NO ALTERNATIVE TO OMOLUABI IN YORUBA LAND

While growing up as an infant to adulthood under the tutelage of one's parents, there were some qualities (unwritten laws) that were inculcated in us as youths which were inherited by our parents from their forebears and responsible for the peace, unity and good neighborliness in the society, those qualities were aptly called "Iwa Omoluabi" meaning "acts of reverrence".

These acts were copiuosly about the sanctity of the family name which must be reverred and protected because it's worth more than silver and gold and this is further given credence in the Holy scriptures which asserts that "A good name is greater than riches and gold".

To go against those virtues and values (unwritten laws) then, was a taboo, a sacrilege, it was unimaginable because the consequence was or is akin to sending one to the gallows even when the offence committed, is not murder.

These were the values that some of us were brought up with and still hold on tenaciously to despite present day challenges and distractions, with the hindsight of passing it on to our children and generations unborn, God willing.

In those days in the gathering of the community for societal cause, standards were set and understood by all such that persons who have at one time or the other in the past violated the (unwritten) rules were ostracised and not allowed to sit in the gathering of honourable men and women, lest they pollute the air with their "uncleanness" and make a mockery of a popular class, but unfortunately the reverse is the case today as there are no more standards, our society has denigrated to, one of anything goes, apologies to former chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Salihu Ibrahim who made this remark at his pulling out parade in 1993

It is unfortunate that humanity today is bedeviled by crises from East to West, North to South by our inability or irresponsibility to maintain social order by obeying those laws which were stronger in determining man's action than the positive laws enacted for such purpose and executing the needful of meting out adequate punishment to offenders of our unwritten laws.

If persons & characters who just yesterday before our very eyes were oil pipeline protection contractors, votes for sale merchants are now masquerading as leaders in Yoruba land to sit in a gathering of sons and daughters of Yorubas to speak on our behalf in utter disregard of our standard of the possession of the qualities of an Omoluabi, then it will be a great disservice and insult on whatever values our forefathers stood for to sit down idly and allow these elements to whom, honour is cash and carry, assault one's sensibilities by latching on to a popular agitation to seek relevance and make a political capital out of it, just because they have been economically and politically displaced by the new order.

One is irredeemably committed to never dignifying such characters no matter how much they try to clean off their dirt of shame by sitting with men and women of honour in Yorubaland. By this mixture, they have polluted the air and made a mockery of a just cause.

While one recognizes and respect their right to assembly with whoever and for whatever and those who don't see anything wrong in separating the wheat from the chaff, one's position on this matter is simply that there is no alternative to an Omoluabi as a Yoruba man or woman and as long as these characters are allowed to pollute the air of a popular cause, so would will continue to insist that a wrong approach to a right cause is an exercise in futility.

Thanks.
Yours Sincerely,
Nelson Ekujumi