Yauri, Nigeria

Yauri is an emirate in Nigeria's Kebbi State. Today, Yauri is one of the smallest historical emirates in Northern Nigeria. In 1972, the population of the division was about 112,000 people inhabiting a land area of about 1306 square miles and scattered over six major districts.

History

The area was first settled by an eastern group around early 1000-1200 AD, predominantly by a Benue-Congo linguistic group, the Kamberis. Then for a brief period of time, Yauri was invaded by Mali and it incorporated a few Songhai invaders into its social structure. The increasing agricultural surplus exhibited by the early settlers and the availability of fertile land near a river brought in a diverse and malleable group of migrants seeking fertile land to farm, and the groups were initially dominated by the Gungawas. This became the second wave of migration into Yauri. Around the seventeenth century, this group waged a war over the Kamberis and became the dominant political group in the area under the first Emir of Yauri, Sarkin Yauri Ibrahim.

However, by the eighteenth century, slave raiding had clipped the political and economic structures of the area. The need for a much more powerful political entity became necessary in order to strengthen the emirate against slave raiders from without. A movement by the ruling and malleable Gungawas to assimilate with the dominant Hausas in the region led to a gradual inter-ethnic political relationship with Hausas. However, in early nineteenth century, the success of the Funlani jihad made Yauri a tributary state of Gwandu.

Demographics

Yauri's ethnic groups include the Shangawa, (literally, the people of Shanga), the Gungawa, (literally, the people of the Islands), the Dukawa, Kamberi, Hausa, Yoruba. However, the predominance of Hausa's in the socio-political structure of northern Nigeria has gradually increased the transformation of some of the dominant ethnic groups in Yauri to become Hausaized so to say. Today, the Hausa constitutes the governing class of Yauri.

The people of Yauri speak the Hausa language.

Climate

The rainy season is usually between June and October, however, rain sometimes starts in April. During the rainy season most farmers favor harvesting their crops, planting crops and repairing the farms. Festivals and commemoration dominates the rainy season calendar. Harmattan is the other season

References

*Salamone, Frank A., Gods and goods in Africa: persistence and change in ethnic and religious identity in Yauri Emirate, North-Western State, Nigeria.