Mbormi: Quiet Village With a History that Thunders

Mbormi is the place   where the Sokoto Caliphate received a mortal blow,  because Sultan Attahiru left his throne without a successor and fled towards Mbormi, with the intention of going to Madina, a holy city in the  Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for he had vowed not to succumb to the colonial masters’ rule.  

Muhammad Adamu Bajoga, alias Muhammad Abbari, a researcher and writer on the origins, war and the conquest of Mbormi, mentions this to our correspondent during the latter’s   visit to the ancient village where the battle of July 27, 1903, took place, leading to the massacre of African natives on their own land by the white colonialists.

Sheik Attahiru   1st as he was otherwise called, was the 12th Sultan in the catalogue of the history of the Sokoto Caliphate after he had succeeded his elder brother who was only identified as Sultan Hassan in 1902.

During the reign of his elder brother, the colonial masters signed a pact with him that granted their company the right to conduct ‘legitimate’ business within and around the Sokoto Caliphate under the auspices of the Royal Niger Company.

While the company was growing in business capacity, the volume of the recruitment of able-bodied African men was also increasing. They had been receiving military training under the guise of physical fitness.

But when Sultan Attahiru took over the mantle of leadership of the Sokoto Caliphate, he did not waste time in revoking the earlier agreement directing the Royal Niger Company to wind up its activities in his domain. This did not go down well with the colonialists and that was the beginning of hostilities between the Sultan and the white masters.

When all efforts to broker peace failed, the colonial masters threatened the Sultan to follow the path of his elder brother or risk an invasion.

Instead of the Sultan to cave in, he remained firm and wrote back to the colonial masters that he was ready to go to war against them.

That was the beginning of the first war Sultan Attahiru fought against the invading white masters. Ironically, the majority of the causalities recorded were from the troops of the colonial masters. After recuperating from the defeat suffered in the hands of the Sultan, the colonialists got themselves reorganised and returned with a more formidable troop to wage another war against the Caliphate.

Having noticed the gravity of aggression from the side of the white masters, Sultan Attahiru summoned a meeting of his people and shared with them a dream which his grandfather, Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio once had.

The Sultan said their grandfather told them that a time would come when the white men would invade and conquer them, and directed that if that happened during the reign of any of them (grandsons) he should migrate eastwards. He noted that with the high level of hostilities growing around them from the colonial masters, he had the feeling that this could probably be the time prophesised by his grandfather.

He said, “our grandfather, Sheikh Usman Danfodio, dreamt of a time that the caliphate would be invaded by some people from a foreign land and ordained that at whatever dispensation the foreigners surfaced, he should migrate eastward.”

As a result of that, he had resolved to migrate to Madina, where he would have a free environment to practice his religion, being an Islamic scholar. His journey to the sacred city of Madina had not begun until the majority of the population under his domain made a resolution out of their free volition to go along with him. That was how Sultan Attahiru’s mass exodus began from Sokoto.

Since the journey was on foot, it took several days for one to cover a certain distance. For that, Sultan Attahiru and his people had to make a stopover after some number of agreed kilometers, to eat and refresh. That was how their journey took them over a month to reach Mbormi.

The Sultan’s  migration became a serious issue of concern to the colonialists  as at every stopover, the people in his entourage increased. That sent another signal to his enemies that if he was allowed to continue, he would constitute a security risk to the established colonial government.

Bajoga explained the situation to Sunday Trust thus: “As the number of the Sultan’s followers began to swell   at every stop over, the colonial masters became uncomfortable with the development for they were entertaining fears that he may reorganise another military base and fight them back. That informed their decision to attack him again,” he stated.

Therefore, they decided to attack him and force him to surrender. But as a warrior, he had those who spied the road for him before embarking on any journey from every stopover. Across River Gongola, beside Mbormi village, the spies saw a heavy presence of colonial military troops. On reporting back to  the Sultan, he decided to settle for some time in Mbormi, the only big  village close to where the colonial army barricaded the road which the Sultan and his people were supposed  to follow. His short stay in Mbormi lasted about four days.

Sultan Attahiru and his followers planned to secretly continue their journey, but unknown to them, the white masters had their native spies in their midst. There was a man identified as Kyari, of Kanuri origin, who was said to have played a significant role in aiding the white men to attack the Sultan and his followers.

Kyari had the advantage of speaking, Hausa, Fulani, English, and his native Kanuri language.

This gave him the advantage to conduct his job with ease, by spying upon the Sultan and his people. For that, on the day they decided to embark upon their journey,  the colonial military troops, under the command of Captain Sword, ambushed and attacked them at a point very close to Bima hill, about 35 kilometers from the   present day Gombe.

This reporter’s guide added: “You know since Kyari could speak all the known dialects in Mbormi, it became easier for him to socialize and hatch his ill-conceived plan.”

However, with this development, Sheik Attahiru and his people had to retreat and come back to Mbormi, where they had stayed for about one month.  Within the span of that period, the Sultan and the colonial masters were exchanging letters calling on Sultan Attahiru to surrender, promising him room to go   back to Sokoto to continue with his reign. But when replying them, he reiterated that he was not willing to go back on his vow.

On July 26, 1903, a letter containing a last warning to the Sultan and the people of Mbormi, was sent by the colonialists, stating that if they failed to surrender themselves that very day,  the colonial military force had no other option than to go to war against  them.

As usual, the Sultan summoned a meeting of the people of Mbormi in the central mosque that was located under a big tree in the center of the town and it was agreed for the people to go to the war front, than for them to succumb. In the early hours of July 27, 1903, the colonial military troops under the command of Major Prince Charles Mash, waged   a war against the Sultan and his people. It ended in not less than 12 hours, but claimed the lives of about 20,000 people.

As the two warring factions were engaged in the fierce battle at the southern gate of the ancient wall of Mbormi, some soldiers from the colonial troops sneaked to the western side of the town where the market was located and set the entire place ablaze, while others went into town setting every house on fire, thereby forcing women and children to run helter-skelter, meeting their untimely death in the process.

This forced some of the natives at the war front to go to the rescue of the helpless women and children, and brought their number at the   front down. This reduced their strength and made it easier for the military to subdue them.  Sultan Attahiru and the Chief Imam with whom he had migrated from Sokoto, were part of those consumed in the pogrom, as the entire village was shelled.

The Sultan was buried very close to the central mosque. The Chief Imam was buried   about 50 meters away from the Sultan’s tomb and Major Mash was buried at the spot he was killed, while commanding with a megaphone on top of a tree. His tomb is at a distance of 150 meters away from that of the Sultan’s grave.

It was also gathered that the remains of those killed during the genocide were piled in the form of a pyramid beneath the tree that was housing the central mosque, and one of the white solders climbed up to the top of the corpses, hoisted the union Jack and made a victory salute.

Major Prince Charles Mash was said to be a member of the royal family of England. Annually, his children and grand children visit his grave on July 27. In 1998, on that same date, the grandchildren of Sultan Attahiru visited their grandfather’s tomb where both sides met. But it was reported that they did not exchange pleasantries for reasons not yet ascertained.

Muhammad Adamu Bajoga says, “It seems as if the pains of the brutal killing is still afresh in the minds of the late Sultan Attahiru’s descendants because they declined to exchange pleasantries with the descendants of Major Prince Charles Mash  who led the genocide of July 27, 1903.”

Mbormi is at present a ghost of its former self because government has banned any attempt by persons to resettle in the area. Therefore, all that one can see in Mbormi today, apart from these three tombs, is the vast farmland of about 1000 square meters.