By Lateef Dada
Dr. Oluseyi Atanda is a medical doctor and an Ifa priest. The Osogbo-born gynaecologist and obstetrician studied Medicine at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAOTECH), graduating in 2003. He became a consultant in 2012.
In this interview with Saturday Sun, the Osogbo born medical doctor and Babalawo explains how he is able to combine knowledge from the two fields to solve medical and spiritual problems. He also speaks on some health challenges and sundry issues from the traditional, spiritual and Western points of view.
Who is Dr. Oluseyi Atanda?
He is a gynecologist, obstetrician by profession, and a traditionalist, an Ifa priest, by religion.
You said that you are a traditionalist?
Yes, I’m a practising babalawo. You can say that I’m a traditionalist. I go to the temple and pray to God through Orunmila. So, I can say I’m a priest because a babalawo is more of a priest than a religious profession. The profession of herbal medicine or being able to assist people is just an added advantage. Primarily, a babalawo is a priest, somebody who can lead a congregation to talk to God, someone who has the ability to use a divination chain (Opele), to find out the problems of people, proffer solution as prescribed by Orunmila through the Ifa corpus. He is someone who tells you what Ifa has said. Ifa is a body of knowledge that tells us about our past, present and future. But now it embodies many things – medicine, philosophy, art, history, culture, and sociology. There is nothing in the world that Ifa does not talk about. That’s why we usually say that if there’s nothing that Ifa has not talked about, that thing does not exist because it is the word of God. The Bible also agrees with us that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. That is the same thing with Ifa. It is the Eledumare word that we call Ifa. It is not Orunmila. It is true we call Orunmila father of Ifa. It is like calling someone a book. It is not that the person is really a book, but because he is brilliant. So, we call Orunmila, father of Ifa, because it is based on the fact that we know that Orunmila knows Ifa.
Do you still have time to attend to oracle divination, given your busy schedules?
(Laughs) Well I think God just has a way of creating time for me out of no time. Yes, you are right. I am very, very busy because I also have some other extra-curricular activities that I do in town. But I just find a way around it. If you have already been destined to do something, God will find a way to give you time and that is why I may be different from other priests that people consult. For me, I’m not a priest that you can just go to his house, knock on the door and say ‘I want to see Ifa priest’. It has to be by an appointment.
Why?
It’s because I am almost always at the hospital, not at Ifa house. So, for you to see me, it may be like, more or less, evenings. Most times, it’s weekends, may be Saturday or Sunday. That is when I attend to clients at Ifa house.
Do you have time to attend meetings of Ifa priests like you attend meetings of medical doctors’?
I’m the current state president of traditionalists in Osun State. So, I attend all meetings. Just like you have CAN or Muslim council, every traditionalist, whether you are Olosun (Osun worshipper), Onifa (Ifa worshiper), Eleegun (Masquerade worshipper), Olobatala (Obatala worshipper), no matter who you are, young or old, there’s an organisation called Traditional Religion Worshippers Association of Osun State and I am the current president. I was the Secretary of the organisation for six years before I became its president. So, I find time, one way or the other, to direct the activities of traditionalists in Osun State.
Do you also lecture because you mentioned something about curricular activities you are involved in?
Well, yes, because I worked for the teaching hospital when we were LAUTECH. We lecture medical students; we lecture resident doctors. Now that it is UNIOSUN Teaching Hospital, we don’t have medical students for now. But there are still resident doctors. There are house officers. We still teach people on post-graduate training. So, my work involves lecturing, research and service to the public. I treat, operate and do everything other gynaecologists are doing.
Many things have been said about the cure for COVID-19. Are you one of those who believe that this disease can be tackled traditionally?
Yes, even spiritually. It’s just that Nigeria is an unfortunate country that does not cherish what it has. There are many things that can be used to address the pandemic, from within and without. In the days of old, when such things happen, there was a way our forefathers did it. I can tell you confidently that when COVID-19 came and it was causing menace in Lagos and everywhere, and when that of Ejigbo 21 issue came up, everybody thought it was going to be a problem in Osun. But it was not, to the glory of God. Why? Despite the lockdown, we had to take a special consent from the state government to allow traditionalists to come in. We did a divination on behalf of the state. It was a particular word that came out and Ifa prescribed what should be done. He asked us to use Babalago masquerade. In those days, Babalago masquerade have long
wears. They usually bring it out to sweep diseases away from the town. At 7 pm on a particular day in different towns, at least 15 towns in Osun State that masquerade came out from the palace of the king there. The king prayed along with the Babalawo and masquerade people and Ifa said it was a bowl of palm oil that the masquerade should carry. The masquerade carried that bowl of palm oil from the palace to the outskirts of the town. It was done here in Osogbo, Ife, Iwo, Ila, and in so many other places. And, to the glory of God, Osun did not have that menace. There are instances like that. This thing can be tackled the traditional way. We are not against you using western medicines, but we must learn to encourage our own traditional medicine. It is only when we encourage its use, and give it a space to operate, that we can sieve the chaff from the grain, that we can know who is original and who is fake. But when you don’t allow people to operate, then everybody operates in secrecy. There’s no way government would be able to identify who is original. Let everybody come outside and have a regulatory body. That’s when you would know who is original, and who is fake. Such people too would be able to put their medicine to the test and know the ones that work and the ones that do not.
Are you satisfied with the support you are getting from government in the area of promoting traditional medicine?
No, I don’t think government is doing enough. And, you know the Nigerian factor: we do a lot of lip service in Nigeria. Government is not doing anything. At both the state and federal Ministries of Health, there should be departments in charge of traditional medicine. There should be a regulatory board for traditional medicine. How many state governments have it? The National Institute of Research and Traditional Medicine that was existent in Lagos, is it still functional? It has gone moribund, and if you go and look at their budget, except they have stopped it, there used to be votes for research and development of traditional medicine. Who gets the money? We put it in our purses. I have been to China before, even in their teaching hospitals, there are departments of traditional medicine. I mean, there are full-fledged eight storey-building hospitals that are for traditional medicine alone. There are some things by now that we should have known in our society if the traditional medicine has been allowed to excel. For example, when a woman just delivered and she is not lactating, there are some leaves that can be used, made into a cream and used to massage the breast and there will be milk. At least, she is not ingesting it. If we are afraid that we don’t know what it is made up of, we can research on it. There are traditional methods that can be used to stop bleeding after delivery. There are ones prescribed when a woman is about to have a baby and the baby is coming with its buttocks. If you apply it, the baby would turn around and come out with the head. There are traditional medicines that cure weak male erection or premature ejaculation. These are things we can explore even in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. I can count six, eight, ten things, but we are not given room to operate. It’s when we are given room to operate, that things can be explored as to know which is original and which is fake. I’m not saying that everything in traditional medicine is original. But we should not throw away the bath water with the baby. What am I saying? There’s still baby in some of the bath water.
We have noticed that some pregnant women go for about two, three years without delivery.
Is this one of the spiritual cases?
Well, unfortunately, that example you gave is not true. Nobody can be pregnant for one year, not to talk of three years. Most times it is fibroid. The woman has fibroid and she continues to believe it is a baby. When a woman is interested in having a baby, little by little, she will develop psychiatric problems and start believing she is pregnant. She would refuse to go and do a scan. She will be saying they told her the baby would not be seen if she does scan. She would start having psychiatric problems because she just wants to be pregnant. No woman can be pregnant for three years; it is not possible.
You mean it, even though such belief is rampant among the Yoruba, and perhaps, other tribes?
I am Yoruba, and there’s nothing in Yoruba that we have not seen. You can’t spiritually lock up a woman’s womb for three years. At first, it can start with fibroid, but along the line the woman now gets pregnant because pregnancy cannot spend up to a year. The placenta is programmed. After 10 months, placenta will die and when the placenta dies there would be no blood supply, no nutrients supplied to the baby again. And, the baby will die. And, if the baby dies, after one month even the woman might die because as the dead baby begins to decompose, toxins would be released. Anyone who has seen a lady pregnant for two, three years should go and bring her. Let’s check the process; it’s not possible. When you talk about problems with pregnancy, I am not saying it doesn’t happen. A baby can just die in the womb and you would be thinking it’s medical, whereas it’s spiritual. Pregnancy may come down every three months, and most times, it may be spiritual. The truth is, for every spiritual problem there is a physical manifestation. For example, death kills everyone either by hypertension or diabetes. It’s still death. Someone slept, and didn’t wake up or gasped for breath, it’s still death. But something must have happened before. So, a woman that her baby dies in her womb may have some spiritual undertones to it but what the doctor may see is that the water surrounding the baby keeps reducing up to a point whereby the baby eventually dies. While the hospital may be able to see that the water or fluid around the baby is reducing, it may not be able to explain why. That is the spiritual aspect.
What are some of the success stories you can tell us in the area of traditional medicine?
Well, the way we are trained, you are not allowed or expected to blow your trumpet. For the spiritual, no babalawo would say when Mr. A was sick, he came to me and I did this. When Mrs. B wanted to conceive, I did that. No, babalawo keeps secrets. But in the society, people may say it themselves, but no babalawo will. If a babalawo gives examples it is not by mentioning names. But we know women who have been pregnant for six, seven, eight times but couldn’t have a baby. But through our own interventions medically and, by assisting them with traditional prayers, they were able to have children of their own. There are women who suffered from infertility or some other illnesses, and we did the same thing and they were okay afterward. You know that even the motto of most hospitals is: “we care, God heals.” So we still need the element of God. Whether you are a babalawo, a pastor or an Alfa, we all call on God Almighty, Olodumare, but through different messengers.
When and how did you learn oracle divination?
I was born an Ifa priest. And, in as much as anybody is born an Ifa priest, nobody brings the knowledge from heaven. The only one who comes with such knowledge from heaven is Alapansiki. There was a servant of Orunmila who bears the name. In his own days, he was taught Ifa in his dream. In the morning when the child meets with Orunmila who was his principal, he would be taught some verses. But after that, he would have known more verses aside the ones his father taught him. The father inquired who is teaching him. He said it is through dreams. But I was not taught in a dream. As a child, my father was an Ifa priest. I grew up in the house of a herbalist. I never went to church or mosque. I was baptized or initiated into priesthood at the age of 10. So I didn’t start learning Ifa until I was 10. That was when I was put through the rudiments of divination chain that I could identify: Eji-Ogbe, Oyeku-meji, and many others. The interesting thing is that learning of Ifa does not stop because there are 256 chapters of Ifa. And each of those chapters has at least 256 verses. So, there is no herbalist that knows it all.
What Orunmila could teach in his time, the way he does his things is quite different from how he goes about it in Ibadan, and several places. That is why in those days, as an herbalist, when you have a child, you would ask the child to go to one of your friends’ place who is also an herbalist to learn. By the time the child comes back, he would have learnt the method of the other place before going through the method of his father and adding to it. So, as he is going growing up
among his friends when they meet in an outing where they began to chant the eji-ogbe another person will chant his own. So we keep learning. I did so as a child growing up. I continued to learn after my secondary school days, before I went to the university. So, I have been learning Ifa before enlightenment.
Who taught you?
I started the learning from my father.
Who is he?
He is Aare Ifagbenushola Olalekan Atanda, the Asiwaju Awo of Lagos State and the whole world. He is also the Akoda Awo in Osogbo which means he is the number two man in Osogbo as far as Ifa circle is concerned.
How do you relate with your relatives, friends and workers who are Christians and Muslims?
My partner gynaecologist here is an Alfa (a Muslim cleric). He works with me. Also, my nurses are Christians and Muslims, and not traditionalists.
How about your immediate family?
The average Yoruba are a unique set of people. We understand one another. When they are in their festive period, they celebrate together with each other, except those that are a bit fanatical. Everybody attends Egungun festival. So, occasionally there are friends who are fanatical, and we will want to say: “doctor, this thing you are doing is this or that.” Even when we were growing up in the university, whenever people confronted me to say: “how could you proudly say you are a traditionalist in this present age,” I would tell them that we are all products of the religions we were brought up with. Only very few people have the course to change to their religion. Most of us find ourselves in that religion by virtue of birth and we are practising it. If it has not failed you, there is no reason to look over the fence as to want to change your religion. So, if your own religion is working for you, and I have not condemned you, then you don’t have the right to tell me that my religion is not working for me. Religion is a practical science which is between you and the God you are calling. It is in your quiet corner that only you can know whether it’s working for you or not. If we now want to look at it by material things, I tell my friends whenever we are together that they are not handsomer, richer or more intelligent than I am. So, how can you now tell me that the god I serve does not exist when I don’t condemn yours? Let people judge me by my behaviour and character because it’s our actions and reactions that will make people to say: “so, this is what your religion teaches?” You must profess what your religion teaches, through your action. And when we talk about heaven and hell, why don’t you leave that till that time because none of you have been there and came back to tell us this is how heaven looks like?
What was your experience when you wanted to marry?
I am married to a woman who used to be a Christian. Before marriage, she was a Christian. But after marriage, she started practising my religion with me. Because she was from a Christian background, this brought up a little crisis in the family when we wanted to get married. Some members of her family asked why she wanted to get married to a herbalist. But to the glory of God, her father is educated and liberal. He talks intelligently. Her father later approved, saying that he was not going to live with her and her husband. The man later realised that everybody has a babalawo in his family. Her father is as good as my father. He is my father and friend. So, I don’t have problem relating with my wife’s family.
What’s your view on Christianity being the only way to God?
It is not you that will tell me that you are a man of God. I should know by your actions. Your behaviour should tell me about your religion. But unfortunately, we now live in a world of deceit. We should be able to tolerate each other. It is a misnomer for anyone to say there is only one way to God. God is not a God of confusion. If we assume Christianity is the only way to God, do you know how many years it took Christianity to get to Yoruba land and Africa? Are we saying all those our forefathers that existed before they brought Christianity did not know God? They lived in harmony with one another. They live peacefully among themselves. Crime rate was low. Adultery was low. Every evil in the society was low and you said they did not know God? Search yourself. If Christianity was supposed to be the only way to God and He loved all of us equally, may God forgive me, that means God must have been wicked to have left us until Jesus Christ finished in Galilee with the people of Jerusalem before we now started knowing that one God existed through Jesus Christ. It cannot be true. If there were only one way to God, we should be speaking one language. That means I have to go and learn Hebrew in order to communicate with God. It doesn’t cost him anything to make us speak one language because He knows the only child He has speaks that language. Though there is only one God, there are many manifestations of Him. There are over 250 religions in this world and they all talk about God. If we go and check those books with Jehovah’s Witness, The 250 Names of God, even there are some other religions that are more popular than Christianity and Islam in some parts of the world.
The Chinese have their religion. Koreans, Japanese and Indians have their religions. Even in Southern Africa, they have what they worship there too. Everybody talks about God. So, it is a misunderstanding that makes people to say that. There is only one God but many manifestations and many ways. It’s left to you to understand which one you want to follow. Once you don’t follow the manual as it is, you will miss your way. Then you will come back to say that this religion is not working. Search yourself. Maybe you are the one that is not doing it in the right way the manual has prescribed. So, I believe in the religion of tolerance: live and let others live. If you are unbiased and plain, you can learn about other religions and have knowledge of what other religions are all about.
There is this belief that African traditionalists worship idols. What’s your take on the view?
There are some people who don’t understand traditional religion, but they talk as if they do. They talk about idol worshipper, small god and all that. In those days, our forefathers didn’t say so. It was the Whiteman’s new invention because they wanted to steal our god. Our fathers never had small or big God. We knew God. It was not the White man that came to tell us what God is or His existence. We knew that Orunmila, Obatala, Sango and Ogun existed. But we never called them God; we call them intermediaries, that is, means to get to Him. Some people call us idol worshippers. No, we worship God. Have you ever heard Yoruba saying we serve idols? No, we serve God, but we worship Him through these intermediaries, who show us the way to Him. There is no confusion if we understand what the Yoruba is saying. The white man needed to give a dog a bad name to be able to enslave us, but today people are getting wiser.
What is your Ifa name?
Not every name of Ifa lineage begins or starts with Ifa. My Ifa name is Adeyi. There was an Ifa priest that give me the name from birth. So, I’m Oluseyi Olaboyede Adeyi Atanda.