Biu is a town and a Local Government Area (LGA) in southern

Borno State Borno State is a state in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered by Yobe to the west, Gombe to the southwest, and Adamawa to the south while its eastern border forms part of the national border with Cameroon, its northern border ...

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. The town is the administrative center of the LGA and was once the capital of the Biu kingdom, and is now capital of the

Biu Emirate The Biu Emirate is a Nigerian traditional states, traditional state based in Biu, Nigeria, Biu in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to 1920 it was referred to as the Biu Kingdom. History The rulers of Biu are numbered from Abdullahi, later known as Yam ...

. Biu lies on the

Biu Plateau The Biu Plateau is a highland area in Northeastern Nigeria containing many recently extinct volcanoes. It covers about and has an average elevation of . The plateau lies between the Upper Benue Basin to the south and the Chad Basin to the north. ...

at an average elevation of 626 meters. The region is semi-arid.

History

The name of Biu was initially called Viu which in Babur and Bura Language means high. The Biu kingdom became established around 1670 in the reign of Mari Watila Tampta. King Mari Watirwa (r. 1793–1838), whose capital was near Biu at Kogu, defeated Fulani invaders from the

Gombe Emirate The Gombe Emirate (Fula: Lamurde Gombe 𞤤𞤢𞤥𞤮𞤪𞤣𞤫 𞤺𞤮𞤥𞤥𞤦𞤫) is a traditional state in Nigeria that roughly corresponds in area to the modern Gombe State. Gombe state also contains the emirates of Dukku, Deba, ...

to the west. In 1878 Mari Biya, became the first Babur king to rule from Biu. The emir's palace is now situated in the town. With British rule, Biu division was created in 1918. Mai Ari Dogo was acknowledged as the first emir of Biu in 1920. The area became known as the Biu federation after 1957, when the districts of Shani and Askira were added to the emirate. Maidalla Mustafa dan Muhammad (b. 1915) became Mai Biu, also styled Kuthli, in 1959.

People

The inhabitants of the region are mainly Babur and Bura people (also known as Pabir ),

Tera TERA is a shielded twisted pair connector for use with Category 7 twisted-pair data cables, developed by The Siemon Company and standardised in 2003 by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) with the reference IEC 61076-3-104. The ...

, Bura,

Marghi Margi, also known as Marghi and Marghi Central, is a Chadic language (a branch of Afroasiatic) spoken in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. It is perhaps the best described of the Biu–Mandara branch of that family. Marghi South language and Putai ar ...

, Mina and

Fulani The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people ( ff, Fulɓe, ; french: Peul, links=no; ha, Fulani or Hilani; pt, Fula, links=no; wo, Pël; bm, Fulaw) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. ...

people. Babur, Bura, Tera, Marghi and Mina are

Biu–Mandara languages The Biu–Mandara or Central Chadic languages of the Afro-Asiatic family are spoken in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon. A reconstruction of Proto-Central Chadic has been proposed by Gravina (2014). Languages Gravina (2014) Gravina (2014) classifies ...

of the

Chadic The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...

language group.

Geography and economy

The LGA is mostly located in the northern Guinea savannah (NGA) agroecological zone,Amaza, P. S. ''et al'' (2007) ''Baseline socioeconomic survey report: agriculture in Borno State, Nigeria'' International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria
page 7
with a small portion in the northeast, the Kimba area, lying in the dryer Sudan savannah zone."Annex 3: Communities covered by the socioeconomic baseline survey" Amaza, P. S. ''et al'' (2007) ''Baseline socioeconomic survey report: agriculture in Borno State, Nigeria'' International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria
page 7
The economy is mixed agricultural, based on herding cattle, goats, sheep, horses, and donkeys and farming

sorghum ''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets al ...

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...

cowpea The cowpea (''Vigna unguiculata'') is an annual herbaceous legume from the genus ''Vigna''. Its tolerance for sandy soil and low rainfall have made it an important crop in the semiarid regions across Africa and Asia. It requires very few input ...

, and

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

."National Distribution of Raw Materials: Borno State: Biu"
Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), Federal Government of Nigeria; archive
here
by

WebCite WebCite was an on-demand archive site, designed to digitally preserve scientific and educationally important material on the web by taking snapshots of Internet contents as they existed at the time when a blogger or a scholar cited or quoted ...

as of 7 June 2011 Agriculture consists mostly of small farms using traditional methods. There is a small mining industry in Biu, with

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

, gravel,

magnesite Magnesite is a mineral with the chemical formula (magnesium carbonate). Iron, manganese, cobalt, and nickel may occur as admixtures, but only in small amounts. Occurrence Magnesite occurs as veins in and an alteration product of ultramafic ro ...

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) feldsp ...

topaz Topaz is a silicate mineral of aluminium and fluorine with the chemical formula Al Si O( F, OH). It is used as a gemstone in jewelry and other adornments. Common topaz in its natural state is colorless, though trace element impurities can mak ...

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

, aquamarine, nephelite, and

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

being extracted. , the Gombe-Biu-Mubi road was in poor repair. In early 2022, the area was earmarked to receive vital infrastructure funds from multiple international charities to improve transport links.

Communities

The Biu Local Government Area has a large number of rural communities in addition to Biu, which include:

Health

Malnutrition in southern Borno State is extensive. In 2005,

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; pronounced ), also known as Doctors Without Borders, is a humanitarian medical non-governmental organisation (NGO) or charity of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. M ...

(MSF) set up an intensive care feeding center in Biu hospital, the main referral hospital for the region. In October 2009 there was an outbreak of

Cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

in the area, a disease that spreads through drinking contaminated water. About 600 people were rushed to the Biu General Hospital for diagnosis and treatment. The management of the hospital, in conjunction with the State Ministry of Health, decided to evacuate the patients to an isolated treatment camp.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Borno State Local Government Areas in Borno State