REMINISCENCE ON THE CHIEF AND THE THIEF. A CHIEF is always a well respected person in our society. You must have attained some level of character built over a considerable number of years, before being considered for a chieftaincy title (OYE). The days when values are cherished, when a good name is worth more than gold, to be given a title (OYE), was the greatest honor of the land a man can dream of. In contrast, a THIEF, (OLE), is a robber, a disgrace to self and his family. It is the direct opposite of what OYE stands for. No rational clan pray to have one as a child; and a family will sacrifice even human lives to redeem their name when wrongly accused. In our clime, whatever height you have labored all your life to attain, one can be stripped off it in a twinkle of an eye, if a THIEF is found in the house of a CHIEF. If you do not forget, in my first response to Chief Popoola’s accusation of Adams Peretz, I asked the Chief to look inward first and deal with the thief in his house. If there are no thieves inside, no robber can have a successful operation in your house. It is the OLE inside that always opens the door for the OLE outside. My question then was “can a stoke of fire pass through the ocean without someone propelling it?” I said this because whatever sympathy the Chief expects from neighbors will be diminished the moment they know he harbors and protects thieves under his roof. Circumstantial evidence from Adams Peretz has now shown to us that there are thieves inside the Chief’s house! I have read some of the Chief’s argument that Adams should not have published the book in his name. The logic behind this argument, to me, is not well premised! If you have a family house with your family name boldly written on it, the moment you sell the house, you have transferred all legal rights on the house to the buyer! If the buyer now decides to erase your family name and put his own name on the property, can you stop him from doing so? On this, Adams cannot be faulted! I still maintained my stand that it was those that sold the document(s) to Adams that stabbed the Chief at the back, not Peretz. The fact is, as far as Ifa’s knowledge is concerned, whatever anyone acquired today is another man’s knowledge; no one brings Ifa from heaven! If you claim you inherit it, did your father not get them from others? All these Ifa belongs to other people, some dead, some alive. So Ifa is no man’s property! You got it from someone, and you have to pass it on, else it becomes extinct and of no benefit even to your children in the future. I do not support plagiarism in any form. Those days, you serve the master diligently to get Ifa verses, and many at times inconvenient yourself and your family. These days, nobody wants to suffer, yet they want to acquire all the knowledge in the comfort of their homes. If you want knowledge, you should devote time and energy for it. Apart from my father’s Ifa books he wrote as a practicing Babalawo for almost a century, my “offside” tutelage under him and some of his Omo Awos spanning over 15years; I left my job three years ago as a Chartered Accountant in an Oil Company in Lagos, to start real training as a professional Babalawo. A friend of mine, Mike also a Chartered Accountant and a banker in Lagos could not understand till now why I have to leave a six digit paying job, with proven security and prospect; to start carrying Ifa divination slate and Opele, after some "tattered, old, grave bound elders;" in the remotest part of the cities, where there are no communication networks, tarred roads nor pipe borne water. But he, who wears the shoe, knows best where it pinches. Things have changed now, everything have been digitized and monitized. Nobody wants to leave the comfort of his home, yet they aspire to be a proficient, world class Babalawo! They became a student of Ifa on the internet, graduated on the cyberspace, awarded certificates on facebook and installed as Araba on the World Wide Web! Some people say the Diaspora Babalawos does not have some certain rights. But what rights have you, defrauding people online; giving them titles and certificates that does not worth the paper it is written on? You award them titles most of us here cannot even measure up to and you don’t expect them to brag? Please let no one quote me wrong, I do not say studying on the internet is not good, afterall some world class universities adopted the same practice. My argument is that it can never take the place of real hands on practical training! Anyone who claims he can turn you to a proficient Babalawo on the net is deceiving you! They are only after your money. Being a real time professional Babalawo goes beyond the “grammar and the drama” on the net. That is the home truth! Many have contacted me to train them the “dot” way, and I told them point blank that I do not know yet the magic to it. If you want to read Ifa verses for your pleasure, or maybe you want Ifa’s opinions on some issues, fine, we can share knowledge on that. I am saying all these so we can all be well guarded against “eewo” taboo! It is the silent destroyer of lives! A child that sells his father’s lifetime investment without the father’s knowledge is placing a curse on himself. Any Omo Awo that betrays his Oluwo is under a curse. An Oluwo who deceives and shortchange his Omo Awo is under a curse. Orosun Ageda lo da fun won ni Ife Akelubebe nibi ti won gbe nje eewo mo eewo…. Orosun Ageda, the diviner for Ife Akelubebe’s town, where they eat one taboo after the other…. We should do the needful to avoid unnecessary curse on ourselves and our children, biological or otherwise. I pray our years of service with Ifa will be rewarded with a glorious crown and not curse. Ase! In 1989 when the white men are desperately looking for spiritually potent carved images and Orishas, combing every nooks and crannies of Yorubaland, the then Olori Awo of Akure was a victim. All his inheritance Opon Ifa et all; was packed and sold to the white men. Who could have done this was the question on everyone’s lips. The whole Akure town was thrown into confusion because the wind that blew and carried the mortar away, the calabash owner need to be careful and watchful. All Awos in Akure and it’s environ were summoned to the Deji’s palace. The Orisha community took it as an affront on them and vowed to revenge. A seven days ultimatum was given to whosoever it was, that has the audacity, the temerity and the effrontery to do this to confess and return it. After the expiration of the 7 days ultimatum, they met again and place a curse on the person. Alas, the wife of the Olori Awo was hit with a strange illness few days later. On enquiry, Ifa says she should confess her crime. She owned up and died the same day. Her husband, a well respected Chief, unable to swallow the bitter pill of a thief under his roof, took his own life 3 days later! Since then, I have learnt the lesson that one should always take the patience to do proper investigation and deal with issues at the source to avoid the unpleasant backlash. May Olodumare guide us all aright. Ase!
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 06:56:12 +0000
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