Ademola Lookman showed Davido and Kemi Badenoch that wisdom is not by age – Omokri

Ademola Lookman showed Davido and Kemi Badenoch that wisdom is not by age – Omokri

Recently, the singer David Adeleke was given a global stage to do whatever he wanted and deliver any message.

Sadly, Mr. Adeleke used the opportunity to speak in an American accent. Not only that, he used that American accent to talk down on Nigeria and tell the world not to invest in Nigeria because, as he put it, Nigeria’s “economy is in shambles”.

Coincidentally, a month after his faux pas, Kemi Badenoch, probably inspired by Davido, used her British accent to talk down Nigeria, calling us “a very poor country” where the police rob citizens.

But the interesting thing about her own case is that the next day, the BBC featured a panel of Conservative Party big shots, and one of them, Albie Amankona, a party chieftain from Chiswick, who is also a celebrity broadcaster, said, and this is a direct quote:

“If you are a Brexiteer, and you are saying we need to be expanding our global trade beyond the European Union, we want to be looking at emerging markets for growth, don’t slag off one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.”

Is it not strange that it took the BBC and a British politician to promote Nigeria as one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa?

And just when we thought it was all bad news, God gave us a breath of fresh air in the youthful Ademola Lookman, who used the global podium granted to him by his winning the 2024 African Footballer of the Year award to promote and project Nigeria and the Lukumi Yoruba language to the world.

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Wisdom is not by age. If not, Ademola Lookman, who is just twenty-seven, will not have displayed greater wisdom than David Adeleke, who is thirty-two, and Kemi Badenoch, at forty-four.

Mr. Lookman proved that the age of Methuselah has nothing to do with the wisdom of Solomon.

And it is not as though other ethnicities with global icons do not also project Nigeria. They do.

Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala spoke Igbo on the podium of the WTO in Geneva. In terms of prestige, she is FAR above Lookman.

My campaign is not for the Lukumi Yoruba alone. It is for all sub-Saharan Black Africans to learn to speak their language and not use ability to speak English or another colonial language as a measure of intelligence.

Besides Lukumi Yoruba and Hausa, every other Nigerian language, including Fulfulde, is gradually dying out.

General Buhari is half Fulani and half Kanuri. Yet, he cannot speak either Fuifulde or Kanuri. But he speaks Hausa and English.

Fact-check me: In 2012, UNESCO declared Igbo an endangered language.

However, the Lukumi Yoruba are to be commended for their affirmative actions to advance their language and culture.

Let me give you an example. All six Governors of the Southwest bear full Lukumi names: Jide Sanwa-Olu, Seyi Makinde, Dapo Abiodun, Ademola Adeleke, Abiodun Oyebanji, and Orighomisan Aiyedatiwa.

No other zone in Nigeria has all its governors bearing ethnic Nigerian names as first and second names. They either bear Arabic or European names as first names or even first and second names.

If we truly want to be the Giant of Africa, we must take affirmative steps to preserve our language and culture so we can have children like Ademola Lookman.

Teach your language to your children before you teach them English. They will learn English at school. Being multilingual is scientifically proven to boost intelligence.

Fact-check me: In the U.S., Latino kids do not speak English until they start school. They learn Spanish as a first language.

Even if you relocate to the UK, the best you can be is British. You can never be English. And if your choice of Japa is the U.S., the highest you can be is an American citizen. You will never become a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant WASP.

Your power lies in balancing ancient and modern, Western and African, English (or other colonial languages) and your native tongue.

That is the way to reverse language erosion, like the Lukumi Yoruba.

Ademola Lookman showed Davido and Kemi Badenoch that wisdom is not by age – Omokri