The Bayajidda Legend and Modern Day Nigeria

Ahmadu Bello

In my secondary school days one of the Legends in my History Lessons was the Bayajidda Legend. I found the Legend most interesting and intriguing too. There is this saying that it is important for one to know where he is coming from if he does not know where he is heading to.

In Nigeria today, it is difficult to know where the country is heading to. To aid the search, this article will attempt to highlight some ideas if not facts from a part of Nigeria to aid our understanding of the people. I am happy that this account I intend to recall is not universally accepted.

It would have been really surprising that a set of people in a land of freedom under a constitution with guaranteed rights will let the idea fetter that they were born slaves. How many people like to live their lives under the yoke of descending from slaves?

But some people do in the US. The descendants of the slaves live under that yoke not happily but definitely not in denial. In Nigeria, some people are living in denial. This could be one of the problems of the country. It is better to accept and resolve to do something about it.

In the First Republic, in answer to a demand by Southern Leaders that we Nigerians forget our differences and forge ahead, the Sarduana of Sokoto, the undisputed Northern Leader responded that instead of forgetting our past, we should instead understand our differences.

Indeed Northern politics immensely benefits from this knowledge and understanding of who is a slave and who is a free born in terms not of present day life but in terms of ancestry.

In 1983, straight out of the Television, the Governorship candidate of Unity Party of Nigeria, led by Obafemi Awolowo a Yoruba from South West Nigeria, proclaimed that only a Hausa man was good enough to rule Nigeria.

In modern day Nigeria, recriminations would have followed such a statement. His Presidential Candidate was not from Sokoto but from Ikenne.

Knowing the Bayajidda Legend and understanding its import would shed light on why such a trusted Party man would campaign for his opponent Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria.

The Bayajidda Legend which is disputed by some and lived than by many is the story of a fugitive who arrived Borno from the Middle East. When a fugitive arrives a place, he assesses the place and plots his moves. The fugitive, Bayajidda sized up Borno people and realized they were not as strong as himself and his followers. The King of Borno realizing that and sensing danger, gave him his daughter in Marriage.

Thereafter Bayajidda left for Daura. At Daura he helped the people slay a snake that was preventing people from having easy access to their only source of water. As a reward, the ruler of Daura, a woman offered him half of her kingdom like King Herod to the daughter of Herodias, the smart man just like Herodias's daughter chose instead something else but unlike the Biblical story, he chose the Queen instead, for a wife. That reminded me of a story where a slave asked for his master's goods and the son of the master asked for the slave arguing that the owner of the slave should also own his possessions.

The queen accepted and like Sarah, gave him a mistress not because she could not bear him a child but because she was a virgin Queen who was not supposed to marry. While waiting to prepare for marriage, she offered Bayajidda her slave.

To cut a long story short, the offspring of the queen were the Hausa 7 and the offspring of the mistress were the Illegitimate 7. These legitimate 7 and the illegitimate 7, ruled over 14 towns.

So you know why some people for historical reasons would feel legitimate and see some as illegitimate. We are trying to understand our differences not to forget them.