YINAGU: Yinagu Fishing Festival is now a shadow of itself.
It is a very common practice in Africa for the majority of the individual households or those that wash clothes for others for pay to go to public ponds, rivers or streams to wash the clothes. Also, in addition to the communally dug water wells, these public water sources used to be shared with the cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys and even wild animals. In Margi land, almost all of these public water sources are works of nature. In other words, they are not man made like the communal water wells. The following rivers in the Margi cultural landscape are the main tributaries that drain into Yinagu river: yadzaram, dil-owal, biri-shishiwa, and tsugadi river. The large river called yinagu has been and is still the main source of fish for several Margi towns and villages in both Adamawa and Borno states.
Prior to Nigerian independence, and up to the late 1960s, the ptil (Margi chief) was responsible for setting the date for yearly communal fishing. In the mid-1970s, with the establishment of Local Government, the local government bureaucrats took over the responsibility, and converted the yearly communal fishing into a yearly fishing festival. This brings people from all over the Margi cultural landscape at least once a year.
One might have assumed that the responsibly of dredging and up-keep of the lake would have been done by the local government/or state government together with its other new responsibilities. But as comparison of the old and new photos below suggests, this responsibility has not been lived up to.
In an article in the Journal of Animal Research International (2006: 473–477), Michael Awi published research results from detailed interviews conducted among 200 Margi fishermen, aged 45 and over living around the river tributaries. Awi shows the demand for fish protein due to population increase in the Margi cultural landscape, an increase in farmland; bad farming practices which subsequently cause the blockage of the river tributaries, and poor irrigational practices are among the factors that caused yinagu river to diminish (Awi, 2006). The research was conducted in 5 years period from 1998 to 2003.
There has been only one dam in Margi land; it was dug in Gulak in 1958, but this dam has long been weathered away. According to my informants, the digging was initiated by the colonial authorities in the spot where the mud used to build some of the missionary structure has been dug out, but the work was done by the men of Gulak. According to them, the dam lasted for about ten years before it weathered away because of lack of maintenance.
Marghi cultural heritage is fast getting extinct due to lack of interest by the younger generation who are going to be leaders tommorow. It's important that our endowed sons and daughters of the great margi land should do their best to revive our dying culture. The governor of Adamawa state, Ahmadu Fintiri, should stand up and take this challenge for posterity sake.
Culled from The Evolution of the Built Environment of the Margi Ethnic Group of Northeastern Nigeria By Emmanuel Awidau Birdling (Copyright 2013)
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