Qua'an Pan: History
Qua'an Pan Local Government was carved out of Shendam Local Government on 3 May 1989, by the Ibrahim Babangida regime. Qua'an Pan has two major tribes, the Pan and the Goemai.
The Pan people of Qua’an Pan are descended from Daffiar who migrated from parts unknown to present day Qua’an Pan. In the course of Daffiar’s migration, he eventually settled atop a hill in present day Koffiar. His offspring decided to continue the migration in search of arable lands on the plains below the hill. They settled in various areas including present day Doka and Kwa. In the course of the migration, one of the Daffier’s children got tired at a certain location and declared "Dum mak", which means, "the journey is enough" in the local dialect. This formed the basis of the name of present day Doemak. Daffiar also had a pair of twins who continued migrating and eventually settled in present day Namu. This is why Namu is known as Jep Jan, which means twins in the local dialect.
The Pan people were formerly known as the Kofyar, a name derived from the ancestor Daffiar. In the Pan language, kop refers to the place where one once lived, and da is simply a masculine prefix. Daffiar's home would originally have been called kop-fiar, or Kofyar. Their history, culture, and agriculture have been the subject of extensive research and writing by Robert Netting, Glenn Davis Stone, and M. Priscilla Stone.