Lessons from a Historical Account of the Origin and Expansion of the Bantu in Southern, Eastern, Central Africa and Migration into the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria

Abstract

Peoples and languages are classified on the basis of the common variables they share. While languages are classified basically on common lexical structures, peoples and groups are compared in accordance with their socio-cultural and political similarities. However, the hallmark in the classification of peoples and groups is common progenitor, that is, the factor of common origin. This was even one of the basic considerations in the classification of the Bantustan groups (Bantu) under one language family otherwise referred to as the Benue-Congo language family. Historically and demographically, the Bantustan groups dominate Southern, Central and Eastern Africa, the supposed ancestral nucleus of the groups. The groups are believed to form about half of Africa’s total population. From what is believed to be their ancestral nucleus, the groups later migrated in clusters into other parts of Africa and what later became Nigeria. Prominent among the Bantoid clusters in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria are the Tivoid, Mambilloid, Dakoid, Platoid, Nupoid. It is observed that the Bantoid groups have almost lost knowledge about the common progenitor and unity they once shared as well as knowledge about the very powerful political systems and military machines their progenitors once established in Southern, Central and Eastern Africa. Instead, they have shifted allegiance from broad-based identity to microscopic ethnic or group identities. This down trend has remained the bane for the eclipse of the Bantoid groups in the Middle Belt, and Taraba State in particular. This paper is, therefore, an attempt to unfold the historical account of the origin and expansion of the Bantustan groups in Southerrn, Central, Eastern Africa and their subsequent migration particularly into the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria, but with special focus on Taraba State. The paper tries to examine the fate of the Bantoid groups in Taraba State in the midst of their shift of allegiance from broad-identity to microscopic ethnic or group identities. Conclusively, the paper suggests the need for Bantoid groups in Taraba State, and other groups in Nigeria, to retreat to broad-based group identities as a panacea for the multiplicity of incessant inter-ethnic or group hostilities in the state and Nigeria at large. The paper adopts a multi-dimensional approach in data collection.