Kaduna
Encyclopedia

Kaduna is the state capital of Kaduna State
Kaduna State
-History:The state is the successor to the old Northern Region of Nigeria, which had its capital at Kaduna. In 1967 this was split up into six states, one of which was the North-Central State, whose name was changed to Kaduna State in 1976. This was further divided in 1987, losing the area now part...

 in north-central Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

. The city, located on the Kaduna River
Kaduna River
The Kaduna River is a tributary of the Niger River which flows for 550 kilometres through Nigeria. It got its name from the crocodiles that lived in the river and surrounding area. Kaduna in the native dialect, Hausa, was the word for "crocodiles"....

, is a trade center and a major transportation hub for the surrounding agricultural areas with its rail and road junction. The population of Kaduna is at 760,084 as of the 2006 Nigerian census. The symbol of Kaduna is the crocodile, called kada in the native Hausa
Hausa language
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...

 language.

History

Kaduna was founded by the British
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

 in 1913, and became the capital of Nigeria's former Northern Region
Northern Region, Nigeria
The Northern Region was one of Nigeria's federal divisions. It was created before independence in 1960, with its capital at Kaduna. In 1962 it acquired the territory of the British Northern Cameroons, who had voted to become part of Nigeria....

 in 1917. It retained this status until 1967.
Persons hailing from Kaduna include Emmanuel
Emmanuel Babayaro
Emmanuel Hyacinth Babayaro is a Nigerian footballer. He is a goalkeeper, best known for being older brother of former Chelsea and Newcastle United player Celestine Babayaro....

, Celestine Babayaro
Celestine Babayaro
Celestine Hycieth Babayaro is a former Nigerian footballer.-Club career:Babayaro began his playing career at Nigerian side Plateau United, before moving to Belgium club Anderlecht in 1994, and eventually would make a name for himself, quickly gaining first-choice status although still a...

 and Victor Moses
Victor Moses
Victor Moses is a footballer who plays for Wigan Athletic. Moses can play in a variety of positions, but in the first-team games he has taken part in so far, Moses has mostly played as a left winger...

 (Nigerian footballers) and Fiona Fullerton
Fiona Fullerton
Fiona Elizabeth Fullerton is a Nigerian-born British actress.She is perhaps best known for her role as KGB spy Pola Ivanova in the 1985 James Bond film A View to a Kill and as Alice in the 1972 film Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Fullerton made her film debut in 1969 with a role in Run Wild, Run...

 (British actress and former Bond girl
Bond girl
A Bond girl is a character or actress portraying a love interest, of James Bond in a film, novel, or video game. They occasionally have names that are double entendres or puns, such as "Pussy Galore", "Plenty O'Toole", "Xenia Onatopp", or "Holly Goodhead"...

)

The Nigerian Islamic umbrella association Jama’atu Nasril Islam
Jama’atu Nasril Islam
Jama’atu Nasril Islam is an umbrella group for the Muslim community in Nigeria. The organisation is based in the city of Kaduna, and its president is the Sultan of Sokoto. The organisation conducts Islamic education and missionary work in the region, and has had particular success amongst recent...

 is based in the city.

Religious strife

Due to its religious makeup, Kaduna has been the scene of religious tensions between Muslims
Islam in Nigeria
Fifty percent of the population of Nigeria adheres to Islam, compared to Christianity which represents 40% of the population. Islam came to Northern Nigeria as early as the 9th century CE, and was well established in the Kanem-Bornu Empire during the reign of Humme Jilmi...

 and Christians
Christianity in Nigeria
Christianity is a major religion in Nigeria accounting for about 50% of the population. Based on a 2003Nigerian Religious and Demographic survey, Christians comprised 48.2% of the Nigerian population. Christians are dominant in the southern and central region in Nigeria...

, particularly over the implementation of shari'a law in Kaduna State
Kaduna State
-History:The state is the successor to the old Northern Region of Nigeria, which had its capital at Kaduna. In 1967 this was split up into six states, one of which was the North-Central State, whose name was changed to Kaduna State in 1976. This was further divided in 1987, losing the area now part...

 beginning in 2001. In February 2000, approximately 1,000 people were killed in a particular riot. The city remains segregated to this day, with Muslims living mainly in the north of the city and Christians in the south.

Another incident in 2002 stemmed from an article in a Lagos
Lagos
Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...

 newspaper that offended Muslims over the upcoming Miss World
Miss World
The Miss World pageant is the oldest surviving major international beauty pageant. It was created in the United Kingdom by Eric Morley in 1951...

 pageant scheduled for that week in the capital city of Abuja
Abuja
Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria. It is located in the centre of Nigeria, within the Federal Capital Territory . Abuja is a planned city, and was built mainly in the 1980s. It officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing Lagos...

, suggesting that if Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...

 watched the beauty pageant he would end up marrying one of its contestants. A massive riot ensued. Churches were among the most frequently attacked targets: More than 20 were burned by Muslims. In retaliation, Christians burned 8 Mosques. Several hotels were also burned. The city suffered widespread damage, and 11,000 people were left homeless. In particular, the local offices of the newspaper which had published the offending article were torched. As a result, thousands of civilians fled the city to escape. Civil unrest soon spread to the capital city, Abuja
Abuja
Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria. It is located in the centre of Nigeria, within the Federal Capital Territory . Abuja is a planned city, and was built mainly in the 1980s. It officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing Lagos...

. After four days of rioting, Nigerian security forces quelled the riots and arrested hundreds of rioters. A Temporary curfew was imposed, although individual killings continued. 215 bodies were counted on the streets or in morgues, while some others were buried by their families. 1,000 people were also wounded. The funerals of many of the victims took place shortly after the riot ended. Muslim rioters were tried in Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 courts, while Christian rioters were tried by Civilian jurisdictions. The editor of the Lagos newspaper that had provoked the riots was arrested, and Isioma Daniel
Isioma Daniel
Isioma Nkemdilim Nkiruka Daniel is a Nigerian journalist whose 2002 newspaper article comment involving the Islamic prophet Muhammad sparked major religious riots and caused a fatwa to be issued on her life.-The 2002 Nigeria riots:...

, the reporter who wrote the article resigned and fled to Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

.

Kaduna was also the place where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , popularly referred to as the "Underwear Bomber", is a suspected terrorist who attempted to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan, on December 25,...

, the suspect of the terrorist attempt of arson on Northwest flight 253 in December 2009, grew up and returned to while on vacation.

Education

Kaduna is home to the Nigerian Defense Academy (1964), Kaduna Polytechnic (1968), Ahmadu Bello University
Ahmadu Bello University
Ahmadu Bello University is the largest university in Nigeria and second largest in Africa, second only to Cairo University, Egypt. It is situated in Zaria. It was founded on October 4, 1962 as the University of Northern Nigeria....

 (1962), Kaduna State University (2007), Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research (1951) and the Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology.

Economy and transport

Kaduna is an industrial center of Northern Nigeria
Northern Nigeria
Northern Nigeria is a geographical region of Nigeria. It is more arid and less densely populated than the south. The people are largely Muslim, and many are Hausa...

, manufacturing products like textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...

s, machinery, steel
Steel
Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

, aluminum, petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

 products and bearings
Bearing (mechanical)
A bearing is a device to allow constrained relative motion between two or more parts, typically rotation or linear movement. Bearings may be classified broadly according to the motions they allow and according to their principle of operation as well as by the directions of applied loads they can...

.

Pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 is highly prized from Kaduna, especially from the nok culture, which precedes Abuja and Minna
Minna
Minna is a city in west central Nigeria. It's the capital of Niger State, one of Nigeria's 36 federal states, and is the headquarters of Chanchaga Local Government Area.- Geography :...

. The main highway through the city is called Ahmadu Bello Way. Many of the place names come from past sultans, emirs and decorated Civil War heroes. Kaduna has a large market, recently rebuilt after an extensive fire in the mid-1990s.

There is a large racecourse, approximately one mile round, inside which the Ahmadu Yakubu Polo Club and Kaduna Crocodile Club are situated, whilst the Kaduna and Rugby Clubs are on the periphery. There are two airports, one of which is Kaduna Airport
Kaduna Airport
Kaduna Airport is an airport serving Kaduna, a city in the Kaduna State of Nigeria. The airport consists of a single terminal.Kaduna also has an older airport located southeast of this newer airport.)-Airlines and destinations:-Accidents and incidents:...

.

Chanchangi Airlines
Chanchangi Airlines
Chanchangi Airlines Nigeria Limited is a privately owned and operated airline with its Administrative Head Office in Kaduna in Nigeria. It operates scheduled domestic passenger services...

 has its head office in Kaduna.

Railways

In September, 2009, construction was approved for a railway branchline to the national capital of Abuja
Abuja
Abuja is the capital city of Nigeria. It is located in the centre of Nigeria, within the Federal Capital Territory . Abuja is a planned city, and was built mainly in the 1980s. It officially became Nigeria's capital on 12 December 1991, replacing Lagos...

.
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