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Kebbi State

State of Nigeria

  • 8 min read
  • 12 chapters
The famous Argungu fishing festival holding yearly in Birnin Kebbi, Nigeria.
Sani Maikatanga · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Through Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, Muslims and Christianity

Geographically, the state is within the tropical West Sudanian savanna ecoregion. Important geographic features include the Sokoto River which flows through Kebbi into the River Niger, which continues south before reaching Kainji Lake. Among the state's nature are a number of fish species exhibited during the massive Argungu Fishing Festival along with hippopotamus, West African manatee, and transient African bush elephant populations.

Ethnically, Kebbi is inhabited by various ethnic groups, with the Fulani, Hausa, and Zarma peoples living throughout the state while the Achipa (Achipawa), Boko-Bala, Dendi, Dukawa, Kambari, Kamuku, Lela, Puku, and Shanga peoples live along the state's diverse western and southern borders. Religiously, the majority of the state's population (~84%) are Muslims while the remaining are followers of Christianity and traditional religions like Bori.

In the pre-colonial period, the area that is now Kebbi State was mainly controlled by the Kebbi Kingdom, a Hausa Banza bakwai state, until the early 1800s when Fulani jihadists seized part of the area and attempted to incorporate it into the Gwandu Emirate under the Sokoto Caliphate. Over the next century, Kebbi rulers fought Sokoto on-and-off until the 1900s and 1910s, when the British seized control of the area as a part of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate which later merged into British Nigeria before becoming independent as Nigeria in 1960. Originally, modern-day Kebbi State was a part of the post-independence Northern Region until 1967 when the region was split and the area became part of the North-Western State. After the North-Eastern State was split, Sokoto State was formed in 1976 alongside ten other states. Twenty years afterward, a group of LGAs in Sokoto State's west and south was broken off to form the new Kebbi State.

Economically, Kebbi State is largely based around fishing and agriculture, mainly of sorghum, groundnuts, millet, onions, and rice crops. Other key industries are trading, especially in the city of Birnin Kebbi, and the livestock herding of camels, cattle, goats, and sheep. Kebbi has the lowest Human Development Index and sixth lowest GDP in the country.

History

Kebbi state is traditionally considered by Sarki mythology as the homeland of the ƴan uwa bakwai states and Hausa kingdoms.

Kebbi resisted the Fulani jihad of the early 19th-century, but in the later 19th-century, the area largely converted to Islam through peaceful means.

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