Kano City Walls: An African Treasure and Delight

[Music] Cano the commercial nerve center of the north and second largest city in Nigeria boasts of many things modernity structure vibrant culture leadership Commerce great people with vitality in values and pride in its norms and traditions it is in this ancient city that Lord Frederick lugard discovered a most unique and sophisticated brand of architecture the Cano City [Music] walls the world is about 1,000 years it was done in uh 1095 so that's in the 11 Century so now we are in the 21st century so it's about ,000 years old and uh it took several years to to build it uh different rains uh spanning almost 400 years because it was completed in the 1600 a for from Wars and interference in a 1903 report about Caro walls lugat said he'd never seen anything like it in Africa parts of these walls exist today close to a thousand years since they were built the gates constructed a thousand years ago still have remnants that can be seen and vastly appreciated in the 21st century [Music] it has two values at the time it was done it had economic value and it had uh military or we say defensive value because it was like a defense for the city uh so the economic part of it is that it stimulated economic growth because many people were employed and by the time the British came uh they even confirmed one of the British officials I think maybe he later became a governor general when he was given a report in 1904 he said that there was nothing like it in Africa the Cano City wall the perimeter of 11 miles so surrounding the city so in that respect it was a great heritage of Cano of [Music] Africa in PR times there were a lot of Wars before the Jihad of d fodio there were Wars within the house of states after that there were Wars between uh the house of states and the states in ner like deogam uh it was a major threat always attacking kanu earlier there was were no attack even during the Sak califate but even before the Sak califate all these people were praying on house States so they need protection and that's why they did it and uh when the British came it was also very very difficult and impenetrable they had to use the big cannon to hit the gate which was uh they didn't have this kind of uh military machine in coun at that [Music] time the gates known as Cofer have unique names and significance they exist for economic and strategic reasons for protection Expedition and cultural roles the original Gates that maned these walls are found at the Cano Museum a visit to this historical site reveals a lot more about the vibrant culture and press of Cano [Music] how can this great National Monument be preserved Cano state government in 2014 gave the gates a facelift but more can still be done to preserve this National Treasure with its unique design and craft Koo City walls show the civilization Africa boasts of and a reminder that our indigenous kills can indeed uplift our continent we do all we can all we can and one of the ways we do to protect these things is we seek for help foreign aid you know they give grants well I think Germany has done that the UK has done that all they do is come and restructure these buildings back to their normal you know the original formation and since it's traditional architecture is we have to use we have our staff that are trained on that they are the ones that we usually use just to make sure that these buildings do not Disappear Completely [Music]