Nigeria, the land of plenty

the grand priest of Ifa, Araba-Agbaye on the day of reading the future The grand priest of the Ifa is  Babalawo Adisa Aworeni  Awoyemi.  He is the Araba-Agbaye (Head of all Ifa priest in Ile-Ife) . Every June, which coincides with the beginning of the Yoruba year, marks the beginning of the rainy season. I t is then that the oracle will read the Ifa on a wooden board on which seeds linked by a string are thrown, from which the Ifa priest can interpret the future. Ifa is a divination system of drawing marks on the sand or on cam wood with Arabic origin (ARABIC GEOMANCY) entered into Yoruba land in the 16th century.  Ifá divination system incorporated into its system the already existing stories, tales aspects, religious structures and functions of the Yoruba Ò rìsà Mythology. the Araba-Agbaye in his reception room The town of Ile-Ife is hosting a number of shrines to several Yoruba divinities such as Obatala, the one that is moulding the body of human cre...

chic students on a Sunday Ile Ife has a huge university campus, a lot of green with an interesting collection of architecturally sophisticated buildings from the 60s. It was created in 1962. A lot of creativity went into there design and they feature like modernity decaying in the middle of nature which even if unkempt remains beautiful. Today the university hosts several tens of thousands of students. when nature and concrete gracefully share the same space Large trees host thousands of large bats that go on errand for breakfast and dinner filling up the sky in  frightening dance in the air. Each faculty has a different design and was sponsored by a different donor. Concrete was a favorite of the time and through the sheer size of the buildings it must have meant that fortunes were spent in the construction. Alas maintenance is not the pass-time of Nigerian so many of the building are in need of a lifting. A-shaped We met a foreign lecturer who told us that professi...

brand new royal carpet The King of the Yorubas lives in Ife, 200km north east of Lagos, not too far from Ibadan. He is known as the Ooni of Ife. He has a palace and has obviously a few houses in town. No one is supposed to know where he spends the night. The Ooni is in his early forties. He was recently elected following the passing on of the late Ooni of Ife - le roi est mort, vive le roi! The burial ceremony of the late Ooni, called Oro festival, fueled rumours because traditionally a man, associated to the Ooni and called Abobakun, is supposed to be buried with the Ooni to accompany him in the afterlife. That man, reportedly fled, as the late Ooni passed away, in the hope to escape his fate. This was a few weeks ago. As we visited Ife, some people told us the Abobakun had since died but maybe we did not understand it quite well? a beer brand celebrating the new Ooni of Ife However we got to understand that the Ooni occupies a prominent role in the Yoruba world and acts as ...