Nigeria Religion Practice: How Yeye Omolara Fashola-Fanimokun Is Changing The Narrative
…Pastor encouraged me to become priestesss
With the coming of modern religion (Christianity and Islam) to Nigeria, traditional religion may have appeared to be threatened as many continue to embrace either of these two practices.
This is further amplified as the government gives these two religions more attention by recognizing them with public holidays declared to mark certain rituals observed in these religions.
But with traditionalists such as Yeye Omolara Fashola-Fanimokun, the Oba Obinrin Olokun-Olosa of Lagos State, the narrative may soon change as she tells Nigerians across the world, and particularly the Yorubas to embrace their traditional religion, which according to her remains the best.
She narrated: “The first problem we had as to regards to Yoruba culture and tradition is that of over exposure and I will say this because during the slave trade, the white men came and took us as slaves, took us away and also came and made us believe that what we were doing were not right. And of course they stole everything from us. They tricked us into taking all those things, all those good things that Olodumare had endowed us with.
“For instance in the United Kingdom, in London, to be precise, where they have temple of Aje I was shocked the day I saw it, because the temple has all the designs of the an Aje.
“And there is actually Aje deity in the park and what they did is that they made the place so beautiful in the centre of London, and they put pigeons there.
“And of course, in Yoruba land we know the Aje is being propitiated by pigeon, bananas, honeys, so they know, they know that these things are good.
Having extensively practised both Islam and Christianity earlier, Yeye Fashola-Fanimokun, who is now an Olokun priestess, insists that the traditional religion is most potent to solve all human problems and through it sanity, peace and prosperity can be guaranteed, while the cultural values being eroded will be restored.
The Oba Obirin Olokun-Olosa said “In the health sector, in the olden days, Obaluaye was the deity who was in charge of diseases, pandemic and the rest of them. Before any pandemic comes, the elder would have gone to propitiate Obaluaye and in some cases, they would prepare medicine to take care of diseases.
“It was a practice that involves a sharp blade to cut a part of the skin and put some kind of medicine on it which Yorubas call gbere (incision). In modern medicine is called inoculation,
“And people who go to church obviously still go back to tradition. Even in the hospital if the doctors try to treat someone of a disease and they can’t find a solution, the next thing they would say they should try the traditional method because they know such thing is beyond them, it is beyond the medical or the physical, it is spiritual.
“Even from church, I have seen so many cases where the pastor would say go home, there is something somewhere, and I hope you know that we are ancestors.
“What I am trying to say is that tradition, culture cannot be eradicated. It is who we are, except we want to deceive ourselves.
“And since the day that I accepted to become a traditionalist, I don’t fall ill, I don’t have tragedies. My things are going smoothly to the glory of Olodumare. Not that you will not have challenge, we do have challenges but we always overcome them when we propitiate and anyone who is sick we do same for the person and he or she gets healed,” Yeye Oba Obirin Olokun-Olosa of Lagos explained.
Narrating how she became a priestess, Yeye Fashola-Fanimokun said: “Even when I went to church they kept telling me that there is a mission I that I have to accomplish. I did not understand and I thought okay I am already serving God, I am a prophetess, I come to church, I do healing, deliverances and all of that, taking part in whatever all the prophets and prophetesses were doing.
“I kept having this dream, and I didn’t know God was speaking to me, I kept seeing water, water every time, until one day I saw a man give me a glass of water and he said I should use it.
So when I woke up, I went to my daddy to relate the dream and he said right from when I was a toddler and could talk, I had started talking about water and how I liked it so much.
“Also, there had been a revelation from when I was young that I was going to be special and set aside for a work that has to do with water. I still didn’t understand until I went to a C.A.C. church and one day during a service pastor just pointed at me and said I have a job which has to do with water and I looked at him and I was like at a C.A.C. church.
“He told me that I should not be afraid that God calls us in different ways. And since then I embraced my mission as a priestess. And I realize ever since I became a priestess, no matter hard or difficult a situation is once I venerate the water and I use the water, it works like magic. It is mostly like miracle,” narrated.
Yeye, a legal practitioner (with specialty in maritime law, trained in Nigeria and UK) and an entrepreneur cum politician, believes that Nigeria’s problems – largely caused by bad leadership – may not have deepened if political office holders and other top government functionaries swear by Ogun instead of the Bible or Quran before assuming office.
“There is so much discipline in the traditional religion, unlike what is obtainable in Islam and Christianity,” Yeye Fashola-Fanimokun said
“Many of our politicians reneged on their promises and oaths which they swore by the Bible and Quran to abuse the office because punishments are not meted out to them instantly.
“But this can’t happen if they swore by Ogun (the god of thunder) because they know that if they try anything funny, they will be dealt with instantly. And the Orisas don’t joke, they don’t play. They strike immediately. So, they are careful.
“Even in churches, do you know how many women have come to me that they went to pray in pastor’s house or prayer place, and the pastor assaulted them, too many. That cannot happen where the Orisa is, I am sure it cannot happen, except if it is fake Orisa,” she stated.
She further called on the government and everyone to be advocates of tradition and culture, while appreciating the efforts of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi in promoting the Yoruba values.
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