25/08/2026
THE CHAKFEM: A PEOPLE WHO KEPT THEIR NAME
The name Chakfem is easy to miss when reading older accounts of Plateau State. For years, outsiders often placed the people under larger neighbouring identities, particularly the Mwaghavul, who were formerly called Sura in colonial records. Yet Chakfem is not merely the name of a village or a branch of another people. It is the name of a people, their language and their country. Chakfemland lies in present-day Mangu Local Government Area, neighbouring Mangun and Jipal communities and the Mushere of Bokkos. Significantly, the territorial name Chakfem existed before British rule.
Their own traditions do not begin with one founding father arriving with an entire nation behind him. They remember different clans arriving at different times and by different routes. Among the clans recorded are Formto, Kopdok, Gurumtal, Luhutben, Mwhafin, Pangde, Nakop and Amko. Several traditions point toward Borno, but the journeys differ. Some ancestors are remembered as passing through Bauchi and Gung in the Pankshin area; the Mwhafin tradition remembers a route through Shere in present-day Nasarawa State and Mushere before reaching Chakfemland. The clans did not arrive together under one leader. They settled separately and gradually became part of the community now called Chakfem.
That makes Chakfem identity particularly interesting. What made the people one was not necessarily descent from a single ancestor. It was generations of living together, marrying, farming the same country, speaking a common language and developing obligations to one another. Historical research describes this as a long process through which separate clan histories gradually produced a wider Chakfem identity. Even today, Tim retains particular importance as the headquarters of Chakfemland. Official electoral records also preserve Tim and other settlements within the Jipal/Chakfem area of Mangu.
The language helped hold that identity together. Chakfem belongs to the West Chadic family, placing it within the remarkable cluster of related but distinct languages spoken across the central and eastern Plateau. Older classifications sometimes treated Chakfem as a variety of Mwaghavul or grouped it with Mushere, but more recent work recognises its separate identity. An important step came in 2021, when a Chakfem language committee developed an orthography for the language. For a small community, putting a language into an agreed written form is no minor achievement: it gives children, teachers and writers another way of carrying it beyond the generation that speaks it today.
Much of older Chakfem life revolved around the household, clan and farm. The wider Mangu country supported millet, guinea corn, maize, groundnuts and other crops, and families depended heavily on the agricultural seasons. But the land meant more than food. As in many neighbouring Plateau societies, ancestry, settlement and belonging were closely connected. A clan’s history explained not only who its members were but often how they came to occupy a particular place. This is one reason oral history remains so important: a hill, stream, abandoned settlement or old pathway can preserve a story that never entered a colonial report.
Religion also belonged to this older relationship between people, ancestors and land. Chakfem shared a cultural neighbourhood with Mushere, Mwaghavul, Mupun and other central Plateau peoples where ancestral obligations and ritual specialists once formed an important part of community life. Christianity later became firmly established, but conversion did not erase language, kinship or memories of older customs. Care is necessary here because Chakfem and Mushere are sometimes grouped together in linguistic and religious sources; practices specifically documented for Mushere should not automatically be presented as Chakfem customs.
Colonial administration created another complication. During demographic classification in the 1930s, Chakfem people were counted as part of the Mwaghavul/Sura. Administrative convenience could therefore make a smaller people almost disappear on paper even though they continued calling their land Chakfem and preserving their clan identities. The story since then has partly been one of making that separate identity visible again. Plateau State’s later listings of indigenous ethnic groups recognise Chakfem in its own right.
That is perhaps the most interesting part of Chakfem history. Their story does not depend upon a famous paramount ruler or a large population. It is the story of several clans that came by different roads, settled in the same country and gradually learned to speak of themselves as one people. Governments classified them differently, neighbours influenced them, Christianity changed parts of their religious world, and modern life changed their villages. The name remained: Chakfem.
Sources and Further Reading
Sati U. Fwatshak, “The Evolution of Ethnic Identities in Central Plateau State, Nigeria,” African Humanities Research and Development Circle, 2024. This is especially useful for Chakfem migration traditions, clans, language and the development of Chakfem identity.
Roger Blench, An Atlas of Nigerian Languages, 4th ed., 2019 — for the classification of Chakfem within the West Chadic languages.
Peter J. Yearwood, ed., Jos Oral History and Literature Texts, Vol. 1, Department of History, University of Jos, 1981 — useful comparative material on oral traditions of central Plateau peoples.
C. G. Ames, Gazetteer of the Plateau Province, Nigeria, Jos Native Administration, 1934 — for the colonial administrative setting in which Plateau communities were classified.
Independent National Electoral Commission, Directory of Polling Units: Plateau State — confirming contemporary settlements including Tim within Jipal/Chakfem.
