Nigeria’s Mirage of Religious Freedom How Traditional Worshippers are Navigating Nigeria’s Landscape of Religious Intolerance

Like many worshippers of non-Abrahamic religions in Nigeria, adherents of Isese have routinely faced discrimination, hostility and human rights abuses. Can Isese followers achieve the improved political and social recognition they seek?

Taiwo Ifaniyi, an electronic engineer, likes spending his free time on social media. He enjoys the banter and intellectual discourse on Twitter; the frolics on Tik Tok and the flamboyant show of opulence and style on Instagram. On rare occasions, he reads motivational posts on Facebook. One Sunday afternoon, precisely on 2 July 2023, as he swiped from one social network to another on his phone, a Facebook post caught his attention. The post read: ‘Muslim group storms Osun priestess’ house: If you love yourself don’t hold Isese festival in Ilorin.’

Although a resident in Ibadan, Oyo State, as an adherent of the Isese religious belief indigenous to the Yoruba people, the post sent shivers down his spine, prompting him to surf the internet for more information on the matter. Soon after, he found a video in which some men stormed the house of an Osun Priestess (later identified as Yeye Ajisekemi Omolara) but she was not at home. The men, who were reported to be members of the Majlisu Shabab li Ulamahu Society in Ilorin, delivered a message, spiced with threats, to her younger sister who identified herself as Alaba. They told Alaba that her sister must not hold any festival in any part of Ilorin: ‘Listen to me, woman,’ they said, ‘tell your sister that Ilorin does not allow such (indigenous religious festivals). What they want to do, Ilorin does not allow it. We are Muslims here (in Ilorin). You cannot carry out any festival for Sango or Ogun or Osun (Deities in the Yoruba Pantheon) in the Emirate of Ilorin.’ Another man who seemed to have led the mob, gave this concluding remark before they all left...