A former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife), Professor Wande Abimbola, was third republic Majority Leader of the Nigerian Senate. The professor of Ifa divination who was installed as the Awise Awo Agbaye in 1981 at Ile Ife, speaks with LASISI OLAGUNJU, FESTUS ADEDAYO and SAHEED SALAWU on the role he played in the emergence of the new Alaafin of Oyo. He also talks about other issues affecting religion, culture and tradition in Nigeria and Yorubaland in particular.
You were involved in the choice of the Alaafin. How did it start?
Well, someone interviewed me yesterday or day before and it has gone viral. I don’t regret what I said, but I don’t want to say too much anymore; only to let you know that for the first time in modern times in Yorubaland, Ifa played a key role in the selection of a prominent oba. I said for the first time because in the past, in the entire Yorubaland, that is how it was always done. Ifa used to be the one who would pick the successor to the king who died. And any time they did that, it was not done with the influence of money or position. The choice of Ifa was always respected. But in recent times, they don’t do that anymore; it is now usually done with the influence of money. So, I was happy and surprised, too, that we could find a governor who says that we should consult Ifa. A year or two ago, we divined and it was so easy to pick someone, anyone — I didn’t want to know the person. That was how Ifa selected a person.
We did it and for a long time, we didn’t hear anything again. Actually, I came home for the marriage of one of my sons in Lagos. When the governor heard that I was around, he said he was just about to send for me again because he was ready, and the kingmakers were fighting among themselves. Some of them were questioned by the EFCC because it was allegations galore; some of them received money, plenty of money. Two days ago, they summoned me again and he said they presented names to me last year so, which one? I said the one Ifa picked remained the choice of Ifa. Fortunately, when they screened him, that number one, they didn’t find anything wrong; he hadn’t committed any crime. They know how they do their own screening. That was the person whose name was announced.
Don’t you see some kind of clash between tradition and modernity in this choice because some people are saying that the chieftaincy law of Oyo State, for instance, does not reckon with Ifa choosing an Alaafin and here we have a governor who wants to go backwards for us to go forward?
Even in modern times, culture demands that they would ask Ifa also. That may not be the primary method of selection, but they would ask Ifa, and that is our own tradition. Now, it is not the case that the kingmakers were bypassed; they were there while we consulted Ifa to choose the best. The Oyo Mesi were there only they had split into two. And one section took the governor to court; that he must take the candidate they presented. There were five kingmakers. They used to be seven. Two of them had died, remaining five. Two of the five went to government to complain that from the bribe that was given to them, what they gave to them was small. So, the EFCC invited all of them and they confessed: “Well, we are very sorry that we are involved in this. This is the money that we got. Please, forgive us.” But the others, instead of that, took the government to court, saying that the candidate that they chose through the influence of money must be installed. The case is still in court. So, the two kingmakers who relented were part of the process. The governor also picked another two as warrant chiefs in the process of selecting the Alaafin. Which is the normal way it is done. If things are like this and the kingmakers split, if they don’t agree among themselves, they would use warrant chiefs; they (government) find other minor kings or chiefs in the town and they make them warrant chiefs to participate. You can’t use somebody who took the government to court anymore. In any case, those ones are adamant on their own choice which the government didn’t want to use. So, it’s not that the choice of Ifa was not acted upon by the kingmakers. They (four of them) were there and they agreed. It’s the kingmakers who chose the person selected by Ifa.
And Ifa did not make a mistake?
Ifa does not make mistakes. It does not.
And you didn’t take money?
I, Ogunwande Ifagbemi Sangodahunsi, did not collect a kobo from anyone.
I turned 92 in December. I am satisfied with where I am. I was Vice Chancellor for eight years without blemish. Some people were saying it was charm that Baba employed. What charm? They knew I was father to them. As senate leader I never took what did not legally belong to me. How did I become senate leader? When we got to the Senate, there was a fight over who would be the leader and I just sat by and watched. One day to our swearing-in, we were asked to meet at our party, SDP secretariat where (former) Governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife of Anambra State was made the chairman. Then they had divided the party into zones with the position that would go to each zone alloted. We would have clinched the position of the Senate Majority Leader. Two people fought over the position. The first person that was first nominated was removed. They said they didn’t want him anymore. He was not around when the removal was done. There were appeals that a man’s head should not be shaved in his absence; that he should be allowed to be present for his removal, but all the entreaties were ignored. A day to the swearing in, it was announced that the principal positions had been shared among six zones. “North Central, who is your choice of Senate President?” They mentioned (Iyorchia) Ayu’s name. “South West, who have you chosen as the Senate Majority Leader?” Different names were mentioned and then a disagreement ensued. All the while, I was wondering what I was doing at a place where all they did was fight. After about an hour of stalemate, the chairman, Ezeife,
said, “You, West, go into that house over there (the secretariat was a big compound) and resolve your matter.” Governor Segun Osoba (of Ogun State) was made the chairman. SDP had four governors in the South West then, the fifth governor in Lagos was not SDP. (Ekiti State had not been created). At about 12 midnight, they went into a closed-door session with the contending senators where more fighting was done. I was filled with doubt as to the kind of company I was with. People had told me, “Having been Vice Chancellor, what is your business with politics? It is beneath you.” At about 2am, Osoba led the three other governors out of the session as he asked us, “You, South West senators, is this what you will be doing at the Senate? Did you not hear that those people were close to coming to blows? One defeated the other with one vote, but there was no compromise between the two. Is there no other nominee?” Somebody said, “Professor Abimbola!” Then they all raised their hand with shouts of “Yes! Baba.” Then they carried me. After I was made the Senate Majority Leader, I was daily inundated with requests to submit a bill to the Senate proposing how much they were going to be collecting. I told them: “You have been given accommodation in Hilton Hotel. You all have big rooms, and even parlours. We enjoy free meals. Let Abiola be elected president first. Our salary will only be fixed after Abiola gets elected and his salary, the salary of his ministers is fixed.” They said no. You know it’s the Majority Leader that sees to that sort of thing in the Senate. “It’s going to three weeks…it’s almost a month that you have been there. Are we no going to get paid?” Then I invited all of them. It is God that prevented them from beating me. They could have beaten me but for who I am. O si ye, o bo, eegun o gbodo na babalawo (a masquerade must not beat a babalawo).
Really, sir? Eegun to ba na Babalawo nko (what becomes of a masquerade that beats an Ifa priest)?
Beat me? Parara l’ewe koko o ya. Parara (cocoyam leaf gets torn terribly; terribly is cocoyam leaf torn).
Interesting? That what happened in Ife? They said when students went on riot, threatening to beat the Vice Chancellor, the moment you arrived in their midst, they would switch from anger to hailing you.
It was even before I ever arrived in their midst. I never went anywhere without carrying Iroke (his insignia of office as babalawo). I always carried an Iroke that was made of beads. When I was made the Vice Chancellor, I summoned my wives and children and took them to the Vice Chancellor’s quarters. We checked every room. You know the office of the Vice Chancellor is quite the palace on mountaintop from where you enjoy an aerial view of the entire Ile-Ife. Mo ni, “Se e ri ibi ti Ifa gbe wa de ab’eeri (I said you see the height where Ifa has brought us to, don’t you see)? If I ever hear of any of you perverting justice or collecting bribe, I will curse such a person!” If you are altruistic like that, you have the heart of a lion. The altruism will show in your gait, it will show whether you say something or not. I was Vice Chancellor for seven years with an unblemished record. I was never affluent. The English say he that is down needs fear no fall. That was how God helped me with the Ife years. When I held sway as the Vice Chancellor, I was father to all the students then, including students of affiliate institutions like the Institute of Agriculture, Akure; Adeyemi College in Ondo; Moore Plantation in Ibadan. They were 30,000 students in total under me. People who take up academic teaching careers should be praised. It is hardly a path to financial breakthrough. Their choice of career is just borne out of passion for teaching. When I was there, if a student had a First Class in any faculty, science or arts, we begged them to stay and be part of the system. We gave them fellowships and then they did their Masters and Ph.D. It didn’t take the Ife (University of Ife) community of those years too long to realise that I was their father. They had various songs for me whenever I appeared from a distance. They would sing, “Babalawo mo wa bebe…” I would wear shoes of beads and hold Iroke made of beads. It was like the stepping out of an egungun. I spent the seven years in service of the students. Before I became the Vice Chancellor, Ife had collaborations with just two other universities, such that their professors could visit us and our professors could visit them. By the time I spent seven years as Vice Chancellor, we had had collaborations with 23 other universities. I signed agreements with four universities in France, five universities in England, five or six universities in Brazil… The meaning of university is “universe city.” Any university with no presence of the Japanese, Indians, Germans, English, Americans, o ku die k’aato (is not university enough).
So, that is that about the issue of the Alaafin of Oyo. I did not insist on the choice of the candidate, the kingmakers approved him. It turned out that the candidate is a good man when his file was presented. We did the divination a long time ago and as an academic, I wrote a 21-page report on the divination process. When they called me four or five days ago, I asked for the report. They said maybe it was with the governor, and things like that. They asked if I remembered the name of number one (the first candidate). “But I wrote a 21-page report!” Then I sent for my wife, with whom I carried out the divination process. She is Iyan’Ifa, too; Iya Ajis’ebo. She fished out a copy of the report. I did not choose the Alaafin, the kingmakers did. Ifa chose the person and they approved him. They expressed satisfaction with the choice. Maybe they had been scrutinising him all this while to find out if he had done something wrong in a previous workplace or committed any kind of wrong before. When they eventually brought his file, it became known that he worked in Canada. This was previously unknown to us. I was happy and I thanked Ifa. He is a chartered engineer. If we do things the way they are supposed to be done, the outcomes will always be right.
Generally, sir, what do you make of kingship in Yorubaland in contemporary times? Some obas are known to be hemp smokers. What brings about such a situation?
Part of it is what I have been talking about; a king emerging through the influence of money. There are so many people who are rich enough to pay the kind of money that is demanded by corrupt kingmakers. Some plunged themselves into debt to be able to clinch the stools they occupy and then they begin to look for ways to pay back their debts. Is that the way to go about doing things when people like us are still alive? Is this how things were done in the past? Is this the kind of legacy that Awolowo bequeathed to us? You, journalists, are the ones to mend this land because you are the ones who speak to the world every day. This land must be mended before people like us are no more. Look at how everything is in disarray: no roads, no power. What we have now is not public power supply. People are plunged into darkness. We should not continue like this. If you do it the way it ought to be done, you will have the right outcome. I invited Ifa priests and warned them to steer clear of corruption. We should have at least one incorruptible man left to go to. The thing that is happening with Yoruba people is like: “I have a house in Oyo, but I don’t have one yet in Ibadan, not to talk of Lagos and Abuja.” Is this how we are going to continue, when people are suffering and dying of hunger? People are dropping dead by the roadsides as a result of hunger.
At 92, we just saw you rise to your feet to attend to visitors and you moved with such an amazing swiftness that betrayed your age. Is this because of the kind of food you are eating or the fortification you had in your younger years?
It is the grace of God. You see, the person that first taught me Ifa divination was Baba Lejoogun in Akeetan here in Oyo. We were in the village then. When my father died in 1971, I was a Visiting Professor in Indiana University, Bloomington. When I returned home, I broke down in tears. After I was consoled, I was asked to visit my father’s friend, Baba Lejoogun that I mentioned earlier who taught me Ifa. He said he heard that I took my father’s death very hard. I said yes. He said that was expected. He informed me that he and my father might have been bosom friends, but he was 10 years older than him. I asked if he remembered the time he was born. He said he did. He said he was born four years prior to the beginning of Ijaye War. The Ijaye War began in 1860 and ended in 1862. That means he was born in 1856 and my father in 1866. My grandfather had joined forces with Ibadan’s Ogunmola to wage war on Ijaye. My grandfather was captured and taken prisoner in the war. After seven days of incarceration, he broke free from his prison. His captors had no idea how he escaped. The late Alaafin (Alaafin Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III) told of the mysterious escape every day. He remembered the incantation that was used. He was a repository of history. My grandfather said an incantation and he became free of his restrains (gbogbo ide ti won fi de l’o ja). Then they relaunched their offensive and reduced Ijaye to rubble. The leader of Ijaye was a man of mystery. People were at a loss as to whether he was human or spirit. His body and face were hairy. The Alaafin made him the Aare Ona Kakanfo. His name was Kurunmi. He was their leader in Ijaye. He took over the entire Oke Ogun. Homage was no longer paid to the Alaafin; he was the one people were giving reverence. His presence was felt by the people from miles away. His signature drumbeat was, “Ko s’eni to le duro, af’oke af’igbo.” Nobody knew whether he died or he entered into the earth up to today.
But, sir, still on this issue of not collecting money from contestants for obaship positions. Those who collect bribe have a saying in Yoruba to justify their action. They say, “Omode o j’obi agba o j’oye…” Are they not truly justified by that tradition?
That does not indicate bribery. That is something that comes after the emergence of a right candidate. That is not bribe. When I was Vice Chancellor in Ife, the Vice Chancellor was ex-officio member of Council. There was the chairman of Council, those appointed by the government. The Senate was a cult of professors. About two or three professors appointed by the Senate would be part of the Council. Contracts were awarded to the tune of N1 billion. There was money then. After meetings, people who won contracts would approach me and ask offer to give me gratification. And I would tell them, “I don’t collect such money.” One contractor once brought about 10 turkeys to my house during the end of the year festivities and left his card for me. I wasn’t home when he brought the turkeys. When I got home and was informed about the gift, I summoned the giver to come and pack his turkeys. I don’t eat turkey, I don’t chicken, I don’t eat beef.
You eat neither chicken nor beef?
God forbid.
What then do you eat?
I have never been a heavy eater since childhood. You should beware of meat consumption. If you must eat meat at all, bushmeat is a little safe. You see, animals suffer from similar diseases as humans. In contemporary times, injections are even administered on animals and birds. If you have been consuming injected animals and you happen to require a similar injection to cure a disease, the injection may not work because you have been consuming such injection all along through the consumption of such injected meat. I don’t eat meat and neither does my wife.
What kinds of food do you eat?
I drank ogi baba this morning…
What will you take in the afternoon?
I never eat in the middle of the day.
Making of an Aláàfin: Bribe or gods?
But you do eat snails, right?
God forbid. Snails have got diseases, too. Diseases are harboured inside its shell. It doesn’t matter how much you cook it.
What of fish, sir?
Yes. If it is dried fish. If I find that, fine, and if not, I am okay.
You mean you would actually eat a meal without meat or fish?
That is the ideal thing.
What do you drink?
I don’t take alcoholic drinks. If a person is practising my kind of Ifa, you must not take alcoholic drink. Even, I don’t take soft drinks. If you are one who craves alcoholic drink, take it moderately once in a while.
What about palm wine?
Palm wine is good if it can be found in pristine condition. When I first arrived in Ife in 1972, there were about 10 palm trees at the back of my house. An Igbo palm wine tapper approached me. He said he learned that I lived in this house and I said yes. He said he could tap wine from the tree, and he would be giving me one or two gallons of real, unblemished palm wine from time to time. When he started, I tasted the wine and it was truly good. I would invite fellow lecturers who lived nearby to also have a taste. I arrived in Ife in September. In December, when Christmas was approaching, the palm wine tapper announced his plan to travel to his hometown and introduced to us another person who would be working in his absence. He told me he had explained the arrangement of the supply of a gallon of palm wine to me. The next day, the new man came to me, saying he wanted to ask what he should lace the palm wine with. He said Indian hemp and various types of tablets were available. He named the tablets. I asked if the first tapper also laced the palm he was giving me with those things. The man said yes. I asked him to stop bringing me palm wine henceforth. It is doubtful if untainted palm wine is available anymore. It is not a bad thing to consume pure palm wine with moderation. Alcoholic drinks are not bad, their excessive consumption is what is bad. Palm wine, coming naturally from the palm tree, would have been the best, but one must be sure of the people supplying it so that you know that it has not been tainted with hemp.
Becoming an Ifa priest has a process and you went through the process. Can you recollect your first experiment, the first sacrifice and medicinal remedies? How did they go?
Someday when you have time to spare and I have time to spare, come here. I want you to project Ifa to the world. I want the whole world to know Ifa. There is hardly any knowledge like Ifa in the world. It takes 20 years to learn Ifa, if one starts as a child of six-seven years. For a grown-up, it may not take more than 12 years. What we call Odu in Ifa are 256 in number. The stories contained in each Odu are 800. If you want to know the number of stories in Ifa, it is 256 multiplied by 800. For example, in a university, if a postgraduate student wants to write a paper on everything Ifa says on cockroach, the student may need to visit about 20 babalawos, because the stories that Ifa tells on cockroach may be about one thousand. Stories on worm may be two thousand, and stories on a particular bird like Opeere may be one thousand. Ifa is a compendium of the experience of Yoruba people throughout the ages; experience about animals, trees and various mountains, about forests, about fish, about seas, about us, humans. It’s a whole library. This is the same Ifa that they are trying to extinguish, but it will not become extinguished in my lifetime. If Ifa becomes extinct, it is we, the Yoruba, that go extinct. There are no other peoples in the world who have the like of it. What they may have is part of what has been written down. I will tell you the reason why our forefathers did not write things down. If one begins to write things down, one’s mind will not be sharp again to remember. Writing things down may is an enemy of memory. People around the world invite me to come and give talks. Pope Benedict XVI invited me three times. He once invited me alongside other religious leaders from Japan, India, Russia, Syria, as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Jewish religious leader.
I used to go to Brazil every year. When I began to go to Brazil in 1975, there were three of them left that spoke Yoruba as we are speaking it now. They did not come to us to learn the language. They had never even visited Yorubaland before. Deoscóredes Maximiliano dos Santos, alias Mestre Didi, was the only one who came to Yorubaland in 1968 to visit me in my house. He is dead. An older one in 1975 when I got there was a woman with tiny tribal marks. When she died in 1989, all the countries of the world sent their condolences. I wrote to the Nigerian government to send its condolences, too. She was well versed in Yoruba. I always visited her first on arrival in Brazil. She would then cry, and people would console her. The next elder to her is dead, too.
Brazil is Yorubaland. Seventy million Yorubas are in Brazil. In Salvador, Bahia, there are 3,000 shrines of Yoruba gods. Help us to make the world start to come and watch Agemo in Ijebu, Olokun in Lagos, Alapansanpa, Oloolu in Ibadan. Make the world go to Ile Ifa in Ile-Ife. If you can do that, the money that will come to Yorubaland every year may be in excess of two billion dollars. The person selling mere akara will build a house. Our mecca would be bigger than the Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Our forebears had done everything for us, but some people are asking us to discard these things and forget them. But we will not forget them so that we don’t destroy our legacy. The world has accepted us. I went to India three times. When I visited the country for the first time in 1975, they were holding the Hindu World Congress. I saw wonders. The venue of the congress, where we all sat down on the floor, was almost as big as the entire Oyo town.
Traditional religion has elevated India. If there are 10 employees in a computer-based company In the United States, five of them would be Indians. Indians and Jews make up almost half the population of medical doctors in the US. The number of Yoruba medical doctors is increasing there as well. The things from the olden days which they are asking us to forget include our language. There is nowhere else in the world where the medium of instruction in schools is anything other than their native language. And you say you are sovereign, independent! The ones who said they gave us independence told us not to use our native languages to teach our children. If the three major languages in Nigeria, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, were used to teach in our schools, education would be much easier. This are the languages by which we think. We would be coming up with inventions and all sorts of things. A child who does not understand English, let alone think in English, how will such a child develop an inventive mind? We are not yet an independent nation; we are just deceiving ourselves. Name one country which uses a language other than their own. There are small countries in Europe whose populations are about two million, five million or seven million which use their own native languages. No one is saying we should stop using English language, but it should be made one subject in schools. Yoruba students should be taught all subjects in Yoruba language in primary and secondary schools, and in the universities. By so doing, things will become easier. They want to wipe us out and you are just looking on.
Identity walks on two legs like human beings. There are two things that identify a people as living, and not having gone extinct: one of them is language, the other one is religion. The two of them are on the verge of being taken away from us. If there are a people who do not have their own language, who do not have their own religion, they will be counted along with the people whose language they speak and whose religion they espouse. We have become slaves, if you have not realised it. It is not a question of religion. We are not saying you should not practise a religion of your choice; we are not asking you not to practise Christianity and Islam, but the fates of our native languages in Nigeria have been foreclosed. Only Nigeria is still suffering identity problem in Africa. No matter how tiny a nation may be in Europe or elsewhere, they teach their children all subjects in schools in their native tongue. We have not attained independence, you are just not realising it. Our traditional religions and our cultures have been broken. An elder brother to my father had been saying this since the 1940s. We do not know it, but we have been thrown back into slavery. We don’t wear our own native dresses anymore. We don’t do our own things anymore and that is why everything is in disarray. That is what happens to a child who says his father’s mouth, his mother’s mouth stinks.
What is your advice for those who say it is the sins of our forebears that are responsible for our suffering in this country?
They should stop saying that; they do not have sufficient knowledge about what they are saying. Our forefathers and foremothers had no sins. We do not know the sins that they committed. Is it those who colonised us and shipped some of us away to their lands that are without sins? Some of the British colonisers had farms that measured from here to Fiditi, where they put our people to work, with their mouths padlocked so that they won’t be eating their produce. So, those ones did not sin; it was their victims that sinned? The people talking about the purported sins of our forebears should keep quiet. We don’t want to hear things like that anymore. They should not cause a civil war. We are not keeping them from practising their religions, but we will not allow our own religion to be extinguished. If Ifa was the only thing we have not forgotten, we would have had a better name than this as a country.
Long may you live, sir. Have you made provisions for the person that will take over from you and continue your activities when you eventually join your ancestors?
God has blessed me so much. I taught all my children, especially the older ones, Ifa. One of them is a professor like me. He even has two Ph.Ds whereas I have one. My wife, Iyan’Ifa, is also a professor at Boston College. Wherever I go, I take her along with me. She understands multiple languages. She understands English language, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, Swahili. She understands Yoruba, too.
What is the way forward for Nigeria? Is it ebo (sacrifice) or etutu (propitiation)?
Ebo (sacrifice) is the eldest of his mother’s three children. Oogun (medicine) is next, followed by Ifa dida, ogbon inu (divination) who is the youngest. If we make sacrifice but we refuse to change our ways, the sacrifice will not be acceptable or accepted. We must work at what we yearn for. We all know the wrong things, but it is those wrong things that we keep doing. God is ready to accept our prayer but we have refused to change our evil ways.
Nigeria needs restructuring. When I arrived in Nigeria, I asked what the budget of Nigeria is this year. The amount, converted to dollars, is 26 billion dollars. This is one of the poorest countries in the world. If the amount is divided equally among the 36 states, not to even include the Federal Capital Territory, no single state will receive up to one billion dollars, and they will still misappropriate the fund. If we talk about sacrifice, what about work? There are no farmers left in the farms; village dwellers have all come to the cities. Whatever we do, we must not abandon our ways of life.
It is observed from the photograph of you and all your siblings hanged on the wall here that unlike your siblings, you are the only one with no tribal marks. How did this come about?
My parents took me as a baby to Oluwo Ajao in Ahoro Iseke. It was a village. There was a big tree in front of his house which housed a flock of Ega birds. He consulted Ifa and then announced to my father and mother that the Abiku affliction they had been suffering had ceased. He said, “This one (that is, me) will not die. But don’t give him tribal marks. And when he is grown, he will say he wants to do something. Let him do it.” That issue cropped up much later when I was 12 years old and I wanted to go to school and my father said no. He was reminded of what Oluwo Ajao said about me growing up and wanting to do something in the future. It is Ifa who tells us what life will be like.
There is said to be an Odu Imale in Ifa. What do you have to say, sir, on Islam and Yoruba belief system?
I wrote a paper in 1971. I titled it ‘Ifa Divination Poetry and the Coming of Islam into Yorubaland’. It was published at a conference in the United States. It can be found on my website. Gbadebo Gbadamosi wrote a Ph.D thesis on this matter of Islam and Ifa. He understood it so well that he did very well with the thesis. After the advent of Islam in Saudi Arabia, Mali was the first country in Africa where the religion was embraced. The natives pronounce the country as Ma-le up to today; it was Europeans who spelt it Mali. Somebody wrote a thesis on Imale Empire. He was my classmate in the Department of History, University of Ibadan. One of the best brains I have ever encountered. His name was Olohuntimehin. He was a professor of history at the University of Ibadan and the University of Ife. He died about five years ago. Ma-le is what is called Mali. That is why the Yoruba call Islam Esin Ma-le. The Ma-le people were the first in black Africa to accept Islam into their country. It was there that the whole (black) world went to learn the religion.
Three babalawos went to Ma-le from Otu Ife to learn the religion. Ifa talks a lot about this in Otua Meji, Baba Ma-le, Odu Kan (a certain Odu). Three babalawos referred to as Orunmila’s sons, Ganbi, Kalitu and Dawodu (names they returned with from Mali), went to Ma-le to learn the Ma-le religion. They were converted to Islam there. When they returned to Otu Ife, they made a square demarcation on the ground with four wooden sticks and then stood in the middle, prostrating and rising. Then people went to report to Orunmila we normally prostrate to the gods and raised and heads back up immediately, but now these your children who just came back from Ilu Ma-le prostrate endlessly like they would never rise again from the position. “What sort of thing have they brought back with them?” Orunmila said as long as it was a good thing that would bring us the fortunes of prosperity, procreation and atubotan, they should carry on with it; he said “it is a good thing.” Atubotan is to grow old as I have grown old or older without going blind, deaf or senile. That is atubotan. Islam entered Yorubaland in the 11th century, that is, 1000 AD. Now, here is something that many people, including a lot of Muslims, do not know: for about 400 years, there existed a system of writing based on Arabic. It looked like Arabic, but it was Yoruba that was written that way. They called it Ajami. If a prominent king then like the Alaafin wanted to write to the Syrian Emir, for instance, he would invite Yoruba people who were versed in Ajami. Islam has been in Yorubaland for a very long time. No religion is bad as long as it is about prosperity, procreation and well-being. We don’t know a religion that is bad. But when anyone says we should not practise our own religion, they want to start hostilities, and they will face the wrath of the gods.
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