Femi Kolapo

unread,

Apr 3, 2021, 8:15:01 PM4/3/21

to dialogue

Behind the veil: The Ilorin hijab cover over a simmering problem

The outbreak of violence in February and March between Muslim and Christian youth in Ilorin over the refusal of some Christian mission schools to accede to Kwara state government compelling them to accept the Muslim hijab as an alternate uniform for Muslim students is most regrettable. It is galling watching videos on social media of students and people who had lived peaceably together throwing stones at each other. With half my relations Muslim (and half Christian), I cannot imagine what would make me take up stones to throw at my Muslim uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews nor is it possible that any of my Muslim cousins and nieces would for any reason take up stones to throw at me or at any other of their Christian relations - certainly not over what religious dress or symbol that any of us chooses to wear.

However, if the Ilorin problem were only about hijab, it seems to me that the Christian schools, their church proprietors, and their supporters stand on rather tenuous legal and moral ground. If an argument that the hijab is part of Ilorin Muslim student identity is plausible in law, I wont be surprised if a majority of the supreme court judges favors the rights of these Muslim students to wear their hijab to school. Also, in terms of basic or technically religious rationale, it should seem rather illogical that the Christian mission schools and their proprietors would reject Muslim students coming to their schools who want to wear the hijab. One would think that, ordinarily, the churches and proprietors of these schools would be happy that Muslim students would thereby encounter Christianity and the message of love and salvation that serve as the pillar the schools were founded on. So if Christians of Ilorin and proprietors of these schools, contrary to their mission to invite non-Christians to Christ, are now opposed to accepting these students because of hijab, I felt something was wrong about it that required further investigations. I took the advice to listen to the other side and to get familiar with their grouse with the government to get at the underlining issues. It then became clear to me that the trouble brewing in Ilorin was more than just about the hijab, though, the hijab has been made into the linchpin of the crisis.

Kwara state government so far has successfully used its call to allow Muslim students to wear their hijab over their school uniform as a powerful public relations strategy to depict the Mission schools as bigots. Many in social media uncritically broadcast this emotive narrative. Unfortunately, reducing the problem to allowing or disallowing hijab in Christian-denominated schools can only divert needed attention away from a deeper much more dangerous crisis that has been in the making for several decades.

Complaints

The problem in Ilorin is more about deep, entrenched, and expanding systemic injustice and discrimination that Christians in that city and to some extent in Kwara state in general feel against themselves and their religion. The complaints of the Christians --and they are many on social media-- deserve to be articulated and brought to centre stage of state and Nigeria's national discourse.

Their complaints include that Kwara state government actions have systematically discriminated against Christians in Ilorin and that this discrimination continues to expand. To them, the insistence by the government that Muslim students should be allowed to wear the hijab in their private Christian mission schools is only the latest bitter pill they are been forced to swallow by a Muslim dominated government that they charge to be openly prejudiced against the Christians and that had vowed to take over their schools.

They complain that over the years they have been marginalized. As a citizen of Kwara who schooled in Kwara and Ilorin, who lived in Ilorin and has his family there, and who also for a couple of years had experience as an employee of Kwara teaching service, I can attest to many of these complaints of discrimination which began long ago. I doubt that any serious educated Ilorin Muslim will dispute that “Ilorin people” are favored over every other people of Kwara, and especially within Ilorin; favored over Christians in all government actions relating to social and economic opportunities. It is so obvious that I don't know that any body who knows Ilorin has or can deny it. Most Ilorin indigenes, if they think about it, simply take it as a default condition that does not need to be questioned or explained. Others might not notice it because of the default normalness the situation has attained over these many years.

Double standards

The Christians complain that the government of Kwara does not apply the same standards to Muslim schools that it is applying to Christian schools. The proprietors of Christian schools solely bear the cost of maintaining, renovating, and expanding their school facilities, but government collect the school fees and uses these to not only pay salaries of all schools in the state under its control but to also provide for renovation and expansion of facilities in Muslim and other schools.

The government uses the excuse that it pays the salaries of the teachers in these Christian schools to hire and post mostly Muslim teachers to the schools, including teachers who teach Islamic Religious Knowledge to serve the need of Muslim students in the Christian mission schools. Hence, in these Christian mission schools, their teaching staff population could be anything between 50-75% Muslim. Information on the C&S College Sabo-Oke, a senior secondary level school, puts total teaching and non-teaching staff at 53, 29 of who are said to be Christians and 24 Muslims. As I was about to publish this post, my attention was drawn to Arinola Rahaman's piece in the Nigerian Punch of March 30 with information to the effect that at "St. John’s Primary and Secondary School, Sabo Oke, there are 48 teachers, but only five are Christians" This, of course, speaks to the larger issue of the lopsidedness of employment arrangements in Ilorin which mostly favor Ilorin indigenes who are generally Muslims over other people, especially Christians.

A Gaa Akanbi, Ilorin, primary school whose most substantial structure is its mosque

All government ministries in Ilorin, I have been told by Christians based in Ilorin who say they can substantiate their claims, is predominantly dominated by Muslim appointees, a large proportion of who are of Ilorin origin. I have not seen the data, but my familiarity with Ilorin supremacy in the 70s and information on “the Secretariat” and even on the nature of other public appointments in Kwara accords with this position. The structure of government appointments in Kwara that is in the public also affirms their position.

They complain that while the Christian schools allow and teach Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK) to cater to their Muslim students population, no single Islamic school in Ilorin allows the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) and Kwara state government does not question this despite Christian students attending these Muslim schools. I was told that there is one Mission school where only one Christian religious teacher is available to teach CRK at all the school levels whereas government hired 6 or 7 teachers of IRK who of course are Muslims for the same school. A strong Muslim orientation in Muslim schools backed by clear government support discourages more and more Christian students from going to Muslim schools because no allowances are made for them, thereby further reinforcing the Muslim exclusive identity of these schools. On the other side, Christian mission schools are neglected, have the threat of take over procedure by the government hanging over them, and are being forced to accept Muslim dress as part of their dress code; in other words, are being gradually but clearly Islamized.

Thus over the years, governments of Kwara have systematically promoted Muslim symbols, spaces, and Ilorin Muslims in the civil service, in the health and other public services, in their major appointments and conversely discriminated against Ilorin based Christian spaces, symbols, and against Christians in appointments and job placements. It is important to state that the governments of Kwara (legislative and executive) have been overwhelmingly Muslim over the past decades. Almost all its civilian governors have been Muslims, though they would generally choose Christian deputies who generally espoused no independent thought or actions of their own. Only on deputy-governor, Shittu a Muslim, ever tried to carve out some independent role for himself and challenged Adamu Atta, the governor, but he was effectively totally sidelined. Majority of the Perm. Secs. and top civil servants, directors of all parastatals, and most appointees to represent Kwara state at the federal level have largely been Muslim and mostly Ilorin indigines and this is not for lack of qualified Christians! Ilorin Christians are clearly no less educated and qualified than Ilorin Muslims.

Christians complain that all government and some of the Christian mission schools have mosques and smaller praying grounds built inside of them as do most fenced-off public or civil service premises in Ilorin but the building of chapels to represent Christians was disallowed for Christian students in these same schools. This reflects what happens in all northern Nigerian states where Muslims are openly favored in this way.

Lately, the Kwara government has been claiming right to full control over the Mission schools contrary to the assertion of the churches that owned these schools who consider their schools to be private schools that are merely “grant-aided” by the government. The struggle over the control of the schools by both sides is the spark that kindled the crisis.

A policy of marginalization

For the Christians in Ilorin, the government’s insistence that it has the right to decree that Muslim students could wear hijab to these schools is thus a continuation of the ongoing attempt to consolidate their Islamic takeover of the schools and to de-Christianize them. To the Christians the hijab issue is but one of the continuing series of policy actions by Kwara state government that progressively marginalizes Christians and Christian institutions; that seeks to exclude, dilute, and otherwise occlude the presence of Christianity and Christian symbols from the city and from the schools and to generally eliminate or diminish any Christian imprint from social and political spaces in Ilorin and in Kwara state. On the contrary, it promotes everything Muslim.

At the legal front, the courts may rule that a government that pays the salaries of the teachers of these schools has a right to dictate what uniforms the students should wear or that freedom of religion allows for Muslim students to don their religious symbols over their school uniform to school. Unfortunately, such a judgment would not thereby resolve the volatile problem until the injustice at its root is taken seriously and tackled boldly. It would only postpone the day of reckoning.

The Kwara government dominated by Ilorin indigenes, who happen to be mostly Muslims, and all Ilorin people, should devise and create a more just climate that includes other religions and people from other parts of the state equitably.

A call to just action

The government of Kwara should act to calm down emotions and lower tensions and make bold to create just conditions for dialogue and for peace. They must recognize the unjust conditions and structures that have built up over many years and actively work to amend it. They should include proportionate numbers of representatives of the other religions and other interests and people groups outside of Ilorin in their decision-making to foster inclusiveness and reduce the growth of systemic discrimination. Government employment process should be transparent and all information about number and qualification of applicants and those employed should be readily available for scrutiny. All appointments to public positions should consider diversity as a necessary operating framework.

I would hate that my Muslim brothers and cousins and relations be discriminated against by a hegemonic organization dominated by or that is partial to Christians and to Christianity. But I am equally opposed to any such institution that discriminates against my other brothers and cousins and relatives who are Christian like myself. Also, I can speak for my Muslim uncles and aunts and cousins and nephews that they are all for justice and fair play. Many well-meaning Ilorin Muslims and Muslims from outside of Ilorin if properly informed of the nature of the injustice in play will support policy moves to enshrine equity and fair play. It is a very narrow-minded clear contravention of one of the central tenets of these two religions to play favoritism and to discriminate against the other. Injustice actively undermines unity, undercuts development, and courts crises and all well meaning people should strive against it and move Kwara forward.

Femi J. Kolapo |Professor, Department of History | www.uoguelph.ca/history

College of Arts | University of Guelph | 50 Stone Rd E | Guelph ON | N1G 2W1

Websites: African History Digital Document Portal Project | African Journal of Teacher Education

Review of Higher Education in Africa |Recreation and Society in Africa, Asia and Latin America

________

Book: Christian Missionary Engagement in Central Nigeria: The Church Missionary Society's All African Mission on the Upper Niger (Springer International Publishers, 2019).

A thought for the month:

Compassion is more than passing feelings of sorrow and sympathy. It is costly identiﬁcation with those who suﬀer in their suﬀering and oppression. It goes against the grain of our natural instincts. We do not want to suﬀer, and the less we are confronted with it the better. But compassion calls us to identify with the suﬀering of others and experience their brokenness. It requires a total conversion of heart and mind. - Paul G Hiebert, Transforming Worlviews. An anthropological understanding of how people change. Baker Academic 2009.

Farooq A. Kperogi

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 12:23:04 AM4/4/21

to USAAfrica Dialogue

This is a one-sided article chock-full of disinformation and misinformation. As I pointed out in two previous articles, I attended Christian missionary schools for my elementary and high schools, so I am writing from my experiential repertoire, not based on secondhand information. The schools are NOT private, "government-aided" schools. They are fully funded government schools that used to be owned by Christian missions. Most buildings in the schools were built--and refurbished--by the government, and ALL workers in the schools are paid by the government. But the government allows alumni and the missions to also build structures in the schools. My alma mater's alumni (who are mostly Muslim by the way) have built classrooms in my alma mater--with the government's permission.

I attended Baptist schools, so I can speak to them. The Kwara government allows only the Nigerian Baptist Convention to choose school principals and vice principals of Baptist secondary schools, and they are always Baptists. My school has never had a Muslim principal even though it is located in a predominantly Muslim community--and its student body and teaching staff are mostly Muslims. Muslim teachers in the school who have administrative aspirations always leave the school when they advance in their career. No one I know of has any issues with this. It is understood that although the schools are now government-owned, they were initially built by Christian missionaries and have an obligation to retain their religious character.

That there are more Muslim teachers in the missionary schools is simply a function of the demographic attributes of the part of the state in which they are located. In Ilorin Emirate (which is about half of Kwara's total population) and what has been called "Kwara North" (Baruten, Edu, Patigi, Kaiama, and Moro LGAs) the populations are predominantly Muslim. So, it isn't surprising that most of the teachers in government-owned secondary schools would be Muslim. In any case, religion is never an official criterion for employment as a teacher.

Ilorin Emirate is a caliphal Muslim polity in ways no other part of Kwara is. In my local government, for instance, which is at least 90 percent Muslim, we don't have the sort of problem we're talking about in Ilorin. There are two secondary schools in my hometown. In Baptist Grammar School (whose teaching and non-teaching staff is predominantly Muslim), female Muslim students don't wear the hijab, and the principal and vice principal are Christian (as they've always been from the beginning). In Government Day Secondary School, female Muslim students wear the hijab, and Christians and non-observant Muslims don't. IRK and CRK are taught in both schools.

You are also conflating favoritism toward Ilorin people with favoritism toward Muslims. Those are two separate issues. "Ilorin people" are NOT a stand-in for "Muslims." Although most Ilorin people are Muslims, there are millions of Kwara Muslims who are not from Ilorin--and who also complain of exclusion. If Islam were the only consideration for preferential treatment, as you allege, predominantly Muslim parts of the state like "Kwara North" and even Offa shouldn't have a reason to complain of "marginalization."

I had reason a few weeks ago to write about a townsman of mine who was denied the Vice Chancellorship of the Kwara State University even though he came first in the ranking of the search committee. And he is a Muslim. The second best candidate, a Nupe man, and a Muslim, was also passed over in favor of an Ilorin man who came third in the ranking of the search committee.

I've written more than I intended to. Let me stop here.

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/YT1PR01MB3084321EED3D0AF278372AF0BF799%40YT1PR01MB3084.CANPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

Toyin Falola

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 12:32:21 AM4/4/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

To both of you:

I must confess that I am afraid. Kaduna and Jos have taught us that when a fight like this begins, it festers until everyone is consumed. Now is the time to stop it.

TF

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAPq-FWvKF4Vtum%2BEoqyimnu%2BXZnRMcey0gyi9nZ6%3DQTGXtj8JQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 8:34:43 AM4/4/21

to usaafricadialogue

Thanks Prof. Falola.

But stop it, how?

We need to examine comparatively the contrastive views from Farooq and Femi.

I would be surprised if the narratives of both of them were completely inaccurate.

For years, people like me have held up the SW as an epitome of religious accommodation.

But Ilorin emirate is a creation of the Fulani jihad, established through the violence represented by force of arms. It emerged as a form of colonization. Colonization often involves the privileging of the new identities generated by the colonial process. This could be what I understand as the fixing of the Ilorin emirate in the hands of the Fulani, permanently excluding other ruling houses in Ilorin, which is described as formerly performing a rotational form of rulership. I am happy to be educated otherwise.

It could extend to to the privileging of Muslims of any ethnicity, that being the stamp of the new identity brought by the colonizing forces, an identity which has now become central to the people's identity.

All of Nigeria and former colonized territories are testimonies to such developments from British or Fulani colonization. So, I would be amazed if the story were different in Ilorin.

Southern Nigerians have had to adopt the new identities generated by British colonialism and its religious component if they were going to find a place in the new social system and economy. One could not insist on Ifa education instead of Western education, insist on writing in the Cross River script Nsibidi instead of English, even if those Western systems did not enable access to the world as shaped by Western culture. Such insistence brought serious consequences of limitations.

Even those who originally did that have given way over time to those who realize the need ''to embrace the ways of the whiteman'' as Achebe puts it in his books. This embrace has created the modern Southern Nigerian for many of whom the older identities exist only in deeply attenuated forms, such as limitation to ethnic identity, language and marriage customs, excluding the institutional and cognitive contexts that shape society, which are now dominated by the Western transplant.

I am particularly struck by Farooq's ''In any case, religion is never an official criterion for employment as a teacher'' coming from a person who I expect knows that the unofficial can become the official even if not so stated.

I am also struck by his perhaps inadequately critical claim that demographics are enough to explain the physical dominance of Muslims in certain contexts of Ilorin life. African-Americans are a minority in the US but they have been struggling for centuries for recognition and opportunity, in which struggles they have made progress at a high cost.

So, Femi's claims cannot be dismissed. They need to be investigated.

The issues raised by Femi are largely empirical and can be empirically assessed along the following lines-

1. Are the views and sentiments he describes factual for Ilorin Christians? Do a significant number of them feel so deeply marginalized?

2. If they do, how justified are they?

3. How factual are Femi's allegations about schools and government appointments?

Who is going to do the research and address these perceptions, and if factual, address the realities decisively?

Is this not a local expression of a national problem in the Christianity-Islam divide, regardless of the degrees of validity of perceptions on both sides?

thanks

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR06MB72474BBBAEF4794209DCAF71F8789%40SN7PR06MB7247.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 8:35:36 AM4/4/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Oga Kolapo:

You write like a sage. Members of the forum who responded in disguised alarm at my suggestion that both dominant monotheisms in Nigeria should be banned to give peace in the country a chance now see why. It is gratifying to see there is now a counterpoise to the dominant Kwara voice we are used to on the forum.

This is again tyranny of the majority at play in Kwara politics. Your writing is capable of making Omoba ( Femi Segun) descend into gnashing of teeth for the treachery of Àfònjá and the tyranny of Alimi.

I think you should ask the editor of the Tribune to feature this piece or at lease write an abridged form of this magisterial response in the column of letters to the Editor. Please feel free to write regularly in that paper and others regarding the Christian minority community in Kwara state.

Your contribution regarding the involvement of other faiths and not just Christians to dilute the tyranny of Kwara Muslims is well taken and aligns with my recommendations since this thread began.

The Kwara State Government should govern for all.

May Òrúnmìlà continue to guide your thoughts.

Shallom!

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooq...@gmail.com>

Date: 04/04/2021 05:32 (GMT+00:00)

To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Behind the veil: The Ilorin hijabcover over a simmering problem

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (farooq...@gmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

This is a one-sided article chock-full of disinformation and misinformation. As I pointed out in two previous articles, I attended Christian missionary schools for my elementary and high schools, so I am writing from my experiential repertoire, not based on secondhand information. The schools are NOT private, "government-aided" schools. They are fully funded government schools that used to be owned by Christian missions. Most buildings in the schools were built--and refurbished--by the government, and ALL workers in the schools are paid by the government. But the government allows alumni and the missions to also build structures in the schools. My alma mater's alumni (who are mostly Muslim by the way) have built classrooms in my alma mater--with the government's permission.

I attended Baptist schools, so I can speak to them. The Kwara government allows only the Nigerian Baptist Convention to choose school principals and vice principals of Baptist secondary schools, and they are always Baptists. My school has never had a Muslim principal even though it is located in a predominantly Muslim community--and its student body and teaching staff are mostly Muslims. Muslim teachers in the school who have administrative aspirations always leave the school when they advance in their career. No one I know of has any issues with this. It is understood that although the schools are now government-owned, they were initially built by Christian missionaries and have an obligation to retain their religious character.

That there are more Muslim teachers in the missionary schools is simply a function of the demographic attributes of the part of the state in which they are located. In Ilorin Emirate (which is about half of Kwara's total population) and what has been called "Kwara North" (Baruten, Edu, Patigi, Kaiama, and Moro LGAs) the populations are predominantly Muslim. So, it isn't surprising that most of the teachers in government-owned secondary schools would be Muslim. In any case, religion is never an official criterion for employment as a teacher.

Ilorin Emirate is a caliphal Muslim polity in ways no other part of Kwara is. In my local government, for instance, which is at least 90 percent Muslim, we don't have the sort of problem we're talking about in Ilorin. There are two secondary schools in my hometown. In Baptist Grammar School (whose teaching and non-teaching staff is predominantly Muslim), female Muslim students don't wear the hijab, and the principal and vice principal are Christian (as they've always been from the beginning). In Government Day Secondary School, female Muslim students wear the hijab, and Christians and non-observant Muslims don't. IRK and CRK are taught in both schools.

You are also conflating favoritism toward Ilorin people with favoritism toward Muslims. Those are two separate issues. "Ilorin people" are NOT a stand-in for "Muslims." Although most Ilorin people are Muslims, there are millions of Kwara Muslims who are not from Ilorin--and who also complain of exclusion. If Islam were the only consideration for preferential treatment, as you allege, predominantly Muslim parts of the state like "Kwara North" and even Offa shouldn't have a reason to complain of "marginalization."

I had reason a few weeks ago to write about a townsman of mine who was denied the Vice Chancellorship of the Kwara State University even though he came first in the ranking of the search committee. And he is a Muslim. The second best candidate, a Nupe man, and a Muslim, was also passed over in favor of an Ilorin man who came third in the ranking of the search committee.

I've written more than I intended to. Let me stop here.

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

Nigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

On Sat, Apr 3, 2021 at 8:15 PM Femi Kolapo <kol...@uoguelph.ca> wrote:

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/YT1PR01MB3084321EED3D0AF278372AF0BF799%40YT1PR01MB3084.CANPRD01.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

Cornelius Hamelberg

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 8:35:48 AM4/4/21

to USA Africa Dialogue Series

Muslims pray at least seventeen times a day, “sami'allahu liman hamidah” (Allah hears those who praise Him); Christians often recite Psalm 102, expressing the same hope; Kabir the poet queries (Robert Bly translation):

“Surely the Holy One is not deaf.

He hears the delicate anklets that ring on the feet of an insect as it walks”

One man’s information is another man’s misinformation and disinformation. The stories in one man’s Holy Bible are not the same as the stories in another man’s Holy Quran, which says that Jesus did not die on the cross - and therefore did not resurrect – the centrepiece of Christianity and this is a difference that cannot be downplayed or relegated to relative unimportance when distinguishing Christianity from Islam. One of the definitions of anti-Christ is one who denies that Jesus dies on the cross. Every missionary boy is supposed to know this. ( I should just like to add that unlike the Baptists, the Jesuits did not forbid their people in the Spanish colonies to worship orishas , the Jesuits only insisted that the orishas should not be regarded as deities, but rather, should be regarded or worshipped as Saints, and then there would be no problem about going to Heaven. One result is that the since the drum was not banned in Spanish colonies in South America and the Caribbean , we the music people, feel, hear and understand that Salsa is more poly-rhythmic than reggae)

It’s clear that the problems that are being complained about are not imaginary, they do exist and cannot be conjured into disappearance by insisting that the problems belong to the realm of non-existence. Therefore, the only way forward is that the various complaints and grievances from all sides must be listened to by the conflict-management authorities – and acted upon satisfactorily by the decision-makers, the rights of all the disaffected being respected. What can be so terribly wrong or immoral or unjust that the people of the hijab and the turban should be allowed to wear their hijab to school? Or that the people of the kippah and yarmulke should be accorded the courtesy of wearing their distinguished headgear to wherever? Isn’t this part of the equal rights that we love talking about?

My favourite example is that of Al Farooq Omar Bin Al Khattab: his Persian slave was complaining to him bitterly but the Caliph wouldn’t listen, and so his Persian slave daggered, him sent him directly to the Hereafter. The lesson? Grievances must be listened to here and now. Indeed . Sir, Now is the time to stop it - as Stevie sings, " Love's in Need of Love Today"

According to the available statistics about Kwarra demographics, there’s an overlap in Kwarra’s symbiotic Christian-Muslim interface, with the vulnerable, long-suffering Christian minority ostensibly being dominated by the long-suffering Muslim majority. Professor Femi Kolapo’s heartfelt outpouring and his agony that there are family members on both sides of the divide is reminiscent of Arjuna’s dilemma before the Battle of Kurukshetra but armed struggle should not replace spiritual warfare in this instance follow Paul’s recommendations according to Ephesians 6:11-18

Toyin Falola

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 8:47:07 AM4/4/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

The leadership on both sides can stop what can eventually lead to the destruction of their city. A peaceful city can descend into anarchy. If your friend annoys you, talk about it and you both reconcile. Societies will always be divided but those who manage it can be responsible.

I won’t stop the Governor from stealing as much money as he wants, but I will plead that no decision must be taken that will cost a single human life.

The two professors can collaborate to write a reconciliation paper on how to deescalate.

TF

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOFsmPyKKoecCQPmCKP6bLNgbzfGdTpB2icHr0NcHGprg%40mail.gmail.com.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 9:21:37 AM4/4/21

to usaafricadialogue

Well said Prof falola

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR06MB72478B18B81EC8903B362520F8789%40SN7PR06MB7247.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 10:15:11 AM4/4/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Oga Kajola has substantiated his claims with some necessary statistics. Farooq knows they are highly unlikely to be false having stated himself Ilorin forms 50% of the state population and Ilorin's majority is Muslim. The other half of Kwara is of overwhelning Muslim majority.

What is wrong with Cross River developing an alternative Nsibidi script for the education if its indigenes as the Arabic script is to northern Nigeria? What is wrong with Ifá being formally taught in all the states of the Federation? Why IRK& CRK alone?

In fact at the moment I am composing an open letter to the governors of the SW states to make this a reality immediately or scrap the teaching of IRK & CRK in SW schools. Why the nauseating discriminatory teaching in religious values that threatens to lead to the implosion of the country?

Without available alternatives how can the coming generation on which the future of the country depends make sensible choices away from the belligerent religions?

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Date: 04/04/2021 13:37 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Behind the veil: The Ilorin hijabcover over a simmering problem

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (ovde...@gmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

Thanks Prof. Falola.

But stop it, how?

We need to examine comparatively the contrastive views from Farooq and Femi.

I would be surprised if the narratives of both of them were completely inaccurate.

For years, people like me have held up the SW as an epitome of religious accommodation.

But Ilorin emirate is a creation of the Fulani jihad, established through the violence represented by force of arms. It emerged as a form of colonization. Colonization often involves the privileging of the new identities generated by the colonial process. This could be what I understand as the fixing of the Ilorin emirate in the hands of the Fulani, permanently excluding other ruling houses in Ilorin, which is described as formerly performing a rotational form of rulership. I am happy to be educated otherwise.

It could extend to to the privileging of Muslims of any ethnicity, that being the stamp of the new identity brought by the colonizing forces, an identity which has now become central to the people's identity.

All of Nigeria and former colonized territories are testimonies to such developments from British or Fulani colonization. So, I would be amazed if the story were different in Ilorin.

Southern Nigerians have had to adopt the new identities generated by British colonialism and its religious component if they were going to find a place in the new social system and economy. One could not insist on Ifa education instead of Western education, insist on writing in the Cross River script Nsibidi instead of English, even if those Western systems did not enable access to the world as shaped by Western culture. Such insistence brought serious consequences of limitations.

Even those who originally did that have given way over time to those who realize the need ''to embrace the ways of the whiteman'' as Achebe puts it in his books. This embrace has created the modern Southern Nigerian for many of whom the older identities exist only in deeply attenuated forms, such as limitation to ethnic identity, language and marriage customs, excluding the institutional and cognitive contexts that shape society, which are now dominated by the Western transplant.

I am particularly struck by Farooq's ''In any case, religion is never an official criterion for employment as a teacher'' coming from a person who I expect knows that the unofficial can become the official even if not so stated.

I am also struck by his perhaps inadequately critical claim that demographics are enough to explain the physical dominance of Muslims in certain contexts of Ilorin life. African-Americans are a minority in the US but they have been struggling for centuries for recognition and opportunity, in which struggles they have made progress at a high cost.

So, Femi's claims cannot be dismissed. They need to be investigated.

The issues raised by Femi are largely empirical and can be empirically assessed along the following lines-

1. Are the views and sentiments he describes factual for Ilorin Christians? Do a significant number of them feel so deeply marginalized?

2. If they do, how justified are they?

3. How factual are Femi's allegations about schools and government appointments?

Who is going to do the research and address these perceptions, and if factual, address the realities decisively?

Is this not a local expression of a national problem in the Christianity-Islam divide, regardless of the degrees of validity of perceptions on both sides?

thanks

toyin

On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 at 05:32, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR06MB72474BBBAEF4794209DCAF71F8789%40SN7PR06MB7247.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOFsmPyKKoecCQPmCKP6bLNgbzfGdTpB2icHr0NcHGprg%40mail.gmail.com.

Farooq A. Kperogi

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 10:16:23 AM4/4/21

to USAAfrica Dialogue

Oga,

I really have no problem with anyone holding the opinion that Muslim students shouldn't wear the hijab in schools that used to owned by Christian missions, which are now government-owned. But when an opinion is based on a bare-faced lie, I have an obligation to correct it.

The former Christian missionary schools that are the trigger for the current controversy are definitively not private schools. They are public schools. Period.

That they're "private" schools which merely receive "government aid" is the silliest mendacity I've read in a long while. There are scores of private Christian primary and secondary schools in Ilorin and elsewhere in the state that were established after the federal takeover of mission schools. Why don't such schools also receive "government aid"? Why is no Muslim asking to be allowed to wear the hijab in those schools?

You can express your opinions without repeating the unintelligent and easily falsifiable lies of propagandists. That's my whole point.

Farooq

Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Sent from my phone. Please forgive typos and omissions.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/SN7PR06MB72474BBBAEF4794209DCAF71F8789%40SN7PR06MB7247.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.

Harrow, Kenneth

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 9:29:44 PM4/4/21

to USA Africa Dialogue Series

a small point in reference to cornelius's statement that every christian should know that jesus died on the cross. that was in fact a point of dissension etc in the early years of christianity. gnostic christians had a totally different version, which i will leave it to people to look up on their own. eventuall dominant forms of christianity emerged, but that buried lots of sects that didn't share what became the church of rome version, or the byzantine version. in egypt copts were quite different, but gnostics were widespread until quashed.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 4, 2021 8:30 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/e7599f84-ab0d-486d-acc0-90c0b0ff159cn%40googlegroups.com.

Cornelius Hamelberg

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 9:30:01 PM4/4/21

to USA Africa Dialogue Series

Re- “...the silliest mendacity ”

Although, one should only ask those who know, these intriguing questions have to be answered, nevertheless, even by an Ignoramus who knows about the limitations of knowing and knowing the depth, breadth and length of his ignorance does not claim to know that which he does not know and that which is unknowable.

The questions:

“There are scores of private Christian primary and secondary schools in Ilorin and elsewhere in the state that were established after the federal takeover of mission schools. Why don't such schools also receive "government aid"? Why is no Muslim asking to be allowed to wear the hijab in those schools? “

I hazard a guess: I’m assuming that since in theory at least, all men, all students and all the schools in question are equal, (a) The State Government and its education ministry has a uniform policy towards private Christian schools. (b) That in spite of the equality theory, some of the schools in question are greater, better equipped, better staffed, and are more prestigious than others, and (c) That being the case, the more “powerful” schools should be better at getting their own way with the Ogas at the Ministry of Education. (Take the Chibok Girls school up there in Borno for example , can you imagine Boko Haram invading any of the best Girls Schools in Lagos State and carting away with the children of the Lagos State Governor and some of the daughters, girlfriends and rose petals of some of the heavy Ogas, just like that? God forbid.

(d) I assume that the “scores of private Christian primary schools in Ilorin” must be diverse in both character, quality and denomination. For instance in the history of slavery and racism in the United States there is and has been a world of difference between Baptists and Southern Baptists, just as there are differences between Roman Catholics and Seven Day Adventists, between Shia, Sunni and Ahmadiyya, the point being that the proprietors and consequently the parents and students at such schools may vary in the emphasis that they place on personal religious paraphernalia or regalia that are their holy identity markers, be it cross, turban or hijab. I could add an extraneous e, f g, h, i, j, k but chose to stop here for the time being...

I’m taking my cue from Muhammad Al-Tijani’s Ask Those Who Know

I did meet the said Muhammad Al-Tijani in person and asked him ( smile) and a few years later, by the time I met Professor Abu l-Wafa al-Taftazani in Cairo, I felt that I understood the anwers and was initiated into the Rifaʽiyya shortly thereafter.

I have a good friend from way back, Oluwole Eyitayo Obaro who is the principal of a secondary school in Ilorin and when I get round to asking him about these matters, I’m sure that my personal ignorance will be considerably diminished

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 10:04:34 PM4/4/21

to usaafricadialogue

''What is wrong with Cross River developing an alternative Nsibidi script for the education of its indigenes as the Arabic script is to northern Nigeria? What is wrong with Ifá being formally taught in all the states of the Federation? Why IRK& CRK alone?

In fact at the moment I am composing an open letter to the governors of the SW states to make this a reality immediately or scrap the teaching of IRK & CRK in SW schools. Why the nauseating discriminatory teaching in religious values that threatens to lead to the implosion of the country?'''

OAA

Beautiful ideas but not likely to work in the manner being presented.

Ifa and Yoruba philosophy and spirituality do not enjoy such leverage for various reasons, reasons relating to their changed perception in modern society as different from when they were the dominant world views and knowledge systems in Yorubaland.

They remain regarded, but the appreciation of their cognitive and social capital, adapting Ogundiran's ideas in The Yoruba A New History, has been greatly reduced.

The more realistic aspiration is to develop and sustain a campaign anchored on promoting these endogenous systems on their own merit and as demonstrations of the endogenous and universal significance of Yoruba thought.

Threats will not work and anything short of a carefully thought out campaign, sustained until victory is achieved, even if that campaign involves private initiatives in developing the idea, is not likely to work.

One approach is to present this initiative, not simply as religion, but as the teaching of Yoruba knowledge systems, in their classical and contemporary context, as these are configured within a multidisciplinary framework.

But, you will need unity to achieve that.

You have a fine idea, but a realistic strategy is required to take it forward. Some ideas are best realized through working in teams.

Yet, a lot of time is spent by some Yoruba people in fighting other enthusiasts of Yoruba civilization because they are perceived as not being Yoruba or as not being Yoruba enough or because they are introducing innovations that interfere with the traditional format of Yoruba knowledge systems.

How shall these knowledge systems adapt to modernity if the only ways open to approaching them is in pre-modern terms?

I shall consider developing this idea of Agbetuyi's as a private initiative. I would have considered working with him but he is the chief exemplar on this group of the combative tendency described above, so I will let him be but give him credit as catalytic in my developing the idea.

On Nsibidi, the same thing can be done and is underway to a degree through the work of such Nsibidi activists as Nsibiri and artists, such as Victor Ekpuk.

The sad truth, however, is that the iron grip of Ekpe esotericism, the creators and chief users of Nsibidi, has prevented the grasp, outside perhaps the higher levels of Ekpe initiates, of Nsibidi as a coherent symbol system, even as the meanings of some of the symbols might be lost or undergoing disappearance from memory lost on account of inadequate transmission of knowledge as the older initiates leave the world.

A strategic aspect of the symbol system is not shared with the public. Most of the various interpretations of these symbols are carefully concealed.

Thus, one of the world's richest symbol systems, integrating graphic forms covering nature and humanity, used in body adornment, architecture, painting and other means of visual expression, dramatized in symbolic gestures, body postures and beautiful kinetic motions and expressed in terms of intricate forms of arrangement of objects, remains little exposed to the world, unused beyond a few people, understudied, in spite of at least three PhD theses on it, possibly untheorized in spite of its potent example as a multi-expressive communication and expressive system, thus needing depth of study in terms of its epistemic significance and in relation to various communication theories.

Practically heartbreaking.

toyin

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB298268F8CF9C546A4F49539EA6789%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

Oluwatoyin Adepoju

unread,

Apr 4, 2021, 10:22:22 PM4/4/21

to usaafricadialogue

sublime-

'' an Ignoramus who knows about the limitations of knowing and knowing the depth, breadth and length of his ignorance does not claim to know that which he does not know and that which is unknowable.''

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/e11536b6-0395-42eb-9c5a-e7b5f2f2b1abn%40googlegroups.com.

Femi Kolapo

unread,

Apr 5, 2021, 7:26:07 AM4/5/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

"That they're "private" schools which merely receive "government aid" is the silliest mendacity I've read in a long while"

is at best a dangerous misjudgment. The Kwara government in March seemed to have acted out a dismissive and haughty response to these people's claims based on a narrow legalism similar to yours and consequently decided to use force and were met with resistance by people who did not think that their claims and grievances were false consciousness, "silly mendacity", and a "bare faced lie". The result was street violence, considerable property damage, a number of hospitalizations, and unconscionable inflammation of hatred and a sense of foreboding in Ilorin.

And even if the appeal court returns a verdict that these are public schools, does that evacuate the problem of religious discrimination and ethnic favoritism that are at the heart of the complaints and of the crisis?

Femi J. Kolapo | Department of History | www.uoguelph.ca/history

A thought for the month:

Compassion is more than passing feelings of sorrow and sympathy. It is costly identiﬁcation with those who suﬀer in their suﬀering and oppression. It goes against the grain of our natural instincts. We do not want to suﬀer, and the less we are confronted with it the better. But compassion calls us to identify with the suﬀering of others and experience their brokenness. It requires a total conversion of heart and mind. - Paul G Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews. An anthropological understanding of how people change. Baker Academic 2009.

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, April 4, 2021 9:50 AM

To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Behind the veil: The Ilorin hijab cover over a simmering problem

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the University of Guelph. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. If in doubt, forward suspicious emails to ITh...@uoguelph.ca

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAPq-FWvi9T4VDu7EC5BUDjmHDPtzp%2Bv6xr55Ok3POFt7vec3Dw%40mail.gmail.com.

Femi Kolapo

unread,

Apr 5, 2021, 7:26:47 AM4/5/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

"This is a one-sided article. . .", you said. yes, it says so in the article. a claim of neutrality in the face of injustice is worse than false. It is complicit in it.

my response to a Facebook comment on the post answers some of the more relevant points you raised:

Femi James Kolapo

Ahmed Ibrahim

1. Thanks, Mallam, for your comments. You make a good point that Non-ilorin indigenes are discriminated against who are Muslims. You wished I advocate for them. I did mention them several times – but perhaps you wish I did so much more strongly. However, the focus of the article is the crisis at hand and about the perception of Christians inside Ilorin. Ilorin is where there was violence, a portent of danger in the future.

2. nonetheless, your affirming that non-Ilorin Muslim are discriminated against does not in itself cancel out the complaint and evidence of discrimination against Ilorin Christians. It shows the multiple levels and instruments of discrimination that is ongoing. “They are not the only victims; we also are & therefore they should not complain” mentality is fatal to everybody. A progressive stand would be that we condemn all discriminations as they sufface and that those who are non-ilorin indigenes who are discriminated against condemn discrimination against Ilorin based Christians and any other groups who suffer similarly in that city and support the fight against discrimination of all types. On the other hand, Ilorin Christians, who know discriminations should also stand with all non-Ilorin people who are discriminated against. It is an occasion for all who suffer to unite rather than biker.

3. I partly agree with your sentiment “It will be good to mention the names of the Islamic schools with Christian students and inadequate CRK teachers.” I have been trying to get this and other info for a week without success, but I will continue till I get it. The more information we have the better; if we know Muslim mission schools that teach CRK and have equitable number of Christian & non-Ilorin indigene teachers, it will help Christians who feel discriminated against to re-think the basis of their angst. Similarly, if more data confirm the complaints of Ilorin Christians, it may alarm and discomfort many well-meaning Ilorin Muslims to stand with Ilorin Christians and call for equity. So, I agree that we need more data; if you have some on any of the Muslim schools or any other information that may help mediate the angst, pls let me have it, sincerely. If you or other people know staff in these schools, pls ask them for information. Better still, the government can and SHOULD publish such data to clear the air. It might very well be that the angers and feelings of Ilorin Christians are misplaced and misdirected. So we all stand to be corrected. That is the function of empirical data; to clarify what is unclear.

Femi J. Kolapo | Department of History | www.uoguelph.ca/history

College of Arts | University of Guelph | 50 Stone Rd E | Guelph ON | N1G 2W1

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com>

Sent: Saturday, April 3, 2021 9:38 PM
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Behind the veil: The Ilorin hijab cover over a simmering problem

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the University of Guelph. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. If in doubt, forward suspicious emails to ITh...@uoguelph.ca

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAPq-FWvKF4Vtum%2BEoqyimnu%2BXZnRMcey0gyi9nZ6%3DQTGXtj8JQ%40mail.gmail.com.

Uyilawa Usuanlele

unread,

Apr 5, 2021, 7:29:42 AM4/5/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Dear Farooq,

Permit to request some education from you on what happened with the takeover of schools in Kwara State in the 1970s as you stated with conviction that:

" The former Christian missionary schools that are the trigger for the current controversy

are definitively not private schools. They are public schools. Period."

In the light of your assertion, I wish to know what do "grant-aided schools" really mean in the context of Kwara state education policy?

Does the receipt of grant-in-aid make the schools public or private schools?

I ask this question because the practice of grant-in-aid to schools dates to the colonial period. In the colonial context, grant-aided schools were voluntary agency (private) schools that met laid down rules to qualify for govt grant-in-aid. Once they fail in maintaining the requirement, they forfeited their grant-in-aid status. Not all voluntary agency schools received govt grant-in-aid because they failed to meet the requirements.

I don't know what happened in Kwara State in the 1970s when the government took over schools. In Midwest State, for instance, the government took full ownership of all voluntary agency schools (except nursery schools) and changed their names to reflect the new ownership. For instance, my primary school which was known as St. James Anglican Primary School, Benin City had its name changed to Agbado Primary School, while St Maria Goretti Catholic Girls College Benin City was changed to Iden College Benin City. The Christian Missions were henceforth excluded from the running of the schools, which became solely government-run. The Missions were only allowed to retain the church and mosque buildings if any existed within the schools. I think the missions and other private owners were offered monetary compensation, which some rejected. One proprietor, I know divided the school land into two and converted the dormitories and teachers' quarter's into rental estates, and left the government with the classroom blocks and soccer field. So the issue of grant in aid disappeared from the lexicon of school administration in the former Midwest/Bendel State.

It would seem that what happened in Kwara was different and there was an incomplete takeover of the schools. We need to be educated on this seeming lack of clarity over ownership of the schools, the retention of the "grant in aid" system of funding, and the Mission agency's participation in the recruitment/appointment of administrators as well as the documents of takeover and compensation if any. I think that it is only if are clear answers on these issues that we can know who is the real owners of the schools and can determine what should obtain in the schools. Thank you.

Uyi

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, April 4, 2021 9:50 AM

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAPq-FWvi9T4VDu7EC5BUDjmHDPtzp%2Bv6xr55Ok3POFt7vec3Dw%40mail.gmail.com.

Cornelius Hamelberg

unread,

Apr 5, 2021, 7:32:26 AM4/5/21

to USA Africa Dialogue Series

“One of the great challenges in life is knowing enough to think you're right but not enough to know you're wrong.” (One of many inspirational formulations by Neil deGrasse Tyson)

It’s a variation of Pope’s “A little learning is a dangerous thing”

Worst case scenario for the Professor of Everything was Rumi’s first encounter with Shams Tabrizi and in Rumi’s shoes I can imagine Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju’s heart skipping a beat to see all the ink on his precious manuscripts disappearing into the water

Cornelius Ignoramus’ own question about those two questions are as follows

In order to understand or answer the question of “Why don't such schools also receive "government aid" the questioner must answer this preliminary question to clear the way :

Why was it the Federal Government policy to not take over “scores of private Christian primary and secondary schools in Ilorin and elsewhere in the state that were established after the federal takeover of mission schools”?

Secondly, does the rhetorical questioner know for a fact that “No Muslim asking to be allowed to wear the hijab in those schools? “or is it possible that they are ( quite naturally “asking” to be allowed to wear their hijabs but have been cowed into submission by the threat of the all powerful government threatening to withhold their meagre “ government aid” if the poor, oppressed, suppressed and repressed Muslim students as much as make such a request, which by the way is their God- given Human Right according to Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights

Gnosticism, under the roof of Sufism is flourishing as never before and one of its proponents Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh has written about these matters. Personally, even for those who preach justification by grace, I assume that there’s a lot of work to be done and it is not enough to merely say “The Blood of Jesus” and point at the cross the way that the synagogue faithful point at the Torah with the little finger every Sabbath morning and say ( in Hebrew):” This is the Torah that Moses placed before the Children of Israel, upon the command of HASHEM, through Moses’ hand”

Here’s a short explanation: The Triumph of Orthodoxy

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

unread,

Apr 5, 2021, 7:33:18 AM4/5/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Well, who is speaking of threat here?

Is it not self- evident that only two religions have been privileged and normalised at the expense of their others in Nigeria since the 15th century?

How can the search for restitution be construed as threat?

And when it comes to Adepoju's grouse with Agbetuyi's 'combative style', how can the same person who advocates collective effort as the best approach to change be all the while preoccupied with stamping his sole identity on the reforms of an institution that is a common patrimony, ( just as he recently proposed to stamp the identity of a sole individual on a knowledge network composed of scores and scores of intellectuals) that was developed over the ages as a result of careful heirarchised consensus so that developments can be binding on all?

If Agbetuyi were to be alive during the Reformation, could he have, as I have argued, been able to impose his sole view of the Reformation on the insiders of the erstwhile Catholic Church, label it ' Agbetuyi's Universal Catholicism' and expect any measure of success?

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Date: 05/04/2021 03:16 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Behind the veil: The Ilorinhijabcover over a simmering problem

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (ovde...@gmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

''What is wrong with Cross River developing an alternative Nsibidi script for the education of its indigenes as the Arabic script is to northern Nigeria? What is wrong with Ifá being formally taught in all the states of the Federation? Why IRK& CRK alone?

In fact at the moment I am composing an open letter to the governors of the SW states to make this a reality immediately or scrap the teaching of IRK & CRK in SW schools. Why the nauseating discriminatory teaching in religious values that threatens to lead to the implosion of the country?'''

OAA

Beautiful ideas but not likely to work in the manner being presented.

Ifa and Yoruba philosophy and spirituality do not enjoy such leverage for various reasons, reasons relating to their changed perception in modern society as different from when they were the dominant world views and knowledge systems in Yorubaland.

They remain regarded, but the appreciation of their cognitive and social capital, adapting Ogundiran's ideas in The Yoruba A New History, has been greatly reduced.

The more realistic aspiration is to develop and sustain a campaign anchored on promoting these endogenous systems on their own merit and as demonstrations of the endogenous and universal significance of Yoruba thought.

Threats will not work and anything short of a carefully thought out campaign, sustained until victory is achieved, even if that campaign involves private initiatives in developing the idea, is not likely to work.

One approach is to present this initiative, not simply as religion, but as the teaching of Yoruba knowledge systems, in their classical and contemporary context, as these are configured within a multidisciplinary framework.

But, you will need unity to achieve that.

You have a fine idea, but a realistic strategy is required to take it forward. Some ideas are best realized through working in teams.

Yet, a lot of time is spent by some Yoruba people in fighting other enthusiasts of Yoruba civilization because they are perceived as not being Yoruba or as not being Yoruba enough or because they are introducing innovations that interfere with the traditional format of Yoruba knowledge systems.

How shall these knowledge systems adapt to modernity if the only ways open to approaching them is in pre-modern terms?

I shall consider developing this idea of Agbetuyi's as a private initiative. I would have considered working with him but he is the chief exemplar on this group of the combative tendency described above, so I will let him be but give him credit as catalytic in my developing the idea.

On Nsibidi, the same thing can be done and is underway to a degree through the work of such Nsibidi activists as Nsibiri and artists, such as Victor Ekpuk.

The sad truth, however, is that the iron grip of Ekpe esotericism, the creators and chief users of Nsibidi, has prevented the grasp, outside perhaps the higher levels of Ekpe initiates, of Nsibidi as a coherent symbol system, even as the meanings of some of the symbols might be lost or undergoing disappearance from memory lost on account of inadequate transmission of knowledge as the older initiates leave the world.

A strategic aspect of the symbol system is not shared with the public. Most of the various interpretations of these symbols are carefully concealed.

Thus, one of the world's richest symbol systems, integrating graphic forms covering nature and humanity, used in body adornment, architecture, painting and other means of visual expression, dramatized in symbolic gestures, body postures and beautiful kinetic motions and expressed in terms of intricate forms of arrangement of objects, remains little exposed to the world, unused beyond a few people, understudied, in spite of at least three PhD theses on it, possibly untheorized in spite of its potent example as a multi-expressive communication and expressive system, thus needing depth of study in terms of its epistemic significance and in relation to various communication theories.

Practically heartbreaking.

toyin

On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 at 15:15, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DB6PR04MB298268F8CF9C546A4F49539EA6789%40DB6PR04MB2982.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAGBtzfOfo_S5MhxezKd7-Xw%3Djrpoyc%2BcEi79brg22zkyYUYqHg%40mail.gmail.com.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

unread,

Apr 5, 2021, 9:21:01 AM4/5/21

to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Uyilawa:

Permit me to asy you a question in turn as you field your questions to Farooq.

Have you asked for the etymological meaning of the name change of your primary school 'Agbádó'and its links to Yorùbá land?

I ask because of your insistence on Edo parallel ( and not organically related) historiography to Yorùbá historiography.

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Uyilawa Usuanlele <big...@hotmail.com>

Date: 05/04/2021 12:37 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Behind the veil: The Ilorin hijabcover over a simmering problem

This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (big...@hotmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info