Ilorin is known as a religious city. This is a heritage nobody can take away and Ilorin take pride in the rare heritage. People outside the ancient town sees it as a Mecca of sort and even those of us from the city enjoy the attention.
Go to Lagos and say you are from Ilorin, you automatically become an alfa. If your mouth is sweet like my own (enu dun juyo), you can consult me to tell you what happens next.
Ilorin maybe accused of any other thing, but you can’t in all conscience, accuse it of lacking religious scholars of international repute. This is the city of Sheikhs of Sheikhs and Scholars of Scholars, spanning generations upon generations. If you go to Saudi Arabia, Egypt or even Iran, they can tell you the respectability of Ilorin in global religious circle. This is a fact that can be checked.
However, a debate about promiscuity, as it relates to Ilorin prang up on social media few days ago. I didn’t take interest in it due to my busy schedule during the week.
But upon coming online this morning, the same issue found its way into my timeline and I can’t but give a slight taught to the subject.
Over the years, many respected scholars in Ilorin have repeatedly talked about the nature of promiscuity in Ilorin.
I can’t begin to name those scholars here because they are too many to mention. However, if there is one scholar that has aptly painted the promiscuous nature of Ilorin through succinct allegory, that scholar is Sheikh Buhari Omo Musa.
The respected scholar, while describing how deeply rooted, promiscuity is in Ilorin said:
‘’On the day of judgement, if Allah is giving judgement to all people based on their specialization in sinful deeds, Ilorin will be watching from afar.
‘’If Allah say, its time to give judgement on disbelievers, people of Ilorin would say, ko ti kan wa (its not yet our turn).
If Allah say, it’s time to judge thieves and criminals, Ilorin would say, ko ti kan wa (not yet our turn). If Allah say, those who don’t show kindness to their fellow human should step forward for judgement, ilorin people would say again, ani ko ti kan wa (its still not yet our turn). And finally, if Allah say, its time to judge promiscuous people, ilorin people would then say, bisimillahi (Its now our turn)’’.
Sheikh Buhari has been saying this for years and nobody has countered this narration. But this is not about him; many scholars have said the same with no rejoinder over the years. It appeared to me that, most people in Ilorin also feel that there is some element of truth in the assertion. It may be an untrue generalization since no one actually took a survey across all towns to come to this conclusion, but no doubt, there might be some element of truth in it.
As I have earlier said, the online debate about the promiscuity in Ilorin came to fore, after a respected legal practitioner, Barrister Adeola Samuel Opeyemi gave an opinion regarding his experience in Ilorin after spending some days there. The barrister had written online that, ‘’Ilorin has two viable industries, Mosques and Hotels. Se ilu to sunmo alijana atun ma se Shina bi?
This posting infuriated some of his Lagos based friends who are also from ilorin. They see it like a jab and therefore demanded that he apologize for what they described as a baseless generalization. He in turn insisted that his opinion was based on the reality he saw and therefore could not apologize unless they can show him contrary evidence.
One Mallam Moyo Jaji, a true son of Ilorin came to the defense of Ilorin against what he perceived as an attack. In his defense against Barrister Adeola, Mallam Moyo stated that, ‘’I am from Ilorin & still maintain my earlier stance on your very toxic joke and also wonder as to what part of the city you stayed that gave you the sociological knowledge of the elehas (veiled women) for you to have come to the very warped conclusion that "Is it not common knowledge that Ilorin has penchant for promiscuity despite their profess for religiosity?".
Mallam Moyo added that, i know for a fact that stereotyping can be based on flimsy or lack of knowledge of a particular people, but you are not qualified and of very limited knowledge to cast aspersions. He went on to challenge Mr Adeola to talk and spill all he knows about Ilorin Afonja Geri Alimi. “I want to reiterate the fact that, you shot over the Bar, with that depiction of Ilorin & her people as being promiscuous. We do not need the appellation and do not deserve it. He said.
If you ask me, there is no need of wasting so much time and being bitter over other people’s opinion. More importantly, there is no need to trade words and insult each other on such a matter. Every town has their own share of problems that we all need to solve. Being bitter or aggressive towards other people won’t change their opinion about our town, educating them instead would be better.
In my opinion, Ilorin doesn’t deserve to be described as promiscuous. This is not because there are no promiscuous people in Ilorin, but because there is no evidence that there are more promiscuous people in Ilorin than any other place. Ilorin maybe promiscuous, but so is other places. It is therefore faulty to single out Ilorin as a promiscuous city, when in fact, there could be other more promiscuous towns than ilorin. I do not think anyone could prove that Ilorin is more promiscuous than Lagos, Ibadan, Osogbo, Ondo, Abeokuta or other places. In my view, it may actually be less.
But again, I do not think anyone has actually said Ilorin is more promiscuous. They only expresses surprise at what they see in ilorin, which may be contrary to the view they had of the town prior to that realization that ilorin too is also not very different from others. In other word, nobody can out rightly say Ilorin is promiscuous, if compared to others.
You may want to ask me, why do people actually think Ilorin is promiscuous? The answer can be seen in the distant view of the town as a religious town. Everybody outside Ilorin mostly see Ilorin from religious angle. They understand that when Islam is the question, Ilorin is the answer. They are also familiar with the tag of Ilorin as ilu to ginna sina to sunmo alujannah.
So, while Islamic scholars continue to eulogize Ilorin and its virtues in all of their preaching to reemphasize that notion, the Islamic artists are also doing the same in their music, thereby cementing the religious reputation in the eyes of the public. But of course, this also come with a price.
The expectation of people looking at Ilorin from afar is that, many of the ills in other town should not be seen here. They assume Ilorin should be immune from societal ills. In their mind, they assumed that if Lagos is a center for criminality, Ilorin should be the opposite. If Ibadan is known for loose virtue, Ilorin should be different and If Ondo is for promiscuity, the reverse should be the case in Ilorin.
However, when they eventually come to Ilorin and see that nothing seems different from those other towns, they feel alarmed and surprise, to the extent that they exaggerate the situation. So, they begin to wonder if this is the same city said to be a center of religion in preaching and Islamic musics.
My final message here is that, we all can do better. We can be less judgemental and less aggressive towards ourselves. Instead, we should be more aggressive in our quest to make our society a better place for all.
Abdulrazaq O Hamzat is the President of Kwara Must Change
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