Yoruba got the notion of demons giving money from Nupe, Ghana — Elebuibon, traditionalist

Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, a renowned traditionalist, is the Araba Awo of Osogbo, Osun State. In this interview, Elebuibon speaks on money ritual against the backdrop of the recent killing of a student of Lagos State University (LASU), Favour Daley-Oladele, allegedly by her lover, Adeeko Owolabi, on the pretext that the ritual there-from will get demons to bring him wealth. The suspect and his alleged collaborators: his mother, Ruth, and prophet, Segun Philip, are in police custody, talking to detectives on what they know about the cold-blooded murder.


Ifa among other traditional African religious would appear to have been relegated to the background. What is our society missing by this development?

First, African traditional religion suffered relegation due to the propaganda against it over a very long time. It endured a lot of abuse. However, in recent past, people are beginning to be aware of its relevance and advantages. The beauty of our cultural heritage is imbued in the religion. Many elites today understand the importance of not just our culture but also our religion, but we’re always scared to come out publicly to give credit to it.


However, it is time we stopped being over religious in Nigeria to the detriment of hard work. In Nigeria, we need to stop discrimination based on religion. In places like the UK and the USA, people work hard than spending every minute of the day praying. Even some people, when they go to office, instead of using office time for official work, they would rather engage in crusade, some run to religious camps when they ought to be at work. It is only in this country that you have more churches and mosques than schools and I wonder what would be our gain because God will not come from heaven to help us do what we are supposed to achieve through hard work.

Our society is enmeshed in crisis. You have upsurge in crime; kidnapping, banditry and insurgency are common place. Even the economy gets progressively worse. And we have leadership problem at the various levels. In what ways can a traditional religion like Ifa help to resolve the challenges?


Occasionally in every town, country, state, there is the tendency to always experience natural disaster or calamity and propitiation, prayer can be used to mitigate that, but when calamity becomes so frequent as in the case of Boko Haram and banditry, you know it is no longer natural but self inflicted. Many of the problems of Nigeria were self-inflicted. Boko Haram and banditry are as a result of proliferation of arms by politicians in their quest to gain power at all costs, so some of our problems are not an act of God. You can use prayer to solve problems or calamities that are natural, but the ones created by humans such as banditry, insurgency persist because it is our doing. Problems that are natural can be controlled through propitiation, but if they are created by people, they require human efforts to resolve.

With the rejection of the African traditional religion by most of our people in favour of Islam and Christianity, there is the fear that African traditional religion may die. As an Ifa worshipper, are you worried?

Traditional religion is not going to die. If traditional religion dies, that means Yoruba race has died. It cannot die because it has a deep root and it was sanctioned by God himself. If it is man-made, it would have been eradicated long time ago because there is too much propaganda against it. For example, people have been saying it would go into extinction for the past 20 years. A university student wrote a thesis about this topic and told me traditional religion, within 10 years, would go into extinction in Nigeria. One of my arguments then was that as long as African traditional religion is solving human problems, it would never go into extinction. People go to church and mosque, they fast and pray, yet, they come here seeking solution to their problems. We have a lot of pastors and imams who still consult Ifa and making Ebo (sacrifice). They may not tell their congregation but some pastors are bold enough to tell their members that there is always a way out. But a lot of them are hypocrites, and as long as they continue to consult Ifa to solve their problems, traditional religion is not going to die. If you are worshiping Ifa and Ifa is not helping you, what is the essence of doing it? But when you worship Ifa and it blesses you and answers your prayer, it would be continue to thrive.


Reports say Americans and Europeans are embracing African traditional religion. Can you share your experience if there is any?

That is even a challenge to us in Africa because we see a lot Americans now admiring and embracing our culture and want to speak our language fluently. They now study Yoruba and Ifa while a Yoruba man cannot even recite oriki. One of our students, Aikulola, is an African-American; if you see him on video, he speaks Yoruba fluently. That is a shame on us that we neglected our culture. One day, if we didn’t change our attitude, may be they are going to overtake us and will be teaching us Yoruba language and culture.

So we should use Yoruba as a language to teach our students in schools

It is very important; we have always implored government and individuals to speak our language. Every parent at home needs to speak Yoruba language to his children. Language is like a road, if you abandon a road it would grow weed. If we don’t speak our language, it may be killed, but if we speak it regularly, it would grow. At home, we should allow our children to prostrate in the morning and greet and we should call their oriki, Aduke, Ajoke Amoo, and pray for them in Yoruba. All of this is important, if you send your children to nursery school, they don’t allow them to speak Yoruba language, but make sure that when they get home, speak Yoruba to them. That is what Indians, Chinese do. There is no place where you find Indians and Chinese, they may be born in the UK or America but they speak their language. It is only in Africa that we are ashamed of our culture.

Do we have fake Ifa priests? If yes, how do we know them?

There is no place you do not find good and bad characters. There are fake doctors, fake pastors, so it is everywhere. It is not all those people who claim to be priest that are genuine Ifa priests and knowledgeable but once you see them you will know them.

How do we know them?

By their performance and appearance.

There is of late an upsurge in ritual killings and people involved tell us there are demons that bring money after doing ritual. As a traditionalist, what is your perspective? Some people say there are no such demons.

There is one of my white friends who asked me to go in-depth into what is called money ritual, to know if it is Yoruba concept of belief. People used to believe that we have supernatural power to produce money, that African science can do that. But what African science told us is that if you are a businessman, you can use awure. Awure is lucky charm that helps you to have good sales in your business. We also have oshole, which has its dos and don’ts but has nothing to do with blood. Oshole is a kind of ritual that can help people that use it to have money; it must be done at age 40 and above 70 before you use another one. Nowadays, haaa!! Ritual killing is too much, they cut the victim’s head, private part and everything. I read one paper where one man said “I regret killing my girlfriend”. Some ritualists even eat human heart. I want to ask people that use human parts to make money whether they actually get rich. The use of human and body parts purportedly to make money is not Yoruba culture, it is a culture that was imported from Nupe, Ghana and other parts of Africa. It has been incorporated to our own culture but it is alien to us.


https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/02/yoruba-got-the-notion-of-demons-giving-money-from-nupe-ghana-elebuibon-traditionalist/amp/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=1751571&relatedposts_position=2

For good or ill, Astral arts percolate through contiguous ethnicities, it's standard. Even the Ifa he believes in so much wasn't native to his people it came to Yoruba land from the north, from Igala/Nupe

Lindodo20:
For good or ill, Astral arts percolate through contiguous ethnicities, it's standard. Even the Ifa he believes in so much wasn't native to his people it came to Yoruba land from the north, from Igala/Nupe

Hmmm......reason why Tinubu said Fulanis and Yorubas are one.

ThEGodFaThEr900:

Hmmm......reason why Tinubu said Fulanis and Yorubas are one.

How the fùck does this relate to Tinubu? Take your imbêcile talk away from my mentions you scumbag

Lindodo20:


How the fùck does this relate to Tinubu? Take your imbêcile talk away from my mentions you scumbag

Okay! I will advice you to mind your tongue. I'm not your mate.

Igi so so o y’a a ghonen ‘ju, a to ke iye e ti ho i.

You guys should just stop the nonsense

ThEGodFaThEr900:

Me or Elebuibon ?

Iseese people

omowolewa:
You guys should just stop the nonsense

Me or Elebuibon ?

ThEGodFaThEr900:

Hmmm......reason why Tinubu said Fulanis and Yorubas are one.

Must everything be Tinubu and politics? Una no get any other thing to discuss?

Every tribe get their own demon they worship, but waiting for God's time is the best. Say no to money ritual in all forms.

babyfaceafrica:
Must everything be Tinubu and politics? Una no get any other thing to discuss?

Go and meet Tinubu that made the statement.

babyfaceafrica:
Every tribe get their own demon they worship, but waiting for God's time is the best. Say no to money ritual in all forms.

Real talk