Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 133
Hamman has doubts as to whether the general population knew what their choices were. He
tells us that the campaign was very much based on word of mouth by local chiefs and leaders,
which meant, for the Gwoza hills, the new local Muslim elites based in Gwoza town. Still
today, not only are the roads in the Gwoza area appalling, but they are particularly so in the
hills, and so too are formal education and health services. Unfortunately, Hamman does not
differentiate between plain and hill populations, but we can assume with good reason that the
hill population voted for Nigeria, because they hoped to profit from this. Interestingly, the hill
areas on the Cameroonian side of the Mandara Mountains were much better developed during
my time, with much better roads, better access to formal education, water and primary health
services. Perhaps French direct colonial rule, during the period of mandateship, had left a
more positive historical legacy?
We finally want to introduce our readers to a digital publication by Malcom Cooper (2010)14,
who describes how he travelled the hills during the two plebiscites in 1960/61. It is a first call
eye witness account, with maps and photos of the plebiscites, and we can recommend it to
download and read. He was touring on foot particularly the Madagali and Chubunawa district,
and he presents a very affectionate and extremely informative memoir that I had the honour of
publishing. There are also photographs of Gwoza and Madagali market which he took in
1960, and many other very memorable things.
Conclusion
Perhaps the recent trend of increasing Islamic radicalisation among the montagnards of the
Gwoza hills was a form of a misled rebellion, to overcome a history of social and political
marginalisation. We conclude that this was a kind of history which intensified during colonial
times, especially concerning montagnard versus plain relationships. We argued that the
historical situation had reversed, and that the subjugation to enslavement was most likely
worse among the foothill and plain populations in pre-colonial times, while the hills might
have provided reasonable safety during the days when the Wandala still resided in Kirawa.
We also made the particular point of seeing the Gwoza hills geographically sandwiched
between Kirawa, as a centre of trade and early state formation, and the DGB complex to its
south, as a place where a sophisticated form of terrace cultivation was developed, and in that
context we pointed to the exposure to climate emergencies as being the main underlying
cause of a shared subregional historical past.
We introduced our reader to early written and other key sources, to construct and underpin a
Table of Contemporaneity in which we used palaeoclimatic dates from the water levels of
Lake Chad as an indicator for alternating phases of aridity and humidity in the Gwoza hills.
Together with other types of early sources, this provided us with background scenarios, in the
context of which we allocated Ghwa'a provisionally into the 16th century, and the later
development of Korana Basa into the very wet period of the 17th century. We also compared
legendary Dghweɗe sources with those from the Wandala Chronicles, and argued that the
belief in a Katala-Wandala of the hills had structural similarities with the early 18th century
legendary accounts in the Chronicles. The latter assumed a connection with noble strangers
from the east, and we suggested that this might have been a dynastic adaption of pre-Islamic
traditions, to incorporate outsiders as founders.
The reversal in status of the montagnards, in contrast to the non-Islamic groups along the
foothills and plains, began with the decline of the Wandala state and the intensification of
slave raiding in the hills during the 19th century. Still, even during that late period, the Gwoza
hills remained a fairly safe place against the Fulbe expansion, and the Rabeh’s excursions
never reached there. We hypothesised that it was most likely the traumatic experience of
Hamman Yaji during the uncertainties of the early colonial interim period, which shocked the
Dghweɗe community out of the relative security of their earlier pre-colonial rule under the
14
https://www.mandaras.info/MandarasPublishing/CameroonsPlebisciteMemoir-Cooper2010.pdf
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