Isese Festival: Again, Soyinka blasts Sulu-Gambari, demands interventions from Tinubu, foreign nations

The Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, a professor, has once again criticised the emir of Ilorin, Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, saying his “virtue of intolerance” breeds fundamentalist organisations such as “Boko-Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Al-Shabaab.”

Soyinka and the monarch recently clashed over the latter’s decision to ban a cultural festival of Isese by an Osun devotee, Adesikemi Olokun, in the city of Ilorin.

While the Nobel laureate described the emir’s action as an assault on civilised conduct, the emir said he acted to prevent crisis.

But on Sunday in Lagos, during a public reading session of his latest work- “Selected Poems- 1965-2022: A Retrospective,” Mr Soyinka reiterated his condemnation of the emir’s action.

He listed three demands of the Nigerian government, security agencies, and foreign nations.

He said as an intervention, President Bola Tinubu and other governments at state and local government levels should declare public holiday for traditional religions as it is done for Christianity and Islam, and that files of various cases of public lynching and harassment of innocent Nigerians in the name of religion should be reopened.

Soyinka also called on foreign nations to deny those he described as religious bigots visas to their countries, saying the visa ban shouldn’t be limited to those that commit the crime of inciting political violence.

He said: “The three demands are that the files should be reopened; begin with Deborah and all those who have been killed extra-judicially in the name of religion.

“I also want all of those who have connections anywhere in the world, in fact, beginning here, addressing diplomats who have been assisting the world by denying visas to violent politicians…We now say extend this to religious bigots, extend to those who preach and those who applaud violence in the name of religion. Let’s tell their governments to assist us. These people live there, they go to those other places, they drink to their hearts contained, they boxed themselves anyhow, and they come here in the name of piety, they think they can restrict our own lifestyles.

“It is about time we demanded on behalf of traditional religions annual holidays like Islam and Christianity. We have had enough. We have had enough of being second-class citizens in this nation. So, equal time, and equal space we demand. We demand it of the state, local government, and the federal government. Those are my three demands in this home of the muses.”

“Emir’s conduct breeds violence”

In his satirical manner, the literary scholar took a swipe at the emir, saying conducts such as his, have in the past emboldened criminality such as displayed by the public lynching of Deborah Samuel, a college student in Sokoto State.

Mr Soyinka, who satirically presented the emir as a model who must be exposed to the world, said religious bigots must be publicly condemned.

He said he was dedicating his poems which he read at the session to the emir who he ironically presented as “a great Nigerian figure, jurist, legalist, leader, and a royal figure; leader of men and women, a role model, one of the most tolerant ecumenically spirited individual that this nation has ever produced. His name is Sulu-Gambari, the emir of Ilorin.”

Soyinka said: “The poem will be dedicated to him in appreciation of his role, leadership model, his exemplary quality, virtue of tolerance to his subjects, fellow beings generally, I will like to commend him, to recommend him to all of you here, and in fact, all the world, as an example to follow in your dealings with your fellow men, women, and children. In fact, it should go further to possibly outstrip him, because virtues like tolerance as we have listed are given to martyrdom, to the immolation of the innocent. It leads to the public butchering of our children such as Deborah, for instance.

“The kind of virtues I am talking about leads to turning our children into murderers, murdering their own colleagues. At their tender ages, they become killers, simply because of examples of tolerance of leadership shown by figures like the emir, Sulu Gambari.

“With the people like Sulu Gambari, Boko Haram, ISWAP, Al-Shabaab, and all those who believe that theirs and only theirs is the only way of understanding and approaching God… And heaven help all those who cannot follow the paths they are blazing so openly, so lovingly than the rest of humanity.”

He said the emir should visit other Islamic nations, where he said people of other faiths are accommodated.

He cited the example of the Emirate, where he said he once taught and that non-Muslims are respected with areas dedicated to them for shopping items such as liquor.

“But as poets, as humanists, we continue our duty to bring them to the limelight, and even further we could invite them to visit other places. If necessary we could organise even their expenditure, even give them estacodes to bring them to other areas, other societies which practice the same religion that they say they are promoting, so they can see how others of the same faith treat other human beings of other faiths. And I am talking of the societies like the Emirates where this religion becomes in the first place before they came “Gbawere m’esin” in countries like Nigeria where literally everyday somebody is being butchered, macheted, and disfigured, simply because they prefer their own paths…” the professor said.