Ilorin Emirate

The Ilorin Emirate is a traditional state based on the city of Ilorin in Kwara State, Nigeria. It is considered to be one of the Banza Bakwai, or copy-cats of the Hausa Kingdoms.

At the start of the 19th century Ilorin was a border town in the northeast of the Oyo Empire, with a mainly Yoruba population but with many Hausa and Fulani immigrants. It was the headquarters of an Oyo General, Afonja, who rebelled against the empire and helped bring about its collapse with the assistance of the Fulani. The rebellion was powered by Nupe and Bornu Moslem slaves. Afonja had been assisted by Salih Janta, also called Shehu Alimi, a leader of the local Fulani. In 1824 Afonja was assassinated and Alimi's son Abdusalami became Emir. Ilorin became an emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate.

For some time Ilorin was a major center of the slave trade. In the past slaves had mainly been sent north across the Sahara, but now they were being sent south via the Yoruba lands to the coast to supply demand from the USA, the West Indies, and Brazil. Slaves were taken from the Igbo lands to the east and from conquered Yoruba towns, as well as from areas further to the north, and were traded for cloth and other goods. Ilorin continued to expand southward until it was checked in the 1830s by the growing power of Ibadan, an Oyo successor state. The Ilorin cavalry were ineffective in the jungle to the south, and by the 1850s Ibadan had access to guns from European traders on the coast. The capital was occupied by the Royal Niger Company in 1897 and its lands incorporated into the British colony of Northern Nigeria in 1900, although the emirate continued to perform ceremonial functions.