The Establishment of the Nigerian Sokoto Caliphate: An inquest into the Background History of the 1804 Jihad in Hausa Land, 210 years After

January first 2014, Nigeria became one hundred years after the popular

1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates by Sir

Fredrick Lord Lugard. The centenary commemoration of the Nigerian State

generated very serious scholarly attention than any other issues in the

annals of Nigerian history. While scholars channels energy in writing on the

1914 episode or epoch, very little attention have been given to the 1804

Jihad of Sheikh Shehu Usman Danfodiyo which brought the Sokoto

Caliphate in to existence, and which was at the same time the headquarters

of the Northern Nigerian region whose historical union with the southern

protectorate occurred in 1914. Though some scholars uses the Jihad as a

background to the discussion on amalgamation, the phenomenon is not given

sufficient attention pointing its historical relevance to the emergence of

Nigerian State in the centenary commemoration programme. The attempt

to bridge this emerging lacuna in contemporary Nigerian historiography

serves as the basis and the foremost objective of this paper. The paper

discovers that the Jihad of Shehu Usman Danfodiyo in 1804, in Hausa land

created the caliphate system that the British came to formalized, and the

system, which still condition the state of affairs in modern Nigeria. Arising

from this background, the essay upholds that the background history of

the caliphate demands serious attention and critical reflection in 2014

given the historical relevance of the caliphate in the foundation of modern

Nigerian state.

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