Author Archives: BABAJIDE SHOTANDE

VIRGINITY IN YORUBA (KI OMO KURIN JA IBALE OMO OBINRIN) by SHOTANDE BABAJIDE O.

Virginity is one of the key dignities of woman in Yoruba Land and it is called (IBALE) i.e. A Male or Man sleeping or having sexual intercourse with a Girl or Lady during their marriage to ascertain if her dignities is been kept.

The tradition of Virginity among young Yoruba women before marriage is known as “ASA IBALE” in the Yoruba Kingdom. This tradition is no longer practiced today because it has been eroded by colonialism. A virgin is someone who has never had sexual intercourse or sexual activity.

VIRGINITY IN YORUBA CULTURE

During the traditional era and before the advent of colonialism, virginity was held at high esteem among the Yoruba people. A lady is expected to get married as a virgin and if she had sexual intercourse before the marriage it’s a taboo in a Yoruba land to marry such woman.

Profound solution was made in other to prevent the intending couple not to allowed them have  close contact or be in the same room with each other before the D-day: thus, the need for an intermediary (ALARINA).

Virginity to them is known as ‘IBALE’ and it is the pride of any Yoruba lady to keep hers till her wedding night. The wedding night is usually seen as a frightened day for the bride and her parents. In those days, mothers were fond of asking their daughters about their virginity so as to prevent the shame and disgrace that come with not been a virgin.

On the wedding night, a white cloth is usually given to the couple in a calabash. The parents of both families sometimes stay at the entrance of the house waiting for the cloth to be brought out of the house while some parents will be in their homes expecting result. In this culture, the white cloth is expected to be stained by blood and after the sexual intercourse, if the cloth is stained, it means that the new bride is a virgin. And if it comes out other way round it signifies that the new bride had been promiscuous and slept with a man before.

A bride that is met as a virgin by her husband will be celebrated, while the one that is not will be disgraced and banished from the village. The white cloth (stained or not) will be sent to the bride’s parents. Other items like rotten yam, half-filled matches or empty box of matches, half keg of palm wine will also be sent to them meaning that their daughter was rotten and not complete before she was married. The parents will be publicly blamed for not training their daughter. Grief, sorrow and loud cries will follow suit. Such bride that will sweep the whole village, dance naked in the market’s place before she finally leaves her village. The groom also has the right to divorce such a woman.

On the other hand, if the newly-wed was met as a virgin, the groom’s family will send a full keg of palm wine, full matches box to the bride’s parents indicating that their daughter was complete before the wedding night. She will be praised publicly and her parents will be happy. It is believed that virgins have self-discipline and are well-trained by their parents.

This custom and virginity has many advantages as it prevent the rate of fornication and helps the married women to be faithful with their husbands. Also, many lives have been lost to the act. Some young ladies have committed suicide because of the shame. Highly respected or elders can also commit suicide if their daughter was found to have lost her virginity before her marriage. This tradition is no longer in practice and has eaten deep by colonisation.

10 THINGS PARENTS SHOULD EXPOSE TEENAGERS TO, BEFORE THEY TURN 20 FOR GLOBAL RELEVANCE

I have had to this burden on parents because for the for a greater percentage of this period, these youngsters will be with you, depending solely on you to provide guidance.

If you intend to give your wards solid footing for a soothing future, then do this for them in no particular order.

1. Coding and Data analysis skills. From age 10 (coding only). At age 13 above (Data Science).

2. Life and survival skills. Driving, swimming, emotional intelligence, security alertness skill, basic first aid etc.

3. Financial discipline and contentment.

4. Teach them the basis of whatsoever Religious faith you subscribe to. I don’t mean Religion and rumblings. Teach them what is true, just, fair and equitable.

5. Teach them to know that failures and setbacks are part of the journey to greatness. The road to success is not a straight one. The curves and crevices will always be there to make one better.

6. Expose them to Chess game and musical instruments especially the symphonies. They build the critical thinking faculties of the mind.

7. Get them an academic mentor and a career guide. Note; most schools may not be able to provide this. Be deliberate about it.

8. Teach them that good and bad choices have consequences. Don’t help them escape from the consequences of their poor choices.

9. Teach them the importance of community service and volunteering.

10. Help them understand the beauty of being African. Teach them to value their black origins and negritude. There’s no upside to attempting to be a white person by all reckless means.

Please note, there’s nowhere I said you should help them choose a career path or course of study. Stop making young people live the dreams and aspirations of yours you couldn’t fulfil. Don’t forget that it is normal for child to be completely different from who you are in character, affections and brain power.

Einstein enthused “Don’t limit a child to your learning, for he was born in a different time”

©️Moses Udoisoh

History of Oranmiyan

Oranmiyan was a biological son of Ogun but appears to have been adopted by Oduduwa. He was one of the most adventurous of the Yoruba historical figures. The controversy surrounding his birth is due to the fact that both Oduduwa and Ogun had affairs with the same woman, his mother Lakange. Ogun was a warrior whose expedition led to capturing Lakange as war booty and he had sexual relations with her. Oduduwa equally desired the woman and had sexual relations with her while she was pregnant. Whatever the case, the affair resulted in the birth of Odede, otherwise known as Oranmiyan.

in his early life he is called a man of two fathers – Oduduwa and Ogun – who both had relations with his mother Lakange Anihunka (a slave captured by Ogun in one of his war expeditions). The legend further compounds the controversy by stating that Oranmiyan was two-tone in complexion: half his body was light-skinned (like Ogun’s), while the other half was ebony-black (like Oduduwa’s). Due to this, he was given the name Oranmiyan (or Oran ni Omo ni yan, which means “The child has chosen to be controversial”). His other name Odede signifies a great hunter, something which he was known to be throughout his early life in Ife. He was also a great warrior like his two fathers. He was the first Odole Oduduwa (youth of the house of oduduwa) as he was a strong and outspoken prince of the Oduduwa lineage. His strength and talent in battle made him take up the role of defending Ife – which had no standing military at the time – as the first Akogun of Ife.

According to Yoruba history, he founded Oyo as its first Alaafin at around the year 1300 after he had left Benin where he had been crowned the first Oba of Benin. Following the Oba Oranyan’s death, his family is fabled to have erected the commemorative stele known as the Staff of Oranmiyan – Opa Oranmiyan in the Yoruba language – at the place where their grandfather died. This obelisk Is 5.5m tall and about 1.2m in circumference at its base. During a storm in 1884 about 1.2m was broken off from its top and it has fallen down twice and been re-erected on each occasion. It currently stands in a grove in Mopa, Ile-Ife. Radiocarbon tests have shown that this royal marker was erected centuries before the start of the Oduduwa dynasty.

The Ooni of Ife at the time sent his son Oranmiyan to Igodomigodo. Oranmiyan camped at a place called Use, meaning “making of a city” or “politicking”, and began to rule Benin from there. His foreign style of management didn’t go down well with the chiefs, and they sent agents to spy on him. All this made Oranmiyan declare that only a son of the soil could cope with the attitude of the Igodomigodo people. He called the land Ile – Ibinu, meaning “Land of Vexation”.

On leaving Ile-Ibinu (later Ibini, and corrupted to “Benin” by the Portuguese), he stopped briefly at Egor where he took Erinmwide, the daughter of the Enogie (or Duke) of Egor, as a wife. Eweka I was the result of this union. Oranmiyan was never to return to Benin. In his place, Eweka I became king [Oba of Benin]become known as the first Oba of Benin, the new dynasty known as the “God King”. which is still ruling today.

After leaving Benin at about 1190, he moved north with his ever loyal entourage and settled close to the river Moshi (a tributary to the Niger River). He founded a city there, Oyo-Ile, which his descendants then expanded into the Oyo Empire. He engaged in war with the Bariba, his immediate neighbors to the north, and subsequently married Torosi, a Tapa princess, who became the mother of Sango Akata Yẹri-Yẹri. He also married Moremi Ajasoro.

Oduduwa was a Yoruba divine king.



According to tradition, he was the holder of the title of the Olofin of Ile-Ife, the Yoruba holy city.
He ruled briefly in Ife and also served as the progenitor of a number of independent royal dynasties in Yorubaland. His name, phonetically written by Yoruba language-speakers as Odùduwà and sometimes contracted as Ooduwa, Odudua or Oòdua, is today venerated as that of “the hero, the warrior, the leader and father of the Yoruba race”. Through conflict and mostly, through diplomacy lasting many years, Oduduwa was able to temporarily usurp the throne of Ife to become King.

Oduduwa held the praise names Olofin Adimula. Following his posthumous deification, he was admitted to the Yoruba pantheon as an aspect of a primordial divinity of the same name.

etymology

he etymological derivation of the Yoruba name “Oduduwa” is: Odu-ti-o-da-uwa (i.e. Odu-ti-o-da-iwa).

This translates literally to: The great repository which brings forth existence.

The Law of Blasphemy in Nigeria, And the Self-appointed God Avengers

Introduction
The issue of religion is very sensitive and invoke a great deal of emotions and feelings among the adherents, some of who had laid down their lives or had killed others to protect and defend their faith; and some have had their properties destroyed or saw to the destruction of other person’s properties on account of religious devotion. And as a faith-based system, religion with its sacred texts and writings, teachings and practice have conditioned the mind-set of its followers to the level of fanaticism and dogma. To some followers, their religion is their lives and any overt or covert act of desecration in any form is considered sacrilegious which ultimately invoked feelings of rage and violence in defense of their religion and its sacredness.

Muslims hold the revered Prophet Muhammed [PBUH] as the Last Messenger of Allah and any disparaging remark overtly or covertly, whether in words, prints or gestures against Allah, His Messenger and the sacred Qur’an is blasphemous with dire consequences. It was the volatile reaction, at times murderous in nature that usually followed as a chain reaction to unnecessary but happenstance insidious remarks or comments howsoever made considered denigrating or blasphemous to Allah, His Prophet [PBUH] and the sacred Qur’an that birth this article.

In Nigeria, there existed religious rage and violence leading to destruction of properties and death by some Islamic followers on account of issues factored as blasphemy to Islam and the Prophet Muhammed [PBUH], and the latest which is the gory mob murder of Miss Deborah Samuel Yakubu, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto, by her schoolmates for alleged blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad—which provoked the writing of this article to address the underlying legal issues therein.

*The Laws Governing Blasphemy in Nigeria*
The Nigerian jurisdiction has a duality of blasphemy laws—one under the secular system enacted by the Federal authorities for the protection of insult to all religions and made applicable in all the States of the Federation and the other one enacted by some Northern States’ domestic jurisdictions under the Shari’ah legal framework that limited its scope to Islamic religion. Both systems of laws criminalized blasphemy with different penal sanctions.The Nigerian criminal justice system criminalized blasphemy with penal sanctions. Under the Criminal Code Act [CCA 2004] blasphemy was criminalized under section 204 of the Act as thus: ‘Any person who does an act which any class of persons consider as a public insult on their religion, with the intention that they should consider the act such an insult, and any person who does an unlawful act with the knowledge that any class of persons will consider it such an insult, is guilty of a misdemeanour, and is liable to imprisonment for two years’.

The Penal Code had similar provision to the effect that section 210 of the Penal Code provide: ‘Whoever by any means publicly insults or seeks to incite contempt of any religion in such a manner as to be likely to lead a breach of the peace, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years or with a fine or with both’. The only striking difference between the Criminal Code Act and the Penal Code Act is in the prescriptive sanctions and both have the same intention to criminalize blasphemy in Nigeria.

Also, section 18(1) and (2) of the Cybercrime Act, 2015 extended the definition of racist and xenophobic offences to religion and criminalized it and it defined as: ‘any written or printed material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence against any individual or group of individuals based on race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these factors’.

Under Shari’ah, the criminalization of blasphemy was engineered by the entrance of strict Shar’iah penal system in the criminal jurisprudence of some Northern States’ domestic jurisdictions in Nigeria, which was pioneered in 1999 by the Zamfara State Shari’ah Penal CodeLaw [Cap 133 Law No 10 of 2000]. That precedent was followed by other Northern States Such as the Shariah Penal Code Law 2000 Kano State; Niger State Penal Code (Amendment) Law 2000; Kebbi Penal Code (Amendment) Law 2000; Jigawa State Penal Code Law No 12 of 2000; Shariah Penal Code Law 2000 Sokoto State; Shariah Penal Code Law No 8 2000 Yobe State; Shariah Penal Code Law 2001 Gombe State; Shariah Penal Code Law 2001 Bauchi State; Shariah Penal Code Law 2001 Borno State; Shariah Penal Code Law No 4 of 2002 Kaduna State etcetera.

All these Shari’ah Criminal Code Laws have distinct but similar contextual provisions and varying degrees of sanctions in certain offences. However, one common trend in the criminal jurisprudential landscape of al