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I feel highly honoured and privileged to stand before you all, this afternoon, as the Chairwoman of the opening ceremony of the 60th annual national conference of Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union. I thank our dear Union for inviting me to play this role.
I wish to recall, very quickly at this point, the roles of my fathers, particularly Alhaji Yakubu Amori Gobir, Ambassador Garba Olododo Gobir and Alhaji Yusuf Amuda Gobir OFR, in founding and strengthening the Union several decades ago. As a child, I used to see members of the Union in meetings with my late father, Alhaji Yusuf Amuda Gobir, OFR and his brothers in Kaduna during the early 1960s and afterwards in Lagos. Available records also revealed that my uncle, Alhaji Yakubu Amori Gobir, fully participated in the activities of the Union here in Ilorin. His residence served as a venue of the meetings of the Union for a while, particularly shortly after the creation of Kwara State.
Similarly, my uncle, Ambassador Abubakar Garba Gobir, identified fully with Ilorin people in all the Nigerian missions he served as a member of the nation's diplomatic corps prior to his appointment as a Permanent Secretary. My position here also reminds me of the fact that it was exactly a decade ago that my beloved cousin, Alhaji Yakubu Garba Gobir, who is now the Sarkin Gobir and Madawaki of Ilorin as well as Waziri Kasar Hausa, served as the Chief Launcher at the Golden jubilee of the conference at this same venue. This is just to remind you that members of the Gobir family of Ilorin have always and would continue to make ourselves available for the progress and development of Ilorin Emirate. This is what we inherited from the first Waziri of Ilorin, who was also my grandfather, Mallam Muhammadu Ajeigbe Gobir and we are determined to pass this heritage of community service to the younger and incoming generations of our family.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, let me use this opportunity to appeal to stakeholders to give more considerations to our womenfolk. There is the need to devote more attention to women development, particularly nowadays. This is because any society that disregards its women would remain stagnant. We need to remember always that Islam, our dear religion puts premium on the training of girls and by extension our women.
I, therefore, wish to see a situation whereby there would be a special scholarship scheme for our girls to be floated by our community or well-to-do members of the community. This, I believe strongly, would reduce the rate of dropouts among our school girls and it will further encourage a greater society. I also want to encourage a situation where credit facilities and other forms of empowerment would be made available to greater percentage of women. I need not to say that a community which makes its women comfortable will be peaceful and progressive too as whatever my gender makes is usually devoted to the family, particularly children.
It is in this light that I want to thank His Excellency, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, CON, for being gender sensitive. He has shown this in the number and quality of appointments given to women. I thank His Excellency and hope you will do more, Sir.
I also want to thank our Royal father, mai Martaba, the Emir of Ilorin, SHEHU, for his love for women and children. His appointment of Hajiya Muinat Bola Shagaya as Sarauniya of Ilorin is a significant step. I hope he would also find more of the women folks worthy of similar traditional titles to make more women of Ilorin origin become honourary title holders.
At this juncture, I wish to commend IEDPU for the good work being done to ensure unity of our people as well as being instrument for the progress of our community over the years. I strongly commend your efforts and achievements in educational development of our community from time immemorial. I therefore strongly appeal to all of us, particularly, those of us from the Emirate to continue to support IEDPU in kind and cash towards the realisation of their programs.
However, i would like to appeal to our umbrella sociocultural organisation, IEDPU, to develop and sustain a special programme for Ilorin women in addition to the Union's numerous interventions. This can be in the realm of scholarship and trade empowerment. The Union and the entire community should also support and encourage the leadership of the newly-formed Ilorin Women Association (IWA) towards achieving its essence. IWA, which is currently being led by my cousin, Prof. Aishatu Ahmed Gobir, would definitely help the community in its path to greatness.
I wish IEDPU a very peaceful, successful and rewarding conference.
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