Treaty Of Verdun

Epetedo and the burden of memory

On any day of the Gregorian calendar, there is an amazing cluster of events; cycles of incidents so arbitrary they form patterns – the stuff of history. But their chronicles vary. They are not linear but are reproduced by the powers of interpretation and the interpretations of power. Hence, the powerless cannot make history. They drift in and out of its relativities un(re)marked. This is why, for example, records of events occurring on all June 12s put together are instructive for what they include and exclude.

One such reckoning starts with the procession through Rome of Gaius Carrinas, Proconsul of Gaul, on June 12, 28BC. It surveys every June 12 after that to generate 189 incidents spanning 2,040 years without mentioning Africa. It includes the English defeat of the Dutch at the Battle of North Foreland (1653), the attack of Verdun by land guardians of the Netherlands (1552), nothing on Nigeria.

It covers events as recent as the 2010 revelation by Chinese monks and archaeologists of a skull segment believed to be that of Buddhism’s founder, Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563-ca. 483 BC); the 2008 Irish rejection of the Treaty of Lisbon; former US President George H.W. Bush’s 2004 celebration of his 80th birthday by skydiving – something an agbalagba should not do; and the 2002 NBA Finals in which Los Angeles Lakers beat New Jersey Nets 4 games to 0.

This constitutes a sad assignment of historical priority. The list registers the June 12, 1991 election of Russian President Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) but not the Nigerian presidential election two years later. For that date, June 12, 1993, it reports that the song ‘Three Little Pigs’ by American comedy-punk group Green Jellÿ hit #17.

Meanwhile, Moshood Kashimawo Olawole (‘MKO’) Abiola (1937-1998) was imprisoned for insisting he won the Nigerian presidential election held that day. He became the symbol of a mass quest for justice and enthronement of liberty. A rebellion organized itself around him. Dying mistily, he became the sacrifice for the rule of law whether currently projected by Nigerian ‘democracy’ or desecrated by it. He died as Nigerians struggled to understand the paradoxes befalling them through the ploys of a repressive military caucus formerly led by a dictator who styled himself ‘an evil genius’.

NecessaryJewel: France, History Of, The Treaty of Verdun

Later the three brothers came to an agreement in the Treaty of Verdun (843). The empire was divided into three kingdoms arranged along a north–south axis: Francia Orientalis was given to Louis, Francia Media to Lothair, and Francia Occidentalis to Charles the Bald. The three kings were equal among themselves.

Treaty of Verdun

State and status, the rise of the state and aristocratic power in Western Europe

Supplemental notes to the View of the state of Europe during the middle ages

A history of diplomacy in the international development of Europe

The history of Normandy and of England