adjective.
• Confusing use of italics. Place names should not be italicized. Words translated from other languages can be.
• Don’t repeat Edionnisen twice in one sentence.

Early Life:

• The last paragraph is mostly repeated in the first paragraph of the ‘Reign’ section. Merge them in the reign section, it makes more sense since it starts with his coronation.

Reign:

• Use of “Contemporary accounts” makes it sound like these accounts are contemporaneous with Owodo. ‘Modern historians’ or something would be clearer.
• ‘Senior Noble’ should not be capitalized, unless it’s a title. Maybe replace with Edionnisen?
• What does Ughoron mean?
• If Ekiogiso is a place name, it should not be italicized.
• Is Osogan one creature or many? Some sentences use plural, but the story of Evian uses the singular. If disputed, an explanatory sentence or note would help.

Fall:

• Another confusing use of ‘contemporary accounts’
• Evian referred to both as a Senior Noble and as a commoner. Which one was it?

• @Catjacket: You’re doing pretty well for your first review, thanks for spotting those. Most of your comments have been addressed. A few points: Senior Noble is indeed a title and must be capitalised; A Senior Noble isn’t an Edionnisen; Osogan was described only as man-eating creature, whether it was a single entity or several isn’t known; Evian is indeed a commoner, one who isn’t royalty, a Senior Noble (which isn’t the same as a Great Noble (Edionnisen)) isn’t royalty and is a commoner, although an Edionnisen might not be a commoner because they’re the kingmakers. —Vanderwaalforces (talk) 23:10, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for making those adjustments, they look good. On the Osogan subject – is there any analysis for what historical group or phenomenon they might represent? Or are they purely mythical? Right now the article kind of treats them as historical actors with mythical attributes, like if we treated the story of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth as the real history of Crete. Does Omoregie talk about them as if there really were some sort of man-eating creatures terrorizing the countryside, or as a legendary or metaphorical reflection of some other historical occurrence? Catjacket (talk) 07:00, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Catjacket I see that it’s Omoregie called it a “monster” actually. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 07:27, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm ok. That’s concerning. Does he distinguish between mythology and history at all? We shouldn’t conflate the two, but whatever discussion we have comparing them in this context should be well-sourced. Catjacket (talk) 07:36, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Catjacket Definitively, calling it a monster is literally saying it’s legendary, so I would have to fix those sentences the same way I did for Udagbedo. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 07:48, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did clarify it here. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 10:08, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks great. Catjacket (talk) 12:37, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion of sources at the last GAN was thorough, and the nominator has addressed the concerns expressed there. However, I want to raise similar concerns about Ọmọregie and his books that Sohvyan raised about Ero 2003. I am torn on whether or not Omoregie can be considered WP:RS, and I think it merits an in-depth discussion. On one hand, the point was made in GAN2 that he is considered a respected historian in the local community. In general I would like to assume competence and good faith from authors who are presenting perspectives and indigenous knowledge from outside the scope of Western scholarship (a la Solomana Kante). But I do have some serious concerns:

1. Omoregie’s books are self-published. Normally, this alone would be disqualifying. His standing in the local community could perhaps make him (to quote WP:SPS) “an established subject-matter expert”, but as far as I can tell “his work in the relevant field” has definitely not been “published by reliable, independent publications.” It’s only been self-published, or appeared as opinion articles in local newspapers. This isn’t super clear either way, but it makes me want to seek out some supporting evidence before I allow his work to be included in a GA.

2. Omoregie’s books were supposed to be published by a credible publishing house, but for some reason it never happened. He self-published instead. Who knows why the publisher eventually rejected the manuscript, but the fact that they did doesn’t help his credibility.

3. It is well-established that oral traditions have been manipulated in modern-day Benin for modern-day political purposes.^[1] This makes me skeptical of any content on the subject that isn’t coming from a very credible, peer-reviewed source. But Akinola specifically calls out Omoregie as one of the inventors of this new history.^[2] Being tagged in credible journals for pushing pseudohistory isn’t great.

4. Omoregie provides incredibly precise dates, and “Exceptional claims require exceptional sourcing“. I don’t have access to a copy of his works, but haven’t seen an explanation anywhere for how he got that information, or what traditionists he consulted. Considering the general difficulty of dating events from oral history, I would expect to see this information widely adopted by other specialists if it were considered credible, but I have not found other historians who rely on Omoregie’s dates. When Bondarenko discussed the various historians who have proposed dating the founding of the Oba dynasty and therefore indirectly Owodo’s reign, he didn’t even bother mentioning Omoregie’s dates.^[1] This is a clear WP: REDFLAG.

5. Most of Omoregie’s written output is plays and novels. I suspect that he allowed his creativity to bleed into the ‘historical’ writing.

In GAN2, Kowal2701 argued in favor of Omoregie = RS by making 2 points. First, he claimed that Omoregie is “relatively widely cited”. I believe this is an exaggeration. I tried to dig up all the citations I could for Omoregie’s books and found that they were few and sometimes dodgy:

• A single footnote for uncontroversial information repeated in Egbarehva and elsewhere.
• A thesis that cites interviews with Omoregie, and includes his works in the bibliography, but does not actually have a footnote pointing to those books for any particular fact.
• A book chapter that cites Omoregie’s unpublished manuscript but was written 10 years after the manuscript was published.
• A paper that clearly did not go through any real editing process in a non-historical pay-to-publish journal.
• Interestingly, Bondarenko and Roese do footnote Omoregie a few times in two papers,^[3][4] even though Bondarenko also called the work of Omoregie’s group of Bini intellectuals “pseudohistorical”.^[1]

Some closely related papers do not cite Omoregie when you might otherwise expect that they would, such as this one on oral traditions and Owodo. The only paper that cites Omoregie in a similar way to this article (as the main source for a historical narrative) is the pay-to-publish one. So overall the citation evidence is mixed.

Kowal2701‘s second point was that, if we decided that Omoregie was non-RS, the only alternative would be to “write Edo history from a Yoruba POV”. I don’t understand this argument at all. Using non-reliable sources is not a remedy for POV, it’s just stacking problems on top of each other. Omoregie’s work should be evaluated on its own merits, not based on the author’s ethnicity. There are plenty of RS’s on the history of Benin. There are few for the history of Igodomigodo, but the guidelines are clear that we should delete the article if the only alternative is to rely on non-RS. I’m not saying we should delete this article, there is plenty of good info here. But can an article that relies so heavily on a source with so many questions be a GA? I’m skeptical. Would love some feedback and thoughts.

• @Catjacket: Why Omoregie’s series was not published by the original planned publisher isn’t a business of mine, nor should it be of yours. In the previous GAN that just concluded, the issue of source reliability was resolved, and my improvements to this article were almost entirely based on the various feedback from that review. If you had concerns like this regarding the Omoregie source, why did you decide NOT to bring it up before this review, and decide to bring it up AFTER opening the THIRD review of this article? I think this is utter disrespect to a fellow editor, I must say. I don’t know what explanation you have as to why you think bringing this here for a third review is better than addressing any concerns you have before DECIDING to take up the responsibility of a GA review (your first, at that). I think I am being overly lenient in how I allow editors to criticise my work and actually listen to them.

I have over 15 GAs, this means that I have come across different perspectives from different editors; it also means that I know exactly what a GAN review is and what it is not. Addressing what really concerns this review and sourcing, I would say that Omoregie, from what I have seen, is clearly a subject-matter expert; his works has been published in newspapers (some of which the sources you mentioned above do cite), his works have also been published by other publishers that are not Nareso. Again, it’s been established in the previous review that this source is reliable, and it was based on that feedback I used in improving the article for future review.

Perhaps you were trying to ping @Kowal2701 and Sohvyan:, if you mention a user and save your edit without your signature, it doesn’t deliver to them. —Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:04, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Vanderwaalforces, the only disrespect I see is coming from you. You have the temerity to demand that GA reviewers aren’t allowed to assess your work, because you “know exactly what a GAN review is and what it is not”? What nonsense is this? You twice submitted an article to GAN with serious sourcing deficiencies, and now think you can get angry when a reviewer takes their time to investigate? I suggest you at least strike your first paragraph of absolute tripe and apologise to the editor who is actually acting in good faith. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@AirshipJungleman29 No please, do not put words in my mouth, or rather, do not misinterpret me, nowhere in my reply did I demand that GA reviewers aren’t allowed to assess your work. I know exactly what a GA review is, yes I do, and that is not “nonsense” AFAIK. I know exactly what I mean by I am too lenient, yes, I exactly know, even though I might not be able to explain.

@Catjacket Did you read my comment as “not allowing you to do your review”? if you do, I’m very sorry, with my experience I cannot possibly think that. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:15, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be perfectly honest @Vanderwaalforces, I read your comment as an attempt to bully me into letting the Omoregie source slide and not interrogate it too thoroughly.

I know that you are a reliable and experienced editor, and in general I admire your work, so I was very surprised at your reaction. I do not think your intent was to silence me, but that is nevertheless how it came across. I can imagine that re-submitting the same article 3 times is frustrating, but it is my job as reviewer to critically examine your work. You certainly are not forced to be “overly lenient” or “actually listen” to me (within the bounds of WP policies), but I will still review this article as thoroughly and honestly as I can, and you can do what you like after that. Catjacket (talk) 18:27, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Catjacket my sincere apologies. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:07, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apology accepted! Catjacket (talk) 19:23, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understand what you’re angry about, unless it’s simply having your work challenged. Like I said above, this is my first review, so if I’m putting these concerns in the wrong place, I’m open to feedback on that. I certainly did not intend to disrespect you – I wanted to review an article before sending in nominations of my own, and had worked on similar topics. I did not see the GAN2 while it was active. Now that it’s closed, I thought it would be inappropriate to put my concerns there. If you’re mad that I missed the last GA review, my bad. Perhaps you’re suggesting that I should have waited for someone else to take up the review and then voiced my concerns? Or should I have put it on the talk page instead of opening a review?

But regardless of what you wish I had done instead of reviewing this article, it doesn’t invalidate the concerns. If you nominated this article for a GA review, you should expect a thorough evaluation of the entire article and be open to constructive criticism. I’m not going to rubber stamp the article just because it’s the third nomination, and I do not believe that the last GAN adequately reviewed Omoregie’s credibility, as explained above. I’m open to being convinced otherwise.

What books has Omoregie had published from non-Nareso publishers? The only one I found was a YA popular history about the 16th century, which I didn’t think was super relevant. Otherwise it’s Edo grammar and the like.

Thanks for fixing the pings. I should have also added @AirshipJungleman29 and @Reverosie. If y’all have any thoughts, please let me know. Catjacket (talk) 14:47, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Catjacket I think I found some in sources, for example

• Omoregie, Osaren “The Royal Guards of Great Benin: Fortunes of Isienmwenro People,” Sunday Observer (Benin City/ Nigeria), February 9, 1997, pp.8-9.
• Omoregie, O. S. B. Emotan and the Kings of Benin. London: Longman Group Limited, 1972. [1]
• https://search.worldcat.org/title/23236265
• https://search.worldcat.org/title/18629952 This one was, as a matter of fact, used for teaching in schools/colleges in Edo
• https://search.worldcat.org/title/40850308
• Idia: Mother of Oba Esigie also appears to be published by Thomas Nelson
• Omoregie, O.S.B. 1987. The theocratic monarch of Uhe. Weekend Voice, issue of 18–20 September, Benin City.

Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:55, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve been quite busy so I haven’t had much chance to edit as of late, I appreciate the ping.

Firstly, I don’t see any issue with questioning the validity of a source on a new GA review, the previous one had obviously closed. I’m drawn what you said here.

There are plenty of RS’s on the history of Benin. There are few for the history of Igodomigodo, but the guidelines are clear that we should delete the article if the only alternative is to rely on non-RS. I’m not saying we should delete this article, there is plenty of good info here. But can an article that relies so heavily on a source with so many questions be a GA? I’m skeptical.

This was presicely the question I was asking myself reading through the Ogiso articles.

On the Ogiso era, Joseph Nevadosky had this to say.

the Ogiso Era is problematic. It is farther back in time. It is opaque. Most historians view the Ogiso Era as a system of autonomous chieftaincy villages to state organization on a scale of political evolution.Ogiso means “sky kings” – a name that should raise some cautionary red flags.

Boilerplate texts takes the Ogiso as a “First Dynasty.” Though this is a hazy period in Benin history, which the late Bradbury [1,2] and some other scholars have dismissed as “mythical,”

Joseph Nevadosky’s thoughts on Omoregie’s credibility as a “historian”

The first example is Omorogie’s [18,19] narratives compiled in Great Benin (1997-1999), and self-published separately beginning with The Age of Odionwere (600-900 AD) to The Age of Ogiso Foundation (900-1050 AD, The Age of Ogiso Reform (1050-1130 AD and The Age of Ikaladerhan (1130-1200 AD). Somewhere between mythic and make-believe recounting, there is no referencing, bibliography, source interviews, or historical methodology.

Omoregie initially said that he collected his information from the last surviving member of a guild of court recorders, the Ughoron. Before his death in 2015 Omoregie claimed his family was descended from the Ughoron and so he was exposed to the early history of Benin.

There is no oral or palace evidence for the existence of such a group. There is no family history of such an individual.

Omorogie claims that the stories are legitimate history, that is, historical fact. Some basic fact-checking reveals that Omoregie must have been a young boy when he collected this information, a remarkable feat that fits in somewhere between the genie in a lamp or a note in a bottle found on a beach at Carmel. It is a narrative conceit professed by a self-actuated savant.

The full article can be read here [[2]]

Omoregie’s stories are fascinating to read, but can they be used a reliable source for actual history in the manner that these Wikipedia articles use them? To me that is an obvious no.

It’s not lost on me that without him as a reliable source, these articles don’t have the notability to exist individually (though largely single sourced articles are frowned upon anyway). The main issue to me is the way his work is being used as a legitimate recounting of history, when many historian as seen above, have discounted it. Sohvyan (talk) 19:04, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. Nevadomsky also says this about Bondarenko which surprised me

Dmitri Bondarenko, a Moscow-based social anthropologist in the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute for African Studies, takes the Ogiso stories at face value, employing them to develop an evolutionary scheme for the early political development and incipient state centralization of pre-dynastic Benin. While most scholars accept the Ogiso a necessary precondition to state formation, Bondarenko accepts as credible the list of pre- dynastic Ogiso, and for a reason: it works well with his Marxist reconstruction of evolutionary development. An elastic Marxist- aligned structure serves as an excellent framework for an evolutionary schema resting upon the extended Omoregie mytho- history boilerplate. In a plethora of essays and publications on the Ogiso era he offers a chronological litany of early rulers, each accorded sophisticated achievements that advance the political and social agenda in lock step with evolutionary state formation theory, an approach reminiscent not only of Marx but other 19th century evolutionists and current adherents. There is an extraordinary convergence of mythic history and historical Marxism in Bonderanko’s [27-31] work, especially in his Pre-Imperial Benin (2001), A Popular History of Benin: The Rise and Fall of a Mighty Forest Kingdom [32], and Homoarchy: A Principle of Culture’s Organization (2006).

I’d be sceptical of Bradbury, he’s late colonial and African art history as a discipline even today is pretty backward. It’s worth noting Nevadomsky also says Although it reminds one of the Arthurian Legends, Omorogie’s narratives are taken seriously, and says that Igbafe and Bondarenko used his work. Kowal2701 (talk) 21:06, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the “taken seriously” requires the context so I’ll drop the full quote

Although it reminds one of the Arthurian Legends, Omorogie’s narratives are taken seriously. When the assertions are mythologies posed as historical facts that occurred in a “time long ago,” the Edo public, like everyone else, relies on the authority of the teller. (The author has a doctorate degree in educational administration and served government in that capacity.) That such story telling is now be committed to print only exacerbates the problem of validity, and illumination, imposing a false sense of social and historical disambiguation.

The full quote is actually more damning, it is highlighting the further proliferation of unreliable accounts due to omoregie’s work.

The reason bondarenko uses omoregie’s list is clearly stated, they work well for his own purposes.

Bondarenko accepts as credible the list of pre- dynastic Ogiso, and for a reason: it works well with his Marxist reconstruction of evolutionary development.

Bondarenko himself says he simply has no choice because of how scant the sources are to begin with. In general he does not consider the account of this period reliable.

The evidence for the period separating the times of the two Benin dynasties, that of the ogiso and that of the oba, is extremely scanty and does not look trustworthy.

In fact we have to either operate with the sources which are in our disposal, or abandon trying to reconstruct an important episode of the Benin kingdom’s history.

– Between the Ogiso and Oba Dynasties: An Interpretation of Interregnum in the Benin Kingdom (2004)

The time of the so-called “1st (Ogiso) Dynasty” − probably the early 10th − first half of 12th centuries, is one of the most mysterious pages of the Benin history. The sources on this period are not abundant. Furthermore, it is obvious that archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence, rather scarce, should be supplemented by an analysis of different records of the oral historical tradition, while it is well known that this kind of sources is not very much reliable. [..] For the Bini, all the Ogiso reigned in unmemorable times, before the Moon and the Sun appeared, prior to the social creation of the world

– Ancient Benin: Where did the First Monarchs Come from? (2001)

We’ve already seen his quite damning quotes on how he distrusts post 70s local Edo historians, and even in his use of the Ogiso accounts for his own constructions, he still acknowledges the tales as mythical.

It wouldn’t make sense to see bondarenko’s analysis of sources he acknowledges as mythical, as a green flag to directly use those sources as historically accurate, the way this article does. Especially with all the direct criticism it has from other scholars.

As for Bradbury, I am very much in agreement that many colonial sources of African history are inadequate, and there is some of his work that I would dispute using other scholars, but I can’t think of an account specific to this situation that would present his mythical view of the Ogiso period as untrustworthy. I know he collected a vast amount of traditions while exploring Edo communities. Sohvyan (talk) 00:31, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Sohvyan and @Kowal2701 for providing sources to flesh out the discussion. I figured y’all’d be helpful, but this exceeded my (high) expectations! I’ve read the Osadolor chapter, but unfortunately the Juniper Publishers website appears to be malfunctioning so I can’t get Nevamdosky’s full article. I will trust that the quotes are accurate and a fair summary.

Clearly this is a complex issue. While personally I agree that Omorogie’s history should not be taken very seriously, ultimately I believe it would be WP:POV to exclude the Bini perspective entirely. This is particularly informed by Osadolor, who does a good job illustrating the issues with the popular history approach while also pointing out that it A/ does have some advantages, B/ is not always in opposition to professional historians, including on issues like whether Oduduwa = Ekaladerhan and C/ is widely accepted in Benin itself, including by the Oba and his court. We simply cannot claim to provide a comprehensive view of the history of Benin and Igodomigodo if we don’t at least discuss the works that the Oba thinks are legit. Osadolor’s conclusion pretty well sums it up:

Since most of the local authors are informants to researchers and visiting scholars on Benin history and culture, the community establishes faith in the quality of their knowledge. Their views or rather their works, consciously or otherwise, begin to represent the community’s view of their recorded tradition. Thus, local historiography has the capacity to enlarge the range of sources for Benin studies, and obviously form a good starting-point of historical inquiry even for academics in search of material for research and teaching. Although some of the works lack concern for problems of method – historical and epistemological – they are genuinely illuminating and exploratory and nourish a strong sense of local identity among Benin people.

TLDR: if the people of Benin think pop history authors like Omorogie are credible, then we can’t just ignore them.

So, I think the path that might lead towards this article becoming a GA is this: the lead has a sentence describing some of the methodological issues and historiographical controversies surrounding the material, and then there is a thorough discussion of all of the above (Nevamdosky, Osadolor, Bondarenko, Akinola) in a separate Historiography section. All the Ogiso-related articles should contain a similar section, even if the articles don’t cite Omorogie. I also think that we should not cite him for dates at all. Catjacket (talk) 20:58, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That’s a good solution imo. It might be a challenge to summarise all this neutrally in a couple sentences for the lead, but hopefully doable. Pinging Sohvyan and Vanderwaalforces for their thoughts Kowal2701 (talk) 21:08, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What bizarre timing for the juniper publishers website to go down, fortunately an internet archive backup was saved [3] so perhaps you can access this @Catjacket

I agree this is a decent compromise, but I think the sections highlighting the methodological/historiographical controversies should be a long as is needed, with disclaimers as to what sort of information is presented in the main body of an article (if omorogie’s work is staying). Weighing a metric of evolving beliefs with reliability can become problematic, especially when it concerns events presented as historical facts.

This is been a fruitful exchange and I believe we can come to an agreement on any issues that arise. It was due to @Oramfe‘s submissions in some Ogiso related talk sections that I got to know some details of Omorogie’s work, so I also trust his knowledge and thoughts on this topic if he has anything to add. Sohvyan (talk) 23:58, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I based my analysis off of Intricacies of a Great Past: A Survey of the Non-Academic Historiography of Benin in: A Place in the World (2002) by Osarhieme Osadolor. Of Akinola, it said (sorry for the quote farm, I tried collapsing these but to no avail)

Akinola’s criticism of the Benin local historians of the early 1970s has to be viewed in the context of his attempt, being a Yoruba historian, to ‘demolish’ Benin traditions. In his view, they sought ‘to establish … an unbroken link between the Ogiso era in Benin and that of the Obas while denying the seniority of Ife monarchy as well as the Benin dynasty’s allegiance to it.’ (Akinola 1976:29) However, Akinola himself left out facts which conflicted with his view. During his research, the Oba of Benin, Akenzua II, proved unwilling to speak to him. Akinola did not collect evidence from the palace and town chiefs. Rather he relied mainly on the works of Percy Amaury Talbot and other writings on Yo rub aland, and of course, extensively on Egharevba, as the evidence from these writings did not conflict with his thesis. Akinola spent time in Benin researching the subject but he may have discarded information from the most important informants, i.e. nobles and chiefs, because they contradicted his thesis or view. It seems, therefore, that Akinola’s contribution to the debate on the origin of the Eweka dynasty is the use of historiog raphy in furtherance of cultural chauvinism-of which academic historiography is not free.

On Omoregie it said:

O. S. B. Omoregie published Idia: Mother qf Oba Esigie (l987b) in the Edo language, which is supplementary to Ozedo Six (1987 a) in the Edo language and Benin under the Ogiso Monarchy (1988). Omoregie’s Ozedo Six deals with Benin history from the early times through the Ogiso period before the Eweka dynasty. He traces the foundation of the first Period of the Ogiso era to A.D. 600, although socio political institutions were already evolving as a result of social move ments that required concert and continuity of action over a considerable period of time. Ubini, the ‘land of inexhaustible resources’ (ehe ne emwi i na vbe), attracted the settlement of 31 communities (,wards’, idun mwun) in the proper sense within metropolitan Benin before the begin ning of the Eweka dynasty (Omoregie 1987a:l). Omoregie’s work shows that Benin did not have its origin in Egypt. Rather the found ing of Benin responded to local geographical factors and the socio economic culture of the people. Contacts \vith other cultures stimulated the process of state formation. O. S. B. Omoregie is not a profes sionally trained historian. He was educated at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in history, and in Toronto, Canada, where he received the M.A. and the Ph.D in educational planning. Although he worked briefly as a history teacher, he made a career in the public service as Chief Inspector of Education, and as educational planner in Benin City and Lagos till 1987. After retirement he founded the School of Edo Education, Benin City, in 1988. He is the author of some 31 books on subjects ranging from local history to poems, language, literature and education. Omoregie seems to have been influenced by Jacob Egharevba with whom he had worked as research assistant. Being members of the educated elite of Benin themselves, he and Aisien had much local credibility as regards their knmvledge of the controversial aspects of Benin history.

and

The history of local historiography in the 1990s began with the publication of O. S. B. Omoregie’s The Trials rif Ogiso Owodo (1990). The book is a historical play featuring the events which led to the fall of the Ogiso monarchy in Benin during the twelfth century A.D. It dramatizes how, with a mix of political ineptitude, domestic envy and bewildering credulity, Owodo, the last of the 31 Ogiso rulers, found himself in a chain of trials which ended his reign with murderous acts, terminating the royal succession line, and leading to his depo sition, banishment and subsequent death. The play fairly accurately follows the events as known from historical narratives. To dramatize such a major historical event demands a painstaking reconstruction of the epoch as well as an exercise in imaginative thinking. Omoregie’s earlier book, Benin under the Ogiso Monarchy (1988) has provided the textual basis for the literary plot of The Trials qf Ogiso Owodo. The play, focusing on the events that led to the fall of Ogiso dynasty, tried to determine the motives of the actors at the time. To account for human actions, even in the present day, is hazardous. For the historian to make statements about the actors and the rea soning and inner prompting behind those actions, can plunge him into the deepest of deep water (Smith 1978:7). However, Omoregie’s historical play demonstrates that work on local history does not stop with writing and publishing, but extends into dramatic productions, performed in schools and theatres.

and

Generally speaking, the non-academic local historians of Benin embarked on ambitious ventures to improve the understanding of the past and present of their society. They defended their views in debates on Benin history vis-a-vis ivory-towered academic historians. However, this was an ambivalent relationship. On the one hand, academic historians working on Benin had to rely on the works of local authors because some of them had impressive collections of historical materials. On the other hand, local authors have to admit the weakness of their kind of historiography. Yet, they are very com mitted. They virtually finance their publications themselves. Jacob Egharevba established his own printing press. O. S. B. Omoregie set up Neraso Publishers Limited, while Ekhaguosa Aisien had Aisien Publishers. Aghama Omoruyi established Cultural Publications and Daniel N. Oronsaye published his book himself.

Ultimately I think the crux of this whole debacle is tensions between local conceptions of history and Western ones. It’s a grey area, but maybe he ought to be placed in the same camp as Eghargevba, Johnson, Ntara etc. as recorders of tradition, his obituary says

Born in the Ogbesọn village, Omoregie claimed his family was descended from the Oghọrọn guild (the record keepers of the Ogisos, the first kings of Benin), and thus he was exposed to the stories of the Ogisos. Using these very stories, he reconstructed the Ogiso period of Benin history in his magnum opus, “Benin under the Ogiso Monarchs: Foundations of Benin Civilization” which was advertised as a forthcoming in the 1980s by Heinemann Educational Publication Nigeria Limited, the book remained stillborn. Undaunted, Omoregie self-published the work in 1999 under his Neraso Publishers imprint. The book, Great Benin, comprises five thematic volumes: The Age of Iso Norhọ (850 BC–600 AD), The Age of Odionwere (600–900 AD), The Age of Ogiso Foundation (900–1050 AD), The Age of Ogiso Reform (1050–1130 AD), and The Age of Ikaladerhan (1130–1200 AD). Though this had been a hazy period in Benin history, which the late Robert Bradbury and some other scholars dismissed as “mythical,” Omoregie’s tenacity in researching and documenting this period filled a major hiatus in Jacob Egharevba’s works.

If still unconvinced, would attribution address the concerns?

Kowal2701 (talk) 14:45, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! This is exactly the kind of content I was hoping exists, and can help determine the credibility of sources. I’ll read it and check back in. But to your attribution suggestion, I don’t think that’s lacking rn. Maybe a historiography section that discusses the issues with sources would be better. Probably every article on Igodomigodo needs a similar section, at least until Omoregie’s work gets incorporated into the widely accepted corpus of sources like Johnson has, for example. Catjacket (talk) 15:04, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that the University of Benin‘s history department is a bit of an insular ‘walled garden’ similar to Molefi Kete Asante‘s Temple University group (members listed here). How we navigate this idk Kowal2701 (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Catjacket: Thank you all for above, I have been able to summarise the above and come up with a Sources section. Kindly take a look. —Vanderwaalforces (talk) 13:45, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]