Kaduna

Kaduna, city, capital of Kaduna state, north-central Nigeria. It lies along the Kaduna River, which is a major tributary of the Niger River.

Sir Frederick (later Lord) Lugard, the first British governor of Northern Nigeria, selected the present site along the Lagos-Kano Railway for a town, and building began in 1913. In 1917 Kaduna (a Hausa word for “crocodiles”) replaced Zungeru, 100 miles (160 km) west-southwest, as the capital of the Northern Provinces; it also served as capital of the Northern Region from 1954 to 1967. Lugard Hall, the legislative assembly building constructed in simplified Islamic style, stands at the head of the main street. The assassination in Kaduna of Sir Ahmadu Bello, sardauna (sultan) of Sokoto and Northern premier, in an Igbo (Ibo) military coup in January 1966 led to the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70).

Since the late 1950s, Kaduna has become a major industrial, commercial, and financial centre for the northern states of Nigeria. It has a branch of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Most industries are grouped south of the Kaduna River near the main railway junction. The city has cotton-textile spinning and weaving mills; knit fabrics are also produced in Kaduna. The food industry produces beer, soft drinks, baked goods, and processed meat. Light manufactures include leather goods, plastics, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, furniture, and televisions; and there are several printing and publishing firms. The city’s heavy industries make steel and aluminum products, cement, asbestos cement, concrete blocks, electrical motors, ordnance, and explosives. There are a steel-rolling plant, an automobile assembly factory, and an oil refinery (supplied by an oil pipeline from the Niger delta oil fields). A petrochemicals plant began operations in the early 1980s. Kaduna is also a centre for the construction industry. The city serves as a collecting point for cotton, peanuts (groundnuts), shea nuts, and hides and skins; there is also a considerable local trade in sorghum, millet, corn (maize), kola nuts, goats, poultry, and cattle.

The Kaduna Polytechnic college (1968), the Nigerian Defense Academy (1964), and Kaduna State University (2004) are located in the city; it also is the site of Christian teacher-training colleges. The Nigerian Geological Survey Agency has a research centre there, and a geology museum is found in Kaduna. The National Museum features exhibitions on the culture of the northern Nigerian states. Kaduna has a racecourse and the Ahmadu Bello Stadium (1964). The Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) Research (1961) and the National Eye Centre are located in Kaduna.

The trunk railways from Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Zaria form a junction in the southern part of Kaduna, and the Lagos-Kano highway passes through the city. There is an airport north of the city. Pop. (2005 est.) 1,375,000; (2016 est.) urban agglom., 1,685,000.