Word: yorubas
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...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...
...never been a nation in much more than name. It is divided into three mutually suspicious ethnic areas, the semifeudal but dominant Moslem Northern Region, the enterprising and oil-rich Eastern Region, home of the clever Ibo tribesmen, and the relatively urbane Mid-Western and Western regions, where sophisticated Yoruba leaders like to say, "We are the English of Nigeria, clever and diplomatic, no final commitments and always a foot in each camp." And despite its democratic facade, Nigerian politics is little more than a raw power struggle between two shifting alliances of regional and tribal parties: the ruling National...
Headless Opposition. With the convictions of Awolowo and Enahoro, the opposition Action Group is virtually decapitated. But the party still enjoys the loyal backing of Western Nigeria's predominant, advanced Yoruba tribe. The clannish Yorubas will almost certainly reorganize to challenge the North and East once more. At week's end many a Nigerian was wondering how long his country's delicate balance of regional rivalries, which has been the key to Africa's most admired democracy, could last...