Family Ties: Yoruba Race in Brazil Seeks Peace, Renews Commitment to Afenifere

Adeyinka Olaiya, Sao Paulo/

A clarion call for peace and unity has been made by the Yoruba community in Brazil as it embraced the Pan-Yoruba Socio-Cultural Organization, Afenifere.

Speaking about family ties and how concerned those in Brazil are about the situation in Nigeria, the President of a Yoruba group in the Latin American nation, Mr Adeyemi Kayode Bamidele, told NewsmakersNG: “We are sons and daughters of Oodua. We call for oneness among Yoruba groups around the world; we need peace and tranquillity in our land; we are of common cause with the Afenifere group in Nigeria. We are ready to join our people and help to maintain peace and oneness in all Yoruba land. Brazil Yorubas are also with us in one mind.”

Bamidele spoke in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Another community leader, Iyalorisa Patricia/Praia Grande, also said, “Brazil has become another home for the Yoruba people, the teachings of the Yoruba culture, tradition language and religion improve yearly and are mostly exhibited in most of the Yoruba religious shrines and also during the annual carnival, festival of arts and culture in Brazil and in the Americas.”

The Yoruba culture is consistently being propagated by other eminent personalities, scholars, patrons and traditionalists in Brazil, including Otunba Adekunle Aderounmu, Professor King, Dr. Emmanuel Oluwatoyin Oluwatuyi, Babalawo Nojimu Adegboyega, Prof Babalawo, Ivanir dos Santos (recently honored in the USA) and Prof. Ronilda Ribeiro, of the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Several events, lectures and workshops on IFA divinity are frequently organized by eminent Yoruba traditionalist in Brazil to boost and support the Brazilian-Yoruba in their understandings of the Yoruba traditional religion.

Yoruba traditionalists and the Yoruba community in Brazil have on several occasions hosted notable kinsmen from Nigeria and other parts of Yoruba speaking countries in Africa including Togo and Benin.

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