Wukari

Wukari is a historic Jukun town in Taraba State, on the south side of the Benue River basin, and the seat of the Aku Uka of Wukari, the paramount ruler of the Jukun people. Jukun settlement at Wukari dates to at least the 17th century, when the town served as a southern hub on a trade route linking, via Bauchi, to the northern Hausa states of Katsina, Kano, and Bornu. Wukari's ruling dynasty is the successor to Kwararafa, a powerful multiethnic Benue-valley confederacy that had risen before 1500 and troubled its neighbours through the 17th century before declining and collapsing amid the Fulani jihad of 1804–1810; by around 1820, the Jukun dynasty at Wukari had taken over Kwararafa's remnants and claimed its legacy, becoming the region's dominant Jukun power by the 1840s. Jukun religious tradition holds the Aku Uka in a form of sacred kingship, regarded as descended from a divine ancestor.