In the final installment of this series, the focus shifts from what makes the Yoruba tick to how they can heal a fractured nation and a lost generation. The answer, it turns out, begins at home—and with a question from a child.
The core of the Yoruba gift to the world is the Omoluabi philosophy. This is not a vague concept but a hard ethical ranking. In Yoruba tradition, wealth is the sixth and lowest tier of achievement. Before money come knowledge, character, hard work, honor, and family. If you chase cash and bypass honor, the society considers you dishonorable. As the proverb goes, if you set out for money and meet honor on the road, you don’t need the journey anymore—honor will bring you greater wealth.
This value system offers a radical counter to modern materialism. It also provides a global blueprint for religious tolerance. In many Yoruba homes, Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists celebrate together without conflict. The community’s well-being is inseparable from the individual’s, and nature is seen as a trust to be guarded, not conquered.
But the deeper story here is personal. The author’s daughter, Zoe, sent a soul-wrenching message thanking her parents for their upbringing, then revealed her core concern: We know we are Nigerian and African, but we don’t know our history. Who are we? Why are we different? Growing up in a European environment, she was one of fewer than ten Africans in her university. Her question exposed a crisis facing the diaspora.
Black people make up about 4 percent of the UK population but 13 percent of the prison population. In the US, Black Americans are 13 percent of the population but 37 to 40 percent of those incarcerated. These numbers, the author argues, are linked to an identity void. First-generation Africans know who they are and why they are abroad. The second generation is often lost between their parents’ identity and their status as foreigners.
This series and the coming book aim to connect every Yoruba man and woman to their true identity as Omo Kaaro Oojire. The author hopes it will be a blessing to Yoruba people everywhere. He ends by honoring Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who wrote the Yoruba national anthem as a vision statement: Child of Oodua, arise, take your rightful place, for you are the light of the black race.
