It has been over 160 years since Malam Umaru Nagwamatse, the valiant warrior prince of the Sokoto Sultanate, performed that miracle at Tadali village, near, Kontagora in Niger state.
Oral traditions had it that Nagwamatse had arrived the village from an expedition with his warriors at about the time of the afternoon prayers. He sent his contingent in search of water with which they could perform ablution.
“When they couldn’t find any, Nagwamatse then scratched that exact spot with the fingers of his right hand and the water gushed from the bosom of the earth which he collected for his contingent to perform ablution,” Malam Abdullahi Musa, a community leader, recounted to North Central Trust during a visit last Thursday.
He said later, the villagers, who hitherto had problem of water, dug a well to conserve it. Several decades on, the well still satisfies the most basic needs of the communities around it, quenching their thirst and also draws pilgrims from around the country and beyond to the community because of the myth about its curative potency.
The water from the well is believed to possess powers of curing different ailments including barrenness. Our correspondent ran into Malam Abubakar Suleiman, 54, from Plateau and his friend, Abdulrazak Adebayo, both onion dealers taking gulps from table water bottles during the visit.
Adebayo said his visit to the well has become a yearly ritual since the spiritual healing from an ailment he battled for five years. “A friend, Abdulmumin from Plateau brought me here four years ago and taking the water from the well for few days, I regained my health and since then, I visit here every year to access the water for my personal use,” he explained.
According to Abdullahi Musa, the curing power of the water was observed by wayfarers about 100 years after the first time it was used by Umaru Nagwamatse and his contingent.
He said the water has never gone above or below six feet level ever since, in spite of trucks of jerry-cans of it carried by water merchants from different locations within and outside Nigeria.
“It has never dried up ever since, neither has it been dredged,” he pointed out. Visitors still marvelled at the water’s cleanliness, crystal clarity and taste.
Today, the well stands as one of the most notable legacies of Nagwamatse who was also the founder of the domain of the Sudan of Kontagora with his two sons, Abubakar Modibbo and Ibrahim Nagwamatse. It had become one of the monuments inherited by the Niger state government as a tourist attraction.
In an attempt to further preserve it, the state government had erected a fence round it along with a roof. Before the state government’s intervention.The Native Authority and the Northern Nigeria administrations had at different times shown interest in its preservation by erecting walls around it.
According to Abdullahi, the late Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello had stopped over at different times during his many visits to Kontagora. “It is the point where the then Sarkin Sudan normally waited to welcome, the late Premier, “ Abdullahi explained.
However, our correspondent observed that the popularity of the well has hardly rub off positively on the host community and its people. The community is no doubt in dire need of infrastructure and lack the most basic of amenities.
Abdullahi said they have no channel of tabling requests for their needs to the higher authorities except during electioneering when politicians come around to solicit for their votes.
“They only come around when they need our votes only to disappear when elections are over and never return until four years later with the same promises which are never kept,” he lamented.
Around the community, posters of persons who contested for various offices in the just-concluded general elections are on display. However, the community lacks health facilities, schools, electricity even as the ancient well serves as its only water sources despite being few kilometers away from Kontagora, Nagwamatse’s dwelling place which also serves as the headquarters of the emirate and the local government council.
The people of the community mainly of Hausa and Kambari stocks, want a better life and appealed to the state government to honour the memory of Nagwamatse by providing them with basic things of life.
