Reconstruction of Our Yoruba History - 2. There are six main sources of truth available to mankind to unravel both spiritual and

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2 Reconstruction of Our Yoruba History - 2 There are six main sources of truth available to mankind to unravel both spiritual and physical phenomena in whatever combinations that they may exist. These are divination, clairvoyance, sixth sense, dream, intuition and observation. One of these sources of truth, divination, is synonymous with Ifa oracle that is an issue here on the origin of the Yoruba race. Does that imply that the Ifa mythology is true and that all others concepts about the origin of the Yoruba race are false? The following will throw some light on this issue. Science and logic afford us the opportunity to ask questions using: why, when, how, which, where and what. Undoubted, answers to the â œwhy, when, how, which, where and whatâ questions on each concept about the origin of the Yoruba race will guide us to establish the truth. First, we start our probe with the Ifa mythology concept. Without being biased, Ifa seems to be the first method of probing the mindset of God, human history, current events and the future. But what is Ifa? Ifa is one of the main sources of truth available from the ancient times till the present. Ifa is an aggregation or amalgam of knowledge (both scientific and non-scientific), a camera to picture the spiritual reality, a template for divination and faith, a limitless probe of space, void and time, a light through the darkness and recesses of mankind, a source of human discoveries and a super-computer yet to be fully comprehended by man. This Ifa is as ancient as human knowledge can imagine. It has been described as a â œcompendium indigenous to Africaâ in general but, in my opinion, the Yoruba race in particular. Ifa has been credited with the following varieties of human knowledge: Binary

3 system, Clifford Algebra, Vodou Physics Model, human religion, Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Consciousness, Cosmotology, etc. Since the earth had not been created when God sent both Obatala and Oduduwa on errand to the world, where did they meet a group of people drinking palm wine, on land or water? Since the earth had not been formed by Oduduwa, where did they get the palm tree, on land or water? Who tapped the palm wine and by what means? What happened to Obatala after Oduduwa ascended to heaven alone? Even with the first question alone, it was impossible that any of them would have met a living soul how much more of a group of palm wine drinkers with whom Obatala chose to mingle and drink. Therefore, the myth is a misinterpretation of what â œifaâ, the great source of truth, implied. Ifa oracle had been and still is being misinterpreted. For instance, such a misinterpretation occurred late in the 1980s when the â œifaâ showed that the successor to Mr. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB), then military president of Nigeria, would be a prominent Yoruba son. It was misinterpreted to mean Mr. Olu Falae, then the Secretary to the Federal Military Government. Even when Messrs Olu Falae, Bola Ige, Kayode Jakande, Bode Olajumoke, Olusola Saraki, etc. were banned from politics, the Yorubas found the late Mr. M. K. O. Abiola as a suitable replacement. But they were wrong. Mr. Earnest Shonekan succeeded Mr. Babangida! Mr. Shonekan was the Chairman of UAC Group of companies in Nigeria before his appointment then.

4 Although very popular and a successful businessman, he was not into politics and the interpreters and interpretations did not discover him. But the Ifa oracle did! After the death of Mr. M. K. O. Abiola and the political landscape was opened, the old thinking of a prominent Yoruba son succeeding the military was rekindled. The Yorubas insisted that it was their turn to rule Nigeria. Messrs Olu Falae, Bola Ige (late) and Harry Akandeâ s entrance into the race might have its root in the belief that each of them was most prominent in Yoruba land. Eventually, Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo who was serving a life sentence for a purported failed military coup dâ etat against the military regime of the late Mr. Sani Abacha but who was not considered in the scheme of things in Yoruba land regained his freedom and succeeded the military. The Ifa was not wrong but all the interpreters and interpretations were wrong again! There have been misinterpretations by prominent seers too. For instance, in 1992 when the US presidential election was just about six months ahead, Mr. T. O. Olabayo (PhD), Primate of Evangelical Church of Yahweh and seer, was interviewed by Mr. Frank Olise, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) correspondent. His told the interviewer that Mr. George Bush (Snr), then a sitting president seeking a re-election, would win. But Mr. Bill Clinton won the election while Mr. Bush, the predicted winner, lost. Six months after the election, Mr. Olabayo was re-interviewed by the same correspondent. This time around, he said

5 â œhonestly, I saw Clintonâ and was aired on NTA programme. The vision remained the same, but the interpretation by the seer was wrong. It must be noted that the Primate had made so many good predictions where â œnames of people unmet, dates mentioned, events mentioned and what is yet to happen is mentioned with specificity and accuracyâ (See: Evangelical Church of Yahweh, Misinterpretation is not limited to the Yorubas alone. Before the days of Mr. Christopher Columbus (1451 AD â 1506 AD), the distance of one degree of latitude or longitude along the equator had been â œmeasured accurately as 560 milesâ in Arabic measurement. There were some accurate works and publications on Earth by Aristotle (384 BC â 322 BC), Claudius Ptolemy (90 AD â 168 AD) and Saint Bede (672 AD â 735 AD) available to guide the explorer. But he took this measurement to mean 560 Roman miles which was about 20% shorter (1 Arabic mile = 1.83km approx but 1 Roman mile = 1.48km approx.). â œhe therefore estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200km whereas the correct value is 40,000km (25,000 mi)â. The size of the Earth did not change only the interpretation changed! Who would have expected Columbus to commit any blunder with all the forerunnersâ works available to him? Yet the explorer made so many mistakes in his estimates of directions, distances, sizes of landmasses and landmarks. All these mistakes made his first voyage to America life threatening (For further details see: Christopher Columbus, Ptolemy,

6 Aristotle, and Bede, After the 9/11 attack, a lot of misinformation rented the air in America, Europe and some other parts of the world that the late French seer who died about 1566, Nostradamus, had predicted its occurrence. Even an article titled â œa Critical Analysis of Nostradamusâ by a student, Neil Marshall, was misinterpreted and taken as one of Nostradamusâ quatrains where the seer predicted the event of 9/11. Yet Mr. Marshall had only attempted to show how vague Nostradamusâ quatrains were and the limitless interpretations that could be given to it by people when he wrote: â œin the city of God there will be a great thunder, Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures; the great leader will succumb. The third big war will begin when the city is burning. â Nostradamus 1654â (See: Did Nostradamus Predict the 9-11 Attacks? â Urban Legends, Top 10 Prophesies of Nostradamus Debunked, and: 9/11, Many interpreted Nostradamus to mean Nostradamusâ work in Many did not realise that 1654 was 88 years after the death of Nostradamus.