Tade Oyebode's Blog, page 5

Nigeria in 1963: Kingsway

My previous blog was about a magazine – Nigeria Magazine – which I rescued recently while visiting home. This one is not any different.

I am back with another advert from the same magazine and it took me down memory lane. A supermarket, called Kingsway had this advert:

[image error]

Although I was not alive in 1963, Kingsway survived well into the early eighties only succumbing during recession that started in 1982.

I remember a particular visit to Kingsway one Christmas to see Father Christmas as we used to call him then.

As the recession took a stranglehold in Nigeria, decimating the income of the middle class, the cost of goods retailed by the likes of Kingsway made their business models unviable and they all disappeared.

#NigeriaNostalgia

#Nigeria

Nigeria Airways – March 1963

I found a magazine titled “Nigeria Magazine” in my father’s shelf recently on a visit home. Wait for this, it was published in March 1963. That was before my parents were married.

One of the things that caught my attention in the magazine was this advert by Nigeria Airways, which advertised its LONDON-NIGERIA service.

From this advert, It appeared that Nigerians Airways was thriving, providing connecting flights to a few African and European cities.

Today, Nigeria Airways is no more and there has not been a reckoning. We don’t seem to care. We just shrugged and carried on with life.

[image error]

Káfilégboin (Let’s have it on the stiff): Yoruba Names

Names are not casually given among the Yorubas. Instead, they are carefully chosen.

In some cases, a name reveals a great deal about the child. Yorubas who are conversant with their culture and traditions can find clues that points to social background, family trades and circumstances of birth from a name.

The best illustration of the importance of names comes from the encounter of a European explorer (believed to be Clapperton) with the Oníkòyí of Ìkòyí, one of the most powerful chiefs in the old Oyo Empire (The story comes from the History Of The Yorubas by Samuel Johnson). The explorer, wanting to end the civil war among Oyo chiefs convinced Oníkòyí to convene a peace meeting.

After all the chiefs agreed to a truce, the Olukoyi called his emissary to announce the peace deal. Unfortunately, the emissary was named Káfilégboin, which means let’s have it on the stiff. Everything unravelled because the other chiefs believed the name of the emissary betrayed the intention of the powerful Oníkòyí. This shows that naming is a serious activity among the Yorubas.

There are at least three ways in which a child could acquire its names among the Yorubas:

(1)Àmútòrunwá – This is the name a child is born with and often reflects how or when the child was born:

(a)Children born during a festive season (e.g. Christmas). These children would most likely be named “Abíódún” (translated born during a festival) or Abódúndé (came during a festival) . Of course there are several other names.

(b)Children born on a Sunday. A girl born on Sunday could be called Abósèdé (arrived with the new week).

(c)Children born on the way to the hospital. Those children could be named Abíónà (born on the way).

(d)Twins. The first to arrive of the twins is Táíyé or Táíwò while the last is Kéhìndé, whom the Yoruba believe is the oldest: Omó Kéhìndé ó dì ègbón (the last to arrive is the older). Furthermore, the child that follows a set of twins is called Ìdòwù, while the one that follows Ìdòwù is automatically Àlàbà.

(e)A child emerging from the womb with its feet (breech) is called Ìgè.

(f)Children that emerged with the umbilical cord twisted around their necks are Òjó (for the boy) and Àìnà for the girl.

(g)When the father or grandfather died when the child is in utero, if he is a boy, he could be called Babatúnde and if a girl, Yétúndé.

(h)A child born with curly hair could be called Dàda.

(2)Names Given By Parents

Names are also given to children by parents. This could reflect circumstances of the family, the mood of the parents or their aspirations for the child. Apart from peculiar situations, Yoruba names are generally positive and full of aspiration. Yorubas believe in positive confessions.

(b)A name such as Adeleke could be interpreted as a confession that this child we prevail over its peers.

(a)A name reflecting family circumstances. For example, children born into royal families may have prefixes of Adé (crown), Olá (honour) and Oyè (title) but over time these are now used by everybody.

(c)Prefixes of names could indicate ancestral gods or family trades. For example a worshipper of Sàngó, the god of thunder can name his child Sàngóléké which means that Sango has prevailed. This could be the worshipper’s expression of gratitude to Sàngó. in the same vein, a worshipper of Ògún, the god of Iron can name his child Ògúnrántí (which means Ogun remembered). Hunters can prefix the name of their children with Ode (which means hunter). Drummers can prefix the names of their children with Àyàn (which means drummer). An example would be Àyàntúndé (the drummer has come again).

(c)Some names are given to deter the child from dying too young. The Yorubas of old believed in “Àbíkú”, these are children who the Yoruba of old believed knew when they would die before coming into the world. Such children are given names that the Yorubas believe would discourage them from dying young. Such names include “Málomó” (don’t go again), “Dúrósèjé” (wait to fulfill your promise) .

(3)Oríkì

There are two dimensions to oríkì. Some Yorubas have a name that is known only by their close family members. These are names like Àyòfé (we rejoice to love this child), Àpínké (all of use would look after this child). These are endearing names. This the first dimension of the oriki. The second dimension of oriki is a poem that is shared by the whole family. When the oriki is called, it is combined with the family poem. This poem tells about the attributes of the family, at times it talks about their ancestral god and may also refer to their achievements. A family oriki will make family members proud of their heritage.

It is not just families that have oriki, Yoruba villages, towns and cities also have oriki. For example, this is the oriki of Ìràgbíjí, a town in Osun State, South Western Nigeria:

Ìrágbíjì, olókè méjì. (Iragbiji, noted for its two hills)

Tako tabo lórí Aágba (The two hills prevail over Aagba, a neigbouring town)

Òkán rélulè ókù kan (one of the hills fell down but one remained)

The story behind this oriki was that there was dispute over ownership between Aagba, a nearby town, and Iragbiji on the two hills. Apparently, the king of Iragbiji pronounced that if the two hills belong to Iragbiji, one should fall down while the other remains. Obviously, Aagba’s oriki will be radically different and may express an opposite sentiment.

Naming Among Modern Yorubas

Every generation comes with its own innovation. As the Yorubas became more Christian in the last forty years, the names of their children reflected this. Now we have names like Tijésùnimí (I belong to Jesus), Jésùtófúnmi (Jesus is enough for me). Other names that did not exist (or at least were not common) a few decades ago have being created by modern Yorubas. Examples are Nífèmi (love me), Semílóre (bless me), Támílóre (I have been given a special blessing).

The beauty of the Yoruba language and the culture is that parents can always be creative about the names given to their children, nothing stops a parent from manufacturing a brand new name that expresses his/her aspirations for the child.

The Oppressive Sun of South Western Nigeria – As Captured by D.O. Fagunwa in Igbo Olodumare (Forest Of God)

The first sentence (yes, sentence, not even paragraph!) of “Igbo Olodumare” by D.O. Fagunwa is over 300 words long. My readers are free to draw their conclusions on such a very long sentence but as I read it, I realised there is something very special about its content. Whoever lived in South Western Nigeria would understand how intense the heat could be during the dry season. Long sentence or not, Fagunwa captured this experience very well and in a very African manner.

Here is my attempted translation. Not being a master of the Yoruba language, I won’t claim to have done a great justice to the passage. Nevertheless, will like to share this with you. After my translation, I show the passage in the Yoruba language so that those who can read in Yoruba can enjoy it first hand (and hopefully provide their own translations as comment!).

Here is the Translation

Once upon a time, in the heat of a hot afternoon, after having my lunch, I headed out to the outskirts of my home town. I climbed a hill to its zenith, and perched under a tree.

What an unbearably hot afternoon! The heat was such that
buckets of sweat, more than enough for a bath, poured out of the bodies of my
fellow citizens, and we felt like hot pots that had been on open fire for
hours.

I took off my tops leaving on just my trousers. Although
previously I had carefully pitched my hat on my head, I removed it and a cool,
soothing breeze hit the back of my head.

The heat was truly on under the unbearable sun. By now all
farmers had laid down their tools, retreating into their huts. The labourers
who specialised in moving goods from one point to another lacked the energy to
speak, conserving all what was left for manoeuvring down the hilly roads in my
home town as they panted heavily.

The hot sun had swallowed every single drop of water on the dusty road, the wind blew the abundant dust in every direction, turning the clothes of those unfortunate to be wearing white as brown as the dusty ground.

Those driving on the roads were not spared as  their bodies were covered in layers and layers of dust, like the plants and vegetation on the sides of a very dusty road. What about the passengers in the vehicles on the road? The dust became an unwanted powder which defaced rather than beautified their faces: they were as dusty as external walls covered with piles of dust.

All humans were covered in dust and the animal kingdom was not spared by the intense heat. The cold blooded lizards were busy running around but as they ran through the dry leaves on the ground, it was very clear that the land was patched and crying out for water. For the large birds however, they had all gone quiet and disappeared into the shade as the intense heat was too much for them.

Below is the original text in Yoruba:

Losangangan ijϙsi, nigbati mo jeun ẹkeji
tan, mo kuro ni ile mi, mo bo si ehin odi, mo gun ori apata nla kan lo, nigbati
mo si de oke lohun tan, mo bo si abe igi kan ti o hù si ori apata, mo joko, mo lé góngó,
bēni
ōrun
nã
mu gidigidi, ara omo araiye gbona bi ikoko elubo, ōgun bo ara gbogbo enia, afi be
enipe nwon bu omi si ara ni, emi na boa so ara mi sile, afi sokoto lo kù
si idi mi, emi ti mo ti de fila ri, ti mo te fila mi siwaju kongo, mo si fila
kuro ni àtàrí,
ategun alafia si nfe si mi ni ipako, osan pon gidigidi, awon agbe papa ti sa kuro
ninu oko, nwon nrerin ninu ahere, alãru ko le soro mo, nwon nmi hele bi
nwon ti ngun ori oke, oju ona le bi okuta, gbongbo le bi ìdáro,
ile pupa bi epo, eti sokoto funfun baje, eti ewu agbada di pupa, anu awon
onimoto se mi, ara won kun fun ēri, o dabi eweko oju ona, awon ti o si
joko si ehin oko, awon wonni kun atike ijangbon, nwon pupa bi egbe ogiri, eruku
bo omo araiye gbogbo, ogunlogo awon eda alaye ni nwon mo pe orun na mu, awon alangba
nsare, ara won ndun hánránhánrán lori ewe gbigbe, awon eiye nla ko si kemo, nitori mo ti
gbo igbe elulu, mo ti gbo ti adaba, eiye agbe ti ke, aluko ti soro, olukuluku
won si ti dake minimini si ibiti Olodumare so won lójò is, afi awon eiye kekere
gbogbo, ti won ko tobi ju alapandede, ni wnon nfo sihin fo sohun, ti ara won ko
bale bi ewe oju omi, nwon nti ori igi de ori igi bi nwon ti nke bi omo adie.

Final Thoughts

Please note that the signs on the vowels were a faithful reproduction of the edition that I read (published by Nelson Publishers, 2005).

This is one of the earliest books written in Yoruba
language. My
copy is a 2005 reprint but it claimed the book was first published in 1949. Authors
who wrote in their mother tongue abounded in South Western Nigeria but D.O.
Fagunwa set the pace and the rest simply followed.

Àjà Ló Lerù by Oladejo Okediji– Yoruba Proverbs and Idiomatic Expressions

Languages are never static, they
constantly evolve. Reading “Àjà Ló Lerù” was a trip down memory lane of what
the Yoruba language used to be.  Of
course, spoken language and written language are not exactly the same thing. Àjà Ló
Lerù
was written in 1969 but I could not help but compare Yoruba as spoken today to
Yoruba as deployed by Oladejo Okediji in Àjà Ló Lerù.

The lasting impression that would
remain with me is the sheer richness of the language – in the hands of a master
like Okediji. The title of the ten chapters was either a Yoruba proverb or an
idiomatic expression. The book opened with a chapter called “Elefo Aatan”. Efo is
spinach. The prefix “El” before efo turns the word to seller of spinach,
somebody who hawks spinach). Think of aatan as a site where food wastes (and
worse things) are dumped. Those conversant with Yoruba language would
straightway know that this is a fragment of one Yoruba proverb.

The proverb in question fits a situation
where somebody is defensive and self-justifying because he or she has something
to hide. Once you come to the end of chapter one, you have a perfect
understanding of why it had that title. In chapter one, Lapade, the main
character, discovered a loot of money and pocketed it and as soon as he pocketed
it, the Inspector of Police turned up and started discussing a spate of crime
and not surprisingly, Lapade was suspicious and defensive.

I counted thirty-six instances of
proverbs, idiomatic expressions and various figures of speech in this chapter. Here
is one of these expressions: “bí ológbò ti í rìn ti enikéni kì gburo esè rè ni Lapade
nrìn lo ninu papa”. This is where I struggle to think of a translation that
captures what I read in Yoruba. My attempt at translation would be “as a cat
creeps around unheard, Lapade crept along in the plain”. Irrespective of how it
is translated, it takes a skilful user of Yoruba language produce the original
expression.

The following paragraph captures the
beauty of the language in the hands of the experts:

“Lójijì ni ó gbó wéré nínú ìgbé. Ó wo
ibè kò rí nkàn kan, kò rí enikéni, kò rí ohunkóhun. Ó wo iwájú, kò rí eniyan. Ó
wèhìn, ó sì rii pe afí abiamo ti oun sèsè kò lona ni o wa lehin. Awon eiye paapaa
kò fò mó lójú orun. Oju-orun mó teúteú. Pápá lo pereu lotun-losi, ó té salalu bí
òsà, o se minimini, o nséjú wínwínwín ninu òòrùn”. My attempt at translation is
this:

“Suddenly, he heard a faint noise in the plain. He turned to look in the direction of the noise, but he saw nothing. He looked ahead, there was nobody in sight. He turned to look back and observed the woman he passed earlier. Not a single bird was in flight and the sky was very clear. The plain was vast to his left and right, and as flat as the lagoon (???)…..”

I had to give up on the translation. I just don’t know how to put the expressions “o se minimini” (which I understood to capture the calmness of the whole environment”) and “o nseju winwinwin ninu oorun” (which I understood to express the oppressiveness of the afternoon sun) in the context of the whole paragraph.  

In that paragraph, I translated “Igbe”
as plain instead of bush because the whole passage gave the impression that the
event took place in the dry season when the vegetation had turned into a sparse
forest as the trees shed their leaves. Also, I translated “abiamo” woman, but
that is not a precise translation. Abiamo is a woman who is also a mother.  

I have only covered a couple of paragraphs from one chapter and
there are many more captivating examples that I can’t show here.

To me, we have stripped our mother tongue down to just the basic
vocabularies and expressions that are just enough to transact everyday affairs.
Most of us can’t even speak a sentence of Yoruba without adding several English
words.  

Should anybody care about this? Let me know what you think (either
by posting directly on this page or mailing me).

Àjà ló lerù (It is the loft that does the heavy lifting)

“Àjà ló lerù, Iró Ni Pepe Ńpa” is a Yoruba proverb. It is also the title of a detective fiction written by Oladejo Okediji, who passed away earlier this year.

Translating Yoruba proverbs is a very risky venture. There was a famous politician from the South West of Nigeria who took on this risky venture on the BBC many years ago. That illustrious Yoruba scored zero on effort. I wanted to crawl under the seat as I watched the broadcast. I remember a friend of mine describing his own sense of embarrassment and how confusing it was to non Africans he knew.

The Yorubas speak a lot in proverbs. The Yoruba language is very rich in figures of speech. Our metaphors and similes do not have to be rooted in reality. So, when a Yoruba proverbs says “Ilé tí a fi itó mo, ìrì ni ó wo”, you can’t afford to transliterate this. It is better to find an expression that is very similar in meaning in the language of interest. In this case, you can just use the expression “a house of straw”.

Having said all these, I would still venture to translate this expression. For me, it means the “The loft does the heavy lifting while the shelf is just a pretender”. For me, “Àjà” is the loft. The space that you have in your loft is very big , so, your loft has a great capacity for storage. Pepe is a shelf. is also a storage space but it has a little capacity compared to the loft.

The title of the book gave a glimpse into the story. It was the story of a farmer, Lapade. Lapade used to be a policeman but when his father died, he left the police force in order to look after his father’s farm. The book was first published in 1969 and was set in one of the most densely populated cities in Nigeria, Ibadan. The Ibadan of 1969 appeared to be one in which the police were struggling to maintain law and order. The newspapers were also on their back, so, there was pressure to deliver results.

It appeared as if Lapade lived on the farm which was located on the outskirts of Ibadan and periodically comes home to spend the weekend. While cycling back home on one occasion, he saw a man hide some money under a tree and so he helped himself to the money. Shortly after pocketing the money, he ran into Audu, the Police Commissioner and immediately he was nervous that it was a setup. To make matter worse, the man who hid the money also saw Lapade steal it and he made an attempt on Lapade’s life.

It turned out that Lapade had unwittingly inserted himself into the activities of a sophisticated organised crime network. The network was behind a spate of kidnapping. They were also the growers of cannabis that was rampant in the city of Ibadan. When Angelina turned up and begged Lapade to investigate the disappearance of her ward, it further led Lapade deeper into the activities of the criminal network.

Meanwhile, Audu was deeply suspicious of Lapade. Lapade did not rate Audu at all as he believed that all the good cops had already left the force. Audu’s suspicion of Lapade deepened because everywhere he turned in his own investigation of the spate of crime in Ibadan, it was Lapade that he found. Lapade was too smart to pin down.

Eventually, Lapade got to the root of the kidnapping and the cannabis growers. After freeing the kidnapped girl, Lapade tipped off the police and they were able to round up the cannabis growers. The police got the credit for the work, but it was Lapade who did the heavy lifting, suffering severe beatings a number of times and a few close encounter with death.

It was the guardian of the kidnapped child, Angelina who uttered the proverb: “Àjà ló lerù, Iró Ni Pepe Ńpa”. After all, it was Lapade who did all the heavy lifting and he was completely in the background. The police didn’t do much but they took all the credit and were praised by all the newspapers.

What was happening in Nigeria in 1969? Nigeria was fighting a civil war. It did not register in the book. That was not surprising as most of the war was fought far away from Ibadan. It is also interesting to see that kidnapping was already a serious problem in South Western Nigeria in 1969. What was more surprising was the cannabis farm which suggested there was a reasonable demand for that drug in South West of Nigeria in 1969.

There is a great deal more to write about the book and I plan to come back to the book in the next fortnight.

To buy a copy of my book, please click here.

Nigerians in Diaspora: Will the Remittance Continue Forever?

On Wednesday 22nd May 2019, a friend forwarded an old news to me on Whatsapp.  Never has an old piece of news startled me so much.  The news was this: In 2017, Nigerians in Diaspora injected 22 billion dollars into the Nigerian economy. Price Water House Cooper was the author of the report, so it was a credible one.  It got me thinking about Nigeria, its future, what the current government is doing and the prospects for the nation when the soft flow of money from the Diaspora begins to taper off. Nigeria as a nation did not plan ahead for the crash in the price of a barrel of oil and the consequences is still being felt by the nation.

It will serve the nation well to start planning now for that day when the inflow from the Diaspora won’t be as sizeable as they are now. The value of the Naira is artificially inflated by this cash injection and serves as a support. What will happen when this support weakens? With so much hard currency coming to support the Naira, why is the economy not doing better than it is? The economic incompetence of subsequent leaders must have been monumental.

We all know that Nigerians and other Africans in Diaspora push a great deal of resources into their home nation due to various reasons: investment, sentiments and philanthropic purposes, but I did not realise that it was as significant as this.

First, a plug for my book: You can buy my book by following this link: A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made In Nigeria.

I wanted to build some understanding of our foreign exchange spending and earning. I as scoured the internet, I stumbled on the National Bureau of Statistics, owned by the Nigerian government.  I took a look at our Import and export in 2018 and 2017.

For example in 2018, according to government official data, this is a summary of how we fared:

[image error]

We earned 52 billion dollars in foreign exchange (I converted to dollar at 360 naira to a dollar). Most of this comes from oil (49.5 billion dollars). However, we also spent 34 billion dollars on manufactured goods (just under 20 billion dollars) and importation of crude oil (just under 9 billion dollars). Another 2.367 billion dollars went on Agricultural Goods while 3.58 billion dollars went on Raw materials. Apart from the export of crude oil and Energy Goods, we don’t make much money from exports. Overall, we had a surplus of 18.5 billion dollars after deducting the cost of importation.

What about 2017?

[image error]

The story is very similar, though at a lower level of income. Crude oil brought in 36 billion dollars but we also imported close to 7 billion worth of oil related products leaving us with a balance of 29 billion dollars.  Again, we exported less than a billion worth of manufactured goods but consumed close to 13 billion in import, depleting our foreign exchange.

If you look at the charts for 2017 and 2018, you will see that the import (shown in red) dominates the export (shown in blue) apart from crude oil itself.

Below I show a combined view of 2017 and 2018:

[image error]

Over the two years, you can see that in terms of exportation of crude oil and importation of oil related products, we are in the money: a net amount of 70 billion dollars accrued to the coffers of the federal government from oil alone.

Another positive story is that of Energy Goods (what are these things by the way? Let me know  if you do). Nigeria made 54 million dollars in 2017 and 118 million dollars in 2018. It looks like a growing market. For the rest however, it is bleak. In 2017, we imported under 13 billion dollars worth of manufactured goods. By 2018, we were importing around 20 billions of manufactured goods. The amount spent on manufactured goods is close to half of net income from exportation of crude oil and importation of oil related products. This does not inspire confidence that our government is working on any strategy to reduce our dependence on oil.

Back to the story on the Foreign exchange injection into Nigeria from the Diaspora. If you go back to the first two charts in this post, you will see that in 2017 Nigeria earned a net value of just under 12 billion dollars from its exportation and importation business. In 2018, this net income rose to 18 billion dollars. Of course Nigeria also earns money from what is raised internally. For example, in 2017, the 36 states of the federation generated about 2.6 billion dollars for their own spending (these details can be extracted from a report on the National Bureau of Statistics web site called “Internally Generated Revenue At State Level”).

It makes perfect sense that our forex and internally generated income can sustain a budget of 26 billion dollars in 2018.

Yet, 22 billion dollars flowed in from the Diaspora. 84% of the budget for 2018. The impact of this inflow cannot be underestimated. It is an injection of liquidity that is helping to keep the Naira at its current level. It makes life extremely easy for the Nigerian government. That money helps to provide jobs, invest in dilapidated school structures that the government refused to renew and also steps in to carry social responsibility that should be resting on the government.

Will that flow continue forever? No, it would not. In the new Trump America and the increasing right wing nations in Europe (I write as people are beginning to digest the outcome of the European Union elections), there won’t be as many opportunities to come to Europe and America as was in the past. This is already clear. Many Nigerians have educated their bright children in Europe and North America but many of these children are no longer able to find opportunities abroad.

Apart from the doors of nations in the developed world closing to immigrants, Nigeria itself has not invested in young people as it did in the past. The burden of education is shouldered these days by the parent. Only well heeled parents are able to fund the best education for their children. Even if the doors of opportunities are wide open in Europe and America, the pool of Nigerians that can take advantages of the openings have shrank to the children of the very well heeled. This was not the case thirty years ago when ability alone is enough to make way for quality education.

The last reason why the flow of remittance may not last forever is that the connections that first generation immigrants to the Diaspora had to Nigeria is not the same as their children’s. First generation immigrants have connections to people and institutions. For example, the  zeal with first generation immigrants invest in their Alma mater is commendable. As they grow older and go to their graves to rest in peace, their children won’t necessarily have the same commitment to their pet projects.

The economic competence of successive government in Nigeria has always been a source of concern. A look at the charts above confirms what is well know about how Nigeria has been governed: extract as much rent from assets and spend as much as you can and don’t bother to plan for the future.

You can buy my book by following this link: A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made In Nigeria.

 

A Jar of Clay, Part 1:Made In Nigeria

I am giving away the first chapter of my book A Jar of Clay Part 1: Made In Nigeria for free.All you need to do is request a copy by providing your emails details here.

While here, you may want to explore my recent blog posts.

 

Nigeria, Our Cultures, Our Traditions, Our Faith

The word of God is infallible but the interpretations of the word of God by men and women are. Once a human being comes in contact to written or spoken words, to make sense of it, it has to be interpreted. If twenty people read this blog, there would be twenty interpretations. We need to be sensitive to that.

While trying to declutter recently, I came across “Things Fall Apart”, “No Longer at Ease” and “Arrow of God”, all by Chinua Achebe. In addition, I found a hard bound and paperback editions of “There was a country”. I just could not classify any of these books as clutters (the paperback would have to go though).

The relationship of the Nigerian to the Christian faith that Achebe described and was captured in this clip no longer exists.

In the beginning it looked like a chunk of us accepted that our culture was bad. It looked like some of us parted from our taboos and our gods. The “Whiteman” bulldozed lands that were forbidden and built his places of worship on those site and nothing happened to him. So, thinking folks realised those gods were not as powerful as they thought they were.

How long did that situation ( a clean break from the past) lasted? I don’t really know. All I know is that by the time I was growing up a great deal of change had happened. There were a few denominations that had become very eclectic, creating a very unique brand of Christianity by mixing things up (faith + culture + tradition). They were not mainstream though and we observed them from afar.

That was just a taste of things to come though. The African culture is strong and dies hard. It is irrepressible. In Nigeria today, we have made Christianity our own.

We did not accept that our culture is bad. Instead, our culture and traditional beliefs are now thoroughly infused into how we interpret and practice Christianity.

The missionaries said our idols were nothing and made of stones. In fairness you would think they had a point because Ogun, Sanponna, Sango did not safe Yorubas from colonisation. It turned out the gun was much more powerful than all the incantations of our local priests. We said no, our gods are so powerful and evil that people needed to be protected from them by the Christian god. We brought all these deities back and empowered them more than the missionaries did. We now hold deliverance sessions to ensure that we can be free from these same gods that the missionaries ignored and considered invention of men.

We now pray to insulate ourselves from “evil doers in our father’s house”. The same verses that the missionaries (who interpreted them for us from Greek/Hebrew by the way) as figures of speech, we interpret literally. Those gods could not lift a finger against the missionaries but are terrors to us.

Our culture and traditional beliefs have triumphed over the message that the missionaries brought. Could it even be that our culture and traditional beliefs have swallowed that message?

We should be proud of our culture but accept that some of our traditions and beliefs may be anachronistic and should be discarded. If in the name of faith we are reinforcing anachronistic values, is that a good thing?

Things continue to fall apart but not because of the gospel missionaries brought but because of what we have done and continue to do to that gospel. How we manipulated that message is the reason things are the way they are today.

We want to continue to uphold the great things in our heritage and culture but we must continue to innovate, discarding those things that would hinder us from progressing. We have put many things into Christianity from our traditional beliefs and read many things into the Bible that are purely inspired by our traditional beliefs. When we read and interpret the Bible, we need to do that in the light of where we are today.  Yes the word of God is infallible, but the interpretations of men are.

God forbid we end up in a situation where church pastors are practically fetish priests. If somebody wants to be a fetish priest and enjoy the privileges of a fetish priest (especially his power of exploitation) he or she should make his projects very clear. If you think my claim is outrageous, just look at the psychological and physical abuse we already see (people being commanded to eat grass, people being asked to pay money to redeem their lives, somebody using coca cola to wash people’s heads, etc).

To purchase a copy of my book, A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria, please click here.

 

 

 

Bashorun Gaa’s House And Notre Dame

As I followed the news about Notre Dame’s recent misfortune, I eventually started to reflect on Basorun Gaa.

Notre Dame has been in the news and needs no introduction.  Notre Dam’s construction started  in 1160 and was reported completed in 1260. According to Wikipedia is one of finest example of the French Gothic architecture. Just in case you are behind in the news, it is a Catholic cathedral that was ravaged by fire during the month of April, 2019.

Some of the readers are wondering who the heck is Bashorun Gaa? Well, Bashorun is a tile among the Yoruba of West Africa most of whom are domiciled in South Western part of Nigeria. After the king, the Bashorun is the next most presitigious chief among the Yoruba. According Samuel Johnson (I always have to add that he is Yoruba) in his book the History of the Yoruba, Bashorun is a shortened version of “Iba Osorun”, a title of the person in charge of the Orun festival.

Gaa was a notorious Bashorun who practically usurped the king, murdering several king in succession as he and his family unleased a reign of terror among the Yoruba. Eventually there arose a very smart, king Adegolu Abiodun who did not want to be killed by Gaa and he created a new custom of visiting Gaa every morning and prostrating to him. According to custom, Gaa should be the one to prostrate to the king but not wanting to die like his predecessors, Abiodun had no choice but to do this.  Robert Smith in his book “Kingdom Of The Yoruba” put Abiodun’s reign between 1770 and 1789.

The downside was that each morning Gaa had to give presents to Abiodun and that depleted his resources. To improve his cash balance, Bashorun Gaa decided to consult his fetish priests who can make some potent fetish that would allow him to become very rich.

One of Gaa’s fetish priests rose to the task and provided a soap which Gaa was to use to bathe himself before and after sunset. The fetish did make Gaa rich, but not in the way that you would have expected. Fire broke out in his house ( probably more like a compound with several houses) and razed everything down.

When the news broke, all the people in Oyo and her provinces, from the Alaafin (the king) all the way down donated money to Gaa. He had more than enough to repair his houses and a great deal of surplus afterwards.

Of Notre Dame was not burnt down due to some concoction provided by fetish priests. However, Notre Dame, a famous and powerful institution now has more money than it needs for the repairs (according to the reports in the media), just as Bashorun Gaa, a famous and powerful individual became rich from his misfortune.

Powerful institutions and individuals can profit from their misfortune in ways that others cannot.

To read my book “A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made In Nigeria”, please click here.