NATURE OF INTER-GROUP RELATIONS BETWEEN YORUBA AND BENIN KINGDOM IN PRE-COLONIAL TIMES

ABSTRACT

It is an established fact that Nigerian group can be treated in isolation of the others, this means that the economic and political survival of a community depended on the relationship, whether friendly or hostile, which it had with its neighbors. Group relations means co-operation between different states. They took the forms of trade, boundaries, wars and diplomatic ties. All Nigeria nation states took measures to ensure good relation with each other. They respected the recognition of the territorial integrity of other states, promotion of trade, inter-state tours by rulers, inter-state marriages and establishment of diplomatic relations.1 This study investigates the nature of inter-group relations between Yoruba and Benin Kingdom in pre-colonial times. It reveals the stories of origin of the Benin people and Kingdom, the political and socio-economic institutions of the Yoruba and Benin Kingdom, the traditions and culture of the Yoruba and Benin Kingdom, as well as the extent and nature of intergroup relations between Yoruba and Benin Kingdom in precolonial times. Inter-group relations among Indigenous groups in Nigeria is as old as the societies that make up the country.2 The general situation in the geo-polity is that the different constituent groups in the country have had variations of contact that span a wide range of activities covering the political, economic and social and cultural spectrum, which also takes the nature and dimension of the relations among them.