₦airaland Forum

Ngwakwe: A great move by the Ogun State Government to revitalise the State with modern infrastructure.

The Oyo State Government needs such move to allow for temporary relocation of Ibadan City to such a modern city before embarking of total demolition and rebuilding of the great Ibadan City from the scratch.

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Housing Provision: Ogun hands over Kobape 50-Hectare Land to a Developer


The dream of some prospective home owners in Ogun State is gradually becoming a reality as the State Government has handed over a 50-hectare land at Kobape in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area to a private developer.

Speaking while handing over the site, Commissioner for Housing in the State, Mr. Daniel Adejobi reaffirmed that the State Government’s plan on massive housing provision was on course.

Adejobi pointed out that the developer, Hongxiang Construction Company Limited from China would provide basic infrastructure such as roads, drainages, water, power supply, school, shopping mall amongst others, adding that prospective home owners within the ultra modern estate are to be guided by government on the choice of houses to be built.

According to him, plots of land would be made available to individual buyers on a cash and carry basis to build houses of their choice, but in conformity with the Ogun Standard.
“There would be no constraints on owners of lands on what to build, but they would only be guided by us in order to meet the Ogun standard; we don’t want just any kind of houses, but very decent houses that would befit the plan of the housing estate”, Adejobi noted.

The Commissioner revealed that for civil servants interested in buying lands within the proposed estate, the State Government would work out modalities on how to spread their payment in order to enable them benefit from the scheme.

Also speaking the company’s Executive Director, Business Development, Engr. Paul Olotun said every estate should have its planned layout and be independent of some public utilities such as electricity supply, gas pipe line and the likes, saying that “this is why we are on ground to provide all necessary amenities to make the environment conducive”.

He assured that the local content law would be strictly adhered to as the company intends to engage the services of indigenous workers at the site which is already been cleared by earth-moving machines in preparation for commencement of work.

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Ogun Begins Construction Of 32km Sango-Ijoko-Akute-Ojodu Road


Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, has assured residents of the state that the construction of the all-important Sango-Ijoko-Akute-Ojodu road will commence on Monday (today).

He said men and materials had been mobilised to the site for the take-off of construction of the 32km highway. The governor disclosed this yesterday during his sensitization visit to Ijoko, Agbado, Akute and Ojodu on the commencement of the road project.

He stated that the strategic highway, which cuts across Ota, Ijoko, Agbado as well as Abule Ekun, Akute and Ojodu, would include two bridges and three fly-overs.

He said compensation package was ready for owners of houses and shops that would give way for the 6-lane road. The state helmsman assured shop owners that ultra-modern shopping malls would be constructed and payment for their acquisition would be made over a period of time.

He called for the co-operation of residents "as demolition exercise begins on Monday (today)". He urged the construction firm, Central South Construction Company, to complete the project in a record time.

emmysenior: This is a welcomed development. I hope it sees the light of the day.

Such initiatives are hard to come by, owing to the calibre of people we have as selected [s] leaders[/b] rulers.

I wonder how much it will cost Nigeria to have a sophisticated multi-purpose health centres or special ones.

Omexonomy: Clown
Do you remember the story of that lizard that claimed he fell from the ceilling and nobody said any thing about it only for him to go about praising himself

tawa89: Ogun's state's Entire budget for the year is N211.46b and they are planning to build a cancer treatment centre for almost N240.O5b . That is they will commit their entire budget and pluck extra money from air to complete money needed for this centre? and you want me to believe a sane administrator will actually do this?
Abeg make una fear God naa...

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Ogun Set To Build A $150m Cancer Institute
August 30, 2013 in Ogun News Leave a comment

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Dr Soyinka, Commr for Health

The agonies of cancer patients in Ogun State and other parts of the African continent will soon become a thing of the past as the State Government has concluded plans with HTI Global Cancer Partners of the United States of America to construct a $150m Cancer Institute in the State.

State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka who disclosed this at a press conference held in Abeokuta stated that the Step is another gesture of the State government to provide adequate health care services, adding that the centre would be equipped with state-of-the-earth equipment to render both diagnostic and curative services on all types of cancer.

Dr. Soyinka pointed out that the Institute would be situated at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, Sagamu to facilitate academic affiliation, disclosing that the State government intends to make some of the cancer services available to poor patients through the Community Based Health Insurance Scheme (CBHIS).

The Commissioner emphasised that the Senator Ibikunle Amosun-led administration’s commitment to resuscitating the healthcare sector remained unwavering as the institute would be the first of the its kind on the African continent.
Also speaking,his counterpart in the Ministry of Information and Strategy, Barr. Yusuph Olaniyonu observed that the move would motivate people from other parts of the continent to seek medical treatment as well as attract medical personnel to learn about the treatment of the different types of cancer.

In his remark, the Chairman, Board of Managers, HTI Global Cancer Partners, Dr. Bert Petersen said the Institute is a holistic project which would span through prevention, health promotion, screening, recruitment of expert personnel, diagnosis of all treatment modalities, research, development and training.

Dr. Petersen observed that the present leadership of the State Government encouraged the partnership, lauding the government for “gradually bringing into being war against cancer”.

Also speaking, the Chief Operating Officer of the USA based partners, Miss Ericka Consin-Mosheshe, expressed optimism that “by January 2015, we will treat our first patient. We realised that a lot of patients go abroad, so we anticipate that we have many patients who would not have to leave the country anymore to seek medical services”.

Ropeways Transport floats N81bn Lagos Cable Car mass transit system
MONDAY, 04 FEBRUARY 2013 00:00 JOHN OSADOLOR E-mail Print PDF

Ropeways Transport Limited is investing $500 million (about N81 billion) to launch a cable car mass urban transit system in the nation’s commercial capital, Lagos.

The cable car transit system, the first in the quest in Nigeria to provide commuters affordable, safe, timely and stress-free mode of transportation, particularly in urban centres like Lagos, is being floated by a company owned by Dapo Olumide, former managing director of Virgin Nigeria Airlines; Yemi Osinbajo, former attorney-general and commissioner for justice, Lagos State and Yemi Ogunbiyi, proprietor, Tanus Communications Limited.

Already, Ropeways Transport Limited has signed of a 30-year Franchise Agreement with the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) and the Lagos State Government for the execution of the project.

Under the terms of the agreement, Ropeways Transport will this November, begin the construction of towers, stations and connecting network cables along various routes covered in the first phase of the project, namely, Ijora – Iddo, Iddo – Adeniji, Apapa – Oluwole, Oluwole – Adeniji, Adeniji – Obalende, Obalende – Falomo, and Falomo – Victoria Island. The project is expected to be fully completed and commissioned by early 2015.

The transit system when completed will create about 500 direct jobs, while commuters will pay between N200 and N300 per trip. The African Development Bank is a co-financier of the project.

Dapo Olumide ,chief executive officer of Ropeways Transport Limited, who spoke in Lagos, said the Lagos cable car transit system would provide an alternative means of mass transportation in the city and help ease the current transportation difficulties.

He added that it would restore dignity to commuting because the current situation hampers economic development within the city and negatively impacts the quality of life of its residents.

“By complementing existing transport modes, the Lagos Cable Car Transit System will play its part in reducing the traffic congestion in the city” he said.

According to him, studies show that Lagos will become the world’s third largest city with 25million inhabitants by 2015, with approximately 12 million daily passenger movements and trips in the Lagos Metropolitan Area, set to increase at a rate of six per cent per annum.

“The existing metropolitan highway infrastructure is severely constrained, with journeys to and from work within the city regularly exceeding three hours. In addition, studies carried out in 2009 on vehicle registration show that an additional 200,000 vehicles are registered annually in Lagos State.

This equates to 222 vehicles per kilometre of road in Lagos, which by far outweighs the national average of just 11 vehicles per kilometer of road, with vehicles estimated to contribute more than 70 per cent of the air pollution in Lagos,” he said.

These problems, he said, could be effectively eliminated with this new technology. “Presently, there is a need to ameliorate the existing congestion on the three bridges connecting Lagos Mainland to Lagos Island and to provide a link between Apapa and the Central Business District on Lagos Island, and also to link Victoria Island with the Central Business District of Lagos Island. These are what we hope to achieve with the launch of the cable transit system,” Olumide said.

[b]He described the cable car system as one of the safest means of transport worldwide. According to him, a 2009 study by the Vancouver Metropolitan Transport Agency in Canada determined that passengers were 20,000 times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident in a vehicle than in a cable car.

According to him, when completed, the Lagos cable car transit system would incorporate several standard safety features, including auxiliary drives and hydraulic brakes to prevent passengers being stranded, lightening protection on towers, ropes and stations, as well as solar panels on each cabin roof, to provide power for cabin interior and exterior lighting.

There will also be passenger monitoring with CCTV and audio communication links and passenger address systems.

The project will be powered by several sources namely, IPP’s, dual-fired primary power turbines and dual-fired back up power turbines, with sufficient number of static inverters to provide 30 minutes of backup power.

The Project uses Doppelmayr’s proprietary technology. Founded in 1892, Doppelmayr is a Swiss/Austrian specialist company that manufactures chairlifts, cable cars, gondolas, surface tows for ski and amusement parks, as well as urban transport systems.

Doppelmayr cable car technology has successfully been used in locations like Merida, Venezuela; Roosevelt Island, New York, USA; Caracas, Venezuela; Medellin, Columbia; Portland, Oregon, USA; and Tlemcen, Algeria. Others are Constantine, Algeria; Koblenz, Germany; Ngong Ping, Hong Kong; Sentosa Island, Singapore and Sky Rail, Australia. The company is also presently executing similar projects in Bosporus, Turkey; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; La Paz, Bolivia and recently in London, England.[/b]

hercules07: What is elitist about a cable car system, the man living in oko oba does not go to the island for trading abi? So, of all the traffic on third mainland bridge, none is from Oko Oba, please find something more intelligent to say when criticizing initiatives as this.

@ Sunny_bobo. You're right. This story sounds fishy. The photo is not dated and could have been taken years ago. The tone of the story smacks of a cover up.

Eyewitnesses saw the old man slumping with blood oozing from his mouth, ears, nostrils & where have you. Someone planted this story to calm fidgety associates & party faithfuls down in the midst of the silent revolution going on in the PDP and the unrest in the APC.

When cult personality is the order of the day in Nigerian political structures, it's inevitable that confusion will reign supreme whenever accidents such as this occur, creating a vacuum in the leadership & the absence of a succession plan will surely spell doom for such a marriage of convenience rather than ideological bed fellows.

@amarilo, Exactly my own thoughts. In the bid to pulling the wool over people's eyes, this tactic has backfired to reveal that the man is probably in a more dire condition, medically speaking. What exactly are they hiding? Is he a superhuman who shouldn't be seen to fall into the same category as 'ordinary mortals'?

teskyg: Its Unnecessary to hurled insult @ others who expressed their Opinion.I just rode through Keffi and peep into the BRT park.Please ride around Ikoyi and VI anytime it rains.We are not blinded by propaganda. I still repeat that Cable transport is another White Elephant project.We lack so many basic Amenities in Lagos.Until some of this issues are adressed,they will soon be proposing Helicopter and Yatch transport service. We stay in Lagos and for the Governor to reeled out those statistics on Water transport is disturbing.

mojeer678: @Gbawe, If this isn't a shallow argument, then I don't know what is. The PPP that allowed LCC to make a killing on the toll gates?

You really believed everyone is an ignoramus? As a mouthpiece and defender of the mortgaging of the future unborn lives, whose tomorrow you're all chopping today. Ride on in the defence of the indefensible. I wonder whether you actually sleep at night without your conscience pricking you for spewing all these garbage and feeling righteous in so doing.

meccuno: i have always been part of the solution and i will not allow my self to be intimidated by a million people...what am saying is that if he is actually getting loans to finance the project,what stops him from doing the same to the health education and infrastructure?? was surprised at the speed of light he used on the cable bridge construction while there are many roads that are begging for attention....and mind u,i don't have beef with any body....if you do what you are supposed to do,then i will praise you....... no matter who the person is,if he derails,i wont hesitate to speak my mind....all these projects are just to impress the world or Nigerians to show that he is working...what has this got to do with the common man.......

meccuno: the surprising thing is that when issues like this are read and disseminated,people rejoice....it is a good development,but i still think it is very unnecessary...there are very basic things that are begging for attention in Lagos like good roads,security,health facilities,and the most important of all,education.....if he had channeled these large sums of money to education,i believe Lagos would be a better place.......and am very sure that the project would be on the island.....i will not congratulate this guy on structures that he puts on the island because the island residents are not the people that voted for him alone.........hope its not a question of the tail wagging the dog again......

Lagos Cable Car Transport Project
Projects >Lagos Cable Car Transport…

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Lagos Cable Car
Trico Capital is the Financial Adviser to Ropeways Transport Limited, the sponsors of the US$275million transport project to develop a 12.85 km network of cable cars serving the metropolis of Lagos and connecting Lagos Island with both the mainland and Victoria Island, using Doppelmayr proprietary 3S technologies.

With over 20 million inhabitants, Lagos is a rapidly growing megacity. The existing roadway infrastructure in which the current mass transport options rely, is heavily overcrowded with Lagosians spending up to 6 hours of their work day commuting in heavy traffic.

The cable car transport project, which will be affordable to all, will act to relieve pressure on the traffic system and reduce average journey times by as much as 70 minutes each way, with 9,000 vehicles taken off the roads each day, alleviating congestion and reducing pollution.

With construction planned to commence in 2013 and operations starting in 2014/2015, the project comprises some 8 stations in three routes beginning at Ijora, Apapa and Victoria Island respectively and with a central hub around Adeniji Adele. The system will be designed to accommodate up to 240,000 trips daily. Financing will be met by through a consortium of local sponsors and international and local financial institutions lead by the African Development Bank (Afdb).

agbameta: I can't wait to enjoy Lagos skyline on the C.cars..

ba7man: @Agbameta. The height at which the cars operate take style high ooo.......Its only for the brave.

I just hope those market women with large bags of pepper and tomatoes don't get brave enough to want to use it.

eGuerrilla: The borderline psychotic needs little prompting to adorn himself with glad rags, in the mistaken belief that his opinions actually count for something.

kettykin: Super story !!!

2009 Associated Airlines Report Details Fraud In Maintenance Of Aircraft Which Crashed This Month
Posted: October 7, 2013 - 17:30

By SaharaReporters, New York
A report submitted by a staff of Associated Airlines in 2009 detailing the fraud involved in the maintenance of aircraft at the airline might have prevented the fatal crash that claimed 15 lives on October 3 when the Embraer 120 twin prop aircraft plunged to earth less than three minutes after takeoff.

The Ikeja–Lagos based Associated Aviation Limited, which is linked with the corrupt former governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion, has reportedly cut corners in the maintenance of the 23-year-old aircraft. According to aviation records, it was last flown on August 30, two weeks before the crash.

Nigerian aviation officials often collude with influential airline owners by looking the other way in lieu of bribes frequently taken from aircraft owners. For instance, it took the effort of a whistleblower within the defunct Air Nigeria for the aviation authorities to revoke the airworthiness licence of Air Nigeria in the wake of the fatal Dana Air crash in 2012. The licence was however swiftly restored shortly under mysterious circumstances, to the consternation and outrage of families who were left bereaved or impoverished by the crash.

A staff member ostensibly fighting against the airline management released a damning consumer review on the website, Ripoff.com as follows:

Associated has advertised its aircraft for sale. These airplanes can only be described as dangerous and requires that a buyer beware notice be posted. Anyone looking at these aircrafts must underline the need to examine the aircraft logbooks with a magnifying glass. The records that exist are fraudulent at the least.

According to the engineer, the following are the issues:

Engines - the crew never kept the records required by the Engineers for oil and other analysis. As a result, the true state of the Engines is unknown. Pratt and Whitney has the engines on a program but had no records from the airline to ensure the integrity of the Engines. At the present time, the program has also been cancelled for failure to make payments.

Maintenance: As a former Engineer and former Staff, now employed by a better airline, I will be first to tell you that our supervisors insisted on the use of none manufacturer or OEM parts obtained from local electronic stores. Very little records were kept, the entire LLP records are a fabrication; all these were possible because the local Civil Aviation Authority looked the other way.

Required x-rays were never performed. Matters that should have been looked into were overlooked. The aircraft needed rigging. If you want confirmation talk to a former pilot of the Company that now works for Capital Airlines.

He also stressed that the former MD and partner, Tunde Oremule, lacked regard for the lives of his customers, his employees, and the law. “When we insisted on doing the right thing, he harassed and intimidated his staff,” he said, adding, “If only passengers could see the maintenance records! The regulators have but they pay lip service to safety.”

Bottom line, he warned, “Buyer beware!”

Although the review described the situation as “dangerous,” the aviation regulators did nothing to check the airline’s maintenance records until the crash of October 3.

Associated Airlines 5N-BJY was running a charter flight SCD-361 from Lagos to Akure, bearing for burial the body of former Ondo Stage governor Segun Agagu; it rapidly lost height shortly after takeoff from Lagos Airport, and then came down at 9:32am, catching fire. Fifteen of the 20 people on board were confirmed dead by the authorities.

A second aircraft which departed earlier with other family members including the widow of the deceased and their two daughters reached Akure safely. Their oldest son survived the crash with serious but no life-threatening injuries.

Curiously, the coffin of the deceased was recovered intact, and was subsequently taken to Akure for a subdued burial.

Katsumoto: @ Gbawe

That was a fantastic piece. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Pukkah: The shameless team of ignoramuses think that the study of Ifa is a beer parlour talk. In trying to get at Aregbesola for whatever reason(s), they exposed their screaming ignorance and primitive intolerance.

Ifa study is for intellectuals and it takes years to train a Babalawo. The meaning of Babalawo here is not the corrupted one that is being bandied around by African Magic films or Pastors or Imams. A Babalawo is a bundle of knowledge, tolerance and spirituality.


Kudos Rauf!

Ifa Divination for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad

OUR STORY


Onaje Woodbine is a Ph.D. candidate in Religious Studies at Boston University. He specializes in African and African American religious thought and practice.

Folasade Woodbine, born and raised in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, is a student of Art Therapy at Emmanuel College.


Onaje and Folasade met in 2005, when Onaje was a Fulbright-Hays Scholar Abroad, studying Yoruba language and religion at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Before they met in 2005, Onaje visited Nigeria for several months in 2003 to study Ifa in Ile-Ife and in Oyo. Folasade had also studied Ifa in Ile-Ife for some time.

When they decided to marry, they vowed together, to continue to humbly seek the wisdom of the Ancestors and Ifa. This application is the birth child of their struggle and journey to know and share a small amount of Ifa wisdom. Here is the true story of how this application came to fruition:

Sometime after we met, we combined our efforts in intensive Ifa training with several competent Babalawo from the Ile-Ife and Oyo lineages in Nigeria with mixed results. Sometimes these Babalawo were truly master teachers who embodied the ethics of Iwa pele (gentle character). Other times, our teachers sought to take advantage of our genuine desire to learn and used this as an opening to try to exploit us monetarily. In truth, given that Onaje is African American and Folasade is Nigerian, we sometimes were confronted with Babalawo who tried to use us against each other in order to gain access to our very humble resources as researchers and newlyweds.

After some years of intensive training and confronting the political and economic challenges that come with the struggle to learn and grow in any religious community, we decided to make a journey in Nigeria far beyond the well-known towns of Ile-Ife and Oyo to find a new teacher in Ifa studies. We reasoned that if we ventured to a place less influenced by globalization, we might find a Babalawo who would be more interested in our spiritual growth, than our economic and political resources. So we decided to journey to the town which esteemed Nigerian novelist, D.O. Fagunwa called Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, which Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka translated as The Forest of a Thousand Demons. This was the first novel ever written in Yoruba language, set in the hills of Oke Igbo, a remote town outside of Ondo, Nigeria, where some mysteries may remain in spite of modernity. Without knowledge of the location or of a single living soul in Oke Igbo, we ventured to Oke Igbo to continue our
training.

Before our journey, we decided to consult a Babalawo as soon as we arrived in Oke Igbo, to ask the Ancestors and Orisa for guidance during an unknown journey in search of an upright teacher in a place we were total strangers. Looking back, we are very thankful we chose to consult Ifa, because the advice and guidance we were given, made all the difference in our subsequent quest. Here is the Ifa Verse from Ogberikusa (Ogbe Osa), we were told by the Araba of Oke Igbo who we met almost immediately upon our arrival in Oke Igbo. The story goes like this:

Ogberikusa

The blind and disabled are friends

The disabled person asked the blind person:

Is this how we are going to die of suffering?

The blind responded: what shall we do about it?

The disabled answered: let us go and ask a wise person what to do.

They inquired of the wise person: will we ever walk or see again?

The wise person queried: Have you ever walked or seen before?

They answered: never!

They were asked to perform an offering

They were perplexed: What is he talking about?

Can we afford to pay for any offering?

The disabled suggested suicide as an option

Days latter the disabled repeated the suggestion to the blind person

The blind responded: you know I cannot see, so whatever you suggest is okay

We have been friends for too long and I could not live without you

The disabled responded: I know a place we can go to kill ourselves

The disabled person added: when we get to the water, I will just jump into it

The blind person questioned: how would I know?

The disabled said: I will bring you close to the edge so when you hear the loud sound of falling, you know it is time to jump

On the second day they decided to end it all

The disabled led the blind to the water

As they neared the edge the disabled lamented and threw a huge stone into the water

The disabled hoped he tricked the blind person to jump

But the blind person was so worried and upset that threw his walking stick around and hit the disabled person

The disabled person shrieked!

The blind person was so surprised

He asked the disabled why he wanted to trick him to die

The disabled apologized and the blind person could not be too upset

Did he not need the disabled to bring him home?

As they continued along in the bush they came across some food

Cooking the meat seemed to take too long. but

The blind realized that each time the disabled spoke it sounded as if he was eating

Since the blind person kept asking the disabled person for food, the disabled gave the blind a toad to eat instead

The blind could not see so he put the toad’s head in his mouth

As he bit the toad the water from the toad’s eyeball broke and splashed into the blind’s eye

He regained sight!

As he regained sight the blind took over the cooking and gave the toad to the disabled person to eat

He then went to the waterside to drink

But he told the disabled person that if the disabled person was still present when he returned, the disabled person had only three options:

To be pushed into the water

To be beaten

To be taken into the forest and abandoned

The disabled person chose to be beaten

The previously blind person went to beat the disabled on his head

The disabled suggested being beaten on the buttocks, knowing that from the waist down was paralyzed so he would not feel any pain

As the previously blind started to beat his buttocks with a walking stick

The disabled stood up and started running!

But the two of them were so carried away they could not see what was happening to both of them

As the disabled was running and the blind chasing

They ran into a prophet

The disabled screamed for help

Help me Baba!

The prophet asked them what the problem was between them

They explained everything that happened up until that moment

Then the prophet asked the disabled: Ever since you have been disabled

Have you ever thought of asking your Blind friend or family to beat you with a walking stick before?

He answered: No!

The prophet also asked the blind person: If you had known that it was the water from toad’s eyeball that would heal you

Wouldn’t you have asked your disabled friend or family for it?

He also answered: Yes!

Then the prophet told both of them to embrace each other

They should forever be friends and never let anyone come in between them. Ever!

They were happy and started remembering their journey together

The prophet then said to them that a little bit about Olodumare had been revealed to them

Indeed, after we listened intently to Ogberikusa, little did we know that the story predicted the events of our subsequent journey in Oke Igbo. Indeed, Onaje would play the role of the blind person and Folasade would play the role of one with disabilities for the remainder of our search for a teacher. You see, although Onaje had the desire and will to venture into very remote towns and villages on motor bikes on lumpy unforgiving dirt roads, with scorching sun, miles away from any hospitals, and had been to Nigeria five times already, most of the time Onaje felt culturally, socially and environmentally blind, unable to rely on past experience to perceive even the next bump in the road. Everything felt new to Onaje and he complained or questioned our movements each time we made a decision to go deeper into the village and forest. Folasade was truly leading a blind man and over time it was a burdensome task that slowed and worried her. Not only did she have to listen to his complaints, but she had to be careful that others did not notice his African American accent or appearance, less they exploit us. Many people sought to divide us. In a cultural and emotional sense, Sade was truly disabled. At some points to relieve herself of his complaints she would find ways to get her message across to him. Sometimes, to be honest, he did not appreciate her approach, and found himself upset wanting to tell her off like the blind man did once to the person with disabilities. We encountered so many challenges, endured so many hardships on our journey together in Oke Igbo in search of an upright teacher who might guide us in the next phases of our Ifa studies and journey together. Moreover as we neared the end of our journey, although we found some great medicine men and some great diviners who helped with our healing along the way, we still had not found a Babalawo we felt we could really trust as a teacher. It was at the end of the trip, after discovering how much we helped each other heal, however, that we met an upright teacher. His name is Bishop Ezekiel Soniran Adekunle Lijadu.

[b]Throughout our trip in Oke Igbo, we heard there was a Bishop in Ondo, who was also a pioneer in Ifa studies. To be honest, we doubted that a Bishop in Nigeria would know much about Ifa, because of the amount of discrimination and bias many Christians have toward Ifa religion in Nigeria. It was not until toward the end of our journey that we decided to visit Bishop Lijadu and we are thankful we did.

When we met Bishop Lijadu, who is now 79 years old, over the next few days, he, unlike any Babalawo we met on this trip, sat with us for hours sharing his wide and deep knowledge of Ifa verses, Yoruba philosophy, and Yoruba history, including the noted history of his own family lineage. We discovered that his grandfather, Bishop Emmanuel Moses Lijadu, married a re-captive slave from Brazil, left the Anglican Church to start and independent African Church based on his own self-help philosophy, and wrote two of the earliest texts on Ifa and Orunmila at the turn of the 20th Century.

We liked Bishop Lijadu, not only because of the history and knowledge he shared with us, but because over the next couple weeks, he did not try to establish his authority over us, did not ask us for money, and instead listened to our questions, and always directed us to find the answers for ourselves. We felt that he applied the Ifa concept that each individual’s Ori comes to this world already with knowledge and power, to his work with us. He was there to assist us on our journey and not to impose his own. Over time he became our esteemed teacher and taught us countless Ifa verses during the next phase of our training which eventuated in our initiation. Without his dedication, sacrifice and deep knowledge of Ifa verses, we would not have been able to develop this application years later.[/b]

We dedicate this application to him, who like the wise prophet, has been a great teacher. We also pay homage to the esteemed Lijadu family lineage. Indeed, like the blind and the disabled persons in the verse of Ogberikusa, we hope with all humility, that the verses in this application reveal a little bit of Olodumare to you.

Folasade and Onaje

eGuerrilla: Alright, I will include these additional choices.

eGuerrilla: Any betting (wo)man prepared to make a flutter on this one?

Odds:
1/3 - There will be no resolution whatsoever
9/1 - G7 will claim victory
5/1 - Gulak and Abati will lay claim to an agreement which favours the President

#eGuerrilla Bookmakers#

sennykenny1: Keep it up girl, bigger u I pray

berem: I agree with Tinubu. Until professionals are put to run the affairs of the sectors of this country,we will still remain where we are.

femi4: Political statement, always looking for cheap political points

abes: What is wrong with having more babalawos in the future? visiting a babalawo is not by force just like you are not forced to visit a pastor. Learn to be tolerant of other people's religion and culture. You have the mindset of an average boko haram member, in the case 'culture haram'.