ALFRED OLUFEMI reports how ‘Oro’ – an age-long festival celebrated by traditionalists in the South-West, AT NIGHT and IN DAYTIME, has continued to impede human rights, instigate violence, disrupt lives and businesses.
To unravel the mystery of the tradition, our correspondent got embedded among Oro devotees during its annual festival in Sagamu, Ogun State
It is Oro festival and the weird, vibrating voice of the deity as it moved around the community in deep darkness, pierced the stillness of the night, sending shivers down the spine of women confined to their homes.
Shuffling feet, said to be that of its adherents in tow, created its own unique, terrifying sensation in curious souls still awake.
This phenomenon is familiar to several Yoruba communities across states in the South-West.
Oddly, in the 21st century, presently choking under the grip of the tradition in a state like Lagos, considered to be metropolitan, are communities such as Ikorodu, Isolo, Ajah, Ibeju Lekki, Okobaba, Ojo, Ejigbo and Isheri, among others.
Oro is an age-long tradition that seemed to have defied civilisation and attempts to have what many referred to as its ‘anti-human’ activities curtailed.
The annual festival meant to celebrate the deity is usually held anytime from July and may last for seven days or weeks, depending on the practice adopted in communities where it is celebrated.
Its major highlight is a procession, where the Oro, accompanied by its devotees, move around the community, mostly at midnight, performing rituals.
However, with time and despite disapproval and wide outcries, Oro devotees shifted the midnight rites to daytime, thus impacting lives and economic activities negatively.
Festival of death and restriction
The Oro festival, which is gender-specific and patriarchal in nature, is one steeped in mysteries. It mostly has male descendants that are paternal natives, participating in secretive rites.
Widely known is the fact that a curfew is declared when Oro is meant to parade a community and females are confined indoors. It is taboo for females to set eyes on the deity. The restriction also extends to males that are non-initiates and non-natives.
Based on oral history, death, which is a fatal consequence, awaits any woman who sees the instrument that produces the voice of the Oro or observes the priest performing the rituals.
Though the life of a man could be spared if caught outside, he has to appear to hide as the deity and its worshippers pass through.
Horrid tales abound of the vicious, ‘blood-thirsty’ judgment of the Oro, alleged to be in the form of human sacrifice, visited on those that violated the curfew.
These widespread scary narratives have instilled fear in people, scared of the fate that befell victims.
According to a Non-profit Organisation, Ondo Connect New Era, in an article titled, ‘Understanding the Antiquated Yoruba Oro Festival,’ the word Oro means fierceness, tempest, or provocation, and the deity appears to have personified executive power.
“Oro is supposed to haunt the forest in the neighbourhood of towns, and he makes his approach known by a strange, whirring, roaring noise. As soon as this is heard, all women must shut themselves up in their houses, and refrain from looking out on pain of death,” it stated.
A practice at variance with the law
With Nigeria being a liberal society and one in which its 1999 constitution, specifically Section 38, guarantees freedom of movement, worship and association, the restriction of movement during the festival bothered those of other faiths and beliefs.
What the restriction translates to is that females working in the private and public sectors, as well as business women, must stay indoors, while markets, schools, mosques and churches must remain shut for fear of the unknown. Expectedly, some residents either relocate temporarily or stay in hotels outside such communities until the festival is over.
Oro-induced restiveness
This restrictive aspect, based on reports, had in the past led to restiveness and wanton loss of lives and property.
One place that witnessed such unrest not long ago was Idi-Iroko, a border town in the Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State.
In July 2019, the community, which is usually a beehive of economic activities due to the movement of traders between the Nigeria and Benin Republic border, was reportedly attacked by traditionalists during an Oro festival.
An Islamic cleric, Abdulazeez Abdulwaliyu, was one of those that witnessed the incident. He could not contain the anger and resentment that welled in his heart as he recounted what happened on that day, especially the attack on the Idi-Iroko Central Mosque, which he presided over as a chief Imam. He claimed the attack could have led to casualties, safe for providence.
The Islamic cleric told PUNCH Investigations that prior to the attack, Oro adherents declared a 24-hour curfew to observe their festival and issued strict warnings for women and non-initiates to stay indoors.
It was gathered that a day before the curfew, Abdulwaliyu, during a Juma’at (Friday) prayer, delivered a sermon on religious freedom and described the curfew as a violation of the people’s rights to free movement.
“I told my Muslim brothers and sisters that the law of the land doesn’t permit anyone to infringe on other people’s freedom of movement,’’ he added.
The cleric said he specifically instructed the Muslims to defy the curfew to observe the five Muslim daily prayers – Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha, which have specific windows of time within which they must be completed. He claimed his position was hinged on a 2018 judgment delivered by Justice Owodunni Sikiru of the Ogun State High Court, sitting in the Ipokia LGA.
Details of the court judgment
On February 22, 2018, PUNCH reported that the High Court declared the imposition of curfew in the daytime on residents of Ipokia by the Oro cult as illegal.
In a suit filed by the Christian Association of Nigeria and Muslim Community in Ipokia against the Oro devotees, it was noted that they usually performed the festival in the bush and in the middle of the night, and those that do not belong to the cult were not permitted to see the deity.
It was, however, noted that with time, the devotees spread their tentacles into the heart of the community, and went to the extent of imposing a daytime curfew.
Justice Owodunni, while giving perpetual injunction, restrained the Oro adherents, “their privies, agents and cohorts from declaring or imposing a daytime curfew, or carrying out activities in any manner that interferes with the fundamental rights of the people to freedom of movement.”
He also mandated them to write an undertaking to maintain peace during the festival. “It is hereby, declared that Oro festival or ritual can only be celebrated in Ipokia, Idi-Iroko, Ihunbo, Ifonyintedo, Ogosa, Koko, Ilashe, Ibatefin, Agosasa, Oniru, Mede and Ajegunle and other villages between the hours of midnight and 4 am, subject to government approval and undertaking to maintain peace,” he ruled.
Awry development
Later developments showed that the traditionalists were unhappy with the judgment and referencing the court ruling by the Islamic cleric during the Juma’at sermon, stirred the hornet nest.
Abdulwaliyu said as Muslims converged to observe prayers on a Saturday, on the day of the curfew, masked Oro adherents stormed the mosque and pelted the glass windows with stones.
The cleric said he travelled out of town earlier in the day, but quickly returned when he heard about the attack.
He said, “My Muslim brothers and sisters escaped death by a whiskers but property were destroyed. The traditionalists did not spare the windows and doors of a church in the community, but the leaders were not interested in pursuing any case.”
It was gathered that a day before the curfew, Abdulwaliyu, during a Juma’at (Friday) prayer, delivered a sermon on religious freedom and described the curfew as a violation of the people’s rights to free movement.
“I told my Muslim brothers and sisters that the law of the land doesn’t permit anyone to infringe on other people’s freedom of movement,’’ he added.
The cleric said he specifically instructed the Muslims to defy the curfew to observe the five Muslim daily prayers – Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha, which have specific windows of time within which they must be completed. He claimed his position was hinged on a 2018 judgment delivered by Justice Owodunni Sikiru of the Ogun State High Court, sitting in the Ipokia LGA.
Court judgment, peace pact defied
Following the incident, religious leaders in Idi-Iroko met and signed a peace pact to forestall future occurrences but the traditionalists, PUNCH Investigations gathered, were unwilling to respect the agreement.
He said despite the court judgment, the Oro devotees continue to carry out their activities during the day. Abdulwaliyu revealed that it was held in 2020 and 2021, adding that they vowed to declare the 2022 edition soon. “We are still waiting. This is about the time of the year that the Oro festival takes place. If you enter your house on Friday evening, you won’t go out until Sunday morning. Even men that are not strong enough may not be able to come out,” he lamented.
Oro-induced violent clashes
One might think that the ban on women’s participation in the Oro festival and the death knell it sounds are merely empty threats, but they are not.
There have been reports bordering on alleged killing of women that contravened curfews imposed by Oro adherents, rather than allow the deity to kill them through its famed ‘supernatural’ means.
