Traditional Leaders Profiles
Emir Elamin Abdullah Elgadir Daoud of Dilling, Nuba
Mountains, South Kordofan
‘Our traditions have
been eroded. The only thing we have are our languages.’
‘My seat [of office] is 20 kilometres from Dilling,
the northernmost Nuba,’ says Emir Elamin Abdullah Elgadir
Daoud. ‘[And] we have had recent clashes between Nuba
and Arabs. We know our origin as African. We will fight the
Arabs [if necessary].’
Still, despite the troubles at home, the Emir is filled with
bouncy energy, struggling to keep himself in his chair as
we talk. Perhaps it is this quality that made him a standout
athlete on the football team of the SAF defense college in
Khartoum, at which Elamin studied before being posted to Juba
from 1986 – 1989. Eventually rising to the rank of captain,
he was dismissed from the army in 1990 as a ‘coup plotter,’
a ‘threat,’ he says. By 1995, he had returned
to the Nuba Mountains and had become the emir.
‘There are 3 stages of traditional leadership. The
sher, responsible for family groups. The sheikh, for the village.
Then the omda, for those with intermarriage with the Arabs,
or in Nuba the muk. Then the emirs govern the whole communities.’
He is alternately proud and dismissive of the role outsiders
have played in his area, and the Nuba response over time.
‘British colonial forces never entered my village. They
saw the stone defenses and turned back. [Now] we have a school
built by the EC, a health centre from the World Bank, a youth
club. But we have corruption, we are poor, good ideas but
no money. The Chinese came to Nuba Mountains and finished
all the dogs.’
Emir Elamin fears for the future of the Nuba, even within
the ‘New Sudan’. ‘The CPA (Comprehensive
Peace Agreement) is very weak for us, for the Nuba. We helped
the South, they should help us. I fear we may fight again.
The Sudan is a very bad place in the world.’
‘Our traditions have been eroded. The only thing we
have are our languages. [In Ghana,] the strength of the institutions
is self evident. The government consults them constantly.
Traditional structures have evolved. Ghanaian practices stronger
because of rituals. [They have] managed to retain culture
and still modernise. To take the Nuba back it will be very
difficult.’
‘Our government is not strong now. We must collect all
the Jebel Nuba chiefs and tell them what we saw.’
