THE ONIFAARI SERIES 7: A VISIT TO DADA POTTERY, ILORIN KWARA STATE

No doubt Ilorin has many beautiful places, Dada pottery Okele ilorin, kwara state is on of them

On the 31st of August 2019, I paid a visit to Dada pottery with my friend yusuf of Xultan visuals

Dada Pottery is located at Dada area Okelele, Ilorin East Local Government of Kwara State, Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. The pottery occupies about an acre of land and it is the largest concentration of potters in the state. It is also reputed to be the source of pottery in the town.
The Pottery Industry is said to be as old as Ilorin itself is being managed by women who are dedicated to the business of pot making.

Residents of the area engage mainly in pot making and work full time throughout the year. They neither go on break nor holiday.

On getting to DADA POTTERY, we were asked to see the main leader to discuss what we want to do. We met with her then she asked us to pay a certain amount of money before we can do anything, after much talk we paid a sum of #1,000 .

We then proceed to ask questions, such as How do they source for clay and what other process do they follow to make pottery.

We were told that clay is the hard thing to get and the last clay they use for production was sourced from STADIUM area in Ilorin , they also make use of other soil.

SOIL

After mixing the soil then the potter mold out the shape and sun dry it for 24 hours or less depending on the brightness of the sun. Then after that the potter retouch the moulded pot before she proceed to the final touching which is smoking in other to make the molding firm.

It was stated that an individual can produce up to 24 moulded objects per day. A very fast potter can produce more than that in a day, it all depend on their capability.

The pot are mold to different shapes to serve different purposes such as cooking pot, cooking stove, fetching water, local plate, local pot for cooking herb (òru) , local piggy bank (Kolo)