HADEJIA EMIRATE ORIGIN
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 Unfortunately, these kingdoms possessed neither historical documents nor codified oral traditions which could throw light on their histories.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. On the outbreak of the 19th century jihad under Shehu Usman Dan Fodio in about 1805, Sarkin Fulanin Hadejia Umaru was reported to have sent a delegation to pay homage (bay'a) to Shehu Dan Fodio. The delegation from Hadejia was led by Umaru's younger brother Muhammadu Sambo and his cousin Laraima. The delegation returned to Hadejia with a flag symbolizing that Umaru had been recognized as Shehu's lieutenant in the region and thereby authorized to wage the jihad against the pagans and nominal Muslim leaders in the Hadejia-Auyo axis. Also, the Shehu authorized Laraima, Umaru's cousin, to wage the jihad from Marma against the Kingdoms of Fagi and Dawa. However, it ought to be noted that most members of the delegation that accompanied Sambo to visit Shehu were not ethnic Fulbe, which partly explains the reason why non Fulani later dominated civil as well as military offices of the new emirate. The possible reasons which accounted for the refusal of Umaru's kinsmen to be in the delegation to the Shehu were partly political and partly economic. For one, they feared that should the powerful Chief of Auyo come to know that they were planning to join the holy-war he would certainly have dealt with them ruthlessly. Fremantle, writing in 1910 adduced another, more prosaic, reason when he argued that the Fulani Chief's men preferred tending their cattle to accompanying Sambo on his visit to Shehu, hence the overwhelming presence of non-Fulani group rather than Fulani in the delegation (Fremantle, 1910).
The course and aftermath of the jihad in Hadejia area can be briefly summarized as follows: The jihad started in 1805 with a series of attacks on Auyo territories. Rinde was the first target to be forced into submission, followed by Akurya. Subsequently, the powerful force of Sarkin Auyo was defeated by the Jihadists. Indeed, within the span of three years the Jihadists under the leadership of Umaru and Sambo took possession of Auyo, Hadejia, Gatarwa, Garun Gabas and Kazura Kingdoms. These five Kingdoms, after being amalgamated under one leadership, become transformed into the emirate of Hadejia. The remaining two kingdoms of Fagi and Dawa were initially given by the Shehu to Laraima who settled at Marma and assumed the title of Sarkin Marma, a kind of sub-emirate of Hadejia. However, after the death of Laraima the sub-emirate of Marma was incorporated into Hadejia emirate by Buhari thereby bringing the emirate roughly to its present size.
COLONIALISM PERIOD
Lugard the first High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria from the onset was faced with a problem of how to administer this large area with the limited resources of men and funds. It was in order to remedy this problem that he adopted the machinery of local administration to rule indirectly instead of directly. In the protectorate system of government, the High Commissioner was the representative of the British Crown and head of the Executive. The functions of the executive and legislative councils were all entrusted to the High Commissioner. It was left to Lugard to re-organise the territorial and fiscal bases of native administration in Northern Nigeria.
In February 1906 the revolt at the village of Satiru some few miles outside Sokoto leading to the death of some soldiers including three European was swiftly suppressed by the traditional leaders of Sokoto although the British did not ask them to do it. Whatever were the causes of the Satiru revolt, its main impact was to show dependence of the British on traditional rulers who ruled the Muslim Emirates of Northern Nigeria and vice versa. It changed the relationship of the British officials and loyal traditional leaders from subordination based on force to near parity based on common interests.
Therefore when Lugard was expounding the indirect rule system he forbade British officers at Provincial and Divisional levels to give orders to the traditional rulers instead he charged them with advisory roles5. From then onwards the British administration made it their number one priority to maintain and safeguard this mutual relationship by suppressing anything actual or potential that threatens to upset the smooth ruling of indirect rule system. Top on the list was Mahdism. Others include activities of Christian missionaries, introduction of secular western education and creation of sabon gari.
The Emir of Hadejia Usman (1925 – 50) admitted to the Governor the negative impact caused by this slow progress of secular western education12. Last but not least the establishment of Township settlement into European areas and Native areas known as Sabon Gari (new town) within the Muslim areas was done to segregate the non-Muslim natives from Southern Nigeria whose culture was alien to that of the Muslims In their effort to defend Indirect Rule system sometime the British officials become more conservative than the traditional rulers. For example in 1937 the Emir of Hadejia Usman wanted to appoint an able man to his council. But the British official objected because he was of slave origin. In spite of the fact that it was part of the traditional political system of Hadejia.