By Akinwale Kasali
The brickbats between Islamic Bodies and Traditionalists in Kwara State is yet to abate over the call by Traditional Worshippers to the Federal and State Government that August 20 should be set aside as a Public Holiday.
The rejection by the Islamic Bodies in Kwara State on the call led to a heated controversy, prompting the Oodua People Congress, OPC, to call on the Federal Government to relocate the Kwara State Capital from Ilorin to a neutral ground – away from the present location since Muslims have refused to accommodate people of other religions.
The State Coordinator of OPC, New Era in Kwara State, Comrade Bayo Fabiyi, made this suggestion in a statement as a way to settle the impasse between Isese adherents and Muslim Clerics in Ilorin.
The OPC coordinator in a statement on Sunday explained that there are several areas in the state which include the entire Kwara South, North and some parts of the Northern parts of the State where they practise Isese traditional religion and other religions, as well as Islam without confrontation.
“There are Muslims in other places cohabiting with their Isese and other religious brothers without crises or disturbances.
“Therefore, if Ilorin is the only place where Isese becomes a challenge, the status of Ilorin as a state capital should be changed while the ancient town can be allowed to remain purely an Islamic place because of all towns in Kwara, only Ilorin is where Islamic extremism thrives.”
Fabiyi said that while he would advise all Isese people never to fight or kick against the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, as a royal father over all, he also advised that Muslim clerics follow the “deenukum waliya deen” principle of Islam, and allow the Isese people to practise their religion without troubling or causing intrusion into their mode of worship.
Fabiyi had queried the Islamic fundamentalists who ignored several other serious issues such as cultism and other issues of insecurity but chose to selectively face the Isese groups that are just practising their religion without hindering the peace of others.
Fabiyi also reiterated that insecurity in Kwara is occasioned by the admittance of the Fulani who were displaced from Igangan in Oyo State into Ilorin.
He lamented that, against his earlier warnings when Abubakar Iskail was not heeded, the group when chased from Igangan in Oyo State, would settle down in Ilorin, but nobody yielded his advice.
The OPC coordinator lamented that he raised this alarm long ago about the impending danger of allowing the man to take abode in the state, “but no one in the security architecture of Kwara state listened to him.”
He advised that the only way to end insecurity in Kwara is by nipping it in the bud and chasing intruding herdsmen who are allegedly involved in kidnapping out of Kwara.
