Ooni’s Queen Ashley Leads Devotees As Ile-Ife Celebrates 2025 Osara Festival

The ancient city of Ile-Ife was agog on Saturday as Her Royal Highness, Olori Afolasade Ashley Adeyeye Ogunwusi, the beautiful and vibrant queen of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, led a colourful procession of devotees, indigenes, and admirers in celebration of the 2025 edition of the revered Osara Festival.

Decked in resplendent traditional attire with coral beads adorning her neck and wrists, Queen Ashley emerged from the palace with an aura of royalty and grace, amidst rhythmic chants, cultural drumming, and spiritual incantations.

She led the devotees through the historical path towards the sacred Osara Groove, nestled deep within the spiritual heart of the ancient town.

Olori Ashley had always expressed deep reverence for the Osara deity, describing the festival as not just a cultural rite but a spiritually significant gathering that has bound generations of Yoruba people together through faith, heritage, and divine encounters.

The Osara Festival, known for its colourful display of Yoruba culture, featured traditional songs, spiritual dances, sacrificial offerings, and ritual baths for babies born through the deity’s blessings.

This year’s celebration was marked by an outpouring of testimonies from women who came with their infants whom they believed were conceived through the intercession of Osara after the last festival.

The Olosara of Ife, Oba Isoro Ishola Osunwusi, had also always reinforced the deity’s ancestral importance.

“Osara is the mother of Okanbi, the direct son of Oduduwa. Through Okanbi came the royal lineages across Yoruba kingdoms—the Oba of Benin, the Onisabe of Sabe, the Olupopo of Popo, the Olowu of Owu, and the Orangun of Ila, among others,” he had explained.

He warned that neglecting the annual rites of Osara could come with spiritual consequences, urging Yoruba sons and daughters both at home and in the diaspora to reconnect with their roots.

The 2025 edition of the Osara Festival drew a larger-than-usual crowd, with tourists, cultural enthusiasts, and scholars thronging Ile-Ife to witness the timeless rites.

The groove itself was transformed into a spectacle of faith and colour fragrances of incense mingled with palm wine, kolanuts, and native oils offered in sacrifice, as devotees in white attires danced barefoot around the shrine.

The festival climaxed with prayers rendered by Olori Ashley in both Yoruba and English languages. Her voice echoed with divine authority as she invoked peace, fertility, prosperity, and unity upon the land and her people.

See photos below;