Illorin and Dare Babarinsa's crisis of ignorance
By Is'haq Modibbo Kawu I have just read Dare Babarinsa's typically disrespectful piece about Ilorin, which he titled "Ilorin and the crisis of identity". He actually should be pitied. This is because he made a futile effort to stroll the shores of the history of our people, with an arrogance that left little, for the manner that we, the Ilorin people, understand ourselves; who we are; our aspirations and what we make of our own history! When he started by describing Ilorin as a "Yoruba" city, he assumes that it's an uncontested fact, especially after he regaled his readers with the over-cited history of how the historical events if the 19th century, in the making of Ilorin, have impacted on precolonial state formation, in what became Nigeria. Ilorin's people: Yoruba; Fulbe; Hausa; Gobir; Kanuri; Gwari; Nupe; Barba and Kamberi, have never been overly worried about the origins of our hometown, because we know it better than the Babarinsas of this worl...
