Waja

Olusegun Opadeji

Introduction
The term urbanism, as applied to sub Saharan Africa until recently, has been euro-centric
(Effah-Gyamfi, 1986) and believed to be a post-colonial phenomenon. This is changing due
to more recent contribution by anthropologists, geographers and archaeologists (Effah-
Gyamfi, 1986; Okpoko, 1987). Okpoko (1987) is of the opinion that scholars from other parts
of the world, due to their experiences, ―see an urban centre as being marked among other
things by such features as writing, monumental architecture and large population. While these
are true of south west Asia they are not true of West Africa where urban centres or states
were already very much in existence before the art of writing as practiced by the Arab or
European worlds developed‖ (Okpoko, 1987). The conclusion amongst all scholars is that it
is not easy to define settlements from one standpoint. Although there were suggestions on the
criteria to look out for before classifying a settlement as urban or rural, no consensus has
been reached. Some of these suggestions are population size, evidence of writing, social
structure and economic activities.
Hausaland is situated in the savanna which makes it easy to attract archaeologist
attentionwhen compared with such centres south of Nigeria such as Benin or Old Oyo,
Ibadan, Orile Owu, Abeokuta and others that are either in the forest region or in the woodland
savanna of Nigeria. The history of state formation in Hausaland had been attempted by
different scholars and Smith (1970) identified two distinct political institutions in Hausaland
namely; non state political institutions where political authority is founded on kinship
relations and state-like political institution where political authority is not based on kinship
relations and transcends family groups. At a point in history, the family groups or gidaje
which only recognized the mai gida were common. At a higher level was the collection of
family groups living in hamlets known as Kanyuka. The relationship was based on kinship
but the head, mai unguwa was only a distant relation of some of the members of the
settlement. Higher than this, was the gari (town) with Sarki as the leader. This developed as a
result of the Kanyuka being attractive to other immigrants who were not related to the
inhabitants of the settlement. The authority here was above that of the family groups. The
highest level was when gari (town) expanded to become birni. The birni meaning a walled
city had arable land, a semblance of specialization and fortification for protection against
invaders, and an army. Birni had political and economic control over neighbouring gari.