Professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel winner, has stated that nothing will decrease the Isese tradition, adding that it is here to stay.
This was as he noted that Isese had always been with humanity and would continue to be for all eternity.
He stated this during a public discussion on Friday at the Kongi’s Harvest Art Gallery on Freedom Way in Lagos State.
Isese Day, which was celebrated in states in the South-West, had been a source of contention, particularly in Ilorin, Kwara State, where an Osun priestess, Yeye Ajesikemi Olatunji, who had planned to celebrate the day on August 20, was verbally attacked and asked not to commemorate the day by the Emir of Ilorin, Mallam Abdulazeez Arowona, and other Muslim adherents.
In a statement, Mallam Abdulazeez Arowona, the spokesperson for the Emir, highlighted that throughout history, the Ilorin Emirate has not witnessed any instances of what he referred to as “idolatry activities.”
PUNCH METRO also reported that Adegbola Abdulazeez, a prominent Ilorin Isese devotee and activist, widely recognised as Talolorun (meaning “Who is God”), played a prominent role in advocating for the official recognition of Isese religion in the state. However, he was apprehended and subjected to detainment on charges of said defamation.
Subsequently, he was brought before the court on charges of “engaging in derogatory remarks towards the Emir of Ilorin, along with other alleged offences.”
However, during his presentation, an English literature professor spoke out against Talolorun’s arrest and added that no one should be imprisoned for matters of faith.
“It transcends religion since it calls to what is innate to all sentient beings, those strange advocates of freedom who, paradoxically, nonetheless persist in fashioning chains for themselves and for their fellow beings.
“Isese liberates. It is an expression of the collective human spirit, its enveloping, compassionate accommodation of human experience, yet one that strives towards the seemingly inaccessible, intuitively felt as an elevating dimension of one’s material estate.
“Isese is a path, not a destination, a seizure yet a pursuit of what we experience as the inner quest for ultimate illumination. Isese does not conclude, and neither does it exclude. It does not diminish, rather, it enlarges. It teaches the community to embrace, explore, and adjust.
“Isese promotes, as foundational consciousness, gratitude for, and sanctity of human life. It repudiates the supremacist claim of any structure of spirituality over another. Content with the pursuit of inner serenity, which is the climax of, and extraction from celebration, Isese does not seek to exercise power. All true religions know that celebration is a prelude to community equilibrium,” he said.
Soyinka also urged Muslim followers who, in his words, were engaged in a jihad of defamation to stop.
He emphasised that he has never expressed hatred for any religion and that all that he stands for is equity, fairness, and justice.
