Biu is a town and a
Local Government Area (LGA) in southern
Borno State of
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. Biu lies on the
Biu Plateau 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 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.
Th ...
,
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 ...
,
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 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, millet, ]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. The ...
, 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 inputs, ...
, 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 pe ...
.["National Distribution of Raw Materials: Borno State: Biu"](_blank)
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 farmsuranium
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) felds ...
, topaz, mica, 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 under ...
, 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 quant ...
being extracted.
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. ...
(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 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