I’m about to give you the gist that has got a traditional monarch, a professor and an Elder Stateman exchanging banters about the ethnicity of Ilorin in the past few days
It all started when an osun priestess yeye Ajisekemi omolara who resides at Oke Adini a suburb community of Ilorin, proposed to hold an Isese festival in Ilorin- a traditionally and culturally Islamic society.
The public became aware of the Isese Festival according to Yeye Ajisekemi when the flyer of the event leaked to social media without authorisation.
Tension began to mount when the news of the event filtered to the Oke Adini Community of Ilorin, according to the youth in the area, it was a clear provocation to advertise such religio-cultural festival in a Muslim Community whose Culture is Islamically oriented.
Yeye Ajisekemi began to receive threats not to hold the festival in the community, it was also reported that a Muslim group, Majlisu Shabab li Ulamahu Society, in Ilorin,also visited the Priestess to warn her of the consequence of holding the Isese Festival in the area.
However, Yeye Ajisekemi had clarified that the festival was only meant for her and her members to celebrate somewhat like anniversary in her compound and not to cause any chaos or distrupt the peace of the community. She also added that she has been living at the Oke Adini community for three years and the ceremony has been a private event in the past but blamed the leakage of the event flyer that got to the public without her authorisation as the reason for the misconception by the community.
The Priestess However later called off the Isese Festival to forstall peace.
Presumably One would assume since the priestess had agreed to halt the celebration it will be the end of the whole forth and back, but things got excalated when Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka accused the Emir of Ilorin to have infringed on the individual right to practice the religion of choice in an open letter to the Emir and describes the Emir’s action as ‘a crime against the cultural heritage”.
Excerpt from the letter reads; “it is sad to see the ancient city of Ilorin, a confluence of faiths and ethnic varieties, reduced to this level of bigotry and intolerance, manifested in the role of a presiding monarch. The truncation of a people’s traditional festival is a crime against the cultural heritage of all humanity”
Soyinka further states that, conduct like this has bred Boko Haram, ISIS, ISWAP and other religious malformations that currently plague this nation, spreading grief and outrage across a once peaceful landscape, degrading the existence of humanity with their virulent brand of Islam.
Wole Soyinka’s outburst provoked the Emirate Palace in Ilorin.
The Emir of Ilorin Mai Martaba Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu Gambari replied!
The statement signed by his spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Arowona, the emir said the decision to cancel the festival was the only way of preventing situations that might lead to a crisis in parts of the country.
The statement reads, “To set records straight, Professor Wole Soyinka tends to be economical with facts, forgetting that war is what nobody wants,” the statement said.
The spokesperson noted that the emir decided to cancel the festival because it was capable of causing chaos in the society, if not quickly addressed.
“This is to prevent crisis and not wait until it erupts because the cost of managing crises cannot be equated to the wisdom or courage required to prevent it.
It is therefore surprising to hear that the position of Professor Soyinka is identical to someone who does not consider what might transpire if the programme was hosted,” the statement said.
It added that the priestess had lived “harmoniously” in the town for years “until she decided to go beyond her boundaries”.
“It may result in issues which could also lead to reprisal attacks by sympathisers or promoters of such belief (Isese festival) in other parts of the country.
Things got heated up when one of the son of the emirate, elder statesman, renowned historian and community leader, Alhaji LAK Jimoh replied to the open letter of Wole Soyinka, titled “Egungun be careful na express you dey go”. A local parlance in southwestern Nigeria that connotes a warning signal to a erring masquerade dancing on the highway.
In his rebuttal LAK Jimoh chastise Soyinka of lacking home training for disrespecting the Ilorin Monarch in his letter, he reckoned that SULU GAMBARI without courtesy and addition of the numerous titles of the Emir is disrespectful of the Professor.
LAK says Soyinka’s references to the fatal inter-religious disharmony and hostility in Kaduna, Boko Haram and ISWAP are a calculated incitement to disrupt the age-long tranquility in Ilorin Emirate that is renowned for ethno-cultural tolerance and inter-religious harmony.
LAK also referred to Soyinka as the self-annointed MR KNOW-ALL, when the latter sarcastically boasted that he knows the history of Ilorin and the projectory of the city dynasty.
he also urged Soyinka to familiarise himself with the history of Oyo, Modakeke, ile-ife, Ibadan, osogbo and Abeokuta the trajectory of their respective dynasties.
LAK rounded up his response that Ilorin is waiting for Wole Soyinka since those who live in glass house have chosen to throw stone, they will have themselves to blame.
The last might not have been heard on the Isese Festival as cyberspace continue to trend the discussion.
