A Yoruba leader and President-General of the Yoruba World Congress (YWC), Emeritus Professor (Senator) Banji Akintoye, has raised an alarm that Yoruba language and culture are gradually dying.
Prof Akintoye blamed the decline on what he called “Western hegemony” and tasked Yoruba leaders at home and abroad to rise to the challenge.
He also rejected corporal punishment for students who speak in the local dialect in schools in Yoruba- speaking states.
Akintoye spoke at the weekend in Lagos during the First General Assembly of the Yoruba nations held at the International Secretariat of the YWC, an umbrella body of all Yoruba socio-cultural and self-determination groups within and beyond Nigeria.
The theme of the conference was ‘Oduduwa Land: Networking the Yoruba Nations for Prosperity and Development.’
In attendance at the event were Yoruba ethnic groups, Ifa practitioners from the United States of America, Mexico, Venezuela, Togo and Benin Republic.
Participants at the event included a professor of African Studies from California State University, United States of America, Fakolade Jahonson Edmonds and his wife, Taylor Gentry, both Yoruba of American descent.
The participants were united that relevant stakeholders must rise up to ensure that the traditions of the Yoruba people within and beyond Nigeria did not go into extinction.
According to them, the Yoruba people, under no circumstance, would “never surrender to the hopeless poverty, hunger, starvation, material retrogression, rampant insecurity, mind-bogging looting and corruption that currently pervade the country.”
Akintoye urged parents to rise to the occasion by teaching their children Yoruba language and encourage them to speak it fluently.
Explaining the rationale for the conference, he said, “Another major reality among us Yoruba is that despite our being scattered into countries across the world, we are always striving for close reconnections. For us, separation is never final, no matter its distance or time length.
“Our indigenous homeland covers the southwestern region of Nigeria, most of the southeastern and middle belt of the Republics of Benin and Togo, and a small slice of territory in southeastern Ghana.
“Beyond this homeland, because we have always been a great trading and civilizing people, we have for many centuries planted various sizes of Yoruba Diaspora all over Africa – in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Mali, Liberia and Gambia in West Africa; and in Sudan, South Sudan, and Central African Republic in East and Central Africa.
“But our Yoruba Diaspora is not limited to the African continent. Members of our nation who were taken to South America, North America, Central America, the islands of the West Indies and some countries of Europe in the course of the 16th century to the 19th century today constitute a large and highly influential Yoruba Diaspora beyond Africa.
“They are sizeable populations in the New World and Europe, in countries such as Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Suriname, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, Grenada, Barbados, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama, Bahamas, and the United States in the New World, and in Britain and some countries of southern Europe.”
Responding, Edmonds described himself as a Yoruba indigene who found himself in America. “Yoruba people, from what we read and have found out, are intellectually loaded and grounded. My great grandfather gave birth to my grandfather in America. My surname is Fakolade. I am in Nigeria to attend this General Congress and use the opportunity to learn more about the Yoruba people, Ifa and other heritage of our people,” he said.
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