great site to visit as well

http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Nigeria_native.html

.

odumchi:

[b]@ OP

Just my 2 kobo. You said Great Precolonial Leaders in Nigeria so why is your post only on Yoruba ? what about the Hausas , Igbos and the rest  

And to answer the question, no Benin is not In Yoruba land. The people of Benin are Bini and are separate and distinct from Yoruba. If you look at many 18th century maps of Nigeria you will see Benin as a separate state from Ife and Oyo to the West. Anything east of Ondo is no longer Yorubaland.[/

[size=15pt] son of Usman dan Folio and second sultan of sokoto[/size]

Muhammed Bello (reigned 1815 - 1837) (Arabic: محمد بلو‎) was the son and aide of Usman dan Fodio. He became the second Sultan of Sokoto following his father's 1815 retirement from the throne. Bello faced early challenges from dissident leaders such as 'Abd al-Salam, and rivalries between the key families of his father's jihad. Bello soon consolidated his rule by granting land and power to these leading Fulani families. He is also the brain behind the city of Sokoto. After the success of the Fulani jihad, Muhammed Bello wanted to build a new city to mirror the Islamic faith and to present a stable instead of pastoral image of Fulani's. In 1809, the building of Sokoto started, mosques were strategically placed in different corners of the city for easy accessibility and some houses where constructed with Islamic architectural patterns. He also facilitated and encouraged the building of new towns, especially in the western region of the caliphate.
One of Bello's daughters married future Toucouleur jihadist El Hadj Umar Tall.

“The contract with Muslim leaders (a’ima) is only annulled when the objectives of leadership has been rendered null and void, like apostasy, recognized madness, or when the leader has been made a war captive or imprisoned and there is no hope of him being freed, likewise by a sickness which causes the leader to forget knowledge, by blindness, deafness or muteness, or when he removes himself due to his inability to establish the welfare of the Muslims…”.
Scholarship

Muhammed Bello is probably the foremost Hausaland writer on Islamic in the entire pre-colonial period.”. Many of his writings have been collected .

[size=15pt]Abu Bakr Atiku was the brother of Muhammed Bello and the third sultan of sokoto[/size]

Abu Bakr Atiku (1782–1842) was sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate or Fulani Empire from 26 October 1837 until November 1842. He was the brother of Muhammed Bello.

odumchi:

Did I regard this to you? Did I not say @ OP. He failed to include other ethnic groups into his post.

Was the thread supposed to end after the first post? The whole idea of the thread is for EVERYONE to make posts about pre-colonial leaders. Did it occur to you that the OP made a post about the first leader that occured to him/her? Why can't you just post the leaders that you are aware or read and learn from others? Did the OP complain about the Igbo, Benin, Hausa, Igala, Bornu, etc leaders that have been listed so far?

Why all the drama? Please, this is a nice thread; do not introduce your bigoted insecurities into it. If you have nothing to add, please step.

Katsumoto:

Was the thread supposed to end after the first post? The whole idea of the thread is for EVERYONE to make posts about pre-colonial leaders. Did it occur to you that the OP made a post about the first leader that occured to him/her? Why can't you just post the leaders that you are aware or read and learn from others? Did the OP complain about the Igbo, Benin, Hausa, Igala, Bornu, etc leaders that have been listed so far?

Why all the drama? Please, this is a nice thread; do not introduce your bigoted insecurities into it. If you have nothing to add, please step.

BEST RESPONSE!!!

odumchi:

Bigoted excuses? Where did I express any bigotry? What I am saying is that I expected the author to post about the other ethnicities of Nigeria. So please if you are not the author why are you speaking? Did I adress it to you?

It shows how people are looking for trouble. Common people cannot mind their business.

Please, I beg you with GOD, do not derail this thread with bigotry! I beg!!!!

follow this advise

Katsumoto:

Was the thread supposed to end after the first post? The whole idea of the thread is for EVERYONE to make posts about pre-colonial leaders. Did it occur to you that the OP made a post about the first leader that occured to him/her? Why can't you just post the leaders that you are aware or read and learn from others? Did the OP complain about the Igbo, Benin, Hausa, Igala, Bornu, etc leaders that have been listed so far?

Why all the drama? Please, this is a nice thread; do not introduce your bigoted insecurities into it. If you have nothing to add, please step.

King or Shehu Ali III of borno, little is known about him he ruled from (1750–1791)

[size=15pt]Dan Halima, Usuman Masa, Karari and other Great Hausa/fulani/kanuri warriors in kebbi and sokoto[/size]

In the first half of the century it was the diehards of Gobir and Katsina who caused the Sultans the greatest trouble and anxiety, but in the second half, with the submission of Dan Halima and the founding of Sabon Birni, the pattern changed. Thereafter, as already mentioned, raids from the north fell increasingly on Katsina, Kano, and Zaria Emirates, while the pressure on Zamfara and Sokoto was eased. But so far as Sokoto was concerned, this shift was counterbalanced by the resurgence of Kebbi. By 1875, in fact, the Kebbawa and their allies, the Arewa and Zabermawa, had become a major threat to the strength and stability of the Empire.
In the early days of the jihad, it will be recalled, the Fulani had invaded Kebbi, sacked the capital, and driven out the Chief, Muhammadu Hodi. In his place they had installed their puppet, Usuman Masa, but in the crisis following the defeat at Alwasa he had proved false and had turned against them. After the victory of Gwandu, therefore, they had hunted him down and killed him.
Before the defection of Usuman Masa the Fulani had been disposed to treat the Kebbawa in the same way as the Zamfarawa, assuming that they were friendly unless they showed hostility and ruling them through their own Chiefs. Betrayal had brought disillusionment, however, and Usuman Masa's treachery had caused them to reverse this policy. Thenceforward Kebbi was no longer regarded as an ally but treated instead as a defeated enemy. The towns that resisted were reduced and the Hausa ruling classes, if they had not already fled, were deprived of their offices and titles and replaced by Fulani whose loyalty to the régime could be relied upon 1.
The resistance put up by Muhammadu Hodi in the Zamfara Valley and then by Karari in Argungu and Zazzagawa has already been described in an earlier chapter. It will be recalled that after Karari's death his son Yakubu Nabame had thrown himself on the mercy of the Fulani, that his life had been spared, and that for sixteen years he had lived as an exile at the Court in Sokoto and Wurno. Bello, magnanimous by nature, accorded to him the privileges that befitted his birth and breeding. With the passage of time, moreover, he gradually won the trust of the Fulani so that, when the easy-going and genial Aliyu Babba succeeded as Sultan, he seems to have been treated almost as if he were a member of the family 2.
It was the special trust which Aliyu reposed in him that led in the end to the termination of his banishment. In about the year 1847 the Gobirawa diehards raided the town of Gora in central Sokoto. A Fulani expedition was quickly dispatched to intercept them and with it the Sultan sent his eldest son Umaru, entrusting him, as he was still young and inexperienced, 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 3.
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. 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 4. 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 5. As soon as the news reached the Sultan he gave orders for his army to be mustered.
When the army had assembled Aliyu himself led it down the Rima Valley. By this time Halilu 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 6. There the parallel ended, however, for the results of the two expeditions were to be very different.
There is no better example than this of what an ineffective Sultan Aliyu was. Because of the excessive trust that he had reposed in Yakubu he had brought about a serious rebellion in the west at a time when he was barely holding his own with the Gobir and Katsina diehards in the north. It was obvious that he must move heaven and earth to scotch this revolt before it gained strength and momentum. To do this he only needed to storm Argungu and recapture Yakubu. But instead his patience gave out or his resolution wavered and, after sustaining the siege for some time, he raised it and marched away 7. In doing so he was acquiescing in the revival of the Hausa State of Kebbi and making the first important surrender of territory that had taken place anywhere except in Bornu since the original conquests. He was also condemning his successors in Sokoto and Gwandu to fifty years of hard and unprofitable fighting.
The resurgent State of Kebbi now bore the shape of a wedge driven into the flank of the Fulani Empire. In the west Arewa, Dandi, and Zaberma formed the broad base of this wedge. In the centre it narrowed down to the four walled towns of Augi, Zazzagawa, Gulma, and Sauwa. And in the cast its heavily armoured tip, the town of Argungu, was inserted into the vulnerable joint between Sokoto and Gwandu. During the five decades of fighting that was to take place along these frontiers each part of the Kebbi wedge was to play its part. Arewa and Zaberma were to supply a steady stream of new recruits. The walled towns in the centre were to provide the necessary defensive stiffening. And Argungu was to serve as the bridgehead for the raids and forays with which the Kebbawa now started harrying the Fulani.
In the course of one of these raids Yakubu. Nabame was mortally wounded and thus became the fourth successive Chief of Kebbi to perish in this contest. To the Fulani, who remembered only the young man spared by 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 an heroic figure, like Wallace or Bruce, who snapped the fetters of servitude and led his people back to dignity and freedom.

Yakubu was succeeded by his brother, Yusufu Mainasara, and the war went on 8. The main battlefield was the flood plain of the Rima River, which hereabout is three or four miles wide. During the height of the rains it becomes a broad sheet of water, but in the dry season, when the floods have gone, it dries out into a flat, treeless expanse of clay, clothed in coarse grass or thorn-scrub and cut up at intervals by the shifting channels of the river. The Kebbi fortresses of Augi, Gulma, and Sauwa were all situated on the edge of this flood-plain and looked across it to Fulani fortresses on the other side. During the campaigning season it became a no-man's land across which the war was fought.
Here, in 1859, the Kebbawa suffered yet another set-back.
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 9. He thus became the last of the five Chiefs of Kebbi who fell in this war.
Haliru had recently succeeded his elder brother Halilu as Emir of Gwandu 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 10.
The new Chief of Kebbi, Muhammadu Ware, did not live long to enjoy his triumph. On his early death he was succeeded by Abdullahi Toga, another son of Karari. At first this change made little difference, but in 1867, when Ahmadu Rufa'i became Sultan in Sokoto, the political scene was suddenly transformed.
Ahmadu Rufa'i, who was a son of Shehu, was an elderly man when he was elected. Being pious and retiring by nature, he had already been passed over three times when Aliyu Babba, Ahmadu Zaruku, and Aliyu Karami, who all belonged to the next generation, had been made Sultan before him. During their reigns he had lived at Silame and had only just escaped when the place had been sacked by the Kebbawa. Indeed, if tradition is to be believed, he had lost members of his family and household during the fighting 11.
These experiences, in other men, might have engendered a thirst for revenge. In Ahmadu Rufa'i, however, they had the opposite effect. As has already been mentioned, he had the perception to see that there were only two ways of dealing with the rebellion in Kebbi: either to crush it or else to accept it as a fact. Being a man of peace, he chose the second course.
In 1867, therefore, Ahmadu Rufa'i and Abdullahi Toga made a treaty of peace. Under its terms the Fulani recognized the independence of Kebbi and agreed that all the territory that the Kebbawa had recovered was to remain in their hands 12. This treaty, though it represented an important success for the Kebbawa, was by no means a triumph for them. While confirming them in the possession of Argungu and most of the territory beyond the river, it nevertheless left the Fulani as masters of much more than half of their erstwhile State.
The peace, which is known to history as the Peace of Toga, lasted from 1867 to 1875. It marked the end of another stage in the war and, apart from the eighteen years when Yakubu Nabame was either a fugitive or an exile, was the only period during the whole century when there was a real pause in this bitter struggle.
The Peace of Toga came to an end in 1875 because the people of the Kebbi town of Fanna in the Lower Rima Valley, on account of some now forgotten quarrel with Argungu, decided to transfer their allegiance to Gwandu. The Emir agreed to their doing so, but the Kebbawa construed the action as a breach of the treaty and by way of reprisal seized ten thousand head of Fulani cattle. This naturally provoked retaliation from the Fulani and hostilities began again 13.
In the early stages of its resumption the war centred upon the town of Giru, which stood opposite Fanna on the east side of the Lower Rima Valley. Sarkin Shiko, its ruler, declared for Argungu and defied the Emir of Gwandu, now Mustafa, to do his worst. The Fulani's first attack failed and so Mustafa summoned reinforcements from Nupe. When these arrived Giru was invested and, after a four-month siege, captured 14.
The fact that the Gwandu Fulani were unable to take a small town like Giru without the help of their vassals showed how far their power had already declined. The truth was that, ever since Abdullahi's death, the theory of their status being equal to Sokoto's had been little more than a polite fiction. The resurgence of Kebbi exposed the limitations to Gwandu's power and at the same time drastically reduced the base from which it was exercised 15.
After the fall of Giru the focus of the war moved north to the Argungu-Gwandu sector. The Kebbawa launched a major assault on Ambursa, but failed to take it and the Fulani were no more successful when they attacked Gulma.
In the main, however, it was a war of forays and ambushes rather than sieges and pitched battles. It threw up its own champions, such as the Zarumin Kola of Gwandu, the Galadima Dan Waje of Kebbi, and the Magaji Jan Borodo, who fought first for one side and then for the other 16. Being constantly engaged on a relatively narrow front, the contestants came to know the methods and tactics of their adversaries and were always striving to outwit and overreach one another.
It was, in fact, a moss trooper's war and it bears many striking resemblances to the border warfare of the English and Scots. If anything, however, it was even more bloody and relentless. The rank and file might surrender and hope to purchase their lives with their liberty, but for men of quality there was no question of quarter or ransom. Those who were unhorsed settled themselves on their outspread shields in the posture of prayer, as Karari and Mainasara had done, and with their rosaries in their hands stoically waited for their enemies to dispatch them.

The last phase of this struggle between the Fulani and Kebbawa was dominated by Sama'ila, the son of Yakubu Nabame. He was born in 1842 at the time when his father was an exile in Sokoto. As a small boy of seven or eight he must have been present at the siege of Argungu and he grew up in a soldier's world of patrols and raids.
In stature Sama'ila was not unusually tall, but his frame, with broad shoulders and deep chest, was exceptionally lithe and powerful. He took great pride in the profession of arms and from his youth he trained himself in the use of every weapon, being especially deadly, it is said, with the javelin. Moreover, he studied to harden himself so that he never betrayed pain or fear. As a soldier, in fact, he matched great natural gifts with ruthlessness and dedication. But there was more to him than just this. He also had a strong personality, which was made more formidable by the fact that he was by nature rather taciturn and morose, and as he matured he showed outstanding gifts of leadership 17. Most important of all, he possessed a flair for guerilla warfare that amounted almost to genius.

In Sokoto, in the meantime, the peace-loving Sultan Ahmadu Rufa'i had died in 1873. According to the tradition of alternation, it had still been the turn of the house of Atiku to provide a successor, but again they had failed to produce a suitable candidate. The succession had therefore gone in turn to two sons of Bello, first to Abubakr na Rabah and then, on his death in 1877, to Mu'azu. When he in turn had died in 1881, the claims of the Atikawa had again been passed over and Umaru, the eldest of Bello's grandsons, had been appointed Sultan.
This Umaru, now a man of fifty-seven, was the same son of Aliyu Babba whose life had been saved by Yakubu Nabame thirty-three years earlier in the fight at Gora. He had not forgotten his debt and when he succeeded he at once sent an embassy to Argungu, where Toga was still Chief, proposing peace. But unfortunately the war party, led by the renegade Fulani, Jan Borodo, was in the ascendant there and so the Fulani overtures were rejected 18.
Having failed to make peace, the new Sultan decided to mount an expedition against Argungu, which was now the recognized capital of Kebbi as well as being its bridgehead on the east bank of the Rima. Command was entrusted to an experienced but ageing freedman called Sarkin Lifidi Lefau 19. This time the Kebbawa did not shut themselves up in the town, as they had on both previous occasions, but decided to risk a battle in the open. For the first time command of the whole Kebbi army was given to Sama'ila. It was a great opportunity, which he seized with both hands. The Fulani forces were intercepted near Argungu and, according to tradition, it was a javelin hurled by Sama'ila himself that brought the Fulani commander down and turned the tide of the battle. Certainly, Lefau was killed and his army routed 20.
For Sama'ila this victory came at a most opportune moment. In the following year the old Chief Toga died and he was elected to succeed. Endowed now with supreme military and political power, he soon began to display his genius for this kind of warfare.
The remarkable run of successes that Sama'ila achieved between 1883 and 1903 was based on accurate intelligence and good tactics. In the collection of intelligence, to which he devoted infinite pains, he was far ahead of any of his contemporaries. In his tactics he relied mainly on surprise and shock. By riding out of Argungu at nightfall he could get into position by first light on the following day for an attack on almost any town in northern Gwandu or southwestern Sokoto, and this is what he normally did.
As Sama'ila's list of victories grew, so the superstitions that clustered about him multiplied. His famous bay was said to be no horse but a jinn and he himself was reputed to be able to change himself at will into an animal so that he could reconnoitre the towns which he proposed to attack. As a shrewd commander he played on the fears that his name inspired and often intimidated his enemies into flight or surrender. If a town opened its gates he contented himself with carrying off the booty and captives that he wanted and forbore from sacking or burning it. If it resisted, however, he delivered it up to fire and the sword 21.
In the space of twenty years Sama'ila is said to have captured ninety Fulani towns and villages 22. Probably, a majority of these were mall places protected only by stockades, but many must have been walled towns and among them there were certainly a few real fortresses such as Gande, Shagari, Kajiji, and Aliero 23. All the countryside lying within reach of Argungu was ravaged by him and when the British arrived in 1903 they were appalled at the havoc that he had wrought. Here is the report of Burdon, the first Resident of Sokoto Province.

Throughout the whole distance from Shagari to Ambursa, all round Gwandu and north-east to within twenty miles of Sokoto, I was much impressed by the devastation wrought by the Kebbawa, much of it within the last eight years. The country is strewn with the ruins of towns 24.
There is no doubt that during the last two decades of the century the Kebbawa, under the inspired leadership of Sama'ila, not only held their own but took the war to the Fulani. Gwandu suffered most, but Sokoto, too, was distracted and weakened. Moreover, these events took place at the very time when, as we shall see in the next chapter, the approach of Rabeh from the east and the British from the south made it imperative for the Sultans to be strong and vigilant. For this reason, even though the Kebbi wars were fought in a restricted theatre and on a limited scale, they nevertheless played an important part in determining the fate of the Empire.

http://amanaonline.com/Sokoto/sokoto_18.htm

[size=15pt] Sunni Ali one of the first Hausa kings before the introduction of Islam[/size]

The first historical references date to the time when the area came under Songhay rule during the reign of Sunni Ali (1464–1492). Muhammadu Kanta, a Hausa immigrant from Kuyambana in southern Katsina became de-facto military governor of the Songhay sub-province of Kebbi, and declared his independence in 1516. The Kebbi kingdom was considered one of the Banza Bakwai ("seven bastards" or seven "illegitimate" Hausa states. The rulers of these states traced their lineage to a concubine of the Hausa founding father, Bayajidda, hence the name.

Kebbi became a major power in the region, resisting Songhay attacks, expanding into the Yauri and Nupe lands to the south and defeating attempts by the Bornu Empire to invade and occupy the Hausa states. However, after Kanta's death in 1556 the Hausa states stopped paying tribute, and his son and successor Ahmadu did not attempt to force the issue. By the end of the sixteenth century Kebbi had become a minor kingdom.

[size=15pt]Sarkin Yauri Garba the first of Yauri kingdom(kebbi) before mali invasion[/size]

The area was first settled by an eastern group around early 1000-1200 AD, predominantly by a Benue-Congo linguistic group, the Kamberis. Then for a brief period of time, Yauri was invaded by Mali and it incorporated a few Songhai invaders into its social structure. The increasing agricultural surplus exhibited by the early settlers and the availability of fertile land near a river brought in a diverse and malleable group of migrants seeking fertile land to farm, and the groups were initially dominated by the Gungawas. T[b]his became the second wave of migration into Yauri. Around the seventeenth century, this group waged a war over the Kamberis and became the dominant political group in the area under the first Emir of Yauri, Sarkin Yauri Garba.[/b]

However, by the eighteenth century, slave raiding had clipped the political and economic structures of the area. The need for a much more powerful political entity became necessary in order to strengthen the emirate against slave raiders from without. A movement by the ruling and malleable Gungawas to assimilate with the dominant Hausas in the region led to a gradual inter-ethnic political relationship with Hausas. However, in early nineteenth century, the success of the Funlani jihad made Yauri a tributary state of Gwandu.

odumchi:

You are begging for no reason. You people are very hostile and ate nosy. In what way did I involve any of you into this? I did not say @ Jason or @ Alj rather @OP. I am not attempting to derail this rather you are by continuing to post your insignificant replies.
And do you know what Bigotry is? It is continuing to ignore the viewpoints of others and accepting only your own. I have expressed my viewpoint and you do not want me to express my opinion but yet I am the bigot?

I am enjoying the posts here and am only adding my thoughts. A word is enough for the wise.

ok sorry, enjoy the thread

[size=15pt]Ali II of Bornu one of the early ruler of Borno which was before Ali III[/size]

Alhaji Ali (also Ali bin Umar) was Mai (ruler) of the Bornu Empire, in what is now the African states of Chad, Nigeria, and Niger, from 1639 to around 1680. Ali succeeded his father Umar in 1639 and had a relatively long reign. During the early years of his reign, the empire was threatened with incursions from its neighbors, the Taureg in the north and the Kwararafa in the south. He was able to hold both forces at bay and finally defeated them in 1668. After his victory, he consolidated his kingdom, controlling the vital trans-Saharan trade routes, and rekindling Islamic teaching in the empire. He is remembered for his piety, constructing four mosques and making three Hadj pilgrimages to Mecca.

http://www.giza.kvinnesexdating.com/p-Ali_II_of_Bornu

Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Al-Kanemi

I don't know if this man is relevant to this thread. He wasn't a political leader but  a poet and grammarian from Kanem-Borno. His work is the oldest known literature work from anywhere in Nigeria. He died in 1212.

Muhammad Bin Muhammad Al-Fullani Al-Kashinawi
This is also not a political leader but a great mathematician that hailed from Katsina.
In 1732 he wrote a manuscript (in Arabic) of procedures for constructing magic squares up to order 11.
He died in 1741 in Cairo.

To encourage his readers, he wrote the following quote

Do not give up, for that is ignorance and not according to the rules of this art , Like the lover, you cannot hope to achieve success without infinite perseverance

[size=15pt]Mai Dâwûd of Kanuri borno and the inter-borno civil war[/size]

Already in the time of Mai Dunama II a revolt broke out.  According to Ibn-Fartuwa, Dunama opened the sacred Muani box and by doing so let all the power of the dynasty escape.  Dunama�s two sons followed him on the throne and a rivalry grew up between their two families.  One family was eliminated and the second split into two more rival clans. Mai Dâwûd (1353-56) not only had to contend with civil war, but also with external aggression from the Bulala, a people east of Kanem related to the Kanuri.  In the reign of Mai cUmar (1380-88) the royal family abandoned Kanem to the Bulala and fled to Borno, where the Kanuri immigrants proceeded to subjugate and gradually assimilate the native So people.

Dynastic strife continued in Borno, leaving the land in anarchy, except for the few years of Mai Ibrâhîm (1432-40) who reimposed tribute on Kano, Katsina and Gwangara ( a state subsidiary to Katsina).   Mai cAli Gaji Dunama (1476-1503) restored stability to the dynasty and peace to Borno. He built Ngazargamu, which remained the capital of Borno until 1811, and maintained diplomatic relations with Tripoli.  cAlî Gaji�s son, Mai Idrîs Katakarmabe (1503-26), defeated the Bulala and reincorporated Kanem into the empire, leaving the Bulala dynasty to rule as his vassals.  His grandson, Mai cAlî (1545-7), joined the Tuaregs of Agades against Kanta of Kebbi, but Kanta drove him back.  The next two rulers suffered reverses in raids from the Tubu and the Tuareg from the north, from Kano in the west, from the Bulala of Kenme in the east, and from the Kwararafa (Jukun) in the south.

In 1551 the Ottomans took Tripoli form the Knights of St. John who had held it since 1510.  The Ottomans in Tripoli (in contrast to Algiers) showed a continued interest in trans-Saharan trade, again mainly in slaves.  Large numbers of male slaves were destined for the Egyptian army.  Even as early as the 11th century there were 30,000 black troops in Cairo, while female slaves were usually destined for the bedrooms of Arab shaykhs in North Africa and the Middle East.  The Borno empire owed its existence to the demand for slaves, and regularly carried out raids on peoples living to the south.  Practically no gold passed through Borno to North Africa, but ivory was a second export article of value.  For local currency, copper imported form Takedda was used.  Other trade items were salt and alum (imported from Bilma), natron (exported to other West African regions), perfume (imported or produced locally from civet cats) and ostrich feathers (exported to North Africa).  Kola was imported form Gonja from the 15th century, but cowries became common currency only in the mid-19th century.  Like Songhay, the Borno empire appears to have served only the interests of a trading oligarchy by importing luxury goods for their enjoyment without developing local production and the lot of the common man.

Idrîs Aloma (1571-1603), whose first twelve years of rule are recorded by his imâm Ibn-Fartuwa, restored the power of the empire.  Early in his reign he went on pilgrimage, and in Egypt learned about firearms and brought supplies of them back to Borno together with Turks to teach his army how to use them.  Although Borno soldiers learned the art of using guns, this expertise never took root in West Africa until late in the 19th century.  Even when guns were available, the horsemen were more adept at traditional weapons and fired shots mainly to cause panic.  With his military advantage, Mai Idrîs expanded his empire in all directions.  In the south he took many slaves, as was usual in a jihâd against pagans, but spared many of the conquered peoples and tried to incorporate them into his empire. In the west he punished Kano, taking all but their Dala hill.  In the north he chastened the Tubu and Tuareg who were raiding his people. Although he reimposed his authority over Kanem, he never tried to retake Fezzân, the fief of the former Kanem empire.

Ibn-Fartuwa praised his master Mai Idrîs for his promotion of Islam and its laws, and notes that in the time of his grandson Idrîs ibn-cAlî ibn-Idrîs, �all the notable people became Muslims except atheists and hypocrites and malevolent persons

you can read more on other stuffs

http://josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/NWAfr/A10.htm

[size=15pt]Daura the mother of the Hausa states[/size]

A well-known legend makes Daura the mother of the Hausa states. Following the pattern of so many other Muslim-inspired legends in West Africa, the founding ancestor of the Hausa states was an Arab, in this case a man from Baghdad named Bayajidda, the Hausa equivalent of Abû-Yazîd. He first migrated to Borno but because of plots against him fled to Daura. There he killed the sacred snake which lived in a well, and as a reward was married by the queen. Their son Bawo had seven children who founded the seven states (Hausa bakwai) of Biram, Daura, Katsina, Zaria, Kano, Rano and Gobir. Of these Biram and Rano never became important. Another �spurious seven� states (Banza bakwai) are added: Zamfara, Kebbi (both Hausa speaking), Gwari (with its own language), Yauri (a Hausa colony among other peoples), Nupe, Yoruba and Kwararafa (Jukun). The latter three are in no way Hausa. Muhammad Bello, in his Infâq al-maysûr, substitutes Borgu for Gwari. These �spurious seven� are places which came under Hausa influence. Any of the Hausa kingdoms is made up of many subgroups brought together by political expediency or the imposition of one group on its neighbours. There are Hausa people who belong to none of the above mentioned kingdoms, such as the Mawri and Arawa, clusters of Hausa clans who were subject at times to Kebbi or Gobir, but most often lived in independent isolation.

Daura was a small town which never was very important, but its pre-eminence in the legend may be due to its proximity to Borno, and tribute from the Hausa states to Borno likely passed through Daura.

[size=15pt]The powerful ruler of Gobir Askiya Muhammad[/size]

Gobir began as a state around the 12th or 13th century in the Aïr mountains. Leo Africanus in the 16th century says that Gobir was surrounded by high mountains but that Askiya Muhammad had killed its king and enslaved most of its inhabitants. According to Boubou Hama, this conquest was the beginning of two centuries of Islamic culture in the Gobir court.6 But the blow that it was, with the addition of Tuareg pressure, may have been the occasion for the Gobir to move their capital to Birnin Lalle in the south. The first king with a Muslim name, however, appears in 1593. After that names are not consistently Muslim.7

Because of renewed Tuareg pressure, Ciroma, who was king around 1700, moved the capital further south to Maigali and later to Goran Rami in Zamfara territory near the present Sabon Birni. In the early 18th century Gobir became strong, raiding the Jerma and Gurma to the west and Ilorin territory, where many Gobir people settled. Thus the Yoruba word for a Hausa man is �Gambari�, perhaps from �Gobir�.

During the reign of Babari (1742-70) Gobir turned its aggression eastward to Katsina, Kano and Borno territory, and attacked its former ally Zamfara. Babari also built the new capital Alkalawa. Under Bawa Jan Gwarzo (1777-95) Gobir was weakened by many battles on all fronts. The king�s two sons were killed fighting against Katsina, and Bawa died of sorrow 40 days afterwards. His brother Yakuba an Babari (1795-1800) continued battling on all sides until he himself was killed while fighting against Katsina. Yunfa an Nafata (1803- was defeated by the fulani forces of cUthmân dan Fodiye who destroyed Alkalawa in 1808. Gobir lost much of its territory to Sokoto, but survived throughout the 19th century in what is now Niger Republic, with its capital at Birnin Konni.

[size=15pt]General Muhammad Kanta (1512 - 1517)[/size]

As a historical state Kebbi began as a province of the Songhay empire. The general Muhammad Kanta brought the area under Songhay control in campaigns between 1512 and 1517. During the division of spoils after a Songhay victory against the town of Agadez, Kanta, thinking he was not getting his fair share, revolted against the Askiya and set up Kebbi as an independent state. He built the towns of Gungu, the nearby Silame (whose ruins are 50 kms west of Sokoto), and his capital Surame, 16 kms north of Gungu.

Kanta expanded his realm to include Yauri and Nupeland, setting up the vassal state of Gabi at Mokwa. Kanta and Mai cAlî of Borno contested hegemony over the Hausa states lying between them. while once returning form the pursuit of Mai cAlî, Kanta engaged the Katsina army and was killed by an arrow at Rimin an Ashita (southeast of Katsina) around 1561.

Kebbi survived the fall of Songhay in 1591. Perhaps out of fear of the Moroccans, it did not intervene to the save the insurgent Askiya Nûh, even though the latter complimented the Kebbi king by sending him the head of the Moroccan Pasha Mahmûd. Around 1700, because of insecurity in the kingdom, the king Tomo moved the capital from Surame to Birnin Kebbi. In 1715 a successful coup and a severe defeat by Zamfara greatly weakened Kebbi. In 1805 Muhammad Hodi was driven out of Birnin Kebbi by cAbdallâh dan Fodiye (brother of cUthmân), but the kingdom continued at Argungu until the coming of the British, when it was subjected to Sokoto.

[Leo Africanus (on Gobir & Kebbi):] The kingdom of Gobir is about 300 miles east of Gao. Between these two kingdoms there is a desert with little water, since it is about 40 miles the Niger. Gobir has very many shepherd villages, and they have many sheep and cattle, but they are small. The people generally are very civilized. They have many weavers of cloth and shoe-makers, who produce shoes like those worn by the Romans long ago. The export these shoes to Timbuktu. I have never seen the like in Italy, but I think they can be found in Spain. When the Niger fills up, iit floods all the plains and surrounds the inhabited areas. They have the custom of sowing grain on the flood plain. One of the villages is very large, having 6,000 households. It is inhabited by local and foreign traders. The residence and the court of the king used to be there, but in our times he was captured and put to death by Askiya, king of Timbuktu.8 Ishâq also took the grandchildren of the king of Gobir as hostages and made them serve in his palace. He is now master of this kingdom and has placed his governor there. The people are weighed down by taxes. Before it was prosperous because of booming trade. But now it is empovrished and half as populated as it used to be, since Askiya took away a great number of the men. He keeps them captive and some of them as slaves.

[size=15pt]king, Muhammad Abû (c. 1505-1530) and Queen Bakwa (1536-67) with present day Abuja coming into play [/size]

The ancient name of Zaria was Zazzau; it was also known as Zakzak or Zagzeg. A state of some sort may have existed in the area around the 12th century, based at Turuku, about 30 kms south of the present Zaria city. The 18th king, Muhammad Abû (c. 1505-30) seems to have been the first Muslim. In the reign of Queen Bakwa (1536-67) the capital was moved to its present site. In 1566 this queen was succeeded by her general Karama until in 1576 her daughter �mina became queen. She and her younger sister Zaria, after whom the city is named, were great fighters and extended their power south of the Niger-Benue confluence. �mina died at Ategara, near present-day Idah, and her sister Zaria died at Yauri.

From 1734 Zaria, with the other Hausa states, was overrun by Borno and became tributary to it. Islam was quite weak among the Zaria kings at the end of the 18th century. The Hausa dynasty was expelled by the Fulani in 1808 and fled to Abuja (now Suleja) where it continues today.

[Leo Africanus:] Zagzag is a land that lies southeast of Kano, but is about 150 miles from Katsina. It is inhabited by a rich population that is engaged in trading throughout the region. One part of the region is very hot, another very cold, so much so that to survive the cold season the inhabitants light many fires on the floors of their houses. When they sleep, they put them under their beds, which are raised over the ground. Nevertheless the land produces fruit and has much water and grain. Their houses and villages are like those described above. There was an independent king in this country, but he was killed by Askiya who declared himself ruler of this kingdom as well.

This has a bit of myth to it but a great leader was born from it
[size=15pt]Nri Ifikuanim founder of the Nri kingdom and his wives[/size]


Eri settled and established in the middle of Anambra river valley where he married two wives. The first wife, Nneamakụ, bore him five children. The first was Agulu, the founder of Aguleri, the second was Nri Ifikuanim, the founder of Umunri/Kingdom of Nri, followed by Nri Onugu, the founder of Igbariam and Ogbodulu, the founder of Amanuke. The fifth one was a daughter called Iguedo, who is said to have born the founders of Nteje, and Awkuzu, Ogbunike, Umuleri, Nando and Ogboli in Onitsha. As one of the children of Eri, Nri Ifikuanim migrated from Aguleri, which was and still is, the ancestral temple of the people, in search of a place of settlement. His second wife Oboli begot Ọnọja, the only son who founded the Igala Kingdom in Kogi State.[1]
Eri is the founder of Umueri and Umunri clans which was the most influential and powerful dynasty of priests, diviners, and civilizing agents in Igboland and adjacent areas such as the Bini and Igala/Idoma areas. He and his children are responsible for the Igbo Ukwu sites, Four market days, Ozo/nze title systems, Igu alu, and other practices of the Igbo people and their neighbors.

[size=15pt]The first Osemawe of Ondo Princess Olu Pupupu[/size]

The Royal Ascendancy and Osemawe Institution of Ondo Ekimogun Kingdom started from the period of 1510 AD when the then Princess Olu Pupupu daughter of the late Alaafin of Oyo Oba Oluaso, a descendant of Oduduwa ended her journey with Royal entourage at a foot of a hill known in Ondo town up till today as Oke Agunla. The fact established through various historians about Ondo Kingdom especially our eminent fore-fathers and educationist’s researchers that upon arrival of Princess Olu Pupupu at the hill, they spotted a smoke rising from far below and followed its direction down the the hill where they met a man whose simply pronounced his name as Ekiri, he was neither a hunter or a farmer.

He (Ekiri) welcomes Princess Pupupu and her Royal entourage with open arms embraced them warmly and later led them to a place known till today as Oriden near Ifore where every attempt to stick the yam stake to the ground prove abortive. It is said that they were happy and exclaimed Edo du do, edo do, idi edo which later transformed to Ondo. It is not certain that Princess Pupupu became Osemawe of Ondo immediately but with her Royal Status, she might have ascended the throne soon afterwards and it was presumed to be the year 1516 AD.

1. Oba Olu Pupupu, daughter of Alaafin of Oyo Oba Oluaso reigned from 1516-1530 AD
2. Oba Airo, first son of Oba Pupupu ascended the throne after her mother and regarded the seniority set up of Chiefs especially that of High Chief Lisa, who was made senior to High Chief OJomu and for this reason, the Oba was named Airo. He reigned from 1530-1560 AD.

http://ekimogundescendant.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=82:the-royal-ascendancy-and-osemawe-institution-in-ondo-kingdom&catid=34:articles&Itemid=53

This is one of the best threads ever on NL.
It is on the 4th page and the insults and hate-statements have been extremely minimal if any at all.If you understand the way political and religious threads go on NL you will see that that is a feat.
The solution to Nigeria's political problems might actually be in re-visiting our pre 1914 past.


@odumchi, Sorry about the OPs act of posting only Yoruba History. Other posters have posted other tribes' histories as well and you and I are still free to add ours.

Ride on posters.I too gbadun una.

Eze Nri Òbalíke
1889-1936 [4] Eze Nri Obalike.jpg

This definitely is the most educative thread on Nairaland. As a bini woman who has heard oral history from Parents, I am happy to read the accurate recounts of our history on nairaland. Its sad that Benin City has declined compared to her past. I pray our history will challenge us to rebuild our City and contribute meaningfully to the sustenance of Nigeria.

Oba gha to kpere Ise, (Hope that's correct, sadly my written bini is not too good). Too much stay in the white man's land.

On the other cultures I am happy Nigeria has such rich history. I just wish our children are taught proper history to inspire pride and patriotism and a sense of greatness. Our stories can be told like those of ancient Greeks. I just hope we see that more unites us than divides us! Long live Federal Republic ofNigeria/ Naija! May we all live long to see Nigeria progress Amen, God bless Nigeria/Naija. It is well with us Amen. Please keep the thread going I am learning alot,