He asked the government and security agencies across the country to reopen all the unresolved cases of religious killings.
Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka has urged the Nigerian government to create a national annual holiday for traditional religions like their Muslim and Christian counterparts.
Soyinka, who made the call on Sunday as part of his 89th birthday celebrations, also asked the government and security agencies across the country to reopen all the unresolved cases of religious killings.
According to him, the demands were aimed at “all the security agencies in this country and of the governance itself, right from the President to the lowest individual in this country,” Channels Television reports.
Soyinka lamented the failure of security officials to prosecute the perpetrators of extrajudicial religious killings in the country as his appeal was underpinned by the case of Deborah Samuel, a 200-level student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto State who was killed on May 12, 2022, over allegations of blasphemy.
He asked that the files “be opened — beginning with Deborah — on all those who have killed extrajudicially in the name of religion.”
Soyinka also noted that it is not enough for the international community to place travel restrictions on perpetrators of electoral violence in the 2023 general elections and therefore asked that visa bans be extended to religious bigots.
Decrying what he described as the neglect faced by traditionalists in the country, Soyinka said that “we’ve had enough”.
“It’s about time we demanded, on behalf of traditional religions, an annual holiday like Islam and Christianity. We’ve had enough.
“We’ve had enough of being second-class citizens in this nation. So, equal time, equal space, we demand public holidays. We demand it of state governments, local governments, and the Federal Government. We want an annual public holiday.”
Recently, Soyinka urged the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari to encourage peaceful cohabitation and stop religious intolerance and the harassment of adherents of religions different from Islam in his domain.
In a new video released online, a traditional religion priestess, Yeye Ajesikemi Olokun Omolara Olatunji, said she was threatened and warned not to hold any Isese festival in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.
Omolara bemoaned the unfortunate situation and disclosed that her life was in danger.
Meanwhile, the Osun devotee had reportedly released fliers announcing a three-day traditional event aimed at celebrating certain Yoruba deities.
But members of a Muslim group, Majlisu Shabab li Ulamahu Society went to her house to warn her to desist from holding the planned Isese festival.
Later, Mallam Abdulazeez Arowona, the spokesman for the Emir of Ilorin, said that the monarch and the palace were in support of the Islamic group.
Arowona said the monarch had made a public declaration against such events, which he described as ‘idolatry’.
He added that Muslims in the city would oppose the Isese festival.
However, Soyinka, the Akintalun of Egba, Giiwa of Ijebu-Remo and Akogun of Isara, in an open letter written to the Emir, said that “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 letter titled ‘ISESE FESTIVAL: An Open Letter to Sulu Gambari, ’reads in part, “The truncation of a people’s traditional festival is a crime against the cultural heritage of all humanity. Year after year, the Ramadan has been celebrated in this nation as an inclusive gathering of humanity, irrespective of divergences of belief.
“Not once, in my entire span of existence, have I encountered pronouncements by followers of any faith that the slaughtering of rams on the streets and market places is an offence to their concept of godhead. Vegetarians hold their peace. Buddhists walk a different path. Prior to Ramadan, non-moslems routinely join in observing the preceding season of fasting as a spiritual exercise worthy of emulation.”
“Your Royal Highness, it is conduct like this that 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 my and your existence with their virulent brand of Islam.
“It is conduct like this that has turned, before our very eyes, a once ecumenical city like Kaduna into a blood stained mockery of cohabitation. It is conduct like this that makes it possible for a young student, Deborah, to be lynched in the very presence of armed police, on mere allegation of having belittled the image of a revered prophet.
“It is action of this nature, perpetrated in obscure as well as prominent outlets of the nation that turns a young generation into mindless monsters, ever ready to swarm out and kill, kill, kill. Simply kill for the thrill of it, but under presumption of religious immunity. It is conduct like this that then nerves one extremist to wake up one day in a Scandinavian country, publicly announce his intention, and proceed to make a bonfire of copies of the Qu’ran. Reprisals follow, equally mindless, trapping humanity in an ever-ascending spiral of costly but gleeful violence,” Soyinka added.