COLUMNISTS
Ilorin and the crisis of identity by Dare Babarinsa
Source: THE GUARDIAN
Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, is a Yoruba city. It is now in the throes of a self-inflicted crisis caused by the hijab, the head covering favoured by Muslim laity for their women folks. It is also loved by some Christians, especially the Catholics. It originated from the Middle-East where women are subjected to strict code of fashion. But in Yorubaland, fashion has never been a matter of contention. Now this. The case, I am told, is in the court. Some of the Muslims in Ilorin, apparently with the sympathy of the Governor, do not want to wait for the court. They would rather put the matter in their own hands.
What is surprising is that a Muslim parent, knowingly sending his daughter to a Christian school, still wants his daughter to wear the hijab. The corollary is a Christian parent sending his daughter to a Muslim school and yet does not want his daughter to wear the hijab. Luckily, there is no Orunmila High School in Ilorin. If there is one, I can assure you that no Muslim parent would insist that his daughter wears the hijab in Orunmila High School if it is not part of the prescribed uniform. But Christianity and Islam are both imported religions and we Africans we tend to be more catholic than the Pope.
What we are witnessing in Ilorin is the attempt by the government to take all powers from school authorities. Uniforms are parts of the tradition of each school. It seldom changes and when any principal tries to change it, he or she usually faces hostilities from the Alumni Association. In Kwara, the government claims to derive its power to prescribe uniform and enforce the hijab in all public schools because it is funding those schools.
When Alhaji Ahmadu Bello became the Leader of Government Business in Northern Nigeria in 1952, the government decided to support all mission schools; both Christians and Muslims. Those schools were referred to as grant-aided schools. However, there were also private schools established by individual proprietors who were excluded from this generosity. In the 1970s, all private secondary schools, including the mission schools, were taking over by the government. The government did not pay compensations for these schools. There was the understanding that though the schools had been taken over by the government, the original owners would still have proprietary interest in those schools. That understanding subsists until Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq decided to have interest in the hijab.
Governor Abdulrazaq represents a new kind of change in Kwara State. Before his ascension to power, the dominant force in Kwara politics was the enduring patriarchy of Dr Olusola Saraki and his son, Bukola. The Sarakis were supposed to represent the continuing dominance of the descendants of the Fulani in Ilorin over the Yoruba majority. The coming of Abdulrazaq was a seen as a credible challenge to the old Saraki hegemony. He came in with the Otoge (Enough!) battle cry and was swept to power on the ticket of All Progressives Congress, APC, the party of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In September 2018, a seminar was held at the Ikeja Airport Hotel, Lagos, in honour of the late Chief Bola Ige. Some Abdulrazaq partisans were present in large number at that seminar. I had tackled one of his partisans that this man who claims to represent the Yoruba of Kwara State does not have a single Yoruba name. Why should a fully-grown Yoruba person bears only foreign names? He said it was because of Abdulrazaq Islamic background. I pointed out to him that bearing your native names does not make you less religious. I gave the examples of Ayatollah Rhohollar Khomeini of Iran, Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, Iyanda Folawiyo of Lagos, Arisekola Alao of Ibadan, Ibrahim Dasuki of Sokoto and many others.
The truth is that many Ilorin people, especially those who are Muslims, are struggling with their Yoruba heritage. They believe wrongly that the less Yoruba they become, the more acceptable they are to what they perceived to be the power-centres of Nigeria. Yet bearing their normal Yoruba names have not deprived the Ilorin people of the ability to rise. We have the illustrious examples of the Sarakis, Major-General Abdul Kareem Adisa, Major General Babatunde Idiagbon and many others.
Ilorin is an old city with an historical burden. It was founded in the 15th Century and by 18th Century it has become a thriving commercial centre. It was one of the provincial towns of the old Oyo Empire and it belonged to the Ekun Osi District where the Onikoyi of Ikoyi was the supervising sovereign under the Alaafin. Other towns in that district include; Irawo, Ogbomoso and Iwere. As Oyo Empire waxed stronger, it annexed some of the Igbomina settlements like Oro into its fold. The Igbomina sovereign was (and still is), the Orangun of Ila. The Orangun and the Alaafin are both sons of Oduduwa in Ile-Ife and therefore co-eval under the old Yoruba traditional constitutional arrangement.
Ilorin was to change all that. Early in the 19th Century, the Alaafin appointed Afonja, a well-respected general, as the new Aare Ona-Kakanfo (the generalissimo of Oyo Imperial Army).
The constitution forbade the Aare to live in the capital and share the same domicile with his overlord, the Alaafin. Therefore, Afonja stayed in Ilorin and with his new appointment, he had become senior to other generals like the Onikoyi, the Olugbon and the Aresa. Instead of keeping to his oath of office, Afonja decided to rebel against his overlord. In other to strengthen his hands, he invited a peripatetic Islamic preacher, Malam Alimi, to join him with his band of young converts called ogo were.
The ogo were, claiming to operate under the authority of the Aare, became a law to themselves. With unpalatable news coming from everywhere on the activities of this unruly band, the Aare decided to move against them. When Alimi got wind of this, he staged a pre-emptive coup and the Alimi forces were able to stage a surprise attack against Afonja in his house. The battle lasted for almost two weeks as Afonja, surrounded by his sons and other commanders gave a good account of himself. Note that none of the Yoruba top generals; Onikoyi, Olugbon, Aresa and others came to the aid of Afonja. Even Solagberu, Afonja’s old friend and the leader of Ilorin Muslims at Okesuna, refused to offer help.
The coup against Afonja had grave consequences in Yorubaland. It was that coup that led inexorably to the collapse of old Oyo Empire and the evacuation of its capital city, Oyo. Many important towns like Ikoyi and Iresa were destroyed. Owu was destroyed. When Ilorin forces finally captured Offa in 1887, they destroyed most of the town and decreed that male citizens must grow beards and convert to Islam under the pain of death. The taken over of Ilorin by a foreign power was bitter pill for the Yoruba ruling class to swallow. When the British signed the treaty of peace with Ibadan in 1888, that insisted that war must end. One of the Ibadan generals, dissatisfied, asked the interpreter: “Tell the white man to let us finish the Ilorin campaign first. Then peace!”
In 1897, the Royal Niger Company pacified Ilorin and by 1900, it became part of Northern Nigeria. All attempts by the leadership of the Western Region especially under Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to get Ilorin and Kabba Provinces transferred to the West failed at the different constitutional conferences leading to Nigeria’s independence. The agitation gave birth to the party, Egbe Talaka Parapo, which won all the seats in the Ilorin District Council elections prior to independence. Ahmadu Bello dissolved the council and clamped down on the Egbe. Respite came in 1967 when General Yakubu Gowon created the West Central State (later to be known as Kwara State) as part of the new 12 states federal structure.
It is significant that Dr Olusola Saraki’s dream was for Kwara State to be in the same political camp with the South West in 1998. He and Chief Ige had been friends since their student days in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the two of them were involved in the formation of the All Peoples Party, APP, during the final days of military rule in 1998. When Afenifere pulled out of APP, Saraki blamed Ige for it. I am not sure whether they ever reconcile on this matter. It is interesting now that it is the same party, the APC, that is ruling in most of the Yoruba States and also in Kwara and Kogi State.
This places a special burden on Governor Abdulrasaq. He has to remember his state is said to be the State of Harmony. He should allow the court to decide this case of hijab instead of him allowing an unnecessary crisis to derail his government. After all, as a child, his father sent him to Bishop Smith Memorial School, Ilorin, a Christian School, and his uniform did not affect his school certificate results. This is one storm in a teacup that should never be allowed to become a real storm. After all, Ilorin is a Yoruba city and in Yorubaland we learn to tolerate each other no matter the differences. It is time Ilorin comes to term with its identity.
The Movement for the Advancement of National Transformation, MANTRA, has called on the federal government to set Mazi Nnamdi Kanu free as a major step towards addressing the agitations in the southeast.
The group made the call as a fallout of the release of Mr Sunday Adeyemo also known as Sunday Igboho, a Yoruba nation activist, by the Beninese government.
Recall the DSS reported that Sunday Igboho and his lieutenants engaged officers of the secret police in a fierce gun battle on July 1, 2021 at his residence in Soka, Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State after which he was arrested in Benin Republic while attempting to flee to Germany and had since remained in detention until Monday when he was set free.
In a statement signed by the Convener of MANTRA, Chief Jude Ndukwe and made available to the media on Wednesday in Abuja, the group described the release of Sunday Igboho as a welcome development and an indication that the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidency is not that of vendetta or vindictiveness and is not interested in persecuting its citizens.
“It is based on this that we urge President Tinubu to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from the custody of the DSS and free him to return home to his loved ones.
“Anything short of this will strengthen the suspicion of Nigerians that this is a sectional government with a sectional agenda.
“What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We believe very strongly that there was no way Sunday Igboho would have been released without any intervention from the Nigerian government. We hereby request strongly that the same principles applied to Mr Sunday Igboho be applied to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu whose release will no doubt assuage the frayed nerves of youths of the southeast and help restore peace and security in the region.
“May we remind President Bola Tinubu that he shares a similar sociopolitical trajectory with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu as an agitator.
“As a one-time activist, agitator and a leader of NADECO that was once proscribed by the federal government, Tinubu went on exile with several other NADECO members and were not only persecuted but also brutally hounded by the State over trumped up charges.
“Today, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is being made to unjustly pass through the same horrendous process the only difference being that Tinubu and his NADECO comrades passed through that tortuous road under a military regime while Kanu is experiencing his not just under a civilian administration but under an administration led by a veteran of agitation and activism.
“No other person in government today understands the experiences of Nnamdi Kanu better than the president himself who has passed through that route before. He knows better and we believe that he will do the right thing.
“We therefore reiterate our urgent call for Nnamdi Kanu to be released now,” the statement concluded.
In the vibrant city of Lagos, Olaleye Ademola Surajudeen leads a seemingly ordinary life, but beneath his warm smile and compassionate nature lies a hidden truth. He grapples with the fear of persecution due to his sexual orientation in a country where same-sex relationships are criminalized.
Ademola’s life takes an unexpected turn when he crosses paths with Rafael, a supportive friend who encourages him to embrace his authentic self. With Rafael’s unwavering support, Ademola summons the courage to come out to his family and close friends.
However, this courageous decision comes at a cost. Ademola faces discrimination and prejudice from some members of his community, while others stand by his side.
As Ademola navigates the turbulent waters of being open about his identity, the story zooms out to explore the broader issue of LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance in Nigeria. It underscores the importance of empathy and understanding in a society where acceptance remains an uphill battle.
The ordeals of fear and understanding his rejections, embodies bravery and hope as Ademola, alongside those who support him, confronts their own biases and learns to celebrate diversity and love in all its forms.
Ademola coming out as gay in Nigeria, a country where same-sex relationships can lead to 14 years of imprisonment, exposes him to significant risks. News of his revelation spreads throughout his community, yielding a mixed bag of reactions.
While Rafael and a handful of close friends steadfastly support him, others distance themselves, and some openly express disapproval. Ademola grapples with the stark realities of stigmatization and discrimination that accompany his newfound honesty.
One fateful evening, Ademola faces a confrontation with a group of hostile individuals who subject him to verbal abuse and threats. Within a memoir of his escapade was when he narrowly escaped police raids during a gay community marriage in Delta state, the encounter leaves him deeply shaken and fearful for his safety.
However, despite the daunting challenges and the looming shadow of Nigeria’s severe laws, Ademola stands unwavering in his commitment to live authentically.
As Ademola journey unfolds, he forges unexpected alliances with dedicated activists tirelessly working to challenge the discriminatory laws.
Nevertheless, the path to change remains laden with obstacles. Some political leaders and conservative religious groups staunchly oppose any reforms. Ademola faces renewed threats and hostility, but he remains steadfast, recognizing that his journey has transcended personal struggle and has become a beacon of hope for many. As the story concludes, Nigeria’s legal landscape for LGBTQ+ individuals remains challenging.
By Femi Fani-Kayode
I am on record as saying that if Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali or ANY OTHER country, attacks Nigeria, violates our territorial integrity or attempts to take one inch of our nation we must & will fight them to the last man.
I have also said that Nigeria’s defence budget is FAR higher than all the other 14 countries in West Africa PUT TOGETHER & that there is no nation in our sub-region that can defeat us in a military conflict despite our many challenges.
I stand by these words.
I am however constrained to add the following as a word of caution to those who seek to “cry havoc & unleash the dogs of war” & as a piece of unsolicited advice to the advocates of military invasion.
It would be imprudent & unwise for Nigeria to attempt to clean up France’s mess in Niger Republic.
The French are the most rappacious, greedy, vicious, pervasive, destructive & unrelenting neo-colonial foreign power on the African continent.
They have done nothing for Africa other than pillage, rape, undermine, plunder & take advantage of her.
To deploy our military, go to war & allow Nigerian blood to be spilled just to help her to continue to gang rape the Nigeriens & subject them to slavery would be unjust, wicked, short-sighted, stupid & counter-productive.
Worse still it would have implications for the stability of our nation, our entire sub-region & our increasingly fruitful relationship with President Putin & the Russian Federation who are slowly emerging as Africa’s best friend &, together with the Chinese, appear to be the only foreign power that truly seeks to assist & support the growth & development of African countries.
To those who believe that Nigeria ought to continue to be the poodle, local enforcer & hatchet man of the French, the Europeans, the British & the Americans in our sub-region, I ask the following: who do they think is behind Boko Haram & ISWAP and why did these so-called Western allies refuse to sell us arms to fight those two terrorist organisations until Trump came along? And of course since Trump left we have been given nothing.
Not one of them truly cares for Nigeria in the way the Chinese or Russians do & to them we are nothing but a source of mineral resources and a local sheriff.
They want us to go & fight a war against our African brothers just to further and protect their own economic & regional interests and they want us to throw the West African sub region into a theater for a horrific, brutal & never-ending proxy war between them & Russia which would result in turning the whole of the West & North African sub region into a cauldron of fire.
Worst still they want Northern Nigeria particularly & the entire African Sahel region & all the countries in it to be burnt to ashes & go the way of Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Libya & Afghanistan whilst they sell their arms, test their weapons, pillage our resources, turn our people into homeless destitutes & penniless refugees, destroy our collective future & serve our flesh & blood, on a dark satanic alter to the sinister forces & the blood-lustng vultures & demons that they work for & serve.
We must never allow this to happen & if the truth be told the biggest mistake that ECOWAS made in the first place was to threaten Niger with military action if the coupists refused to step down & restore President Bazoum to power.
I say this because once a threat is issued & it is not followed up with action you look weak, ineffectual & pathetic.
That is the quandry we are now in & the wisest thing to do at this point is to step back from the brink and rhetoric of war and engage in diplomacy.
Deploying our troops into our neigbours country in an attempt to effect regime-change on behalf of a bunch of butt-f*cking, cunt-struck, power-obsessed feral psychopaths like the French whose primary dream and fantasy has always been the dismemberment, destabilisation and destruction of Nigeria is asinine and unacceptable.
(CONTINUED👇👇👇)
-
Banking3 days agoFIRSTBANK ‘WIN BIG’ PROMO ENDS WITH EXCITEMENT AS MILLIONAIRES EMERGE
-
NEWS3 days agoRivers State Unity: Group Takes a Swipe at Abiye Sekibo over Plot to Destabilize it
-
NEWS3 days agoLagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Critical For National Development – MOSOP
-
NEWS3 days agogun Agency Trains Staffers On Techniques, Evaluation Of Statutory Reports
-
NEWS3 days agoTinubu, Northern Elders and the Politics of Regrets