Yoruba leader and Alana of Ilana Omo Oodua (Head of Yoruba Nation Self-Determination Struggle), Prof. Banji Akintoye, has tendered unreserved apology to the victims of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade in Yorubaland.
Akintoye, who is a professor of History, said some of the victims of the slave trade placed a curse on the future generation of Yoruba people for colluding with the Whites to sell them into slavery back then.
Akintoye, in an open letter to the Yoruba people which he personally signed and made available to journalists through his Communications Office, on Sunday, said, “the Holy Spirit told him that the spirits of those our forefathers sold for peanuts to Portuguese and Dutch people as slaves are behind the lack of growth, development, progress, peace and unity in Yorubaland, and among the Yoruba people.”
He said: “The unholy collaboration between the then leaders of the Yoruba people and the Portuguese and Dutch businessmen who came to Africa for the business of slave trade in 18th century led to the selling of many into slavery and great agony.
“Over one million Africans, including the Yoruba people, were exported to Europe and America as Slaves by Europeans, who brought salt to Africa in 18th Century through Porto Novo and Whydan Kingdom in the present-day Benin Republic through the collaboration of some local warriors.
“The curses placed on the Yoruba people by victims of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, many of whom jumped into the Atlantic Ocean during their forced trips to Europe and America, needs to be cleansed in order for the Yoruba people to enjoy God’s favour, cohesion, unity and progress.
“Predating colonialism and slavery in Africa in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Yoruba race had engaged in internal conflicts, resulting in marauding, intra-tribal and internecine warfare. Historians mostly agree that such civil unrest did not result in commercialization of human captives until the era of colonialism and slave trade on African soil. Yet, we have to agree that foreigners did not do this without the cooperation of some of the indigenous people, the Yoruba.
“According to the revelation referenced above, a segment of the captive Yoruba sons and daughters hauled into slavery looked back and placed a curse on the land and the people that violated their humanity by selling them into slavery.
“Furthermore, Holy Spirit revealed that some among the Yoruba captives committed suicide by jumping off the captive ships into their deaths deep into the Atlantic Ocean, while others simply placed the curse and endured the shame by continuing the captive’s journey. For this, the need for reconciliation and unreserved apologies is real and past due.
“Against this backdrop of the atrocity of historical proportions unleashed against the peoples of Black Africa, which escalated into full-blown slavery, the current generation of the Yoruba seeks to tender an unreserved, heart-felt apology on behalf of our past generations of forefathers, monarchs and chiefs who participated in slavery.
“Also, those who folded their hands in helplessness and hopelessness, those who looked the other way when they could have spoken or stood against the perpetrators of this heinous crime against humanity, and those who cooperated and/or benefitted from the sales of their brothers and sisters, children, parents, friends and neighbors.
“Words alone cannot atone for the immeasurable amount of suffering endured by our brothers and sisters during the forceful passages into the New World as they entered the narrow passage that ushered them into the journey of no return. Yet, words have to be offered to express remorse, regret and above all, to ask for forgiveness that could only come from the heart, and straight from the throne of grace.”
“Although the crime was committed many years ago, the effect of the bitterness might still be the reason for lack of unity and development in Yorubaland.
“Having said all that, we say it from the bottom of our hearts that we sincerely understand if you still nurse the hurt and feel the pain; after all, years may heal the wound, but the scar may always remain. All we can say is to appeal that you please forgive our forefathers on whose behalf we tender these apologies; and to forgive us as offspring of our erring progenitors.
All these talks of “holy spirit says this and that” and the curse placed on some “Yorubas” by those sold into slavery being responsible for “disunity” among the Yorubas and the causal factor for the dismal performance of our political system in Yorubaland by our own Banji Akintoye, an erudite professor of History and leader of Ilana Yoruba Group is to say the least a stretch of his expertise in history and the over-extension of what history as a subject and course of study is all about. History, as a subject or field of study and career is purely narrative and not predictive as my learned professor of history is attempting to do in apologizing for a curse that did not exist and the fact that Prof. Akintoye lacked the requisite qualification to extend the reach of history to the predictive arena. It could be said that Prof. Akintoye could with his wide knowledge of history be credited with substantive analysis of history i.e., adducing or deducing the rationale for a narrative topic of which he could eloquently and beautifully write but to adduce or deduce the “raison d’être” of a subject or topic of his intellectual research will be at best an educated guess of which history as a field of study is bereft.
I have responded to people who have come to me saying the reason for their situation in life either in success or failure is the curse placed on them by their father’s or mother’s ancestors for stealing a piece of meat from the stew pot or this and that by telling them what Socrates opined in saying, “Man is the architect of his fate”. Stretching his expertise in history of which Prof. Akintoye has widely taught, researched, and recognized as an authority to the predictive space is nothing short of redefining what history is all about. The reason for seeming “lack of unity” among the Yoruba people in their nation is not caused by a curse placed by somebody or a group of people thousands of years ago for our participation in Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and to say to my beloved professor that there was also trans-Saharan slave trade and route too! Our Prof. Banji Akintoye cannot atone and does not need to atone for anything one or all of us Yorubas have done or might have done in the past and History of which Banji Akintoye is an accomplished scholar cannot authoritatively provide us with the reason for the dismal performance of our political system in Nigeria or the achievement of the Yoruba self-determination struggle of which lives have been lost and it always seem that the attainment of self-government or true federalism in Yorubaland in particular and Nigeria in general is looking like a mirage. I would give it to Prof. Banji Akintoye for being an authority in History in general and Yoruba history in particular. Our Prof. Banji Akintoye is better equipped to narrate what happened at Ogun Ijàyè, Ogun Jálumi of which I have personal knowledge passed down to me. Yorubas often say that “bí omode kò bá á ba itàn, yóò bá Àrobá (oral history) because Àrobá is the father of history (itàn). Rather than finding the reason for the dismal performance of our political system in some curse, prophecy or holy spirit (which is foreign to Yoruba religion and lexicon) or vision of which History is bereft, I would think our distinguished Professor Banji Akintoye would continue to dominate the narrative and substantive arenas of History and occupy his place as the Authority and Custodian of Yoruba History and leave the predictive aspects of our dismal performance or our lack of unity to behavioral scientists who at their level best can give us predictive models ceteris paribus. Three GBÒSÀ! GBÒSÀ!! GBÒSÀ!!! to the Professor-in-Residence and Custodian of Yoruba History Banji Akintoye. The prayer and wish of every Yoruba nobility is to become an Òpìtàn (historian). Ǫjǫgbón Bánjí dòpìtàǹ! Ę ó pę fún wa o! Àsę.