Yola (Nigeria)
| Yola | |||
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| Coordinates | 9 ° 14 ' N , 12 ° 28' E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Nigeria | ||
| Adamawa | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | NG-AD | ||
| height | 190 m | ||
| Residents | 88,500 (2004) | ||
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Yola is the capital and administrative center of Adamawa State in Nigeria . The city is located on the upper reaches of the Benue River , which had its most important port here in the 19th century. Yola was founded in 1841 and was the capital of the Fulani until the occupation by the British in 1901 , the population of the city was around 88,500 in 2004. Figures from 2007 speak of a population of over 100,000. Daytime temperatures are usually over 40 ° C in the dry season.
Yola has now become a twin city: It consists of the old town, in which the traditional government ( Lamido on Fulani) has its seat, and the new city of Jimeta (approx. 5 km northwest), which is the current administrative and economic center and With over 140,000 inhabitants, it is almost twice as large as the old Yola. Both parts have long grown together, and the mention of the name Yola basically means both parts. North of the city are the Mandara Mountains , south the Shebshi Mountains with their highest point Dimlang (named after its former German explorer in 1854 Eduard Vogel Vogelspitze) at 2042 m . Yola is considered the starting point for excursions to the Gashaka-Gumpti National Park and the Mambilla Plateau .
history
Yola was founded around 1841 by Modibo Adama , a regional Fulani leader. During the Islamic religious war jihad, which was led here by Shehu Usman Dan Fodio in the 19th century, Modibbo Adama was considered to be his natural leader in the region of the Benue upper reaches.
Heinrich Barth (1821–1865) was probably the first European in 1849 to reach the city on one of his expeditions shortly after it was founded.
On September 2, 1901, Yola was captured by the British West African Frontier Force and the seat of a British resident. In place of the expelled Amir Djubayru b. Aadama put the British whose brother Bobb Ahmadu b. Aadama as ruler in Yola.
Since the spread of the terrorist group Boko Haram in northern Nigeria in 2010, Yola has been repeatedly the target of attacks by this group. The most devastating attack to date occurred on November 17, 2015, when a bomb exploded in a crowd in the Jimeta district shortly after evening prayers. At least 30 people were killed and over 80 injured.
Infrastructure
Yola-Jimeta has a market, both a mosque and a Catholic cathedral, an extensive public transport network with buses and taxi buses, an airport to the west of the center and a zoo. With its good infrastructure, you can reach Mubi and Maiduguri in the north, Numan , Gombe and Bauchi in the west, Makurdi and Katsina in the south . An expressway connects the city with the airport, which is not served daily. There is a state polytechnic and the Federal University of Technology Yola (FUTY), both about 10 km away on the road to Mubi. There are also other schools, some with a very good reputation, such as the private American University of Nigeria (AUN) , which is based on the American system .
Individual evidence
- ^ Deutsche Welle: Many dead in a bomb explosion in Nigeria. November 17, 2015, accessed November 18, 2015 .