News

Praying makes people feel "peaceful and content" and more than 40% of us are engaged in this spiritual activity, according to a new survey.

Research into the views of 1,000 adults in the UK has shown 42% said they pray to God with about one in six praying every day and one in four praying at least once a week.

After praying, 38% reported feeling "peaceful and content", 30% said they were strengthened, 22% said they felt close to God, 21% said they felt reassured and safe and 19% said they felt happy and joyful.

People who have had close relationships with the Ifa scholar and priest, Professor Wande Abimbola, are not likely to disagree with the observation that he is liberal-minded. Those who were students at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, when he was the Vice-Chancellor for about seven years will, for instance, recall the unpunctuated romance he had with them, especially under the aegis of the students’ union.

United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation(UNESCO), is setting up an institute on black culture in Osogbo, which will be ready in 18months.

A team from UNESCO arrived Osogbo on  last weekend  held series of meetings with Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola.

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Tuesday called for the preservation of traditional shrines in Nigeria, describing the destruction of the shrines as religious intolerance.

NOBEL laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka, has accused the United States (U.S.) and other Western nations of deliberately and subtly wiping out any form of civilisation that doesn't fit theirs.

According to the 1986 Nobel prize winner for Literature, the West would rather destroy any other form of civilisation than allow it to thrive parallel to it.

"If you can't have it, and you don't own it," then "flood it," is the philosophy of the West", Soyinka argued, while speaking on "Civilisation, dead or alive," at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, venue of the London Literature Festival on Saturday evening.

As the chief priest reached the climax of a prolonged incantation-laden Ifa corpus the hands of the mammoth crowd that thronged the Osun grove shot into the air with artistic precision. Everyone spontaneously snapped their fingers in response to the verses that were meant to ward off sickness and deaths.

The yearly Osun Osogbo festival came to an end last Friday after twelve days of celebration with a mammoth crowd embarking on the procession from the King’s palace at Oja Oba to the Osun Groove in Isale Osun area of the town where both the symbolic cultural and social sacrifices and displays took place.

NIGERIA'S proposal for the setting up of an Institute for African Culture and International Understanding as a Category II Centre, under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has been approved.

The approval was given at the weekend alongside the proposals made by China and Croatia to set up World Heritage Training and Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific region as well as Regional Centre for Underwater Archaeology in Zadar in that order.

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples after 22 years of debate.

The document proposes protections for the human rights of native peoples, and for their land and resources.

It passed despite opposition from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. They said it was incompatible with their own laws.

NASARAWA State governor, Alhaji Aliyu Akwe Doma, has described the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), hosted in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977 as the most successful and culturally significant global festival.

The festival, tagged: FESTAC’77, according to Gov. Doma, showcased the beauty and grandeur of Africa’s civilization and cultural heritage.

FORMER Education Minister, Prof. Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa has again enjoined the Federal Government to make vernacular languages compulsory at the primary school level.

The policy, he said, would help these youngsters understand their origin as well as enable them speak the English language and other languages well.

Early next year, Nigeria will host the world again when the Festival of Yoruba Arts and Culture would be staged.  Several people from all continents of the world are expected at the festival, which promises to be the first of its kind in Africa

Yoruba leaders on Sunday called on the Federal Government to make a distinction between the Government of the Federation and the Federal Government.

The leaders of the Yoruba, who had earlier on Friday indicated their intention to close ranks, also agreed that the apex pan-Yoruba socio-political association, Afenifere, be retained as the most viable platform for the realisation of the agenda of the Yoruba.

It's not surprising that a large number of myths have arisen regarding the unique challenges associated with pregnancy.

Dr. Robert H. Shmerling, a physician at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School, has unearthed the following sample of 12 pregnancy myths that he says can be safely ignored. I've never heard of any of these myths; but then, I've never been pregnant.

Participants at the first National Language Conference have identified the neglect of indigenous languages as one of the reasons for the nation’s stunted growth in technological advancement.

The participants made up of language lecturers from departments of languages from the nation’s higher institutions, as well as experts such as Prof. Akinwumi Ishola, reached this conclusion after a one-day conference organised by the School of Liberal Studies of the Yaba College of Technology, Yaba, Lagos.

According to a communiqué issued and signed by the Secretary, Conference Committee, Mrs. Abosede Ogunnaike, the nation’s search for technological advancement would remain a mirage until adequate attention was paid to the teaching and learning of indigenous languages in the country.

For the last 22 years, a village along Kenya's picturesque coast has blamed its ill fortune on the theft of two memorial wooden statues known as vigango.

Earlier this week, Chalani village in Kilifi District was the scene of joyous celebration as villagers received two vigango which had been repatriated from the United States.

Anti-death penalty forces have gained momentum in the past few years, with a moratorium in Illinois, court disputes over lethal injection in more than a half-dozen states and progress toward outright abolishment in New Jersey.

The steady drumbeat of DNA exonerations — pointing out flaws in the justice system — has weighed against capital punishment. The moral opposition is loud, too, echoed in Europe and the rest of the industrialized world, where all but a few countries banned executions years ago.

THE Yoruba today live in fear: they fear the erosion of their culture and language. Hopefully, though, efforts are being made to rebuild confidence in the unique culture of the Yoruba for posterity. Some of those in this vanguard are the Olanihun and Adunola Ajayi Foundation being inaugurated today to advance Yoruba cultural values. Professor Wande Abimbola is also one of the pillars behind the project.

But the former Special Adviser on Culture to former President Olusegun Obasanjo is not happy with the state of Yoruba culture. He wants the various governments to come into this effort. He wants the educational system revamped to accommodate the teaching of the language at the primary and secondary school levels.

Romantics in the UK should woo their loved ones with flowers imported from Africa rather than those grown in Europe, a minister has said.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn asked consumers to aid "social justice" on Valentine's Day.

Importing African flowers is better for the environment as they are not grown in heated greenhouses, he said.

The European Federation of Professional Florist Associations called Mr Benn's argument "very strange".

UNESCO, Japan to preserve Ifa divination system > From Stella Agbala, Abuja > > AS part of efforts to support the preservation and > promotion of the cultural heritage of Nigeria, the > United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural > Organisation (UNESCO) and the Japanese Government > yesterday signed Trust-in-Fund for the safeguarding of > Ifa Divination System. > > > > advertisement > > Speaking at the signing ceremony, Prof. Babalola > Borishade, stated that it was under the > > programme of UNESCO Masterpiece of the Oral and > Intangible Heritage of humanity in November 2005 that > the Ifa Divination system was proclaimed. > >

High priests of Cuba's dominant Afro-Cuban religion declined on Tuesday to venture any predictions regarding the health of ailing leader Fidel Castro but recommended the sacrifice of a goat to contribute to social peace on the island.