HISTORY OF HADEJIA

HADEJIA HISTORY
Prior to the rise of the emirate Council in
Hadejia, the territory now known as Hadejia
Emirate or Kasar Hadejia, was made up of
seven separate and distinct kingdoms namely:
Garun Gabas, Auyo, Dawa, Fagi, Kazura,
Gatarwa and Hadejia. Unfortunately, these
kingdoms possessed neither historical
documents nor codified oral traditions which
could throw light on their histories. Our
knowledge of these Kingdoms therefore
remains obscure and scanty. Available oral
tradition tells us that the rulers of each of
these seven Gudiri States received their titles
from, and owed allegiance to the Mai of
Borno through the Galadima, whose seat was
at Nguru. Furthermore, the same tradition
tells us that Auyo and Garun Gabas were the
oldest of the seven Kingdoms. The kingdom
of Auyo together with Tashena and Shira of
Katagum emirate were said to be founded in
about 1400 A.D. by immigrants from
Baghirmi, while Hadejia and probably the rest
of the kingdoms were founded afterwards.
The founders and early settlers of all the
Kingdoms east of Kano, we are told, were
attracted to this area by its richness in terms
of grazing land, fertile landscape. and fishing
streams. Hadejia town, for instance, owed its
name and origin to a Kanuri hunter from
Machina, Hade, and his wife, Jiya, who, while
on hunting expedition, became attracted to
the area because of its rivers and other
natural endowments. Hade became the
founder of Hadejia and the first in a long line
of Hadejia Kings - thirty-two in all who ruled
the area before the nineteenth century jihad.
Unfortunately, the names of only three of
these kings have been preserved – Baude,
Musa and Abubakar (Gowers, 1921). The
town and the kingdom, and indeed later the
emirate, got their name when Hade and his
wife Jiya settled in the area, and the people in
the surrounding settlements started to
migrate to, or identify the area with, them. It
is said that the people often referred to the
settlement as Garin (town of) Hade and Jiya
and later merged the two names and simply
called it HADEJIYA, after the name of the man
and his wife. Be that as it may, what emerged
from the little we know is that Hadejia
together with the six other kingdoms in the
region were all at one time or the other
brought under the control of Borno Empire.
They constituted what the Bornoans called
the "Nguderi or "Gudiri' territories. They
remained under Borno's imperial control up
till the beginning of the Nineteenth Century
when the Fulani conquered them and
subsequently transformed them into what
became known as the Hadejia emirate.
The founders of the emirate were a group of
nomadic cattle herdsmen who were
descendants of one Hardo Abdure. They were
said to have come from Machina in western
Borno in search of grazing land; and by the
end of the 18th century a sufficient number
of them had settled in the area due to the
availability of rich pasture. Accordingly, owing
to the growing number of Fulani
communities in the area, Sarki Abubakar, the
last Hausa King of Hadejia, appointed one
Umaru B. Abdure as Sarkin Fulanin Hadejia in
about 1788.