The Isese ban in Ilorin

ON the face of it, the Kwara State Police Command has shown prudence in warning traditional worshippers from across the country to stay away from Ilorin and desist from holding this year’s version of the annual Isese Day celebrations in the Kwara State capital. According to police spokesperson Ajayi Okasanmi, the decision, apparently taken following a “dialogue” among the police, traditional worshippers and sundry security and local vigilante groups, was necessitated by the “unfavourable security situation” in the city.

The parley itself was held in the wake of heightened tension between traditional worshippers and certain Muslim groups in the city following the altercation between Yeye Adesikemi Olokun Omolara, an Osun priestess, and the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, in the course of which the latter appeared to forbid traditional worshippers from holding their religious celebrations in Ilorin. The arrest of a popular isese devotee, Adegbola Abdulazeez, aka “Talolohun” for allegedly “insulting” the Emir, has hardly helped matters.

While the Kwara State Police Command no doubt has the right to pursue every measure it deems necessary to ensure the security of life and property, and while it has been argued that it did the right thing by asking Isese worshippers to hold off on their celebrations “pending a favourable security situation” in the state, the decision leaves a sour taste in the mouth because of its implications. At the very least, the Command has exposed itself to accusations of favouring one religious group (Muslims in this case) to the detriment of another, i.e., traditional worshippers. This is the view of the pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), which described the arrest and alleged brutalisation of Mr. Abdulazeez as “unconstitutional and illegal” and condemned the clampdown on Isese devotees in general as “discriminatory and a gross violation of Section 42 (1) of the Nigerian constitution which outlaws discrimination on the basis of religion.”

We could not agree with HURIWA more. In a dispute involving members of two religious communities in which one is clearly being asked to surrender rights otherwise guaranteed by the laws of the country for no justifiable reason, the Kwara State Police Command appears to have positioned itself firmly in favour of the group that might be deemed to be acting as if it were above the law. What exactly is the nature of the security threat that made it impossible for the traditional festival scheduled for August 20, 2023, to be held? Is Kwara State at war? As far as we know, this is not currently the case. Would the same Command ask Christians in the state to look for another location to celebrate Christmas in December? Would it, God forfend, ask Muslims in Kwara State to look for another location for the observance of their religious festivals? Is the Command suggesting that traditional worshippers in Kwara State are second class citizens? Unless the Command is able to give satisfactory answers to these questions, it is putting the state on the path to religious disharmony in the name of a vaguely defined security.

We commend the International Council for Ifa Religion (ICIR) for playing the role of peacemakers amid escalating tension in the state and agreeing to suspend the festival in Ilorin “till a more propitious time in the future.” We wish that other religious groups would emulate the Council’s maturity and levelheadedness, specifically its resolve not to “allow descent into bloodletting or be provoked to dance to a drumbeat of war by any other religion.”

The spirit of the Council is the spirit of Yoruba liberalism and, as it happens, the ethos of Nigeria’s secular constitution. The police should be supporting, rather than thrashing, it.