Chief Tolúlàṣẹ Ògúntósìn stands next to the paramount king of Yorùbáland, the Ọọ̀ni of Ifẹ̀, seated. Photo courtesy of Chief Ògúntósìn.
In the wake of the International Year of Indigenous Languages in 2019 and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages 2022-2032, many Africans have started to take a wide range of actions to advance African languages.
Writing the Yorùbá language in the borrowed Latin script may soon become a thing of the past as one Yorùbá man, Chief Tolúlàṣẹ Ògúntósìn, based in Benin, West Africa, has invented a writing system to encode the Yorùbá language.
The newly invented Yorùbá alphabet is making waves in the hopes that it could replace Latin script used for over 100 years.
The distinct alphabet came to him through divine inspiration in his dreams, according to Chief Ògúntósìn in a Whatsapp interview with Global Voices. He now travels across Yorùbáland — spanning Benin to Nigeria — to promote his “talking alphabet” as sent to him by his ancestors.
Chief Ògúntósìn believes that this alphabet was used by Odùduwà, the father of the Yorùbá people, in ancient times — but was lost. There are 25 symbols in all.
African linguists assert that if Africa is to grow, it must have its own orthographies or writing systems. A civilized and ancient Niger-Congo language like Yorùbá should not rely on a borrowed orthography to encode its thoughts and philosophy.
Read more: Yorùbá loanwords: How languages evolve In 1843, Reverend Samuel Àjàyí Crowther of the Christian Missionary Society developed the Yorùbá orthography by adopting Latin script with diacritics — or accent marks. Ever since, thousands of books have been published in Yorùbá using Latin script instead of Ajami, an Arabic script used before 1843 to write in West African Indigenous languages such as Yorùbá and Hausa.
Some language advocates contend that using Latin, a foreign script, to encode African languages, keeps the continent in an enslaved mindset.
Instilling this new writing system follows a history of ancient writing systems in Africa, like Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Adrinka collection of the Akan tribe of Ghana, Ethiopian Ge'ez, the Nsibidi ideographic script of West Central Africa which date back to 5000 BC, as well as Vai alphabet scripts are of African origin.
Divining a ‘talking alphabet’ Global Voices Yorùbá Lingua Manager Ọmọ Yoòbá interviewed Chief Ògúntósìn, via WhatsApp voice note messaging, to learn more about how he discovered this new alphabet.
Chief Ògúntósìn, now 43, explained that after the demise of his father in 1997, he had to care for his siblings as the oldest son and could not further his education after completing secondary school.
However, as a Yorùbá chief, he focused his cultural work on uniting the seven grandchildren of Odùduwa, serving as a mediator. As his cultural integration work progressed, however, he wanted to achieve more.
In 2011, he approached a babaláwo or “diviner” of Ifa, the Yorùbá god of wisdom. The diviner, Olókun Awópẹ̀tu, told him to visit his ancestral shrine within the Farasinmi community in Badagry, Lagos State, Nigeria, and to take whatever he came into contact with at the shrine.
There, he found a “strange object” that he took with him back to Porto-Novo, Benin. When he arrived, the house was completely dark. With no light bulbs in the living room, he usually relied on light emitted from the rays of the TV screen. He placed the object on the table and switched on the TV, only to discover, surprisingly, that the object he placed on the table had disappeared. He turned the entire room upside down and finally found it in a corner of the house.
That night, he slept with the object under his pillow. He told Global Voices:
… I had a dream that I visited the sun. When I got to the sun, it was dark and I was shown the alphabet in the form of lightning. Every time I slept, I had similar dreams, going from planet to planet, teaching people how to use the script…
For three years, he kept dreaming about the alphabet, seeing visions consecutively, yet he did nothing about it.
This time around, in 2016, I went to the sun again, I met a man, Lámúrúdu, who taught me the sound of the alphabet, he afterward sanctioned me to go all over the globe teaching people the mastery of the symbols. I usually look old in my dreams — and tired — when I wake up from sleep.
Things started to become scary for Chief Ògúntósìn — he began to feel weak, he told Global Voices. He decided to narrate his dreams to a close spiritual adviser, Oníkòyí, king of Àjàṣẹ́ in Port-Novo, who counseled him to do what he was instructed in his dreams.
For this reason, he now travels from place to place in Yorùbáland to pass on his knowledge of the Odùduwà alphabet.
The following is a short video of teachers instructing students how to write the Odùduwà alphabet in a Benin classroom:
Promoting theYorùbá alphabet In 2017, Chief Ògúntósìn, in the company of prominent traditional rulers in Yorùbáland and the diaspora, paid a visit to Rauf Arẹ́gbẹ́ṣọlá, the one-time governor of Nigeria’s Ọ̀ṣun State, in Òṣogbo, the state capital, to solicit support for his newly found Odùduwà alphabet. Arẹ́gbẹ́ṣọlá now serves as the Minister of the Federal Ministry of Interior of Nigeria.
A reminder letter was sent to the governor of Osun state after promises made to teach the new alphabet have gone unfulfilled.
Three years later, regrettably, verbal promises made by former governor Arẹ́gbẹ́ṣọlá to teach the discovered alphabet in elementary schools across southwest Nigeria have gone unfulfilled.
In a bid to make the Odùduwà alphabet popular, Chief Ògúntósìn has written a book and produced a documentary on the orthography — with snippets uploaded on the internet for public viewing — as well as an abandoned cartoon project which did not see the light of day due to lack of funds.
Chief Ògúntósìn also uses YouTube, WhatsApp and Facebook Groups: “Ẹ̀kọ́ Aèébàèjìogbè Odùduwà” and “Odùduwà Alphabets” to promote and teach interested language learners.
He calls on all stakeholders to support the promotion of his linguistic discovery that will checkmate Western writing culture and give the Yorùbá people their deserved identity in terms of language development.
A kind-hearted Yorùbá man, Sunday Adéníyì, supported the cause by printing 1,000 copies of the “Aèébàèjìogbè Odùduwà Alphabets” exercise book for primary school pupils.
Read more: Lost in translation: Why Google Translate often gets Yorùbá — and other languages — wrong Copies of the educational pamphlets were printed in Igbo, Hausa, English, and French languages respectively. However, more support is crucial to disseminate the alphabet to a wider audience.
The Odùduwà alphabet is a welcome development. Nevertheless, the shift from writing in Latin to the new system will be a major challenge.
That said, the Odùduwà alphabet is a great step in the right direction toward the development and growth of the Yorùbá language — in what Yorùbá people will call their own.
Awesome stuff! I'm just knowing of this Yoruba alphabetical style.
The Ashanti language was also written in Arabic just like Yoruba and Hausa before the Latin alphabet was introduced by Ajayi Crowther (Hubert Macaulay's maternal grandfather) in 1843.
Yoruba is a tonal language hence the diacritical marks (or ami ohun). Hausa alphabets and numbers in Latin scripts are simpler to learn because they are written just like the English alphabet without diacritical marks.
Aconomist: Dangote chose the perfect location for his refinery because Lagos is the only functional state government in Nigeria. He had originally planned to locate in it [Oyo], but the fools over there frustrated him. By choosing the Lekki free trade zone, he doesn't have to worry about the land use problems that face other parts of the country.
In terms of safety and pollution, refineries are only dangerous to people living within a 30 mile radius, and Dangote's site is roughly 40 miles away from mainland Lagos. Obviously, the people who live in Lekki will face much more risk. But it can't be much more dangerous than their dirty gasoline fumes you inhale every day. Dangote's refinery will also be made to a Euro V standard which will minimize some of the health risks.
Obviously, even with this, a project like this would never be allowed in a modern country. But welcome to Nigeria.
You made very valid points here!
Even in some Caribbean island countries that have refineries, some oil spills take place into the ocean while transfering crude oil from oil tankers to the petrochemical refineries and this has consequences for the beaches and tourism sector in these island countries. I have a 1973 hard copy of Black Enterprise magazine that focussed on the effects of these oil spills on the Caribbean islands with refinery installations.
NOTE: Dangote Refinery was originally planned for Ondo State being that the onshore and offshore Ilaje region produces oil and gas, NOT Oyo State as you stated.
Bureaucracy on the part of the previous FG and Ondo governments made him move the refinery project to Ibeju-Lekki, which Oando was originally planning to build as part of their own refinery division.
motherlode: I am also glad there is a focus shift away from the aspect of crude waste. However, this area shouldn't be totally ignored.
About that heat of a thing?
The truth is that there is no certainty that this won't happen again in Lagos with respect to the refinery being built. I schooled in Badagry (A boarding secondary school in between Iworo and Ajido community) and i can categorically tell you that we felt tortured by the heat waves emitted due to excessive gas flaring from West African Gas Pipeline Company Ltd (WAGPCo) jointly owned by Chevron West African Gas Pipeline Ltd, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Shell Overseas Holdings Limited, Takoradi Power Company Limited, Societe Togolaise de Gaz and Societe BenGaz S.A.. You can imagine in a boarding school where we couldn't sleep in our hostels due to abnormal heat and low air quality, we had to make do with the front of our classrooms and the open fields. Just so pathetic!
The communities are still being affected today and nothing is being done as we speak. So many agitations yet no result! The fact that institutions in this country don't check the gross inadequacies of these companies is a big blow on how much justice the communities around can get.
The Nigerian legislation with respect to gas flaring as stipulated in 1969 mandates every company to cease such acts within 5 years of establishment. There was zero achievement with this legislation and another was set up in 1979 called the Associated Gas Re-Injection Act Number 99 of 1979, where the Nigerian government required oil corporations operating in Nigeria to guarantee zero flares by January 1, 1984. I don't need to tell you this is 2021 already!
Besides, do you also know that the Nigerian government makes money from gas flaring. The Act as established in 1979 allowed some conditions for specific exemptions or the payment of a fee which as subsequently shot up to $3.50 for every 1000 standard cubic feet of gas flared as at January, 2008. These fines are quite very easy to pay by these companies given the fact that majority of these fines would still go unremitted!
Last time i checked, Nigeria is the 6th largest gas flaring country in the world and the 2nd largest in Africa. In 2016, a 2020 target was set to achieve zero gas flaring by the then minister of state for petroleum (Ibe Kachukwu)... This is 2021, gas is still being flared heavily and rumour says there is another push for 2030!
This thread is primarily for young ladies in their late teens to early twenties who are in serious relationships.
Disclaimer: 1. This thread is suited for ladies who want to date/sleep with as little men as possible before marriage. If you are in a relationship for a 'good' or 'fun' time, you don't need this thread as you will naturally gravitate towards men/boys who can provide the 'excitement.'
2. This thread is not claiming that serious minded guys/men are not 'exciting.' They can and do provide excitement in their own way.
3. I am a firm believer of young girls finding a young husband material as quickly as possible. I call it investing your youth in a husband material. I am not a fan of huge age gaps; I rather the young catch the young. . Bar exceptions, I not think building a career and a relationship/marriage cannot go hand in hand.
To the thread proper:
I see a number of young ladies call a serious young man 'boring' because he is not into the fast life. He is more grounded, focused on things that betters the future of you too such as education, mental capacity, emotional development etc. He is that guy that would invite you for a career fair or marriage seminar. He doesn't care about the 'get together' happening in the house of the Yahoo guy that just hammered nor is he interested in clubbing everyday.
He is not seeking for a girl he just wants to sleep with; he has seen you as a wife material he wants to groom to be the best version of yourself. He is the guy that would rather help you with your coursework.
He is seen as boring because he is principled and expects same from you. He is not going to give you drama and would not expect drama from you either. Cheating, collecting contacts from guys, double-dating, hanging out with questionable friends, claiming bestie with guys etc. He expects loyalty and faithfulness. He is not a 'I am just passing or marking my own' guy so he needs you really invested in the relationship. This characteristic of principle is sometimes mistaken for 'strictness' or 'rigidity.'
He would most likely not be the fun seeking type. This doesn't mean you both cannot create the type of entertainment suited to you. He might suggest going for a book fair or GT Bank Food Fair over visiting the new club opening. If you want to dance, get music and dance together. His priorities would also be different; he would pick an future enhancing activity over fluff if he has to choose.
And nope, he is not going to accept the version of yourself you bring to the table just like that. He will encourage and require you to finetune it. He might point out some stuffs about you he doesn't like; your dressing, makeup, hair do, carriage, attitude to classes, interests,friends etc. He is not the anything goes guy because he is invested in your future and naturally wants to protect his interests.
He would be protective of you so don't be surprised if he doesn't want you mixing with a particular crowd or wearing certain clothes or conducting yourself in a certain way. He is not trying to stifle you or keep you from enjoying life; he just wants his woman to be the best version of herself for him.
Hmmmmmmm, sex; he might have enough self-control to abstain, he might not. If it happens, the sex is going to be with care. Even if he wants to be a ruff rider, it would still be with the consciousness that this is my baby till the end. The way you use aso ebi for one time is different from the way you use lace kept at the bottom of the box.
Jara: Any man who is fine with everything you do or doesn't have a contrary opinion is either with you for the short term therefore not willing to invest in you OR pretending and waiting till after marriage to show his true colours.
Hence the popular 'men change in marriage'.
I hope this would be very useful to a baby girl about to 'end' that relationship because the bobo is boring or 'not a happening guy.'
Hi Bukatyne, you indicated in the post that you are not a fan of huge age gaps. What "huge age gaps" are you talking about here?
What happened to attraction and real love without society putting labels on age gaps between a man of 47 and a younger woman of 27/28?
I’m currently in Hawaii (Island of Oahu) as we speak and I wanted share some of my pics. By way of background, I flew United Airlines and I’m lodging at the Ritz Carlton Waikiki Residences. I also decided to rent a car so we can explore the island throughout my stay. More photos to come as I will be here for the week.
Enjoy and Mahalo!
Aloha!
Way to go! You need some inner serenity in this kind of location.
Hey Mstravelindiva, I like the way you rock the neck chain with the Queen Nefertiti pendant.
KingMack: Aunty I've sold gold before so there's nothing one will tell me that I don't know your prices are false if they're real Gold...like I said my people mk una Japa!! A word is enough for the wise
@KingMack You did very well to have called for due diligence here on NL!
No personal contact, office location and pictures lifted from FB, etc. That's a red flag for me. Japa if a business deal is too good to be true! Period.
A Black- and veteran-owned jet charter and private aviation company with a fleet of Honda jets in Greensboro is thriving during the COVID-19 pandemic and gaining national attention.
CEO and founder of “Jet It” Glenn Gonzales said the demand for private jets amid the pandemic has increased due to the fact that people want to stay safe while traveling.
“It has been challenging for a number of companies, and we’ve been very blessed to have an opportunity to grow during this time frame. We’ve doubled our workforce. We’ve had the opportunity to bring on some incredibly talented people and bring them to the Triad. We’re fortunate because people still need to travel. It’s one of those essential services and, as a result of that, we’ve been able to continually grow during this time," Gonzales says.
With a rate of $1,600 per hour, it allows customers to use the aircraft for the day, which gives them the opportunity to minimize the need for hotels or overnight lodging.
"Jet It” was just recently featured on CNBC and Fox Business. The company is also expanding to Canada as well as growing with “Jet Club,” an interlational sister company in Southeast Asia and Europe.
Jet It CEO on why private jet flights are soaring amid the pandemic
Skyfornia: I would have said it is wrong to put up a low profile while searching for a good wife..but in Nigeria case, I think it is the right thing to do considering that a lot of nigerian girls are after material things. A girl that accepts you when you have nothing(material and financial things) to offer most likely have genuine affection for you.
But we will also need to consider other things like age, is she getting old and desperate for marriage and child? Cause if she is desperate, she might accept any man whether poor or rich.
Anyways, marriage doesn't have any manual...choose what works for you.
Ishilove: Daddy wa! I could have sworn you're a 60s guy
@Ishilove... Oi Howdy?!
The very annoying spam bot trapped my post in the travel section the night you posted your comment so I could not reply your mention that night.
@topic *grinning intensely*
Yup! Lol... You know how to sniff out info Ishilove. Bae, I'm a mad cool Generation-X (60s to 70s). Go figure.
On the other hand, Obi Cubana seems to be a decent guy though. It's some of his younger associates that went overboard (at the event of his late mum that was supposed to be solemn) throwing and stepping hard on money which violates the Central Bank regulations. The attitude of excessively showing off is indicative of deep low self-esteem.
LegendHero: Ogun trying and more work need to be done to up their game more.
I always feel sad anytime Oyo is missing from all these metrics. Oyo got lot of potential and there is no reason why the state should be missing in stuffs like this.
On another note: Below are the companies that invested in each state.
Once the dry container port in Ibadan that will reduce container traffic in the Lagos axis gets completed, more investments will come into Oyo State.
According to an NPA info from the ex-boss Hadiza Bala-Usman, over 70% of all the container imports are meant for the manufacturing/industrial clusters in the West of Nigeria, i.e, mainly Lagos, Ogun, Oyo. The 2019 article was in The Punch.
The remaining 25% containers imported are meant for other regions in Nigeria.
This cargo import statistics also clearly shows that the falsehood being peddled by some uninformed and gullible people that most of the containerised imported goods are owned by Ibo traders. This is pure falsehood.
Lebanese-Nigerians, Indians, Yorubas, and others are importing containerised cargo for industrial use and for trading big time.
mariobobby: One of the unknowns about David Alaba ahead of his arrival at Real Madrid concerned which shirt number he would wear, but it was revealed on Wednesday that the Austrian will wear Sergio Ramos' No.4.
It was the surprise of his presentation ceremony, given that former Real Madrid captain Ramos wore the number for the last decade and a half.
Yoruba-Nigerian father and Phillipino mother. Born and raised in German-speaking Austria.
maureensylvia: On buying and storing, this is the process where agricultural commodities are being bought at a low price either from the wholesalers or directly from the farmers then this product is being stored and sold when the sample this is no longer in season or in the market and that time the price increases sporadically. During the harvest, It is very obvious because all farm produce is available and is in excess but later on it becomes scarce.
So many times I've been asked what are the things to expect in this business, majority are only focused on the profit factor, though it's important but that shouldn't be the only consideration.
1 Research All you have to do is follow a step by step process in starting the business and ensure its smooth functioning. The first step is to do research (market survey), You must find out where can you buy the agricultural products at a wholesale rate.. it might interest you to know that I'm an Agro merchant who deals and supplys goods Worldwide.
2. Technical Know-How: This is perhaps the most important thing to know when starting a business. A lack of the right technical know-how could lead to a major loss of your investments.
3. Identifying The Products And Target Groups The second step is to decide which agricultural products you want to sell and whom to sell to.
Stocking products according to your target or focus groups increase the likelihood of maximum sales.
4. Identifying Potential Risks: You need to consider the possibility of environmental hazards and threats like insects, weevils. The potential risks involved in any agribusiness must be carefully analyzed, and crucial steps must be taken to mitigate against them.
5. Available Market: While certain farm products may excite you to venture into their growth, there may be little to no market demand for it in your community. for example, you can't go and buy garri to sell in your location, whereas your location is in need of Sorghum and Millet.
Before you venture into agro business, it is important you explore the available market, determine its size, examine its potential for scale.
Tessyama1: Paddy Adenuga, Son of billionaire business man, Dr Mike Adenuga, Globacom boss, has dropped an advice for his fellow men on Twitter on what to do before they wire money to their babes.
"to my ninjas in the game.. before you wire cash to that babe or the babes on your list that have been taxing you for dinero..
ask yourself, have i taken care of my mother lately and is she happy.. if the answers are yes, fire on! if not my guy.. na to reprioritize!
eastOFwest: Why do people always get this issue twisted?
In the UK when they refer to you as a billionaire, they expect you to be at least worth £1B. Somebody resident in the UK worth £800M is already a billionaire in dollars but nobody refers to them as a billionaire in UK. You have to be at least £1B to be referred to as billionaire in the UK especially if you make all your money there. Someone resident in USA worth $1B is an "American" billionaire and will be referred to as "American billionaire" by the British press.
Countries refer to people resident in their countries as billionaires based on their local currency, not based on a foreign country's currency. Therefore if you are resident in Nigeria and worth over N1B, then you WILL be referred to as a billionaire. Same way someone who is worth N100M is a millionaire in naira. Do we wait till someone resident in Nigeria is worth at least $1M or £1M or €1M before we refer to them as a millionaire? That's just how it is. Our currency is naira not dollar or pounds or euros.
The problem here seems to be in the way people refer to $ billionaires in Nigeria. In reality somebody worth around $7B resident in Nigeria should actually be referred to as a trillionaire.
Wasky101: Popular music producer Dr frabz has been shot dead in Baltimore Maryland. Details still sketchy
He worked with alot of Nigerian celebrities before relocating to the United states for greener pastures. He produced the popular why me for dbanj and don jazzy among others
Through a capital grant agreement between West Germany and Nigeria, Julius Berger undertook the construction of the Eko Bridge in Lagos in 1965:
Notice the badly-beaten construction truck used by Julius Berger in 1965 compared to their new trucks of today tells you that every business started from somewhere......
Then Africa’s longest concrete bridge and the first of its kind, the pioneering design, high quality and timely completion set standards against which Julius Berger is still measured today.
NorthernAgender: Old receipt reveals Dangote's grandfather as one of the first Nigerians to deposit money in a bank
- Dangote's grandfather was one of the very first Nigerians to use a bank, according to an emerging old receipt
- Alhaji Alhassan Dantata opened an account and made a deposit in Kano state
- His deposits were said to have been carried by camels
The grandfather of Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, was one of the first persons in the country to transact with a bank when they were established.
According to an old receipt shared on Twitter by Nigeria Stories, the businessman had made a deposit when the Bank of British (now First Bank) opened a branch in Kano state in 1929.
Alhaji Alhassan Dantata showcased great wealth even in the manner of his deposit at that time.
Folorunso Alakija's drop was long expected. The business savvy Ijebu woman from the very wealthy Ogbara family of Ikorodu Oga, Lagos State, has hit the billionaire peak with the drop in oil price, Covid and devaluation.
She seems not to be so crazy about making billions of USD money with her devotion to her religion over the years.
She's been spending what millions in USD she has on charitable causes and religion.
Perhaps any of her children will be the ones to take the Alakija name back into the list of USD billionaires!
Nigerian businesswoman and one of Africa's richest women, Folorunso Alakija has shared a throwback photo from 1951.
She shared the photo with her sister in anticipation of her 67th birthday. She wrote;
"#FlashbackFriday A #throwback photo of my sister (Doy) and I (Flo) back in 1951 as a 7-year-old always-smiling little girl� Pictures are not only worth a thousand words, but also the precious memories embedded into them. Birthday in 2 days. We certainly have come a long way All the glory belongs to God #JulyBorn #67th #FolorunsoAlakija"
haryodehjia: All the app u need are user friendly from mt4 n mt5. What u need to knw is tradingview for analysis and search for a good broker. I can recommend u use either icmarkets, hantec, or deriv. I have used them for demo n they all have tight spread. But for hantec the spread widens once it 9pm to 11pm. But they are all good brokers
Travel › Re: Diasporans How Much Do You Spend In Nigeria During Visits? by Konquest: 5:46pm On Oct 09, 2021
. Bar exceptions, I not think building a career and a relationship/marriage cannot go hand in hand. 
