The African Sociocultural Harmony and Enlightenment (ASHE) Foundation bemoans the recent media attack by Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Owoade on Ooni of Ife, Oba Ogunwusi, lamenting that it was due to colonial decivilization and epistemicide that distorted our collective intelligence.
ASHE, in a press statement signed by its President, Prince Justice Faloye, stated that the organisation is concerned that the saying, ‘for the lack of knowledge a people might perish,’ might apply to Yorubaland, adding that for the lack of knowledgeable
Aworawos/cosmic scientists, crowned the Alaafin of Oyo during the Ogun/Aries solar eclipse and return of Olokun/Neptune 165yr cycle to Ogun house, where it started the 1860 Ijaye War, making him belligerent and prone to bring war to Yorubaland.
The statement reads in parts:
Right from coronation, Alaafin Owoade took on Ogun’s warlike essence, embroiled in a cascade of controversy over territorial and supremacy claims, starting with claiming supremacy on Oyotunji Village USA founded by a past Ooni of Ife, then a few faceoffs with other stakeholders before setting off with Oluwo of Iwo, who wants to Islamize Yorubaland, to pay homage to Sultan of Sokoto instead of completing his rites at Ife.
“His media attack on Oonirisa Adeyeye Ogunwusi over awarding a title over Yorubaland, has made some commentators restate the fact that the term Yoruba was actually confined to Oyo kingdom but spread by the British colonists to cover city-states that never shared the same polity.
”This colonial cultural reengineering is being exploited by Alaafins to wrongly claim leadership over city-states in present Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states and all those renamed Yorubas that were either independent or under the influence of Edo Empire.
”Oyos influence was more concentrated to the Western and Southern grasslands of Oyo citystate, more of a king of the Eguns, those on the border of present day Nigeria and Benin republic where horse cavalry were effective.
”The loss of ancient knowledge due to colonial epistemicide has ramifications all the way to the foundation, which might be shaken by the mother of all wars and cultural annihilation, if care is not taken.
This is why ASHE Foundation was created – African sociocultural HARMONY and ENLIGHTENMENT and we rise to this occasion to put the record straight.
For proper understanding, we have to go back to when we were all an Ifa-Afa-Iha-Efa indigenous African civilization headed by Ooni of Ife.
It was from Ife that Oranmiyan was sent to secure the Southeastern frontiers in Ile-Ibinu (Benin) and northeastern frontier in Oyo before returning to become an Ooni.
However Oyo was ran over by Nupes around 1530 which chased the Oyo Royal Court to Igboho where they mingled with the Bariba that had been infiltrated by the Fulani.
“It was from Igboho that the Oyos were to regroup and restrategize their army to become imperialistic with horse cavalries bought from the Northern grasslands Afroasiatic Islamic civilization.
Though retaining its symbolic relationship with the Ife civilization, it was gradually infiltrated and overrun by Fulani and other Afro-Asians, who eventually took over its Ilorin outpost before Oyo finally fell in 1835.
The destruction of Oyo Ile and ravaging of its environs by the Afroasiatic imperialists led to massive migration southwards to create new Oyo, Ibadan, Ijaye and other towns, whose leaders were complicit in the fall of Oyo.
“In 1837, a new Oyo was created further into the Ife civilizational sphere, where the new Alaafin Atiba signed to Islamize the throne and wage war to swallow up the rest of the Ifa-Afa-Iha-Efa indigenous African sphere.
Oyo attacked and took Ife in 1849 and moved into Ilesa, but the advance of the disguised Afroasiatic civilizational imperialists was stopped by the Ekiti Parapo, the intellectual core of the indigenous African civilization, where most of the orisas like Orunmila, Esu, Osun, Ogun evolved.
With the death of Alaafin Atiba in 1858, the implementation of his succession rites that had been changed by his Ilorin Fulani Afroasiatic backers, led to the 1860 Ijaye War.
To make matters worse for the Ifa-Afa-Iha-Efa civilization of Otu Ife, the Oyo-Ibadan were also to be used by the British colonists that armed the Ijaye War.
“Like the Afroasiatic Islamic civilization had built mosques in Oyo (1560) and Iwo (1666) to distort their history with Lamurudu fallacies, and the Portuguese Jesuit Catholics had armed the Edos to takeover 200 towns and introduced the Aruosa Church.
The British were to balkanize the Ife civilization sphere by breaking it into tribes and destroying its knowledge bank, thereby committing epistemicide.
Ajayi Crowther was commissioned to translate the English Bible into the Oyo dialect, which was then institutionalized as the standard language of a new social construct called Yoruba that included those that were never under Oyo Empire.
“Knowing that it was from the Ife civilization renamed Yoruba that Ifa-Afa-Iha-Efa civilization spread across the River Niger, Ajayi Crowther was instructed to use different linguistic rules to choose and interprete a dialect which was to be the standard language of a new social construct called Igbo, also laying the foundation of Christianity to replace their Afa-Ifa civilization.
The British then broke the Southern Protectorate, the core of the indigenous African civilization under Ooni of Ife, into Western and Eastern Regions, and set Yorubas and Igbos against each other, despite all Igbo monarchs bearing Obi wore an Oduduwa crown from Edo.
“The colonists also commissioned Samuel Johnson to write the history of their colonial construct, Yoruba, which was slanted towards Oyo.
The British had employed this tactic in India with the Raj of India for 100yrs, and were to use Sultan of Sokoto, the acknowledged leader of the Afroasiatic civilization and the Alaafin of Oyo as the leader of the Yorubas, to sign their dubious colonization treaty.
However, the lie of Alaafin of Oyo being the leader of Yoruba was soon exposed and ran into trouble when it became obvious that all crowns were tied to Ife and not Oyo, and Ooni of Ife had to be called in to settle the crowning conflict in Epe.
This incident made it even clearer to all when Ooni of Ife had to go to Epe and all kings had to vacate their palaces until his return, signifying the civilizational leadership of Ooni based on common origins and values.
“However despite the British correcting their initial mistake of trying to elevate Alaafin over Ooni, Oyo still schemed to take leadership of the British construct called Yorubas.
With Ooni of Ife backing Obafemi Awolowo and the independence movement, and the British referring to Ooni as a pain in the backside of the British Empire, shortly after independence Oyo was to take advantage of the fight between Awolowo and his deputy Akintola, who they made their Aare Onakankanfo, field marshal to continue their war of supremacy.
“Akintola colluded with the Northern Afro-Asiatic Islamic Caliphate against Awolowo and Ooni of Ife, leading to the jailing of Awolowo and removal of Ooni of Ife Oba Adesoji Aderemi as Western Region Governor, which led to political upheaval and destablization, until mainly indigenous African soldiers retaliated by killing the head of the Afroasiatic Islamic civilization and overthrew the Afroasiatic civilizational controlled federal government.
This led to war that cost millions of lives until the delicate civilizational balance was reset, but unfortunately the British and Afroasiatic civilizations kept fooling the masses that it was an Igbo tribal war to prevent future civilizational unity.
“Unfortunately, the British regionalism had inspired a neocolonial political class based on prebendalism, whereby the elites got political and economic benefits meant for their tribe but only spread among friends, family and cronies.
So they prefered to play the tribal Emilokan music chairs of sharing the commonwealth, instead of unifying civilizationally to resist their arrested economic and political development for the masses.
They ignored or were oblivious of the civilizational undercurrents and soft war, as the Afroasiatic civilization continued to eat into Northern Yorubaland, taking over rulership of towns like Offa and others that had repelled them in war, while Oyo remained mute.
Despite the obvious ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous African civilization in the Middlebelt, the prebendal political class of South and Middlebelt were incapable of uniting.
“Now, the Northern Afro-Asiatic Islamic civilization has strengthened its grip on Iwo, the first Yoruba town with an indigenous mosque.
It was initially thought that the new Alaafin of Oyo won’t fall into the clutches of the Afroasiatic civilization, but his visit to the Sultan of Sokoto immediately after his crowning, without first visiting Ife, was a rude shock that he wanted to continue the Atiba incestuous relationship with the Afroasiatic Islamic civilization.
“Recently, a new Islamic terrorist group evolved in Kwara State, at Alaafin doorstep. Instead of building a coalition with Ooni of Ife and first class Yoruba paramount monarchs to counter the threat of this new terrorist group spreading and destablizing Yorubaland, he issued empty threats against Ooni of Ife.
“It has been alleged that Oyo supported Modakeke to disrupt Ile Ife civilizational leadership, and there is a justified apprehension that the Afroasiatic herdsmen and foot soldier across Yorubaland might be used to cause a jihad at the end of which the Oba of Iwo and Oyo will become the emirs of the new Islamic territory of Yorubaland.
If Alaafin and Oluwo aspire for such dreams like Ibadan did that resulted in the 1870 Kiriji War, the core of indigenous African civilization of Yorubaland would have to get not only the backing of the Ekiti Parapo but that of the rest of the indigenous African civilization across South and Middlebelt to win the final conflict of the two civilizations.