₦airaland Forum

9jacrip:
Present day Ife is one of the few towns on their original sites since inception. There's nothing symbolic here.

Nobody has to surrender to Ife.
It is generally agreed Ife is the mother-ship of most other thrones and they derive their historical authenticity and relevance from Ife. This in itself puts things in order, Ife at the top with other thrones trickling in order of hierarchy below.

I do not see any decline here, it still holds its position and relevance as far as Yoruba histort and spirituality goes.

Towns that thrived on military might can be said to have declined - Oyo, Ibadan and of course Ilesa .

Don't be a hater fam.

In the past, a larger percentage of the Yoruba were from the Igbomokun that became Ife, as at 1000 AD, that would have been the case but today, the Oyo have the largest share while the original Ife controls like two LGs. During the Segi period, Ife was the Lagos, it was the only city producing bronze works, it was the center of civilization. Nowadays, Ife has declined. Go back to 1000 BC, Ife may have been in Ijumu in Kogi state, a fledgling metropolis, Ondo, Kwara, even Eastern Nigeria at various times.

This present Ife is a new Ife, not up to 2000 years old. That is not the original Ife site but a center to continue the tradition. The Ooni is the spiritual head of all, that is enough. The other nation states were sovereign states in their own right and all surpassed Ife at some point. Ife Ooni is also a nation state but the Oyo, Benin, Ijesa and etc have their own separate identities and governments which they hold separate from Ife.

Radoillo:
Where to begin.

First of all, the idea that a centrally-organised state system must be in existence before artisans and craftsmen can be mobilised to create bronze works and other artefacts, such as the ones unearthed at Igbo-Ukwu is an outdated one. Similar feats have been achieved by people whose political systems were not very centralised or even downright non-centralised.

Second, you do not seem to know much about Nri and how it was organised. You clearly are unaware that in Nri there were equivalents of a taxation system, which placed at the disposal of the King, the resources with which to mobilise craftsmen and musicians and courtiers of all kind. For example, there was a tribute system, by which all the neighbouring towns who acknowledged the spiritual superiority of Nri sent annual tributes to the Eze Nri. The tributes consisted of game, livestock, farm produce and money; to give you an idea of how far this tribute-paying network extended, it included the Nsukka communities on the northern border of Igboland. Also, the ritual agents of the Eze Nri who journeyed all over the northern and western Igbo areas performing an assortment of religious and political duties (and getting paid for them) were required to pay a percentage of whatever they earned to the Eze Nri on their yearly return. That sounds very much like what we would call taxation in the 21st century.

With all these revenue flowing into the court, the Eze Nri could, and did, organise and support a 'palace staff' consisting of:

1. Pages (the so-called 'Adama boys')
2. Court Officials (the so-called 'Adama/Umudiana chiefs') and Court Dwarfs
3. A Palace Priest/Chaplain (who performed all religious offices at the palace, especially those involving blood sacrifice - as it was forbidden for the Eze Nri himself to shed blood.)
4. Palace Musicians, the most important of who was the Ufie drummer
5. And, yes, the iron and bronze-workers.

The anthropologist, M A Onwuejeogwu specifically mentioned in his works that the Eze Nri maintained a staff of smiths and wood carvers who manufactured the iron, bronze and wooden objects associated with the Eze Nri's office. So, you could not have been more wrong when you said: "They don't collect taxes to build an organisation that can produce artists that could have made those bronze works."


Even if we make the claim that these bronze works were not produced by Agukwu-Nri and Oraeri indigenes themselves, but by a non-Nri caste of smiths in the 'employ' of the Nri, I still do not understand why one would propose that the smiths came all the way from Yorubaland, when Igboland itself was littered with towns renowned even beyond the frontiers of the Igbo-speaking territories for their metallurgical skill :towns such as Awka (just a few short miles away from Nri), Nkwerre, and Abiriba, not to mention the unsung metalworkers of Agbaja in Enugu. These people have practiced this art for several centuries, and archaeological records have demonstrated that metal has been worked in Igboland since c.800 BC.

It would be unnecessary for me to go into details about how these Igbo smiths extended their tentacles into Edoid areas in the west, Ijaw and Ogoni areas in the south and Ibibio-Annang-Efik plus other Cross River groups and related folk in the east. It would equally be unnecessary to go into details about the early European visitors who remarked on the sophistication and high quality of the works produced by these Igbo smiths, especially the Awka and the Abiriba. The point of this paragraph is that Igboland had its own crop of professional metalworkers who produced work of sophistication, and it is more than a little absurd (not to mention insulting) to suggest that they couldn't have been responsible for the bronze sculptures discovered at Igbo-Ukwu. It is like Great Zimbabwe all over again, with the Europeans thinking the Africans were not organised enough to have built it, but instead assigning it to Phoenicians and Arabs and Whoever-but-the-Africans.

Even the traditions of the Nri people affirm that there was a special and close relationship between the Nri people and the smiths of Awka. Nri traditions say that all metal objects of ritual significance associated with the Nri and their activities were manufactured by the Awka smiths. Were you aware of these traditions? Given this piece of information, who would you say was more likely to have produced the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes - Yoruba (or 'proto-Yoruba', as you say) smiths from Ife or Igbo smiths from Awka?

Perhaps you should also know that art historians have studied the Igbo-Ukwu bronzes and the Ife 'bronzes'; and their analysis of the style, the material, the techniques used by the makers, the motifs, the age, etc have demonstrated clearly that both schools of art (the Ife school and the Igbo-Ukwu school) are very distinct in almost everything. Implication: Their makers were not only different culture-groups, they were also probably unaware of each other. I suggest you look up some papers written by people who have done these analyses. Paul T. Craddock would a good place to start.

I have read a lot of published materials about those Igbo Ukwu bronze. The materials also came from Eastern mines as well but the fact remains that the Nri was a loose confederation of independent villages of maybe around 3 thousand population each, when the population rises, they divide and some form a new village, they were urban shy people. The villagers farmed and did other things but no chance of developing a caste of highly skilled bronze artists that could have made such works.

The people who made the bronze works were Igbo ancestors who lived in cities but they were not Nri who lived in villages. Igbos will never accept they and the Yoruba share common ancestors despite all the evidence.

PastorAIO:
I doubt you need Esu the way I do, or that the Iya alamala selling her wares needs Esu the way Buhari does.

Animals too, toddlers too. There are many odu about various animals. the reason we whip horses today when we are being carried by them is because of ebo they failed to make, according to odu ifa. In fact I cannot think of any aspect of reality that is not moderated and influenced by Esu according to Ifa.

Also, Olodumare is as much the head of the physical world of humans and animals as he is the head of the world of the irunmale. He is also the head of the world of inanimate things. He is the head of everything, the big boss.

When we are faced with temptations or when our rationality is being tested is when we are in Esu's realm. Anybody that has decided to stay rational, no matter what, has Eshu as his or her ally.

9jacrip:
Yep, you got the right word.

'Powerful'

As far as human relations go, the Onipopo by age would be the Ooni's father o.

This Ife we have today is symbolic and that is enough. I doubt if the other Obas will surrender under an Ooni. Also we can not go back to the old system and if we go back to the old system, you can be sure a whole new Ife will be built which will carry on the tradition under a new consensus. Afterall from the beginning of humanity there must have been hundreds of Ifes who earned the status by the dint of their contribution. This one too earned it in the past but it has declined.

PastorAIO:
It doesn't have to be the same scale. It just has to happen, which you now concede with so now I can move on to one of the main points why I brought this up. It would follow then that Animals too are aware of morality and make moral decisions (the scale of it doesn't matter. it happens).

Question: Does that mean that animals too are made in the image of Olodumare?



The image of Olodumare thing smacks of abrahamic religion if I were to be honest and it is what at first piqued my attention.

Nothing is absolute but the point is that animals and human toddlers do not need Esu the way we adult humans do. Their actions are more basic.
In the world of irunmales which Olodumare heads, there will be equivalents of animals which are also irunmale. That is my view.

I have already said maybe Eshu interferes with animals' decisions but never on thesame scale as humans. I am not know it all like christians and muslims. If you say the power of contemplation or that of making complex decisions is thesame in animals as in humans, I won't be arguing that back and forth with you.

FOLYKAZE:
Musiwa and Gatiano everywhere I face.

I know tpia is 9jacrip girlfriend but never knew pastoraio got interest in fellow man. . . That man is lawani.

Lawani speaks some truth but he is always confusing. I dont usually know which direction he is coming from.

Pls call me out anywhere you think I am wrong. We are all learning.

AKYEMITE:
bro you are just begging the questions. some of the questions that was asked as not been answered. I don't need to repeat those question for you as you deliberately avoid them. I will take it to be your lack of deeper knowledge on the subject matter. your explanation of transition of oluwo to ooni is ridiculous, incorrect and misplaced of words. that transition as you explained was a creation of armchairs historian. ooni simply the owner of smth. eni ti o ni unkan. stop creating confusion.

No oral tradition is superior to another. All must be listened to. I am Ijesha but many non Ijesas are conversant with the Ijesa account. There are other oral history in Ijesa that relates events of over 1000 years ago and such are used as evidence in court.

The Oluwo belonged to Oduduwa and was effectively his wife according to the Ijesa account. So Omo Oluwo ni also had a hereditary right to the throne. As an example, Aare Ona Kakanfo Afonja contested for the throne of Oyo but lost despite that his mother was a bond woman as well. He later became the Aare.

The Ijesa account may well be true but whatever, it remains the Ijesa account, different from the Oyo account. The Oyo say they appointed someone, a non family member to hold fort in Ife but the Ijesa account is fuller and more believable because it says the bond woman who gave birth to the first Ooni belonged to Oduduwa but was impregnated by the Owa Obokun.

PastorAIO:
This your style of just landing assertions gbolaa!!!! just like that is a real wa. So an entirely different species can also be human according to scientists. Which scientist exactly? Can you quote anyone?


It's not so obvious to me that eshu rules contemplation. I would first think of Obatala before any other orisha if someone asked me about contemplation and yoruba orisa.

The word may not be human but person. Any being with those attributes is a person. You may research non human persons. Regardless of whether we are thesame specie, a being that can make complex decisions is a person even if not Homo Sapiens.

Obatala is not the orisa of contemplation represented by junctions. That is Esu. Obatala represents government at its best. Obatala is a benevolent ruler.
Oba patapata lode Iranje
Anire niwa aniwa nire
A fun nini gba fun aini
O so enikan di igba eni
Iba o

That is government or a perfect ruler.
You might also say wisdom. Obatala encompasses everything. Obatala is also like a vegetarian and etc.
Esu is the one at the junction of contemplations. At the point you are choosing to do either good or evil is where Esu waits.

Any being that can use language and is capable of taking complex decisions would be regarded as human by scientists even if it is a different specie entirely from us, so a chimpanzee like that would be regarded as human.

Eshu obviously rules contemplations in Yoruba theology.

9jacrip:
Firstly, I would like to ask what part of Yoruba land you're from.

Secondly, Owa after bringing the brine only cut fringes of the Ade Are and also stole his brother's crown and it is his brother (anoher monarch) who does not wear crown till today but the Ijesa brings his crown out during the festival which is carried by someone walking beside the king who wears his own crown on his head. I will get more details and post later - I just woke up.

Thirdly, there's no way a woman would be or become an Oluwo, only males are Oluwo. And there's no way Ife dialect would shorten Oluwo ni to Owoni, not possible. So discard this tale. Ooni as a word is a word that is being used in Ife as a possesive term (Ooni o ni Nairaland ni Seun). Hence, Ooni o ni ile. From us the autochthonus, it is Ooni o nile (one who doesn't have land) because each King controlled and still controls his section of land and people. While to the Royal houses it will be Ooni o ni ile (one who owns the land). So was it Ogun (Obatala's son - not th god of iron) who reigned after Oduduwa the 'Oluwo' son?

That is not Ijesa account, that is a poorly researched history circulated by the Oyo who seek to distort Ife history and throne. Thank you.

Finally, saying Ooni has no political power clearly shows the level of your knowledge of Yoruba history. Who was called to decide on a case between Elepe and whomever in Lagos? How did all Yoruba kings and Bini react to it? Who issues the sword of office to other kings; Alaafin/Oba Bini inclusive?

You must think Ifeland starts from the tollgate before OAU to Oke-Ogbo/Ifewara road. Let me tell you that there's Ile-Ife and there's Ife. Ile-Ife begins from Mayfair to Iremo, to More, to Oja Ife road, to Oke Ogbo, to Arubidi/Ondo road to Eredunmi/Iraye axis.

Ife land begins from Ikire, yes present Ikire to Ifewara/Ifetedo. Are the Ife's still much in population? Maybe not the people of Ile-Ife but people of Ife land entirely. It is similar to what Ilesa is to the entire Ijesaland.

And Owu still exists, Owu Ipole after Ikire, Apomu and Ikoyi, deep into the forest. I've been there to conduct an interview.

Good morning.

Oluwo (re do do), the last o is like the o in odd, meaning bond woman and not Oluwo (re mi re) meaning chief priest. They are not thesame word. Omo Oluwo ni came to become Owoni or Ooni. The Yoruba do shorten words in that manner. There are many examples. Olodumare is said to mean something like Olodu ti o ni osumare and etc etc.

The Ogun who ruled after Oduduwa was an incarnate and not the Ogun Osinmole who landed on Earth at the dawn of existence. Thousands of years Before Oduduwa, Ogun incarnates had built great empires Ogun Onire, Ogun Ajero, Ogun Alara and etc. The post Oduduwa Ogun was acknowledged as an incarnate, Ewuare of Benin was also an incarnate, a King of Badagry, an Akire and etc.

Ife land is large but I was referring to the aboriginal Ifes when I said Ifes are not much in population. Those are the real Ifes, most others are Oyo but all are nominally Ife and all of us are Ife people by descent but not by sub national identity. The Ooni was not an emperor or political head of the Yoruba by any means. No one took orders from the Ooni. It may have been so in the first century AD before Ife declined and before other successor states rose though but it was not so since the exit of Oduduwa or since one or two monarchs after him. Oyo, Ijesha, Benin, Igbomina, Owo and etc are successor states to Ife like Ibadan is successor to Oyo. If the British had not arrived, the decline of Ife would have been complete and the tradition of recognizing the leading state as the present Ife may have been abandoned altogether. Any of Oyo and Benin could also have been renamed the new Ife. Benin already took the art.

The political hq of the Yoruba was at Ife in the past during the segi days but it was not effectively there when the British arrived, however it was nominally there as people still remember tradition. The Oyo would not have referred to Ife to clarify any politics but to the Alaafin, neither would the Ijesa, Igbomina and etc who all had monarchs with more clout and followers than the Ooni.

The original Owu that was a contemporary of old Oyo was destroyed and scattered. They are in 32 communities scattered all over Yoruba land. Without such interference, Owu would have a city as big as Ibadan.

PastorAIO:
Menh, I never said chimpanzees were humans. I don't know where you got that from. Please watch the video again.

There was nothing territorial about the video. please watch it again.

They attacked a member of their own group, and killed him. It was premeditated. It was deliberate.

Human beings are territorial too. That's why we have countries. That doesn't mean that humans must be devoid of reasoning, 'well thought out deliberate' actions when carving out their territories.

Humans are territorial. Chimpanzees are territorial.
Human fulfil their territorial instincts in a premeditated manner. Chimpanzees fulfil their territorial instincts in a premeditated manner.

You seem to be afraid of Chimpanzees having PhDs and nobel laureates. I wonder why. Anyway luckily that has nothing to do with our discussion.

the behaviour of human infants is not complex probably because they are too weak physically to exhibit complex behaviour, but that doesn't mean that their thought processes aren't complex and sophisticated.

Let me re clarify my position my position then since you agree chimpanzees are not humans. I will say humans are humans because they engage in complex decision making and it is Eshu that facilitates this. It is the orisa sitting at the crossroads or junction of complex decisions. Is that better?

I am not afraid of Chimpanzees becoming PhDs and Nobel laureattes, I would be happy if they could measure up, it would make them human. I was merely stating what hampers them from achieving such feats

AKYEMITE:
bro you are getting it wrong ooni means the ownwer of ife land that is what oduduwa ascribed to himself when he get to ife. Any king who has ruled in ife is being refered to as Ooni. It is not rescent at all.

That is the rendition of the ruling houses in Ife and their underlings. They say Ooni means Oonile which means owner of the land but other Yoruba say No, it means otherwise, it means Omo Oluwo ni. I think that is also the account in Rev Samuel Johnson's book. Oduduwa never used that title. Oduduwa is not a property of Ife to the exclusion of others.

Oduduwa did not use the title of Ooni but he was Oba at Ife. The use of the Ooni title is recent just like many modern Yoruba traditional titles like the Alaafin and etc.

Why no mention of O tu Ife that is so prominent in the Ifa corpus and that this Ile Ife is merely the last in a series of Ifes and that the name was Igbomokun?

There are also many known ancient Ife sites scattered across Western, North central and possibly Eastern Nigeria and those are the most recent Ife Ooyes.

Radoillo:
Yes, the Igbo are too retárded to have produced the Igbo-Ukwu bronze works. It must have been the Yoruba.

The son of the retárded iron- and bronzesmiths of Awka greets you, Lawani.

The Nri was a religious organisation from the onset. They don't collect taxes to build an organisation that can produce artists that could have made those bronze works. Those bronze works were made by people who did such as an occupation and who worked for the royalty, not by the Nri. The Nri's organisation was subtle, their duty was to appeal to people and persuade them to do things and it worked for a long time but Nri never ruled cities, their villages were only a few thousands in population and they were thus limited. Not re tarded and not that they could not have changed and done such but the Nri is a study opportunity on how an empire can still exist without political organisation headed by an all powerful emperor. Those bronze works of Igbo Ukwu were made in cities containing proffessional artists who were state funded. That will be an ancient Ife not Nri. The kind of precolonial Nri Igbo organisation that existed could not have produced such works, hence my position.

Ancient Ife people were not Yoruba, they were proto Yoruba. Their language would be different from what we speak today. The belief by Yoruba is that the most ancient Ife gave birth to all humans. A more recent Ife gave birth to Yorubas and Igbos while Igbos forgot about that Ife and Yoruba remembered, a more ancient one gave birth to Hausas, further back Fulanis and so on and so forth up to the Chinese, Europeans, Red Indians and the Australoids. That is the Yoruba belief.

Ifes are recognised by excellence, and there have been relocations from one Ife to found another. By the old system, Lagos would be the new Ife for the Yoruba if we were still properly following the traditions. All the historians and custodians of tradition will pass everything to Lagos the new capital and most prosperous state to keep on the tradition.

There is an Ijesa account that puts this to rest. Though others may not accept but it is as valid as any other oral account.

Owa Obokun Adimula was the one who went to procure brine to cure Oduduwa's old age blindness, he was given up on as dead and the inheritance was shared amongst his elder brothers. I will infer that Oranmiyan settled up North by the River Niger, Olupopo who was older than Oranmiyan probably took the control of the road to the sea or Popo, there might have been trade on the coast in those days, a daugghter was married off to the Awujale, Oranmiyan's toddler son was crowned King in Benin and etc etc. Owa Obokun Adimula was forgotten off altogether, listed as dead. He however arrived back in Ife with the brine which was used to cure Oduduwa's blindness, after which he demanded for his inheritance from Oduduwa and it became a problem. The account says he attacked his father and the are crown fell from his head landing on the floor with the beads cut, he took that are and his father also gave him the sword of victory to recover whatever he can from his brothers. Later his father died and he became Oba at Ife wearing the unbeaded crown symbolically but he was uneasy as people like Oranmiyan and Olupopo were still alive. There were challenges to his authourity, so he decided to abdicate the throne to found another state like his elder brothers. On the day he was leaving Ife after a bloody contest for the stool subsided, he pointed to a pregnant woman, an Oluwo that belonged to his father and said he would abdicate only on the condition that the baby in the Oluwo's womb would be made Oba at Ife. People at Ife agreed for peace to reign. He then left Ife to build a new capital on Ijesha land at Igbadae, the first Ijesha capital.

Why he instructed that the offspring of his father's bond woman be made Oba was because he impregnated the woman. The child was made Oba and addressed accordingly. When people from all over came and asked 'Who is this child?' The Ife elders would respond 'Omo Oluwo ni' which became Owoni. That is the origin of the Owoni or Ooni title. The other brothers didn't contest the decision because it was better to avoid further strife and blood letting.

Today, the Owa Obokun does not wear a beaded crown whenever in a meeting with other Obas to comemmorate when the are fell and the beads cut.

That is the Ijesa account of the origin of the Ooni of Ife title and it is a story passed down by Ijesa institutions funded by Ijesa taxes. I will say it is probably true.

Oyo was the most successful of the Ife successor states, hence the Alaafin was the most powerful Oba up to the late 18th century but at no time were the Ijesa under the Alaafin. Oyo stretched from Kogi to Niger to Kwara then westwards to Benin Republic, Ghana and Togo in the 18th century not to other parts of Southern Yoruba land though there were attempts and there may have been tributes paid in the past but the Ijesa were generally independent of the Oyo. It was the Oyo successor state of Ibadan that stood astride Western Nigeria in the 19th century not 0yo itself. The Alaafin title like the Ooni, Owa Obokun, Orangun and etc are new titles. The older Yoruba titles are ones like Alara, Ajero, Onire and etc, those predates the Meccan Oduduwa by thousands of years. So it is soldier go, soldier come, empire rise, empire falls. Oyo is recent and has declined, so with Benin, so with Owu but the Alaafin represents the Oyo nominally and the Oyo are the largest group nowadays. However, Ife is the origin and this gives the place and its monarch a spiritual headship. The Ooni has no real political power and Ifes are not much in population but has residual respect that surpasses that of the Alaafin. For example Owu was destroyed by an alliance of the Yoruba because they attacked Ife and Owu is no more today

Ugbodumila means the forest or this land saved me and I prospered in Yoruba. The people are people of Yorubid origin in Delta just like the Itsekiri and the Ebu. Personally I believe all Anioma people were originally Olukunmi on all their lands before they were gradually assimilated by Igbos. It must be noted that Olukunmi was the lingua franca of the Benin empire and if your ancestor was a chief or traditional ruler in Asaba, Ussele Ukwu, Agbor, Obiafu, Obrikom, Benin, Onitsha, Ikwerre and other realms of the defunct Benin empire, then your ancestor's language was Olukunmi and you adopted Igbo fairly recently because of trade and the influx of new people. Going much further back, Igbo ancestors and Yoruba ancestors were thesame. The Igbo seem to have a higher incidence of light skin than the Yoruba which is an indication of a recent mixture with new people, going by the proportion of fair skinned Igbos, it appears that the new people could have been up to two fifths of their population when they mixed. Implication is that a proportion of 3 proto Igbo mixed with 2 new people that came from somewhere else to give birth to the new population. For a foreign component to be that high, it shows that what is now Igbo started off as a very small offshoot of proto Yoruba, probably outlaws or rebels who crossed the river to live in the bush, where they mixed with new people of population similar to theirs and then multiplied rapidly at a time when pestilence ravaged Yoruba cities. Hence their big population. It appears obvious that Anambra was occupied by proto Yoruba/Igala and not urban shy Igbos who lived in villages. The Igbo Ukwu bronze works are testimony to this fact. Those works were made by highly organised civilizations of Ife people not Nri Igbos who lived in villages and had no complex political organisation that could have led to such art works.

So the Ugbodu people I believe are a testimony to what all of Anioma was in the past, they have history going back 800 years while Benin emerged as a power in the 15th century, only 500 years ago, so they did not get there via Benin just like Itsekiri was not established by Benin originally. They are settlements that predated the rise of Benin.

When the first Oloja of Ugbodu was ruling, Benin was a minor Kingdom under Ife and the ruler would have been referred to as Olu Ibini.

PastorAIO:
Please what do you think of this video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPznMbNcfO8

Most animals defend territory. They have territorial instinct. It is still a base instinct. Lions and etc behave in such a manner as well. Being unable to speak and articulate themselves is a big hamper but adult animals behave in a bit more complex manner than human toddlers. I don't think this video serves to prove chimpanzees are humans and can take human decisions. Once they can do that, they are on their way to becoming PhDs and eventually Nobel laureattes.

When you get into trouble while trying to outsmart others, while trying to take advantage of others, after discarding expert advise, Eshu will laugh you to scorn.

Clear, carefully planned, premeditated and deliberate wrong is evil to humans. It is the extreme of an adult treating others the way they will not like to be treated. Examples are cannibalism, using humans for rituals, preying on those who trust you, posing as a clergy man when you are infact a human ritualist, lying to those who trust you. Then there are wrongs, which are less extreme forms of treating others the way you will not like to be treated. Examples are stealing, lying and etc.

Animals and children do most things they do based on base instincts. They are not bound by morals or empathy. They don't do contemplating, they go and do whatever they want to do just like that. Eshu is to do with contemplating. A kindergarten kid does not contemplate before taking actions. Adult animals have empathy for their kind inbuilt in them, so most animals are not cannibals because of that.

Whether animals kill for fun or for food, it is always based on instinct and not for any other ulterior motive. Jackals do pick a lion to gang up up on, drive it away from its kill or even kill it, but not before a few of them have been torn apart by the lion, but all based on natural instinct, not on hatred or for rituals. Only adult humans do that.

When you can control your base instinct, that's when you have Eshu as your ally, that is when you become a full human. Animals and children are not under any such constraint.

PastorAIO:
So it is just something that you believe for yourself, it's not that you have any objective evidence to demonstrate it.

That animals and little children don't do evil seem apparent but if you have any evidence to the contrary, clear observable evidence, that would be scientific journal material.

PastorAIO:
I asked 'How' you know. You've only responded with more assertions.

furthermore, you contradict yourself. first you say ' only humans' do this that and the other, and then you say that they 'may occur in animals but to a lesser extent'. So what is it, Do they do, or do they don't?

For me, I believe no Eshu for animals or even children but if you say there is, then it may be to a lesser extent. Eshu is only for people that have reached an age of accountability.

PastorAIO:
I say this is nonsense, and it has no basis.

How do you know that animals are ruled by instinct but men aren't. There have been lots of experiments done where animals have shown the capacity to solve problems.
What do you mean by morality? I understand morality as a system of preferences that guides our behaviour when faced with choices. you seem to have a different understanding of the word. Please how do you understand morality?

Instincts are more basic than emotions. Only humans do evil, only humans cheat. Very complex behaviours are peculiar only to humans. Eshu rules this realm that involves contemplation and complex decision making. Those are junctions. They may occur in animals but it is obviously to a much lesser extent.

orisa37:
God Almighty is Olorun Olodumare. Satan, Devil on earth, also refered to as Esu in Yoruba culture is the Director of Engineering Services and Quality controller for God. The very recognisable samples of his duties we see in the Book of Job, in the Gospels and in the many references to humans in the Bible. In all original human culture, no deity works against God. The Spirit of Goodness of God is the "Orisa" for development, improvement, enlargement, innovation etc and "Ogun" is a surbodinate spirit in that department. Life is a Holy Spirit for actions, interactions and movements. "Osun" is a surbodinate spirit(Orisa) responsible for fertility in the department of Life. The Faith is the Spirit of Religion and belief. "Oya" the "Orisa" of dissent or division is in the department of The Faith. Satan is the Director of Engineering Services and Quality Control for God. Devil(Esu) is a Manager as you said in that department.

Anybody keeping you on the right path, challenging your integrity, challenging your morality, is satan to the Job in you and Judas to the Jesus in you. Worship God(Olodumare) with all your Heart, your Soul, your Mind and all your Strength. This is the universal message of all Religion. That's all you need.

While Satan depicted in the book of Job approximates Esu, it does not fit the general Satan in Abrahamic religions as an opponent of God. The description in the book of Job is different and that one is like Esu.

If you say God must be worshipped, how do you suggest that should be done? That is the beginning of the psychopathy that has infected Christianity and Islam. You worship God only by being nice to your neighbours and treating them well, being grateful for your life. You deify something to use it for selfish ends. That is my view

omowolewa:
There are many other ways through which the telecom can raise there capitals of which bank loan is one.
Why can't the telecom coy explore other means of finance. Venture capital financing, Stock exchange, leasing, infrastructure subleting are one of the mean of financing their projects.

Not capital will come free, but the finance cost may be reduce through a good loan portfolio management.

Company boards use loans because venture capital changes ownership structure. A 100 million dollar company can get a 5 billion dollar loan if the business is lucrative and they can convince the bank board. That was obviously how Globalcom was financed. The banks will become technical owners of the business if the business owners are not able to come out of the debt as fast as envisaged and they won't be able to.

ghostofsparta:
I really do appreciate your analyses for I know not there exist a master-slave relationship between these telcos and banking corporation, however if your pointer is an excuse to justify the terrible services these telecommunication companies provides us in the expired amalgamation borne of a British experiment called Nigeria then I beg to disagree.

I am not using this post to justify incompetence. Not at all. It is to make a case for a new kind of economic system where commercial banking is run as an arm of government and where interests from loans augment tax revenue.

PastorAIO:
Are you sure that animals do not know good from bad? When my dog stole a piece of meat and I caught it in the act, I could swear that that was a guilty look on it's face.

I've also seen monkeys look guilty and even ashamed.

It can hardly be denied that apart from language, the power we have that makes us different from lower animals is that of contemplation which makes us moral beings. That is the aspect of Eshu. It may not be totally absent in animals but it is largely absent while it dominates in humans. Animals are ruled more by instinct while humans contemplate at junctions where Laaroye (Iba o!) Waits.

The original meaning of Christ is fault free, rational son of God operating with common sense, especially as a ruler as in the case of Osiris the first Christ and King in Kemitic Egypt. It started in Kemitic Egypt. A Yoruba rendition of it is Obatala, the benevolent King and Olodumare's right hand man. The Greek got the concept from the Egyptians and introduced it to Christianity by naming early followers of the new Jewish sect 'little Christs' or Christians because of the way they carried themselves and related with others in Antioch, Turkey. Not everyone qualifies as a Christ or Christians to early Greeks or Egyptians, only empathetic and sensible people who are on the narrow path of rationality. Not everybody. People like Buddha, Confucius, initiates of Ayelala among the Yoruba and etc would be considered Christians by the ancient Greeks or Egyptians but modern Christians who plan assassinations of innocent people and preach heresy would not.

The concept has no equivalent in Jewish culture or theology. It is purely a Gentile concept. It also has nothing to do with modern Christianity and if those Antioch people had seen those Jews threatening people with hell fire or forgiving sins by pleading the blood of Jesus, they would have withdrawn that appellation immediately but the appellation has now stuck.

It is thesame story with Islam, the religion named peace despite having a practice of threatening, condemning and attacking those that do not worship God exactly the way they do, chanting the name of their war mongering and rapist last Prophet during ritual prayers.

Islam means peace and Christianity means rational, empathetic and perfect. Those values are far removed from Christianity and Islam. Seeing themselves as such remains a pure self deception. Mohammed and his co traveller Jesus Christ were egotistic individuals who placed themselves on higher pedestals than other humans. They are not worthy of emulation. Emulating them by some is what is hinging our civilization gradually towards destruction. There is a need to join hands to stop the trend.

I am not saying people should be forced to work in this post but that all available work should be shared with mundane or routine work automated as much as possible. Anyone that does not want to work should not benefit from that. Laziness is not the cause of poverty or unemployment, you may say lack of foresight, insight, wisdom and etc but not laziness. Are you against all that? Evil people working for the antichrist and the Dajjal (Christians and Muslims) have dug in against such an arrangement. I am sure they will fail.

There is no reason why anyone should be unemployed, homeless or destituted in any nation while some others are flying private jets, drinking exotic wines, paid twenty million dollar bonuses and etc. People may have all these advantages but not while some others are dying of starvation, living homeless, unemployed and etc, it should be only after all others have had their basic needs taken care off. Animals seem to know this intuitively as animal civilizations do not have some animals living in luxury in the midst of extremely poor fellow animals.

There is no job anyone is doing, be it CEO, medical doctor, researcher and etc that another human being can not do, though it often requires training, so, anywhere there is an administration leading a human civilization, there ought to be full employment. Being employed should not be a priviledge. Whatever jobs are available should be shared to all. In this way, there will prove to be too many jobs. Unemployment should not be seen as a driver of the economy or of the people to work hard. People need to be driven to enhance productivity but there are many ways to do this apart from allowing unemployment to be a norm. In the NYSC program in Nigeria, the youth corpers are still driven by their superiors wherever they are posted to, despite the fact that the Federal Government pay their salaries and many of them have been given community awards for outstanding service. Their salaries are paid on the recommendation of their superior. So people can be driven to work hard and be more productive even with guaranteed employment.

The Earth has enough resources to afford a comfortable life for all, so unemployment and poverty should be thrown into the dust bin of history. Full employment is the future of humanity and there will never be enough people to fill all possible positions, no matter what. Such a policy can change any nation forever and it is better than the current system in most nations.

Such an arrangement can only be possible if a large chunk of the GDP in form of taxes is rerouted to the center for organisation and such taxes will be taken mainly from statutory minimum wages and such a tax is no tax at all, since the minimum wage is fashioned to accomodate it from the onset. It can also be augmented by corporate taxes, tenement rates and etc.

Such a system, for its no one left behind outlook can be described as Modern Communism.

I think Yoruboid languages are a blend of Igboid language and Kemitic Egyptian with touches from Edoid, Akokoid, Nupe and etc but I believe the language is basically Igboid and Kemitic Egyptian. How that came to be is a mystery. It is akin to how Britain came to be speaking a Germanic language when the people are over 70 percent genetically Celtic. A huge population of Kemitic Egyptian mixed with an aboriginal population in the Yoruboid area and imposed their language. These people also have remnants among the Wolof and etc going by the language but the bulk of them settled in the Yoruboid areas apparently, going by the language. Some Awos among the Yoruba know an ancient language. This language should be studied to see how it is similar to the Akokoid, Igboid and Edoid groups. There is an old language classification of ede ife or defoid consisting of Yoruba, Akoko and some others but it has been relegated in favour of YEAI, Yoruboid, Edoid, Akokoid, Igboid as they are all equally related according to linguists but I think Yoruboid and Igboid are more related, possibly because I am more exposed to Igbo. I also believe all those language including even the strange Ijoid are legitimate ancient Ife languages. It is also possible that the whole Yoruba were originally Akokoid before the Egyptians came. An Awo was saying the old Yoruba word for house was Arigidi and this name occurs only in Akoko today. How we got so different languages within so little distances will never be explained easily I believe. The origin of language is perplexing and headache inducing.