His Imperial Majesty, Iku Baba Yeye, the Alaafin of Oyo Kingdom and Titan of Yorubaland, Oba Engineer Abimbola Akeem Owoade 1, is disturbed by the gradual extinction of Yoruba Customs and traditions, and by how modernisation has been allowed to bombard Yoruba traditions.

Speaking at the grand finale of Pepe War Celebration held at the Old Oyo National Park event ground in Oyo town, Oba Owoade said that as things move at the present time, it will be disastrous if we fold our arms, allowing our traditions to dwindle into oblivion in the face of permissiveness.

According to him, "How many Yoruba sons and daughters can brilliantly articulate their local language? It is frightening that our own language is dangling on the brink of extinction while preference is accorded to a foreign language, English, at the Old Oyo National Park event ground in Oyo town.

"Languages often hold the only record of a people’s history, including their songs, stories, praise poetry and ancient traditions. In particular, many indigenous cultures contain a wealth of information about the local environment and its floral and faunal
resources, based upon thousands of years of close interaction, experience, and problem-solving.

"With the extinction of a language, therefore, mankind also loses access to local understanding of plants, animals, and ecosystems, some of which have important medicinal value, and many of which remain undocumented by science".

Thus, the survival of threatened languages, and the indigenous knowledge contained within, the Paramount Ruler noted, is an important aspect of maintaining biological diversity.

"Languages are now becoming extinct faster than birds, mammals, fish or plants. Of the estimated 7,000 unique languages spoken in the world today, nearly half are likely to disappear this century, with an average of one lost every two weeks.

"It is most likely that in less than 50 years from now, even some major Nigerian languages, if not encouraged, can become extinct, and lecturers in our Universities would have cause to excite their students with great lectures in a course on, say, ‘ancient’ Igbo or "ancient” Yoruba languages, and of which they would speak thus, with nostalgia,

"They once flourished in the distant past but have now become extinct. This is a disheartening possibility for anyone who cares about our indigenous languages, the history and unrecorded knowledge they carry within them," he said.

Oba Owoade explained that Yoruba traditional religion clearly plays a distinctive role as the ultimate source of supernatural power and authority that sanctions and reinforces public morality, adding that it is pressed into full service to maintain social order, peace and harmony.

He said, "Traditional Yoruba's believe that success in life, including the gift of offspring, wealth and prosperity, is all blessings from the gods and ancestors. They accrue to people who work hard and strictly adhere to the community's customs and traditional moral norms, upholding the community's ideal of harmonious living.

"Only such people could entertain a real hope of achieving the highly esteemed status of ancestorhood in the hereafter. The vast majority of norms, taboos and prohibitions are directed towards protecting the community and promoting peace and harmony. Communal farmland, economic interests like the market-place, stream, or shrine are generally surrounded with taboos, including who may or may not enter, and when and under what circumstances people are permitted or not to enter such places.

"Stealing is abhorred. It is, in fact, an abomination to steal things relating to people’s vital life interests and occupation. Religion may be distinct and separate from morality, as many scholars have rightly argued. For traditional Yorubas, however, the line dividing the two is very thin indeed. Yoruba traditional religion plays a crucial role in the ethical dynamics of the different groups. In the traditional Yoruba background, ‘gods serve as police men’. Yoruba traditional world-views invariably outline a vision of reality that is, at once, ethical in content and orientation. Human beings and their world are the focal centre of a highly integrated universe. Human conduct is seen as key in upholding the delicate balance believed to exist between the visible world and the invisible one", Alaafin asserted.

ASA