MY ETERNAL GRATITUDE TO THE GBARIS

By BM Dzukogi

We probably relocated to Minna from Bida in 1972 or 73. My father, Abubakar Zukogi, had secured a new job as a School Sergeant at Ahmadu Bahago Teachers College, formerly Niger Baptist College, Minna. By 1972, I was seven years old.

We took a train to Minna from Badeggi near Bida. The train had journeyed through Gwarjiko, Wushishi, Zungeru, Kpakungu, and into Minna. You may ask why this is a winding journey. Well, that’s how the colonial masters wanted it: they weren’t just following the rivers but needed such rivers for refreshing abode. So, the rail, a phenomenal weapon for evacuation of produce, raw materials and everything the colonial masters stole from black Africa, were easily taken to the sea and gone forever to London, Portugal, France, Italy, the Americas and elsewhere by it. This sadistic story has not changed; only the forms have today.

We arrived at the Minna railway station, but I can’t remember how we got to Bahago, straight from the station. I guess it was through some kind of Danfo bus or Akori kura. There were no taxis but buses at that time.

Bahago had prepared a boy’s quarters for my dad. School Sergeants were responsible for flogging students who misbehaved in boarding schools. Those were the kinds of jobs people like my father, who didn’t attend any Western school in his time, could do. My mother didn’t do either.

Dad retired as a Prison Warden in Dokodza, Bida, under the Native Authority (NA). Dokodza wasn’t far from Tako Landzu, our area in Bida. I remember he trekked to Bida prison with a long spear then. Our house is the one directly opposite that of Alh. Aliyu Yerima. As kids, we greatly admired Alh. Aliyu Yerima will come from Sokoto or Zaria with a new Land Rover to Bida on a break or during festivities before departing again. He was a Senior Civil Servant in the Northwestern Government of Northern Nigeria. Bida was quiet, and Tako Landzu was quieter, extremely. I did my Primary one at Sabon Gida Primary School, Bida.

It might look like Dad came to Minna to work, but I am beginning to realise that his children’s destiny brought him to Minna, the land of Gbaris. He had only three of us when we came to Minna. He added one girl to us in 1974. That’s all he got, four. I am the second. One is dead. Dad has gone, too.

When we were children in between Ahmadu Bahago Teachers College, Sayeko or Kuta Road or New Market to Paida and back to Ahmadu Bahago in 1978 or 79, what we knew of the name of natives of Minna was Gbari or Gwari. Only a little later did I start hearing Gbagyi. The Nupes call them Gbari, while the Hausas call them Gwari. Later, I also learned that Paiko, Gawu and co were the Gbaris while Kuta and the rest had reserved the name Gbagyi for themselves. However, in my essays, over the years, when you see Gbagyi, I mean all of them, whether in Niger State or elsewhere. If I say Gbari, I mean all of them, as well.

In the history of olden and modern Nigeria, the Nupes are far placed than the Gbaris. Nevertheless, when it came to creating Niger State in 1976, Nupes/Bida wanted the state capital status but failed. Minna got it ahead of places like Bida and Suleja. They got it because of the army officers like Gen. Babangida, Abdulsalam, etc., who were from Minna and were serious actors in the Nigerian Army. Nigerians know the military’s influence on their country’s leadership question and state creation. IBB and Abdulsalam were Presidents or Heads of State of Nigeria at different times. They are all residents of Minna,
though Hausas.

The Nupes are the dominant feature of the Niger State Civil Service. This is a result of their reach in education in Northern Nigeria. Remember, Aliyu Makama Nupe was the Deputy Premier to Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, yet the Makamas/Nupes lost it to the Gbaris through Hausa. After Minna became the capital of Niger State, the influx of the Nupes increased by over a hundred per cent fold. This constituted mainly those working across the Northern region, under Civil Service, until everyone started coming to Minna as partakers or owners of the capital city. This is how we became the Nupes of Minna and neighbours to the Gbaris. This is how the Gbaris started losing Minna to other Nigerlites. Earlier, the Gbaris of Minna lived with some Nupes, Hausas, Yorubas, Igbos, Igbiras, and Idomas, all on different missions relating to railway, commerce, trading, teaching, etc.

In these periods and mixtures, the Gbaris have remained calm, receptive, accommodating, friendly, charitable and undisturbed. Even the Yorubas, Igbos, Idomas, and Hausas, who dominated the Civil Service after the Gbari land became the capital of Niger State, did not encumber them. In their harmless nature, the Gbaris will shift for you to sit or even vacate the place. Chronic farmers! Even the political leadership of the State and Minna have been largely a playground of the Hausas and their helpless collaborators, the Nupes, who didn’t know what to do despite their dominant numbers. Niger is not a Hausa state, but they called the shots since independence. I think it is due largely as a mark of respect for Gens. IBB, Abdulsalam, Sani Bello and the senior military officers from the state. However, the present dispensation points to a changing tide. The calmness of the Gbaris is unmistakenly exemplified by the current Emir of Minna, who is undisturbed and cool. This is not to say all Gbagyis are like that; Alh. Ahmadu Bahago, the first Emir, was a revolutionary, astute political player active in Northern Nigeria.

Why do I need to be grateful to the Gbagyis? It is primarily due to the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation headquarters and HIASFEST.

It is not the Gbaris who trained me to be a writer; if anything was responsible, it was self-thought ignited by Baba Akote; it was not the Gbaris who asked me to found the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation 20 years ago; it is a product of my restlessness. However, in my many years as a writer, no Nupe man or any other tribe has given me lofty garments in Art than the Gbaris. The Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation is a unique organisation in Nigeria with a visible, glamorous headquarters in Minna City. Senator Muhammad Sani Musa (313), a Gbari man, gave me the big building, the first to be built there. None of my contemporary Art Administrators in Nigeria have a thing like that. In fact, not even my elders do. With his gesture, he gave me a befitting beautiful home, and to HCAF members wherever they may be, something they are proud of and call theirs. We have a beautiful Sani 313 Library Literati library in the big building. We also have a Creative Writing Class in it, as well as a Mini ICT Room. My gratitude is immeasurable! The presence of that edifice presents us as a continental art platform that is the envy of many. As soon as the big building came, others started coming too. Like my wife always says: “313 ya yi maka sutura”. Indeed, he has clothed me and given me great happiness.

A Gbagyi man requested a programme he could name after a mother, for which we gave him HIASFEST. HIASFEST may have been moulded in the form of ASCAFS (Annual Schools Carnival of Arts and Festival of Songs), for which I was the draftsman in 1995, or NIFESTEENA (Nigerian Festival of Teen Authors) of HCAF in 2017. Still, none of these two reached half of HIASFEST’s sophistication, glamour, quality and big spending aura. HIASFEST is the largest teen arts festival in Africa. Who gave it to the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation? Under whose grace did it come about and live to be one of Nigeria’s biggest contemporary art festivals? It is Haj. Bala Abdullahi Kwatu, a Gbagyi man. The profile HIASFEST has given HCAF and Niger State has been like an old king acquiring a robe of gold, a horse of diamond, a house of silver, and a life of crystal glass. So, these Gwari men are the phenomenal points in my journey as a Nigerian Art Administrator. Through HIASFEST, many teen authors have been published annually, at least six per year, since 2021. I even take the glory more than Kwatu, who pays the bills. The residency Urban Shelter was funded and built at the HCAF headquarters, the first of the three they pledged through HIASFEST. Farmer Governor Umaru Mohammed Bago recently donated N10m at the finals of HIASFEST. In fact, a bus by Alh. Bala Abdullahi Kwatu is underway. The honour the Gbaris have bestowed on me is huge. This is why they deserve my special tribute and gratitude as I pray to hit 60yrs on January 14, 2025. Amin. A national conference is being planned for the event, including the commissioning of the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation.

Thank you, Gbaris.