Sense of belonging

Late last year there was a picture of Ooni Enitan Ogunwusi on his knee at a local church praying, for some reason this did not settle in well with many young Yorubas, especially those who have different views of a befitting religion for traditional rulers.

Just as that was settling down, another young king, Olowu of Owu-Ile, Oba Muhammad Raji Quazeem Ilufemiloye  appeared in public in February, this was slightly different as the young king has two wives wearing full burka beside him. It received quite a lot of criticisms both for being Muslim as well as for his wives covering face. One wonders if they didn’t know his religion before being appointed.

I learnt from my fellow self-appointed ‘foot soldiers’ that our Obas need to stick to traditional religion.

The latest is Ooni Enitan Ogunwusi again singing a Christian song and proclaiming his love for his ‘father’ Jesus.

My people were still not happy with Prince Charming – lots of people want the young Ooni to stop mixing his very important role with foreign religion.

The way I see it: I am not sure which rule book says what religion anyone or a king must follow, as far as I am aware most of our traditional kings are either Christian or Muslim.

As it turned out people in general don’t even care, I for one can not see why anyone is sweating over the choice of a king’s religion – he is a person that deserves freedom of religion just as anyone of us.

And who says Christianity isn’t compatible with appreciation of our traditional beliefs? What I learnt as a kid is that Obas are always neutral when it comes to religion so they tend to support all religious events. However, over the years, most people for one reason or the other have turned to cling to the one they feel most comfortable with.

Each to their own I say.

I suppose having lived with Ooni Ogunwusi’s predecessor, the king who ruled for 35 years and managed to set his town and next door neighbours back several decades – I am happy to see a different king who since his coronation has worked so hard to unite the elders, reiterates that all he wanted was peace as destruction of lives and properties benefit no one.

In one of the numerous meetings that Ooni Enitan Ogunwusi had in his recent visit to the USA, he talked about us all as alajobi (same blood), he also talked about the importance of working together for the common good.

What I see Ooni Ogunwusi offering to people both home and in diaspora is sense of belonging – to feel connected in order to fight for common good – isn’t that good enough?

For this and his wisdom of dealing with one of the most difficult and long-standing crisis ever in Yorubaland, I think him.

Second chance

The best gift in life is a second chance, goes the saying.  I am grateful that I am blessed to be granted a second chance to bond with my father. He is a great dad, but along the line something happened and we fell out.

I was still a ‘good’ girl as society expected me to be, never looked him in the eye as tradition dictates but deep inside I could never understand why he was so depressed. I was aware of what happened in the family but the burden of understanding adults’ complicated lives was too much for any child.

If there’s anything I have learnt from growing up, it is that children grieve just the same way as adults especially when there is tragedy –  death or divorce in the family.

In my parents’ case, it was death of my brothers, he was just too sad to accept what had happened. Men don’t cry so my dad mourned secretly. And in the process forgot that he was still a father to 5 girls.

My father had a great wife who always covers his back. We were not allowed to say anything disrespectful about my father in front of my mother, I suppose she understood my father much more than I did.

I have had a better relationship with my dad the last 10 years than I ever did growing up. He is a lot more open and eager to share any stories that he thinks its beneficial to his children today.

Thinking back, what a great lost it would have been if we didn’t have a second chance to properly heal together as a family.

My sister once said I had no shame with some of the personal stories that I share, my response was that maybe this is not about me anymore, I and the family are in good place today.

Maybe a story such as this could benefit the little girl who was sad to see her parents fighting. From her note, the father probably didn’t realise how his actions is affecting the little girl.

Not all families are perfect, but adults have the power to sort help or control their emotions much more than children could.

I do hope that somehow the parents of this girl see this note and change their way.

What the 9yr old daughter wrote about her father.
Happy #ChildrensDay pic.twitter.com/jdelEs3BzK

— Dr Joe Odumakin (@DrJoeOdumakin) May 27, 2016

My girls, their dad and a dozen or so other families from their school had a great day at a local park playing the game of rounders, what a better way to celebrate when the weather was kind to us.

Happy Father’s Day to all good fathers.

 

Eru Amukun

Amukun in Yoruba is people with K-leg, this is how common K-leg is in our society that people with the condition get dedicated name.

In order to correct k-leg, one needs medical intervention. I witnessed this being done once, the result was incredible. Up to that time I had thought once you had a k-leg or bow-leg, you live with it. Here, it is the parents’ job to foot the bill and help the child concerned through the healing process and not the other way around.

This is not about k-leg or medical issues which Nigeria has plenty of. It is about generation of parents shying away from their responsibility and allowing shameless religious nutters to use their school children for unrelated agenda.

Earlier last month in the UK, there were parents protest on behalf of their children by keeping them at home so they wouldn’t have to go through the government recommended test for primary schools.

My daughters had to be tested before we were accepted to the school in the first place so aware that we are in for regular test for years to come. Having said that what I found appealing was that people who just do not want their children tested for one reason or the other took time out of their day to demand a change in law for the benefit of their children.

Whether this is right or wrong thing to deliberately get kids to miss school in the name of avoiding being tested is not my focus here, rather is the parents’ willingness to help get more explanation about government decision.

Now here in my state of origin, Osun State it is the other way around. There are issues, a few of them, however, somehow people, elders and most importantly religious leaders Muslims and Christians manage to narrow them all down that our only major problem is the way children dress to school.

Problem: Current governor Ogbeni Aregbesola reportedly okayed Muslim girls to wear hijab to school. This did not sit well with many Christians because it means that now Muslims girls can wear hijab to a traditional Christian schools.

Muslims are happy. Are the girls who are subjected to this happy? That is a whole other issue.

Some christians are not happy. Their solution to the problem is to encourage their children to attend school in their choir robe – sweet!

After reading so many pieces on this argument and people affirming their ‘right’ to wear whatever they wanted to school following what their religion dictates as the norm, I am more convince than even that ours, Nigeria is a nation heading for self destruction, religious leaders regardless of faith will always win, the losers are the majority, mostly poor people who continue to lend themselves and their family to baseless fights.

Religion and government can not be mixed together, it gets into peoples’ head. The purpose of going to school is to be educated, in order to maintain equality, school uniform was created so no one feels out of place.

To the Muslims, I’ll say I can see your frustration with churches in every corner.  However, if your religion is so special that for your child to conform to school rules for 6 hours in a day is asking for too much, then maybe one should ask if this is really about worshiping Islam.

All in all, all this looks like unfortunate event to me, it is just a shame that any parents would support their young adults in secondary school doing this protest when we all are aware of the danger.

Ogbeni Aregbesola – I must admit that I am really impressed that for once in the 24 years since the state was created we are blessed with a governor who is not in denial regarding the state of our public schools, who is working to make pubic schools more appealing. Please let’s focus on education and less on divisive religions.

Federal project: Osun state cashew plantation

The news about government empowering farmers is a welcome one, after all most of our people are farmers; land and beautiful weather is what we have a plenty.

Reading the recent news about government plan to invest in cashew plantation as well as factory in Osun state is a fantastic news as this means job creation for our people.

Now, the proposed site for this cashew project in Ife is situated in Ògùdù.

Ògùdù is a village in Ile Ife, most of the farmers in this village for a very long time (am talking over a century) have been the Oyos, significantly people from Modakeke. During the last bloody clash between 1997 and 2000, this is one of the villages that we have the most casualties as the only way for Modakeke people to get in and out of Ogudu and surrounding villages is via Ile Ife.

Many people who made it out of Ogudu village alive are still in town today – 19 years is still not enough to get back what they have lost as this is one of the villages people have been prevented to return to.

While I understand that whatever the agreement that our great grandparents had before investing so much of their time and energy to nurture cocoa and kola nuts on this land had broken down, I also understand that because of the geographical location of this land, elders are probably doing their best to minimise future chance of clash.

Most of the people that are particularly affected have no other means, they remain quiet hoping that one day, just maybe someone would see the injustice in this and help them back into their fathers’ land. We are all aware that for many of us, land – even when most is worth a few kobo is what our parents have to leave behind as inheritance – these people have nothing now.

We all know what ‘federal project’ means, we know that it is local people who suggest this disputed land to be the perfect place. If this is the case, it means dashed hopes for the victim of Ogudu clash.

Since we are all for peace, what do we say to people chased away from Ogudu get some compensation from the government? This is only fair as they can have a closure and it will be forever brought to book.

Here is a message exchange received from a 76 years man whose father’s farm is at Ogudu:

“Ogudu village with surrounding Farmlands, Aba Abe and Aba Oba, two adjoining villages, were all inhabited almost 100% by Oyo-speaking people, mostly from Modakeke. The  ”      ” had farmlands, mainly at Ogudu, and at Aba Abe. 

We lost 3 ”    ” members at Ogudu village when the Ifes ambushed them on the way from the farms. Unfortunately for our people, to get to Ogudu from Modakeke, we had to go through Ife town itself: Ogbon Oya, Aiyetoro, etc., then through Ife villages of Ita Marun and Abiri. This made Ogudu, etc. unsafe for us at the time. And now, I have no idea who farm the lands of our villages, but they won’t be Modakeke people who moved to other safer areas, in the direction of Famia and beyond.”

“Have just spoken to lawyer ”  ” who confirms the cashew project for Ogudu. He says it is a ‘Federal Project’ which will involve big cashew plantation and processing plants. I ask him whose lands have been seized to plant on. He says he does not yet have any details. Of course, it is now clear Modakeke has lost that part of its possession for ever – we cannot dislodge the Federal Government. However good the new Ooni, and everyone says he is good, he is unlikely to have/use the power to return the village farms to us. Unfortunately, we have no one to fight our case, even for compensation!”

“I called a junior brother who told me the area marked out for the cashew plantation/processing project stretches from Ogudu, all the way to Aba Abe, about three miles away. It is really a very expansive undertaking. But, like many of our government projects, there is a loud noise, and then nothing happens, and the project is quietly abandoned. But if the project goes ahead, no Modakeke person will feel safe to work there, as an employee of whichever company will run the project. Sadly, no one is talking compensation, because it is already accepted, by the Ifes and the Osun state government, that we don’t have legitimate rights to the village, and the farmlands, anyway. Very painful, yes. What can we do? My father and the other ”   ” were simply unlucky. We could have established more firmly at Ode-Omu.”

**Family name taken as this is not just about one family, it affects a few others.

Why is someone like me calling the attention of the state governor, Ogbeni Aregbesola, the new Ooni, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi and indeed our VP Professor Osinbajo to this?

Because people don’t just forget injustice and walk away forever, not without some sort of compensation. If we go back to Reverent Samuel Johnson’s book from 1920, reading the chapters of Modakeke and Ife seem like it was written yesterday because one day someone will rise up to question how this rift was settled.

The honourable things to do is to compensate those affected now – it is only fair.

By the way, no one close to me have farmland in this area, even the elderly man whose message is above is not my family – he is an elderly friend.

June 12

On this day, 12th of June 1993 was an important day in Nigeria political history, it was a day that presidential election won by MKO Abiola but was never declared as winner by the sitting president, Ibrahim Babangida.

It all started from refusal to announced the winner to annulment of election results on June 23rd, the rest is history as MKO Abiola eventually died in prison for insisting that he won historical election and deserved to be announced as the president. His first wife Kudirat Abiola died in the struggle too.

This is Nigeria.

This is not one of the stories that was fed to us, it is very recent history. Their case is not an isolated one – Nigeria has a long history of passive aggressive when it comes to politics, much more than we want to openly admit to. Even if people are not particularly clean-handed, should we continue to kill one another like rams?

This youtube video was done completely in Yoruba language as the message was meant to call the Yorubas especially the elders with questionable moral standing, the kings and the chiefs – whose only language was money and bling, to re assess their ways – attitude is beyond embarrassing, it is evil especially when we think of what the future holds for those coming behind.

I say kudos to the guys who made this video, it is hard to remind our people to turn mirror inwards, we’d rather talk about other people as our biggest problem than pay attention to how our people from within have contributed to the rot of the country we inherited today.

And the most beautiful parts of this video I think was the poetry bits in both 13:00 and 30:00, it a minute long each. That is what we call Ewa Ede – beauty of language. I’ll try to translate this one day.

Effect of broken trust

There are quite a number of things I don’t quite understand about the way we go about issues in Nigeria, not because things are all muddled up but because sometimes it appears that instead of facing the problem and work it out, we sometimes stuck in the old rotten way while we keep wishing that the change will happen on its own and everything will be just perfect without actively putting system into place and stick to it.

Nigeria with all its wahala without a doubt has good numbers of trained doctors in different fields. To begin with, it has always baffled me why politicians especially, choose to travel out of the country each time they are sick – even some would choose to go abroad (basically anywhere as long as it is not Nigeria) to do their routine check-ups.

I think this is probably beyond absence specialised Nigeria doctors – even if one can not be found at home, I would think out of the 8,000 doctors between the UK and the US of A alone, there is bound to be at least a few who can treat the president’s ear infection. It is hard to believe none of our teaching hospitals and handful of well-run private hospitals has the right diagnostic machine fit for president’s use.

Mr Buhari come across as someone who is not a high maintenance, he seems comfortable in his skin, and I would think he is patriotic so his medical trip to London isn’t to show off or belittle Nigeria doctors, actually, from my experience in the city, he is very likely to be treated by a Nigerian or someone with Nigeria blood – whispering “baba go slow, you dey hear me?” in London.

I think our politicians insisting on going oversea for medical treatment boils down to complete lack of trust. They are scared of what is really not there and it is just plain silly now. I don’t believe that we can not get a medical team vetted to provide needed care for the president, it is a shame as no one seems to want to take that big leap of faith and just run with the fact that people can be trusted.

Anyway, I wish Baba Go Slow quick recovery but sad that we still have to ré ìsun dà sínú ibú (empty pond into the sea) for politicians’ medicare.

Or what else can be the reason for addictive medical tourism?