• Eminent scholar unveils ‘ethical’ foundation
At 80, Wale Omole, professor of Agriculture and former Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, is bothered by the collapse of ethics and values in Yorubaland and the entire country.
He said unless the race returns to the old path of Omoluabi and rededicate itself to the pursue of morality and excellence, the moral decadence would continue to retard socio-economic and politicak development.
Omole spoke with reporters in Lagos on the journey so far; his educational pursuits, triumph over medical visicititutes, score card as head of a first generation university, his advocacy of cultural preservation, loss of his spouse and the activities of his foundation.
“God has blessed Yorubaland, and the country, to be able to lead the black people. We have resources. But, we have lost our virtue, our ethical standard,” he said.
Between his student days at Ilesa Grammar School, Ilesa, through his university days at Ife, and now, Yoruba land has gone through many challenges. Omole said the region is battling with diminishing moral standard that has slowed it down in the march of development.
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He paid tribute to the founding fathers of the region,particularly the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who did the spade work that led to the setting up of OAU as a university of character development.
He explained that his foundation, which would be launch on August 22, would take a cue in its pursuit of cultural revatalisation and economic empowerment.
Omole lamented that churches are no striving after value but after money, which they get from gullible people. He also chided the political class for neglecting ethics as it engages in competition for stealing.
To restore moral values, he said it is better to target the younger ones from elementary and secondary schools. “That was why the motto of Ilesa Grammar School was cast in Yoruba: ‘E huwa Omoluabi.’
Omole, who called for the reevaluation of politics, said while many people go into politics for money, only few men and women of virtue see it as an opportunity for service.
He pointed out that the younger generation is in disarray because their parents have no time for proper upbringing.
Omole said:”Our parents usually told us stories by moonlight; stories full of instructions. Today, parents have no time for their children. They are chasing money and contracts.
“Ethics is about don’t steal anybody’s property. In those days, they put banana on the road and they put a sign there that would tell you how much to pay. Nobody would steal it.”
To the retired don, teaching is important in the process of development. The culture of honesty, grace, kindness and accommodation was taught.
Noting that ethnicity had no place in inter-tribal relationship, he said:”At Ibadan, 28 Igbos were accomodated in my father’s house and we did not allow them to go to the East during the civil war. The only two people who left to participate in the war died there.”
Omole said the culture of Omoluabi is embedded in Christian religion, stressing that the two rules of love; love for God the creator and love your neighbour as yourself explain the virtue. In his view, the race and the country are in crisis because the rules are neglected.
The former vice chancellor chided politicians for selfishness, saying that their children go to the best schools in choice cars while the poor are neglected.
He urged them to return to the foundation of ethics, saying that corruption is satanic. Virtue is from God, ethics means control, which they must imbibe, he added.
Omole blamed the hunger in the land on politicians, who have neglected the plight of the masses, whose take home pay cannot take them to any home.
He said Yoruba should return to agriculture, which was the mainstay of the regional economy in the dYs of Awolowo. The baseline, in his opinion, is the sensitisation of the rural communities to return to the prime occupation.
Describing agriculture as the heritage of the Southwest, he recalled that the region made a lot of money from the sector to it extent that it offered loans to the central government
“Federal Government’s budget was N60 million and Western Regional Budget was N50million. It was not easy. There was taxation. Free education was compulsory and the girl-child education waa protected,” he said.
Omole also called for the preservation of Yoruba language. He said teaching is best in the language, recalling that the research by a group of University of Ife researchers, led by Prof. Babs Fafunwa showed that students taught in Yoruba performed better than students taught in England.
He noted that many American universities now permit the teaching and study of Yoruba.
Omole added: ”Chinese are already teaching their language here. Yet, you say our children are speaking vernacular when they speak Yoruba. How can you come to my town and say I am speaking vernacular.”
