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The controversial issue came up for public discussion penultimate week when His Royal Majesty Abdulrasheed Akanbi, the Oluwo of Iwo in Osun State, said our ancestors worshipped idols (gods and goddesses) not Almighty God. While true Christians and Muslims, that is believers in word and deed, agreed with him many others in the two religions criticized him.
Some even wondered how a traditional ruler who was chosen after the kingmakers of his town had consulted Ifa or other oracles and daily performs rituals according to the customs of his people came out to say African forebear worshipped idols. I do not know when the Oluwo realized this. Was it before he became king or after his enthronement?
If it was before his coronation, did he seek to rule his people because it was an ambition he had nursed since his youth and so did not mind going through the traditional rites of installation. Or is it that Iwo which is a highly Islamic community had done away with choosing its kings after consulting an oracle or oracles and now does so in the Islamic way and the ruler doesn’t perform traditional rites which are not of Islamic origin?
But whether the Oluwo had the belief before he ascended the throne or after it, he is right in his assertion that African ancestors worshipped idols before Christianity and Islam came to the countries on the continent. I know this because it was an issue I raised with the Ancient of Days twenty years ago and what He told me was that the ancestors of Africans and those of other races worshipped idols before His religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam were established.
But those who say that the forebear of Africans worshipped the Heavenly Father believe that the person they were serving was the same deity the Europeans brought as the God of Christians and the Arabs as the Allah of the Muslims. Such people in Yoruba land believe Obatala, Sango and the others were some of the angels of God reported in the Bible and Qur’an.
However, it is wrong to say that the European and American colonialists who brought Christianity to Africa forced their religion on African ancestors. Christianity started in Israel and the forebear of the Europeans and Americans were also idol worshippers before Emperor Constantine I, The Great of the Western Roman Empire got converted to Christianity in 312AD. He was the one who fought battles and spread the religion to other parts of Europe and Asia, a mission continued by his successors. And the religion was gradually introduced in other parts of the world over a period of centuries.
For those who are new to my column I need to let them know that I am someone the Heavenly Father had since Tuesday, February 18, 1969 (52 years now) been speaking with one – to – one as He did with Prophet Moses in the Christian Holy Book (Numbers Chapter 12:1 – 15). People got convinced about this in 2010 (11 years ago) when Dr. Ore Falomo, the physician of Chief Moshood Abiola did not refute my story that during a spiritual retreat in Ado – Ekiti on Saturday, September 24, 1994 that God told him He caused the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by his patient to be annulled.
Those who have been reading my column since 2011 also know that I can never claim that the Supreme Being told me something if He did not. The first reason is the curse He placed in Deuteronomy 27 verse 26 on anyone who will not obey His laws and teachings, including lying with His name. With this curse pronouncement I can’t be foolish to go against the Lord’s order because I know that He will punish me for it here on earth and in the world beyond.
The second reason is the story I told in this column of how the Ancient of Days was angry with me on Saturday, January 13, 2007. It was the day I pleaded that 13 years were long enough for Him to have fulfilled a promise He made to I and two others in March 1994.
The Lord who normally speaks softly lambasted me in a high – pitched vibrating voice asking who was I to tell Him when to fulfill the promise He made on His own without us requesting for it. Immediately, soldier ants appeared biting me where I knelt. The Supreme Being then warned me not to make Him angry again in my life. With this statement and experience will I be stupid not to obey the Lord since saying He told me something He did not will annoy and make Him punish me.
The day I raised the matter if African ancestors worshipped Him the Lord replied me with a question: How can people who engaged in human sacrifice, consulted oracles and paid obeisance to images in their homes or shrines, carried out libation, used alligator pepper, kola nuts and drank palm wine freely during such prayer sessions have been worshipping or serving me?
The Hebrews or Jews never spread Judaism outside Israel. So, how could the ancestors of Africans and the people of other races have been worshipping Almighty God before Christianity and Islam were introduced in their areas?
Until Christianity reached Africa as from the 15th or 16th century through the 19th century, their ancestors too were worshipping idols. The same with the forebear of Muslims before Islam came in the 11th century through the 16th and 19th centuries to Nigeria and other African countries.
To be continued next Wednesday
10 Topmost Immigrant Lagosians —— Chief Anthonio Oladeinde Fernandez, Of Brazilian Origin
He was the son of an ancestor from Brazil who was a slave trader who settled in Lagos in the early 19th century. In other words, unlike other slave merchants who came to West Africa to buy slaves and took them away, his grandfather during one of his trips to Nigeria settled in Lagos and was selling slaves to those who came from abroad.
The father of Chief Anthonio Oladeinde Fernandez was born in Lagos with the name Yesufu Fernandez. But he changed it in adulthood to Camut (or Kanut) Akinwale Akinwande Fernandez. He was married to a Yoruba woman named Juliana Durojaiye Fernandez (nee Palomeras), a member of the Olumegbon noble family of Isale – Eko. This made him in 1989 to name his last child Darnel Abimbola Olumegbon Fernandez in honour of his maternal heritage.
Chief Oladeinde Fernandez who was born in Lagos on Monday, August 12, 1929 had his elementary education at Catholic Primary School, near the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Catholic Mission Street, Lagos Island. He began his secondary education at Church Missionary Society (CMS) Grammar School, Bariga but changed to St. Gregory’s College, Obalende on Lagos Island the following year.
He was at the institution for one year as he left at the end of his second year for the United States where he completed his high school and had his tertiary education. While working in America he brokered a deal for shipping bauxite from the mining area of Jos in Nigeria to a client in God’s own country. He made his first million dollars from the business and this propelled him to become one of the wealthiest men not only in Nigeria but also in Africa and the developing nations.
Apart from being a business magnate, Chief Deinde Fernandez was also a diplomat and Pan – African leader who also served as the Permanent Representative of the Central African Republic to the United Nations. It is believed he secured the appointment through his business dealings in the country and friendship with the President at the time.
Chief Fernandez held a number of chieftaincy titles including that of Apesin Ola of Egba Kingdom. He died on Tuesday, September 1, 2015 at the age of 86 years and thirty days.
Next week: Chief Kitoye Ajasa, the last in the series.
