The life of Yakubu Nabame, Sarkin Kebbin Argungu, is illustrative of the upheaveals that occurred in Hausaland following the formation of the Sokoto Caliphate. Yakubu Nabame was a Hausa prince of Kebbi and was born around 1815, 10 years after the beginning of the Jihad. He was the son of Ismaila Karari.

At the beginning of the Jihad, one of the bases of the Fodiawa was Southern Kebbi. They were allied with Usman Masa, a Kebbawa prince and pretender to the Sarkinship. After a campaign led by Abdullahi dan Fodio [1763-1829] and Aliyu Jedo, he was installed as Sarkin Kebbi in 1805 and was allied to the reformers.

But then the battle of Alwasa happened in November 1805. The jamaat army commanded by Abdullahi dan Fodio was severely defeated by Sarkin Gobir Yunfa and his allies. The Tuareg under the Adar chieftain Agunbulu, allied with Yunfa, broke the left wing commanded by Waziri Abdullahi while the infantry commanded by Aliyu Jeddo was being felled in waves by Yunfa’s cavalry. For the Fodiawa, it was a calamity. According to Sultan Bello [1781-1837] in his Infaq al-Maysur at Alwasa they “washed their sins with their blood”.

Sarkin Gobir Yunfa was obviously happy, for during that night, his camp was ringing with songs and dancings and all the plain was lightened by their torches and bonfires. And why not? Gwandu and Kebbi were ripe for the taking. The Fodiawa army was routed and there was no garrison to stop him. For him, Shehu Usman dan Fodio’s time was over. He would die in battle or flee a country he had lost.

The Zamfarawa defected and so did Usman Masa, the Sarkin Kebbin who started attacking the vilalges and towns inhabited by the jama’at to ingratiate himself with Yunfa.

The reformers army retreated to Gwandu where they expected at any time, an onslaught of the city by Yunfa’s army. For two days, there was no sight of the army but the morale was at its lowest. On the third day, Shehu came forward and started preaching, encouraging and exhorting the jamaat. Two days after that [five days after Alwasa], Yunfa’s army started massing before Gwandu. Mind you, the city had no walls, it was built on a small hill. For the Fodiawa, it was a win or die situation. Right then, only that upcoming battle mattered.

At Alwasa, when the left wing and center collapsed, this is how the 24 year-old Muhammad Bello rallied the right wing and covered the retreat.
"I am the son of Usumanu
The strength of his right arm
I drive away the pagans who come after him
The upright son shields the honour of his father
Useless beyond a doubt is the man who is not dutiful to his father"

Did I say, I really like Sultan Bello?

The Sarkin Gobir Yunfa committed two mistakes after Alwasa. He did not pursue immediately the routed reformers’ army but was savouring his success. And before Gwandu, he did not use his infantry but wanted all the glory for his royal cavalry, which had to move upfront before volley after volley of arrows. For two days, the cavalry was being felled by arrows without making a breakthrough. Worse, the reformers were able to intercept a column of Zamfarawa which aimed to link with Yunfa’s army; column that was decimated.

Yunfa’s defeat before Gwandu changed the fortunes of the Fodiawa. They reconquered Zamfara, and deposed Usman Masa, their former ally turned enemy. Learning from their prior mistakes, they did not try to take Yunfa’s capital Alkalawa but took the towns and cities surrounding it and conquered Katsina, which was allied to Yunfa.

Usman Masa was killed and so was his rival whom he tried to upstage, Muhammad Hodi. Hodi’s younger brother, Ismaila Karari, was Yakubu Nabame’s father, and he succeeded his brother as leader of the Kebbawa.

“Three times he was called upon to submit, but each time he returned a defiant answer.

The Fulani, recognizing that they had a serious rebellion on their hands, at last bestirred themselves. In 1831 Bello mustered an army in Sokoto and himself led it down the Rima Valley to support the Gwandu force which was already in the field. One by one the Fulani reduced the Kebbi towns on the east bank until only Argungu remained. For a time Karari succeeded in holding out but, as at Kimba, the Fulani at length managed to set fire to the houses and at this the inhabitants, led by the women, insisted on capitulation. The gates were thrown open and so to avoid capture Karari and his followers had to flee.

After this success Bello returned to Sokoto and left it to the Gwandu forces to stamp out the last embers of the rebellion. Meanwhile, after escaping from Argungu, Karari had crossed the river and taken refuge in the town of Zazzagawa. Before long he was again closely invested. Despairing of withstanding another siege, he and his son Yakubu Nabame now decided to make a dash for safety in the hope of escaping to the west beyond the reach of their enemies. They were spotted, however, and the hunt was up.

Karari was no longer a young man and when he saw that he could not escape he commanded Yakubu to save himself in order to preserve their posterity. He himself then dismounted and seated himself on his shield in the posture of prayer to await his pursuers. By sacrificing himself in this way he enabled his son to escape”.

Yakubu Nabame was a young man then, probably not yet twenty years old. He found refuge in the Arewa region of Kebbi at the beginning but with little prospects and dwindling resources, he made a risky decision. He threw himself at the mercy of the Emir of Gwandu, Muhammad Wani dan Abdullahi [r.1829-1833]. After some debate, his life was spared but the Emir decided to send him to Sokoto, so that his presence in Gwandu might not lead to rebellion.

Sultan Bello welcomed him in Sokoto where he would live for around 15 years, from 1831-2 to 1846. According to H.A.S Johnston, “Bello, magnanimous by nature, accorded to him the privileges that befitted his birth and breeding”. At Sokoto, Yakubu Nabame formed a bond with Bello’s eldest son, Aliyu Babba [1807-1859] whose mother Ladi, is according to Gobirawa sources, a Hausa princess, daughter of Sarkin Gobir Yakubu dan Baabari [r.1790-1797].

Aliyu Babba would become Sultan in 1842. By many accounts, he was a genial man who inspired loyalty easily and who lavished his friends and allies. In 1847, the Gobirawa of Tsibiri, commanded by Mayaki dan Yakubu, raided the town of Gora and Sultan Aliyu sent an expedition against them. Among the soldiers was the thirty-something Yakubu Nabame and Sultan Aliyu’s eldest son Umaru [1827-1891], who was entrusted “to the special care of Yakubu”.

“In the fighting that followed Yakubu saved Umaru's life and the Sultan, in gratitude, told him to seek whatever favour he pleased. Yakubu begged to be allowed to return to his own country and his wish was granted”

Once back among his own people Yakubu, it seems, began to ponder a taunt that had been hurled at him by the Gobirawa at Gora [NB: For the Gobirawa, Yakubu Nabame as a Kebbawa was a Banza Bakwai]. He should be fighting with them, they had cried, not by the side of his father's murderers. These words gradually became an obsession with him and at length drove him to rebellion. In 1849, like his father before him, he suddenly renounced his allegiance and proclaimed himself to be Chief of Kebbi. So ended eighteen years of peace, the longest truce that there was to be in this war.

Yakubu had prepared the ground with care and, as soon as he raised his standard, men from Kebbi, Arewa, and Zaberma thronged to join it. Sokoto and Gwandu were caught unprepared and before their forces could be concentrated they had suffered a number of sharp reverses. The worst blow of all was the sack of the Fulani stronghold of Silame which guarded the western approach to Sokoto. Silame was commanded by Ahmad el-Rufai (1812-1873), the Sultan’s uncle who was the preferred successor of Aliyu’s predecessor, Abubakar Atiku (1783-1842). Worse, one of Sultan Bello’s widows who lived in Silame was killed and the town mosque was torched.

As soon as the news reached the Sultan he gave orders for his army to be mustered. But he was blamed for what happened in Kebbi and Silame. After all, he was the one who let Yakubu Nabame go, a possibility the emirs of Gwandu did not want.

When the army had assembled Sultan Aliyu himself led it down the Rima Valley. By this time Ibrahim Halilu dan Abdullahi[1790-1858; r.1833-1858] had succeeded Muhamman as Emir of Gwandu and he joined Aliyu to lay siege to Argungu just as Bello and Muhamman had done eighteen years earlier. There the parallel ended, however, for the results of the two expeditions were to be very different. After months before Argungu, the Sultan ordered the siege to be lifted. There was no breakthrough although the booty was great. The emirs grumbled behind the Sultan and there was allegedly talks of deposing him, in favour of his uncle Ahmad el-Rufai.

The resurgent Kebbi chiefdom was centered at Argungu, and would constitute a thorn on the western side of Sokoto until the British colonization. Vicious battles and raids would occur recurrently on the Rima valley every year during the dry season. Yakubu Nabame would conduct raids in Gwandu and Sokoto for five years, until he was killed during one of his forays in 1854.

He was one of the most interesting figures of that period. “To the Fulani, who remembered only the young man spared by [the emir of Gwandu] Muhamman and befriended by Bello and Aliyu, he was a rebel and a double-dyed traitor. To the Kebbawa, on the other hand, he was a heroic figure, like Wallace or Bruce, who snapped the fetters of servitude and led his people back to dignity and freedom”.

Yakubu Nabame’s successor was his brother Yusuf Mai-Nasara [Yusuf the Victorious]. “Mainassara was in Argungu when a message was brought to him saying that the Fulani had launched a surprise attack on Gulma. He immediately sprang to arms and, accompanied by such men as he had been able to collect, set out to ride across the valley, but on the way he and his party were ambushed by a superior Gwandu force and he was killed. His head was cut off and taken back to Gwandu town, where it was fixed over the main gate. He thus became the last of the five Chiefs of Kebbi who fell in this war”. The Gwandu force was commanded by Emir Halilu’s brother Dan Galadiman Haliru.

Dan Galadiman Haliru [/b]would become Emir of Gwandu in 1858 and for him this was a great triumph. “In the following year, however, he was to suffer an identical fate. For a reason which has never been clearly explained, he then decided to by-pass the Kebbi towns that stood in the front line and attack a remote place of secondary importance called Karakara, which lay far to the west. The Kebbawa, however, seem to have got wind of this plan. At any rate, they had time to prepare an ambush and Haliru, falling into their trap, was surrounded and killed. His head, like his victim's, was then cut off and borne back to Argungu”.

[b]Muhamaad Baare son of Yakubu Nabame became Emir of Argungu but he too, died soon after.
His successor was Abdullahi Toga, Yakubu Nabame’s younger brother. In 1867, the new Sultan of Sokoto, Ahmad el-Rufai accepted his overtures for a peace treaty between Argungu and Sokoto. The “Peace of Toga” as the treaty was known constituted a victory for Kebbi whose independence was recognized by Sokoto. Sultan Rufai secured the western border of the Caliphate.

The Peace of Toga ceased to hold when the Kebbawa of the town of Fanna decided to submit to Gwandu rather than Argungu. Emir Mustafa’s acceptance of their allegiance was viewed as a breach of the treaty by the Kebbawa, who retaliated by seizing 10,000 head of cattle.

A new episode of the border warfare started; adventurers, renegades would see the situation as an opportunity to make their fortunes. Among the champions was Zarumin Kola of Gwandu, the Galadima Dan Waje of Kebbi, and the Magaji Jan Borodo.

In 1881, Umaru dan Aliyu Babba became Sultan. He was the one whose life was saved by Yakubu Nabame in 1847 during the storming of Gora. Thirty-four years later, he wanted to make peace again with Abdullahi Toga but the Emir of Argungu, influenced by the renegade Fulani Magaji Jan Borodo, refused his overtures. Jan Borodo was previously one of the bannerets of the Emir of Gwandu.

The Emirs of Argungu welcomed the British imperialists. The existence of Argungu became safe after all. In 1903, the British appointed as Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Attahiru, who was also a son of Sultan Aliyu Babba. The Emir of Kebbi was then Samaila, who was a son of Yakubu Nabame. In 1907, a great Durbar happened in Sokoto with many Northern emirs. More than 70 years after his father was welcomed in Sokoto, Samaila dan Yakubu Nabame was the guest of Muhammad Attahiru dan Aliyu Babba dan Muhammad Bello.

The wars were over.

Wow! I can't believe I was able to read the whole thing, It's really quite intriguing. I think we need to start teaching children our ancient history, not that of the westerners. That way we don't grow up ignorant of our past.

The kebbawa were the most fierce of the Hausa die hards, though their Kingdom was reduced to a fraction of what it used to be, yet they where the only ones capable of retaining their independence among the Hausa state albeit with much casualties and under development, cause while other conquered Hausa states where prospering Kebbi was immersed in it's battle for indepence.
Kudos @Gorkosusaay, I see you know about the inns and outs of the Sokoto Empire, more than many of our Hausa and Fulani. More wisdom to your breast.

You guys are really kind. Ko mi Almuudo Tan. I am a Student, yearning for knowledge.
The Kebbawa/Gwandu raids and wars are very similar to the Anglo-Scottish border warfares. Raiding becomes a way of life in many ways.

Me: Wow GMorning Nairalanders, Op you did a great job creating this tread. Thanks, I really enjoyed reading your wright-up its very educative. Im from kebbi state but i knw less about my dearest state History. Having 4 different Emirates in a state and yet we are the mst peacefull state in Nigeria.I heared from an elder that The main purppose of The Famouse International (ARGUNGU -FISHING - FESTIVAL) is to strainghtng The Peace And Brotherhood that is btween ARGUNGU/SOKOTO/GWANDU, and it did well.....PROUDLY HAUSA/BAKABE





Sadly,my state is lagging far,far behind on Development. States that were created after us ,the like of " Zamfara state "are much better developed than Kebbi. I prayed this present (APC)...government will keep to thier change promises and diversify our economy by taping into Mining ,Tourism and Agriculture. Alot of development will be achieved acrossed Nigerian states,Insha-Allah.


#LetstandWithBuhari