Kafanchan

James (2000) asserted that the indigenous inhabitants of the Kafanchan town and environs, the Fantswam people (who speak a dialect of Tyap), added the prefix "kwa" to all names of peoples and places, hence, the phrase, "kwa Fantswam". However, the Hausa immigrant elements who interacted with them found it more convenient to pronounce the phrase, kwa-Fantswam, as Kafanchan.[4]

The town developed as a result of British colonial commercial activities, i.e. a railway junction town in the early 20th century. This fact brings another claim as to how the name Kafanchan came into existence. It was said that the name originated during the Nigeria railway construction period in the 1920s, when the railtrack crossbars were being laid, the white man would say in Hausa "kafachan", meaning leg there, i.e. 'put your leg there', then a crossbar would be laid after the labourer widens his leg, pushing a leg forward. Hence, the name Kafanchan.

In the words of the Agwam Fantswam I, Musa Didam,

“latter-day settlers corrupted Fantswam to Kafanchan.”

In addition, he viewed the popularising of the word as a work of the British colonial authorities. The colonial writer, Harold D. Gun, was also stated to have rendered the spelling as "Kabanchan" and gave names related groups using their non-native words on pages 80 and 81 of his book, "Pagan Peoples of the Central Area of Northern Nigeria," such as Kaje, Kagoro and Kaninkon instead of Bajju, Agworok and Nikyob, accordingly.[1]

In the oral narrative given by the Agwam Fantswam I, reported by a Sun Travels reporter, the original home of the Fantswam (Kafanchan) people was traced to Inkil, a settlement in the eastern part of the Bauchi State, 5 km from the modern city of Bauchi. The people were said to have left Inkil to settle at a riverine settlement called Bunga, and later on at Karge to the south. Having discovered that there was no enough game around Karge, being hunters, they moved across Zalan to the Jos Plateau, settling temporarily at the present abode of the Anaguta and Jarawa peoples, before proceeding through Rahama, Kauru and subsequently settling at Mashan in Atyap Chiefdom. A need birthed their advancement down to Magata, Kacecere, Zali (Malagum) and then to their present abode, Kafanchan, where they discovered enough games and protection from slave raiders, due to the thickly forested environment and thus chose to stay.[1]

A version by Simon Yohanna (in History of the Fantswam People) has it that the Fantswam "by historical evidences and cultural treats" came from the Bauchi area alongside their Atyap kins, probably around the 17th century AD, from Mashan, split, venturing to Zali (Malagum) where a member of the migrants shot an elephant, which ran into the forested eastern fringe of the Gworok hills with available wild bananas natively called tsuntswan, whereat they adopted the name "Fantswam". Being hunters, they pursued it until they met where it fell within the plains. They finally settled there and became the aboriginal inhabitants of the present day Kafanchan plains.[5]

A wave of migration caused by human and environmental factors such as the Fulani Jihad and slave raids and famine caused other kin sub-groups such as the Nikyob (Hausa: Kaninkon), the Bajju and the Atyap ("Mabatado") to settle among the Fantswam.[5] In the early years of the Fulani Jihad of the early 1800s, the Fulani ran being annihilated by the Kajuru Hausa chief. Usman Yabo led his people from Kajuru to settle in a place they named Jama'a Dororo meaning "people of Dororo" and founded an emirate amidst the people who gave him and his people the portion of land where they stayed, south of Fantswam territory. After the formation of the Plateau province (1926), in 1933, the British colonial authorities encouraged the migration of the Hausa-Fulani community of about 955 from Jama'a Daroro to Kafanchan town. The new community settled in the area they called "Jama'a Sarari", a Hausa-Arabic phrase meaning "people of the plains". The Jama'a Emirate is a vassal state of the Zaria Emirate.[6][7][8]

In addition to the colonial officers and missionaries who came in the 1900s, the completion of the busy railway line linking the Kaduna station with the Kuru and the Port Harcourt railway stations in 1927, enabled Kafanchan to experience a heavy influx of migrants from all over the country in search for job and trading opportunities, most notably, the Igbo people from Nigeria's southeast, many of whom left before the Nigeria Civil War in 1967, although some later returned. Yorubas mainly from Ibadan, Ogbomosho and Offa in the southwest also came and settled in considerable amounts in the expanding town, some of whom brought with them their handworks and trades. A good number of the Igbos were engine drivers or rail engine mechanics.[1]

M. G. Smith noted that the Fantswam had been regarded by the British colonial government and writers like C. K. Meek as the part of the Agworok (H. Kagoro) under the Jema'a emirate, not until about the late 1950s were they recognised as a distinct political group.[9] Their town served as the site of the British Divisional Headquarters for Jema'a.[10]

After the death of the emir of Jama'a in 1998, there were resentments to the turbaning of his son as the next emir. In 1999, the son of the late emir was unpopularly turbaned, leading to a public uprising in Kafanchan. The Southern Kaduna indigenous people of the area, under the auspices of the Indigenous People of Jema'a (ICJ) responded to the turbaning by filing a suit against the Kaduna state government at the Kafanchan High Court. The Southern Kaduna people clamoured for the scrapping of the emirate system on their soil, as it was an alien institution imposed on them by the British colonialists.[11] A result could not be ascertained until the new democratic regime came into being.

However, in the year 2001, the then-governor of Kaduna State, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, created the Fantswam and Nikyob-Nindem chiefdoms amidst over ten others in the Southern Kaduna area, thereby partially ending the 20th century imposition of the Fantswam people and her kins under emirate rule.[12] However, the Jema'an emirate still remains an institution of the Hausa-Fulani inhabitants.

Today, Kafanchan is a melting pot of many Nigerians from parts of southern Kaduna such as the Gwong and the Ham, and other parts of Nigeria.

Fantswam, otherwise known as "Kafanchan" is a dialect of Tyap, alongside six or seven others: Gworok, Sholyio, Takad, "Mabatado" Tyap, Tyeca̱rak and Tyuku, and also Jju seems to be a dialect of Tyap.

The town has several public educational institutions including primary, secondary and tertiary schools, a High Court, a Magistrate Court, multiple commercial bank buildings, a branch station of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), a General Hospital.[1] The town also houses the headquarters of a Christian ministry, Throneroom Trust Ministries.

Kafanchan's railway station is the headquarters of one of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) seven national districts and hubs, the North Central District, comprising states such as Benue, Kaduna, Nasarawa and Plateau States, whose rail network links Nigeria's south and north.[1]

The earliest educational institutions in the town include: the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Gin School, formerly Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) School; and the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) School, New Saint Peter Claviers.

As of 2007, Kafanchan housed public educational institutions in the state such as: Kaduna State University (KASU), Kafanchan Campus; Kaduna State College of Education (KSCOE), Gidan Waya; Kaduna State College of Nursing and Midwifery; a Federal Science and Technical College; and at least eight primary schools.[1]

The economic fortunes of Kafanchan grew as long as the Nigerian railway industry thrived. Its growth came to a decline, however, with the fall out of the railway. According to the town's monarch while recounting the good old days, as narrated by Sun Travels,

“Kafanchan was very vibrant, while the railways functioned.”

— Musa Didam, Agwam Fantswam I (2001-2018)

Before the rise and even after the fall of the railways, the Fantswam people's major occupation is agriculture, and like the natives of Chori, Kwoi, Nok and other areas in Ham land, the Fantswam also grow high quality ginger in abundance in addition to beans, guinea-corn, millet, maize, yam, cocoyam, rice and fonio (F. tson, H. acha). Their town served as a collection centre for ginger and other agricultural harvest.[1]

Hospitality and tourism

Ka̱byek Tityong waterfalls

Around the town is a waterfall known as Ka̱byek tityong (Hausa: Matsirga, English: River Wonderful) with a beautiful scenery, located around Batadon (Madakiya) of Bajju chiefdom and Advwan (also Aduwan) District of Fantswam chiefdom, with underdeveloped tourist attraction potentials, although an indigenously owned resort, Fantswam Resort was of late established around the waterfall area in Advwan IV, Kafanchan.

Kafanchan is home to some hotels such as: Wonderland Unity Hotel, New World Hotel, Kasham Hotel, Afili Guest House, Golama Hotel, Leisure Castle and Royal Castle, and others.[1]

The main town earlier comprised two wards of the existing 10 in Jema'a Local Government Area (LGA), namely: Kafanchan A and Kafanchan B, each with a District Head. Today, other wards like Takau, Maigizo, Atuku, Kaninkon, and Gidan-Waya have fully and partly become part of the town. The other eight wards in the LGA have four District Heads.[1]

• Joseph Bagobiri (late Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan and of St. Peter's Catholic Church, Kafanchan)
• Biyi Bandele, Nigerian filmmaker and writer
• HRH Agwam Musa Didam, Agwam Fantswam I
• Joe El, Nigerian musical artiste
• HRH Agwam (Dr.) Josiah Tagwai Kantiyok, Agwam Fantswam II
• Osita Nebo, clergyman, academic
• Onuora Nzekwu, Nigerian writer, editor
• Emeka Offor, Nigerian entrepreneur
• Emmanuel N. Onwubiko, Nigerian journalist

• Railway stations in Nigeria
• Southern Kaduna