Argungu — the grand fishing

The Argungu fishing festival ends on its most famous hour: thousands of fishermen line a stretch of the Matan Fada River that has been protected from fishing for the season, and at a single whistle they all enter the water at once. For about an hour the river churns as men work with hand-nets, calabash gourds for buoyancy and trapping, and often nothing but their hands, racing to wrestle out the largest fish before the time is up. The winning catch can be enormous — well over forty kilograms — and the prize and prestige are substantial. The festival began in 1934 as a gesture of unity when the Sultan of Sokoto visited Kebbi, turning a long enmity into a shared celebration, and it has run intermittently since, suspended in some years for security and water-level reasons and revived again. Around the river the wider festival fills several days: Kabbawa wrestling and boxing, canoe regattas, swimming and diving contests, wild-duck hunting, agricultural shows, and a durbar in which richly turned-out horsemen pay homage to the Emir of Argungu. It is at once a fishermen's contest, a harvest of the river, and a north-western Nigerian statement of cultural identity that now draws competitors from Niger, Chad and Togo.