Word: yorubas
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Easterners are Christian, democratic, enterprising-and far wealthier than the Northerners. The Yoruba Westerners, whose capital of Ibadan (pop. 750,000) is Nigeria's largest city and the world's largest shantytown, are farmers and small traders whose passions are High-Life music and politics, often accompanied by endless draughts of pungent palm wine...
Gowon apparently hopes to turn the government over to civilians "as soon as it can be arranged," and one of his first acts in office was to release from detention one of Nigeria's most respected-and controversial-political leaders, Yoruba Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the deposed premier of the Western Region. "We need you for your wealth of experience," he told Awolowo. His release was greeted by mobs of jubilant Westerners. In Lagos, Yoruba motorists drove through the streets shouting "Awo! Awo!" and a traffic jam seven miles long converged on Awolowo's home town of Ikenne...
...major civilian interests must still be placated: the Muslim part of the North must still be ruled by a Muslim Northerner--and in that part of Nigeria, there are always spare emirs and wazirs eager to take the place of an assassinated Premier; the West must have a popular Yoruba and the East a popular Ibo Premier; in the Midwest a balance of power among several tribes must the kept. Each region, each major tribe must be given a sufficient stake in the Federation to make the idea of secession unthinkable...
...Nigeria and the surfeit of lawyers, Cabinet ministers, journalists and savvy tribal chieftains would suggest that a constitutional structure may be the best means for carrying out this political task. So perhaps in time President Azikiwe will be recalled from London, Chief Obafemi Awolowo (the West's most popular Yoruba leader), will be released from Federal prison, and a new Federal Constitution will be drawn up to meet civilian demands...
Such problems pale before those faced by priests struggling to find an acceptable translation of the Latin into African and Asian tongues. The Yoruba language of West Africa, for example, has no word for priest or church. "Our language is so poor in words," says Father J. S. Adeneye of Nigeria, "that I can hardly prepare my sermon." In Japan, translators face the problem of dealing with a language that rarely uses pronouns and has a surplus of honorifics. Instead of Dominus vobiscum (The Lord be with you), the priest now vaguely says to the congregation, "The Lord be together...