Osun: A Supreme River in Danger
Ọ̀ṣun: A Supreme River in Danger
Ọ̀ṣun is one of the hundreds of òrìṣà shaping the ideologies, the environments, thoughts and unity of the Yoruba people. Òrìṣà extend beyond the supernatural entities of the people; their functions have remained indefatigable from time immemorial to the present day. Ọ̀ṣun, one of the òrìṣà, and the topic of today, is esteemed for beauty and fecundity. Like her fellow supernatural entities, Ọ̀ṣun functions in a fluid manner: Prof. Diedre Badejo contends that Ọ̀ṣun embodies femininity and thus portrays feminine characteristics; the professor goes further to note that the embodiment of beauty also performs the roles of war and militarism when necessary. The people of the great city of Òṣogbo and the entire Yoruba at large bear witness to this notion of the believe that the Great Ọ̀ṣun stood with her people during the wars of the 1840s between the Yoruba and the Fulani Jihadist; she destroyed the efforts of the enemies to take over Yorubaland.
Beyond spirituality, the physical features and functions — which are the themes of this article — of Ọ̀ṣun are landmark. As a river flowing through nearly all major settlements of the Yoruba people, Ọ̀ṣun symbolises Pan-Yoruba unity. Besides Ifá corpus — a series of verses/texts embedded with Yoruba history, myths, spiritualities, science and technology and other forms of Yoruba identities and knowledge system — Ọ̀ṣun seems to be a prominent identity for which the Yoruba are known worldwide. The river is not only one of world’s pilgrimage and heritage destinations but she has also gained recognition from international organisations such as the UNESCO. Professional personalities worldwide have been awed by the status of Ọ̀ṣun in Yorubaland. Some have made her a permanent site of abode; an example of this is Austrian Suzanne Wenger, an artist who abandoned her European home, families and luxury, and settled down in Òṣogbo where she spent the rest of her life writing, designing works of art, and training apprentices in honour of Ọ̀ṣun, until her demise in 2009, at nearly 100 years old.
With the length of 267km, Ọ̀ṣun is undeniably one of the longest rivers in West Africa. From her source in the town of Ìgèdè, in the Èkìtì region of Yorubaland, the river flows on to kiss the sea in the Lekki Lagoons of Lagos. It is interesting that Ọ̀ṣun originates from Ìgèdè, a town noted to be the source of at least 16 rivers and lakes. The name of the town, Ìgèdè or Ògèdè literally translates to “to chant”; in Yoruba sense, it means to conjure, to call forth something or entities into being. Hence, the location of sources of waters and the names of the city is an indication that the power to create and evolve and bring something into existence, and so on, are all in our hands. It is left for us to allow this ideology manifest in us through our spiritualities and projecting innovative ideologies with our environmental entities.
Unfortunately, present day features many Yoruba people struggling to promote the identities and functions Ọ̀ṣun, just as they are struggling with promoting other òrìṣà. On the one hand, the Yoruba motherland is located within Nigeria, a country that continue to reflect the characteristics of colonial impacts as perpetrated through political challenges and inter-ethnic tensions. On the other hand, Abrahamic religions seems to have poisoned the minds of many colonised societies so that every aspect of their own identities is regarded as “evil” and should thus be abolished. Ọ̀ṣun, like other òrìṣà, is affirmatively one of the victims of modern/postcolonial stigma.
The British created Nigeria at the beginning of the twentieth century, in response to the distribution of African lands among Europeans as affirmed by the Berlin Conference of 1884/1885. The concerns of the Europeans were more or less about resources, not about the empowerment of the indigenous peoples of Africa. Today postcolonial African societies, Nigeria being an example, have continued to uphold the legacies of colonialism. This process continue to jeopardise the indigenous peoples, their landscapes, resources and other forms of identities. The river Ọ̀ṣun as well as the land mass surrounding her is a home to not only numerous and rare species of fish, animals and plants, but also contains abundant of mineral and natural resources. The enormous wealth of Ọ̀ṣun and surroundings has exposed her to dangers by attracting predators, who have continued to exploit the river from the colonial era to the present day.
Today, the great river and surroundings are being endangered variously by the government, the Chinese and (other) illegal miners. While the river is now becoming poisonous for human consumption, because of of the toxicity and pollutions, the minerals excavated from her disappear without benefitting the local people, at least in terms of building infrastructure.
Whereas, and as noted earlier, the river is a symbol of unity for a purpose. Imagine having a developed pro-and-pan Yoruba systems, by upgrading the pilgrimage functions of the river and also by making it a site of international tourist attraction. Since the river pours into the sea, we can build cruising ships for round trips for tourist.
Imagine passengers boarding a ship at Lekki, Lagos, travelling through Yorubaland and returning back to Lekki, without touching the land, but beholding the beautiful landscape, and admiring the beauty of the legacy of inter-being that the Yoruba inherited from ancestors. Such trips could take two days or more; passengers have rooms on the cruising ships, just like in hotels, and are able to site-see with ultimate enjoyment while on board. Imagine how many engineers, health workers, tour guides, MCs (for the clubs on the ships), caterers, entertainers, and other innumerable professionals that such project would engage, while boosting the Pan-Yoruba employment and economic capacities. The elites travel to Europe, America and Asia to enjoy all these touristic attractions; but our homes are crippled by colonial impacts, brainwashing ideologies, exploiters, corruption, and dysfunctions. Hence, the physical and spiritual entities our ancestors have packaged for our fulfilment in life are in peril.
Malik Ade O
