Ahmed Yahaya Joe
“Kano, as large as the elephant’s paunch.” – Hausa saying
(Kano, tumbin giwa)
Where have all the groundnut pyramids disappeared to?
When the recently deceased Dantata turned 90 back on May 29, 2021, a nephew of his, Munzali, was ecstatic writing under the title, Last Man Standing;
“Aminu Dantata was one of the eighteen surviving offspring when I was growing up in the 1960s.
Most of them lived on the same street founded by their father (Alhassan), around 1910, when he relocated from the Gold Coast, following the emerging groundnut trade in Nigeria.”
https://solacebase.com/last-man-standing-alhaji-aminu-dantata-90-munzali-dantata/
The scion of Alhassan would in his own words, add beyond business he was also an active politician during the First Republic, “My brother (Mahmud) was in the NPC while I was in NEPU. During those years, my relationship with (Malam) Aminu Kano was very tight.”
Substantially adding to Kano’s demography during his lifetime, the nonagenarian was husband to multiple wives and survived by not less than 20 children and over 100 grandchildren and great-grandchildren as can clearly be seen in the attached picture of his immediate family;
“It should be borne in mind that the Hausa language is subtly ungenerous to the childless person.
When a childless person dies – “ya mutu” – he is dead (and finished).
Whereas when a person with children dies, “ya rasu” he is missed (by family and friends). This is a subtle distinction, but a distinction all the same.” – Garba p.387
Arguably, there is nowhere in Nigeria that assimilation has come full circle where “overtime ethnic, cultural and other pristine identities have melted to give way to an incorporation of identities,” as in the elephant’s paunch – an urban conglomerate where the offspring of Mr. Chang have permanently added to the rich mosaic of Kano’s historical durbar.
“Giwa” in Hausa cosmology means more than the Loxodonta Africana and or its Cyclotis cousin both descriptive of the gargantuan ranging from the salutation of an exalted personality to a bundle of raw silk (giwar alharini) to even the epithet applied to a any woman who for any reason is notorious (giwar gari) including a large load of cowries (giwar kudi) and in military parlance (giwar yak’i), lest we forget the fresh water fish (giwar ruwa) among other adjectives as compiled by the Reverend Bargery in 1934.
The “birni/waje” dichotomy earlier mentioned in Part I became increasingly metastasized in Kano due to both push and pull factors even across rest of the North.
This much is noted by Prof. Chinua Achebe writing 29 years apart on the same migratory surge originating due to “land hunger” from particularly his natal South East;
“In Northern Nigeria, there were less than 3,000 Igbos in 1921; by 1931, the number had risen to nearly 12,000, and by 1952 to 130,000.” – p.46 (1983) & p.75 (2012)
Such impetus can not be without unintended socio-economic consequences as Kano grew more unprecedently diverse with newcomers in Nigerian-speak known as “strangers” which quite ostensibly primed a ticking time bomb by fellow Nigerians who reportedly with an overwhelming arrogated sense of entitlement;
“Dominated the staff list of the post offices, banks, industries, local and foreign companies, etc., because they were better educated than their northern counterparts.
They also controlled the Sabon Gari market, where economic activities contributed to the collapse of the long-established Kurmi market inside the Birni.
All these factors made the average Kanawa hold the southern Nigerian immigrants in great hatred. The strangers were seen as interlopers.
Of all the Sabon Gari immigrants, the Igbo were the most detested by the Kanawa because of their superior economic interests and uncompromising religious activities.” – Albert (1993).
To adopt “a gunpowder metaphor” two cataclysmic detonations intricately linked played a pivotal role in Kano as Kirk-Greene in the overall context of Nigeria notes;
“It was no longer a question of whether but simply a question of when the explosion would occur.”
The first blast eventually culminated in the “Northernization” policy that was controversially reversed by the Decree 34 of General Ironsi in 1966.
This all started on May 18, 1953, as Alhaji Babatunde Ismail Jose (1925-2008) the northern regional editor of the Lagos-based Daily Times recollects in his 1987 memoirs on the follow-up visit of Chief SL Akintola (1910-1966) to Kano after a prior heated debate at the House of Representatives in Lagos that had descended to a North/South rancor over the tentative date for national independence.
This was led by Sir Ahmadu Bello (1910-1966) on one side and Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987) on the other;
“The Hausas felt insulted in their own home ground by Akintola, who addressed the crowd in fluent Hausa. Lives were lost and property damaged.
I had quite described it in my copy as a riot between Hausas and Yorubas. Somehow, it appeared in the Daily Times as a riot between Hausas and Igbos, a very different matter and potentially a very dangerous error.
We never found out how the mistake occurred. Was it an accident, or was it a deliberate attempt to foment trouble?” – Jose
The second was the enabling environment that heralded the fratricidal years of locust 1967-1970 predicted 18 years before its onset in 1949;
“Civil war, as first in India, would not be at all unlikely, with a final splitting into two, three, or even four separate States with different laws, religion, and utterly different traditions. All these seem inevitable.
I have the same passionate longing for one Nigeria possibly federated, but one as Mahatma Gandhi had for India, in the Commonwealth.” – p.71 Miller
Meanwhile;
“The Agalawa replaced the Wangarawa as the most influential and dominant group of Kano trade.
They supported the jihadist during the (Fulani) jihad and benefitted immensely because of the change. The Agalawa were involved in both long-distance and local trade, but overland, long distance trade was their specialty.
The Agalawa migrated from the Sahara area into Katsina and gradually moved and settled into the Kano area.
They became assimilated into Kano customs and traditions, and later they lost their language and identity.
Agalawa originally came from Adar or Air in the Sahara area, gradually moved to Katsina, and then Kano through Bebeji.
The migration was gradual both into Katsina and Kano and most settled around Madabo and Koki wards within the walled city.
The Agalawa were also involved in agriculture.
They acquired capital through trading and accumulated wealth, which enabled them to obtain land and buy enslaved persons to work on their plantations.
Lovejoy notes that for diversification, the Agalawa established slave plantations and used hundreds of enslaved persons to produce agricultural products to feed their families, dependents, and workers.
They put their business interest before religious beliefs, which aided their survival and guaranteed them wealth, power, and influence in Kano.
The Agalawa were the most prepared group in Kano when the British conquered Kano.
Besides the aristocracy, they were also the most adaptive group to colonial rule, which changed the economic situation in Kano.” – Jemirade p.49
Beyond the “birni/waje” dichotomy in Kano was the inter-communal jousting within the ancient city walls dating back to the early nineteenth century upheaval of which the Man formerly known as Lamido Sanusi Lamido in a fit of ethnic chauvinism back in 2000 entitled “The Fulani Factor in Nigerian History” of which not only onetime presidential megaphone, Garba Shehu dismissed as “racist crap,” but of whom Lugard had paradoxically spoken from both sides of the mouth about as, “an alien race detested for their misrule,” in 1904 but in 1922 declaring, “The Fulani in Northern Nigeria as more capable of rule than the indigenous races.” – p.8 & p.198 Siollun
The narrative and counter-narrative of Lugard 18 years apart exposed a soft underbelly dated as far back as the 1926-1953 reign of Sarki Abdullahi Bayero – House of Dabo great grandfather to the present-day bickering parallel emirs in Kano as further explained by the British colonial governor of Northern Nigeria 1952-1957 in his 1969 memoirs;
“Every groundnut season, many millions of pounds were put into circulation in Kano, and wherever there is a concentration of wealth in an otherwise impoverished land, there must inevitably be scope for trouble.
Such was particularly the case in Kano, the only important center in the North where a definite section of the population was either out of sympathy or in outright Opposition to the established regime.
The root causes for dissatisfaction were easy to discern.
When in 1807, Alwali, the last Hausa ruler of Kano, was killed in battle by the Fulani, the conquerors entered upon his estate and upon the estates of the old Hausa nobility.
All high offices of state and all posts of responsibility passed to the leaders of the four Fulani clans that had led the revolt.
All that was left to the native Hausa, their nobility either expelled or exterminated, was their ancestral heritage trade.
But these attitudes were of the past, and though the older men were content with their commercial pre-eminence and remained loyal to the Emir, who always treated them with courtesy, the younger men, imbued with the explosive ideas that were now world currency, had other thoughts.
They resented the plain fact that the Fulani families looked upon them as social inferiors, in no wise suitable for alliance by marriage in the male line and certainly ineligible for any post of importance in the local administration.
Here, indeed, was dynamite. But it was to take me nearly a year to persuade the Emir that there could never be peace and contentment in Kano until he and his house had come to terms with the Hausa merchant community in whose hands rested the real wealth of the city.
I contended that, as a first step, he should at once appoint one of the most influential of the Hausa merchants to his council as adviser on commercial matters and that he should try to persuade the leaders of all communities to make common cause for the sake of public peace and the general prosperity, for there was a dangerous spirit abroad.
At last, despite the opposition of the group of elderly reactionaries that haunted the inner courtyards of the palace, the Emir was prevailed upon to appoint one of the most outstanding figures in the Kano business world at that time, Alhassan dan Tata.
Openly acknowledged by the principal Hausa traders as their leader, Alhassan had from very humble origins risen to a position of great wealth and influence.
No one knew then with any degree of accuracy how much he was worth, for he kept scarcely any records and only used a bank when his transactions, which he normally preferred to retain in his head, permitted of no other course.
The principal reason for his success was his honesty.
The European firms trusted him implicitly, and on this trust was based his flourishing business in groundnuts and textiles. When he died a few years later, he left more than a third of a million pounds, mostly in cash.
With his appointment to the council, it seemed that at last, the age-old gulf had been spanned between Fulani power and privilege and Hausa wealth and commercial influence. But though the older generation was pleased, some of the younger men wanted much more.
They wanted, it seemed, to overthrow the regime, if necessary, by force.” – pp. 205-206 Sharwood-Smith
Concluded
References:
Sabongari: The Simmering Melting Pot of Kano State (2021) by DA Baikie CON
Examiner newspaper edition Wed 1 April, 1903
The Decline of the Kano-Tripoli Caravan Trade: Pre-Colonial Structures, Colonial Impact, Environment and Revolt (2018) by Ben Chatterton
Confluences and Influences: Emergence of Kano as a City-State (2000) by MU Adamu
Becoming Hausa: Ethnic Identity Change and Its Implications for the Study of Ethnic Pluralism and Stratification (1975) by FA Salamone
The Kambarin Barebari: The Formation of a Specialized Group of Hausa Kola Traders in the Nineteenth Century (1973) by PE Lovejoy
Concerning Brave Captains: A History of Lord Lugard’s Conquest of Hausaland (1964) by DJM Muffett
Daily Trust newspaper edition of 15 December 2008
The Time Has Come: Reminiscences and Reflections of a Nigerian Pioneer Diplomat (1989) by Ambassador JM Garba
The Colonial Economy: Prosperity and Depression in Kano Province of Northern Nigeria, 1899-1939 (2021) by DE Jemirade
The Misrepresentation of Nigeria: The Facts and the Figures (2000) by Yusufu Bala Usman and Alkasum Abba
Daily Trust newspaper edition of Sunday, 22nd October 2023
A Hausa-English Dictionary and English-Hausa Vocabulary (1934) compiled by GP Bargery
There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra (2012) by Chinua Achebe
The Genesis of the Nigerian Civil War and the Theory of Fear (1975) by AHM Kirk-Greene
Inter-Ethnic Relations in a Nigerian City: A Historical Perspective of the Hausa-Igbo Conflicts in Kano 1953-1991 (1993) by IO Albert
Walking on a Tight Rope: Power Play in the Daily Times (1987) by BI Jose
An Autobiography (1949) by WRS Miller
What Britain Did To Nigeria (2021) by Max Siollun
Recollections of British Administration in the Cameroons and Northern Nigeria 1921-1957: But Always As Friends (1969) by Sir B Sharwood-Smith
