Ilorin Emir Sued For Banning Traditional Festival

The Emir of Ilorin, Dr. Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, has been sued for allegedly preventing traditional religious worshippers from holding their Isese festival in Ilorin, Kwara State.

The suit was filed before the Kwara State High Court by a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activist, Malcolm Omirhobo, who described himself as an Olokun worshipper.

Omirhobo insists that the Emir’s action violates the constitutional rights to “freedom of dignity of the human person, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly” as provided in Section 38, subsection 1 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).

Omirhobo, in his suit, is asking the court to declare that Ilorin, like every other part of Nigeria, is a multi-religious and multicultural society/city, hence, “the respondent has no constitutional powers or authority to ban and/or prohibit Isese festival in Ilorin, Kwara State, which made it impossible for the applicant to commune, felicitate, celebrate, merry, bond and worship with the community of African traditionalist/Olokun worshippers.”

He wants the court to make an order of “perpetual injunction” restraining the Emir and his agents “from embarrassing, coercing, bullying, harassing, intimidating, tormenting, torturing, dehumanising, debasing, and frustrating the applicant from enjoying his fundamental rights to dignity of his human person, freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and association and freedom of movement with other Olokun worshippers in Ilorin, Kwara State in private and in public.”