ABSTRACT
In 1906 the colony and protectorate were amalgamated with the Niger Coast (formerly Oil Rivers) Protectorate and in 1914 with the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. The road at first served its purpose in enabling military and other supplies to reach Ibadan without interference from the Egba and the Ijebu, but it soon became a focus of dissension. Ilorin now fell within the territory of the Royal Niger Company, the chartered trading company which preceded the establishment of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. In the First Republic of independent Nigeria they constituted a sort of irredenta in the Northern Region, but since the administrative rearrangements of May 1967 they have belonged to the Kwara State with its capital at Ilorin. In 1893 the inhabitants of the Yoruba states stood on the threshold of a wider polity and wider loyalties were offered them.
