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By Lukman Olabiyi
The Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams, has called on the Federal Government to develop a tailor-made social security welfare scheme for the country.
Adams explained that the surest way to reduce insecurity and immorality, reduce poverty and despondency in the country, is for government to provide support and succour to its citizens who do not have hope for better lives.
He made the call while delivering a keynote address at the 2025 edition of Egbe Festival organised by Olokun Festival Foundation (OFF) in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
According to him, the rising level of insecurity and other immoral incidences is not befitting of Nigeria.
He said the scheme will take millions of Nigerians languishing in abject poverty and unsure of the future out of despair.
Adams stressed that a social security system had become necessary in the country considering the ever-increasing number of the less-privileged people in the society.
“Considering the population of vulnerable and less-privileged people in the country, it is time the Federal Government introduced a social security system that would cater to this segment of the society.
“The concept of the social security is a comprehensive programme that provides financial support to such people as the unemployed, the disabled and physically-challenged, retirees, and survivors of deceased workers.
“In South Africa, for instance, the government gives support in forms of child support grant to the primary caregiver of a child under 18 years; foster child grant for court-appointed foster parents caring for a foster child; care dependency grant for parents or caregivers of children with severe disabilities who need full-time care; grant-in-aid, which is an additional support for individuals receiving another social grant who need constant care from another person; and war survivors grant,” he said.
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Speaking on the essence of Egbe Festival, Adams noted that its celebration was to showcase the beliefs and understanding of the importance of spiritual groups to human beings and nations of the earth.
While explaining that the spiritual benefits of spiritual/heavenly groups (Egbe) were numerous and could not be over-emphasised, he said no nation can survive the rigours of leadership without the spiritual groups.
“Egbe has the spiritual potentials to guide, to prosper and project the star of every human being living on earth,” he added.
Adams berated spiritualists whose habit it is to label spiritual groups as evil. He stressed that the right thing to do was to guide whosoever belongs to any of the groups on how to effectively benefit from the groups, rather than condemn them totally.
“Let me state clearly that the gap between the spirituality of our existence and the reality of our being can be bridged with adequate knowledge about Egbe and the spiritual groups.
“And until we dig deep into the spiritual realm and seek proper knowledge about the beauty and importance of the spiritual groups, it will be difficult for us to overcome the challenges of the world,” he said.
In a brief remark, the Oniladaba of Ladaba Kingdom, HRM Oba Nureni Ebudola Odedina, noted that the idea of appeasing spiritual/heavenly groups has been part of our culture for ages.
He lamented that because of religion and so-called modernisation, the Yoruba people have back-tracked on most of the cultural practices they inherited, calling for a change.
He implored religious leaders to stop labelling cultural practices wrongly in the name of winning new converts, stressing that the practices remained key to our livelihoods and existence.
