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My father was a son of Abubakar, known as Atiku na Rabah, who was the seventh Sultan of Sokoto and reigned for four years from 1873. During his reign there was no particula incident and life went on much as usual. AIl Atiku's brothers that is, my great-uncles--were Sultans: five of them were the Sultans preceding him and the youngest followed him on the throne. Their father was Sultan Bello, the son of the famous and revered Shehu Usuman dan Fodio, the Great Reformer, as we call him. Bello, who took the title of Sultan on his father's death was my great-grandfather.
To those who are not fully aware of the history of this part of Nigeria, I must explain a little at this point. The Shehu Usuman was a Fulani leader born about I744 in the country then called Gobir, north of the Sokoto River-an ancient kingdom. He was not only a leader but a great preacher anda man of the utmost piety. To quote a British parallel, he was a combination of John Wesley and Oliver Cromwell. He was among a people who were nominally Muhammadan: I say nominally, for the religion had become very corrupt and many pagan practices had crept and had taken a firm hold even in the highest quarters.
The Shehu Usuman declared a Holy War against the polluters of the faith. In 1804 he started by attacking the Chief of Gobir, one of the worst offenders, in whose territory he was living. This local war went on for some time, and it was not until 1808 that the capital of Gobir was taken and destroyed, kingdom of Gobir then disintegrated but by no means did it die. Meanwhile, to cleanse the religion, the Shehu had organised revolts in all the great Hausa states: the Fulani living in them rose and overthrew the Hausa kings. The Shehu appointed new rulers either from among the victorious generals or from among other important Fulani. Thus two-thirds of the present Northern Region came directly under the control of the Shehu and his son Bello, to whom he delegated more and more authority until he himself finally went into retirement.
The countries which did not come under the Fulani rule were the area now known as the Bornu Province, the Plateau Province (less Wase), the Jukon, Tiv and Idoma peoples south of the Benue, and small parts of Kabba and Ilorin Provinces. Thus it extended far west of the. present Nigerian borders (into modern Ghana) and deep into what is now the Cameroon Republic.
This was too much for one man to deal with and so the Shehu divided it into two portions. One was based on the ancient town of Gwandu, a hundred miles southwest of Sokoto, but still in the Sokoto valley. This was given to Abdullahi, the Shehu's brother, as first Emir of Gwandu. The capital has since been changed to Birnin Kebbi, but the same family are still on the throne and the present Emir, Alhaji Haruna, C.M.G.,C.B.E., the President of the House of Chiefs, who is a distant cousin of my own, is a direct descendant of Abdullahi.
This Western Empire, as it was called, extended down the Niger and included the Nupe Kingdom, then based on Raba (not to be confused with my birthplace) and Ilorin. It was this section of the Fulani government that came up against the Yorubas, when the Emir of Ilorin was engaged in the endless wars of the last half of the nineteenth century.-
The other Empire, the Eastern Empire, was based on Sokoto and included all the great Hausa states down to the Benue at Nasarawa, Muri, and Yola. This never came in physical contact with the people of the present Eastern Region, with whom our relations have usually been amicable in the last few years. Both Empires were liquidated when the British entered Sokoto, and the Emirates of Sokoto and Gwandu were confined to their home territories. The Hausa Emirates have continued to this day as they were founded by the Shehu.
It was in 1808 that Bello, not yet the ruler but his father's lieutenant, decided to build a capital at Sokoto on neutral ground. The site is a good one. The town is built on a low ridge which ends in an abrupt bluff above the Sokoto River. Though still wide here, the channel is confined between low hills and is thus narrowed, the swampy edges are not so extensive as elsewhere, and it is obviously a good site for a ford. On the other hand, the steep slopes give a strong defensive position from the north and it was from the north that the young kingdom had most reason to expect attack. On cach side there are low valleys which gave added protection. Only from the south is it vulnerable and in this direction it was safely covered by their friends and relatives at Gwandu. There was an ample water supply all the year rounda very important point in that area and good fertile ground down by the river. The fact that this valley now comfortably supports close on two million people is evidence of its fertility.
The British traveller, Clapperton, who visited Sokoto in 1824 and 1826, described it as a clean and tidy place.
The city is surrounded by a wall about 24 feet high, and a dry ditch [he wrote]. The wall is kept in good repair and there are eleven gates. The clay walls, which surround all African towns, compounds and even individual huts, give a dull appearance. Animation is given by the great number of slaves and others moving to and fro or lounging or lying in the shade at the doors of greatmen.
By that time Shehu Usuman was dead and his tomb, inside his own house, was already an object of pilgrimage and was visited by Clapperton. He went on, the House of the Sultan is surrounded by a clay wall, about twenty feet high, having two low tower-like entrances, one on the east, the other on the west. The eastern one is entirely guarded by eunuchs, of whom he has a great number, I suppose because the harem is on the eastern side. The whole of his house forms, as it were, a little town of itself; for in it there are five square towers, a small mosque, a great number of huts, and a garden, besides a house, which consists of one single room, used as the place for his receiving and hearing complaints, receiving visitors and giving audiences to strangers.
Within a few yards of it stands a lárge square clay tower, with an entrance in the west side. The interior of this is common in most of the great men's houses in Houssa. It is the shape of a dome, formed of eight arches springing from the ground; in the centre of which is a large bright brass basin, acting as it were in the place of a keystone to the arches, which are turned by branches plastered over with clay. From the arches, about one-third up, runs a gallery quite round the interior building, having a railing with pillars of wood, covered and ornamented with clay. There are three steps leading up to this gallery, from which everything in the dome may be seen or heard. Passages also lead from it into small rooms, having each one small window, or square hole, some appearing to be used as store-rooms, and others as sleeping-rooms. The floor of the dome covered with clean white sand. The height might be, from the floor to the brass basin in the centre of the arches, from thirty-five to forty feet. The air inside of this dome was cool and pleasant; and Bello told me he often used it as a place to read in during the heat of the day.
Clapperton on his second journey presented to Sultan Bello large number of remarkably assorted presents, including many yards of damask, weapons, stockings, a ream of foolscap paper and two bundles of black lead pencils, a fine chronometer and, at his special request on the earlier visit, a number of books in Arabic. Among these was a copy of Euclid's Elements. Two days later he wrote,
saw the Sultan this morning, who was sitting in the inner apartment of his house with the Arabic copy of Euclid before him. He said that his family had a copy of Euclid brought by one of their relations who had procured it in Mecca : that it had been destroyed when part of his house was burnt down last year; and that he could not but feel very much obliged to the King of England for sending him so valuable a present.
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