Nupemelody

The Bassange didn’t migrate out of KinNupe in one fell swoop or in a single exodus. It was simply a continuous stream of refugees fleeing the wars within KinNupe. Though there were documented instances of large collection of families leaving Gbara, the capital city of the Eastern Nupe kingdom under late Etsu Jimada, en masse in those days. These movements of the Igbara or Gbara Nupe people out of KinNupe and towards the southeast eventually led to concentration camps of refugees who eventually coalesce to form the people that came to be known as the Bassange. The Journey from Central KinNupe In any case the Nupe people known as Bassange today left Central KinNupe at the end of the 18th century due to civil war going on between the three Nupe contenders – Etsu Nyikanko, Etsu Majiya and Etsu Jimada – those days These Gbara people first settled down to a life of fishing, canoeing and some little farming on the banks of the River Niger. But, and unfortunately for them, the enemies of

According to the Wikipedia Encyclopedia the Gwari race is made up of two main people, namely, the Gbagyi and the Gbari. The Gbagyi, also called the Gwari Matai or East Gwari constituted 65% of the Gwari population while the Gbari, also called the Gwari Yamma or West Gwari, constituted 35% of the population of Gwari people. The national name Gbagyi have come to almost overshadowed the former term Gwari today because Gwari is deemed to be a Hausa or Colonial term for the people. But the problem with using the term Gbagyi as a blanket national name for all the Gwari people is that it overlooks the Gbari population. To avoid this problem some researchers, including Dr. Larry Yusuf, have used the term Gbagyi/Gbari instead of Gwari. But Gbagyi/Gbari seems cumbersome so we will use Gwari throughout this present work. The Gwari language is scientifically classified as a Nupe or Nupoid language because it is closely related to the Nupe language. As a matter of fact many authorities are of the

ORIGIN OF THE NUPE DAY FESTIVAL This article is in celebration of the annual The 26th of June is celebrated every year as the Nupe Day as it marks the only day, in the entire history of imperial Great Britain, on which the almighty British Army was decisively defeated by a native African army. On the 26th of June 1896 a British Constabulary provocatively wandered off the ‘British Protectorate’ of Lokoja and approached the Bida Army camp at Udi in Ogidi, today’s Kogi State. In the resulting skirmish the Bida army resoundingly defeated the British Constabulary and seized the Union Jack. The humiliated British began a campaign of defaming the Nupe Nation or KinNupe with virulent slanders and baseless propaganda: that the Nupe Emirs were bloodthirsty slave-raiders destroying and depopulating the Niger Valleys. The result was the Battle of Bida which took place on the 26th and 27th of January 1897 and which ended with the British conquest of Bida. The Battle of Bida was, actua

SHONGA: THE FIRST PRINTING PRESS IN NIGERIA The first printing press in Nigeria was the Niger Press which was established at the Nupe town of Tsonga , Kwara State, by Reverend A.W. Banfield . It was in 1909 that Reverend Banfield , then a Canadian missionary based at Tsonga, ordered for a printing machine all the way from Canada . When the machine arrived Nigeria and was dropped by a boat on the bank of the River Niger it took twenty hefty men a whole week to gradually drag the machine from the bank of the River Niger to the town of Tsonga. At Tsonga Reverend Banfield immediately used that printing machine to establish the first printing press in Nigeria which came to be known as the very famous and popular Niger Press . Thus Tsonga , and KinNupe, became the publication and literary centre of Nigeria in those days. That Niger Press transformed KinNupe into the most Western educated, most literate and most scholarly part of the whole of Northern Nigeria. Equally remarkable is th

ISLAM IN KINNUPE The story of Islam in KinNupe had been deliberately distorted by Colonial historians to their imperialist advantages. The unfortunate problem here, however, is that post-Independen ce historians of Nigeria have continued to peddle the nonsense the Colonialists have spurned as the history of Islam in KinNupe and in Nigeria in general. Very few, if any at all, researchers and historians have taken the initiative of challenging the conventional story of Islam in ancient KinNupe and ancient Nigeria as concoted by Colonial historians working on the payroll of colonial administrators who, best exemplified by anti-Nupe imperialists like George Taubman Goldie and Frederick Lugard, were out to destroy everything positive about the past of the Nupe Nation. In the following paragraphs and sections we present a less conventional, and more constructive, history of Islam in KinNupe. Among others we discuss, in details, the fact that Islam has been in KinNupe far longer than the

THE TRUE NAME OF TSOEDE There were several founders and refounders of the Nupe Nation in prehistory. The last of these founders is known to us today as Tsoede. The name Tsoede is, however, an English corruption of the original Nupe name ‘Tsudi . But Tsudi is itself not a proper name, it is simply a descriptive title meaning the ‘Foreign King’. Tsudi was referred to as the ‘Foreign King’ by his maternal Bini or Anabara Nupe people because he was brought up at his paternal Anatako Nupe people’s AtaGara Kingdom in Northern KinNupe. AtaGara was simply the name of the Northern Half while Bini was the name of the Southern Half of the Greater KinNupe of former times. The mother of Tsudi was a Bini Nupe princess while his father was an AtaGara Nupe king. Tsudi was born in his maternal Bini Nupe kingdom but was brought up in his paternal AtaGara Nupe kingdom. When his father died his half-brothers pursued him out of the AtaGara kingdom. He fled back to his maternal Bini kingdom where he ov

EMIRS OF LAPAI IN SUCCESSION. 1.Etsu UMARU DAUDU MAZA, The founder and first emir of Lapai. He reigned btw (1825- 1832). 2. ETSU YUNUSA, a brother to daudu maza succeeded him and became d 2nd emir of Lapai. He reigned for 6 years. 3.ETSU ALHASSAN BAJI YADEDE, Also a brother to daudu maza succeeded him and became d 3rd emir of Lapai. 4. ETSU HAMIDU JANTABO, Also a brother to daudu maza succeeded him and became The 4th emir of Lapai. He reigned for 36 years as a great figure in Lapai Fulani history. Under his strong his Leadership, cloth of White men first made it's appearance in LAPAI. 5.ETSU ABUBAKAR ATIKU The great grand father, who was the first son of Jantabo succeeded his father and became The 5th emir of Lapai. He reigned for one year only. 6.ETSU ABDULLAHI BAWA, The second son of Jantabo, succeeded him and became d 6th emir of Lapai. He was a profligate and died in 1893. 7.ETSU ABDULKADIR, the third son of Jantabo, succeeded him and became d 7th emir of Lapai.

LAGOS WAS FOUNDED BY NUPENCIZHI Source ©from the book ‘Etan Mana’ By Ndagi Abdullahi. Jun