By Prince Charles Dickson Ph.D.

Ìṣẹ̀ṣe  Day wishes. Credits: NNNGO-Nigeria Network of NGOs

Today, government offices are closed in Lagos⁠, Ogun⁠ and Oyo⁠—not for Christmas, Easter or Eid, but for Ìṣẹ̀ṣe Day. That fact is quietly revolutionary in a country where public religion usually speaks through a church microphone or a mosque loudspeaker.

Ìṣẹ̀ṣe, a Yoruba word often translated as “tradition” or “original practice,”⁠ is more than colourful clothing, drums and a tourism brochure. For many adherents, it is a living spiritual tradition: a relationship with Olódùmarè, the Òrìṣà, ancestors, nature, community and moral consequence. It is also specifically Yoruba; it should not be lazily used as a label for every African indigenous religion. Africa’s traditional faiths are diverse, local and intellectually complex.

Yet in Nigeria, they are commonly flattened into one frightening word: juju.

That insult tells a longer story. Colonial conquest did not arrive with rifles alone; it arrived with a dictionary. The conqueror named his own faith “religion” and dismissed African belief as superstition, paganism or darkness. Over time, many Africans inherited that vocabulary. Today, a person may quote ancestral proverbs, bear a name rooted in indigenous cosmology and participate in traditional rites—then recoil at the neighbour who openly identifies as a traditional worshipper.

That is not only irony. It is cultural amnesia wearing religious confidence.

Let us be clear: this is not an argument against Christianity or Islam. Both have deep roots, devoted adherents and an undeniable place in Nigeria’s story. It is an argument against behaving as though those two faiths own the country while indigenous believers merely occupy it by permission. A nation does not become tolerant by allowing minorities to exist invisibly.

Nigeria’s Constitution⁠ is less confused than many Nigerians. Section 38 protects freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to manifest belief publicly or privately. Section 10 prohibits the federation or any state from adopting a state religion. In plain language, government must neither police the human conscience nor arrange religions in order of respectability.

A public holiday for Ìṣẹ̀ṣe is therefore not official endorsement of every doctrine or ritual associated with it. Christmas does not make Nigeria Christian; Eid does not make it Muslim. Recognition says something simpler: traditional worshippers are citizens too. Their numbers may be smaller, but citizenship is not awarded by numerical strength. Their joy deserves public space. Their holy day should not require apology.

This matters because intolerance is not theoretical. Traditional worshippers have reported threats, harassment and pressure to cancel celebrations, including a widely documented confrontation in Ilorin in 2023⁠. Religious freedom means very little if it protects only beliefs that the majority finds familiar.

Of course, no practice becomes immune from criticism merely by being called culture or religion. Cruelty, coercion, discrimination and criminal harm must be challenged wherever they appear—inside shrines, churches, mosques, homes or government offices. Equal protection must travel with equal accountability. But suspicion is not evidence, and difference is not danger.

The real test of Ìṣẹ̀ṣe Day will come after the drums fall silent. Will schools teach indigenous knowledge without mockery? Will the media stop using “ritualist” as a careless synonym for murderer? Will police protect lawful traditional gatherings with the same seriousness given to crusades and Islamic programmes? Will political leaders defend freedom of conscience when doing so is unpopular?

Nigeria does not need one religion to defeat another. It needs enough confidence to let faiths meet without fear, domination or erasure.

The deepest lesson of Ìṣẹ̀ṣe is not that everyone must return to the religion of their ancestors. It is that no Nigerian should have to deny those ancestors—or disguise their conscience—to be treated as fully human and fully Nigerian.