- OSOGBO IFA Priest, IFAYEMI ELEBUIBON
Where were you when the news of late Murphy Afolabi was broken?
I was in Atlanta Georgia in America. One of his colleagues, producer called me around mid-night over there. I was scared when he told me Murphy Afolabi is dead, I dropped my phone. My children asked what happen, I told them Murphy is dead. The man called back and said they want to take his remains to Osogbo. I told them to take him to mortuary first then they can now have meeting with the family on where they want him buried. He dropped the call and promise to call me back.
Then later on that night, he called me back, to ask they are going to bury him in a traditional way. I told them if they are going to bury him in a traditional way, I am not around but I will call people from the temple to attend to them, I gave him Faniyi Agbongbon’s number. I also called him on and instructed how to go about it because Murphy’s father was our past Araba of Osogbo. Then he later called me that they are not sure they are taking his corpse to Osogbo again, rather they will bury him at his site in Ikorodu.
That was how I received the news of his death. The truth of the matter is Murphy Afolabi’s father, Fabunmi Afolabi, was the former Araba. He was one of the top Chief Priests in Osogbo here. When he wants to become Araba, God used me to support him, that was why we had a very strong relationship.
It’s not his father that trained me Ifa. I didn’t learn to be an Ifa Priest from him, but we were very close.
Talking about Murphy Afolabi himself, his father put him in care of an Ifa priest in Oyo to learn Ifa. His name is Ifaniyi Omoyemi, he was the one who trained Murphy everything he knows about Ifa till date. The man lived in Lagos before he relocated back to Oyo.
The man is very much alive. He trained Murphy to be an Ifa Priest not me. And his father is not the one who trained me Ifa. The person that trained me to be an Ifa Priest Ifaniyi Ajani, late Agbongbon Awo of Osogbo. I don’t know who told BBC that I was the one who trained Murphy to be an Ifa Priest. I saw it on TV I faulted the report.
Murphy Afolabi used to come to me when I was doing Ifa Olokun Asorodayo and he showed agreat interest in it. He was very young then. He was very useful to us then because of the interest he had in Ifa Olokun Asorodayo.
He also said it in one of the interview he granted when he was alive that he got the inspiration to do something like that from me. Later he left Osogbo for Lagos, meanwhile his boss was in Lagos then. Later he left his boss and joined Dagunro. It was from Dagunro’s place he fell in love with theartre group before he started his own. That is the story; he was a good and very respectful boy. I pitied him so much, and his death came as a rude shock to us.
I want to believe he had the premonition of his death when I listened to one of his recordings. He has changed from being a traditionalist to Muslim practioner and listening to the record I discovered he regreted changing from a traditionalist to Muslim. Meanwhile, he is not that he’s using being a priest to make money, he’s only using the knowledge for his theatre business. When the Chief Priests heard he has converted to Muslim nobody querry him, because that is his choice, you can practice any religion you like, nobody know anyone secrecy.
Nobody knows anyone privacy. I received several calls from lots of people home and abroad; I told a particular man who called me from London that a cleric said they won’t pray for late Murphy Afolabi. Who knows everyone secrecy. I told him to check a record I did 15 years ago, that I titled “Who Knows Who Will Go To Hell”. You can see someone who is very religious, he goes to Mosque, goes to church regularly, but do you know what he’s doing in the secret. People will be looking at him as a good person but they don’t know what he’s doing in the secret. If a traditionalist has a good spirit and you see him in heaven.
What will you do? That is why I said no one knows who will make heaven or hell. But what I want everyone to know is that we have our tradition before the introduction of Islam, Yorubas have the way of living their life before Christianity or Islam was introduced to us. And it’s God that gave us. We have known Olodumare before they introduced Islam to us. God created everyone, countries and gave them different language, culture and tradition. He gave us several ways to worship him. God gave us Orunmila in Africa, why are they now castigating us?
Don’t let the Christians and Muslim spoil our tradition and culture for us. We did not disturb them, they should not disturb us.
We should all be happy for what we have.
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