Ahmed Yahaya-Joe
“Men make their history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” – 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) by Karl Marx
Variously, Buckingham Palace located in the heart of the British capital, and Gidan Korau at the seat of the historic Katsina emirate might be poles apart in monarchical prominence in near-permanent occupancy of their hereditary aristocratic tenants both however share a common design character trait despite being in different climes.
Located in the heart of London and delicately crafted in sartorial elegance the iconic, ambient, and palatial home of the English crown ever since Queen Victoria ascended the English throne in 1837, its main entrance arch is flanked by two smaller doorways with a review balcony atop with a flagpole above a neoclassical entablature was the main architectural approach which welcomed Alhaji Muhammadu Dikko dan Gidado (1865-1944) when he was received in audience by King George V on July 11, 1921 en route from Mecca.
Subsequently, upon Dikko’s return the main entrance of Gidan Korau known as Kofar Soro would steadily start a reinvention into a Sudano-Sahelian reconfiguration today including arched and ancillary pedestrian gateways beneath complete with a flagpole atop a Sudano-Sahelian entablature albeit including the traditional Hausa architecture pinnacle elements of “Zankwaye” pinnacles.
“A society can endure unbelief but it cannot endure with injustice,” is attributed to Uthman dan Fodio (1754-1817) from his Bayan Wujub al-Hijra ‘ala’l – ibad written in parts 1795 -1808 the compendium translated into English by Prof. F.H. El Masri in 1979.
Meanwhile, Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali Tusi (1018-1092) was an eminent Seljuk Empire scholar, jurist, political philosopher and vizier of the now rested Seljuk Empire encompassing most of today’s Iran and Turkey including parts of Syria and Iraq in his epic The Book of Government or Rules for Kings (in Persian “Siyatsanameh” and Arabic “Siyar al-Muluk”) succinctly puts it;
“A kingdom may last while there is irreligion, but it will not endure where there is oppression.”
Tusi known by the nom de guerre of “Nizam al Mulk” has interestingly lent his name to the Hausa word “Mulki” meaning rule, government, control, and or power, and the title of his book to “Siyasa” – meaning politics or being accommodating while relating with others and or emotional intelligence.
The moral here is that in abeyance to Marx’s dictum just as the present-day Kofar Soro was inspired by the residence of the temporal head of the Church of England as an architectural metaphor.
Similarly, no less the progenitor of the Sokoto Caliphate did not make history as he had pleased but under circumstances transmitted from 700 years prior interestingly still reverberating to the most unlikely places in for instance adopted Middle Belt titles of Sarkin Dawakin Kagoro, Shettiman Langtang and so on as Freire would say;
“The oppressed want to at any cost resemble the oppressor.” – Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)
Changing the paradigm, collapsing differences, building bridges: What inspired Dikko’s edifice complex?
According to Prof. Moses Ochuno on page 25 of his book entitled Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria’s Modernity (2022) it was primarily, “Knowing the colonizer, knowing oneself.”
There is also the fundamental issue of, “Landan ta ke kira” (This is London calling) as Churchill adds, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,” only unfortunately the modernization of Kofar Soro has failed to shape the North to contemporary reality.
While Ochuno is overwhelmingly credited to have first brought to widespread public knowledge the design parity between Buckingham Palace and Gidan Korau, a must-read to understand the context and background is Katsina’s chief judge (Alkalin Alkalai), Malam Bello Kagara 1951 definitive biography of Emir Dikko.
Though written in Hausa it clearly shows how an adroit pretender to the throne assiduously reinvented himself from a marginal aristocrat into the mainstream of affairs using the British as proxy in what culminated in what can best be described as a 2-tier lifelong power struggle.
First, within Katsina itself with a deft touch usurping the Sokoto Jihad flag-bearing Dallazawa firmly planting his Sullubawa clan at Gidan Korau now for over 120 years and still counting.
Secondly, by laying the foundation of modern elite formation in northern Nigeria during the colonial era.
This was after the Katsina monarch had extensively visited Eton as part of his itinerary while at the British Isles in 1921. During his tour, it was impressed upon the visitor that since the establishment of that elite school for teenage boys in 1721, out of a total of 34 British Prime Ministers 200 years later, 16 had passed through the highbrow school including 4 consecutively from 1885 to 1905.
As Dikko set about the remodeling of Kofar Soro he concurrently impressed upon his old friend then Lt. Governor of Northern Nigeria, Sir Herbert Richmond Palmer (1877-1958) the need to establish such an institution as Eton in Katsina.
This was against the parlous background of 7 years prior according to the Amalgamation Reports of 1914 p.18;
“There were 853 primary schools in the Southern Region with 64,759 registered students. Meanwhile, the Northern Region had only 58 primary schools with 1,682 registered students.”
Subsequently, on March 5, 1922, the Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir Hugh Clifford (1866-1941) who was in office from 1919-1925 would preside over the opening ceremony of Katsina College with an intake of 46 teenage boys from across the North.
The school was later relocated to Kaduna in 1938 hitherto with an all-British teaching staff subsequently becoming Government College, Zaria in 1948 eventually becoming Barewa College in 1967 all along maintaining its motto of “Manjadda wajadda” (He who strives succeeds, in Arabic) adopting the leaping gazelle school badge in Hausa, Barewa.
Like in Eton the games of fives and cricket with the notable exception of rugby became a permanent fixture.
Interestingly, the school anthem opening in “Floret collegium,” of King’s College established in 1909 by the British colonial government in Lagos albeit without fives and rugby is adopted from Eton’s motto, “Floret Eterna” in Latin.
A comprehensive understudy of the Barewa College admission compendium from 1921 to 1960 is very revealing as JS Coleman puts it in the overall context;
“The divide-and-rule ethos of indirect rule compartmentalized the diverse elements of the Northern Region and subsequently made unity difficult.” – p.194 Nigerian Background to Nationalism (1958)
Perhaps why particularly the former Western Region was able to introduce and successfully implement an incredibly impactful policy of mass and compulsory education and the North has still to date failed to do so – the chief reason the crumbling structure of an erstwhile monolithic North has been tottering.
There can only be progress, development, and relevance in the North with better understanding, mutual tolerance, and reinvention of “group solidarity” as we shall presently see.
“Landan ta ke kira” is the British Empire radio service station identification in Hausa in the early 1900s subsequently adopted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from 1939 to date.
Continued in Part II
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