UMARU NAGWAMATSE THE NUPE PRINCE: KONTAGORA EMIRATE THE NUPE EMIRATE Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe Prince Umaru Nagwamatse was a Nupe prince, who was born at the Nupe town of Dabban, close to Bida, here in Central KinNupe. He was born in 1806. Umaru Nagwamatse was born and grew up at Dabban, and later at Raba the capital city of the Nupe Nation before Bida, as a Nupe person here in KinNupe. He did went to Sokoto to spend some time with his paternal relations for a while but he ended up coming back to KinNupe to spend the rest of his life. Throughout his life Umaru Nagwamatse saw himself as a Nupe man and considered even the Kontagora Emirate he founded as a Nupe emirate. Parents Umaru Nagwamatse’s father, Sultan Atiku, was an half-caste Nupe-Fulani. Yes, Sultan Abubakar Atiku, a son of Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo, was half Nupe and half Fulani because his mother was a Nupe woman and he also married a Nupe woman who gave birth to his 10th son, Umaru Nagwamatse. Umaru Nagwamatse, the founder of the Kontagora Emirate, was a Nupe prince. His mother was a Nupe woman from somewhere around Dabban, here in KinNupe. Dabban is just a few kilometers away from Bida. His father was Sultan Atiku who was a cousin brother to Sultan Bello. When Mallam Dendo was at Dabban, before he moved to Raba, he was a spiritual assistance to Etsu Majiya II at Zugurma. Once when Etsu Majiya II was embarking on a battle and slaveraiding expedition he sought the Asiri spiritual fortunes of Mallam Dendo who did worked out some Asiri spiritual powers for Etsu Majiya II. When Etsu Majiya II returned victorius from the battle and the slaveraiding he gave Etsu Majiya II a gift of two slave women. Mallam Dendo kept one of the slave women to himself and married her. She became the mother of Gogo Habiba. Mallam Dendo also gave the second slave woman as a gift in turn to Abubakar Atiku the son of Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo who was to become the Sultan Atiku of later times. Abubakar Atiku married the woman slave Mallam Dendo gave him as a gift and it is with her that he got his 10th child who is known to us today as Umaru Nagwamatse. So, Umaru Nagwamatse’s mother was a Nupe woman from the Dabban general area. She was given as a gift by Esu Majiya II to Mallam Dendo who in turn gave her to Abubakar Atiku as a gift. In those days KinNupe was the centre of the Islamic Jihad enterprise in the entire Central Sudan. All those interested in Jihad and the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate were coming down to KinNupe to enjoy the patronage of the Etsu Nupes who were so interested in establishing a Nupe Caliphate. That was the real reason why we saw Fulani, Kanuri, Arab, and otherwise Islamic scholars from all parts of Africa trouping down to KinNupe in those days. KinNupe was the training ground for the Jihadists. They came for the Islamic training and patronage the Etsu Nupes were offering them. Sultan Atiku, the brother of Sultan Bello the First Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate, was brought up in KinNupe and was, just like other Fulani Jihadists, trained for the Islamic Jihad here in KinNupe. He spent quite a great part of his life here in KinNupe receiving the necessary Islamic training. It was while he was here in KinNupe receiving his Islamic Jihad training that Mallam Dendo gave him the mother of Umaru Nagwamatse as a gift. In fact the Fulani Jihadists were also in KinNupe for other ‘fringe benefits’, namely, the beautiful virtuous Nupe women of KinNupe. Shehu Abdullahi Fodiyo, the brother to Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo, wrote that they, the Fulani Jihadists, got their wives from KinNupe. He said that they were in the constant habit of coming down to KinNupe to avail themselves of the beautiful and well-informed Nupe women. In that way almost all the wives and mothers of the Fulani Jihadists were Nupe women. In any case that was how Umaru Nagwamatse ended up with a Nupe mother and a Fulani-Jihadist father. Umaru Nagwamatse’s mother was said to be a cousin or so to Fatimako the mother of Etsu Masaba. As a matter of fact the mother of Umaru nagwamatse, the mother of Etsu Masaba and the mother of Gogo Habiba were also said to be cousins since all of them were from Dabban here in Central KinNupe. Dabban is still in existence and is now a town a couple of kilometers away from Bida. In those days Dabban was a grat center of Islamic scholarship and was one of the main training stations for Jihadists coming into KinNupe. As a matter of fact Dabban was, together with Tyabo and Bokani, one of the first port of call for any Islamic missionary or Johadist coming into KinNupe in those days. In any case Umaru Nagwamatse was born and grew up in Dabban and Raba here in KinNupe. He was a Nupe man through and through. This was because Umaru Nagwamatse’s mother and Etsu Masaba the Great’s mother were sisters. Alhaji Ibrahim Saidu Madaki and Mallam Ibrahim Sambo Mandzwakwa, and others confirmed this fact. So, Umaru Nagwamatse and Etsu Masaba were cousin brothers. Residing at Sokoto But even though Umaru Bahaushe was born at Dabban here in KinNupe it was not long after his birth that his father, the later Sultan Abubakar Atiku, was recalled back to Sokoto to assist with his father’s Jihad campain. It was around the same year, 1806, that Umaru Nagwamatse was born that his grandfather, Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo, declared his Jihad enterprise in the Rima valleys. Immediately after the birth of his son, Umaru Nagwamatse, the future Sultan Atiku left KinNupe for the Rima valleys to support his own father, Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo, in the latter’s new Jihaad enterprise. Interestingly enough, and due to some reasons unknown to us today, Abubakar Atiku left for the Rima Valleys without taking his new born baby, Umaru Nagwamatse, and its mother together with him back home to the Rima Valleys of Sokoto. That was how Umaru Nagwamatse ended up growing up at Dabban, and later at Raba, here in Central KinNupe only with his mother and without his father. By the time he was ten years old in 1816 Umaru Nagwamatse could not go to be with his father at Sokoto because at that particular time his father, Abubakar Atiku, was imprisoned by his own brother Sultan Bello. The problem was that when Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo died in 1815 power struggle for the throne of the Sokoto Caliphate broke out between two of his sons namely Muhammadu Bello and Abubakar Atiku. Muhammadu Bello was the elder and the heir apparent and he most easily defeated his junior brother Abubakar Atiku whom he imprisoned for a year. After his release from prison Abubakar Atiku became an adviser to his elder brother Sultan Bello. For the next twenty or so years, up to 1837, that Abubakar Atiku remained an adviser to his elder brother Sultan Bello, Umaru Nagwamatse could not go to Sokoto to be with his father. But Sultan Bello died in 1837 and Abubakar Atiku, the father to Umaru Nagwamatse, immediately succeeded him as the new Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate. When Abubakar Atiku became the new Sultan of Sokoto he was able to immediately call his son, Umaru Nagwamatse, to come and be with him at Sokoto. That was how Umaru Nagwamatse eventually left here KinNupe for Sokoto in 1837 to go and be with his father who was then the new Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate. Umaru Nagwamatse was above thirty years old when he went to Sokoto. Having been born to a Nupe woman and having spent the first thirty years or so of his life here in Central KinNupe there is no doubt that Umaru Bahaushe was a Nupe man through and through. Being the son of the reigning Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate Umaru Nagwamatse was welcomed by the elders at Sokoto, Wurno and Gwandu as a bona fide prince of the Sokoto Caliphate. But the reign of Sultan Atiku was a rather controversial one as he was opposed, right from the beginning, by some of the emirs of the Sokoto Caliphate. To complicate matters further Sultan Atiku reversed most of the policies of his late elder brother Sultan Bello. In all these crises Sultan Atiku was fully supported and backed by his equally controversial son, Umaru Nagwamatse. It was in those days that people began to see the boisterous and recalcitrant nature of Umaru Nagwamatse the ‘Unruly Prince’. Umaru Bahuashe was clearly uncontrollable and very independent-minded. Moreover he was inordinately over-ambitious. Many people came to loathe Umaru Bahaushe as a spoilt prince but there was nothing they could do since he was the favourite child of his father who was the reigning Sultan of Sokoto. There was also this discrimination that he was a Nupe prince and not a pure Fulani prince. There were talks in those days that Sultan Abubakar Atiku was grooming Prince Umaru Nagwamtse as the heir apparent to become the Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate after him. Things, however, turned bad for Prince Umaru Bahaushe when his father became terminally ill somewhere around 1940. But Prince Umaru Bahaushe was still stubborn and saw the approaching death of his father as an opportunity for him to become the next Sultan of the entire Sokoto Caliphate. There is a story, maybe apocryphal, that so ambitious was Prince Umaru Nagwamatse to become the next Sultan of Sokoto after his father death that as his father lay dying on his deathbed Prince Umaru Nagwamatse stubbornly snatched the royal cap from his dying father’s head so that only he, Umaru Nagwamatse, can inherit the royal and magical powers of the cap to the exclusion of all the other children of Sultan Atiku. In any case Sultan Atiku died in 1842 and his nephew, called Aliyu Muhammadu Bello, was immediately appointed as the new Sultan of Sokoto. When the new Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello ascended the throne as the new Caliph of the Sokoto Caliphate Prince Umaru Nagwamatse’s excesses were immediately checked and the otherwise boisterous Prince Umaru Nagwamatse became rather subdued for a while. But his strong character and full determination as an uncontrollable prince were still evident and the new Sokoto authorities began to look at Prince Umaru Nagwamatse with an air of caution and suspicion. In the end, and to keep him and his troubles away from Sokoto the capital city of the Sokoto Caliphate, the new Sokoto authorities gave Prince Umaru Nagwamatse the command of a battlefront far away from Sokoto. The Katuru Command Umaru Nagwamatse was given command of a post not far away from Kaura Namoda at Katuru on the Sabon Birnin-Isa-Kaura road. He was then some forty years old when he was given the command of that post in 1846. By then he had been in Sokoto for some ten or so years. The new Sultan and his Sokoto authorities planned to do away with troublesome Prince Umaru Nagwamatse by posting him to Katuru which was a frontier town between the Sokoto Caliphate and the embittered Gobirawa who were still fighting the Sokoto Caliphate in a bid to exact revenge on the Fulani Jihadists who have earlier on defeated them at the decisive Battle of Tabkin Kwatto in 1804. The Sokoto authorities hoped that by sending the uncontrollable Prince Umaru Nagwamatse to that dangerous spot of Katuru they will be able to keep him in so much trouble that he will cease to be a menace to the authorities back at Sokoto. But the new Sultan and his Sokoto authorities soon realized what a great mistake they made by posting Prince Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe man to a frontier warfront. They gave Prince Umaru Nagwamatse the dangerous assignment of repelling the attacks of the vengeful Gobirawa against Zamfara. They posted him to Katuru because Katuru was the frontier town between the Sokoto Caliphate and the Gobirawas. The Gobirawas have reovered from their defeat at Tabkin Kwatto and they were already recouping at their new capital called Tsibiri. But Katuru was located on a very busy caravan route – the Sabon Birni-Isa-Kaura Namoda road. His detractors soon discovered, to their dismay, that Prince Umaru Nagwamatse was extraordinarily gifted when to warfare and leadership qualities. At Katuru Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe prince immediately proved himself a capable leader and a successful warrior. He was able to gather a large force of soldiers and mercenaries with whom he not only successfully repelled all attacks from the Gobirawas but he embarked on the adventurous enterprise of levying heavy taxes on the caravans passing through the busy road while he also carried out extensive slaveraiding throughout the area. Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe prince consequently became very wealthy. Prince Umaru Nagwamatse became so exceedingly wealthy that his uncle Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello and the rest of the authorities back at Sokoto became not only jealous of him but also scared of him. But most importantly Ahmadu Zuruku, the elder brother to Umaru Nagwamatse, became so jealous and envious of Umaru Nagwamatse’s great wealth that he, Ahmadu Zuruku, began to persuade Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello to recall Umaru Nagwamatse back to Sokoto. Ahmadu Zuruku have always known his junior brother Umaru Nagwamatse to be an overly ambitious and hence dangerous man. Sultan Ahmadu Zuruku was therefoe not comfortable with the excessive wealth Umaru Nagwamatse was accumulating at Katuru. That was how Ahmadu Zuruku eventually succeeded in persuading Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello to suddenly recalled Umaru Nagwamatse back from Katuru in an unceremonious manner. Back at Sokoto Umaru Nagwamatse was instructed to remain under the care of his elder brother Ahmadu Zuruku. When the Sokoto authorities recalled Umaru Nagwamatse back to Sokoto they noticed that he was too good and too restless a warrior to be left aimlessly around the palaces and streets of Sokoto. In particular he Umaru Nagwamatse was becoming uncontrollable for his elder brother Ahmadu Zuruku who he was staying with at Sokoto. To forestall the restless Umaru Nagwamatse from causing further troubles the Sokoto authorities decided to post Umaru Nagwamatse to another trouble spot all in order to eventually liquidate him. Agwara Posting So, they next posted Umaru Nagwamatse to the town of Agwara in Zamfara. He was posted to Agwara to serve as Fulani resident officer monitoring the activities of Agwaragi the Sarkin Mafara. In that regard the powers were in the hands of Agwaragi and Umaru Nagwamatse was expected to act only as an assistant to Agwaragi in fighting and subduing the forces concentrating on the borders of Zamfara against the Sokoto Caliphate. But the uncontrollable Umaru Nagwamatse immediately seized the opportunity to overshadow the Sarkin Mafara by his, Umaru Nagwamatse’s, passionate interest in warfare. Instead of remaining as a loyal assistant to the Sarkin Mafara as he was assigned to do, Umaru Nagwamatse, again, marshaled a large army of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune as he emabarked on a massive raiding of the Zamfara general area. Agwara was a large town and serving as the Sokoto Caliphate resident officer there made Umaru Nagwamatse even more wealthy and more popular. After two years of extensive raiding of the Zamfara general area Umaru Nagwamatse became excessively wealthy – even far more wealthy than he was at Katuru. Umaru Nagwamatse also became so powerful that Agwaragi the Sarkin Mafara was reduced to a mere appendage to the almighty powers of Umaru Nagwamatse who was in the first place supposed to be his assistant or lieutenant. In the end the Sarkin Mafara had to complain to the Sokoto authorities that Umaru Nagwamatse have gotten out of control and was ruthlessly ravaging the Zamfara area. The Sokoto authorities then realized that, for the umpteenth time, they have made a big mistake with regard to Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe prince. The authorities back at Sokoto came to see Umaru Nagwatse the Nupe prince as a threat. He was becoming more and more wealthy and very popular. It was already becoming obvious to the rulers at Sokoto that if Umaru Nagwatse’s fame and popularity are not checked he will soon become a paramount ruler of the whole of Zamfara and he might become too powerful to be handled. Many people in Sokoto felt that if Umaru Nagwamatsu is allowed to continue with his warlike activities in the Zamfara region he may eventually conquer the whole of Zamfara and transform it into a Nupe emirate independent of the overall Sokoto Caliphate. By that time it was obvious to all and sundry that Umaru Nagwamatse was a very ambitious man who will stop at nothing to establish for himself an emirate. And, who knows, some have even said, that a powerful Emir Umaru Nagwamatse of a Zamfara Emirate might one day even attack the Sokoto Caliphate himself and attempt to impose himself as the Caliph of the entire Sokoto Caliphate thereby transforming the entire Sokoto Caliphate into a Nupe Caliphate. These fears were real as Umaru Nagwamatse had been caught a number of times saying that he will revert the Sokoto Caliphate into a Nupe Caliphate as the Sokoto Caliphate was initially established by the Nupe man called Shehu Abdurrahman Gbaji Tsatsa in the wake of the famous Battle of Tabkin Kwatto which was actually fought by Shehu Abdurrahman Gbaji the Nupe man for the Fulanis against the Gobirawas. In any case the Sultan and the other authorities at Sokoto realized that they had to act fast to check Umaru Nagwamatse’s rapidly expanding wealth and growing powers at Agwara or Gumi in Zamfara. They realized that such were the wealth and powers of Umaru Nagwamatse at that time that a simple recalling of hm back to Sokoto by the Sultan himself will be blatantly rejected by the unruly Umaru Bahaushe. So, the Sultan ended up instructing his Waziri Abdulkadir, who was by then heading a military expedition to Hadejia, to outrightly use troops of the military expedition to arrest Umaru Nagwamatse and bring him back to Sokoto under escort. Umaru Nagwamatse was accordingly arrested and brought back to Sokoto under heavy military escort. He arrived Sokoto dressed in so expensive lothes and sumptuous trappings that the religious authorities at Sokoto were so shocked with his arrant display of wealth that they persuaded the Sultan to disgrace the flamboyant Prince Umaru Nagwamatse by publicly burning his expensive fineries. Comin Back to KinNupe After spending a whole year aimlessly doing nothing in Sokoto Umaru Nagwamatse became restless again. He was fully aware of the great envy his half brothers and many other authorities in Sokoto had against him. In fact he got to fully learn of all the conspiracies against him during his days at Katuru and Zamfara. Furthermore his cousins and half brothers began to taunt him that he was Nupe and therefore does not belong to the Fulani palaces at Sokoto. They kept on asking him to come back to his motherland KinNupe. In the end Umaru Nagwamatse began to entertain the idea of coming back to KinNupe to try his fortune since Sokoto had become too critical and envious of him. He became convinced that his destiny, and freedom, lies in his coming back to KinNupe to live a more eventful and adventurous life. One day Umaru Nagwamatse obtained the permission of the Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello to visit his uncle Emir Halilu of Gwandu. He immediately left Sokoto in an unceremous manner taking along with him just a wife, three of his eldest sons, and two of his closest companions Tukura Abdu and Mallam Dodo Zagi. Umaru Nagwamatse complained to his uncle at Gwandu of the hatred and envious plots against him by his half brothers and the elders at Sokoto. He also told his uncle of his desire to leave Sokoto for good and of coming back to KinNupe. He said he learnt that there was civil war in KinNupe and that his warlike talents will be put to better use in the wartorn KinNupe area. Emir Halilu of Gwandu did not discourage Umaru Nagwamatse from coming back to KinNupe. He actually encouraged his embattled nephew to come back to KinNupe. And there are narrations to the effect that Emir Halilu also persuaded Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello to allow Umaru Nagwamatse to come back to KinNupe. In fact Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello was said to have been all too pleased that they at Sokoto will at long last be rid of the troublesome Umaru Nagwamatse. It was said that Sultan Aliyu even expedited Umaru Nagwamatse trip to KinNupe by providing him with a string of horses to sell here in KinNupe. That was how Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe Prince eventually left Sokoto and came back to KinNupe in 1851. War General In KinNupe When he got to KinNupe Masaba was the Emir of Nupe at Lade. In fact Umaru Nagwamatse immediately joined Masaba’s army and actually served in several of Etsu Masaba’s endless battles in those days. As a matter of fact it was under Etsu Masaba’s army that Umaru Nagwamatse honed his remarkable warrior skills. Interestingly enough, however, while Etsu Masaba was residing at Lade just outside Patigi, his army was under the command of his war general Andy Boshi a Araba. Umaru Nagwamatse served under Etsu Masaba’s army under the command of Andi Boshi who was Etsu Masaba’s war general in those days. Andi Boshi’s second in command was Umaru Bahaushe with whom Umaru Nagwamatse became very close. General Andi Boshi, however, died just around the time Umaru Nagwamatse arrived KinNupe and his second in command, Umaru Bahaushe, immediately became Etsu Masaba’s new war general. But Umaru Bahaushe soon rebelled against Etsu Masaba and even overthrew Masaba from power. Umaru Bahaushe soon declared himself as the new Emir of the Nupe Nation. A civil war broke out between Umaru Bahaushe and Masaba. Incidentally Umaru Nagwamatse was very close to both Umaru Bahaushe and Masaba. He served under Umaru Bahaushe and he was cousin brothers with Masaba. Umaru Nagwamatse was therefore in a dilemma. Umaru Nagwamatse’s mother was a sister to Etsu Masaba’s mother who was also originally from the Dabban general area. That was why Umaru Nagwamatse and Etsu Masaba remained close and confidential cousin brothers throughout their lives. Umaru Nagwamates accordingly tried all his best to reconcile Umaru Bahaushe and Masaba but the reconciliation process failed because both sides were not ready to be reconciled. When the reconciliation process failed, Umaru Nagwamatse left the Umaru Bahaushe’s army and leaving with his own loyalists and mercenaries moved southward as a soldier of fortune to see if he could carve a niche for himself somewhere in Southern KinNupe. Nasarawa From Raba Umaru Bahaushe went on, southwards, to Abuja (today’s Suleja). It was there that he met Makama Dogo who was in those days himself a mercenary hired by the Abuja, now Suleja, authorities to subjugate the Igbira Panda people of the Benue. But Makama Dogo, instead, was interested in establishing his own emirate. Umaru Nagwamats joined forces with Makama Dogo and helped him fight and win a lot of battles that eventually resulted in the founding and establishment of the Nasarawa Emirate for which Makama Dogo became the first Emir. Umaru Nagwamatse was with Makama Dogo in Nasarawa for some two or so years. It was after his sojourn of some two years with Makama Dogo at Nasarawa that Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe Prince moved towards the Bauchi general area. He was interested in carving out his own emirate at Bauchi and in this regard he was working on conquering the Bauchi, Kamuku, Ungwai, Pangu, Bassa and Ura people of that Bauchi general area. It was around this time, and as part of his efforts to establish an emirate for himself in the Bauchi general area, that Umaru Nagwamatse founded Kagara and Tegina. These two settlements have always been on the path of an ancient international trade route that traverses the north to the south of ancient Nigeria. It was however Umaru Nagwamatse who sent his lieutenants Madaki Masoyi and Mallam Shehu to establish Kagara into permanent and organized settlement for him, Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe Prince. It was also the same Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe Prince who sent another one of his warrior, called Zarumai, to establish Ugu-Tegina in the same manner for him. We should note in this regard that both Kagara and Tegina were founded and established as Nupe settlements by the Nupe Prince Umaru Nagwamatse. While Umaru Nagwamatse was busy engaged in battles in Southern KinNupe Umaru Bahaushe, who have usurped power from the Dendo dynasts, was defeated at the small Bini village of Bida and got drowned while trying to flee from the combined forces of the Dendo dynasts. That was in 1856. Emir Halilu of Gwandu came down to KinNupe and convened the Second Raba Convention in that same year 1856. At that Second Raba Convention Usman Zaki was reinstalled as the Emir of Nupe and Masaba was made the Shaba. Umaru Nagwamatse attended the Convention and was reunited with his cousins Masaba and Usman Zaki. Umaru Nagwamatse saw himself as a Nupe man and even as part of the Dendo dynasts at Bida in view of the fact that it was Mallam Dendo who gave his Nupe mother from Dabban to his father Sultan Atiku. Usman Zaki eventually ended up ruling at Bida as the new capital of Nupe. Umaru Nagwamatse also stayed at Bida with Usman Zaki and Masaba. In fact Umaru Nagwamatse immediately became famous in those days at Bida as a diplomat of great feats. This was because he became the main negotiator between Emir Usman zaki and the large army left behind by the late General Umaru Bahaushe. Umaru Nagwamatse was initially part of that Raba army under Andy Boshi and Umaru Bahaushe before he, Umaru Nagwamatse, left for Abuja and Nasarawa. Having been a member of that army before, Umaru Nagwamatse personally knew most of the key and leading members of that army and it was therefore possible for him to serve as the diplomat between the Raba army and the new authorities at Bida. The Raba army left behind by General Umaru Bahaushe was already becoming a great threat to peace in the land despite the death of their head General Umaru Bahaushe and there was an urgent need to neutralize them and possibly absorbed them into the standing army of the new Bida Emirate. It was Umaru Bahaushe, who had once served in that army under Andi Boshi and Umaru Bahaushe during the days of Usman Zaki’s first term as the Emir of Nupe at Raba, that was able to persuade the recalcitrant army to lay down their arms and not fight Usman zaki while at the same time he was able to persuade Usman Zaki to grant the army amnesty and to actually absorbed them into the standing army of the Bida Emirate. After absorbing Umaru Bahaushe’s army into his own, Usman Zaki’s army became even more powerful and far larger than before. It was this gargantuan army that Usman Zaki then sent out for battles of conquests within and outside KinNupe under the command of Masaba. Once Usman Zaki sent Masaba on such a battle to the Gbagyi enclaves of today’s Minna. Umaru Bahaushe accompanied Masaba on the expedition against the Minna Gbagyis. In those days Minna was part and parcel of the Nupe empire. But Emir Usman Zaki died that year 1859 while Masaba and Umaru Bahaushe were raiding the Gbagyis at Minna and the Nupes at Baro. Masaba immediately returned back to Bida and succeeded Usman Zaki as the next Emir of Nupe. When Masaba became the Emir of Nupe for the second time he engaged in a lot of expansionist wars in order to make the Nupe Emirate reconquer most of the former territories of the ancient Nupe Empire. In these battles and wars his cousin Umaru Nagwamatse became a very important partner because of the latter’s extensive experience in battles and warfare at Zamfara and Southern KinNupe. In fact Umaru Nagwamatse became one of the capable war generals of Etsu Masaba the Great. Nagwamatse the ‘Terror of the North’ Masaba also gave Umaru Nagwamatse the permission to establish himself at Bogi, now Wushishi, where Umaru Nagwamatse became a famous and powerful war general on behalf of Etsu Masaba. This Bogi is a Nupe town and was originally known as Guwogi by the Nupe people. But the Hausa people could not pronounce the Nupe name Guwogi very well and they called it Bogi which is what became the popular name of the town in latter times. Today Bogi have become part of Wushishi. Many soldiers from the Raba and Bida army, who served under Umaru Bahaushe, got the permission of Etsu Masaba to go and join Umaru Nagwamatse at Bogi. And with extraordinary leadership skills and gift as a talented warrior, Umaru Nagwamatse soon marshaled a garagantuan army of warriors, soldiers and mercenaries at Bogi or Wushishi. He started by using Bogi near Wushishi as his base to extensively raid the Gbagyi people to the north of KinNupe. From Wushishi Umaru Nagwamatse conquered the Gbagyi people of Paiko, Maikunkele, Bosso, Manta, Gumsu, Kono and others. From Bogi Umaru Nagwamatse had the whole of the vast and extensive area between Wushishi to Yauri, Sokoto and Zaria before him to launch his endless battles of conquest against the wild tribes that inhabit the north of KinNupe in those days. Soon Umaru Nagwamatse was conducting his campaigns throughout this vast land. He immediately grew very rich and very powerful again. It was all reminiscent of his glorious days at Katuru and Zamfara again. Umaru Nagwamatse was exacting exhorbitant levy on all the areas he subdued. He was completely ruthless in his raiding campaigns and taxation system. He was, for instance, exacting 10,000 per each household each year. This 10,000 cowries had been compared to the 2,500 cowries that was levied each household per annum in the Kano area during those same days. In other words Umaru Nagwamatse was ruthlessly levying four times the same taxation that was levied in Kano in his days. With this exhrobitant taxation Umaru Nagwamatse immediately became excessively wealthy and rich beyond recognition. Having become so wealthy and powerful Umaru Nagwamatse felt that Bogi or Wushishi was too small for him to remained at. Besides, Bogi or Wushishi was uncomfortably too close to Bida, Bogi is just north of Lemu, for him to stay very close to the powerful military machinery of Bida. So, Umaru Nagwamatse eventually moved from Wushishi to the Gbagyi town of Shatu. He left his eldest son Modibo behind at Wushishi to oversee affairs at Bogi. The Raba Army, remnants of Umaru Bahaushe’s army, that Umaru Nagwamatse was using was made up of mainly Nupe warriors and mercenaries. Thus it was that wherever Umaru Nagwamatse moved to in those days he was clearly accentuating the Nupe population of those places. It was said, for instance, that not less than forty Nupe cavalry officers with their entire extended Nupe families followed Umaru Nagwamatse to permanently settle at Zugurma areas of today’s Kontagora Emirate. Similarly a large followership of Nupe warriors followed Umaru Nagwamatse to Shatu which was to become another major capital city of Umaru Nagwamatse. Sarkin Sudan However, it was while Umaru Nagwamatse was at his new base at Shatu and in that same year 1859 that Sultan Aliyu Muhammad Bello of the Sokoto Caliphate died and was succeeded by Ahmadu Atiku Zuruku as the new Sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate. But this new Sultan Ahmadu Aliyu Zuruku was the same elder brother to Umaru Nagwamatse. This was the same Ahmadu Zuruku who was so jealous and envious of Umaru Nagwamatse in the days of Umaru Nagwamatse’s posting to Katuru and Zamfara. In any case the new Sultan Ahmadu Zuruku was still envius and fearful of Umaru Nagwamatse moreso that Umaru Nagwamatse was now far more wealthy and more powerful than he used to be in his days back at Sokoto. In order to endure that Umaru Nagwamatse never thought of coming back to Sokoto to cause any trouble the new Sultan Ahmadu Zuruku immediately sent a representative to confer on Umaru Nagwamatse the title of the ‘Sarkin Sudan’ or ‘King of the Blacks’. Sultan Ahmadu Zuruku also lifted the ban his predecessor Sultan Aliyu Muhammadu Bello had placed on Umaru Nagwamatse preventing him from establishing his own emirate in the domain of the Sokoto Caliphate or any of its dependencies. More importantly the new Sultan Ahmadu Zuruku empowered his junior brother Umaru Nagwamatse by conferring him with the title of the Sarkin Sudan. Umaru Bahaushe was actually in one of those his battles for Masaba when he received the news that he has been made the Sarkin Sudan and that he now had the mandate to go and found and establish his own Emirate. It was Dikko Uban Dikko Haliru who was sent by the new Sultan Zuruku as the Sultan’s representative to Umaru Nagwamatse at Shatu. At Shatu the official ceremony of the coronation of Umaru Nagwamatse as the Sarkin Sudan was performed by Dikko Uban Dikko Haliru as the official representative of Sultan Zuruku. Umaru Nagwamatse was presented with two horses, the Alkimba royal robe and the Kadiriya Flag of Office from the Sultan of Sokoto. Umaru Nagwamatse reciprocated by sending his elder brother Ahmadu Zuruku the new Sultan of Sokoto five hundred slaves and a letter formally informing the new Caliph that he, Umaru Nagwamatse, was now based at Shatu. Being made the Sarkin Sudan by the Sultan meant that Umaru Nagwamatse then had the official powers to establish his own emirate. But for the next eight or so years Umaru Nagwamatse helped Etsu Masaba in many of the latter’s expansionist wars and battles that led to the unprecedented expansion of the Bida Emirate in the days of Etsu Masaba the Great. Umaru Nagwamatse actually came back to Bogi or Wushishi in order to serve further under Etsu Masaba the Great. By this time he had virually subdued the Gbagyi people for his cousin Etsu Masaba and he was then not only concentrated in conquering the Gbagyi people for Etsu Masaba but he was now conquering even the Kambaris and Kamuku. After subduing the Gbagyi people for the Bida Emirate, Umaru Nagwamatse then extended his campaigns northwards to Kotonkoro, Kumbashi and the Kakihum general areas of the Kambari, Kamuku, Katsina Laka and others. All these people he was under instructions by Etsu Masaba to subdue for the Bida Emirate. In these campaigns Umaru Nagwamatse conquered Rijau, Kwayambana, Birnin Gwari, Anka and other important towns and capitals of the Kamuku, Kambari and Gbagyi for the Bida Emirate. Umaru Nagwamatse helped his cousin brother Etsu Masaba in fighting a lot of successful and victorious battles against the rebellious Nupe subtribes – including the Gbagyi, Kamuku and Kambari – that occupied the North-western half of KinNupe in those days. These included the people of Kontagora, Kagara, and all land to the Northwest of present KinNupe, etc, etc. In those days the places we refer to as Kontagora, Kagara, Yauri, Rijau, Zuru, Mariga, Magama, and others were part and parcel of KinNupe. They were included in the North-western half of the KinNupe area under the sovereignty of the Bida Emirate. But in all these Umaru Bahaushe, who had then become the Sarkin Sudan, was always thinking of when and where to establish his own Emirate. As a matter of fact Umaru Nagwamatse was able to strongly established himself in Kambariland when he supported one of two Yauri chiefs who were fighting themselves in those days. There was a Yauri chief called Dan Addo who had his base at the island of Ikum on the River Niger. This Dan Addo was locked in a bitter clash with another Yauri chief called Dan Ganjere who was based at Masamagu. Umaru Nagwamatse went and supported Dan Gajere against Dan Addo and in the process Umaru Nagwamatse became an established and permanent force to be reckoned with in Kambariland. As Umaru Nagwamatse established himself in Kambariland he began to nurture his life-long ambition of carving out his own Emirate, this time around in Kambariland which was in those days under the general sovereignty of the Nupe overlords back at Bida. Half of KinNupe as a Gift It so happened that various Nupe subtribes, most notably including the Gbidigi, Ebe and Nupe, rebelled against Etsu Masaba in the 1865-66 period. The Kyadya also joined the rebellion later. This is referred to in Nupe history as the Kwenti Rebellion. But was able to Etsu Masaba successfully subdued the Kwenti Rebellion by 1867. Umaru Nagwamatse was at time in Matane which is a Kambari settlement in northern KinNupe. From Matane Umaru Nagwamatse sent ten slaves as ten horses to Etsu Masaba congratulating the latter for his success over the rebellious Nupe subtribes of the Kwenti Rebellion. In reciprocation Etsu Masaba gave away the whole of North-western KinNupe away as gift to Umaru Nagwamatse. That was in the year 1867. Etsu Masaba actually wrote a letter to Umaru Nagwamatse giving the latter the mandate to establish his own Emirate in that part of ancient KinNupe that he had given to him as a gift. Professor Michael Mason, Professor A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, Alhaji Ibrahim Saidu Madakin Nupe and many other historians pointed out that modern Kagara and Kontagora were part and parcel of KinNupe and were in fact under vassalage to the Bida Emirate sovereignty until Etsu Masaba gave them away as a gift to his cousin brother, Umaru Nagwamatse, in 1867. As a reward for Umaru Nagwamatse’s war efforts, Etsu Masaba donated almost half of the ancient Nupe empire of AtaGara or Katagara to Umaru Nagwamatse. This was a very large and expansive landmass comprising, according to some estimates, over one hundred thousand square miles. Actually, Masaba started by permitting General Umaru Nagwamatse to establish the village of Bogi, in Wushishi area, as his capital city. It was from Bogi as a launchpad that Umaru Nagwamatse continued launched his campaigns of conquest into that vast mass of land that laid between Sokoto, Zaria, Nupe and Yawuri – the same general area that was known in ancient times as Kangoma, Gunguma or Kotorkoshi Kogo or the northwestern section of the ancient Nupe empire of AtaGara. Umaru Nagwamatse re-settled at Bogi as his capital city and from Bogi continued with a new vigour in organizing campaigns into the ancient AtaGaraland of northwestern KinNupe. Soon a large section of the gargantuan army of Usman Zaki and General Umaru Bahaushe left in Bida also got the permission of Etsu Masaba to join Umaru Nagwamatse at Bogi. These were hardened mercenaries who found it difficult to settle down permanently, they were soldiers of fortune always on look out for any theatre of action. When the soldiers of Usman Zaki and Umaru Bahaushe joined Umaru Nagwamatse at Bogi the power, fame and popularity of Umaru Nagwamatse grew beyond bonds. And the dread of Umaru Nagwamatse became the bane of the Gwari, Kambari, Kamuku, Pangu and other tribes that he waged relentless and endless battles of conquest against in the ancient AtaGara Nupeland of Kangoma and Kotorkoshi Kogo. That was how Umaru Nagwamatse, the Nupe prince, came to establish his Kontagora emirate. He was given the Western half of KinNupe, or ancient Katagara, as a gift by his Nupe cousin brother Etsu Masaba the Great. Ancient KinNupe was known as Gara, Ka-Gara or Ka-AtaGara, that is the land of the AtaGara. In ancient times the Nupe kings were known as AtaGara. Remember the father of Tsudi (Tsoede), the founder of the Nupe Nation, was known as AtaGara. In the days of Etsu Masaba half of this ancient Katagara Nupeland was inhabited by ancient Nupe subtribes and ethnicities including the Kamuku, Kambari, Dakarkari, Gbagyi, Ngaski, Nupe, Dukawa, etc, etc. These were pagan Nupe tribes used to the ancient Nupe religions of Tsoede and they actively rebelled against the imposition of Islam on them by the Dendo dynasts and the Bida Emirate in particular. So Etsu Masaba, the ever diplomatic ruler, killed two stones by donating this rebelliously pagan AtaGara ancient KinNupe to his cousin War general, Umaru Nagwamatse. It was a gift that Umaru Nagwamatse appreciated and did not hesitate in conquering Katagara, corrupted as ‘Kontagora’ by the Hausa tongue, into an Islamic emirate that we today refer to as the Kontagora Emirate. Umaru Nagwamatse had a large following of Jihadist mercenaries comprising of people of different ethnicities including the Nupes, the Kanuri, the Fulani, the Hausa, the Igbira, the Yoruba, etc, etc. All these people fused into the melting pot of the people from which the present peoples of the Kontagora Emirate originated from. But, and right from the beginning, these peoples were overwhelmingly Nupe and this is apart from the fact that the Umaru Nagwamatse was himself Nupe and his Kontagora Emirate was a Nupe emirate. Actually Umaru Nagwamatse’s army was nothing more than the old army of Umaru Bahaushe the all-powerful War General who drowned in the Gbako river in 1857 while fleeing the combined forces of the Dendo dynasts. This was the Raba Army that was almost wholly Nupe in the days of Usman Zaki under the command of Andi Boshi and Umaru Bahaushe. This was an army Umaru Nagwamatse had served with in the days of the first tenure of Etsu Masaba under the command of General Andi Boshi with Umaru Bahaushe as the Deputy General to Andi Boshi. So, Umaru Nagwamatse had no problem commanding this very army in which he had served and fought several battles under both Usman Zaki and Masaba before the establishment of Bida as the new capital of Nupe. This large army of professional warriors Umaru Nagwamatse easily conquered various settlements and tribes within the ancient AtaGara land that was given to him as gift by Etsu Masaba the Great. Umaru Nagwamatse conquered the Gbagyis, the Kamukus, the Kambaris and the ancient Nupe kingdoms of Kangoma, Katsina Laka, Kwayanbana, and others. His capital cities, or war camps, increased from one to three including Bogi, Shata and Yelwa. In fact Bogi grew into a town that easily merged with the nearby town of Wushishi. Umaru Nagwamatse was not always in all of these towns but frequently appointed his lieutenants to rule over the towns for him while he is out in his usual campaigns. In fact his eldest son, Modibbo, was frequently assign to head these towns and at one time or the other Modibbo had been the head and ruler of these towns while his father was away on his campaigns. Once Umaru Nagwamatse also moved westwards and founded the town of Kontagora in 1864 during one of his endless battle outings. Kontagora then became another one of his capital cities and he actually was using Kontagora as his base to conquer and subdue all the settlements within the Kontagora general area. From Kontagora Umaru Nagwamatse further extend his campaigns of conquests far and wide in all directions. By then he had nothing less than four different capital cities including Bogi-Wushishi, Shatu, Yelwa and Kontagora. To these four capitals are to be added Birnin Gwari, Kotonkoro, Zuru, Gurmana, and many others. That was a large expanse of land and yet Umaru Nagwamatse was still voraciously expanding his Kontagora Emirate in all directions. He was still actively raiding the Kambari, Dukawa, Kamuku, Dakarkari, Gbagyi, Bassa, Yauri and all other people he could lay his hands on from his Kontagora base. Such was the scourge of Umaru Nagwamatse inordinate expansionism that the Emir of Gwandu Al-Mustafa had to come down to Kontagora in 1871 to warn Umaru Nagwamatse to keep his hands off Yauri which was by then under the sovereignty of the Gwandu half of the Sokoto Caliphate. It was while he was on one of such campaign of conquest outings from Kontagora that Umaru Nagwamatse the Nupe Sarkin Sudan died during a siege of the Kambari village of Anaba in 1876 at the ripe age of 70 years. He was later on buried at Mamba. AtaGara At has been noted that “At Nagwamatse’s death the parameters of Kontagora Emirate was already established. The area consisted of an expanse of land that stretched from Anaba west of Kontagora town, Birnin Gwari in the east, Kotonkoro, Kakihum and Kumbashi to the north, Zuru, Shambo to the north-west, Minna, Gurmana, Gurara to the south-east and Nupe to the south.” The large expanse of area quoted above constituted a major part of the northern section of the ancient KinNupe of prehistoric times. Today’s KinNupe constituted a major part of the southern half of that ancient Greater KinNupe of prehistoric times. That Greater KinNupe of prehistoric times was famously known as Gara or Kagara. In other words the whole of KinNupe was known in former times as Kagara. In those same days when KinNupe was known as Kagara there was an almighty Nupe empire known as the AtaGara. This AtaGara Empire was initially a kingdom located somewhere in the vicinity of a triangle joining today’s Kontagora in the south, Yauri in the north-west with Kwiambana to the north-east. That was the original location of the ancient AtaGara kingdom in prehistoric times. This AtaGara was also known as KantaGara or Kantagara or, as we wrongly pronounce and write it today, Kontagora. This AtaGara kingdom later on shifed its position from the Yauri-Kontagora-Kwiambana area downwards to the place where we have Zungeru today. In fact Zungeru was known in former times as Dunguru which is the Nupe name for AtaGara. It was the Hausa city chronicles that refer to it as AtaGara. The Nupe historians call it Dunguru. So, and as we were saying, the Nupe kingdom of AtaGara moved from its initial location slightly to the north of today’s Kontagora whence it moved downwards to become today’s Dunguru or Zungeru in today’s Central KinNupe. This movement of AtaGara from its initial location to today’s Zunegru took place somewhere around the first decades of the 16th century in the wake of the invasion of north-western KinNupe by the Songhai Empire under Muhammad Askia the Great in the early 1500s. This movement of AtaGara from the north downwards to the location of today’s Zungeru or Dunguru in Central KinNupe may not also be unconnected with the reign of Queen Amina of Zaria who was in fact a Nupe woman and who was said to have shifted the capital of AtaGara from its original location close to today’s Yauri to a more southern location in today’s Central KinNupe. The truth of the matter is that it was Tsudi (Tsoede) who initially destroyed AtaGara in the 1250s during his Tsudi Wars when he merged AtaGara with Apa to form the Nupeko or Kororofa United Kingdom of ancient Nigeria. But it was Queen Amina, a latter descendant of Tsudi, who eventually moved a dying AtaGara from its northernly location down to where we have Dunguru or Zungeru today. In any case the AtaGara or Dunguru kingdom later on shifted its base again from the location of today’s Dunguru downwards until it crossed the River Niger and became the Katunga or Oyo kingdom or Oyo Ile or Old Oyo of history. As regards the origin of the name ‘Kontagora’, well, it was the Hausa corruption of the original Nupe national name ‘Katagara’. In ancient times, and as we have discussed over and over again, KinNupe was known as Atagara or Katagara. The Kano Chronicle, Sir C.R. Niven, Sultan Bello and many other historians have confirmed the fact that KinNupe was known in ancient times as Atagara or Katagara. To this very day the Dibo people, a Nupe people, are known as the Zhitako, Zhitakoro, Zhitagara or Zhi-Atagara which literally means the people of Atagara-land. The ruling dynasty of this Atagara or Katagara was the same that Queen Amina of Zaria, Shango of Oyo, and many others belonged to. It was this name Atagara or Katagara, the national name of KinNupe in former times, that the Hausa tongue pronounced as ‘Kontagora’. We should also mark the fact that to this very day the southern half of KinNupe, on the authority of Professor Roger Blench, is known as the Kintako. This Kintako is actually a contraction of Kintakoro. And Kintakoro was also known as Kintagara. But Kintagara is just a Modern Nupe variation of the Old Nupe Katagara which was what the Hausa merceneries serving in Umaru Nagwamatse’s army pronounced as Kontagora. Katagara was also shortened into Kataga in former times and it is this Kataga that the Hausa city Chronicles, and even Sultan Bello, wrongly pronounced as Katunga which was their name for the Old Oyo Kingdom. The truth of the matter is that the Old Oyo Kingdom was merely a remnant of the ancient AtaGara or Katagara or Kataga kingdom of KinNupe. Picture: His Royal Highness Alhaji Saidu Namaska, CON, the Sarkin Sudan of Kontagora.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 20:41:43 +0000
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