Story of Rabe, an ‘African Napoleon’

Dikwa town, where he lived, and notoriously ruled for seven years, is currently the capital of Dikwa Emirate. It is located about 86 kilometers east of Maiduguri and connected by a tarred road. The Emirate comprises three local government areas – Dikwa, Kala Balge and Ngala. The latter borders Cameroun and is a trade route […]

Dikwa town, where he lived, and notoriously ruled for seven years, is currently the capital of Dikwa Emirate. It is located about 86 kilometers east of Maiduguri and connected by a tarred road. The Emirate comprises three local government areas – Dikwa, Kala Balge and Ngala. The latter borders Cameroun and is a trade route to several African countries, including Cameroun, Chad and the Central Africa, Republic. Majority of the inhabitants are farmers and traders.

According to available information at the Dikwa Museum which was built by the Germans after conquering Rabe, he was born in 1840 at Haifaya, now a suburb of Khartoum in Sudan to Fadi Allah (his father) and Zaidan (his mother). He sojourned to acquire Qur’anic education at age seven and enlisted into a Sudanese regiment under Egyptian authority at 20, but retired home as a result of a permanent injury sustained on his ring finger. In 1862, he joined the service of Zubair Persia in El-Fasheer in Sudan and was quickly elevated to command Zubair’s elite troops of 4,000 well-armed, disciplined free slaves and captured men. But upon a disagreement with Zubair’s son, Suleiman, who succeeded his father, Rabe split the servicemen under Suleiman, moving away with about 800 soldiers and later joined by about 200 soldiers from amongst Arab traders, thus facilitating the expansion of his army.

Dikwa town and Rabe’s Fort are symbolic to the history of Kanem Borno Empire. “Rabe’s Fort is a very historic place. Any member of the El-Kanemi family would not forget Rabe because first of all, in 1893, Rabe came as an intruder and captured Kukawa, destroyed everything and killed everybody, sent away all the El-Kanemi princes and the Shehus, and installed himself as the sole authority in Borno. After destroying Kukawa, he had no other place to stay, so he came down to Dikwa and established himself as the lord over the area for seven years. He built a place, which he fortified, where he had about 365 rooms which are all destroyed now, except for the one which is upstairs. He sleeps in one daily, so everyday for one year, he would sleep in different rooms”, the Shehu of Dikwa, His Royal Highness, Alhaji Muhammad ibn Shehu Masta II ibn El-Kanemi, narrated.

With Rabe’s ravaging effect about to be felt in Dikwa, the Shehu at the time, Shehu Hashimi, was requested by the courtiers to brace up and wage war against him. Fearing defeat, he refused. So Shehu Kyari who was the son of Abubakar, was installed. At first, he conquered Rabe, but later lost out. According to HRH Shehu Masta II, Rabe slaughtered Shehu Abubakar Kyari, who was his grandfather and continued his notorious rule.

“It was during the reign of Shehu Hashimi in 1893 that Rabe came and ruled for seven years. The entire system in Borno had broken down. There was no El-Kanemi Shehu, nothing! Rabe was the sole authority. So, upon the request of one of the princes, Shehu Sanda Kura, the French colonialists dislodged Rabe. They came, fought Rabe and killed him in Kusseri, Cameroun in 1900. But it was from here that they started the fighting,” Shehu Masta II added.

Investigations by our correspondent reveal that before he was killed, Rabe and his voracious army fought many wars within the French, German and English territories of Borno, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Sudan.

But luck ran out for him on April 22, 1900, after Emil Gentil, who had arrived Kusseri two days earlier and assumed duty as the new French administrator to conquer Rabe who had massacred French troops. Major Lamy, commanding three French troops under the authority of Gentil, began his battle at dawn, attacking Rabe’s stockade at Lakhta, three miles from Kusseri. By noon, the severed head of Rabe was stuck to a stick and his body thrown into the Chari River, somewhere around the Central Africa Republic. Sunday Trust investigations reveal that Rabe was killed by one of his former soldiers, Samba Sal, who defected and joined the French Central African Mission after Rabe jailed him.

It was also discovered that Rabe had three children – two males and one female. His first son and successor, Fadl Allah, was said to have moved into the British sector of Borno, outside of French range and requested British protection, but repeatedly crossed and raided French territories and was later persecuted by the French into British territory. He was killed in Gujba in 1901. The second son was killed at the battle of Kusseri while his daughter, the youngest, was captured and tried for war offences and subsequently jailed for life where she eventually died.

But Ya Kura, the octogenarian descendant from a lineage of male custodians of the Fort, who responded with excitement after my guide went into her thatched hut to notify her of the visit, had , while clasping my two arms in hers and holding on, gave an obscure local version , after pouring out words of welcome and appreciation in quick succession.

According to her, during the fight with the French forces at Kusseri, after killing three French commandos, Rabe swarm into River Chari, went under and remained underneath. She said he spent two and a half years therein, while the French forces kept vigil, waiting for him to appear. Immediately he rose out of the water the French struck and chopped off his head. “The body drowned and sank deeply into the waters and was never found. But his severed head was taken away by the French. If you visit the place, you will find a sign post mounted in memory of the battle,” she narrated.

As such, the killing of Rabe paved way for the re-establishment of the El-Kanemi dynasty and Shehu Sanda Kura, the grandson of Ibrahim, was installed in 1900 as the Shehu of Borno, thus becoming the first Shehu of Borno in Dikwa. Prior to his rule, all the Shehus – El-Kanemi (the founder) and his children, – Umar, Ibrahim, Darman, all ruled in Kukawa.

The emergence of two Shehus in Borno could be traced to the agreement between the French and Shehu Sanda Kura, prior to the dislodgment of Rabe, because before they agreed to dislodge him, he promised to pay them some money. But afterwards, when he couldn’t pay, he was abducted and taken to Kusseri in 1901. In order not to create a vacuum, they appointed his brother, Abubakar Garbai, the grandfather of the present Shehu of Borno as the Shehu.

But due to the scramble in 1902 for African territories by the French, Germans and the British, the British came to Dikwa and persuaded Shehu Abubakar Garbai to relinquish rule on German/French territory for a larger one on English territory in Borno and so, he became the Shehu of Borno.

When Shehu Garbai left Dikwa for Borno, the Germans installed Shehu Sanda Mandara, the son of Abubakar. But at the time, Maiduguri was not in existence and Kukawa was already destroyed. So, his capital was situated in Monguno. Thereafter, Kukawa was re-built and he moved to Kukawa. Later in 1907, he moved to Maiduguri and built the present palace.

Though Rabe terrorized all during his reign, historians have described him as an intelligent scholar and military tactician, because by the time he left as banner commander of Zubair, he had completed his military education. For all his conquests, he employed effective military tactics when confronting powerful opponents and used defence as a major combat strategy, selected battle grounds and improved on available natural features to his advantage. He was also quick and remorseless in his decisions to strike or kill. Before any action, he always gathered intelligence reports.

Outstandingly, he was also said to have employed pigeons as his communication devices.  These, he used as special emissaries and kept them in pots built into the side of the window facing the staircase that leads to his bedroom upstairs. According to locals, he just ties his messages around their necks and they fly away to the destinations prescribed for them. How he spoke to them or managed to control them, no one knows.

And he soon became “well known as an excellent organizer who did not neglect a chance to enhance his authority. He was a close observer of the ways and habits of the people he conquered and enlisted all suitable captives and slaves into his army, making absolutely certain that they underwent military training of the highest standard. Once they became part of the army, they shared in its successes and loot,” evidence at the Dikwa Museum shows.

“Rabe was knowledgeable in Arabic. He escaped as a captive along with some soldiers from his master and settled in Kukawa. Initially, he volunteered to emancipate them from ignorance by providing them with more Arabic knowledge. The refusal by the ruling class in Kukawa, led him to declare war against them, resulting in the eventual death of everyone. Because he had shed too much blood on the land, he sought help from seers about a purified land, where he could migrate to, to continue his reign. This town (Dikwa), then existing as Malari, was chosen for him,” the custodian of the Fort provided.

Investigations by our correspondent reveal that the name Di-wa, which in Kanuri literarily means “settlement of descendants”, was adopted after Shehu El-Kanemi who was passing through the town, conscious of its strategic historical significance, said it should henceforth be referred to as such, saying it became widely known as Dikwa due to interference by non-Kanuri natives who found it difficult to pronounce.

But what made him    most terrifying was his dictatorial and authoritarian reign, which was aptly depicted in a Kanuri native song that was translated into English by Gerain Poux-Cransec in the 1930s. The song depicts Rabe as a great chief, captor and master of the knife of hunger.

Locals who spoke to our correspondent said the mention of Rabe’s name was synonymous with death. One of them recalls that once a man advised Rabe about his fence, which were always crumbling and could not stand the test of time. The man suggested that Rabe should experiment moulding earth with human blood to fortify his fences, so that they could stand the test of time. Rabe, they said, chose to experiment with the man’s blood instead and had him killed. The suggestion by the deceased eventually worked, and many other lives were lost to ensure that Rabe’s fences were fortified.

Rabe’s extraordinary nature is amazing, and it was glaring how much fear and anxiety he generated during his reign, as the tour round the remains of the Fort lasted. Ya Kura told Sunday Trust that during Rabe’s reign, his stable of 4,000 horses, alongside an army of 1,000 soldiers and guns were housed between the outer and inner walls. Local folklore has it that in the Fort, Rabe had 365 bedrooms to himself, choosing to sleep in a separate room everyday for a whole year. 

His army, she said, was fed on a daily basis with seven cows – half in the morning and the other half in the evening.

He also housed an uncertain number of scholars who recited (day and night) the Glorious Qur’an one thousand times in the large room beside the sitting room every day. This, she said, became a tradition and he only leaves the Fort upon the completion of the ritual, adding that, “whoever refuses to indulge in this daily spiritual ritual, amongst the scholars, is killed by Rabe.”

Interestingly, he had 999 women all to himself, out of which only four were legally married to him, with the remaining ones being captured slaves and serving as his mistresses, leaving one to wonder how he could have managed them all. In addition, his children were prohibited from coming near his private quarters. They lived separately in their quarters but were at will to go to their mothers’.

His notorious nature, historians say, combines with an impressive quality – Rabe was a stern disciplinarian who did not distinguish between his own sons and other men , with regards to the non execution of duties or fulfillment of orders. To illustrate his stern and unforgiving disposition, in 1884, he ordered that the throat of his wife, who bore him his only daughter, Fatima be slit. Incidentally, she was also the mother to Fadl Allah and Mohammed Niebe, his only two sons who reached manhood. Why, you may ask? Well, narrations have it that she was falsely accused of adultery.

As we sauntered into his one-storey ancient mud edifice of over 120 years, through the western entrance that links into his private quarters, which is the only visible remains of the once notorious Fort, a symbolic bath tub appeared in a medium-sized room. The enquiry to know if such modernity existed at that time revealed that beneath the tub was a well in which Rabe took his bath. Rather than fetch water in a container, he just went into the well and took his bath, our correspondent was told. But after he was conquered, the Germans covered the well and replaced it with the bath tub, as a symbol to depict what it stood for before the invasion.

To the right was the large sitting room in which he held long spiritual prayer sessions, alone. The conical timber-beamed roof was now covered with large sized spider webs. Facing westwards is a crumbling adjoining staircase which connects with his bedroom upstairs. At its summit are two windows, in which there are small-sized pots housed in the walls of the upper part of the building. These, our correspondent was told, housed his messengers – the pigeons.

At the top of the stairs is his master bedroom, which connects from within, to a wide open balcony (that could cave-in at any moment). This is where he sat to watch over his territory, and relax in the evenings. On two alternate sides of his bedroom walls are impressed two triangular provisions for the placing of oil lamps.

The fort’s outer wall had and still has a main entrance which is provided with a prison quarters on both sides. The second entrance, which houses the main building (his private) quarters, is located some few meters away from the main entrance gate. Four access doors lead into the main building – one from the south, two from the east and the other from the west. He occupied this place alone away from his many wives and children.

Outside the main entrance, a borehole, drilled by the Germans to provide potable water for locals after Rabe’s demise, has almost been submerged in waste water. Beside it, improvised cement and metal washing troughs as washing basins have also been abandoned by the locals.

So far, Rabes Fort is allegedly the only nationally declared monument in Borno State and these dates back to 1959, with its history transcending   the shores of the African continent to the German, French and British colonies. In his days, it was a fortified group of buildings, strategically located in a wide expanse of land in the eastern part of Dikwa town and is aptly depicted by a representation of the original fort on display at the Dikwa National Museum, which is located beside the remains of the ancient private quarters of Rabe.

The Dikwa Museum instituted beside the remains of Rabes once magnificent Fort, is nothing compared to the “dictatorial and authoritarian nature” of Rabe, depicted by the intrigues and struggles that heralded his “monopolization of administration of justice, be it execution or sale of debtors into slavery”, not to talk of the frenzy generated by local myths and folklore at the mention of his name.

The Museum with its torn and unkempt visitor’s handbook that had an entry of not more than fifteen visitors, falls short of expectations from such a huge tourist attraction. The caretaker, a middle-aged man could hardly provide any valuable information about anything. Thanks to the few pastings on the walls of the Museum which provided some information about Rabe. There was a list of his banner of commanders, his special song, a black and white image of his severed head, a map showing his rivalry with Europeans in the Lake Chad, pictures documenting the various social and cultural lifestyles of the Borno natives dating back to 1908, and an architectural depiction of the expanse of the Fort.

There were also no entry restrictions. People walked in and out freely. Some young and old persons were seen in groups, reciting the Qur’an in some of the rooms in Rabe’s private quarters. A borehole by the gate of the Fort by the German conquerors to provide potable water for residents, is almost being submerged by waste water. The concrete and metal troughs provided as washing basins lie in ruins.

An effort to enliven the Fort to its ancient status seems to be on the way with the two walls, similar to the original one built, and the entrance gate and its built-in prison cells, renovated.

But the potential for tourism attraction in and around the Fort is huge. However, if one is to assess the present state of the Fort by the magnificent architectural representation of the Fort on display at the Dikwa National Museum, there is no doubt that it is in ruins. It is hopeful that the recent visit to the Fort by the Minister of Tourism, Abubakar Sadiq Mohammed and the Director-General, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Yusuf Abdallah Usman, along with members of the Presidential Committee on the Restoration of Disjointed Archives, would yield the desired results. The fort, it was learnt, was one of the places marked by the federal government for rehabilitation with work expected to be in top gear.

The team says that the federal government wants to revive the place to make it a research and tourist site. This, observers believe, can be achieved by building a resort around the fort, where the historical items linked to the Fort and Rabe, can be sought worldwide and documented, to pave way for research and recreation.

They add that locally, there is the opportunity to generate and document narrations from the ageing custodian of the fort, before she retires, as well as other historians whose narrations can be authenticated so as to preserve the place which has significant historical links with the Borno history and indeed Nigerian and African history of rulers. Rabe’s history attracts interest, if for nothing, at least for single-handedly abolishing the then 1000 year old Borno Empire and imposing himself and reigning for seven years.