JEBBA AND KWARA UNCONQUERABLE SPACE
By Dare Babarinsa
For the past 23 years, the current Oba of Jebba, Oba Kadiri Adebara, like his ancestors, has refused to submit to the overlordship of the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu Gambari, who is backed by successive Kwara State governors.
The current governor with the double-barell Arabic name, AbdulRahman AbdulRasaq is said to be of Yoruba descent. He is in solidarity with the Emir.
Kwara is essentially a Yoruba state in dire struggle to escape the suffocating influence of the Fulani feudalism which has turned most part of the North into the homeland of poverty and violence.
In 1813, the Fulanis, under the guise of promoting Islam, staged a bloody coup against the last Oyo Yoruba ruler of the town, Aare Afonja.
After the assassination of Afonja, Alimi, the leader of the rebel group and his descendants, have been ruling Ilorin since then.
During the colonial era, Yoruba leaders in the North, now Kwara and Kogi, wanted a merger with the Western Region.
When General Yakubu Gowon came to power, he created West Central State in 1967 and made a Yoruba, Colonel David Bamigboye, the Governor.
The Fulani power mongers soon got the name changed to Kwara. Since the coming of the 4th Republic in 1999, the Fulani oligarchs have seized Kwara State for themselves to the exclusion of all others.
What wars could not give them in the 19th century, politics is giving them in the 21st.
With the plight of the king of Jebba, Shao and other Yoruba communities in Kwara, the struggle is not going to end soon.
I think the leaders of the South-west should take more than a passing interest in what is happening in Kwara and Kogi States. Leaders should not live by owambe parties alone.
Dare BABARINSA, CON
Chairman, Gaskia Media Ltd
