FULANI HEGEMONY : THE CASE OF ILORIN IN KWARA STATE by Moses Oludele Idowu

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I have decided not to say anything about the affairs of my state and instead concentrate on other vital and pressing issues. However, some of the comments and contribution on a Platform I belong to on these issues place a burden on me to say something.
I know Kwara State very well like I know the back of my hands. I have lived there and schooled there even up to university level until in the last thirty years when I left. I know the politics and even the religious affairs and issues around the state and the problems these have generated and still generating.
Today I want to zero in on an aspect of the problem facing Kwara State – what I call the hegemonic tendency of one town and people over others.
The purpose of governance and government is the welfare of the people – all peoples within the federating units not that of a section or of a single people at the expense of others. Thus development is to be spread all across the entire areas.
This has not been the case in Kwara State. Developments and appointments have been skewed to favour a particular section and to enthrone Fulani hegemony in Kwara State over others especially the Yoruba indigenous groups like Ibolos, Igbominas, etc.
This trend, to be sure has not always been the case but became noticeable and entrenched under the most inglorious era of Bukola Saraki between 2003-2011. More than anyone, that fellow who publicly claims to be Fulani – against well-known proofs to the contrary, – did more to destroy the harmony and togetherness of various ethnic groups in KWARA. He not only mismanaged the ethnic diversity of the State of Harmony he destroyed every vestige of brotherliness and solidarity by his unbridled desire to put his IIorin people in the centre of affairs and all fronts.
Let us go to specifics.
Even though there was already a federal university named in Ilorin although sitting on Igbomina land he still built another state university in Malete funded with state tax and funds within the same perimeter and circumference of ILORIN contrary to the usual of policy of spreading development. Malete is just few kilometers to Ilorin and I remember people who stayed in Ilorin and used to go to the town to work.
Why should two universities stand within the same area when there are other zones that do not even have a single institution of learning?
To the Fulani hegemon this was fair game. And his Ilorin people preferred it so because it favours them.

The staffing of these schools is another story. The pioneer Vice Chancellor was Rasheed Na’ Allah, a native of Ilorin, a very brilliant scholar in his own right and a colleague and classmate at Ilorin. One would have thought at least that since the university was sited around Ilorin someone from another zone should be the principal officer. Not so.
Meanwhile at the federal university of Ilorin another Ilorin native, Abdulrahaman Oba, was made the Vice Chancellor through means that even some scholars over there have told me was not too ethical and not completely on merit.

After Na’Allah’s tenure of two terms you would expect that another person from another zone would be appointed for the sake of ethnic balancing and geographical spread as enshrined in the Constitution; not so. Even though at the interview of the qualified candidates, an Offa native came top according to reports he was still sidelined to choose another ILORIN man for another five years. According to newspaper reports the Ilorin man came third in the opinion of the Selection Committee and was chosen above those of his betters because he is an indigene. Such nepotism.
And when the Association of Offa Professors protested this injustice ( I actually read their press release) their Ilorin counterparts in the Ilorin Descendants Union or whatever answered them that they didn’t believe in God. As much as they were concerned it was Allah who did it. Such provocation, such patent manipulation of religion for personal gains and selfish ends.
How would Offa people be happy with these? How would Igbomina people take these manifest exploitation?
Would Ilorin Descendants Union be happy if it were to be at the receiving end?

Appointments at the federal level was even worse. Under Bukola Saraki virtually every appointment went to Ilorin indigenes. In point of fact whenever any appointment opportunity opened up Ilorin seems to have the right of first refusal.
At the same time that two Ilorin natives were vice chancellors and another a governor, the Minister of Environment, Halimat Alao representing Kwara was from Ilorin and the Ambassador chosen from Kwara was also from the Oniyangi family from the same Ilorin. The chair of the ICPC was also from Ilorin, Justice Akanbi. And one of the three senators representing Kwara State was also from the town – Gbemisola Saraki from the same pampered aristocratic Saraki family.
So Ilorin got all the stuff and left the rest of us with nothing. It was as if the rest of us from that state didn’t go to school or didn’t learn what we were taught.
And when the people of Igbomina and Kwara South wrote a petition to the Nigerian Orientation Agency about the lopsidedness and the abuse of the Constitution the Smart Adeyemi- led Senate Committee was even more nonchalant and irresponsible to address the gross violations of the Constitution. Adeyemi is out of the Senate today and his own people in Kogi are being marginalized too by the Igalas and the Ebiras. Good for him; what goes round comes round.
It is a long time I visited Kwara State but I get reports from my people about what is going on and I do my own discrete investigations too. Reports reaching me also attest to the gross injustice and lopsidedness in appointments and even admissions of students at both University of Ilorin and even the state university to favour a people from a particular town and emirate by my old classmates who are professors at University of Ilorin. Even it has reached Local Government levels from what I have been told.
Another Ilorin man currently sits at the State House as governor but it appears this one is more evenhanded and fair in his dealings. At least he wasn’t as incorrigible as Bukola Saraki in his Fulani hegemonistic tendencies.
Saraki was a dangerous thing to happen to Kwara State. We must thank God Who has shot down that aristocracy and it will never rise again. He was not only partisan he was also insensitive on religious issues to please his fanatical townspeople and Jihadists. Christian Association of Kwara State wanted to bring the world- renown evangelist, Reinhard Bonnke and requested for the use of the Kwara stadium for the program. Saraki refused them. The people went to a nearby town in Gamo and cleared enough ground for the crusade. They brought Bonnke and the program started. Few days into the program orders came from the State Government that “security reports” are unfavorable and the program should be stopped. Thus Saraki stopped a program of the entire Christian community in the state using governmental power in a state that boasts of almost equal number between Muslim and Christians. When next someone tells you that his mother is a Christian or wife is a pastor you better beware and think we’ll before voting for him. These people are jihadists and purveyors of stealth jihads and care nothing about other Traditions.

So you can see that intolerance didn’t begin today. Ilorin has a unique history – a history characterised by intolerance, nepotism, clannishness… That is why the current Ilorin brawl with the Isese people is amusing to me. It is in the nature and image. I grew up in this town since the 1970’s and I have never known Ilorin to be tolerant of religious diversity.
But power will change hands someday. Someone will be there one day who will defend the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not enforce Sharia over people who do not subscribe to it.
What we are witnessing in kwara today is what I call the Ilorin hegemony over Kwara State. However, this will not last forever. It is unsustainable. As with all hegemonies, they end and they must end. This one too will end. And they sometimes end brutally, violently and suddenly. Where is Saraki today and his bloody aristocracy or dynasty?
I put these facts out not for any bitter memory but to remind our brethren in Ilorin so that when eventually the table turns they too should not complain. They started it and it must run its course. What goes round comes round.
Good morning Kwarans.