Journey of a Finnish scholar, Prof. Helena Eija Karsten to becoming the Yeye Ariwajoye of Ibaland, Osun State, Nigeria on December 14, 2024 at the fifth edition of the annual Oriki Yoruba Festival, started in 2000 but she had no clue of it, not even in her imagination did she see what laid ahead of her.
Karsten was a senior lecturer at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland where she was respected by her colleagues and the school authorities for her developmental scholarship and humanism.
She was assigned to supervise a budding and ambitious scholar who was pursuing his master of Science in Computer Science and Group Technology. The student was the Eburu of Iba, Oba Adekunle Adeogun Okunoye, who mounted the stool in 2016. In the course of Karsten’s close contact with the Okunoye, she spotted a right quality in his disposition to his study and fell in love and became his mentor she would guided in the manner a beloved mother does to her son.
She would always make a case for her mentee, especially in his absence and work things out in his favour. An example was her proposal to the university authorities to hire her boy with graduate assistant designation. At that time, the boy was in serious need of fund to pursue a research that would take him to Gambia and Nigeria. A job with the university would bring a needed relief for him. Karsten pulled it through in a way that confounded the student. The school management had no space for a new staff but paid him a mouth-watering sum of 30, 0000 Finnish Mark, an equivalent of $6000, not to his bank account but in cash.
That experience with Karsten changed Okunoye’s worldview and made him to see humanity beyond the prism of colour, tongue, or faith. He began to treat every human based on merit, not on where he or she comes from or language they speak.
She behaved to me as if my mother entered her. I have been a beneficiary of women in my life, starting from my late mother, who loved with in totality and guarded me all through,” the Eburu explained.
He further explained that his choice of Karsten as my YeyeAriwajoye is deliberate. The title is appropriately coined to explain what earned her the chieftaincy. It is translated a mother who earned chieftaincy through her good behaviour. I am fulfilled now that I am able to demonstrate to her my appreciation of what she did to my life.”
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