Nigeria’s Collapsing City Walls

Katsina: Last wall standing In Katsina, the last of its once elegant walls lies within Kofar Sauri. The area has been built up. All of a sudden within this sea of cement and dwellings, rise the remains of the old city walls. The sudden appearance of the red wall within this mass of zinc and […]

Katsina: Last wall standing

In Katsina, the last of its once elegant walls lies within Kofar Sauri. The area has been built up. All of a sudden within this sea of cement and dwellings, rise the remains of the old city walls. The sudden appearance of the red wall within this mass of zinc and dwellings, takes on the character of an abomination. It’s almost a scandal for these old city walls to appear at that spot, when all around are modern buildings built upon the very borders of the wall. The wall towers briefly into the skies and seems to cover some twenty metres going from left to right. The people in the neighbourhood have converted the very front of the wall into a public toilet, and there is a growing depression at its base.   The wall seems to frown.
How long will the wall stand? Parts of it are   getting weak. A rubbish dump is slowly forming in the vicinity. To the left of the wall is a fresh construction effort.A new house is coming up. There is evidence that people are breaking the walls seeking laterite to build their houses. So the wall vanishes with every new dwelling. A group of freshly cut mud blocks is seen nearby. This is regular activity here. People are taking bits of history to build their houses. They kill history to create dwelling places. There are no city walls here, except for the lot before which Sunday Trust stands this morning.Kofar Sauri gate is nearby, a silent reminder of an earlier period when Katsina was truly a walled city with many gates, all of which had a powerful narrative connected with each. That era has simply gone.
According to Annah M. Dunkrah, Curator of the Katsina Museum, the Kofar Sauri site has been handed over to the Katsina State History and Culture Bureau by the Emir of Katsina. This is part of the effort to preserve the site for posterity. Commenting on the Kofar Sauri wall, she says ‘This place has become a public toilet. People use laterite taken from the walls to make Tubali (blocks).Weathering has also brought the walls this low. It must have been very high in the past’. We go to all the other gates in the city, tracking the walls, or rather following the route along which the walls should have been. The Curator says that the Kofar Marusa gate was renovated by the State History and Culture Bureau in 2007. It is the only gate which still retains its original form. There are no walls standing at Kofar Marusa, Kofar Kaura, Kofar Kwaya and Kofar Yandaka.Same for Kofar Guga. There is a semblance of a wall along the main road which leads from Kofar Yandaka to Kofar Guga. Here the wall forms part of the fence of some dwellings.There is practically nothing left, except for what can  seen at Kofar Sauri. The Katsina city walls have not been declared as national monuments, and the Curator says that this is part of the problem. Sites which have been declared national monuments tend to be better preserved, she tells this reporter. The old Katsina College built in 1921, which houses the Katsina Museum, is a good illustration of the power of national monuments, and their capacity for surviving encroachment or weathering. They tend to be better preserved and always attract visitors from far and near. Katsina College was declared a national monument in 1959, and it enjoys occasional restoration work. Every two years restoration work is done there.

‘Where is the city?’
Malam Sanda Magini is one of the traditional builders resident in the city doing renovation work at the Katsina College. He tells Sunday Trust ‘40 years ago the walls of Katsina city were standing. Recently, people started encroaching. In those days the population was small and people were afraid of the authorities. Then, if they built close to the wall, the authority may arrest them’. Things have changed today.On explaining the sudden dramatic turn of events, he says ‘Those in charge of the walls gave them out. So people encroached and built houses along the path of the walls’. He laments the present situation and says that the walls once were significant for the defence of the city. His words ‘I am not happy about this situation. In those days the walls surrounded and protected the city. Today, people come and ask where is the city, but there is no city to show them, because there are no walls.’

Zaria: What Prince Charles and Sarkin Zazzau did
Zaria also presents a very painful picture .The gates too, like Katsina’s, have a towering narrative associated with them. Just by Kofar Doka there are clear signs of encroachment upon the walls. People have built houses right through and across the walls. In some parts the walls have totally vanished and the space left has become part of the general thoroughfare. So, day and night people just walk through history, as it were. Just as in Katsina, parts of the wall have become a huge field in which all forms of waste are deposited. Here, there is no continuous sequence of the wall for the visitor to see. The Zaria city walls are said to have been built between the 13th-14th centuries, while those of Katsina were constructed soon after this period in the 15th century.Abba Fagachi is my guide in Zaria. He tells me that the Zaria Emirate has given an order that nobody should build houses close to the walls, and explains with regret that nobody seems to be following the order. According to him with the explosion in human population, people looking for a place to trade, would set up shops close to the city wall. Kofar Doka gives ample evidence of this. Kofar Kibo, the next gate visited by the duo provided more evidence of the encroachment upon the city walls.Nearby, a large residence practically sits upon the city walls. The route leading to Kofar Jatau evidences more of the encroachment upon the walls.The construction of houses violates the borders of the walls. Houses have been built on top of the wall. This is seen in many places. The eyes don’t lie and can’t lie. Kofar Kuyambana, Kofar Gayan, Kofar Bai and Kofar Galadima  also presented  images similar to those earlier seen in Zaria by Sunday Trust.   The walls have well and truly collapsed. On the way to Kofar Galadima one can see signs of encroachment. Some persons have actually hacked at the wall and started to mould the removed portions into traditional blocks, for the building of houses. A whole industry founded on the people’s heritage has sprung up here.
Abbas Fagachi says ‘Anyone who will restore the walls will be welcome by the Emir of Zaria.He also feels that government should intervene in the matter, because today anybody can just arrive and start building a house and the authority will just look at him. His words ‘If people are allocated land, nobody will say anything. It is not proper for a person to build a house on the wall, and the government actually sees people doing this. Government should revoke those allocations and allocate another plot for them’. According to Fagachi, Kofar Kona is being reconstructed by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales.Kofar Bai, on the other hand, is being renovated by the Emir of Zaria, who has also promised to renovate Kofar Galadima.These are signs of the various ways by which the heritage of Zazzau can be preserved by people and groups, both within and outside the borders of the country. The Zaria city wall is a national monument.

Benin: If Oba Oguola were alive
In Benin, the walls and the moat of this ancient city, which are national monuments, are actually collapsing, or at least showing signs of   human encroachment. They were built with an eye focused on security and defence, during the reign of Oba Oguola in 1280 AD and also during the reign of Oba Eware the great, 1440-1550 AD. The moat and walls were part of the defence mechanism of Benin They also served as agricultural boundaries as well as drains. Scenes of encroachment are visible at Upper Uwa, Sakponba road, Sapele road, as well as at the famous Edo College. In a number of places the moat has been sand filled to make way for roads or the construction of fences, such as is seen at Edo College. A source at the Benin Museum says ‘The government has levelled the moat by sand filling it and creating roads. This also creates erosion problems because all the water channels have been blocked as a result of sand filling. The moat ordinarily controls erosion, but since it has been blocked, it cannot carry water out.’ Commenting on the problem of encroachment of the city walls in Benin, he says ‘The issue is we have the so-called big men who are not respecting the law relating to the protection of the moat. This is because they have been involved in all sorts of encroachments, by building very close to the moat, or encroaching upon it by way of excavating it to sandfill the foundation for their houses. We have challenged them on several occasions, but to no avail.’ He adds that others, the small men, also play a role in the encroachment of the walls. His words ‘The small men have constructed kiosks and all sorts of business outfits very close to the moat.They think that if the  big men cannot be apprehended they too should be left alone.At the end of the day we reported some of them to the police who carried out some arrests, but they really could not do anything’.
He maintained that the Oba of Benin has encouraged the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), acting in concert with the palace, to form an NGO which has as its focus the preservation of Benin Heritage and relics. He says that the NGO has also marked buildings which have encroached upon the moat area and the buffer zone. ‘The buffer zone is the recommended distance by law which every property developer gives, that is builders are ashed to maintain a distance of 50 feet  from the edge of the moat, or 100 feet from the middle of the moat. Sooner or later the government may come with bulldozers to remove these structures that were built illegally around the buffer zone. These are efforts we are carrying out to put an end to the encroachment of the city walls and moat’. He explains the logic behind the encroachment in these words ‘If their programme is to run through where the moat is, they pull it down, cover it and put their road there. Edo College is a devastating situation. Edo College has virtually destroyed the moat that is in its environment. They have built their fence on it, and converted a part of it into a rubbish dump. He calls on all stakeholders to unite and stop the destruction of this cultural property of the Edo people ‘which s equivalent to the Great Wall of China’.
Akponana Avwerukeruwe, Heritage Officer, National Museum Benin, in recent scholarship writes. ‘However, it has been observed that the Benin moats and walls is facing threats of depletion, degradation, and destruction on a daily basis due to urban expansion or development processes, which has now made the original location of the boats and city walls, to be hardly noticeable in many areas, as roads, buildings, bridges, fences, major parks are now constructed on the walls and moats. In some cases the walls are completely levelled down, to enable pedestrians go through the moat or excavated for sand filling of foundations of pot holes on the streets’.

NCMM makes a point
Yusuf Abdallah Usman, Director-General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, tells Sunday Trust that sanctions for the protection of antiquities in the country are not sufficient. He says ‘If you deface a monument, you are made to pay an amount to cover the cost of the damage, or go to prison for six months. This law has been criticised for a long time. It needs to be reviewed. The former Minister of culture set up a committee to review all the laws of parastatals under the ministry. These have not yet been presented to the National Assembly’. He says that one reason  which  explains the encroachment upon city walls is the fact that when the wall  is declared a national monument, and  this  has been done in some parts of the country, then the people in the community immediately withdraw from it, viewing the monument as the property of government.
Development pressure is also responsible for the encroachment, he says. Above all, he stresses that the Katsina city walls, in particular, have no clear purpose at present, and that hey are not even protected by law .He adds that the reasons that lay behind the construction of city walls in the past, are no longer tenable in the modern era.His words ‘The purpose for which the city walls were constructed is no longer tenable. These were for defence purposes and there is now no administrative framework for the management of the walls. In the past there were gatekeepers who maintained the stretch between the gates. But there are no gatekeepers today.There is also no need for gatekeepers since the gates are never locked. Finally, he adds that the Katsina city walls could be declared  state monuments  and this  will be a step towards preserving them.Kusugu Well in Daura is a state monument, he adds. He explains that when a  site is declared a national monument ‘By right it is supposed to be protected by the federal government, because it is now federal property. But the resources at our commission may not always be sufficient for this purpose, so we have devised a strategy of involving communities in the management of the monument. There are 64 properties across the country which have been declared as national monuments. These are just a few of the total number that ought to be declared as monuments, but which have not been, declared. The ones we have are crying for attention and it’s not fair to go looking for new ones’. According to the Director General of the NCMM, plans are under way to restore the city walls at sites which have been declared national monuments, using identical materials and designs. In places which are not national monuments, the NCMM intends to sensitise the community about the significance of rescuing the site. He speaks of the German government which assisted in restoring parts of the Kano city walls some years ago, and adds that both Kano and Benin sites are being proposed as World Heritage Sites.