TWO REASONS WHY YORUBA ARE HARDLY RELIABLE - Onyeji Nnaji
The Igbo say that one who does not know where
it began to rain on him will definitely not know when he ceases to becoming
drenched. Babatunde’s lamentation shows
that he is ignorant of the cause of his tribal dishonesty and those who knew it
had decisively insisted never to tell their story; this is because, telling the
Yoruba story will evoke several questions the writer willingly or ignorantly
would not like to tell. It was the story of their father and the curse he
incurred from his elder brother. You cannot tell me that Amos Tutuola,
prominent for his popular The Palm Wine Drunkard
does not know the Yoruba story; or are we to believe that Olumide Lukas who had
written effectively juxtaposing the Yoruba and Egyptian culture did not know
his own story?
May be they don’t; but Wole Soyinka bearing the legendary bloodline
of the Afro legend, Fela, does not know the Yoruba story. The answer is simple:
they knew and still know it but willingly would not tell it because telling
their story will make them look like Jacob who fought his elder brother, Esau. Of
course, Soyinka wrote Myth and the
African World, discussing all he could but consciously ignoring those
sensitive parts that call for questions. He knows that the Yoruba problem is
historical; he knows that those who told the story of Oduduwa had hidden so many
things from their descendants. Two of the things hidden about the Yoruba bother
on their names as shown below.
(i) “Oduduwa”
was a cheatIn the
beginning of things when the population of the human world was concentrated in
the east, according to several historical sources, Oduduwa deceived his elder
brother. The Igbo oral tradition as well as that of the Yoruba chanted this
same story. According to the Yoruba,
Olorun
threw down an iron chain from the sky and
told Obatala, the eldest of his sons, to climb down and create land on the
water below. On his way down, Obatala joined some other Gods who were having a
party, and he later discovered that his younger brother, Oduduwa had created the world in his place…
Here Oduduwa overtook his elder brother and
performed the duty that was not assigned to him. The Igbo oral tale was not
different from this story apart from the fact that the name used here is not
the real name of the god whom Oduduwa had as his elder brother. Asking about
the tribe of Obatala here will clarify us on the original home of Oduduwa. Ruth
Finnegan remarked thus:
The
sky is immense, but grows no grass.
That
is what the oracle said to Obatala,
To whom the great God gave
the reins of the world.
God
of the Igbo, I stretch out my hands.
Give
the reins of the world to me (Oral Literature, 195).
Obatala is the god (father) of the Igbo. The person
intoned as Obatala by the Yoruba story was the progenitor of Nri of the present
day Anambra state. Eri their father had two sons. The Igbo story does not count
women, for this reason nothing was known about whether Eri had a female child
or not. Nri was the elder while his brother’s name was lost to his position as
the last child in the family. Thus: he was called “Odudunwa” (meaning the last
child). Such was the original name and meaning of the now known “Oduduwa” personified
as the Yoruba father. The meaning and reason for the name “Obatala” is
conceptually symbolic to the character of Nri as discussed in the next point.
When
their father Eri journeyed to the world unseen, he handed his scepter
to his elder son, Nri to reign in his place in the then theosophical government
in the City of the Sun known in history as “Eridu”. The Yoruba refer
to this as Ife (Anambra Igbo version meaning “light”), Edo refer to this
as Uhe
(Okigwe Igbo version meaning “light”); while Egypt refer to it as “Heliopolis”
meaning the city of light. The government was formed via the combination of Eri
and Idu. Idu was a god-man from Umudiala (Igbo heartland), he was the
progenitor of Benin and all those whose ancestry is reckoned with “Idu”. Igala
and Ida are in this line of ancestry.
A time came when Nri embarked on a journey to
save mankind from a historic famine that he entrusted his staff to his only
brother, Odudunwa to reign in his place. When Eri returned, after many days,
Odudunwa seized the staff and told him that he was not supposed to return since
he had journeyed to the world unseen like their father. That is the derailed scenario mythically
rendered above as the creation of the world. Read Euba Titi, “Ifa Literary Corpus as
Source-Book of Yoruba History” in Alagoa (edt),
1990. This story is clearly imprinted as the cause of the war between the Igbo
father and the Yoruba father. The same id detailed in War of the Gods @ajuede.com
Since this day, the descendants of
Oduduwa had been exhibiting this unreliable lifestyle of their ancestor. Oduduwa left the east together with Idu. The first
thing he did was to claim the Oba title. Up till date in Agukwu,
Nri, the seat of Oba has been vacant since the day Idu left with Oduduwa. He was
the Oba in the early days. That is why even hitherto; the traditional Igbo
still refer to Benin as the city of kings for the Igbo is originally kingless. Today
references to the origin of Oba kingship are believed to be traced to Ife. The same
way, it was claimed that the Benin progenitor was the youngest of the sons of
Oduduwa.
Did this end with Oduduwa? The answer
is no. as a corps member serving in Bolorunduro in Ondo East L.G.A. of Ondo
State, I was told that the problem that letter engulfed Chief M.K.O. Abiola was
the reward of his sabotage of Awolowo’s political effort. According to sources, Abiola pledged subservient loyalty to the wife of a prominent late northern
leader during which he planned to walk his way to power. To position himself
properly, he walked doggedly to frustrate Awolowo’s chance to ascend above him,
using northern politician as viable instrument.
Nature invariably used Abiola
to reword Awolowo for his treachery. He stabbed the back of the man who unshackled
him. Locked up in the Calabar prison by General Gowon for attempting a coup,
Awolowo was released by Odumegwu Ojukwu during secession. Awolowo, receiving
his freedom, returned to Lagos to advise Gowon on the next move towards the
easterners. According to Jacobs in The Brutality of
Nations, Awolowo told Gowon that “All is fair in war, and starvation is one of
the weapons of war. I don’t see why we should feed our enemies fat in order for
them to fight harder”.
This was what led to the closing of borders
against the Biafrans. Again, it was the same Awolowo who advised the leader of
the Biafran troop heading to Legos with the intention to declare the republic
of Oduduwa when they got to Lagos. Awolowo heard the intention and moved
towards east. He fortunately met the troop at Ore, singled the Yoruba leader
aside and warned him. The result was that the leader immediately joined the
Nigerian troop camping behind Awolowo. The troop was immediately overtaken as
their leader suddenly became their enemy unannounced. They killed the Biafran troop
who later gained balance sluggishly and headed towards east. They pursued the
Biafran troop until the got to Asaba. This was how the Asaba massacre came
about. If you survey Asaba Benin road you will find about three collapsed bridges.
It was done by the Biafrans as they tried to hold the sycophants from catching
up with them. That was Awolowo.
Wole Soyinka too has taken his own share of
the Oduduwa’s cake. In 2013 I was fortunate to read the paper published by a Ghanaian
that stresses the shocking reason why Achebe’s name had been in the Swiss Literary
Nobel Laureate Award for ten years, yet he was not given. According to the
paper, for one to be awarded a laureate, he must be voted by an already
laureate from his country, if any; it does not matter the crowd of votes cast
in his favour. This is where he concludes that Wole Soyinka would not have
voted Achebe. Soyinka’s remark to the press during Achebe’s burial seemed to
agree with this Ghanaian’s remark. It was the same aptitude that made Obasanjo
to abandon Goodluch Jonathan and joined force with Buhari in 2015. Were you surprised
hearing Osibanjo say “There was no rigging, we won” but “Akpabio is too popular
to fail; the election must have been rigged”. There are many more that time
would not allow us to state here.
(2) Oduduwa was
cursed by his elder brother, Obatala
The Yoruba oral tradition remarks that
Oduduwa and his elder brother, Obatala fought following the misunderstanding. Ifa,
according to Euba Titi, said that it was a war of the gods; and that it was
fought over a reclaim of staff belonging to Obatala. When the problem that made Nri to travel was settled, Nri
requested for his staff of office from his younger brother who refused to hand
the staff over to the rightful bearer. This was where the name Obatala came from. Obatala explains a prior
intended action targeted at a particular time. In this case, the time was when
the travelled man would return. As the interim theosophist, Odudunwa would want
to hold to his position. Therefore, he was advised by Idu (the Oba of the
ancient city of the sun) that his brother should be gone as their father, Eri.
Should he return as promised he should not give the staff to him. Odudunwa
accepted this suggestion because it met the desire of his hearth. When Nri
returned, the assertive expression that showed that he had arrived was thus O’batala,
which later became the appellation held by the Oduduwas for Nri’ (Igbo). As he
refused to hand the staff over, there was a war between them. The gods took
sides, as the Yoruba versions of creation story tell us. Yoruba myth
has it thus:
Obatala and Oduduwa quarreled and all the other Gods took
sides. In the end, Olorun settled the dispute by giving Obatala the power to
create mankind. Oduduwa was allowed to rule the land that he had created.
Oduduwa became the first Yoruba king, ruler of the ancient city of Ile-Ife, the
place where he was first believed to have climbed down from the sky.
While
the fight prevailed among the gods, God had to settle it by returning the staff
to the rightful bearer, while Odudunwa who could not bear the shame of his
action left the city and settled in the western part of the land. Nri could not
bear the unexpected action by his brother. Out of annoyance, he placed a curse
on him thus, “as a helpless follow depends on people for survival, you will prosper
through what you acquire from others”. Therefore, he called his linage Yoru-Baa, translated as beg-and-prosper.
From that day till date, the Yoruba life had been that way. They are never
reliable and every of the citizens see Igbo as his fatal enemy.
The
punishment did not end with Odudunwa (otherwise called Oduduwa); it also
included the architect of the incidence, Idu. Oduduwa left alongside his
cohort, Idu. Idu settled in the middle between east and west, while Oduduwa
lived in the west. Idu was the father of the present day Edo (Benin City) and
others that descended from them. This was the genesis of the spread of the
African nations in the ancient time. Idu went to the mid-west and established
his kingdom of Oba which was his position in the Eridu City. His new home was
called after his name, Idu just as the abandoned kingdom was called after Nri;
the name of Oduduwa’s elder brother. Only Oduduwa lost his name as a city.
Rather than Ife retaining his name, it was called after Oduduwa’s cursed word,
YORUBA. Therefore, for establishing the Oba title as a structured kingship
reign, the Igbo refer to the Idu city as the City of Kings, for the Igbo were
people without a king. He was the first Oba of Benin, for he retained his
office as he left the Lost City of the
Sun. Because of his departure, the inhabitants of Umudiala (the Igbo
heartland) lost their position in the Theosophism. From that day and hitherto,
the seat of the Oba in Nri kingdom had been vacant
Read also:
The True History of the Yoruba
Would that the Yoruba will revisit their
history to unearth certain truth that define their existence as a people and
understand that treachery lifestyle is historical and that until it is revisited,
their history would hardly be rewritten. Visit Ifa priest if he still knows the
road to the ancient past and ask the meaning of Oduduwa in the Yoruba language
and tell us what it means. The Chinese adage says that “The past made us who we
are, but we do not need to make it a burden”. See the scriptural passage below and judge for
yourself:
The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah; he will punish Jacob
according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. In the womb he
grasped his brother's heel; as a man he struggled with God. He struggled with
the angel and overcame him;… (Hos 12:2-4).
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