Borno State

From around the eighth century the area of present-day Borno lay within the Kanem Empire, which stretched from southern Libya across Lake Chad. In the late fourteenth century the Sayfawa dynasty moved west of the lake, founding the Bornu Empire, which dominated the central Sudan for some 500 years from capitals such as Birni Ngazargamu. In the nineteenth century the El-Kanemi dynasty took control after the Fulani jihad, and in 1893 the empire was conquered by the Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, who was killed by French forces at Kousséri in 1900.

The British incorporated Borno into the Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1902 and established a new capital at Maiduguri in 1907. The eastern fringe, formerly German Kamerun, joined Nigeria after the 1961 plebiscite. After independence the area was part of the Northern Region and then the North-Eastern State, and Borno State was created on 3 February 1976; Yobe State was carved out of it in 1991.

From 2009 Borno became the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, which escalated sharply between 2012 and 2015, displacing millions and drawing global attention with the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls abduction. Since 2015 military operations have pushed insurgents back to the Sambisa Forest and Lake Chad islands, and the state government has pursued large-scale reconstruction and resettlement, although attacks continue.