Southern Kaduna ( ; Jju: Ka̱tak Ka̱duna ; ; formerly Southern Zaria) is an area of the Nok Culture region inhabited by various related ethnic groups who do not identify as Hausa, living south of Zaria, Kaduna State. It is located in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. According to the Southern Kaduna People's Union (SOKAPU), Southern Kaduna consists of 12 (or 13) Local Government Areas out of 23 in Kaduna State.
In September 2020, the SOKAPU national publicity secretary, Luka Binniyat, in a statement he signed said the region makes up 51.2% of the entire state's population as shown in the 2006 census figures, occupying 26,000 sq. km. of the state's 46,000 sq. km. total land mass, with 57 registered ethnic nationalities of the state's 67 identified ones. Angerbrandt (2015) views it as being less of a geographical identity and more of an ethnic identity concept.
History
Antiquity
Nok Culture The Nok culture thrived in the area now known as Southern Kaduna as early as 1500 BC and lasted up until circa AD 500. This was an Iron Age civilization known to be the first to produce life-form terracotta sculptures in West Africa or possible the entire Sub-Saharan Africa. This civilization came to be known when in the spring of 1944, Bernard Fagg, a British government anthropologist, documented the discovery of a Nok figurine in the Jama'a area of the Southern Zaria division and directed excavations across the central area of Nigeria to discover more and the construction of museums to house them across Nigeria.
Breunig and Rupp (2016) presented a hypothesis stating that the Nok culture region was colonized by people with unknown origins migrating during that period. They added that since the crops used by them, especially millet were originally from the Sahel region, it is possible they migrated from the north. They said the earlier settlers may have preferred to settle in the mountains due to the radiocarbon dates being older around such areas, and at the start, they were farmers of the pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum).
Middle Ages
Post-Nok
By circa AD 300, the population of Nok began to depreciate for no known reason. Later specimens excavated from Chado, around Godogodo, submitted by J.F. Jemkur were indicated to have been made around the 6th century AD. Hence, the founders of the Nok civilization existed up until this time.
It is thought that Niger-Congo-speaking groups like the Yoruba, Jukun, C'Lela, among others could be offsprings of the ancient Nok peoples. It is also thought the Yoruba Ife Empire and the Edo kingdom of Benin could have inherited their art of making bronze figurines from the Nok culture due to the similarities in style with the Nok terracotta even though these latter civilizations are about 1,000 years apart from Nok. Art historians also opine that Igala, Nupe, Yoruba and Igbo, medieval sculpture tradition seem to have descended from the Nok tradition of plastic art. It was also noted that the Mande, Akan, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo who existed between latitudes 11 degrees and 16 degrees North were the most active developing societies of West Africa in the early Iron Age period (c. 500 BC to AD 1000).
Kwararafa Confederacy
According to J.B. Webster (1976, 1993), the Kwararafa confederacy was said to have undergone four phases in its history. The first phase started at Santolo, on the Hadejia River's southern banks at about AD 1000. An account from Katsina recalled Kwararafa waging a war with Korau, its king, in 1260. Kwararafa's capital was later moved north of the confluence of the Gongola-Hawal rivers precisely at Tagara, about the year 1380. Kwararafa was said to have been forced to pay 200 slaves to Kano under King Yaji (r. 1349 - 1385) and Kanageji (r. 1390 - 1410). Likewise, Queen Amina of Zazzau was said to have conquered all the towns [south of Kano] as far as Nupe and Kworarafa and both kings paid tributes to her with Nupe giving 40 eunuchs and 10,000 kolas annually for 34 years. The Kano Chronicle, testified by its English translator, H.R. Palmer, to be 'roughly accurate' in comparison with the Bornu Chronicles translated by Dr. Barth, presented her as a ruler who reigned at the same period Dauda Bakon Damisa (1421 - 1438) reigned in Kano as . Kwararafa's defeat by the Bornu Empire (c. 1462 - 1495) will render her inactive for many years, with her capital moved to Byepi (Apa), south of the Benue River.
Intensified wars would make Kwararafa a refuge for those fleeing Islam in the north. With the ascension of King Kinjo in 1610, Kwararafa’s population and abundance increased. Her prosperity in the Trans-Saharan and Trans-Atlantic trades would help her become more vigorous. She traded in salt—found in abundance in the Benue Valley, slaves, and other rare commodities in exchange for horses and European goods. For these trades across the Atlantic, Calabar became known as the Port of Kwararafa where her goods including slaves were shipped. Between 1610 and 1790, she remained independent and waged wars with the Hausa city-states and the Kanuri state in the north. Zazzau fell to Kwararafa within this period. Between 1582 and 1703, Kano suffered repeated attacks from Kwararafa.
Kwararafa was most powerful around 1680. She launched attacks across Hausaland and when her armies got to the Borno Empire, the king was killed and the capital, Ngazargamu, was destroyed. The Jukun dynasty came to power about this time and became Kwararafa’s major ethnic group. Internal strife, attacks from invading groups (like the Samba and Tiv), and possibly drought, weakened Kwararafa’s strength. Her last king, Adi Matswen (r. 1780 - 1810), was said to have fled the capital, Uka, to create a new capital at Wase. By 1820, the new Jukun dynasty was established in Wukari. This became a more religious and less warlike state.
Abah and Okoye-Ugwu (2002) posited that Kwararafa was inhabited by several ethnic groups and due to the mass exit of people in its northern portions, a new capital was established at Apa (Byepi) where power struggles occurred between the Jukun, Idoma and Abakwariga (non-muslim Hausa). The capital was then moved to Kororofa, then to Puje, and then to Wukari (Uka). They further argued from the point of view of the ‘’Idoma-Alekwu oral epic’’, that the term Apa may not only refer to the Jukun but to the groups which trace their origins to Apa like the Idoma, Alago, Igbira, and Igala. They went further to cite the possibility of the Jukun being a later migrant into the confederacy from the Ogoja and Calabar axis. They replaced the Abakwariga in power to become a majority only later on. It was cited, too, that Idu, the perceived Idoma patriarch was said to be king of Apa at the period of Jukun entry, which forced Idoma’s later southwestern migration. The Jukun, however, have another story to their migration. According to C.K. Meek, however, the Jukun were said to have migrated from the east, possibly Yemen, alongside the Kanuri and Yoruba peoples. By 1250 AD, the Jukun Kwona had settled in the Gongola River basin according to H.R. Palmer.
The 16th century was said to be characterized by many migrations by the progenitors of the ethnic groups that occupy the central region of Nigeria today. Smaller groups also moved out of it. These factors were said to have contributed to the disintegration of the Kwararafa multiethnic confederacy towards the end of the 17th and early 18th centuries.
A version of many ethnic groups' place of origin in today's Southern Kaduna point to the Jos-Bauchi Plateau. A narrative of the migration of the Ham people stated that the Ham broke away from related groups on the plateau and began journeying westwards until they got to a place called Shike Ham (or the Ham forest) around the Gurara River. The word was translated as "break-away" in the Hyam language, which coincidentally has a similar meaning as the word which means "to cut-off" in the Tyap language. However, there also exist clans among these groups that claim to come from no where but where they presently are. Among the Atyap, while the Agbaat and Aminyam clans claim origins from waves of migration, the Aku and Ashokwa clans have lost memories of where they came from.
Caravan trade, Fulani Jihad, and slave-raids Around the Jos Plateau in the northwestern flank of Kwararafa, Achi (2005:378) mentioned that the itinerary settlement of Zangon Katab (or Katab) was established circa AD 1650 for the itinerant Hausa and Borno traders by the Atyap people, and became important in the region. This settlement was said to have been consolidated by c. 1750. The earliest Muslim settlement in Zangon Katab was called Angwan Tudu build around a place known as the Mabatado (or Mabarado, derogatorily Barawa Dawa by the Hausa) which served as the meeting place of the Atyap elders and center of Atyap festivities, occupied by Mele and his countrymen from Borno who were into long-distance or caravan trade and Islamic teaching. The land was granted to the settlers by the Atyap with certain terms attached. Hausa settlers from Kauru soon came and settled at Dorgozo. They, too, were traders. The settlers had a market chief who collected tributes from the traders to compensate the Atyap landlords. Later in the late 19th century, a Fulani ward was created in the Zangon Katab market due to the raids of Ningi in the Atyap area. Baba argued that the alliance between the Fulani of Zangon Katab, the Muslim groups of Kauru, and Zazzau (or Zaria) against the Atyap had only resulted to the Atyap's hostility against their settlers, and should not be mistaken for control of the Atyap by the former, as the British made it seem.
After the attacks on those against the jihadist views in Kano, Zaria, and Yakoba (now Bauchi), some Hausas migrated to Zangon Katab. Jihadist flags bearers also tagged along to fight and gain wealth. They waged wars of expansion on surrounding settlements. By 1820, the Amala, Arumaruma and others around Kauru, Lere and Kajuru on the western foot of the Jos Plateau became as vassals of Zaria. It was from their settlements that attacks were launched by the Zazzau Emirate against the Atyap (Katab) and their neighbours. In the 1830s, Hausa traders in Zangon Katab began to ally more with Zazzau and demanded complete control of the trade routes from Atyap. Zazzau soon imposed a dhimmi status on the Atyap in the 1840s wherein the Atyap will pay Zazzau jizya tributes including 15 slaves, 20 raffia mats, tins of honey and raffia frond bundles per clan, to avoid attack from the jihadist state. The Atyap refused to oblige since they saw themselves as an independent entity. They began to attack the who were messengers from Zazzau out to collect those items. While some may get killed, others, including Hausa traders and herders got captured and sold to the Irigwe middlemen on the Jos Plateau who sold them off as slaves. Mamman Sani (r. 1846—1860) of Zazzau on assumption of power began to wage wars on those who resist the emirate’s control. The Aniragu, Atumi, Kono, Anu, Avono, Agbiri, Avori, and Rishuwa-Kuzamani in the Kauru axis got attacked first for refusing to partner with Kauru, a vassal of Zazzau. At Dibyyi in 1847, Sani launched an offensive attack on the Bajju to clear the caravan trade routes. The Bajju then launched a defensive by making hostages of Hausa and Fulani people in their territory, and forced Jama’a and Zazzau pay tribute to them for some years.