The crumbling history of Danfodiyo’s mosque
We set out from Balle for Ayama by 11: 30am on a Tuesday morning, with my toolkit, comprising my tape recorder and camera, strapped to my left shoulder, as Nasiru Garba, a popular commercial motorcycle rider in the locality, displayed mastery of the terrain as he buzzed through the windy path thinly lined at both sides with shrubs.
I sat firm on the seat to avoid slipping down just in case a shrub hit my feet off the broken footrest at both sides of the motorcycle, my eyes burrowing far into the vast terrain mainly thickly covered with shrubs, stunted desert flora and millet farms. My eyes scanned the environment for any structure resembling a centuries-old mosque.
I was anxious, expectant on seeing a worship house in the mould of Timbuktu’s Sankorei Mosque in Mali and the Mosque of Agades in Niger Republic which have, over the centuries, essentially maintained their original designs, structures and marvelous architectural artistry; or the over 500-year old fabulous rock-built palace of the Xidi Sakun a at the peak of the Sukur Mountain, and the Mosque of Modibbo Adama at Gurin, all in Adamawa State.
The maintenance of the original state of such antiquities is to help secure their histories in their pristine forms as heritage sites of varying pedigrees, as well as sustain the sacred traditions and values they stand out to represent.
We buzzed for about three kilometers from Balle.
Soon we beheld the over 200-year-old Mosque. There is now virtually nothing historical about it, except the name and the location. It is now a newly-built worship house with the design and mould of mosques seen along the streets of Muslim domains in the modern times.
Shehu Uthman Danfodiyo’s Mosque , a few meters from the Kwatto Lake, near Balle in Gudu Local Government Area of Sokoto State has, in terms of design and structure, been completely stripped of its historical and religious significances on the scale of its position in the history of the Sokoto Caliphate.
According to a brief by the District Head of Gudu, Alhaji Bello Ayama, the mosque was first built by Mallam Musa Jakolo, the most notable among the ancestors of Shehu Uthman Danfodiyo in 1430.
An authority on the history of the Caliphate, Sheikh Muhammadu Isa Talata Mafara, the Chairman of the Zamfara State Council of Ulama, dismissed this section of history as unfounded, saying that he has not seen it in the writings of the Shehu, his brother, Mallam Abdullahi, and his son, Muhammadu Bello, or any other impeccable literature on the Caliphate.
“Shehu himself and his father were all born at Maratta in the present day Niger Republic; if Musa Jakolo ever came close to these lands, he could not have proceeded farther from Maratta; as I told you earlier, I have never come across anything like that in all their writings; so I cannot uphold it as true,” he said.
Mukhtar Umar Bunza, a Professor of History at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, also debunked that claim as baseless, saying, “you know everyone can say anything about the Shehu and his ancestors, but without any evidence. I cannot believe that there was any mosque there built by Musa Jakolo, an ancestor of Shehu.”
The Shehu was said to have built the mosque, mainly with stilts and reeds, shortly upon his arrival at Gudu at the fringes of the then Kebbi Empire when he migrated from Degel on the fringes of Gobir to escape persecution from Sarki Yunfa in 1804. The Shehu and the sizeable crowd of his fellow migrant faithful , said to have prayed there while they sojourned at Gudu between 1804 and 1805.
The Shehu’s army, after their victory at the battle of Kwatto, were also said to have offered prayers there and thanked Allah for granting them victory over the forces of Gobir.
Since then, it stood alone in the desert, exposed to the destructive forces of the times, until the Premier of the defunct Northern Region and Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, a descendant of the Shehu, rebuilt it in 1964 with mud on the traces of its original foundation and whatever portions that withstood the destructive winds of the desert and activities of passers-by. He also planted some trees around it to secure both its structure and history.
In emulation of the Shehu, the Premier was said to have observed the weekly routine of visiting it and praying there whenever he was in Sokoto.
Ever since the Shehu and his followers migrated from the
vicinity, through the Sardauna’s weekly routine, only wayfarers along the Balle-Ayama route, herdsmen as well as farmers and residents of the sparse hamlets in the vicinity observe prayers there, not in congregation but individually.
Shortly before the end of his tenure, the immediate past governor of Sokoto State, now Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, awarded the contract for the complete reconstruction of the mosque with a completely different architectural design.
For notable historians and many residents of the mosque’s vicinity, a beautiful structure has been constructed, but a massive degree of history of, not only the mosque, but the defunct Caliphate has been eroded.
According to Professor Bunza, an authority on the history of the Caliphate, the reconstruction of the mosque, first by Ahmadu Bello and now by the Sokoto State government, signified two phases of the destruction of one of the most significant sections of the history, in consideration of the fact that it was the first mentioned mosque built by the Shehu as the Commander of the Faithful, the first mosque built by him outside Gobir, and it was built in the vicinity of the first battle of the 19th Century Jihad - Tafkin Kwatto.
“Yes! Shehu Usmanu built the mosque, and prayed there, but if you are asked for evidence that he did all these, can you now point at any?” Professor Bunza queried with lamentation, stressing, “there is now no evidence whatsoever that the Shehu built the mosque and prayed there; every evidence to show that he did so has been completely destroyed over time.”
For him , the first phase of the destruction of the historical significance of the Gudu mosques was executed in the first republic by the Sardauna , who rebuilt the worship place with mud instead of with similar materials as those used by the Shehu about two centuries earlier, and, as best as possible, with the same design suggested by custodians of the history of the mosque.
According him and other concerned residents, the use of such materials, albeit with some preservative innovations that do not tamper with the origin of the structures, would have told volumes about the historical significance of the mosque, the period it was built and the circumstances under which it was built with those materials and design. Tourists, all kinds of visitors and scholars would have found it a fountain of original history seamlessly connected with the present.
“The total lack of anything with the semblance of the original materials used has structurally completely severed ties between the mosque and its original past, and this is very unfortunate,” the Professor Bunza said.
“Antiquities, artifacts and relics are, as best as possible, maintained in their original state to remind There is now no evidence whatsoever that the Shehu built the mosque and prayed there; every evidence to show that he did so has been completely destroyed over time everyone about the past; as it is now, the Gudu mosque has lost every bit of quality as an antiquity. Yes it is a site, but what is there to show that it is a historical site?” he queried.
“We would all have loved to see the government reconstruct and maintain it with the semblance of originality, even if not completely original, like the mosques of Timbuktu and Agadez.We offered advice , but these were not heeded,” the professor complained, adding, “but we are still trying to meet the government over that; we will not relent.”
He complained further: “Look at even the way the traditional rulers of Gwadabawa destroyed the original structures of the house and tomb of Muhammadu Foduye, the father of the Shehu, at Degel (Gwadabawa Local Government Area) and rebuilt everything with a modern design and construction, instead of maintaining it as it was centuries ago.”
The current reconstruction, it is said, launched the second phase of the destruction of the history.
“When Sardauna rebuilt the mosque with mud, he planted some trees to secure its environment,” Engr. Aminu Mohammed, an official of Gudu Local Government, recounted, “but the contractor executing the current reconstruction not only crushed the mud-built structure but also felled all the trees; they could have told something close to the original history of the place”, he said.
Engr. Aminu said, a large population of Muslims, especially the Fulani, from many states of Northern Nigeria and West African countries, as well as students and scholars from within the country and abroad frequent the mosque, either to commune with the past or to conduct research, “but they will always be disappointed to meet the mosque having nothing that connects it with the past, even if to show how Sardauna rebuilt and maintained it.”
Although an anonymous Sokoto State government official said the contract for the current reconstruction of the mosque was awarded under the state’s Ministry for Religious Affairs, Abubakar Torankawa, Director Planning, and Musa Sodangi, Public Relations Officer, of the ministry, said the project is neither handled nor supervised by the ministry.
The project is said to be awarded to a Hausa musician who composed a song for Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko during his governorship electioneering campaign in 2007.
“The project could have awarded directly from the Governor’s Office, which means it is supervised by the office of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG).
No official at the SSG’s office commented on the contract.
Shehu’s mosque at Gudu now seems to have structurally lost touch with its past.