The Magnificence of the Durbars (4)

A thousand pure-bred horses, each so heavily caparisoned that only its extremities are visible, pace slowly into the square. They parade in matched twos and fours, their riders richly dressed in cloth of gold and other brilliant colours, each carrying a cutlass or a lance. Interspersed are troops of brightly costumed buskers, some doing acrobatics, some on stilts, some drumming and dancing. Behind them come the cavalry and the infantry, in impeccable scarlet coats and shakos, carrying flintlock rifles which they will soon fire in a mighty salute…

A scene out of Arabian Nights? An MGM blockbuster about the Crusades? No, a real-life ceremony that takes place twice a year in many of the Emirates in the north of Nigeria.

If you search for ‘emirate’ on the internet, you will find extensive mentions of the United Arab Emirates, historical references to emirates in Spain and the Yemen, and a negligible amount of information about the Nigerian emirates, most of it locked away in learned journals which cost money to access.

Yet these emirates are vigorous survivors of a venerable and glorious past. Proof of this is the fact that they host one of the world’s most spectacular traditions – the Durbars. At the beginning and end of the Muslim festival of Ramadan, the Emir’s subjects come together to pay him homage, Each house strives to outdo the next in the finery of its horses and dress, bringing the head of the house and his heirs to the official attention of their traditional leader. As the month of Ramadan approaches, horses are specially fed and groomed, trips are made to the 1000-year old Kurmi market to buy new matching trappings for the horses, the buskers begin practising their acts, and the square in the centre of each city is freshly repaired and brushed.

A durbar lasts three to four hours and the sheer magnificence of it, together with the palpable evidence that you are witnessing a spectacle that has not changed much in four or five hundred years, would be enough to rate it up there with the Mardi Gras in New Orleans or the Rio Carnival, Also, it’s the genuine article – a purposeful ceremony which takes place for the sole benefit of one man – the Emir, who proceeds slowly into the square, by now densely packed with his subjects, on a pure Arab steed, preceded by camels bedecked in crimson trappings and with his household guard sheltering him from the sun with a huge golden parasol.

So arresting is the spectacle that the loudspeakers through which the Emir addresses his subjects and the occasional pair of classy sunglasses perched on the beaky nose of a fierce Hausa warrior seem more like anachronisms than the rest of the ceremony, which transports you into a realm and place which many would think has gone forever.

This year the Emir of Kano will preside over the 1008th Durbar to have been held in this ancient city, which was the centre of the great West African trade routes from before the time of Christ. The Emir of Katsina will hold a similar durbar, while other emirates in the north hold smaller ceremonies.

If Nigeria were not so isolated by reputation and geography, I have no doubt that many thousands of tourists would flock to attend the durbars. As it is, except for a handful of diplomatic guests and other expatriates the durbars go unnoticed outside of Nigeria.