Nikyop Progressive Youth Condemns The Statement By Southern Kaduna Muslim Ummah Development Association, For Peace initiative In Kaduna

Group Known as Nikyop Progressive Youth in Kafanchan, Southern Kaduna has condemned in totality the recent press statement of SOUTHERN KADUNA MUSLIM UMMAH DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (SOKAMUDA) describing it as fiction and a white lie targeted at destroying the peace and unity among the different ethnic and religious groups domiciled within the region.

The Leader of the group, Pastor Godwin Danjuma Kwalbe, in his reaction said, the SOKAMUDA press statement which was set out to profer solution for the Kaduna State Government toward achieving lasting peace in Southern Kaduna, ended up delivering a fallacious history lecture that was misleading to the inhabitants of Southern Kaduna.

The Intellectual Historian lamented that the history which was cooked up by SOKAMUDA about his people, the Nikyob (Kaninkon) Chiefdom remained an issue of utmost concern to him, and pointed out the need to set the record straight by not keeping mute. At the same time, amateur historians re-write, falsify and misinterprets the concrete/established history which the Nikyop People owe their forefathers, generations to come and the world at large.

The Historian Turned Clergyman expressed commitment to synergized effort with other stakeholders within the Nigerian state and Diaspora toward ensuring that the mounting dust of lies attempting to blur the truth on the Nikyop Cultural Heritage endowed with Natural resources were cleaned.

“SOKAMUDA is selling a fiction that she hopes will become a reality. For instance, section C, ii, SOKAMUDA claims that the Nikyob (Kaninkon) people settled in their present location in 1915 during the reign of one Abdullahi Maje Jos.

“This is so unfortunate that a religious association will print such a white lie.

“Let it be known that this is wishful thinking even though with a covert agenda to shortchange the destiny of our people in their God-given inheritance and to tactically push for the creation of an emirate within our land.

“We, therefore, resist now and will resist anyone in the future nursing the idea of balkanizing our ancestral land.

“We want the government of Kaduna State to watch out and avoid being roped into this irrational and criminal calculation.

“The Nikyob (Kaninkon) people have long been marked as “unknown” by colonial historiographers. It is instructive here for the reader to note that these European writers were always eager to connect African societies with some untrue ancestry or migratory patterns, but could not trace the Nikyob people beyond their immediate environment.

Read Also: Kajuru Unrest: NGO Appeals To Religious Leaders To Spread The Gospel Of Peace

“Therefore, their only option was to tag them as “unknown.” Today, with this written history and much from the wealth of oral tradition, some scavengers want to dispossess us of our inheritance by calling us settlers.

“We want the world to know that ever since the discovery of nickel in large amount and one of the highest quality globally, many of these folk tales began flying around with such claims to discovery in “Dangoma” instead of Kaninkon Chiefdom.

“Today, we are making it categorically clear that Dangoma is only a settlement within Kaninkon Chiefdom, and SOKAMUDA cannot change this truth.

“A search through the list of tribes and settlements in the colonial records of the then Jama’a Federation does not give any researcher a name for either a tribe or settlement like Dangoma.

“The same goes for the tax records. We challenge both Dangoma and SOKAMUDA to disprove this with any primary source from the public space.

” This is very important because the British colonial government relied on taxation as one of its economic life wires and could not have loved Dangoma so much to have exonerated from paying colonial taxes.

“SOKAMUDA and Dangoma should provide colonial records of the population with that of a tribe or settlement called Dangoma and maps of this area that speak otherwise.

“We condemn in totality the hypothesis formulated by them to change the narrative.

“We equally appreciate SOKAMUDA for confirming our report and giving the world a clue to the identity of the perpetrators of this heinous crime, which both the government and media have repeatedly protected by labeling as “unknown gunmen”.

“We demand that the Kaduna State government under the leadership of HE Mallam Nasir El-Rufai hold her responsible for producing these criminals and let the rule of law takes its full course.

“For the sake of God and humanity, the attack on Goska (a peaceful community) was a culmination of series of attacks on the entire district, which extends to areas like Passakori, Mile one, Tudun Wada and adjoining settlements of Gidan Waya.

“Overall, the Nikyob people have lived in their ancestral land and will never accept to be called strangers.

“We are part of the entire Nok Civilisation which spanned between c. 1500 BC – c.500 AD.

“A civilization that was not a Hausa-Fulani innovation and which also engulfed the whole of Southern Kaduna.

” Careful archaeological, ethnographic, and historical- demographic studies have concluded that the present inhabitants of the entire area, are direct descendants of those who perpetuated this great civilization.

“Therefore, the frequently fabricated historical lie that says our ancestral land was an uninhabited place (virgin land) when the Hausa-Fulani migrated into it cannot be corroborated with the hard facts of history.

“Importantly, let the world know it clearly from our discussion that Dangoma is a settlement in Nikyob Land! The inhabitants were originally freed slaves and labour force for the Jama’a emirate.

” They are part of the group as Rumada and Dalle who are neither Hausa nor Fulani but got assimilated into Hausa or Fulani ethnic group.

” In this case, the people of Dangoma were assimilated into the Fulani group. They were originally settled in Nikyob Land by the British (within the second decade of the 20th century) who chose our people because of their peaceful disposition to serve as their host.

“The name Dangoma translates to “ten persons.” It has neither Fulani nor Hausa meaning different from this.

” The first people to be settled here were ten in number; that was how they were scattered in other places like Dalle, Rumada, Ungwar Matsirga, etc.

“With this population, if our fathers had wanted war, they would not have been a match for women fighters.

“We have treated them as brothers. With the knowledge of hindsight, we equally recognize that, like the South African white population, they cannot trace their existence beyond our land except for recent settlers among them.

He described Nikyop Chiefdom as the land filled with milk and Honey and called on SOKAMUDA to desist from fomenting crisis in the Holy- land to avoid being punished by the Almighty God.

“We also call on the government of Kaduna State to play her role as an unbiased umpire (as the constitution provides) in the face of the increasing unrest across the state. He Concluded.