The Establishment of the Nigerian Sokoto Caliphate: An inquest into the Background History of the 1804 Jihad in Hausa Land, 210 years After

January first 2014, Nigeria became one hundred years after the popular 

1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates by Sir 

Fredrick Lord Lugard. The centenary commemoration of the Nigerian State 

generated very serious scholarly attention than any other issues in the 

annals of Nigerian history. While scholars channels energy in writing on the 

1914 episode or epoch, very little attention have been given to the 1804 

Jihad of Sheikh Shehu Usman Danfodiyo which brought the Sokoto 

Caliphate in to existence, and which was at the same time the headquarters 

of the Northern Nigerian region whose historical union with the southern 

protectorate occurred in 1914. Though some scholars uses the Jihad as a 

background to the discussion on amalgamation, the phenomenon is not given 

sufficient attention pointing its historical relevance to the emergence of 

Nigerian State in the centenary commemoration programme. The attempt 

to bridge this emerging lacuna in contemporary Nigerian historiography 

serves as the basis and the foremost objective of this paper. The paper 

discovers that the Jihad of Shehu Usman Danfodiyo in 1804, in Hausa land 

created the caliphate system that the British came to formalized, and the 

system, which still condition the state of affairs in modern Nigeria. Arising 

from this background, the essay upholds that the background history of 

the caliphate demands serious attention and critical reflection in 2014 

given the historical relevance of the caliphate in the foundation of modern 

Nigerian state.