Edo Association Belgium v.z.w. was founded by seven members in the year 1997 at Ette Ibibio cafe, zwijnardsesteenweg 104 in Gent, Belgium.The founders names are Victor Imade,Ernest Omorede,Harry Omo Ogbebor, Monday Ugbo, Henryson Otamere, Bello Josef & Solomon Osazee. Mr Victor Imade was elected as the president, Ernest Omorede as the vice president, Harry Omo Ogbebor as the Secretary General, Monday Ugbo as the Treasurer & Henryson Otamere as the assistant Secretary General, they & other members worked meritoriously for this association to grow in strength & in size. We have over 28 regular financial members today in the association, this number is small compared to the statistics of the population of Edo State virile men in Belgium, but it is not how much but how capable the few members that we have can contribute moraly & financialy to the growth & success of this great association because we are for quality & not for quantity. Edo Association is registered as a non profit & non political organisation by the Royal Act of Belgium on the 23rd of December 1998. This association is also registered with the city of Gent & other organisations e.g the Vlaamse Studie en Documentatie Centrum(V.S.D.C), the Fedratie Van Zelf Organisaties in Vlaanderen (F.Z.O) & last but not the least, Nigerian Embassy in Belgium. Conclusively we should give kudos to ourselves & to God almighty for providing the strength & wisdom to manage ourselves throughout this years. GOD BLESS EDO ASSOCIATION.
A subject that has remained contentious in our history is the nature of relations between the present Benin dynasty and the Ile-Ife Monarchy as well as the events and processes that led to these relations. The earliest writing on the
subject Samuel Johnson's History of the Yorubas (Lagos, C.M.S. Bookshop, 1898), trace the present dynasty to a grandson of Oduduwa, a fugitive fleeing religious persecution in Mecca. The work did not show the events that led to
this baffling acceptance of Oduduwa's grandson a "foreigner" as the Oba of Benin, over and above the indigene Ogiamien. But his admission in the work that some of the narrated events in the book are legendary give enough grounds
to doubt their authenticity. Chief Jacob Egharevba's A Short History of Benin on the
other hand is conspicuously silent on Prince Ekaladerhan's migration to Ile-Ife and the events that happened thereafter, in spite of his undoubted
knowledge of these events. This terrible omission by Egharevba (the cause of my slight quarrel with him in 1945) helped in no small way to lend credence to the earlier distortions which foreign writers had earlier introduced into
Benin history. It is this distortion that this chapter sets out to correct by tracing and
relating the events and stories of personalities that led to these developments in the history of Benin and Ile-Ife. In order to have
a better appreciation of these developments, it is necessary to start from the political crisis in Igodomigodo also known as Ile (Home) which was the capital of the migrants from Sudan scattered over the present west African and
central African sub regions.
