The Kadara people make up one of the largest ethnic groups in Southern Kaduna, an area south of the present Kaduna state of Nigeria. A great number of this ethnic group are found in the Eastern part of Minna, the Niger state capital with a high concentration of them in the Northern part of Abuja, the federal capital territory.

The Kadara land covers an extensive area of about 9080sq.Kilometres. They are estimated to number about  3.9 million according to the 1973 census, (National Archives, Kaduna. 1977). Because of the teaming population of this ethnic group, the Kaduna state Government recently created two new Chiefdoms in Kadara land with Kachia and Kajuru as their headquarters.

The Kadara people are an ethnic group that enjoys living together in small village settlements, with an organised way of administration, based on the village setting. They are great farmers and hunters. Among the common and most stable food crops grown are guinea corn and millet, with rice, cotton, groundnuts, tobacco, sugar cane, ginger, yam and Soya beans as the main cash crops. Another important aspect of agriculture engaged in by the Kadara is animal rearing; cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry are among those animals reared by them.

The historical origin of the Kadara people has not yet been fully ascertained and documented, and until that is done, one can as of now depend only on oral tradition to understand how they came to occupy their present territories. One tradition traces the origin of the Kadara to the Dala Hills in Kano state. Another oral tradition maintains that they (especially the Kadara of Ankuwa) migrated from the area around the Plateau Hills, west of Plateau state to their present settlement. Temple, a historian maintains that, "little is know of their origin and history, beyond the fact that they inhabited their present territories some centuries ago, and the mention of a beri-beri invasion and conquest of Kajuru" (Temple C.L, Notes on the tribes of Northern Nigeria, London, 1962. 179). 

One thing interesting about the two traditions of the history of the Kadara people is that both trace their origin to the Hills of Dala and Plateau. It is little wonder then that the areas presently occupied by them are around the hills and mountainous regions. The Kadara people believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, who is the creator of the universe. He could be reached through much lesser spirits found in the ancestral world, spirits of certain animals, stones and a host of impersonal forces. We have among the Kadara adherents of both traditional, Islamic and Christian religions.

The Kadara as well as many other ethnic groups in the North, have been victims of a lot of abuses and neglect over the years. Despite their contributions to the economic and political growth of the region, they still are being seen and treated as hewers of wood and drawers of water. Kadara land badly needs a good road network that will tap the vast resources lying wasted in that neglected and prosperous area. This will in turn usher in infrastructures that will boast the talents and riches of the Kadara people, that God has so lovingly endowed them with.

I call on all Adara sons and daughters to arise and set our people free from injustice and the rule of evil, because these two prevail only when good people do nothing.

For further inquiries about the above subject, please contact  

Rev. Fr. Thomas D. Shekarau Ankuwa.
Kaduna Archdiocese (on secondment to London, UK.)