ON THE OLUWO RANTS: THE GODS ARE NOT TO BLAME

ON THE OLUWO RANTS: THE GODS ARE NOT TO BLAME



By Adewale Balogun

#Iroyinominira
15th November, 2022


If our people have not abandoned our age- long traditions in consulting IFÁ in choosing an Ọba in any part of the Yorùbá country, we won't have osiwins (nitwits) ruling as Obas today.

How do we explain to generations yet unborn that a supposed custodian of our culture, tradition, spirituality and belief systems choose to desecrate it?

What do we tell our children that our Obas who are acclaimed to be very versed in our history and undisputed guidance of same choose to distort it with impunity?

A supposed top-class Yorùbá; who has rights only to his personal religion but is meant to espouse the people's traditions and history went as far as falsifying Yorùbá Naming System by saying "Adamo" means that people preferred to the Muslim God in Yorubaland. Oluwo is not so schooled that language is the biggest coven of adaptations. Yorubas deliberately localized Arabic names even while being Moslem as a way to preserve the culture and language.

Clearly, Oluwo's destructive attacks on our history, culture and traditions has done and is doing a lot of damages to our values and whatever we hold dear and belief as a people. Speaking in an attack on the proper education offered by the erudite Àwíṣẹ Àgbáyé, Baba Wande Abimbola ; Oluwo goofed thus:

"In Yorùbá culture, only God is unquestionable. We (earthly kings) can be questioned. We can be asked to account for our reign. The first duty I have is my pure and true allegiance to God, devoid of idolatry or any other thing. My allegiance is to God because it is Him that employs all kings. The enemies God has are deities and idols. Oluwo means Olúwa Ìwó (the god of Iwo). I am not the God of Ìwó because the stool remains forever but kings change overtime"

The Yorùbá Concept of God is one of the most scientific and classic. You see the essence of the communal and the collective at all times. Why Yorubas call the head of the gods ;"Olódùmarè." This is fashioned towards the climate to simply mean "the owner of the weather." And even in all histrionics of the Yorùbá gods and goddesses, you find that "Ìsòrìṣà, Ìṣènìyàn" where deities are presented as real human examples that have been legendary.

Ogún is a god of war. Ọya, rain. Sàngó rattles the thunder. And Èṣù is the Queen of lobbies, manoeuvers, and negotiations; serving as the major liason between the Olódùmarè, goddesses and humans. And beautifully, Yorùbá deities are largely feministic. If Oluwo had learnt or adore them, he wouldn't be in mess of marriages as the public had witnessed!

Ọba Rasheed Akanbi, the Oluwo of Iwo's case is beyond the question of a grown up bastard that plunge a peaceful community into avoidable chaos. He is a prodigal case, an agent of the Northern Oligarchy nurtured with a clear mandate to disrupt the peace, progress and development in Yorùbá Land, who became an Ọba by subterfuge when the kingmakers jettisoned the traditional process of choosing an Ọba but rather sold their conscience for filthy lucre with the influence and collaboration of self serving political gladiators among the Yorùbá elite ruling class.

Unfortunately, the criminal silence or outright connivance with the Ọba by his subjects, the Ìwọó people, tend to give credence to Samuel Johnson's postulation that Ìwó had a history of Communal compromise of collective ideas among the Yorùbá. Oluwo dented the Ìwó collective identity when he threw caution into the air punching another Ọba in the public, as well as when he wrote to openly beg Governor Oyetola to sponsor his wedding to his new bride.

It is high time for the Iwo people, leaders and other Obas to call the neophyte to order before he plunged Yorubaland to social anarchy, especially with his utter disrespect for traditional ethics,

Categoría:
Arte y cultura