Three perspectives of Honesty as a trait of Babalawo

Honesty according to Oxford dictionary described it as the way of “always telling the truth and never stealing or cheating”.

Wikipedia describes honest to a “ Facet of moral character and connotes positive and virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, straight forwardness along with the absence of lying and cheating, theft etc.




As defined above, the general assumption is that honesty means thinking, speaking and acting truthfully without prejudice or ay vested interest or bitterness. In other words, honesty is thinking according to the injunctions of Olodumare and acting without bitterness, deceit or hidden motive at the back of our mind.

Fasina Falade describes Honesty as “means ability to recognize our limitations, to refuse, to reap where we did not sow and so on. (IFA: The key to its understanding).

As a babalawo Honest should always be part of our habit as we discuss honesty from three perspectives.
1. Honesty of thought (Piety)
2. Honesty of speech (Truthfulness)
3. Honesty of action (Righteousness)

Honesty of thought (Piety):
 Honesty of thought entails a lot of courage and fear of Olodumare to be honest in thought as a Babalawo. You must be open minded, rational and realistic to yourself, to others and to Olodumare the Supreme Being. You as a Babalawo must not think evil of anyone or any situation, no matter the provocation or persecution. IFA says that Olodumare sent humans into this world only to do good and nothing more. It is based on this human will be judged.


Let it be always at the back of our mind that no amount of Ebo can change the reward of what you do. In other sense, if you think evil, evil spirit will surely be your companion and if you think the opposite, benevolent spirits will always be with you.

Honesty of Speech (Truthfulness)

The Yoruba would call it “Ooto”, English says “Truth”, Spanish pronounce it as “Verdad”, Portuguese would call it “Verdade” while the French prefers “Vérite”. For every language that is existing on this planet has its on word for truth.

Truth as we all know is a way of saying things according to how it happened without saying the other side of  it which is “lying”. There is a saying in Yoruba that “Kókó leegun iyan, suku leegun àgbado, ká baa béè leegun otito”(The lump is the bone of  the pounded yam, the cob is the bone of the maize, to speak and be found so after verification is the bone of truthfulness). Let not forget also the popular saying that “Say the truth and it shall set you free”. The truth will always remain the truth no matter time duration, it can never b skipped or surpassed. Therefore everybody living in this life needs to be truthful.

As a Babalawo, you must never add or subtract from what IFA says you should do, you must all time be truthful. The world we find yourself today is a world where we can barely find the truth be cause most people prefer listening to lies to truths which is a bad thing and as we all know that truth is always bitter but it is the way. Even IFA days truthful people are very rare to get. He said that people love to hear what will suit them and make them happy even if it is far from the truth. The moment a person chooses to speak the truth, the person is hated and persecuted. That is why most people prefer lying to others who hate the bitter truth. In the final analysis, the truth will prevail. Those who appreciate the truth will triumph and the truthful person will be vindicated.



Honesty of Action (Righteousness)

Honesty of action entails doing things with righteousness without bitterness or evil designs. Honesty of action also emanates from honesty of thought. It may not be accompanied by honesty of speech . if a person is righteous it is possible for the person to feel he has vested interest. Some may be persecute him for his honesty. IFA says when such happens, the righteous person must continue being righteous with more vigor. He must do it more openly or loudly for the world to see. He must not relent in his effort and must not for that reason refrain from doing good. At the end, his deeds will manifest  for everybody to see.

On the other hand, if people repay our good deeds with wickedness or if they fail to recognize our deeds, we must not do wickedness to them. IFA forbids this, Ifa says that it is not for us to be the victim, the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner at the same time. We should leave everything to Olodumare if people fail to recognize our good deeds.