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I have seen a couple of Nigerian traditional films in the past. And one of the things that most of these films make their viewers believe is that the gods don’t reckon with the God of heaven and earth. The picture they painted is that, the God of heaven and the gods of the earth don’t have anything in common. The same idea is applicable to whoever it is that is carrying the Spirit of the God of heaven, the gods are not usually in tandem with such people.
Even in the Old Testament, three times Dagon fell down when the Ark of God, which signified the presence of God; came near it. The Philistine, after defeating Israel in a major battle, carried the Ark of the Covenant and kept it in the house of Dagon (the god of the Philistine). The Bible recorded that Dagon fell down; losing all its hands and legs and head in the process (1 Samuel 5:2-5).
It is based upon this understanding that I have been trying to look at the linkage in the marriage between the Ooni of Ife, Oba Ogunwusi Enitan, (the 401th deity in the ancient town); and the his new Queen, Shilekunola Moronke Naomi, a prophetess and an evangelist by calling. God really must have spoken to the prophetess to go ahead with this rare move to have taken place.
As we all know, Ile-Ife houses some of the foremost traditional religions and gods in the Yoruba history, even till now. We have read and heard, that there are about four hundred different gods that Ife worship till date, and whosoever that is sitting on the Ooni throne per time, automatically becomes the custodian and worshipper of those gods. Just recently, the Ooni celebrated ‘Olojo Festival’. This Festival is the celebration of the remembrance of “Ogun”, god of Iron, who is believed to be the first son of Oduduwa, progenitor of the Yoruba people. What sort of role would the Queen play on days like this?
How the king would have thought of marrying a prophetess leaves one wondering what sort of arrangement could be going on here. No doubt, the Kabiyesi himself have at different occasions profess his love and reverence for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, which is God; the maker of heaven and earth. On those occasions, many have come out to even rebuke the king for saying he belongs to God and not the gods he has sworn to worship and serve all the days of his life, as long as he is still the Ooni of Ife.
Are these happenings a sign that the traditional institution as it is today is not as potent and respected and useful as our fore-fathers professed them to be? Is it time for people who still believe in some of these gods to look inward and see the futility in what they have dedicated their whole life into? Didn’t these gods shrug a little when the Ooni of Ife was making this decision to marry someone who professes God, and then strike against the land because the Ooni is going against their wishes and biddings?
Maybe modernization should then be blamed, since many of these gods have refused to evolve from what they have been known to be. The Ooni is a modern king, and the gods must respect the times in which they now live in. Anyway, I wish Ooni and his new ‘Olori’ a happy married life. With this new dispensation, the gods can only be born again or relocate their domain to the next available planet.