The Original African civilization based on Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa has no shrines of the Almighty God, the Universe, nor names its people the Almighty God. Instead the world’s oldest and most advanced civilizational philosophy breaks down the Universe/Almighty God into 401 separate specific cyclical spiritual and philosophical essences, a belief system better known as scientific spiritualism as opposed to Religious dogma.
Several thousands years older than all other civilizations, the African belief system is scientific in its belief that everything has to have negative and positive to balance, as opposed to the two thousand year Judeo-Christian and Islamic beliefs that God is good all the time, while all evil belongs to the Devil. If Almighty God created everything, he is evil as he is good. Indigenous Africans don’t have a Devil/Satan figure, and instead identify their personal spiritual essences and emphasize its positive qualities in their names like Osunyoyin, Ogunwusi, Faloye etc
Africans were named with specific family or environmental spiritual essences, and not as composite of all 401 essences, Olu or Chukwu, the Almighty God, which makes them spiritually like Buhari who once said he belonged to everybody but belonged to nobody. Christians adopted Olu, one of the names of Orisa Oluaye/Obaluaye, to mean Almighty God, while Chukwu is from Chi (Soul) and Ukwu (collective), a combination of all Chi and their different essences. Every human comes to the world with a specific Chi and when you die, the Chi is expected to return to its space in the pantheon of Chi called Chukwu. Otherwise if they return with ambiguity or a corrupted Chi, they will be rejected and their spirit will roam in space.
Our colonized minds and spirituality aids our continued arrested national political and economic development, since our organization into politics is based on Awalokan tribal and religious prebendalism. In Awalokan, ‘We are next’ arrangement, the question is who are the We, when our cultural and civilizational identities have been warped by Abrahamic coloniality. The We tribal collective is designed and labeled externally towards a colonial agenda that balkanized our civilization into tribes, whose externally acknowledged and empowered elites share our commonwealth amongst friends, family and their masters.
As the British set out to colonize Lagos in 1861 with plans to colonize what eventually became Nigeria, they engaged in Civilizational Balkanization and Erasure, by commissioning Bishop Ajayi Crowther to write a Yoruba Bible and Igbo dictionary, to not only assault and kill Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa that tied our civilizational narrative together, but to also create a linguistic gulf between the continuum of dialects into regional Yoruba and Igbo tribal identities for divide and rule purposes. As Donna Theresa sang ‘control the words, control the story, control the mind’ without the slavery physical chains.
The epistemicide, killing of our Civilizational knowledge Bank of history, science and philosophy, became the foundation of the coloniality of our Being/Self. Esu, the operating system of the Ifa-Afa-Iha-Fa knowledge Bank, the source of civilizational knowledge, was maliciously labeled Satan. Then they banned Obaluaye that provides civilizational structures, demonizing it as only being about Soponna, smallpox. In Ndigboland, the civilizational production center especially of Iron, Ekwensu its essence was demonized and discarded.
The colonized minds shunned their most important spiritual essences for the ambiguity of an Almighty God of other civilizations. Everybody is born with what is known as Ori/Chi that is a personal spiritual makeup of the different essences to fulfill their journey on Earth. Separated into decivilized tribes whose neocolonial leaders viciously competed to get crumbs from the colonial economic exploitation, the people were demobilized by disengaging them from their inborn essences of Obaluaye (structure), Esu (information), Oya (Revolutionary change) etc. The people lived in penury and ignorance, left only with essences like Osun (music and beauty), Yemoja (childbirth), Orunmila (food) and a warped Olokun with colonized consciousness.
Charity begins at home so for things to improve in Nigeria and across the Black Race, we must endeavor to discover our true essences encoded in our personal Ori/Chi, which we should hone its skills and talents for personal and collective empowerment. Those that excel in honing their Ori become ‘Eni Ori Sa’ – those that fulfill the destiny of their Ori. Little wonder General Obasanjo (Obaluaye Sanjo/is profitable) with strong Obaluaye (structure) essences born in Olokun has been the most important sculptor of modern Nigeria consciousness.
Unfortunately, the XYZ generations from the Seventies ignorantly spin out spiritual and philosophical meaningless names, influenced by the mass cult of prosperity gospel that make them neglect promoting their individual Ori/Chi life essences. Jesutomi, Chimamanda… The popular author said she renamed herself to Chimamanda, a combination of Igbo Chi and European Amanda (love). Though she married into the European civilization, there are questions of how her Chi will affect her life and offsprings.
Care has to be taken in attributing composite and foreign essences to our Ori/Chi. Confucius, the ancient philosopher said the rectification of terms was the first step to freedom of an enslaved people. Not only do we have to revisit and understand our Civilizational Reality, but also each and everyone must understand the spiritual or lack of meaning of ourselves, our Ori/Chi.
Prince Justice Faloye President ASHE Foundation think tank
