Is Ajé The Foot Soldier of Mammon?

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In a video attached below, Apostle Agboola said some things about Ajé as being a foot soldier of Mammon.

As an enthusiast of Yorùbá culture, I feel led to correct what he said in the clip as it is misleading and false. Rev Agboola can just as well tell us to stop speaking Yorùbá simply because we are Christians. 

In Yorùbáland, Ajé represents commerce, it’s not limited to a deity. Monday, being the first day of the week, marks the beginning of commerce, which is why it’s called Ọjọ́ Ajé. Most of this “deity = demon” mentality doesn’t even exist in the Yorùbá worldview. 

What actually happens is that different natural and social phenomena are deified as principles that are to be studied and taken seriously.

That’s why Ajé isn’t just about commerce, cowry was a means of exchange and at the same time used to represent Ajé in Yorùbáland; that explanatory enough. Ògún represents metallurgy, Ọya represents wind, Sàngó represents lightning and thunder, and Ọbalúayé represents smallpox.

In fact, by studying the principles of smallpox through Ọbalúayé, our forefathers discovered inoculation and vaccines long before Europeans. (Go and Google Onesimus, the African man who taught the West about vaccination.)

You people really need to stop demonizing everything that comes from our ancestors, as though they were without reasoning. Africa will never grow this way: a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Let’s not forget: the Yorùbá civilization has existed for thousands of years, while Christianity in this land isn’t even 200 years old.

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