Professor Fashina: How I combine academics with herbal medicine and Christian prophetic calling

[caption id="attachment_55719" align="alignright" width="600"] Professor Nelson Fashina[/caption] A High Chief of Idaseland in Owo Kingdom, Professor Nelson Olabanji Fashina of the Department of English, University of Ibadan, UI, is relatively a household name in the institution. Several reasons could be adduced for his popularity. First, he is an eloquent and outspoken scholar who is also versatile in his academic field. He relates well with both students and staff, yet he is principled and very ideologically radical. A former coordinator, Use of English under the General Studies Programme, and a Sub-Dean Postgraduate, he was the Chairman/Convener, UI Community Forum for public interaction with the aspirants to the position of Vice-Chancellor, in 2015. Secondly, he is a tri-career individual: a professor of Literature in English who specializes in African Literature, literary theory and text stylistics, a Prophet in an Ibadan branch of Celestial Church of Christ, CCC. he is also a herbal medical doctor, “Onisegun”, who shares affiliation of traditional knowledge of Ifa corpus, and claims to have cure for all manner of ailments and deceases including; Human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, thrombotic stroke, male and female infertility, madness, cancer, fibroid and others. The scholar also provides a glimpse into his life and background in this interview with Gbenro Adesina Q: There is conflict as regards your date of birth. Could you clarify it? A: It was as a result of the incidence that surrounded my birth and growing up. When I was born, my mother was thought to be too small. Actually, I was a product child of her disvirginity. My father’s people said that my father was not mature enough to have a wife and a child. So, they took me away from my mother and sent my mother away. But my father’s family refuted this saying that it was my mother’s people that denied them from marrying my mother because they felt that they were not as rich as them. So, as soon as I was born, they gave me to my father’s people. As a result, I grew up with my paternal grandmother and for a long time I didn’t see my mother. While my father’s people said that I was born in 1958, my mother said that I was born in 1960, presumably a toddler when my paternal grandfather died in July 21, 1961. But now, however, I’ve decided to go with my mother’s testimony to my birth date, though I was initially pitted to disagree to it when it became evident that she would be less than twenty at my birth time. Q: What effect does your circumstance have on you? A: I didn’t have motherly love but I received some kind of mentoring from my paternal grandmother. She actually loved me and took care of me despite the fact that my mother wasn’t there. I was told whenever I was looking for breast to suck when I was a baby, she gave me her own, but I felt bad that I didn’t suck my mother’s breast for a medically prescribed duration. I grew up with my grandmother and she trained me in many things today. There is no domestic work she didn’t teach me. I grew up in a traditional way, exposed to traditional deities and gods. Today, I practise traditional medicine. My maternal grandfather was “Awoifa” otherwise known as “Babalawo”. Everybody in my paternal homestead has one Ifa name or the other. Q: What are the other things your grandmother taught you? A: She taught me the virtue of honesty and used many tricks to know whether I have imbibed her trainings like putting money on her bed and sending me there to get her something thinking that I would take it. But I never disappointed her. I was punished for everything I did wrong. She taught me the virtue of respect for elders, self worth, self realisation, and self conscious social integrity. I grew up to see myself as somebody that have the capability to explore the resources of nature especially, traditional medicine. I know the names of leaves and vegetation and their uses. Q: What is the relationship between you and your half-siblings? A: The relationship is cordial. My father had only one other son from another woman. I am far older than him because my father was enlisted in the army and went to war in the 60s. I didn’t see him until after the war. Whenever he came to the cocoa farm camp from war, people would run away and he would be shouting, don’t run away from me, I am Johnson Ayodele Fasina, your son. He told us that he was captured by women soldiers and they conscripted him to helping them repair their guns. One of them, a nurse married him, and had a child for him but the woman went away with the child, so I don’t know him. My father died on January 14, 1974 in Lagos. [caption id="attachment_55720" align="alignright" width="600"] Professor Nelson Fashina[/caption] Q: Who trained you in school? A: My father’s youngest sister, Olabisi Aladejebi nee Fasina with support from my mother. Q: How was life in school? A: It wasn’t easy though, at times I did menial jobs to augment the finances at that time. I fetched water for bricklayers and I got paid. Q: At what age? A: I was already over aged before I entered school. Q: What was life in the university like? A: I was a bit okay in the university. I could, relatively, afford what I needed. Q: What informed your studying English Language? A: I read English by coincidence because I initially planned to read law. I eventually got admission to read law at University of Jos but for some family issues, I withdrew at the registration stage and returned to Owo. In Jos, I stayed with my elder father’s brother who was a soldier. His wife was not favourably dispose to me and she was maltreating me until her cousin called me and gave me N30 and asked me to return to Owo, which I did. When I narrated my ordeal to my grandmother and my mother, they said that I would not go back to Jos. That was how I lost my law admission in UNIJOS. I had a friend who was working in the Governor’s Office during Governor Ajasin’s era. He obtained the form of a newly established university-Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, located in Ado-Ekiti. My JAMB score was 272. The only course available closest to Law was English and Literary Studies. So, I choose that and I was admitted. I was among the pioneer set. Q: Was it an affiliate of OAU? A: No, it was a state university. On the resumption of Bamidele Otiko as a governor, he changed the name of the university to Ondo State University, OSUA. Later, OAU, Ile-Ife took over the name. Q: How did people react to the change? A: People didn’t like it because OAU was iconised and idolised and people thought that it would give the university an international recognition. There was riot and students went on the rampage. Q: Did you regret studying English? A: I don’t regret an inch. [caption id="attachment_55719" align="alignright" width="600"] Professor Nelson Fashina[/caption] Q: You are a clergy man? A: I am a prophet. Q: What was your journey to the prophetic endeavour? A: It is a kind of epic journey. When I was six years old, I knew that I had certain things that were peculiar and special to me. Then, anything I predicted about people would come to pass. Naturally, as a kid, I was spiritual and I knew I had psychic affiliation with nature, in fact, fauna and flora in general uses of leaves. At times, I underwent moments of spiritual transformation, in which I would see myself coming out of my body. I could see myself playing with some friends under the trees while I was sitting somewhere. I was seeing vision. In a moment, I would faint and they would carry me to herbal doctor and pronounce some incantations on me and I would come back to life. Those were part of my childhood life that is inexplicable to the ordinary mind. Now that I’ve grown up, I’ve crystalized meanings to certain happenings. Q: Which church do you attend? A: I am a prophet in Celestial Church of Christ, CCC. Q: Is that where you started your Christian life? A: No. I wasn’t born a celestial. By the time I was born, Christianity had already crept into the indigenous religion of my paternal family that I grew up with. So, they practised both Christianity and indigenous religion together. In 1968, my paternal grandmother joined the Church of the Lord, “Aladura”. Before that time, we practised traditional religion. Every day, in my father’s compound, they made sacrifices. We did our traditional yam festival. I grew up in that environment and I was keenly interested. I carried masquerade when I was young. So, I grew up to be mythical, mystical and believe in traditional religion. In Aladura Church, Baba Ositelu and Baba Ikusemiya used to give prophesies. I used to think that they were liars because they would pray for about five minutes and deliver prophecies for over an hour until around late 70s when I started encountering problems. At that time, I had grown to know my mother and would secretly go to speak with her because my paternal relatives must not know that I was seeing her. After telling her some experiences I was going through, she would take me to Celestial, her church and ask the prophet to pray for me. Invariably, she exposed me to Celestial which I later joined. I wasn’t a full member. I was only going there for prayers. The reason I didn’t want to join Celestial was that the wife of my father’s elder brother who maltreated me in Jos was a celestial prophet. I thought Celestial people were wicked people who couldn’t be God’s people. There was a time my mother was sick and I had to visit her in the church where she was observing retreat, what Celestial called, “Abo”. They asked me to do seven days “Abo”. When the prophets were having the prophet service, I joined them at the mercy land and the spirit came upon me and I started prophesying. At about 20 years, I became a prophet. The leaders would put me in the spirit and I would prophesy for them. I was enjoying the feat because people were revering me. The big men were coming to me and I would attend to them and they would give me money. As an undergraduate student, I used to be in the church compound prophesying for the people, I was attached to the shepherd. At a stage, I had certain experiences that made me to stop attending Celestial. One woman from another state came to see me for prophesy and I prophesied to her. The woman had marital problem. She complained that her husband drove her away and married another wife. In my sub-conscious, I felt she was cheated and that I had to do something to restore the marriage. I did spiritual work for her. When I slept in the night, I dreamt that a wind came and carried me to a place where some witches tied some people meant for ritual. I got there and set them free. When the witches came, they wanted to attack me and the wind took me up with those people that I set free and deposited us in front of the church. I entered the church and an angel came out of the altar and told me that I shouldn’t have done the work I did for the woman because the woman was the cause of her problem. [caption id="attachment_55717" align="alignright" width="600"] Professor Nelson Fashina[/caption] When I woke up, I was worried and went into one week fasting and prayer. At the end of the prayer, I had a dream that the whole sky came down. Before that, I had another dream that I was being tempted in my dream by a woman who made me to sleep with her and God rebuked me for that. The dream came to pass and I heard God instructing me that I should go to my closest friend and university classmate who was the former Tribune Managing Director, Dr. Segun Olatunji to pray with him. Segun was a Pentecostal. Immediately, around 5am, I went to him and met him praying. I told him my mission. We went into prayer. Segun was calling the prayer points. Suddenly, I started speaking in tongues. Afterward, I went back to my church and recounted what happened to my brethren who didn’t believe. At the time, I felt that God wanted me to start another ministry so, I stopped attending Celestial and started attending campus fellowship. I was well received. In the new church, anybody I prayed for would receive instant healing. My NYSC period was a period of confusion because I didn’t know whether to continue with Pentecostal church or go back to Celestial. However, I also found a lot of disappointments and hypocrisy in the Pentecostal and I decided to go back to Celestial. Q: And today you have a church of your own? A: My own church came around 2001 when I had become fully matured and a senior lecturer in the university. It was prophesied to me in 1981 that God said that I should become a full prophet and own a church but I declined because I wanted to complete my education. That prophecy came up several times in different places but affirmatively, I said no because I wanted education. It came in 1991/92 while I was working as a lecturer and simultaneously running my PhD programme on scholarship. About three weeks after that time, I had an exchange scholarship and went to England. By the time I came back, with that international exposure, I became more determined that education was it. After rounding off my PhD in UI, I went back to Ado-Ekiti where I had lectured for 10 years and rose to the level of a senior lecturer. I joined UI as a senior lecturer in 1998. Q: So, all along, you’ve been combining secular job with spiritual job? A: Exactly. In 2000, I got Fulbright fellowship to go to the USA. After the fellowship, I came back but later decided to go and live in USA when another prophecy came that in 1981 and 1992 respectively, I refused to lay an altar for the Lord as instructed by God. Now this is 2001, God is reminding me again that I should be ready to face the consequence if I remained adamant. I later fell ill. I had a broken marriage but I had remarried in the USA and I wanted to go and meet my wife in USA but couldn’t go because I was ill. I went to hospital but the doctor did not find anything that was wrong with me. I started going from Celestial churches to Cherubim churches and to Pentecostal churches for solution. No solution. One day, I went to a place and a pastor in a Pentecostal church told me that the Lord wanted to use me. Also the woman prophet I went to see in Cherubim Church told me that God didn’t want me to travel abroad because he wanted to use me. After that, I went to see my friend who was a prophet in another parish of Celestial who also told me the same story that God wanted to use me. I now said okay, God, I am ready. The two plots of land at Egbeda, just 500 metres before the toll gate that I bought to build a duplex, I yielded it up. We cleared land and I laid the Celestial altar there under palm fronds. Instantly, the sickness left and we started to worship there. I used my salaries to build a church and God was working with me. Anything I say would come to pass. Anybody I pray for get result. The church was built inside a thick forest. Within a couple of years, people started getting land and building houses until the place became well populated. The church also grew sporadically. I built it single-handedly without anybody’s contribution and I spent millions of Naira. We celebrated the 15th adult harvest last August 14. Q: How does Christianity relate to traditional medicine which you also practice? A: They relate very well. Initially, as a young Christian, I thought it was sinful and demonic to practise indigenous medicine with Christianity but having been internationally and intellectually exposed, I now know that there is nothing wrong about that. Today, I have and I am still researching and devoting my research to discovering more of indigenous knowledge production. Recently, at a lecture I delivered at the Yoruba Language Flagship Programme in UI, I exposed my audience to the aspect of indigenous knowledge, and distinction between religion and culture, and the need for them to separate voodooism and juju from religion, and religion from Yoruba indigenous science, especially in traditional medicine. I also told them that idolatry must be clinically defined in the sense that idolatry is the worship of another god in replacement of Yahweh who is otherwise called Olodumare, God, Olorun and Allah. I said the Yorubas in their practice of indigenous knowledge and tradition, Ogun, Oya, Sango, etc, are not idolaters, in the sense that Yoruba practices monotheism which is the recognition of only one God, Olodumare (God) as supreme. I stated further that the lesser deities don’t occupy the same supremacy of position as the gods of the Egyptians, Amelekites, Amorites, Jebusites, and Babylonians and the idols in the Bible where the gods in Bible history were used to replace the Supreme Being. That was why Aaron made the golden calf and said ‘‘Hear ye oh! Israel, this be the god, golden calf, that brought thee out of Egypt”. And God’s anger was kindled and they were smitten in his anger. But the Yorubas are different. They don’t say that Ogun, Oya, Sango and others are their creators or their god but were personages that actually played mediation role in introducing them to God. Therefore, they were not meant to be worshipped but just to be celebrated. It is only God that can be worshipped. That is the Yoruba doctrine, theology and theogony. If some of our people and researchers could take time to research Yoruba culture, indigenous tradition, theology and theogony, they would discover that “Ifa” literary corpus and divination philosophy, Orunmila didn’t equate himself with God. “Orunmila baba Ifa” did not say he is God, neither did he equate himself with God. The Ifa religious testament says … It divines for Orunmila who will bring to the world the message of “Olodumare”. Therefore, “Ifa” didn’t call himself God. He said, he was a messenger of God. He was preaching the gospel of belief in God before Christ came. So, in “Irosun -yeku”, where two “Odus” meet, …this “Ifa” verse is where “Orunmila” said there would be a virgin named “Oyigi” who would give birth to a son called “Ela”. “Ela” would be the saviour of the world because he would be the voice and word of God. In him, was created everything that God “Olodumare” ever created and it is through him human beings will die no more. That is Christ! But Orunmila” didn’t call him Christ. He called Christ as “Ela”. Every Yoruba person knows that “Ela” means Christ. That is why we sing in the church, “Olorun Ela, Oyigiyigi Olorun kikida agbara”. “Oyigi” is Mary in the Bible. So why are we quarrelling? There is therefore, a kind of symmetry, and unity of doctrine between Islam, Christianity and traditional worship because they all recognize Christ. Jesus of Christian is Yisa to the Muslims and “Ela” to traditional worshippers. This shows that the people that engage in religious bigotry, and intolerance are hypocrites or ignorant. They do this because they are ignorant of the epistemic fact. [caption id="attachment_55719" align="alignright" width="600"] Professor Nelson Fashina[/caption] Q: Are you saying that the lesser gods that predicted the coming of Christ accept that Christ is superior to them? A: They believe that Christ is superior to them. They said so. “Orunmila” said “Ela” will be superior to them. Q: If the lesser gods accept the supremacy of Christ as you have claimed, why will you as a prophet of God and gospel preacher not stay only with Christ rather than worshipping him with lesser gods? A: That is a very good question. I didn’t tell you that I worship Christ with lesser gods. I practise traditional medicine. One thing is sure, I consider our festivals as evidences of our prima facie civilization, as our indigenous civilization, and our epistemology. “Ifa” is not an object of worship, it is the divine philosophy of God and the wisdom corpus of God and it is our guiding philosophy to the universe and the knowledge that actually filter out of “Ifa” is universal. It has universal applicability and they are relevant to every social situation. They are scientific because we have chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, every brand of knowledge, and social science in it. As a result, I don’t think there is anything to be discounted as demonic. I don’t believe that “Ifa” is demonic. All we need to do is to extrapolate the different branches of knowledge provided by “Ifa” and convert them to our own indigenous usage, our own technology and knowledge as our own unique contribution to the ocean of global world of knowledge. Western religion has deprived us of access to our lives and being because we don’t practice it with sincerity. If we practice it with sincerity, then we will know the meeting point between our own indigenous corpus and that of western religion. Q: Are you a Babalawo? A: I am a prophet. I am equally a herbal doctor that people also derogatorily call Babalawo. Every babalawo has Ifa and they practice traditional medicine. Q: Do you have Ifa? A: My great grandfather, my grandfather had Ifa. So, how do I deny having Ifa? Q: Can you cast Ifa? A: I have knowledge of it. I can read it. I acquired it when I was growing up. Q: What are the diseases that you as a Babalawo or herbal doctor can cure? A: From about 2010, I have been treating patients with HIV. Sometimes ago, I subjected some of the leaves, roots and back of the trees that I use for herbal medicine to some researches and the professors of medicines who carried out the researches for over two years said that those particular plants have potentials to cure HIV. One of the leaves was isolated as being capable of inhibiting the progress of cancer cells. Q: Have you ever cured HIV? A: I have testimonies about that. I didn’t propagate this and announce myself. It is only those who know and come to me. About 10 people have been cured. I didn’t announce this because I know the implication for the atmosphere of Nigeria where there is absolute disbelief about the potency of indigenous healing methods. Q: Are you saying that if an HIV patient is referred to you, you can cure? A: Yes. It is a shame that Nigerian government is not investing in indigenous medicine. Government should invest in our research so that it can be useful to our society. The spirit of God told me that by 2026, the West will look back to Africa for cures. Q: What are the other ailments you can deal with? A: Different ailments including malaria, and stroke. We can make attempts with those that have cancer. But I cure fibroid, infertility, low sperm count, and cure for psychiatric problems. Q: Could you briefly talk about your researches especially in the areas of your scholarly competence? A: My area of competence in scholarship is African Literature, literary theory, text stylistics and linguistics. Researching into African literatures is an intriguing engagement for me because it allows me to enjoy romanticization with the indigenous knowledge that I propagate as well as investigating African nature of being, knowledge, science, epistemology and myth. My researches have covered the three genres of literature: drama and film, fiction, poetry and oral lores, but my thought is in literary theory/criticism and its poetics. The past five years has been devoted to research in the discovery of the indigenous African critical system, and reading theory rather than relying on Western episteme of literary theory. Literary theories are various ways of intellectual yardsticks, and principles by which we interpret literature. For almost a century, African written and oral literatures have been devoted to critical interpretations that are engaged through the use of western theories like Western phenomenology, Western semiotics, Western psycho-analysis, Western Structuralism, Western Deconstructionism, and Western Sociological method of reading literature in general. Most of the time, this Western paradigms of critical philosophy seem to take African indigenous literary creativity and its meaning to another direction such that attempting to foist it on our indigenous knowledge production leads to misinterpretation and distraction from the depth of knowledge that are esconsed in African literature. For example, the Western family system of nuclear driven unit of individualism, betrays the African family system of elaborate extended family system of communalism and economic interdependency. So, when you begin to apply Western theories to interpret African space, you get awkward meanings. Also, the interpretation of our religion which is discounted as gothic and idolatrous is a product of Western epistemic philosophy. We have our own African epistemology. For example, in the Greek philosophy, early philosophers like Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato devised principles that made us to understand the Western cosmos. These principles are also studded in our indigenous knowledge production system, and we need to recognize that; that the concept of African womanhood is an inexhaustible mine of philosophy than the concept of the European woman. That is the reason why feminism in the context of Western political propagation of ideology is foisted on the practice of African feminism and the concept is demystifying the sacred position of womanhood in African society. For example, the indigenous Yoruba woman is satisfied with being a house wife to her husband, but in the Western paradigm, they seem to conceive the woman in images of lesbianism, prostitution and the like. As a matter of fact, our system of female pedigree and morality is grounded on the inviolability of her pre-marital virginity. Virginity is valued in most African societies; but in the Western tradition of postmodern essentialism and eccentricity, female virginity is no longer valued. Most of the time, our indigenous interpretation of the moon, the sky, the earth and all that are ensconced in most of Osundare’s poetry, for example, is an inexhaustible mine of meanings. When we now apply post structural or deconstruction theory to such things, they come out with nonsensical meaning. Perhaps, one of the very liberal theories in Western critical model is Semiotics which allows you to excavate cultural meanings that are indigenous to your culture from a text. [caption id="attachment_55717" align="alignright" width="600"] Professor Nelson Fashina[/caption] The point is that we need an indigenous African theoretical model that will enable us to get to the roots of our epistemology and philosophy so that we will not be looked at as people without philosophy, and knowledge of science. Look at the African system of naming, it is very unique. We don’t name our children after inanimate objects like: stones, rock, tree and all that. We name them according to the lineage history and circumstances of their birth. Some people are named after the gods. There is a reason for this. Our people also use Ifa to know the future and the origin of a child. All these things are prognostic, and they speak volumes about the future encounter, the success, and the failure of the child – the archetypal idea of predestination! Such a thing does not take place in the Western postmodern philosophy, excepting of course in their classical literatures! Q: Why has it been difficult for scholars like you to come up with theories that will be applicable to Nigerian/African situation? A: It has not been difficult for some of us. When I gave the Faculty of Arts lecture in 2010, I generated eleven categories of theoretical models that can be used to interpret African literature, African oral literature, African indigenous knowledge, and culture and tradition. This seminal research breakthrough has been published, even serialized in some high impact journals in our field abroad. But, they are not used; instead Nigerian or African scholars prefer to cite or reference the research works of Western scholars rather than look inward! But, because they want to sound international, they follow all kinds of Euro-American misguided meanings or interpretations of the African world. To internalise knowledge in this part of the world, we believe that we have to engage Western research methodology, and bring Western scholars into the research problem, goals, objectives, and methodology. We believe that without adopting the Western theories, our research works will not be acceptable.