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Still on Constitutionalism: A wake-up call
Late Nigerian Dictator Sani Abacha
CC™ Nigeriaworld
Over the past several months, the restructuring debate has understandably been pushed to the front burner with opinions on the issue being as impassioned as they are divided. Expectedly, every Nigerian appears to have an idea on how, when and what to restructure.
That is the way it should be! But, with popular opinion in support of preserving the continued existence of Nigeria as one, united country, attention should be focused on restructuring to strengthen political structures. It is good that the ninth Senate has activated a nationwide debate on securing a people-oriented constitution.
It might not have been top on the agenda when then Head of State, General Sani Abacha, convoked the National Constitutional Conference in 1994, but, little did he know that he had surreptitiously set the country on the path of restructuring. Had death not abridged General Abacha’s plans, it is safe to say that all the hot air over marginalization, more imagined than real, and some of the ills we are grappling with, would have been consigned to history.
Reference here is to stillborn report of the 1994/95 National Constitutional Conference. A review of salient provisions of the report shows that, had it seen the light of day, Nigeria would have transformed from a country of contending ethnic nationalities into a modern nation-state in a matter of thirty years! In a manner of speaking, the Abacha draft is the best effort at constitutionalism since independence in 1960.
Sadly, General Abacha died suddenly after holding the country together for five impossible years. Imperatively, survival instincts demanded that General Abacha be disowned by those who succeeded him. The national emergency then was to heal wounds and woo the aggrieved South-west geo-political zone back into the fold. It was, therefore, expedient for his stopgap successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, to distance himself as much as possible. The biggest casualty was the report of Confab ’94.
One of the committees hurriedly assembled by the new administration to explore the way forward was led by an eminent jurist, late Justice Niki Tobi. The Committee appeared to be in a haste to deliver; after all, it had its briefs well spelt out. The Committee took one hasty look at the Abacha Report and dismissed it offhanded as ‘anti-people’. Remarkably, the eminent jurist rationalized the decision to throw away the Abacha document by claiming it was the ‘product of a disputed legitimacy’. In its place, the 1979 constitution was lazily window-dressed and closed shop!
As things stand today, Nigeria continues to grope partly due to the lethargy with which the Abacha document was handled. The nation’s official six geo-political zones remains an enduring legacy of General Abacha. In any case, the zones were meant to be the building blocks for the fundamental changes envisaged by the 1995 draft constitution which made provision for the offices of president, vice president, senate president, house speaker as well as the position of prime minister and deputy prime minister. A five-year single-term for political offices. Public office holders were restricted to a five-year single-term tenure.
The ‘Abacha document’ had something for everybody. Had political exigencies not prevailed on General Abubakar into literally throwing away the baby with the bathwater, Nigeria would, by now, have experimented with the Abacha formula for twenty-two of the ‘thirty-year transition period’ which aim was to ‘promote national cohesion and integration’, after which merit and competence would replace rotation in determining who gets what.
In strict adherence to the principle of rotation envisaged by the Abacha document, at no point in time would any of the six geo-political zones have cause to complain of marginalization since there was always going to be one ‘juicy’ office to be vied for by each of the zones every five years. What this means is that, in 2018, the fifth of the six zones would have produced a president for the country and, by 2023, all six key political offices would have gone round the six geopolitical zones on rotational basis.
Of equal importance is that the unique provision eliminates the incumbency factor and its attendant abuses. Since the draft envisaged its replication at state levels, the president and other principal officers as well as state governors and stand disqualified from standing election for the same office during their five-year single term incumbency!
More than two decades after ‘throwing away the baby with the bath water’, Nigerians are still playing the ostrich instead of sobering up and still living in denial. overgrowing the prejudices of the Abacha era. As a matter of fact, the Abacha document was so comprehensive to have anticipated the untenable and wrong-headed agitations across the country and the hollow talk of marginalization that comes with it. Now, can and, should Nigerians continue to play the ostrich and allow lawlessness to dominate the political scene? Are we to allow a rambunctious few to continue to stampede us and dominate national discourse in the face of quick-fix solutions?
Of course, the talk of dissolving Nigeria is hot air that lacks substance. Yes, there is need to restructure and this should not be mistaken for a breakup as some have been programmed to believe. We need to restructure in a way every section of the country will, at all times, be appropriately represented in governance. The ‘Abacha document’ took care of these and more. The document suggested a five-year single-term for elective posts. To restructure in a way that lawmaking will be inexpensive and effective, the draft made provision for part-time lawmaking!
Of course, Nigeria should restructure in a way that treasury looters will not get dubious clean bills from regular courts or be shielded from prosecution. It may interest Nigerians and their elected representatives that there is no proclamation for the much-abused immunity clause for any public office holder in the Abacha draft for the president and vice president as well as governors and their deputies. The pestiferous eighth Assembly that canvassed for a dubious immunity for its principal officers was not expected to look at the document; it didn’t!
Nigerians should give the thumbs-up to the leadership of the current Senate for taking the bull by the horn. To achieve desired results, Nigerians must begin to look beyond General Abacha and ditch the prejudices that characterized his days. The task ahead may seem insuperable but it is not invincible.
The task will be made easier if we tinker with report of Confab ’95.
Tuesday
Flashback: White Evangelicals Made a Deal With the Devil. Now What?
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| Donald Trump holds a Bible outside St John's Church in Washington DC. Credits: Getty Images |
By Sarah Jones
In the end, white Christian America stood by its man. The exit polls present an imperfect but definitive picture. At least three-quarters of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in November, a figure largely unchanged from 2016. Evangelicals didn’t win Trump another four years in power, but not for lack of effort. While most of America tired of the president’s impieties, the born-again found in themselves a higher tolerance for sin.
And the sins are legion, lest we forget. He tear-gassed protesters so he could walk to a D.C. church and hold a Bible upside-down in front of it without interference. He lied and cheated, and smeared women who accused him of sexual assault. He separated migrant children from their parents and staffed his administration with white nationalists. Over a quarter of a million Americans died of coronavirus, while he railed against doctors and scientists trying to save lives. Not even a plague turned evangelicals from their earthly lord. For Trump, the consequences are political and legal. For evangelicals, the fallout has a more spiritual quality. What does it profit a faith to gain a whole country and then lose it, along with its own soul?
Evangelicals had more to lose than Republicans, for reasons I learned in church as a child. You can’t evangelize anyone if your testimony is poor. If you disobey your parents, or wear a skirt that falls above your knees, how can anyone believe you’re saved? Another Sunday School lesson, conveniently forgotten? Be sure that your sin will find you out. Evangelicals bought power, and the bill is coming due. The price is their Christian witness, the credibility of their redemption by God. Evangelicalism won’t disappear after Trump, but its alliance with an unpopular and brutal president could alienate all but the most zealous.
To be evangelical in the 1990s was to learn fear. The world was so dangerous, and our status in it so fragile. The fossil record was a lie, and scientists knew it. You could not watch the Teletubbies because Jerry Falwell thought the purple one was gay. No Disney, either, and not because Walt had been a fascist; Disneyworld allowed a gay pride day, and in one scene of The Lion King, you could see the stars spell out “sex.” You were lucky to even be alive, to have escaped the abortion mill. The predominantly white evangelical world in which I was raised had created its own shadow universe, a buffer between it and the hostile world. Our parents could put us in Christian schools or homeschool us; if they did risk public school, we could take shelter with groups like YoungLife and the Fellowship Christian of Athletes, which would tell we to make the most of this chance to save souls. We had alternatives for everything; our own pop music, our own kids’ shows, our own versions of biology and U.S. history, and an ecosystem of colleges and universities to train us up in the way we should go: toward the Republican Party, and away from the left, with no equivocation.
Whatever the cause, whatever the rumor, the fear was always the same. It was about power, and what would happen if we lost it. Certain facts, like the whiteness of our congregations and the maleness of our pulpits and the shortcomings of our leaders, were not worth mentioning. You were fighting for God, and God was not racist or sexist; He was only true. The unsaved hated this, it made them angry, and that was proof you were doing the right thing. If “owning the libs” has a discernible origin point, it’s here, in the white evangelical church.
While I was in college and Trump was still a reality show star, evangelicals faced a crisis in the pews. Young people were leaving the church, and they weren’t coming back. The first signs arrived in 2007, in the last hopeful months before the Great Recession. A pair of Christian researchers released a study with troubling implications for the future of the church. Young people aged 16 to 29 were skeptical of Christianity and of evangelicalism in particular, concluded Dave Kinnaman of the Barna Group and Gabe Lyons of the Fermi Group. “Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political,” they wrote. Among the unchurched, attitudes were even more negative. A mere 3 percent said they had positive views of evangelicalism, a precipitous decline from previous generations.
I interviewed Lyons about his research while I was a student journalist at Cedarville University, a conservative Baptist school in Ohio. By the time I graduated, I’d become one of his statistics, an atheist with a minor in Bible. Trump was not even a glimmer in Steve Bannon’s eye, but the evangelical tradition had already asked me to tolerate many sins. There was George W. Bush and his catastrophic invasion of Iraq; welfare policies that starved the poor; the dehumanization of immigrants, of LGBT people, of women who do not wish to stay pregnant, and my own, non-negotiable submission to men. At some point I realized that I had traveled some distance in my mind, and I could not go back the way I came. I was over it, I was through.
The years after my personal exodus brought with them more proof that the church was in trouble. Partisanship did not entirely explain why. Membership declined fastest in mainline congregations, even though they tend to be more liberal than the independent churches of my youth. Social media has expanded the philosophical marketplace; all Christian traditions face competition from new ideologies for the hearts and minds of the young. But conservative denominations are suffering, too. The Southern Baptist Convention said this June it had experienced its thirteenth consecutive year of membership decline. By age 22, two-thirds of adults who attend Protestant services as teenagers have dropped out of church for at least a year, LifeWay Research found last year, and a quarter cited political disagreements as the reason. An alliance with a president the young largely hated might not lure new generations to the fold.
Years of attrition have taken a toll on white evangelicals, said Robert Jones, the author of White Christian America and the founder of the Public Religion Research Institute. “If you go back a couple of election cycles ago, into Barack Obama’s first election, they were 21 percent of the population, and today they are 15 percent of the population,” he told me. The share of Black evangelicals has remained relatively stable, he added, while the numbers of Latino evangelicals have grown. And while these groups ostensibly share a religious label, politically they are far apart.
“If I take the religious landscape, and I sort religious groups by their support for one candidate or the other, what inevitably happens is that there are no two groups further away from each other in that sorting than white evangelical Protestants and African-American Protestants,” Jones said, adding that Latino evangelicals are “a little more divided.” (Indeed, Trump won significant support from this group in 2020.)
But white evangelicals are still outliers overall: They’re more conservative than other Protestants, more conservative than Catholics, more conservative, in fact, than any other demographic in the country. The implicit claim of the Moral Majority — that it embodied mainstream opinion — always lacked evidence, but it’s become even less true over time. By the time Trump applied Richard Nixon’s label of a “silent majority” to his own coalition, it barely made sense at all. A bloc that can only take the White House through the electoral college, and not the popular vote, only to lose it outright four years later, has no claim to majority status. They are a remnant within a remnant, a nation within a nation.
There are still dissenters. Last year, the outgoing editor of Christianity Today, Mark Galli, called for Trump’s removal from office. Galli wrote the typical approach for his magazine was to “stay above the fray,” and “allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible,” he wrote. But Trump had abused the power of his office and revealed a “grossly deficient moral character.” Galli has since converted to Catholicism, a decision he explained to Religion News Services as being more personal than political.
Others stay. But they can experience a painful friction between their spiritual convictions and political independence. My parents, both pro-life evangelicals, have now voted against Trump twice. I spoke to another by Skype, not long before the election.
I know Marlena Proper Graves from my days at that Baptist university, when I was an upstart college feminist, and she was a resident director and the spouse of a professor. Now the author of two books on faith and a doctoral candidate at Bowling Green State University, Graves worries about the influence of Trump, and Trump’s party, on her beloved church. The word “evangelical,” she noted, had always referred to a constellation of beliefs. “You have a relationship with God, God cares about you, God cares about all people, and Christ is central,” she said, ticking them off. “But now it seems to be something of a culture.” That culture is an exclusionary one. “I’ve been disinvited from events because of my views and activism for immigrants, because it’s controversial,” she said.
When Proper was young, she told me, she listened to Christian radio all the time, just like I did. Preachers and commentators like James Dobson, a famed radio personality and the founder of Focus on the Family, would opine on the issues of the day, on morality, and virtue. “All these people would talk about character,” she said. “How you can’t vote for Bill Clinton in particular because of Monica Lewinsky, because he had affairs.” Then came Trump. “People said, first, that they didn’t think he would win. Then it was all about abortion and judges. I felt like I was being punked,” she remembered. But many evangelicals are in on the joke. Faced with popular rejection and the humiliation of Trump, they declare themselves persecuted, and identify numerous enemies. The mission remains the same: Purify the nation, and pacify the barbarians.
Beyond the usual celebrity preacher scandals, the faith’s place in the broader Christian right required it to make moral compromises it never tolerated among the rank-and-file members of the flock. Our definition of morality narrowed the further up the pyramid you climbed. For the politicians we backed, it shrank to a pinprick point: Ronald Reagan was divorced. What mattered instead to the Moral Majority was his opposition to abortion, his hippie-bashing, his ability to trade in euphemisms about “states’ rights.” Two Bush presidents later, thrice-married Trump gave evangelicals the conservative Supreme Court of their dreams.
As hypocritical as white evangelical support for Trump may look from the outside, the president actually understood his base quite well. Eight years of a Black, liberal president threatened their hegemony. So had the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. Sarah Posner, an investigative journalist and the author of Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump, told me that Trump managed to tap into two key evangelical tendencies. “Those two things were the racial grievances of the white base of the Republican Party, and how televangelism had changed evangelicalism from the 1970s onward,” she said.
Galli, the former Christianity Today editor, believes Trump also appealed to an entrenched evangelical sense of marginalization. By the time same-sex marriage was legalized, public opinion on LGBT rights had already liberalized; the gap between white evangelicals, and everyone else, on matters of sexuality is now wider than it’s ever been. “Here comes Donald Trump, saying it’s OK to be Christian, it’s OK to have your values, it’s OK to practice your values in the public square. And he does this in a very authoritative manner,” Galli explained. Trump didn’t know his Scripture, but he knew there was a war on, and that was enough. The nation’s culture warriors had found their general.
Evangelicals, Galli added, “are deeply suspicious of human authority,” but only to a point. What they may fear, really, is authority they don’t control. “Paradoxically,” he continued, “they are a group that’s attracted to authoritarian leaders, whether that person be a pastor of a megachurch or a dictator.” Those tendencies existed before Trump. With the help of the far-right press, social media, and alternative institutions, they will survive Trump, too.
“I think that the thing that we have to keep our eye on is the ways in which the infrastructure that they built gives them an advantage beyond what their numbers would tell you,” Posner said. Conservative evangelicals already know that they’re no longer the Moral Majority, and they’ve found a way to make it work for them. “They’ll recognize, for example, that they may be in the minority on LGBTQ rights, but in their view, that’s all the more reason that they should be protected by either the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or the First Amendment, in having the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people.”
That infrastructure still churns out new acolytes, who embrace the worst elements of the tradition we all used to share. The same movement that produced me also spawned Madison Cawthorn, a Republican elected to Congress last month. He was born the year the Southern Baptist Convention first apologized for slavery, and he will be the youngest member of Congress when he takes office in January. He’ll also be one of furthest-right Republicans in office, with a personal life that once again tests the bounds of evangelical toleration for sin. Women from his Christian homeschooling community in North Carolina and women who studied with him at the conservative Patrick Henry College have accused him repeatedly of sexual harassment and misconduct. A racist website linked to his campaign criticized a local journalist for leaving academia to “work for non-white males” like Senator Cory Booker, “who aims to ruin white males.” After he won, he celebrated with a tweet. “Cry more, lib,” he wrote.
There’s time for Cawthorn to self-immolate on a pyre of his own sins before he’s old enough to run for president. But there will be other Cawthorns, other white evangelical candidates who will try to master Trumpism-without-Trump. They might not need an army to win, either. The GOP already knows it doesn’t have to be popular to stay in power. They need a radical remnant, and a lot of dirty tricks. Republicans can get what they want by suppressing the vote, or by undermining our confidence in elections. They can protect themselves through the subtle tyranny of inequality, which empowers the wealthy while alienating the most under-represented among us. A party out of step with most voters must either reform, or it must cheat. This, too, is something the modern GOP has in common with the Christian right. Democracy is the enemy. People can’t be trusted with their own souls. Leave them to their own devices, and they make the wrong choices, take the easy way out, threaten everything holy. They need a savior, whether they like it or not.
Monday
Sunday
The art of managing people
Organizations struggle everyday with the germane issue of what the effective management of people, an organization's most prized asset, actually entails. The effective management of people within an organization requires a thorough understanding of the following:
- Motivation - Whether intrinsic or extrinsic and the importance of positive triggers....
- Job design and environment....
- Company's rewards system and how it is structured and also possibly layered....
- Group influence as a function of Group-think and other allegiances....
Motivation
Human beings are creatures of habit and by that, I mean it is natural to expect that individuals will have different triggers within their genetic and socio-cultural make-up, that ultimately control what their motivations are, where they originate from or worse still, whether or not they have any at all.
Of course, as a business owner or a leader, you would hope you haven't hired someone or lead a group of people on the bottom rung of the Motivation Trigger Index™ (MTI).
Usually, one finds that most people with intrinsic motivation tend to have a higher MTI. They are the high achievers and are usually not driven to succeed or excel necessarily as a result of positive external triggers, but do so because it is just in their make-up. It is however important to note that for these group, the Positive External Triggers (PETs) only serve to further elevate their MTI scores. As for those, whose Motivational Intelligence (MI) require external triggers, they tend to be either in the middle or the lower rung of the Motivation Trigger Index™. People in this category tend to require an appreciable amount of Positive External Triggers (PETs) and ironically, if they have quite a bit of this, they are bound to excel at their tasks, in some cases, even with distinction. However, unlike the first group, their MTI scores tend to vacillate between just above average to poor, as a function of the amount of PETs they are exposed to in their work and related environment.
Human beings are creatures of habit and by that, I mean it is natural to expect that individuals will have different triggers within their genetic and socio-cultural make-up, that ultimately control what their motivations are, where they originate from or worse still, whether or not they have any at all.
Of course, as a business owner or a leader, you would hope you haven't hired someone or lead a group of people on the bottom rung of the Motivation Trigger Index™ (MTI).
Usually, one finds that most people with intrinsic motivation tend to have a higher MTI. They are the high achievers and are usually not driven to succeed or excel necessarily as a result of positive external triggers, but do so because it is just in their make-up. It is however important to note that for these group, the Positive External Triggers (PETs) only serve to further elevate their MTI scores. As for those, whose Motivational Intelligence (MI) require external triggers, they tend to be either in the middle or the lower rung of the Motivation Trigger Index™. People in this category tend to require an appreciable amount of Positive External Triggers (PETs) and ironically, if they have quite a bit of this, they are bound to excel at their tasks, in some cases, even with distinction. However, unlike the first group, their MTI scores tend to vacillate between just above average to poor, as a function of the amount of PETs they are exposed to in their work and related environment.
Job Design and Environment
Over the years, scientific management has sought to strip workers of their initiative, thus ridding the work environment of key intangibles such as skill set diversity, autonomy and most important of all, feedback, constructive or otherwise.
A perfect example of empowering employees and creating an environment that engenders optimum productivity and creativity is to seek input from your employees, even when you, as a leader, know what the solution to a problem is. They may even suggest the solution you have in mind and you can give them credit for it.
Over the years, scientific management has sought to strip workers of their initiative, thus ridding the work environment of key intangibles such as skill set diversity, autonomy and most important of all, feedback, constructive or otherwise.
A perfect example of empowering employees and creating an environment that engenders optimum productivity and creativity is to seek input from your employees, even when you, as a leader, know what the solution to a problem is. They may even suggest the solution you have in mind and you can give them credit for it.
Rewards System
The rewards system must be one that does not give rise to suspicion or insinuations of favoritism. While majority of organizations, big or small, insist on building a "team atmosphere", it is imperative that top performers, particularly those that most closely espouse the company's core principles within the framework of its corporate culture, are duly rewarded and recognized as such.
This process should however be carefully monitored and managed, so as to ensure that everyone (including the non-monetary contributors) feels a sense of belonging to the organization, through their own respective contributions.
It is a well-known fact that the successful execution of a company's business strategy must involve everyone on the ship.
The rewards system must be one that does not give rise to suspicion or insinuations of favoritism. While majority of organizations, big or small, insist on building a "team atmosphere", it is imperative that top performers, particularly those that most closely espouse the company's core principles within the framework of its corporate culture, are duly rewarded and recognized as such.
This process should however be carefully monitored and managed, so as to ensure that everyone (including the non-monetary contributors) feels a sense of belonging to the organization, through their own respective contributions.
It is a well-known fact that the successful execution of a company's business strategy must involve everyone on the ship.
Group Influence
This can either be a "good thing" or a "bad thing", but it depends on how you look at it. Now, while it can create a negative work environment due to its potentially divisive and mostly political nature, it is an unavoidable phenomenon.
Most organizations have learned to not only exist but also flourish with just the "right amount" of group-think, as it actually may engender a spirit of collaboration towards reaching the ultimate objectives of the organization.
The overriding attitude becomes one where the conclusion is that if the company wins, then everyone wins.
© 2024 2CG MEDIA. Coker Confidential™
This can either be a "good thing" or a "bad thing", but it depends on how you look at it. Now, while it can create a negative work environment due to its potentially divisive and mostly political nature, it is an unavoidable phenomenon.
Most organizations have learned to not only exist but also flourish with just the "right amount" of group-think, as it actually may engender a spirit of collaboration towards reaching the ultimate objectives of the organization.
The overriding attitude becomes one where the conclusion is that if the company wins, then everyone wins.
© 2024 2CG MEDIA. Coker Confidential™
Saturday
Yes, racism is still very much alive and will always be here.....
This ABC experiment on racial prejudice is quite revealing and speaks not only to the prejudices carried by the "majority", but those unfortunately imbibed by the recipients, as a result of centuries of a sense of diminished self-worth, resulting from institutional and related racial prejudice.
Watch and learn.....
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Ifá/Afa- A Computer Programmer’s Perspective
By Eyes Sea
For some of us who earn our daily bread from programming computers (I have been doing this for over 2 decades), making the connection between Ifá binary notation and programming is a no brainer.
We programmers write codes/instructions (incantations) on the cpu – made from silicon (sand) to carry out our desires.
The parallel between a Babaláwo and a computer programmer is striking. We write on sand (silicon/cpu), a Babalawo writes on Iyerosun (camwood powder). We chant/write binary codes, a Babaláwo recites Odù Ifá!
In essence, a computer code is àfọ̀ṣẹ par excellence! In Yoruba, àfọ̀ṣẹ means “oun tí a fọ̀ tí ó sì ṣẹ” – something commanded to happen.
Our incantations (computer codes) can animate the entities in the cpu (sand) and make them become whatever we want: a game console, a financial trading system, an air traffic controller, facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon, Bitcoin etc.
How did this come about? Well, the Binary System makes this possible.
The Binary System of Ifá is based on the Yorùbá philosophical duality of Ibi and Ire (Evil and Good); for several millennia, the Yorùbá had been using the binary system before the German mathematician – Gottfried Leibniz formalised in 1679.
These days, the Binary Numeral System (Base 2) is well known in Mathematics and digital electronics and the system underpins how computers work by representing numeric values using just two digits – zero (0) and one (1)
In Computing, a Bit (i.e. BInary digiT) is the smallest unit of storage and can either be 1 or 0
A Nible (also called half Byte or semi-octet) is the grouping of four Bits e.g 0 1 0 1
In Ifá, Odù signatures are marked with “|” and “||”. Where “|” is the binary number “0” and “||” is “1”.
For example Ogbè (0000) has the following signature:
|
|
|
|
Ọ̀sá (1000) is represented as:
||
|
|
|
Òtúrá (0100) is marked as:
|
||
|
|
We can therefore summarise the representation of the first sixteen Odus as follows:
Decimal == Nibble == Odù
00 == 0000 == Ogbè
01 == 0001 == Ògúndá
02 == 0010 == Ìrẹtẹ̀
03 == 0011 == Ìrosùn
04 == 0100 == Òtúra
05 == 0101 == Ọ̀sẹ́
06 == 0110 == Èdí
07 == 0111 == Ọ̀bàrà
08 == 1000 == Ọ̀sá
09 == 1001 == Ìwòrì
10 == 1010 == Ọ̀̀fún
11 == 1011 == Ìká
12 == 1100 == Ọ̀wọ́nrín
13 == 1101 == Òtúrúpọ̀n
14 == 1110 == Ọ̀kànràn
15 == 1111 == Òyẹ̀kú
́
Since Ifá speaks only in binary (Odu Èjì Ogbè says: “Èjèèji ni mo gbè, n ò gbe ọ̀kan ṣoṣo mọ́” i.e “I will only support two, I will not support one”), each Odu must be paired.
For example, after pairing the main Odu, we get the following (see graphic for the main Odu signature)
Èjì Ogbè (also called Ògbè Méjì): 00000000
Ògúndá Méjì : 00010001
Ìrẹtẹ̀ Méjì : 00100010
Ìrosùn Méjì : 00110011
Òtúrá Méjì : 01000100
Ọ̀sẹ́ Méjì : 01010101
Èdí Méjì : 01100110
Ọ̀bàrà Méjì : 01110111
Ọ̀ṣá Meji: 10001000
Ìwòrì Méjì : 10011001
Ọ̀fún Méjì : 10101010
Ìká Méjì :10111011
Ọ̀wọ́nrín Méjì :11001100
Òtúrúpọ̀n Méjì :11011101
Ọ̀kànràn Méjì :11101110
Ọ̀yẹ̀kú Méjì : 11111111
The other 240 minor Odus are derived from the main 16 Odus.
For example (note: the binary notation and the marks are read from right to left)
Ogbè-Ògúndá : 0001-0000
| |
| |
| |
|| |
Ọ̀yẹ̀kú-Ìrẹtẹ̀ : 0010-1111
| ||
| ||
|| ||
| ||
Computers also speak in binary and binary numbers can be converted to decimal, hexadecimal, octal etc.
Without getting into too much math, below are the decimal values of the 16 main Odu:
00000000 = 00
00010001 = 17
00100010 = 34
00110011 = 51
01000100 = 68
01010101 = 85
01100110 = 102
01110111 = 119
10001000 = 136
10011001 = 153
10101010 = 170
10111011 = 187
11001100 = 204
11011101 = 221
11101110 = 238
11111111 = 255
i.e. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 = 55
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
In Ifa, the patterns of bits above translate to…
ọ̀wọ́nrín-ọ̀sá èjì-ogbè èjì-ogbè
ọ̀wọ́nrín-ọ̀sá ogbè-ọ̀sá ogbè-ọ̀sá
ọ̀wọ́nrín-méjì ogbè-ọ̀sá ogbè-ọtúrá
ọ̀fùn-ọ̀sá ogbè-òtúrùpọ̀n ogbè-ọtúrá
ọtúrá-méjì ogbe-ọtúrá ogbè-ògúndá
ìrẹtẹ̀-ọ̀wọ́nrín ogbè-ọ̀sá èjì-ogbè
ìrẹtẹ̀-ọ̀sá ogbè-ọ̀sá ogbè-ọ̀sá
ọ̀sá-ogbè ogbè-ọtúrá èjì-ogbè
èdì-ọtúrá èjì-ogbè èjì-ogbè
This was how programmers used to write computer programs before high level programming languages like Fortran and Lisp were created in 1957 and 1958 respectively.
For programmers, entering these patterns manually was a laborious, tedious and error-prone task. Even for a seasoned programmer, it could get dizzy and nauseating after assembling a couple of these patterns.
However, a competent Ifá priest can commit to memory 256 of these patterns without breaking a sweat and able to recite close to 4,000 Ifá verses by heart!
Effectively, the meaning of the 1s and 0s in the code above is as follows:
- Store the number 0 in memory location 0.
- Store the number 1 in memory location 1.
- Store the value of memory location 1 in memory location 2.
- Subtract the number 11 from the value in memory location 2.
- If the value in memory location 2 is the number 0 continue with instruction 9.
- Add the value of memory location 1 to memory location 0.
- Add the number 1 to the value of memory location 1.
- Continue with instruction 3.
- Output the value of memory location 0.
Using names in place of numbers for memory and instruction locations, we can do the following:
Set the value of “total” to 0.
Set the value of “count” to 1.
[loop]
Set the value of “compare” to the “count” value.
Subtract 11 from the value of “compare” .
If “compare” is zero, continue at [end].
Add “count” to the value of “total”.
Add 1 to the value of “count”.
Continue at [loop].
[end]
Output “total”.
In a modern programming language like Python, we can write the following:
total = 0
count = 1
while count <= 10:
total = total + count
count = count + 1
print total
In 2017, I wrote series of programming tutorials on this wall using the Python programming language. In the coming series of articles, I will translate the posts into Yoruba so stay tuned.
Ire o.
Credit:Ifá – Olobe Yoyon
SOURCE: rymcitigh
Saturday
God Bless America…..And Nigeria As Well!
By Boyejo Alaba Coker
Chief Editor
While the whole world watches with sheer amazement, the ongoing "battle" for the electoral soul of America at the Supreme Court of the United States, we must be careful not to focus unnecessarily on the "negative" aspects of the pervading situation, but instead appreciate the strength and vibrancy of the democratic process and rule of law, as it obtains in the United States of America, in spite of what transpired on January 6th, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol.
Were this to happen in another country, Nigeria for example, a bunch of opportunists and hare-brains in khaki uniform would have sought by now to usurp power...hence effectively scuttling the democratic process. Instead what we see is democracy in process, even in the most precarious of situations.
The American democracy is built on a solid foundation of systems and institutions working hand-in-hand, nourished by an ever evolving but fertile climate of dialogue and compromise, guided by the tenets of civil discourse and a commitment to a workable resolution...one all sides are party to!
While it is no longer laughable to hear the chitters and chatters from around the world with regards to the "legitimacy" or "moral imperative" that unfortunately envelope the victors of a seemingly tainted process, the United States, more than any country in the history of the world and humanity, is still offers the freest, fairest and most veracious democracy ever. The veritable nature of the American system is again unfolding through the court system.
For despots, dictators and tyrants worldwide to now turn around and question the legitimacy of American leadership in the world, is at best laughable.
And as for the journalists (around the world) that seem forever captivated and mesmerized by disgraced, thieving dictators and murdering despots like Putin, Erdogan, Kim, Xi and Assad to have the nerve, gall and impudent temerity to question the veracity of the most vibrant democratic system in the world, is at best unbecoming.
Please note that the U.S. will be just fine. It is not a fledgling democracy built on mediocrity and an archaic "federal character" (as obtains in Nigeria), it is an established democracy built on a solid foundation of values and rewards, not for ineptitude and laziness, but hard-work, dedication and a commitment to service...in its truest form. Maybe someday, Nigeria can learn from this. A continuing political setting where a group that has contributed the LEAST to the progress, development and vibrant image of the country, feels that their aspirations and ideals should supersede those of others, can only spell doom for the country.
Furthermore, a continuing political setting where a group that lags behind (and I mean waaaaay behind) in all social and economic indicators, rather than look to pull themselves up to the level of the other groups, would much rather engage in religious, ethnic and gender bigotry, with a view to frustrating viable attempts at positive growth and development for the whole nation, speaks to the very heart of the need for a reassessment of the entity called Nigeria.
The continuing calls for a Sovereign National Conference are still not being heeded. This I must say is highly unfortunate. For Nigeria to move forward with a view to realizing its true potential, we (all nationalities within our nation) need to sit down and engage in civil but earnest discussions about the conditions for the continued corporate existence of Nigeria.
Enough of the quota system, federal character and population fallacy that seem to forever invite and reward mediocrity, incompetence, ineptitude and ignominy! The time is indeed ripe for the true values and ideals of equity, justice and fair play to become part and parcel of the Nigerian democratic process. It is a known fact that whatever Nigerians do, whether good or bad, once we put our minds to it, we are virtually unstoppable. However, this time let it be for the good of all and most importantly our beloved country.
It is time for the re-birth of the Nigeria that I once knew and hope to know again one day...the Nigeria that had so much promise...so much vitality; the Nigeria that had honour and integrity...the Nigeria that above all...had a CONSCIENCE, where great men and women with great minds and Godly hearts traversed the length and breath of our nation; the Nigeria that exuded so much confidence and provided hope and succour to all...at home and abroad!
We can do it, but first we must resolve to rid ourselves of the cancer of religious, ethnic, class, and gender bigotry. In the 21st century, Nigeria should be importing machinery and equipment for the purpose of industrialization and technological advancement, as opposed to the severing of arms, limbs and joints�all in the name of religion!
As I have said time and time again, if some people are hell bent on reverting to the dark days of Europe they should please let us know, so that those of us that believe in the inherent freedom of all, regardless of class, ethnicity, race, gender or religion can march on in glory into the promise and possibilities of the new millennium.
God Bless America...and Nigeria too, while He is at it!
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