Outside his palace while not performing an official task, the Emir of Argungu, Alhaji Samaila Muhammadu Mera, CON, looks more like a businessman in deep transaction with the ordinary people, SEUN AKIOYE reports.
It was impossible to miss the arrival of the Emir of Argungu, Alhaji Samaila Mera, even if you were not looking forward to it. His entry into the spacious and gold-coloured palace was heralded by loud greetings from the palace’s domestic staff, otherwise called Dogari, who kept shouting “Taka lafiya da alherin Allah (take a gentle step with the mercy of Allah).
Alhaji Mera entered his palace without a smile but with a kind face. He made straight for his throne which was sandwiched between two other identical but not so impressive ones. He responded to the accolades with a smile and returned the greetings with a raised right hand and a clenched fist. He exuded a pride not derived from arrogance but from a sort of self-assurance.
The palace has been designed to reflect the taste of the emir, which blends modernity with the cultural values of northern Nigeria without leaving out the Islamic heritage of the region. The throne is a blend of the Islamic belief and the British legacy with a crown sitting on it and a lunar moon crescent arising from the throne.
The palace is rigged about the centre of the ancient town, edged by the market and a neighbourhood which looked like it was reserved for the humble residents of the town. The palace, though large and built in the round architecture which depicts affluence and power, retains its humble bearings with its large extensive space providing shelter for many of the town’s poor.
It was a bright Saturday morning and a day before the Emir had sent a message to his subjects for the commencement of the Routine Immunisation (RI) exercise. About 100 children living in the palace and many from the neighbourhood answered the call and gathered at the Emir’s palace.
“This is a very free palace; actually one of the freest in the country,” Senior Councillor to the Emir, Ibrahim Hassan Kwado, a senior counsellor to the Emirate, said as he tried to control the children who were trying to outdo one another in getting a pat from the Emir.
The Kebbi Empire Argungu has not always been the name of the kingdom founded by the Emir’s ancestor, Muhammadu Kanta (1516-1554). It was called the Kebbi Empire and at its founding enjoyed years of tremendous prosperity and military superiority. Kanta, who was a vassal governor of Askia Muhammed, the glorious Emperor of Songhai Empire, rebelled and was able to defeat the mighty Askia in many battles. At the collapse of Songhai Empire, Kebbi inherited a large part of the former empire, sharing borders with North Africa and prospering in trade and warfare.
Surame, presently in Silame Local Government Area, Sokoto State, became the founding capital city of Kebbi Empire until it was moved to Birnin Kebbi in 1700 AD. But the legend of Kanta exists till date in the ruins of Surame, which is said to still possess the power to invoke terror on people.
Birnin-Kebbi served as the capital of the warlike tribe till 1831 following disputes within the royal family and the coming of the Fulani Jihad led to the withdrawal from the capital by King Samaila Karari (1826-1831). After years of wandering, Karari’s son, Yakubu Nabame, was crowned king and in 1849 was able to capture many cities from the jihadists. But Birnin-Kebbi would no longer serve as capital and Nabame built Argungu (AR-Get Ready, Gungu-Powerful Group) which has served as capital till today.
The Kabawa (people of Argungu) are known as vigorous and warlike who built a kingdom through rebellion and courage, and despite the odds have survived annihilation to preserve their heritage. Today, 11 emirs, including Mera, have reigned in Argungu. Muhammed Bashar Gulmar is the Gulman Gulma and one of the kingmakers in Argungu. A proud dark man, knowledgeable about world affairs and a custodian of the Argungu history, recalled the proud moments in the history of the people.
“After the war with the Fulani, Sultan Hassan Dan Muazu paid a visit to Argungu and the Emir organised a fishing festival to honour him. It was a masterstroke and has remained a permanent festival for the Emirate. It may interest you to know that Argungu is the only Emirate with 500 years of unbroken history. That shows you the resilience of the people,” Gulmar said.
The son of Kanta
As a prince growing up in the palace, Samaila Mera must have nursed the idea of stepping into the shoes of his father, Alhaji Muhammad Mera, the 32nd emir of Argungu who ruled for 37 years. But when the mantle eventually fell on him, he was least expecting it.
“Every Prince has an ambition to become a king. But when it happened to me, I was not expecting it,” Mera said without a squint. He was standing in the middle of his farm, a vast 100 hectares of farmland planting rice, millet and five large fish ponds where he experimented with different species of fishes.
It was a hot day in Argungu, and the emir, without his attendants, looked every inch like a businessman who was monitoring his investments. “I was in a position to satisfy my needs, but then my father passed on and it became my responsibility to carry on. I did not apply; it was the rest of the family that came together and said I should represent them in the contest,” he said as he began to feed the fishes in one of the ponds. The creatures responded to his bait and he was happy to show his visitors the different species of fish.
But Mera did not have a walk in the park to the throne. There were 19 people contesting, including a member of the then Supreme Military Council. However, he was so much loved that all the nine kingmakers gave him their vote to become the emir, and the government ratified it.
He said: “It was not something I aspired to at the time, because I had something I was doing and enjoying. I was the Commissioner for Water Resources and Rural Development, which is about five ministries now. But then, what I was really enjoying was being an engineer. I was in charge of projects and designs in the state, and it was a big office with lots of influence.
“We had a lot of work to do in the state. I was busy. I was also a lecturer at the polytechnic for a while. I was living my life the way I wanted.”
Mera came to the throne with a formidable credential. He has a Higher National Diploma in Civil Engineering and a master’s degree in Water and Waste Engineering from Southborough University of Science and Technology in England.
He began his civil service career in 1983 in Sokoto State as a water engineer, rising through the ranks to become the Zonal Water Engineer. By 1994, when he was appointed as Commissioner for Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Development in Kebbi State, he had left his genius on many projects that are still impacting life positively today.
Mera’s qualification and exposure may have helped his determination to become an unusual emir who is determined to touch the people in a way that is not only unique but will have a long lasting impact even if some taboos have to be broken along the way.
One of the first projects Mera embarked upon on becoming the emir was funding education. This is hardly surprising because he is a scholar himself. One day, he drove out of his palace almost incognito without the paraphernalia of office and made for a community not far from his home. At the gate of a school, he turned and entered. It was the Emirate Model Primary School, a boarding facility for brilliant but indigent students of the Emirate, which the emir and his friends contributed funds to establish 20 years ago.
Mera emerged from his vehicle to the warm reception of about 30 boys in the school. One could see the joy in his face as he spoke to them in a fatherly and compassionate tone. Mera turned around and said: “We accommodate five children each from the 30 districts that we have. They stay here throughout the school period. This is trying to lay a good foundation for the children. Many have graduated. We have medical doctors, police officers, military officers from here.
“A lot of the teaching class are drawn from the students. None of these children is from Argungu but from the villages around. We want to give them the same opportunities with our children here in Argungu.”
The story of the school is as inspiring as the institution itself, which is currently undergoing a renovation of many of the classrooms and hostels. On assumption of office, the emir went around the Emirate to undertake a tour of the school facilities and found that those in the districts outside the capital lacked the quality required to impact good education because “teachers don’t like to go to the districts.”
So, apart from working hard to ensure the facilities in the districts are upgraded, he also came up with a scheme where five of the best students from the districts are brought to the capital from primary three. The scheme proved to be one of the greatest success stories recorded by the Emirate.
Mera said: “We started this to ensure that every district has a stake in the future or represented by someone who has a good foundation of education. So we had a fundraising to establish this school.
“They are not trained for free; they have partial sponsorship. But the parents also contribute for their upkeep. They are chosen from the best primary schools can afford. They do primary one and two in the villages and we conduct a common entrance examination and we take the best five and bring them here.”
Twenty years on, the school, according to the emir, is ready to expand. He said: “Last December, we had another fund raising and the idea is to give equal opportunities to the girl child, because, again, we realised we made a mistake because when I went back to find out who are the graduates now in post-secondary institutions, I found they are all boys.
“We decided to build another wing for the girls. We will be bringing girls just like we do boys now, and they will be boarded like the boys.”
I have enough food to last for two years
A visit to the emir is not complete without going to the farm. At a request to visit the expansive 120 hectares of earth grown with different crops and the aquatic, the Emir’s face would lit up in smile and a hidden sense of gratitude.
“All the foodstuffs we eat in the palace are grown on my farm,” the emir began to say as he disembarked from his car at the farm, which was off the expressway. Along the road, women who had come to forage from the remnants of the last harvest paid homage as the emir’s car sped past. A huge brown dog, belonging to one of the eight families that live and work on the farm, rushed to greet the emir, wagging its tail in earnest and attempting to lick his white frock. A man shouted at the dog and quickly pulled it away. The emir did not seem perturbed by the display of this loyal dog, but returned its devotion with a kind and gentle look.
The mood of the emir was not that of a ruler to his subject; it was more of a common spirit bound by mutual love for the earth and the goodness it can generate. The emir had the foresight to farm and ensure every need for food in the palace would be met by his farm.
“I have a large family in the palace. Many people live with me. If I am to buy everything that we eat, I would easily go bankrupt,” he said.
This last statement generated a hearty laughter from his visitors, but not the emir who maintained an indifferent look on his face as he began a guided tour around the different sections of the farm. There is the cattle fattening section where he practised something close to cattle ranching, the fruit tree section which had different species of fruits, the farm itself where he plants rice, millet and others, and one of the most fascinating sections is the fish pond.
“We have a natural pond here and we try to replicate what the fishes would find in their natural habitation. We are raising two classes of fish here: the tilapia and the cat fish.
“All the fish we eat in the palace also are from here, and when visitors come I also harvest for them,” he said with a smile on his face.
The fish section is divided into five ponds. While four are for either of the species of Tilapia cat fish, the emir reserved one for his experimentation with a hybrid of the two with each pond containing at least 3,000 fishes.
“We make our fish food here,” the emir said as he went into a special section of the farm where the feeds are made. “We produce 30 metric tons of fish food and everything we use is produced on this farm,” he added proudly.
The emir seems born for farming, though he trained as a civil engineer with years of experience, handling big projects across the state under his belt, farming seems to put a new kind of joy in his heart. “It’s joy to produce,” he began, standing beside one of the ponds of fishes under the scotching sun. The dog which had continued to follow him around was now trying fruitlessly to catch any of the fishes chasing each other and jumping out of the water. The dog seemed frustrated at this task and soon retired to the shade of a tree.
“I want food security for my subjects and me. I have lots of people to support and I have close to 100 hectares of rice. Every grain of rice eaten in the palace is from my farm. We have absolute food security in the palace. I have enough fishes to last a whole year. So, God forbid, if there is no food anywhere in Nigeria, I have enough food to last minimum two years. I hardly sell anything I produce, even the fruits.”
The emir has approached his farming enterprise with a business mindset and a great sense of duty which can be summarised in his words: “I can’t define a philosophy behind what I do. The only thing is that I have a responsibility which is to help as many people as I can in my community.
“I just want to help as many people as I can in my community. I also live by example. The bulk of our people here are farmers, so if I engage in what they do, I can bring about some new ideas. I engage in agriculture because it is my primary responsibility to feed my family and my subjects. Secondly, it gives me something to do at all times.
“The second industry is fishing. I can’t go out there and fish, but I can raise fish here. So I am giving dignity to what they do.”
Some of the new ideas, he said, are to teach his subjects how to excel as farmers beyond subsistence farming.
“The reason people don’t make money in farming is because of mono-cropping, and you depend on only one crop. Polycropping ensures that each crop supports the survival of other crops. Here, after we harvest rice, we send the cows to the field to pick whatever is left and they in turn fertilise the soil for the next cycle of cropping.”
But he is not stopping the flow of ideas. The emir is already thinking of the future where the farm may become a tourist attraction and there would be need to create a recreation area. Many evenings, he test-runs this idea with the children of the palace.
““We just come here in the evenings under the illumination of the electric lights to watch the fishes late into the night,” he said with a very happy smile.
It is obvious Emir Mera is happy whenever he is on the farm. But deep within him is the desire to cause massive change and create a lasting positive impact.
“I have 100 hectares of rice and I am sure we can be rice-dependent in this country. But our people are in a hurry. We can build a rice-sufficient economy if we are patient. It is sad that we don’t have reserves in Nigeria, and that is one of the reasons I decided to go into farming. Malnutrition is real and we must help our people.
“But when people make a lot of money, they just put it in the banks or buy cars and build big houses. These are things you cannot fall back on in the time of crisis. But when you invest that money in agriculture, everyone benefits.”
Emir Mera’s abiding philosophy is devotion to his people, to help many people in a small way and not just a few in a big way. Bashar Gulmar described him as a committed and charismatic leader who is focused.
“The emir is intelligent and focused and has raised the profile of Argungu. Despite being an engineer, he has been made nutrition ambassador, the Chancellor of North-West University and Northern Traditional Leaders Committee (NTLC) vice chairman.
“He is also a practising farmer who propounded the theory that being a traditional leader does not stop you from being a farmer.”
Muhammed Usman, the Sarkin Dogari in Argungu, shared Gulmar’s sentiments. “This emir has charted a new course for us,” he said as other Dogaris nodded in agreement. “He is quite different from the others and he has not allowed the politics of the day to spoil him. Moreover, he is very kind to the Dogaris and we are also truthful with him.”
Emir Mera also has a great relationship with the other emirs in Kebbi, namely Gwandu, Yauri and Zuru.
“I am the youngest in age but also the oldest amongst them in terms of when I came into the office. We are one big happy family. We care for one another, support and listen to one another, and there is so much respect among us.”
For him, there is only one way he wants to be remembered: “That I care for my people,” he said without a second thought.
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