Ilorin, a city situated in the northernmost part of Yorubaland and the southwesternmost Emirate in the Sokoto Caliphate, has been continuously inhabited since the late 18th century. Ilorin emirate itself came into being officially in 1823. The history of Ilorin has been a glorious one and has been told by many scholars from both within and outside the Emirate. Some of these scholars include the learned L. A. K. Jimoh, Saad Omoiya, Ibrahim Jawondo, Samuel Johnson, Ann O’ Hear, Paul E. Lovejoy, Rex Seán O'Fahey, O. S. Ojo, and H. O. Danmole et cetera and have written extensively on the history of Ilorin, my intention is not to rehash their findings here.

This paper's singular purpose is to awaken the Ilorin to the dangers of complacency and the looming anarchy aided and abetted by the new culture of rent collection rivaled in Ilorin history only by the British colonialist before it, since the time of the British conquest, Ilorin has not faced an insidious enemy from within such as this one.

Street urchins otherwise called area boys have taken over the city – in the process – these thugs have carved out territories for themselves and have become the law. Every major street in Ilorin has an area boy who collects toll from the ordinary people who are just trying to eke out a living. Most of these thugs, inquiries have revealed, are returnees from Lagos who have recently found Lagos unsuitable for their trade and have found Ilorin very accommodating due to the patronage of the major political hegemon in town. These thugs became the tool by which political enforcement is carried out and they got so audacious that they recently burnt down several buildings and vandalized citizens’ cars. 

This phenomenon is long in coming, any discerning mind would have guessed that this scenario was just a matter of time. The Director, Centre for Ilorin Studies, University of Ilorin, Prof. Abdulganiyu Oladosu, in a public lecture in 2014 challenged stakeholders in Ilorin to rise up to arrest strange developments in the community but no one listened. Oladosu spoke during a prayer session organized by the Mustapha Akanbi Foundation in honour of the late Prof. of Education Psychology, Prof. Shehu Ahmad Jimoh.

The danger that we face in Ilorin today is that some predatory forces and their Ilorin collaborators have foisted an alien culture of dependency on the Ilorin people and have employed the use of these thugs to enforce their will on those citizens who have refused to submit to their hegemony.

This is a precarious time in Ilorin history, as I research further into our history, I realize that apart from the British, no entity has ever put Ilorin into so much despair as this present hegemon. But I also take comfort in the same history that revealed the resilience of the Ilorin people and the transient nature of power. Indeed, the city and its people are presently in transition.

Abdulmumin Yinka Ajia is of the Department of Global Leadership, College of Business, Indiana Institute of Technology, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA

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