Bida

Bida, town and traditional emirate, Niger state, west-central Nigeria. The town is on the Bako River, a minor tributary of the Niger, and lies at the intersection of roads from Jebba, Zungeru, and Agaie. Originally a small settlement of the Beni (Bini) people, a subgroup of the Nupe, it was captured about 1531 by Tsoede (Edegi), the founder of the Nupe kingdom and the first etsu Nupe (“king of the Nupe people”). When the kingdom was conquered about 1806 by Fulani warriors, its central region was incorporated as the Nupe emirate in the Fulani empire. Emir Usman Zaki proclaimed himself etsu Nupe in 1835; and, after defeating Umar Bahaushe, a rival Fulani emir, in the Nupe civil war (1847–56) at Bida, he named Bida to replace the emirate’s old capital at Raba (Rabba), 67 miles (110 km) west.

The town wall, which now encloses 5 square miles (13 square km), was begun in the 1850s. During Emir Masaba’s second reign (1859–73), when Nupe became the most powerful kingdom in central Nigeria, Bida’s three royal palaces, the night market, and the central mosque were constructed. Trade relations with the British Royal Niger Company were established in 1871. Later disputes over both trade and slave dealing led to a British campaign against Nupe and the defeat of the Fulani army at Bida in 1897. The reinstatement by Nupe of the Fulani emir ousted by the company led to British occupation of the town in 1901. Under British rule, Nupe emirate became known as Bida emirate; and in 1908 it was incorporated into the newly created Niger province. Bida’s emir resides in a palace outside the town’s west gate.

Modern Bida is well known for its crafts, notably brass and copper goblets, other metal products, glass beads and bangles, raffia hats and mats, and locally dyed cotton and silk cloth. The craftsmen work by hand on their own premises in distinctive wards and are organized into close-knit guilds. Most of the town’s predominantly Nupe population live in mud houses that are grouped into customary compounds. The town is the chief collecting point for the swamp rice cultivated in the fadamas (“floodplains”) of the Niger and Kaduna rivers. Bida also trades in yams, sorghum, millet, shea nuts, tobacco, cotton, peanuts (groundnuts), palm oil and kernels, onions, indigo, sugarcane, fruits, goats, sheep, and pottery.

Bida is the site of a federal polytechnic and other colleges. Pop. (2006 est.) urban agglom., 235,000; (2022 est.) urban agglom., 400,000.