3. British Colonial Administration and Development of Western Education in Ilorin Emirate, 1900–1960

Western education was introduced into Nigeria by the Christian Missions in 1842. The first among them to arrive was the Wesleyan Methodist Missions, followed by the Church Missionary Society, the Baptist Missions and the Roman Catholic Missions. They embarked upon the opening of a number of primary schools for the general education of the converts. By 1900, the colonial government embarked on reforms in such areas as the judiciary in 1903 and consequently eroded the power of the Emir who was regarded as the highest judicial authority in legal matters. In 1907, the colonial government introduced a district head system. Despite this, the colonial government went ahead to pursue effectively the introduction of Western education amongst the Muslim Community of Ilorin. In the year 1915, a provincial school was established with a view to providing the desired personnel to serve the Native Authority. However, before 1915, six Ilorin Malams were at the Nasarawa School in Kano. But Western education was not welcomed readily by the Muslim Community of Ilorin. They showed their hatred against Western education because they regarded it as being foreign and antithetical to the teaching of the Quranic education that the people were familiar with. But this anti-colonial feeling to education was not peculiar to Ilorin alone but the whole of Northern Nigeria. Therefore, an attempt will be made to look into the place of the British colonial administration in the development of Western education in Ilorin, 1900–1960, a major area that had not been given adequate attention by scholars.