Edo Lady based in Canada published her second book


An esteemed Edo Indigene in diaspora, Lady Nekpen Obasogie has published her second book titled Benin Warriors and the British Colonial Rule in Nigeria. The first book, Great Benin: The Alcazar of Post-Colonial Culture and Its Relationship with the Europeans Since 1400 AD examines what transpired between the Europeans and the Benin Kingdom from 1400 AD to the invasion by Britain in 1897. She asserts that knowing what transpired in the past will help to understand the present and advance the future. 

The Benin Kingdom has always been at the apex of European and African relationships from early contact to when Britain colonized Benin in the 19th century. Great Benin: The Alcazar of Post-Colonial Culture and Its Relationship with the Europeans Since 1400 AD diligently depicts how the colonial system, specifically Western education, amplifies gender exclusion, which shattered her childhood dream. In that book, Nekpen Obasogie critically analyzed how the patriarchal moral code embedded in both the Benin Kingdom and the colonial system worked together to shape the lived experiences of her mother and grandmothers as well as transcended and affected her childhood experience in the 1980s in the Benin Kingdom.


Her second book, Benin Warriors and the British Colonial Rule in Nigeria, depicts the oral and written historical accounts of the military might of Benin and its warriors (warrior kings) in the pre-colonial era. It sheds light on how the British colonial violence in that part of Africa, now known as Nigeria, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries disrupted the military and geographical arrangements of the old Benin Empire.

 Specifically, the book bridges the long-existing gaps in African/Benin literature on the significance and role of spirituality in the process of nation building and warfare in the ancient Benin Kingdom. Oral history in Benin stipulates that the kings and warriors of Benin incorporated spirituality into the nation’s logistics of inter-tribal wars in the post-colonial era and the British-Benin war in 1897. The author then posit her childhood experience in Izinde village (South-South region of Nigeria) in the 1980s as a case study to critically analyze how certain colonial system of community policing is alien to and incompatible with the belief system and cultural traditions of the people of Izinde.


The book launch is coming up November 4th, 2023 virtual and in-person event in Toronto, Canada.

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