The 1981 federal tribunal of inquiry investigated only the December 1980 Kano rising, and even for that episode its civilian count of 4,177 sits beside a separately reported, less formally sourced figure of about 5,000. The four later risings at Bulumkutu, Rigasa, Jimeta and Gombe were never subject to a comparable tribunal, and no historian has combined all five episodes into one reconciled total.
What would resolve this A study working systematically from Nigerian federal and state records, hospital and mortuary registers where they survive, and local press archives for the 1982, 1984 and 1985 risings on the same footing as the 1981 tribunal covered the 1980 Kano rising, to build one casualty estimate across all five episodes.
OpenNigerian and West African history; the sociology of religious movementsElizabeth Isichei, The Maitatsine Risings in Nigeria 1980 to 85: A Revolt of the Disinherited