SUMMARY

The Atakar communal group speaks a dialect of Tyap; a language that is spoken by approximately 246,000 people coming from multiple different communal groups in Nigeria. They inhabit the hilly Atakar area, which is a fertile area located in the southern part of Nigeria’s Kaduna state and borders Plateau state. The Atakar has its own chiefdom within the Kaura local government area of Kaduna state and its headquarters is located in Fadan Attakar, which is 220km south of Kaduna city. Christianity is the predominant religion amongst the Atakar population and their livelihood depends mainly on farming, particularly dry season farming.

The Atakar are one of several Christian communal groups inhabiting Kaduna state, such as the Atyap. They also share the state with several other Muslim communal groups including the Hausa and the Fulani. Although these different groups have co-existed harmoniously before, at times, non-state violence along ethno-religious lines has erupted (for more information, see Atakar – Fulani).