Reinventing the ancient Benin economy

The Bight of Benin is metaphorical of the economic exploit of the ancient empire before the greed of Europe vanquished the empire. Their visit and subsequent attack blighted the unequalled economic adventure of the ancient kingdom.

Notwithstanding the European invasion and the epic battle for the economic soul of the empire, the modern Benin City, and, indeed, the entire Edo State, is synonymous with artistic ingenuity.

The creative works in the forms of sculptures, paintings, bronzes and many others are as rich as the history of civilisation, earning it “the Great City of Benin” as far back as the 17th century. Benin is one of the first cities to have a form of street lighting. Huge metal lamps were built and placed around the city, especially near the king’s palace. The lamps were fueled by palm oil and provided illumination for traffic to and from the palace.

The Portuguese, indeed, confirmed that Benin, at that time, was remarkably different from other African settlements as the city was properly planned with good drainage.

The famous Benin City Wall stood out as a work of wonder. Beyond the city walls, several other walls were constructed to separate the surroundings of the capital into about 500 distinct villages. The Guinness Book of Records (1974 edition) described the walls of Benin as the world’s largest earthworks carried out before the mechanical age.

As reported by The Guardian of London, estimates by New Scientist’s Fred Pearce, Benin City’s walls were at one point “four times longer than the Great Wall of China, and consumed a hundred times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops.”

These walls, it quoted Pearce “extended for some 16,000 km in all, in a mosaic of more than 500 interconnected settlement boundaries. They covered 6,500sq km and were all dug by the Edo people… They took an estimated 150 million hours of digging to construct, and are perhaps the largest single archaeological phenomenon on the planet.”

From one dynasty to another, Benin’s political structure was among the most advanced. The Ogisos and later obas ruled in absolute terms but they were subjected to norms, traditions and values that compelled them to act fairly and justly. A council of chiefs also assisted them.

The empire also had a thriving economy with well-developed trading partnerships across kingdoms and empires before the coming of Europe. Even in a modern economy, the Benin art and rich agricultural endowment have powered business enterprises that have supported the economy of the state. But like every other city, the lure of petrodollar came; taking the shine the productive sectors were neglected as typical of Dutch Disease syndrome.

In the intervening years, youths who drifted to the urban centres could not find jobs. According to the labour data supplied by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Edo State, as of last December, had an unemployment rate of 49 per cent or the equivalent of 709,099 jobless people. The unemployment rate is above the 33.3 per cent national average.