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28-452: Both his lineal and adoptive descendants—who are all collectively known today as the House of Fubara Manilla Pepple —serve by tradition as one of Bonny's most powerful chieftaincy families. The second son of King Perekule I Pepple, Fubara wasn't initially expected to succeed him as ruler. His elder brother, Ibulu Best Pepple, was their father's acknowledged heir, but in the lead up to his death he

56-478: A house of his own during his reign. By the point when Fubara himself died in 1792, the Fubara Manilla Pepples were the largest and most successful of these cadet branches of the wider Perekule Pepple dynasty. This was largely due to the fact that Fubara left the stewardship of his house in the hands of an able regent , the ex- slave Ibanibufuria. Chief Ibanibufuria used the king's patronage to consolidate

84-634: A locally controlled honours system alongside its nationally controlled counterpart, which is itself within the gift of the Federal Government . Today, many prominent Nigerians aspire to the holding of a title. Both Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'Adua , one-time presidents of Nigeria, have belonged to the noble stratum of the Nigerian chieftaincy. Nigerian traditional rulers and their titled subordinates currently derive their powers from various Chiefs' Laws, which are official parts of

112-484: A number of them were even considered to be sacred themselves - and therefore often lived in seclusion as a result. Their nobles, both hereditary and otherwise, typically also had functions that were tied to the religious traditions of the kingdoms that they served. In the South, the nobles ruled the states on a day-to-day basis on behalf of their monarchs by way of a series of initiatory secret societies . These bodies combined

140-514: A result. During the Scramble for Africa , anti-European chiefs were slowly replaced with pro-European ones, and Colonial Nigeria came to be governed by a system known as indirect rule , which involved native chiefs becoming part of the administrative structure to ease administrative costs. Through this method, the colonial government was able to avoid any rebellions against its authority. Following Nigeria's independence in 1960, each federated unit of

168-649: A variety of diverse factors. Whether or not they are recognized by the government, whether they are traditionally powerful or purely honorary, what the relative positions of the title societies that they belong to (if any) are in the royal orders of precedence , their relative antiquity, how expensive they are to acquire, whether or not they are hereditary, and a number of other such customary determinants are commonly used to ascribe hierarchical positions. A number of kingdoms also make use of colour-coded regalia to denote either allegiance to particular title societies or individual rank within them. Examples of this phenomenon include

196-432: A variety of tactics to work against foreign influence, utilizing both direct and indirect forms. The colonial government responded by favouring the pro-European chiefs and supporting more amenable claimants to the Nigerian titles in an attempt to frustrate the anti-European chiefs. Minor wars were fought with the anti-European chiefs, while pro-European chiefs prospered through trade with Britain and so were politically safe as

224-660: Is legally recognized by its government. Nigerian pre-colonial states tended to be organized as city-states . The empires that did exist, like the Kanem-Borno empire , the Oyo empire , the Benin empire and the Sokoto caliphate , were essentially coalitions of these individual city-states. Due to this, a great deal of local power was concentrated in the hands of rulers that remained almost permanently in their capitals. These rulers had sacred functions -

252-406: Is simply relative to the ages of all of the other members of the group in question. Once having met the peculiar requirements of their individual groups, however, all elders are generally expected to mentor, share their experience, create a sense of oneness for their followings and, most especially, act as the spiritual embodiments of their communities. An example of informal elderhood is the role of

280-447: Is that of the vocational mentor who guides his or her apprentices with tools of sponsorship, advocacy and the demonstration of skills. He or she serves to facilitate creativity in his or her charges by teaching the methods of the past as they pertain to their various occupations. In more formal examples of elderhood, elders serve as the members of the governing and/or advisory bodies of higher personages such as kings and presidents in

308-551: The Red-Capped Chiefs of Igboland and the White-Capped Chiefs of Lagos , each the highest ranked group of noble chiefs in its respective sub-system. Elder (administrative title) The term Elder , or its equivalent in another language, is used in several countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority . This usage is usually derived from the notion that the oldest members of any given group are

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336-425: The trade name Manilla Pepple - worked to balance trade and maintain order in the state. This latter aim wasn't always achieved, partly due to the fact that the king - far from being a neutral arbitrator in the house chiefs' squabbles - was himself an active participant in the trade that invariably caused them. This loss of royal neutrality had begun under Perekule, and had been compounded by his establishment of both

364-544: The Bonny forces as a war chief in that engagement, and ultimately lost his life during the fighting. The personalization of power in the royal houses in this way by the first three Pepple kings would ultimately lead to the civil war between the Fubara Manilla Pepples - led at the time by the famous chief Oko Jumbo - and the Opubo Annie Pepples, who were themselves then led by the even more famous Chief Jaja . Upon losing

392-531: The Fubara Manilla Pepple house and the Opubo Annie Pepple house of Fubara's younger brother (and eventual successor) Opubo. Fubara I died in 1792, and was succeeded by Opubo in the same year. The new king continued the official policy of bolstering his own position that had been the hallmark of his brother's reign, consolidating the twin powers of both the kingship and the Opubo Annie Pepple house in

420-535: The aforementioned priestly functions with judicial ones, and also traditionally provided advisers to the monarchs in question. Some of these societies, like Ogboni and Nze na Ozo , have survived to the present day as aristocratic social clubs within their respective tribes. Meanwhile, in the North , the emirates of the old caliphate were usually divided into districts, and these districts were in turn ruled by nobles known as Hakimi (pl. Hakimai ) that were subject to

448-562: The anti-European chiefs on the one end (who wanted nothing to do with the Europeans and wanted them to leave, by war if necessary) and the pro-European chiefs (who favoured maintaining friendly relations with the Europeans, even if it meant sacrificing certain amounts of political power). At the point of the increase in British influence in Nigeria during the 19th century, the anti-European chiefs used

476-500: The body of contemporary Nigerian laws. As a result, the highly ranked amongst them typically receive staffs of office - and by way of them official recognition - from the governors of the states of the Federation as the culminations of their coronation and investiture rites. Thus installed, they then have the power to install inferior chiefs themselves. Chieftaincy titles are often of differing grades, and are usually ranked according to

504-537: The country had a House of Chiefs , which was part of its lawmaking system. These houses have since been replaced by the largely ceremonial Councils of Traditional Rulers . In addition, many of the founding fathers and mothers of the First Republic - including the leading troika of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe , Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello - were all royals or nobles in the Nigerian chieftaincy system. This has continued to operate since their time as

532-403: The gains made in the time of Perekule I. He established a virtual monopoly of the slave trade in the kingdom, and subsequently founded satellite sub-houses that were to be headed by men like him: freed slaves that had risen through the ranks of Bonny society due to hard work and ability. While this was going on, Fubara - who operated in business dealings with visiting European traders under

560-443: The matriarchal grandmother as it appears in many parts of the global South . In the absence of viable male alternatives or even in the presence of them, grandmothers in these areas tend to serve as both the de facto heads of their groups of descendants and the catalysts of their periodic reunions and meetings. By doing so they provide their families with a cohesion that would probably be absent if they weren't present. Another example

588-430: The monarchs. As a general rule titles did not always pass from father to son; many royal and noble families did however provide a number of titleholders over several generations. In the south, the titles held by nobles were often not the same ones as those that had been held by others in their lineages. Some chiefs had even been untitled slaves, and therefore had had no titled forebears prior to their eventual ascension to

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616-457: The process. He used the glory of his reign - something of a golden age in Bonny - to radically undermine the ascendancy of the other houses. By the time that the Fubara Manilla Pepple regent Ibanibufuria was succeeded by his adopted son Chief Iringeresibo, a civil rupture seemed guaranteed. Upon Opubo's death, it was only averted by the declaration of war by the Andoni people in 1843. Iringeresibo led

644-524: The ranks of the aristocracy. Although dominated by the titled men mentioned above, several kingdoms also had parallel traditions of exclusively-female title societies that operated in partnership with their male counterparts. Others would reserve specially created titles, such as the Yoruba Iyalode , for their womenfolk. During the early European forays into Africa, Nigerian chiefs - both monarchs and nobles - came to be divided into two opposing camps:

672-407: The state of being in the latter portion of one's life and being looked to for leadership of either a passive or active nature by your peers and\or subordinates due almost exclusively to this fact. Sometimes it involves a ceremonial investiture of some kind, and other times it does not. Sometimes it involves a definite chronological milestone which must be surpassed, while at other times the required age

700-448: The war, Jaja would lead his supporters in seceding from Bonny. The independent settlement that they founded eventually became known as Opobo . Nigerian Chieftaincy The Nigerian Chieftaincy is the chieftaincy system that is native to Nigeria . Consisting of everything from the country's monarchs to its titled family elders , the chieftaincy as a whole is one of the oldest continuously existing institutions in Nigeria and

728-412: The wisest, and are thus the most qualified to rule , provide counsel or serve the said group in some other capacity. They often serve as oral repositories of their culture's traditional knowledge , morals, and values. Elder is a role played in the organised community that is most common in tribal subsistence cultures, Elderhood being the condition or quality of being an elder. It is essentially

756-416: Was found to be somewhat weak-willed. As a result, upon Perekule's death, Ibulu was sidelined by the elders and Fubara was called upon to take up the kingship thereafter. He was crowned in 1754. In emulation of what was customary amongst the lower classes, Fubara's own position as a chief prior to his accession was only recognized because of his prior rule of the Fubara Manilla Pepples - a clan corporation that

784-479: Was partly based on kinship , and partly on initiatory fealty . Each independent elder in Bonny aspired to the headship of such an entity - termed a House - and by the end of the civil war of 1869, Bonny was composed of no fewer than eighteen of them. Each house existed almost solely for profit, and each house chief was therefore in an almost constant state of competition with his titled rivals. Perekule had seen to it that each of his sons had been provided with

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