HH Agwai I: Lafia Zaki

HH Agwai I succeeded His Highness Yusufu Musa II in 1974; and since his accession to the throne that year, he has left no one in doubt that he is in absolute and total control of his domain and all those in it. That kind of control, and his sense of being there for his […]

HH Agwai I succeeded His Highness Yusufu Musa II in 1974; and since his accession to the throne that year, he has left no one in doubt that he is in absolute and total control of his domain and all those in it. That kind of control, and his sense of being there for his people endeared him to his people—and may account for the fact that Lafia is indeed the most peaceful part of the country, surrounded though it is by flashpoints on all sides.
This peacefulness has a history to it. Even though to many observers Lafia Emirate looks like it is established as a ribat at the southern reaches of the state formed by the Jihad of Sheikh Usman dan Fodio, in reality its establishment in 1777 preceded the Sokoto Caliphate. Lafia town itself was founded the very year the Jihad commenced. By that time, a band of Barebari on self-imposed exile from Kanuri metropole, had been wandering for more than three decades trying to find a site to settle; and eventually they did find one and built what would become a bridge too far from home. Anf the place became Lafiar Barebari.
They had come a long way away. As the power and resilience of the great Kanem-Bornu Empire began to wane around the last quarter of the eighteenth century, bitter dynastic disputes greeted every change of regime; and many parties of Kanuri left their Kanem Bornu land and scattered in all directions. After one particularly acrimonious succession, one embittered loser, Dunama, the son of Mai Ali bin Hajj Dunama and a band of followers left the Kanem Bornu capital of Ngazargamu in 1770.
They travelled westwards through Hadejia and Kano, turned south to Zaria, and continued until, after several short sojourns in Gwandaraland, Shendam and Kwararrafa, they reached the present site of Lafia town. After striking alliance with the Aku Uka of Wukari and demonstrating aspects of Kanuri manliness and proving his mettle, Dunama was finally accepted as the lord of all he surveyed.
He settled his people in what would become the southernmost Kanuri settlement in Nigeria; and where many would come to see them as those redoubtable south-eastern Caliphal frontiersmen, defenders of the faith, and unyielding conquerors of the realm. They came to straddle the three worlds of the North as a bridge—the Sokoto Caliphate, the non-Muslim areas of the Middle Belt and the Kanem-Bornu Empire. In his four decades on the throne, HH Agai I has proved a worthy successor to Dunama.
A benevolent but no-nonsense monarch, he has beaten his people into line by his own example. To his people, he is a monarch in charge. But even in the midst of royalty, HH Agwai I is a charismatic powerful presence who always speaks up and stands out. He is courageous fighter who will not feel unnecessarily encumbered by the protocol of office to keep silent in the face of injustice. It has been said that of all the royal fathers in the country, he was the only one—or one of a very few—who could and did speak out at those difficult moments when speaking truth to power would be considered suicidal.
Kanuri royalty, Barebari generosity and the battle-hardiness of the Middle Belt have turned a prince into a fighter. In the history of Bornu administration, he would be something like a chip off two old blokcs—Mai Dunama Dabbalemi and the great Mai Idris Aloma, in temperament, in sense of mission and in length of reign. And he seemed to have inherited the spirit of human fellowship, respect for the other person and the spirit of accommodation with which his great-grand-father Dunama came and founded Lafia. Using that, he has united and integrated the human mosaic of his domain into a single, big family that is the envy of all. Lafia ta zauna lafiya, just as Sarkin Kwandiri prayed.
He has led his domain with extraordinary even handedness and with exemplary justice to his subjects. A visionary leader, HH Agwai I always knows what he wants and what his domain needs—and he also knows how and where to go and get it. In his leadership of the people—Barebarin Lafia and those who live with them—HH Agwai I is the embodiment of that original accommodating spirit on which the Sayfawa founded the Kanem-Bornu Empire and Sheikh Usman dan Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate.
He is the product of many worlds. Kanem-Bornu Empire, from which Lafai sprang, was founded by the Sayfawa Dynasty; and it covered an extensive area of modern Chad and north eastern Nigeria. At its height it encompassed an area covering large parts of southern Libya, eastern Niger Republic, all of Nigeria’s north-eastern and the northern tip of Cameroon. It would last for a thousand years.
And, appropriately, His Highness is of the Old School who will put everything in preserving a beautiful past; and despite his great vision and sense of mission and the great length he goes to get things for his domain, many a Lafia prince has complained of feeling being left out in the cold. After 40 years of a peaceful, prosperous and eventful reign, it is time an extended family felt embraced.
And the 40th anniversary that will be celebrated tomorrow is coming at exactly the 111th anniversary, almost to the day, of the battle of Burmi when Mallam Sule Makana rose almost out of nowhere to lead the people of the town in aid of his Sultan who was then in strategic flight, trying to rouse the faithful to self defence against a British expeditionary force. The significance of this should be lost on His Highness. Before then, if the Caliphal enterprise had at some time in its history not deteriorated into an oppressive economic, slave-owning enterprise and had conducted its affairs with the same even handedness that Lafia displayed in its dealings with its neighbours, a failure of the past would have been corrected by a resoluteness of the present.
And as His Highness clocks 40 years on the throne, he has decided to honour one of Nigeria’s great sons. He has conferred the prestigious and apt title of Barden Babba, Supreme Commander, to general TY Danjuma at this time, as, indeed, it will have been at all other times, but more especially now, points to a penchant for doing what is right and proper—and relevant, and a title that is, in every respect, apposite. And on Senator Daisy Danjuma, he conferred the title of Aminiyar Lafia. Hail to Barde Babba and Aminiya.
But certainly, this is no time for celebration anywhere in the North for any reason; but since the fact of date coincidence cannot be changed, this anniversary should be one for prayers, thanksgiving and communal soul-searching and regional introspection—and planning what to do about an enterprise undergoing its greatest existential threat. The North is deliberately, systematically and clinically being destroyed and it is clear that even more difficult days appear may be ahead.
And what is perhaps uppermost in people’s hope is that, as royal fathers and the Northern region privilegentsia gather to celebrate this event, they will remain ever conscious of the fact that the title is being conferred at a particularly difficult time for the region; but it should not be difficult for the giver of the title and its taker, who are, in fact, classmates at Provincial Secondary School, Katsina-Ala, to get heads and turban together to find a solution. That is what a supreme commander is supposed to do, isn’t it?
Allah Yaja zamanin Sarki, Ya kuma ja zamanin sarauta.