UNTIL his death in 2013, Pa. Gregory Omorodion Orobor found himself, from infancy, living like the cat with nine lives, not once escaping death by a hair’s breath, traversing several frontiers and like the fairy dragon with hydra heads, found his destiny leading him into various paths towards self determination.
From the modest life of a school teacher who rose to be an Assistant Inspector of Education, to his foray into the field of unorthodox medicine practice, to his awe-inspiring position as the Traditional Head of the Iwoki- the selected few who are foisted with the responsibility of being custodians of the Moon and Sun in the then Edo, now Benin Kingdom, and later owning one of the most remarkable printing Press in the South-South, Pa. Orobor however was relentless, as an overwhelming inner voice continued to whisper super natural commands in his sub-conscious, subtly appealing for his intervention in the world’s most turbulent issues, including those posed by natural phenomena, like climate change, flood disasters, sickness, short life span and death. Shortly before his death, he shared his thoughts with his chosen complier and Editor of his memoirs, Ijeoma Umeh, on his perception of ‘The Able Sun,’ which became his effigy for the resolution of most, if not all, of the defiant issues that beset humans. We bring to you excerpts from the book, Best World Development By Dr. G. O. Orobor, of blessed memory.
I Humbly Volunteer…
I have stuck out my neck and hereby volunteered to be the world’s most humble, you can even say, humane caretaker since virtually everyone appears to have their gaze fixated on the mundane things of life feigning oblivion to what language the environment, and horizon around us are saying.
I have therefore elected to proffer solutions to those problems so that the future generations will be at ease within themselves.
Putting The Able Sun to Task
I have dubbed the sun the ‘Able Sun,’ and I have come forward to put it to task; we want to catch most of the sun in our country for the growth of plant foods. It is the sun that enables the life-source in every living thing to grow and faster too, this same able sun which has burnt us, Africans, black. We have to continually deplore it to produce crops for our sustainability.
As humans, we are in charge of the sun, and it can do so much for us in this our war with world’s vicious elements. It’s not that I claim to be the first to know about the efficacy of the sun, but I have discovered its intense benefits and use for solving the many problems we live with everyday.
We have come to a point in our existence when we should, rather than merely existing, live the fulfilled life that is our entitlement as custodians of this scheme of things. We should live, and regale in, the beauty and goodness of the sun rays.
Bring The Sun Down, Don’t Wait For Its Fury!
We must put the sun to task rather than waiting for the sun to come down on us with its ‘pure fire.’ We should start now in dissipating its power. Without the Able Sun Earth would not have any life on it. Without the Sun’s Energy’ which reaches Earth in the form of heat and light, life would be bare. This energy warms our days and illuminates our world. Green plants absorb sunlight and convert it to food, which these plants then use as energy to live and grow. In these processes, the plants give off the oxygen that animals breathe. Animals eat these plants for nourishment. All plant and animal life relie on the Sun’s presence.
The sun heats up Earth’s oceans and land, which in turn heat the air and make it circulate in the atmosphere as wind. The sun fuels Earth’s water cycle, evaporating water from the oceans, seas and lakes.
The Iwoki, The Moon And The Sun
Ever since 1956 when I became the traditional head of the Iwoki, a society in Edo Kingdom, I have channeled my thoughts and allowed my mind, sometimes unconsciously, to dwell on finding lasting solutions to these most thorny problems in order to promulgate the desired comfort for all human beings.
The Iwoki are basically the Astrologers of Benin and or Edo Kingdom who are in charge of the Sun and Moon, as such, being the head, I decided to embark on a mission to find out what benefits can be derived from the Sun and probably the Moon as well.
The vitamins that we get from the Sun has been medically proven to be advantageous for our wellbeing as we bring the sun closer to us. We can quell its fire, which has equally been proven to be dangerous to us, causing cancer of the skin, be shading. We should go back to the shade Age – which is like the Cave Age – as away of escaping the Sun’s Fury. Over exposure of buildings to sun rays should be discourage, and as builders will tell you, the first real line of defense against the heat is a buildings roof, and that a hot day in the life of a good roof is its ability to release, not store absorb heat from the sun’s rays. It is therefore very important that before you get to roofing level in your building structure that you find out from both the traditional to the high-tech, what roofing mode would work well in warmer climates.
The Sun In The Eyes Of The People
In those days, when an eclipse occurred, they felt something had gone wrong in the universe. People would come to us, the Iwoki, and we would make sacrifices to the sun, which, from popular belief, makes the sun to be disentangled from the moon and light shines over darkness again. The sun is held in high esteem everywhere in the world. People in the western world leave their distant abodes to journey to find the nearest beachside to picnic and sunbathe. When a child is born, medics advice mothers to always ensure the child gets a daily doze of morning sun. This is what is called Vitamin D. A deficiency of it could result to serious, or severe, defects and hormonal imbalance. Medics have also said that optimizing your vitamin D levels may prevent cancer, heart disease and several other medical conditions.
In Italy, the Sun was worshipped in those old days. In most places, globally, the sun god was regarded as formidable deity. There is owa in the Benin traditional society. It was the ‘headmaster’ and when a select group of people began to beat the drum, which sound was meant to drive away the monster eating the sun, people are often frightened at this event in their homes. That was part of the ceremony to separate the Moon from the Sun during an eclipse. I recall that on the day of the eclipse some European came to us, the Iwoki, curiously asking and just for the sake of making fund out of our plight, what we were going to do about the eclipse, having heard that we were the ‘controllers’ of the Moon and Sun.
I am a staunch catholic. I always pray to God, and Jesus is my patron. I know the eclipse comes naturally, one of God’s special mysteries to drum it into the human subconscious that he alone, is God. So sacrificing to abate the eclipse and even sprinkling fetish to bring down or stop rain, are, to me, mere formality, or the childlike freedom God, like any indulging parent, allows us to enjoy.
Our people, due to paganism, hold the sun and Moon high as gods, but in the modern society, Christianity may not allow us to worship them, so what we have to do is to take care of the sun.
It was to the same omnipotent and universal God that I prayed to, to give me direction on how we could re-direct the sun or what we could get from its abilities when I took up leadership of the Iwoki.
My Discoveries
· That all trees absorb the sun than the shorter ones and are natural shades.
· Plants that are closer to the sun do better than those that are not
· Work shopping the atmosphere will bring maximum comfort to humans and animals and improve plant life.
· So much of our atmosphere is languishing and gazing at it is just not enough to bring out its full potential.
· Eating raw food is healthier than the cooked ones.
Workshop, Gardenize The Atmosphere!
We have a stupendous amount of space just before us and we appear not to know what to do with it all. From that vacuum overlooking the sun, we can solve most of our problems. We can get food – edible plants, we can rare animals; we can do everything the earth joyously. We can even curb the effect and reduce the toll of diseases among us. We can also tame the various natural phenomena that come upon us, like flood, erosion.
The world now has limited thick forests for all required purposes. For example, enough thick forests are required to habit all the world’s animals, especially the wild ones. As at today, many thick forests have become depleted. As such many wild animals have already gone extinct. Man thus stands questionable before God Almighty, the creator of the world. Man should henceforth leave the remaining forests to inhabit all wild animals so that no more of the world creatures would go extinct.
Need For Youths To Go To Farm
When we refer to it as farm youths get skeptical – but that is essentially what it is – farming. The structure of the world, the society is badly shaped. No food, no job, education is very costly and when it is sparingly, or acquired in thrift, no job. We have to succeed in the major approach of fighting the monster of poverty in the land, and that is through food production, going back to the farm. If our people are well fed, if there is no greed, if there is happiness, and there is job, employment, and no crime, there will be overall happiness and peace.
Some people have gone abroad to get training; their families could have paid so much, sacrificed so much to let this be; on the individuals’ parts, they could have given up their inheritance, stories abound of how children sold their father’s igiogbe, the house inherited by their forebears, and traveled abroad at the risk of their lives, to either search for greener pastures and for getting trained in certain fields, even for dubious activities. However, when they come home they begin to rush helter skelter, in search of jobs that are not available. They are disgruntled and feel deeply hurt. It is this hurt feeling that they transmit to the environment and to the society, committing crimes, causing unrest and confusion everywhere. These would have been unnecessary if they channeled their energies to farming. There is so much we can get from the sun good food, electricity, through solar energy.
To be continued
