ODU-DU-WA MAY NOT BE YORUBA FOUNDER

 

ODU-DU-WA MAY NOT BE YORUBA FOUNDER

BY ABDULMUMINI ADEKU.

ODU-DU-WA  may not be the founder of The Yoruba race after all ,if feelers making  the rounds are anything to go by.

Checks By The News office Desk of Paedia Express Multimedia Group of Lagos,Nigeria shows that oduduwa was honoured to be the leader of an already established people who were in need of some kind of inspiration at the time in history and thus needed a father figure.

An impeccable source who has a lot of insights on Yoruba folklores argued that Oduduwa actually came from the Middle East  to a place in present day ,Ile Ife now in Oshun State.

The source said that  because of the penchant of Oduduwa at solving problems  that bedeviled the people at the time,the people decided to honour him with their leadership but that sadly history has being distorted in such a way that the people are no longer told that Oduduwa actually met people on ground when he arrived in ile Ife.

In a related issue,yet another source told The News office Desk of Paedia Express Multimedia Group of Lagos,Nigeria ,that one of the reasons why the Alaafin of Oyo will never agree in terms of superiority to the Ooni of Ife was the fact that his subjects were actually in ile ife and not the other way around.

He noted that this was the fulcrum of the battle between Oba Lamidi Adeyemi 111 of Oyo Kingdom   and the immediate Ooni of Ife ,Oba Okunnade Olubuse  Sijuwade 11 of blessed memory.

He accused historians and the media of helping to distort history by not being objective in their analysis of events.

According to major accounts on the Yoruba nation ,The Yoruba's are strongly believed to have being the offspring of Lamurudu from Mecca in today's Arabia.

At what point of time ,Lamurudu reigned remains Unknown but it would appear to have been sometimes after the Holy Prophet Mohammed[P.B.U.H]

Reverend Samuel Johnson in his book:The history of The Yoruba's speaks:"The Crown Prince Oduduwa relapsed into idolatory during his father's reign and as he was possessed of a great influence he drew many after him "

"His purpose was to transform the state religion into paganism and hence he converted the great mosque of the city into an idol temple and this Asara his priest studded with idols"

"Asara had a son called Braima who was brought up a Mohammedan in the literary works of Reverend Johnson on the origins of the Yoruba race  read by this reporter recently.

He had explained in page 4 of his works that when Braima was of age he had seized the advantage of the absence of elders who had gone hunting to destroy the idols of his father's house and at which was  then punished  as he was to have been executed .

This reporter gathered that a war ensued between Islam and the idolators with the former winning the battle with King Lamurudu killed and Oduduwa and his brothers who founded Gogobiri and Kukawa Kingdom bolting in the process.

The author however added that based on Arab narratives however this mythology was not recorded in Arabian history but quickly added the East could have being somewhere within the Sahara Desert ,Nubia, Egypt  before Arabia.

In another account,it was discovered that Captain  Clapper ton in his works ,[Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa ]   said that Yoruba land was an extensive  province containing Rivers,Forests,Sands and Mountains as also are a great many wonderful and extra-ordinary things.

His words:"The inhabitants of this province ;Yarba ,it is supposed originated from the remnants of the children of Canaan who were of a tribe of Nimrod"

There is another intriguing version of the origin of the Yoruba nation which painted a god like figure around Oduduwa in which an account stated that he dropped from heaven to Ile-ife ,however since this does not have any empirical value,Paedia Express Multimedia will not dwell much on this.

However a source  who spoke to this reporter  on the debate agreed totally to the fact that there were other people in ile-ife when Oduduwa first arrived in town,