The council made the announcement on Tuesday via a statement signed by its President, Oluwo Solagbade Popoola.
A human rights lawyer and activist, Chief Malcolm Omirhobo, has sued the Emir of Ilorin, Dr Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, for allegedly stopping traditional religion worshippers from holding their Isese festival in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.
Omirhobo who confirmed this to SaharaReporters on Wednesday said he is asking the state high court to declare that the alleged action of the Emir and other Islamic clerics is a breach of the constitutional rights to “freedom of dignity of the human person, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly.”
SaharaReporters reported on Tuesday that the the International Council for Ifa Religion (ICIR) decided to suspend its planned Isese festival in Ilorin, due to the prohibition of the festival by the Kwara State Command of the Nigeria Police Force.
The council made the announcement on Tuesday via a statement signed by its President, Oluwo Solagbade Popoola.
The ICIR alleged that the police during a meeting with traditional worshippers on Monday declared that the proposed Isese Day which was earlier slated for August 20 should not hold due to security reasons.
In July, it was reported that a Muslim group, Majlisu Shabab li Ulamahu Society, went to the residence of a traditional religion priestess in Ilorin, to warn her not to hold her planned Isese celebration in Ilorin.
The priestess, Yeye Ajesikemi Olokun Omolara Olatunji, an Osun follower, reportedly distributed posters announcing a three-day traditional celebration honouring various Yoruba deities.
However, the Muslim group, which defined the Isese festival as idolatry, stated that the Emir of Ilorin had made a public pronouncement against such events.
In his suit, Omirhobo requests that the court rule that Ilorin, like the rest of Nigeria, is a multi-religious and multicultural society/city, and that "the respondent has no constitutional powers or authority to ban and/or prohibit the 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.”
The legal practitioner told Saharareporters that the case had yet to be assigned to a judge by the state judiciary.
“We are waiting for the case to be assigned,” he said.