A Pre-Colonial Influence Mountain-Top Reminants of Sukur, Settlement: Nigeria

Professor A. A. Fari
&
Adamu Sani Buba
Department of History and Strategic Studies,
University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria
Email: asanibuba@yahoo.com
Abstract
This article examines the pre-colonial influence of what was known as the ―Sukur kingdom‖, which
presumably held sway over various inhabitants and neighbouring villages around the Yadseram
valley was exaggerated. This account of holding sway by this ethnic extraction may not be valid on
face value, as it is doubtful. This is because there is no convincing evidence of the Sukur having
political influence over the Yadseram Valley and its people, as the assertion raises more fundamental
questions. First, there is no tangible explanation about the circumstances that gave rise to the conflict
between the Sukar Kingdom and its neighbouring villages, which led to the former exercising
political influence over its neighbours. Second, this picture of a centralized political power, which
through militarism succeeded in holding sway over the neighbouring peoples in the Yadseram Valley
and the plains, appears to have been stretched too far. This is because Sukur’s Kingdom did not
possess the military power to achieve the political victory, and domination of these neighbours was
conspicuously lacking. Sukur was never a formidable military power or even a petty state. Not only
was it bereft of a cavalry, the usual requirement of a predatory state in these parts, but the only known
‗long-distance‘ raid it ever carried out ended in defeat. This article has analyzed primary and
secondary sources for the reconstruction of this research. The finding is that it might have been
perhaps, emerged as a spiritual kingdom at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
Keywords: Sukur Remnants, Adamawa, Nigeria.
Introduction
This paper is concerned with what remained of the erstwhile centre of influence known as
the Sukur ―kingdom‖, in Nigeria. From the available information, the kingdom did not seem
to have had a deliberate policy of expansion; it may not be disputable that it appeared to
have begun as a nucleus which later assumed a spiritual preeminence and hence exercised
considerable influence over the neighbouring people. There is even very little concrete
evidence that Sukur exercised control over other tiny ethnic groups in the region. The
present condition of the mountain-top settlement of Sukur showed that the settlement is ……..