OAA, Shehu Dikko ought to have missed what the discussion is all about. Had Farooq Kperogi limited himself to criticizing the director general of the National Broadcasting Commission, Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, for delegitimatizing Bukola Saraki of his Ilorin origins, there would not have been problem. Kawu claimed that Saraki's names are Olubukola Olabowale Adebisi which, according to him, are not names an Ilorin person would normally be called. And because of the names assigned by Kawu to Saraki the former declared the latter an alien in Ilorin. In other words, Saraki's Yoruba names make him an alien in Ilorin. Farooq Kperogi objected to alienation of Saraki as an Ilorin man not on the ground that Ilorin is factually and really a Yorubaland but as a fusion of Yoruba, Fulani, Hausa, Bariba, Kanuri, Nupe, Gwari and Gobir ethnicities and influences. Thereafter, he buttressed his ethnic mixture of Ilorin with the history of how the Fulani deposed Afonja and installed a Fulani Emir in Ilorin. Since, Mobolaji Aluko has provided a non-revisionist history of that period I can only add that irrespective of ethnic identity that any person may wear in the entire Kwara State, Yoruba language is the main language of communication there including Ilorin the state's capital.
When there were three regions in Nigeria, the Yoruba areas of the North preferred their merger with the North instead of the West, even though they were regarded by the then NPC ruling party under the leadership of Ahmadu Bello as grade three northerners, because it gave them employment advantages in the Northern civil service and got them government scholarships for higher education. Kwara State of today, politically, is part of the north but ethnically a Yoruba land. In reality, Ishaq is an Arabic name; Modibbo is a Malian name and Kawu, probably, may be an adulterated Yoruba nick-name. It is on record too that the name Modibbo was a later date substitution for Olanrewaju whose original names were Ishaq Olanrewaju Kawu. The history of small tribes in Nigeria is not unconnected with the annihilation of the blacks in North Africa when Arabs became Africans and while the few survivors fled to other tribes in West Africa. That is a discussion for another day so as not to expand the field of controversy too much now.
From my personal observation, Farooq Kperogi has a very great knack to write surreptitious history. I recall from his exchange with you on this forum on Thursday, 3 November 2016, he wrote the following : For starters, "Yoruba" is an exonym first used by a Songhai Scholar to refer to a people in what is now Oyo, Osun, and Lagos States …. and parts of Kwara State. Ajayi Crowther later adopted the name and used it to refer to cognate but nonetheless linguistically diverse people in Nigeria's southwest. For administrative convenience, colonialists standardized the Oyo "dialect" of the language and imposed it on people who never spoke it before. To this day, many people in rural Ekiti, Ondo, some parts of Ogun, etc don't understand "Yoruba."
I think it was Professor Etannibi Alemika, an Okun person (whom some people would call a "Yoruba") who once described himself as a minority that some majorities are aggressively trying to assimilate against his will. In other words, he resents being called "Yoruba." I was once in a rural Ekiti Community for a wedding, and "Yoruba" people from Lagos were shocked that most people there couldn't communicate with them in the common language of the region.
Please note that he put the word Yoruba in inverted commas begin and close to indicate his doubt about the existence of Yoruba as a pure ethnic group. Yoruba language has many dialects which are understood by all during oral communication. That is why, for instance, a Lagos Yoruba person will always understand an Ekiti person during conversation regardless of dialect. Therefore, the name Adebayo, for example, in Ekiti has the same meaning everywhere in Yoruba land and even up to Benin Republic where, of course, it is spelled Adebayor. Farooq claims that some people would like to call Professor Etannibi Alemika, an Iyagba man, a Yoruba person but Farooq Kperogi is totally wrong because it is the name, Etannibi Alemika, that identifies him as a Yoruba person. Although I am not religious, there can be good lessons to learn from the scripture. Thus I counsel you as in the Proverb 14 verse 7-8 which says, "Stay away from foolish people; they will have nothing to teach you. Why is a clever person wise? Because he knows what to do. Why is a stupid person foolish? Because he only thinks he knows."
S. Kadiri
Skickat: den 28 augusti 2018 19:39
Till: Shehu Dikko
Kopia: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Ilorin is an Ethnogenesis
Kindly recall that last year I expressed some disappointment at Farooq
Kperogi's unwillingness to engage in discussions that he had initiated.
I have since seen him state that he offers no comment where anyone
giving feedback has done no more than disagree with his position.
Since then however, he has been responsive to my messages. I have also
seen something else in his columns. In two of the ones he has written
this year he offered a reason for his writing. In the latest which is
referred to on the subject line he made this explicit statement:
"I have gone to this length just to show that I am no fan of Saraki and
his politics. But I would betray the very meaning and essence of my name
and my self-imposed duty to correct injurious falsehoods if I allow the
ahistorically nativist delegitimization of Saraki's Ilorin origins by my
brother Kawu to go unchallenged."
I have welcomed his statement because I have long deplored commentators
who never tell you why they write and what it is that they hope to
achieve, thereby evading accountability. I bring this to your notice
just so that you know given that you were a contributor to the
discussion I initiated about his article last year.
It may interest you to know too that I have remained interested in
whether my criticisms of Buhari were tantamount to the "campaign of
calumny" you claimed but failed to substantiate. I have since
encountered many persons much more familiar with my thoughts on the
subject than you who now say they regret not listening to me because I
was "not gentle" or "too severe" or "too persistent."
I did not at the time last year but I could have doubted the validity of
your claim by pointing to the fact that three ambitious politicians as
well as a man not in anyway involved in politics actually requested that
I write about them in the manner I have written about Buhari and other
public actors. I told them that I do not write to order.
Thank you and best regards,
shehu
--
You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
-- Sherlock Holmes
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