Origin of Nupe

THE ORIGIN OF NUPE

By Ndagi Abdullahi Amana Nupe

Someone just asked me of the origin of the Nupe people. People always ask me that if many Nigerian ethnicities originated from Nupe, then what or where is the origin of Nupe?

I have seen many authors bandying around various claims that the Nupe originated from Egypt, from Nubia or from the Igala. All these claims are wrong and are nothing but the vestigial traits of the Colonial mentality of the Hamitic Hypothesis claim that for a tribe to be great it must have originated from a higher or superior tribe or ethnicity.

The claim that the Nupe people originated from Egypt was actually the result of the misreading of some Hausa city chronicles by the Colonial historians.

Modern Nupe historians are now claiming that Nupe people originated from an Arabian or Egyptian War General called Uqba bin Nafi. This claim is wrongly based on the similarity between the names Nafi and Nufa or Nupe.

The claim that the Nupe people originated from Nubia was first broached by Professor S.F. Nadel who worked for years in both Anglo Sudan and Nigeria and noticed the similarity between the names Nupe and Nuba.

This claim of a Nubian origin for the Nupe people is now popular among Nupe Islamic exegetes who see a strong similarity between the names Nupe and Nuba and who are eager to interpret and attribute all mention of the term Nuba or Nubia in the Prophetic Hadiths to the Nupe people.

And the claim that the Nupe people originated from the Igala is a monumental mistake committed by both Professor Leo Frobenius and Professor S.F.

Nadel both of whom mistook the now extinct and prehistoric Nupe Kingdom of Tako otherwise known as AtaGara for the Igala kingdom in today's Kogi State.

The real historical AtaGara was a Nupe Kingdom located on the banks of the River Niger around the place where we have the Kainji Dam in the Borgu- Yauri-Zugurma axis of today's Northwestern Niger State. That is the place where Tsudi (Tsoede) came from and not from some fictitious Igala kingdom.

The truth of the matter is that the Nupe people did not originate from Egypt or from Nubia or from the Igala. Nupe people did not originate from outside KinNupe. We Nupe people originated from some very ancient ethnicities here in KinNupe.

The ancient ethnicities from which the Nupe people originated include most paramountly the three Nupe tribal sections of the Eba, the Eda and the Esa.

The Eba are known as the Gwagba today, the Eda are known as the Nda today, and the Esa are known as the Yisa today.

The best answer to the question 'From where did the Nupe people originate?' is that "The Nupe people originated from the River Niger here in KinNupe."

That answer is necessitated by the fact that all the three aboriginal Nupe tribal sections mentioned above trace their Origins to the River Niger.

The Eba said their ancestors came out of the waters of the River Niger here in KinNupe. The Eda said their ancestors sprouted out of the land of the banks of the River Niger here in KinNupe. The Esa said their ancestors came out of the skies above the River Niger here in KinNupe. Almost all the Nupe tribal sections we know today - including the Bini, the Ebe, the Kusopa, the Kiadia, the Dibo, the Cekpa, the Kakanda, the Gbidigi, and so on and on - are all derived from the various miscegenation of the primordial three, namely, the Eba, the Eda and the Esa. For instance, the Bini are the combination of the Eba and the Esa while the Gara are the combination of the Eda and the Eba.

© Ndagi Abdullahi Amana Nupe (0813 798 2743
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