The Senator representing Ogun Central Senatorial District, Shuaib Salisu, has said that the Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, cannot rewrite the history surrounding the origin of Adire.
DAILY POST reports that controversies have trailed the Osun State governor’s recent remark that the indigenous Yoruba textile originated from his state and not Ogun, as widely believed.
Adeleke reportedly called the Egba people thieves, saying, “Ole ni won, won ji ni” (They’re thieves, they stole it).
Reacting to this, Senator Shuaib Salisu, on Tuesday, while disbursing N100,000 each to 250 Egba market traders, maintained that there was no controversy about the origin of Adire.
Salisu asserted that when something is good, people often want to be associated with it, but that does not make them the originators.
He said, “There’s no controversy as to where Adire comes from.
“When people try to rewrite history, they should remember… it’s like someone creating a controversy about where the birthplace of journalism in Nigeria is. It’s like someone trying to argue about where the first educational institution is, or who the first woman to drive a car was.
“Adire is synonymous with Egba; Egba is synonymous with Adire. We recognize that sometimes, when something is good, others want to associate with it. So we feel gratified that we have something good and others are trying to claim it. You may be part of it, but you are not the origin of it.”
The lawmaker stated that the empowerment programme was designed to move market women from the informal to the formal economy by providing them with capital and onboarding them into the financial system.
“Women are the nucleus of the family; they are the economic backbone. If you empower a woman, you’ve empowered a family,” he added.
