Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims
Farooq A. Kperogi
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Cornelius Hamelberg
I suppose that dancing around the Mulberry Bush is alright
but when we advance to being more mature dance folks
the melody à la Eddie Harris goes :
“Shaking
your head and poppin' your fingers is alright
Are
you just gonna sit there and do that all night? “
Once again I'm in deep sympathy with the general thrust of this article about the plight of my distinguished Yoruba Brethren in the caravan of al Islam - but also, once again true or false, in the darkness of night that would be tantamount to – as usual - when just the one word would do, once again all we see is Herr Kperogi flexing some great, big grammar muscle while conveniently side-stepping the brutal truth with his usual long-winded poetic circumlocutions, to name just as few,
”insidiously widespread anti-Muslim bigotry in Yoruba land came to light”
“ Osibona’s meretriciously outward displays of his Christianity and evangelical exhibitionism”
“ it merely instantiates the casual bigotry that Yoruba Muslims routinely contend with in their own natal region on account of their faith,”
”their faith-based systematic exclusion and demonisation”
”causal bigotry”...
”habitually ridiculed for their faith, sneered at for their Muslim sartorial choices, alienated and rhetorically marginalized, and outright denied opportunities” …
” cruel slanders and unwarrantedly unmentionable vituperations.”
How was it at the Baptist Missionary School that he attended in Kwarra ? Back in those good old days could a suitably qualified Yoruba Muslim land a plump job via an interview conducted by bigoted, not so bigoted, not at all bigoted Baptist Missionaries?
We ( all of us) are to suppose that at Sunday School the faithful urchins were taught that a spade is a spade and to at least learn how to call "things” by their proper names. That's why it's amazing that in this several hundred words long write-up, that one essential word is missing - that one word writ large, that would have hit the mark: ISLAMOPHOBIA pure and simple
But (once again) could all that Professor Farooq Kperogi has penned for us here, be true? All true?
True: One tree doesn't make a Sambisa Forest!
True too: Nor does the exception make the rule!
It's only uncommon sense asking: If half of our Yoruba Folk are Muslim and the other half are Christian – as is the case- and they have been living in a close, harmonious, symbiotic relationship for at least a century, then how can this account be foisted on us as a true picture, representative of the Christian-Muslim Interface in Yoruba-land?
If Nigeria's Yoruba population is 37,500,000 souls, then the “ multiple Yoruba Muslims shared similar such anecdotal encounters of causal bigotry” referred to in this article which does not suggest or provide any kind of statistical evidence as to how widespread Islamophobia among the Yoruba is, could amount to a mere drop in the ocean, like a grain of sand in the Sahara or the Arabian Desert.
Apart from this article, the only other intimation of alleged Yoruba Islamophobia was the diatribe delivered at Ted Talks, by one Femi Fani-Kayode - sounding off not on his own Islamophobia, but sounding off instead on one of his pet subjects, his so-called “Islamic Fundamentalism in Nigeria “ although it's not clear exactly where he stands today, since he claims Noble Fulani ancestry/heritage as a part of his distinguished lineage...
The context of all this of course is Islam in today's Nigeria being negatively represented by Boko Haram terror, in its turn being supplemented by all the allegations so far made against Fulani herdsmen, further exacerbated by many of the wanton ransom kidnappings being perpetrated by Muslims that may have been identified as by the Muslims, apprehended thus far. Inevitably, even the sceptic must concede that Muslim- Non-Muslim relations have been further poisoned, by the security challenges posed by mostly identifiable armed & rapacious Muslim incursions into Yoruba- Land, giving rise to self-preservation, self-defence units such as Operation Amotekun
Since salvific Christianity can be suberised as love of God, neighbour and enemy, I should like to remind the Yoruba Christian Brethren and all the Fuji Music lovers like yours truly about these lines from the Al-Quran Al-Karim, Surah Al-Ma'idah – 82
“Thou wilt find the most vehement of mankind in hostility to those who believe (to be) the Jews and the idolaters. And thou wilt find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be) those who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among them priests and monks and because they are not proud.”
Assensoh, Akwasi B.
Dear Brother Farooq:
Thank you very much for the inspiring Dr. Ibrahim Waziri story; please, note that some of us from
other African countries used your 2009 educational (OND/HND) column to counsel relatives and
others. Thanks to Brother 'Tony Akinola, of blessed memory, we came across your column, which
we shared widely. Today -- several of them with OND/HND diplomas -- have travelled to Canada
and USA, respectively, to earn their terminal academic and professional degrees.
While lauding Bauchi-born Dr. Waziri, I also applaud your poignant columns and blog. Above all,
many of us urge you to keep up the great selfless work, just as Guiding Angels always do for others!
Sincerely,
A.B. Assensoh.
----------
Rev. A.B. Assensoh, LL.M., PH.D.,
Co-Book Review Editor, African & Asian Studies
Journal,
Professor Emeritus (Indiana University),
Courtesy Professor Emeritus (University of Oregon),
Department of History,
McKenzie Hall (2nd Floor), University of Oregon,
Eugene, OR 97403, U.S.A.
Telephone: (541) 953-7710
Fax: (541) 346-6576
Sent: Friday, November 5, 2021 9:27 PM
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Subject: [External] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Craving your indulgence, please.
Corrections – for “ be ye therefore perfect”, said Jesus.
For the record, should read, “Back in those good old days could a suitably qualified Yoruba Muslim land a plum job via an interview conducted by bigoted, not so bigoted, not at all bigoted Baptist Missionaries? “
A plum job , not a “ plumb” job. Can't trust these auto-correction machines.
Also, should read, “ Since salvific Christianity can be summarised as the love of God, neighbour and enemy,” -.
Summarised, not “suberised”
Culturally, what separates Muslims from Christians?
For Muslims, al-cohol is haram whereas it is permissible for Christians/palm-wine drinkards to drink like a fish. ( Yeltsin turned up at the police station soaking wet ( with alcohol). He said that he had fallen into a river.)
The pork is forbidden to the Muslims, is delicious to some Christians.
Thus one man's meat is another man's poison.
It should be an interesting sociological study that would reveal to us the place of the traditional cultural background - the Yoruba substratum as the backdrop against which both Christianity and al Islam are practised/lived, in Yoruba-land. Shola Adewale X tells me that in many a Yoruba Christian home, there's also a personal shrine dedicated to the family deity and that these two disparate streams of belief and practice co-exist, without conflict.....or compromise...
Today and every day, not even the devil can deny that there is a lot of love flowing between Yoruba Christians and Muslims. One people! This includes the Sierra Leone Yoruba Christians and the Sierra Leone Yoruba Muslims who have lived in Sierra Leone in peace and harmony for the past 200 years.
On the other hand, we don't have any religion problems in Sierra Leone, nor are some of the attitude problems that Kperogi wants to accentuate as occurring in Nigeria insurmountable. To begin with, intermarriage is not a problem - at least al-Islam's Sharia says it's OK for a Christian woman to marry a Muslim man, whereas under the influence of evangelical's fundamentalist zeal the vice-versa though not illegal, cannot be said to be true, not when the zealous Yoruba pastors, apostles and prophets cite 2 Corinthians 6:14 that warns the prospective bride and bridegroom,
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
Naturally, the bona fide Muslim would object vehemently to being equated with “unbelievers” or “darkness”
According to a later tradition, monogamy was recommended for bishops and of course, today, Christians are supposed to be strictly monogamous whereas Muslims may be legally married to 4 at a time and enjoy conjugal relations with an unrestricted number among “ those whom one's right hand possesses “, perhaps, “ the more the merrier “ - Fela ( 29 wives) was apparently not Christian or Muslim, nor was Solomon, the champion : 700 wives and 300 concubines
Understandably, some of our Christian Yoruba sisters would not like to share their husbands with other wives or concubines...
The evil one would like to divide and rule the Yoruba people.
Otherwise, there are surely cordial relations between people of all faiths within the Yoruba kingdoms. Didn't many Yoruba Christians vote for Moshood Abiola?
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On Nov 7, 2021, at 3:19 AM, Assensoh, Akwasi B. <aass...@indiana.edu> wrote:
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Gbolahan Gbadamosi
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Ademola Azeez
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
I'd just like to bring it to our attention that it's a simple cultural courtesy among the Yoruba people and I guess among Kperogi's civilised Bariba,/Baatonu folks no less, that we don't speak ill of the dead. Period.
The worst-case scenario was a Zionist zealot reacting to the idea of “Don't say anything bad about the dead !“ His reaction to the news that Chairman Arafat had departed from this vale of tears, was “Good!” Not even a pious “ May his soul rest in peace.”
Centuries earlier, the Almighty had reprimanded the Angels who were about to break out in song, at the sight of the Egyptian charioteers drowning as the Children of Israel on dray land rejoiced at the demise of their tormentors...
The second worst-case scenario was Hamlet moaning about his father - “That it should come to this. But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two.”...
And in the case of the late Femi Osibona – May his precious soul rest in perfect peace - at the time of this article now article under review, he was not yet two days gone...
Mark Antony's famous sarcasm “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones “was a rhetorical device at that purposeful funeral oration, which was calculated to delegitimize that perception, stage by stage, strategically followed up by the glorification of Caesar's most praiseworthy deeds, each good work followed by the rhetorical question “ Was this ambitious?” and culminating in his reading Caesar's Last Will and Testament according to which Caesar leaves his everything to all the Roman Citizens....”Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?”
It's a pity that Adebowale Sikiru had not recorded the interview on his mobile phone – as incontrovertible evidence. That would have saved himself and everybody concerned a lot of embarrassment and would have certainly put a stop to all manner of argument, unwarranted negative conjecture, unnecessary, fanciful speculation.
Re - Kperogi writing about his “ distinct impression that many Yoruba Muslims are seething with frustration and deep-seated inferiority complex on account of their faith-based systematic exclusion and demonization...”
That in their Islamic Muslim shoes he ( Kperogi) would be “seething with frustration” is quite understandable as a natural reaction to be being discriminated in the job market whether it was an application or interview to teach at Brown University or any of the Ivy League Institutions, but that in addition to “seething with frustration”, as a consequence of such discrimination, the victim/s should also be simultaneously afflicted - according to Kperogi, by a “deep-seated inferiority complex on account of their faith-based systematic exclusion and demonization...” does not sound like good or plausible psychology to me.
However, when it comes to expertise about the phenomenon of “deep-seated inferiority complex” for any reason or reasons whatsoever, I give Kperogi the benefit of the doubt. He must surely know what he is talking about. We must give the devil his due. As the saying goes, “ He who feels it knows” ...
Sublime: Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 9
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Adepoju,
Unlike you, no one can accuse me of hypocrisy or Islamophobia, not to mention your obsession with “criticizing” and “correcting” what you see as wayward Islam.
At a constant, my human needs are basic and fulfilled, and one of them is not taking “a dig” at your Nigerian brother Kperogi who is neither my love, my oxygen, water, food or electricity. Kperogi always elicits that kind of response from me. Sorry. And as always, I'm doing my best to be kind to him. I could be a lot worse, I assure you. I just happen to be here, that's all and occasionally, I make the inevitable response dictated by a good conscience. BTW, I'd much prefer to continue where I left off with Dr. Scott Hahn last night than to get further bogged down with your Bariba man with his chip on the shoulder for our Yoruba people.
According to Imam Ali (alaihi salaam), a Muslim is someone in whose hand the reputation and the integrity of a fellow human being and luminary such as Professor Mobolaji E. Aluko is safe, sacrosanct . Should I in true measure respond to bickering Kperogi's constant need to needle and belittle Professor Aluko, I'm sure that that response would not pass the sensitivity litmus test of our Alakowe Eniyan Toyin Falola. So, the forbearance I have to exercise is the price that I must continue to pay for my civilisation – if I am to remain not banished from this forum.
What's the point of Kperogi quoting and misquoting Professor Aluko out of context and then adding his own negative spin and deliberate misinterpretation of what the Professor is supposed to have said.? But I leave the thunder and lighting to Shango and trust that Baba Kadiri the son of Ogun will deal with the matter adequately
I should also like to explain that I don't see any reason why a Yoruba Muslim should suffer or suffer from what's clinically known as an “inferiority complex” because he is discriminated against or “ marginalized in his own home turf. If anything he should be angry!
And who told Kperogi that “ many Yoruba Muslims are seething with frustration and deep-seated inferiority complex...”?
For instance, I apply for a job teaching e.g. simple English Grammar and don't get it, it's not a big deal because I know that there are so many hundreds if not thousands of applicants that could be and are better qualified or more suitable for the job since for instance I only have the equivalent of A level Swedish.. If I feel that I am being discriminated at the job market because I am Hindu/ Buddhist/ Christian/ Muslim / Jewish – and I have never felt that way, then I would be angry and do something about it. Many years ago, I discovered something new about myself, I had always prided myself in not being a “ materialist” and one day after an unsuccessful job interview I went to Paul Porter / a Jamaican brother to his shop “Collections Boutique” to tell him about it - Paul marketed last years Italian fashion suits, waistcoats, shirts, cuffs, ties, shoes, he and his wife Marie welcomed me, I told him about it, and on the spot he gave me three suits - which to my surprise cheered me up considerably, the suits actually became my “Sabbath best “ - and thus in my own eyes I became a petty materialist – like a sapeur ( clothes is their religion...
Black bazar – by the wonderful Alain Mabanckou : Check out his Broken Glass
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Cornelius Hamelberg
It's
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility...”
It's indeed once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, except that this time it's not Shakespeare's King Henry V speaking, it's only yours truly, little me, and thereby “our English dead” is by itself a uniquely historical tragedy, except that in this case - at this time and place, “our English dead” should only refer to the language – the English Language (“dead”) in terms of what the learned, Big Grammar book-people used to say back there in Sierra Leone, Britain's very first and oldest colony in Africa (150 years) - about the poor sods who made unfortunate grammatical mistakes in either speaking, reading or writing Her Majesty's Mother Tongue. They would reprimand you for “shooting “ - and if the “shooting” was excessive or intense (several volleys wicked grammar or horrible miss-pronunciation or other kinds of miss-takes) , they would declare that you have “killed” - you were killing or you had killed, and you had either “massacred” or if the speech was still ongoing, they would say you were “massacring” Her Majesty's English, which as we all know, by nature, is a non-violent Language.
Once more dear friends, and this time too, as usual, in peace and in humility I come, representing my dear Baba Kadiri whose rejoinder to Kperogi was apparently too severe for our Moderator to let through, so here I have done my best in toning it down a little, here and there, so that it should pass the standard sensitivity litmus test with flying colours!
Concerning the occasional little tittle-tattle with Kperogi, at least Kperogi has caused me to do some homework, so I have done a background check on his wonderful Bariba people – to better get acquainted with where he's supposed to be coming from. As my dear mother used to tell me, “despise not humble beginnings”. To date, with regard to Nigeria, I am better acquainted with my own Yoruba heritage, the Kalabari, Igbo, Ikwerre, Ekpeye, Ogoni, the Ibani of Bonny, the Ijaw of Nembe, and of course the Fulani ( the first language that I spoke)
As far as I know, our moderator has never rejected a posting on the grounds of too big or too bad grammar and hopefully never on the grounds of too big or too bad ideas, but always, so I suppose, in objection to certain kinds of the ad hominem that could threaten the very foundations of the peace and tranquillity in the USA-Africa Dialogue Series. In my not so humble opinion even bad ideas/ bad philosophy could be permissible, if not intolerable and inadmissible in an intellectual or scholarly debate?
I have tried to remain faithful to Baba Kadiri's original and have only excised what from a very conservative point of view even in the free speech zone could be a little controversial when it comes to protecting any chosen holy cows from the brutality of victimhood and from the more extreme forms of language damage.
From the succinct Baba Kadiri (edited) thus adding another important voice to the melee:
Reading Farooq Kperogi, one is fraudulently enticed to believe that the recent collapse of a 21-story building at Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria, was caused by a curse incensed with religious incantations from the Islamic Qur'an.
However, it has been confirmed that, in 2019, forty-three buildings collapsed in Nigeria, out of which seventeen occurred in Lagos. The cause of the collapsed buildings was attributed to quacks and greedy developers parading as professional builders who altered original permits used substandard materials and engaged in illegal conversions. The collapsed Ikoyi building, as it has now been revealed, was approved, architecturally, for 15 floors but the developer built 21 floors.
Obviously, the depth of the foundation meant to carry 15 floors would not be adequate for 21 floors. In addition to the fragile or weak foundation, if the blocks and ceilings of the building are made of 95% sand and 5% cement, one does not need to be a professor to predict imminent disaster. Whatever might have been the cause(s) of the collapse of the 21-storey building, by the time Farooq posted his essay, it was known that many people including the Managing Director of Fourscore Heights Limited, Femi Osibona, had died while some wounded persons had been rescued.
It would appear cynical that Farooq Kperogi does not care about the loss of lives and wounded persons in agony. Instead, the collapsed building, according to him brought to light for him what he termed *Anti-Muslim Bigotry in Yoruba land.* The Background to Farooq Kperogi's belief in ' casual bigotry and {inferiorisation (sic)} declaration of Yoruba Muslims as inferior by their own Yoruba people in their own land' was a Youtube story told by one Adebowale Sikiru who claimed that the MD of Fourscore Heights Limited, Femi Osibona, refused to employ him as a site engineer because he, Mr Sikiru, is of the Muslim faith.
Farooq Kperogi narrated, "Sikiru left the site sad, humiliated and deflated, but a friend of his who brought his attention to the job he had interviewed (sic) for called him while he was on his way back home. The friend wanted to find out if he was trapped in the building that had collapsed a few hours earlier. That was the time it dawned on Sikiru that his rejection and humiliation on account of his faith saved him from death." '
It is noteworthy that Sikiru's you-tube story was told after his attention was drawn to the collapsed building by a friend who knew he was there for a job interview and was concerned about his safety. Apparently, having heard about the tragic collapse of the building, Sikiru felt it was the right time for him to rejoice over the downfall of the person that refused to give him a job, as he claimed, because of his adherence to the Islamic faith.
Traditionally and culturally and regardless of whatever religion or sect you belong to, it is an abomination in Nigeria to rejoice over the death of a person. This is because of the general awareness that death is the ultimate end of every human being, although no one knows when, where and how death will happen. Names of the dead in the collapsed building have not been published except that of Femi Osibono and that of his visiting friend, a United States-based Nigerian businessman named, Wale Bob-Oseni, who was scheduled to travel on that same date back to the US.
Oseni seems to be a Yoruba Muslim name. Of the fifteen rescued persons from the debris of the collapsed building so far, the following eleven names have been disclosed: Adeniran Majowa, Odutan Timileyin, Ahmed Kinleku, Sunday Monday, Waliu Lateef, Sholagbade Nurudeen, Glory Samson, Ndajor Ahmed, Yinusa Abubakar, Ajiboye Habib and Jeremiah Samson.
From the 11 rescued persons, 6 could be identified as answering Muslim names.Thus, if Femi Osibono had refused to employ Adebowale Sikiru as a site engineer, it could not have been because of his Islamic faith. And even if it were true that Osibono refused to employ Sikiru because of his being a Muslim, the right time to talk about having been discriminated against because of his religious faith should not be immediately after the collapse of the building with the tragic loss of lives and scores of wounded people.
Despite being a professor, how could Farooq Kperogi and his engineer brother, Sikiru have thought it wise to triumphantly propagate their mythical belief that their Islamic God, Allah, intended to save him from death which was why he was refused employment by the Christian pastor?
Surely, Kperogi and Sikiru are not remotely suggesting that they are very happy because they think that the God of Islam has helped them to defeat the God of Christianity by collapsing the 21-story building into rubble and killing and wounding so many people inside it???
While the dead and wounded are still being pulled out of the collapsed Ikoyi 21-story building why does the self-centred centaur, Farooq Kperogi, say it is time-honoured for him to highlight the declaration of Yoruba Muslims as inferior Yoruba by their fellow Yoruba who are not Muslims!?
It should surely not be a macabre dance of joy on the corpses and the wounded people of Ikoyi's collapsed building, over the alleged discrimination of Yoruba Muslims by the fellow Yoruba non-Muslims?!
Kperogi cited an example thus, "For instance, in the heat of the debate over the formation of Amotekun to ward off *Fulani bandits,* Bolaji Aluko, who was a professor here in the United States and who is now a prominent Ekiti government official, used the moment to stealthily alienate Yoruba Muslims in his State."
How had Bolaji Aluko “stealthily alienated Yoruba Muslims in Ekiti State”?
Kperogi referred to a January 25, 2021 article written by Bolaji Aluko, titled: On the Matter of Farmer-Herdsmen Clashes in Ekiti State. What constituted Aluko's stealthy alienation of Yoruba Muslims in Ekiti in the referenced article quoted by Kperogi thus, "Our Muslim Yoruba citizens must decide whether the Umma principle of brotherhood is greater than the collective security of our Yoruba citizenry."?
Bolaji Aluko's article contained more than eight paragraphs of which Farooq Kperogi dubiously quoted the first sentence in paragraph six but intentionally left its second sentence for the purpose of fulfilling his, call it what you will - his aversion, envy or ill-feeling shown towards Bolaji Aluko :
The omitted second sentence reads, "Similarly, the Kabiyesis, top politicians/society bigwigs and government functionaries who are said to own large heads of cattle, and who use these herdsmen to herd and multiply and secure investments must measure their financial livelihoods against our threatened lives."
On reading the two sentences in paragraph six together it shouldn't be difficult, except for a prejudiced professor, to see that Aluko is addressing all residents of Ekiti, regardless of religion, that are engaged in the cattle business. This becomes even more explicit when one reads paragraph 1of Bolaji Aluko's article which is as follows:
"Not all criminals in Ekiti State are Fulani; Not all Fulani are criminals; Not all Fulani are herdsmen; Not all herdsmen are criminals; Not all herdsmen are Fulani. No criminal is desirable in society, Fulani of herdsmen or not. These six maxims are irrefutable."
When Bolaji Aluko talked about how to get rid of WÈRÈ (which means lunatic in the Yoruba language) in Ekiti State, our dear professor Farooq Kperogi stubbornly imagined him to be talking ill about Owerri, the capital of Imo state. The misunderstanding obviously falls within the range of what psychiatrists will describe as a psychosis condition, i.e., when somebody is unable to distinguish between reality and his/her imagination.
In Mecca and Jerusalem, the original home of the Qur'an and Bible, houses are not built by chanting verses of the Qur'an or Bible. Therefore, it is only someone who is afflicted with Acquired Intelligence Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) that would attribute the collapse of that Ikoyi building to the religious faith of the developer of the property.
And whether Yoruba Muslims are routinely discriminated by their fellow non-Muslim Yoruba or not, it is unreasonable to hide under the tragic collapse of Ikoyi building to discuss such discrimination unless, it is proved that religion is the cause of the collapsed structure.
S. Kadiri
Cornelius Hamelberg
Without further ado, here is the full article in question, by Bolaji Aluko, conscientious, thoughtful, accessible, in clear and concise, straightforward English :
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Salimonu Kadiri
Sent: 09 November 2021 03:59
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [External] USA Africa Dialogue Series - Ikoyi Tragedy and Casual Bigotry Against Yoruba Muslims
Cornelius Hamelberg
If we at all care, then we have to pray for Baba Kadiri., since we take what he says, seriously. We have to presume - to pray on his behalf, for his salvation. It's alright with him boasting that he “read Qur'an from Surah Al-Fatiha to Surah Al-Naas” when he was a little boy, which does not mean that he understood what he read or that what he read or recited ever descended below his throat level down to his heart, which is geographically situated somewhere in the middle of his chest...
The problem with Baba Kadiri is that he does not fulfil the fundamentals required of a believer, as outlined in the first five ayahs of Surah al Baqarah :
2 This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil).
3 Who believe in the Unseen, and establish worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them;
4 And who believe in that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee, and are certain of the Hereafter.
5 These depend on guidance from their Lord. These are the successful.
The Quran continues
6 As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not.
7 Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.
Baba Kadiri, so, there you have it and your disingenuous argument also reeks of more than just a little hypocrisy when you arrogantly write, as if dictating to our Creator, “ Moreover, if God had any message to the Black race, the just God would have sent it to us in any of the languages with which he created us and not in Hebrew or Arabic. “
Such arrogance does not absolve you of the personal responsibility of having read in Arabic or the translations into Yoruba, English, Swedish, and presumably understood the basic message of the Quran and the New Testament : Believe – or perish!
As to the question of Brer Kperogi 's miracle of making a mountain out of a molehill, and his self-satisfied delusions of grandeur, typically glowing with pride and beating his chest as he tells us that “First, it's flattering that such a large number of people found what I wrote important enough to deserve responding with such overpoweringly concentrated emotions”, you must admit that even for a so-called Nigerian language buff who is sometimes reluctant when it comes to calling a spade a spade, there must be some common areas of agreement, without which the very definition of precision would lose all meaning. We agree that a no-nonsense man like Kperogi knows that two plus two = four. On the other hand, it could be that in his poetic imagination, Sign on the porch says “Three’s A Crowd”
Now, if the sign says, “Three 's a crowd” then you must surmise that by Kperogi's Gradgrindian standards, seven people turning up for his lecture is by his conservative estimate a mammoth crowd. , a veritable multitude, like the one that Jesus fed (5,000 people) when he multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish, after which there were twelve baskets full of crumbs that were leftover.
With regard to your beliefs/ disbelief, consider what you may deem hyperbolic, this other perspective: According to the Bible, “a thousand years is like a day to the Lord !” Do you want to argue about that too?
Lastly, and more seriously, we should be looking forward to Kperogi's views on the LGBT phenomenon in Nigeria, whether or not such persons – including the transgender category do not fall into his broader definitions of “the underdog, the marginalised, the alienated, and the ostracised” that he says he always stands up for.
I was thinking about the marginalised, the alienated and the ostracised homosexuals and other human beings in Nigeria after reading an article by Rafaela Stålbalk Klose about Jude Chukwuma Dibia ( the author of “Walking With Shadows”) in the Ordfront Magasin / Specialutgåva/2020.
Dibia is now in exile in Southern Sweden, in Malmö....
Also looking forward to Dear Dr Wahab Ademola Azeez's engagement with your submission...
Madilu System - MélancoliqueSalimonu Kadiri
Sent: 17 November 2021 00:54
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri;
Did anyone in this thread say or imply that it was the Almighty that collapsed the building?
Otherwise, you ended your appeal on a very powerful note, quoting Jesus saying to some of those performing miracles in his name, “depart from, you workers of lawlessness.”, leaving me wondering if the lawlessness that Jesus could be possibly alluding to is the 613 Commandments , traditionally the basis of the Halacha, and from which point of view, those Jews who stand outside of abiding by Haslem's laws are outlaws, guilty of lawlessness - like the ransom kidnappers in Nigeria and those who are obviously not so impressed by the pyramids and have preferred to erect skyscrapers ( like the tower of Babel) on weak foundations...
Re – The narrow-minded prochiral thinking.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, I daresay that when you wax parochial you must at the same time be brave and cautious enough to ensure that when you speak on behalf of your own true, esteemed self , you kindly leave me and all those who do not necessarily share your mindset and world view out of your grand and grandiose, post-colonial summations.
Is that too difficult to ask of you?
From you own ivory tower of Babel ( babble?) I should much prefer that you kindly leave me/ us out of all of your blanket descriptions of what you deem to be aberrations , “abomination “, the mass psychosis / induced hypnosis that you believe Middle Eastern religions to be when practised by those whose ancestors' mother tongue was neither Hebrew nor Arabic, speak less of your Nigerian Constitution which you love to quote so often, and of cours much of the Nigerian educational system that's enshrined in traditions peculiar to Her Majesty's England and her English Language representatives, here on earth, you yourself being one of the utilitarian purveyors of the language that you ( Yoruba chauvinist) so despise but are compelled to use.
Your various unqualified uses of the term “ we” and “our” in this your submission sounds so inclusive, or are we to take it that you really meant to be exclusive , embracing us all in some kind of collective guilt , in that your first paragraph :
“we are mentally Arabi-sized, Islamized, Colonised, Europeanised and Christianised”
( Baba Kadiri)
“we remain stationary as nuts in the wheel of the world while the rest of the world rolls on.”
( Baba Kadiri)
“We allow religious imperialism to disrobe us mentally and cincture our thinking process. Hence, our shackled minds marinate in poisoned pool of peonage and obsequiousness to Judaism and Islamism.”
( Baba Kadiri)
“Our adoption and practice of Judaism and Islamism, essentially, is an admission of our cultural inferiority resulting in our inability to discover our self-worth. Charging from the mind cocooned in Islamic putridity, and Judaist odiousness...”
( Baba Kadiri)
“we glorify in religious imperialism that has victimised us mentally and physically for long. “
( Baba Kadiri)
This is the stark reality you are contending with and have to face as a 21st century Yoruba man :
Islam in the world - Islam as a world religion
Christianity in the world - Christianity as a world religion
You could also link religion to civilisation post-Jahiliyyah Islam and Missionary Christianity as harbinger of civilisation.
As you can glean from those links, the two missionary religions in question promote themselves as Universal Religions - under “One God” - and that's why the Prophet of Islam – salallahu alaihi wa salaam is venerated as “ a mercy to mankind “ and “ a mercy to the world”, whereas according to Acts 4 :12 concerning the unique person Jesus with the unique title “ the only begotten son of God” , the following is Christianity's ultimate message:
“ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. “
This means that the ball is now in Baba Kadiri's court, and Baba Kadiri can't with a straight face say that unless the message is delivered to him in his most compressible Yoruba dialect, the message has not been delivered. In which case I should strongly urge you to read the Holy Bible translated into Yoruba and to contact any of the contemporary great Yoruba pastors and Evangelists, venerable elders such as David Oyedepo , William Kumuyi and Enoch Adeboye, that perchance you may see the light as in this song to you : Could you believe , precious friend of mine...
I have great respect for you Baba Kadiri when you say that you have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, as I have yet to do that and I like to know my song well, before I start singing it. I have as much as possible assiduously studied and am studying the Torah of Moses . I feel sufficiently confident about that, but I'm afraid to say that up to now I have only read and understood less than half of The New Testament, so called, so I'll continue to suspend judgment about your positions, until I fel myself to be in a posution to say , " This is the only way"
Your point about language and understanding the cultural, social, political and historic context is important to the extent that you have The Jewish Annotated New Testament at your service, should you seek that kind of elucidation. Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg is busy making similar points and would like people with questions like yours to read his books.There's the excellant website Jerusalem Perspective, and Jews for Judaism, people like Rabbi Tovia Singer , people like Bart Ehrman , and perhaps, even more to your liking people like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens....
N.B. The Yoruba Religion as a world religion.
As far as proselytizing goes, you are aware that the Yoruba religion has spread far beyond Yoruba-lands in mainland Africa and has migrated along with the Yoruba Diaspora to Brazil, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Venezuela etc. where it has undergone much syncretism, and is now reported to be spreading like wildfire among some of the Black & Proud intelligentsia in North America and Europe., but surpisingly , not as rapidly in Nigeria and the rest of Africa where CHrsitain and Muslim missionaries are competing for the ssalvation of your soul
I don't know if the Noahide Movement is actively mission-izing but they also promote that as the Almighty's basic universal requirement for all mankind
More African Diaspora Music : Muddy Waters - I Can't Be Satisfied
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