FRIDAY OLOKOR reports that judging from the standpoint of culture, the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) is in the vanguard of making African traditional religion a reference point in global circles as revealed in a one-day Ifa festival held recently in Lagos.
OTUNBA Gani Adams, national co-ordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) is a study in mystery. Between 1999 and now, he has in his kitty many achievements never imagined by critics and intelligentsia, especially among the Yoruba. Maybe because of his background, it was never thought that he could get to the present national recognition.
Through personal efforts, he has succeeded in reshaping peoples orientation that the OPC is not a violent organization but a cultural body committed to the emancipation of the Yoruba race from oppression. Gani Adams is, at present, a final year student in the Department of History/International Studies at the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo having recently bagged a Diploma in tourism development. He has also been given an honorary Doctorate degree in Humanities from the United States-based Bradley University. Adams has also been to the Brazilian centre for cultural studies. He sees a synergy between African cultural and tourism which, according to him, has not been tapped.
Through the OPC, he has been able to exert his creative prowess and mental alertness to good use instead of embarking on ambiguous adventures of greed, violence and unholy pilgrimages to government circles. He has refused to sacrifice the struggle and self esteem on the altar of economic and personal aggrandizement. To demonstrate his inclination to African cultural values, Adams recently gathered those who matter in the society to have a firm belief that, in the words of Mao Tse Tung, “A given culture is the ideological reflectioin of the economics and politics of a given society.” It was on Tuesday July 19, 2007 and the occasion was the Ifa festival held in Lagos. This year’s edition was unique because it added glamour, ethnic colouratioin and religious motive to drive home the message: Ifa as an identity of Yoruba lineage. Adams explains the whole scenario in these words: “We have got the best source of wisdom in the world because the world is admitting progressively that Ifa divination is a moral way of developing both religious and formal innovations. Yorubaland, itself, is one of the precious gifts of Ifa because it tells the stories of all the deities that founded all Yoruba kingdoms. We would have been in eternal slavery if Ifa domination does not exist.”
Adams’ stoicism on Ifa religion is predicted on its global ratification by a specialized agency of the United Nations. According to him, Ifa has the relevance which matches every universal concept in humanity. With the recognition of Ifa by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural organization (UNESCO) as a means of divination, Gani Adams argued, the black race has enough chance to amplify the culture which they call their own.
In Nigeria, America, Brazil and other Afrocentric regions, the story on the need to uphold African culture has been the same. The propagation of African culture by Otunba Gani Adams cannot easily be dismissed as a huge joke before many Africans who belong to the same school of thought with him. For instance, Maya Angelou, an Afro-American novelist in her book titled: All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes, an autobiographical presentation of the hopes and paradoxes of those Africans she described as revolutionary returnees said that: “What Africa needs is help. After centuries of slavers taking her strongest sons and daughters, after years of colonization, African needs her progeny to bring something to her”. Adams’ main regret is that at a time when the whole world is showing keen interest in African culture, cosmology, belief-system and sciences for the development of inventions and their renaissance, Africans have not devised their own avenue to create usefulness of their supernatural knowledge. To him, promotion of cultural tourism is one of the viable means of energizing the economy. “If we promote and encourage Ifa temples in our land, that alone can promote the local economy of our people because it will serve as tourist centres for the world apart from the solutions that Ifa proffers to problems of every visitor to the temple”, he stated. Gani Adams also contended that establishment of Ifa College of Modern Sciences in all states in Nigeria, to amplify the teaching of creation, is long overdue because medicine, engineering, arts, technology, business/public administration and politics are all embedded in the corpus of Ifa. In his remarks at the occasion, a member of the National Council on Ifa Religion, Mr. Solagbade Poopola identified the following as ways through which Ifa is significant in the destiny of humanity. They include humanity’s uniqueness; originality; path/direction; pragmatism; where to excel; visa to heaven and superiority.
He reasoned that no matter one’s status in the society, if the person is not initiated into Ifa religion, the journey to heaven would be a farce. The guest lecturer at the event who also doubles as Founder/Chief Priest of Ifa Society of Nigeria, Mr. Aderemi Ifaolepin Aderemi, Oyo town-born lawyer said his organization is partnering with the OPC because of the latter’s resolve to identify with the theological background of the Yorubas and Ifa. He underscores the need to standardize and develop the Ifa religion also called African traditioinal religion. Aderemi explained the significance of Ifa festival saying it is a way of publicizing the processes of standardizing and developing the Yoruba religion called Sese which lacks its own identity in the comity of global religions.
According to him, there is intellectual laziness on the part of many Yoruba which translates to intellectual poverty, on which basis, blacks celebrate Christianity and Islamic religions and see it as their own. In his words, “their thinking faculty has been conditioned to a way which promotes western values and cultures. People were actually with us traditionally but when Islam and Christianity came with a standardized form of worship and scriptural works people started placing emphasis on western values. They were suffering from extreme poverty of ideas and values.” Aderemi sees Ifa as that which emphasizes divination, medicine and religion. Highlights of this year’s festival is the installation of Messrs Alani Ojeleye (Aseda-elect); Fashola Olumuyi (Ajirawo); Alawode Adeniyi (Asawo Ifa); Ifadabare Anifabanitan and Ifasina (Erinni) into Ifa priesthood by the Araba of Ikorodu, Afuwape Sadiq. With drumming and dancing, the celebration got to its climax during the presentation of a dramatic sketch in demonstration of the potency of Ifa as a God which can exert an influence on humanity. Like The Bacchae by Euripedes, the state of Ifa in which man’s ways of life, conduct, creation and teaching are embedded, cannot be thrown away. Participants say it is like throwing away both the baby and water with which it had its bath. In the opinion of Gani Adams, there is nothing which Ifa cannot provide for humanity. He urges government to beam its searchlight and focus on projects which can develop African culture. Adams promised to strengthen his atavism on cultural tourism during Olokun festival of which he is Chief promoter in October.
*First Published in Daily Champion on 26 July 2007*
