WHAT IS WRONG WITH BURYING A MORNACH THE ISLAMIC WAY IN YORUBALAND?- BY DUKE OLABODE GARBADEEN

....Awujale As Case Study. 

For those who had been questioning the rational behind people ascending the throne by tradition and being buried by Islamic or Christian rites, what a submission smelling of primitive jahiliya!

1. Any unprogressive custom or tradition can be subjected to review from time to time. What was the age of oba Adetona for instance, when he ascended the throne? What proportion of his mind could he control then? Should the calabar people continue to kill twins just because that was the tradition then? Must people continue to go amissing just because a MORNACH dies? Should we continue kpai female children as it then was in our tradition?

Nothing in life is static. Including tradition. 

2. When people express this tradition of a thing with so much bitterness and energy, is it to say that the tradition is superior to the almighty God? Assuming it is their choise which god is superior or worthy of worship or not, why are most of the protagonists of this argument are Muslims or Christians by identity, bearing Muslim or Christian names and even went to Hajj or Jerusalem?  What does it remove from the Awujale or our tradition as he was buried the Muslim way compared to if he were to be buried the traditional way? In what way does that diminish our tradition? Is ojudeoba not our tradition? Is owambe not our tradition? Is respect for elders not our tradition? Can't we see how people are gravitating to them increasingly year in year out? Why? Because they are progressive, attractive and productive one way or the other. 

3. Somebody even described tradition as a constitutional matter. How rational could that be? Does he forget that there are lot of things in our traditional proceedings that should ordinarily land perpetrators in jail? Talking of human parts and the likes. And what about the freedom of worship as enshrined in the same constitution?

4. Meanwhile, people are still free to go the traditional way if they so wish. Why forcing those who are not willing to it? If it is that attractive, do you need to force people in the first place? 

Where were you people when Awujale canvased for the liberalisation of traditional rulers' burial rites and even gotten it passed into law in ogun state? Only for him to die now that you started bombarding us with grammar unknown to Google? 

© DUKE OLABODE GARBADEEN 

- Nigeria