THE ANCIENT CITY OF ZARIA (I)

Zaria, a city in Kaduna state, Northwestern Nigeria, on the Kubanni River (a tributary of the Kaduna), is also the headquarters of the Zaria Local Government Council and the traditional Zaria (Zazzau) Emirate, it is served by road, rail and by an airport just to the northwest of the city.

Zaria is an old walled town founded in about 1536 and later in the century became the capital of the Hausa state of Zazzau. Both town and state were named for Queen Zaria (late 16th century), younger sister and successor of Zazzau’s ruler Queen Amina.

The city-state's power peaked under Queen Amina whose military campaigns established a tributary region including the kingdoms of Kano and Katsina. At the end of the 16th century, after Queen Amina's death, Zaria fell under the influence of the Jukun Kingdom and eventually became a tributary state itself. Between the fifteenth and sixteenth century, the kingdom became a tributary state of the Songhai Empire.

In 1805, it was captured by the Fulani during the Fulani Jihad. British forces led by Frederick Lugard took the city in 1901.

Present-day Zaria has four main areas: the old walled town, inhabited by Hausa and Fulani peoples, which has numerous Islamic schools; the residential areas of Tudun Wada (which handles the old section’s overflow) and Sabon Gari (the “African strangers’ settlement”), which were established early in the colonial period; and the township for the non-African community.

The largest marketplace is in Sabon Gari. Other more recent neighborhoods include, Danmagaji/Wusasa, PZ, Kongo, GRA-Zaria, Hanwa, Bassawa, Lowcost Kofan-Gayan and Shika.

The old walls, the combined length of which is 15 miles (24 km), have eight gates and a large market is still held on an ancient site.

Zaria is a major collecting point for cotton , tobacco, peanuts (groundnuts), shea nuts, and hides and skins. Cotton, peanuts, and shea nuts are processed locally and sent by rail to Lagos (430 miles [690 km] southwest) for export.

There is an important market for sorghum, millet , soybeans, brown sugar, onions, locust beans, baobab leaves and fruit, cowpeas, kola nuts, cloth, cattle, sheep, and goats.

Cotton ginning became Zaria’s chief economic activity after the opening of the railway in 1910, but leather tanning and cotton weaving and dyeing are traditional crafts of its Hausa inhabitants.

Other significant industries include railway repairing, furniture making, cloth printing, cigarette and cosmetics manufacturing, and basket making.

Because Zaria is north of the rail junction at Kaduna, it has equal rail access to the seaports at Lagos and Port-Harcourt. From 1914 to 1927, Zaria was the break-of-gauge junction station for the Bauchi Light Railway to the tin mines at Jos.

Zaria is the educational centre of the northern states. Located at Samaru, 7 miles (11 km) Northwest of Zaria city, is the Ahmadu Bello University (1962), the largest university in West Africa and the second largest in Africa, with its associated institutes of education, economic and social studies, administration, and health.

Zaria also houses the Barewa College, a school known for the large number of elites from the region that passed through its academic buildings and counts among its alumni, five who were Nigerian heads of state, including the late president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

There are two other famous schools in Wusasa, where the former head of state Yakubu Gowon resided: St. Bartholomew's School and Science School Kufena formerly known as St. Paul's

College.

Samaru is also the site of the Institute for Agricultural Research and Special Services (1924) and the Leather Research Institute of Nigeria.

At Zaria are Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Training Centre and a branch of the Katsina College of Arts, Science, and Technology.

Zaria also has a commercial institute, a fine-arts school, and a school of pharmacy. There are several hospitals, chief among them is the Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital in Shika, and a nursing school.

Some notable people from Zaria are, incumbent governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, Dr Nuhu Bamalli (First Republic External Affairs Minister), Auwal Albaniy-Zaria (Islamic Cleric) and Hajia Gambo Sawaba (reknown politician) among others.

Other people who were born or grew up in Zaria include, Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd), Daniel Oyebanjo (D'banj), Shola Ameobi, Bola Ige, Vice President, Namadi Sambo, Umaru Dikko, Eugenia Abu and Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo.

By Abubakar Muhammad Musa (Saraki)