Suya — skewered strips of beef coated in yaji (a dry rub of ground peanut, ginger, garlic, cayenne, cloves and salt) and roasted over open coals — is documented in Hausa pastoralist cuisine from the 19th-century Sokoto Caliphate, where it was the standard preparation for itinerant cattle traders moving herds across the Sahel. The yaji spice blend is the defining element; recipes vary by mai-suya (suya seller) and are closely guarded.
The nationalisation of suya across Nigeria followed the post-civil-war labour-migration patterns of the 1970s, when Hausa traders established mai-suya stands in every Southern city. By the early 1980s suya was a standard offering at hotel bars, beer parlours, and outside football viewing centres in Lagos, Ibadan, Onitsha, Enugu, Port Harcourt and Calabar. The 9 p.m.-onwards 'suya spot' is a fixed institution of Nigerian urban social life.
Variants include kilishi (the cured, dehydrated form preserved for long-distance transport) and balangu (a chunky, less-spiced barbecue style associated with Bauchi). Suya remains overwhelmingly a Hausa-operated trade across Nigeria — one of the country's most durable internal labour-migration networks, mapped by anthropologists from Polly Hill onwards.