KWARA STATE OR ỌYA STATE?

 KWARA STATE OR ỌYA STATE? 

Historically, the territory we now call Kwara State was originally proposed to bear the name "Ọya State," in honour of Odò Ọya, the great river whose identity and cultural significance are deeply rooted in Yorùbá tradition and in flow with other Yorùbá state like Ọ̀yọ́, Ògùn, Ọ̀ṣun and Òǹdó states. However, pressures from the Ilọrin emirate and some Yorùbá Muslims, working in concert with other non-Yorùbá groups within the region, led to the rejection of the name Ọya. Their objective was straightforward: to forge a distinct identity for Kwara that would set it apart from the other clearly Yorùbá states.

What is particularly ironic is that the chosen name, Kwara, is itself a Nupe word for the same River Niger that the Yorùbá call Odò Ọya. In other words, the name was not changed because the proposed name was inaccurate; both words reference the exact same river, but purely because the name Ọya carries spiritual and cultural associations linked to the female deity of winds, storms, and assertiveness in Yorùbá cosmology. To avoid invoking a name associated with a deity, they simply adopted another ethnic group’s word for the same river.

This contradiction reveals the kind of reasoning that emerges when cultural identity becomes subordinated to religious sentiment. Rejecting a name because it is connected to a traditional deity, only to adopt another name for the same entity, simply from a different language, shows how fear, not logic, shaped the foundation of the state’s identity. And all this in a state where the Yorùbá are the predominant ethnic group.

Interestingly, considering the current insecurity and violent attacks Kwara is suffering in the hands of terrorists, perhaps it is fortunate that the name Ọya was not used. By now, some religious leaders would likely be proclaiming that the crises are a sign of divine anger simply because the state bore a traditional name associated with a goddess of wind, tornado, and water. The same people who once rejected the name for fear of “idolatry” would now be blaming the deity they denied for the state’s misfortunes.

In the end, the naming of Kwara stands as the earliest example of the compromises, and contradictions, that shaped the state. It illustrates how cultural disconnection, rooted in religious apprehension, can distort collective reasoning and erase identity under the guise of piety.

Mayegun Research Team