Kingdom of Gobir

The Kingdom of Gobir was a Hausa kingdom in what is now northern Nigeria, founded by the Hausa people in the twelfth century as one of the seven original kingdoms of Hausaland and ruled for nearly seven hundred years from its capital at Alkalawa. It existed as an independent state from around 1150 until 1808, when Usman dan Fodio's jihad, declared on 21 February 1804, culminated in the fall of Alkalawa on 3 October 1808 and the kingdom's collapse; elements of its ruling dynasty then fled north into what is now Niger, where a rival line took the title Sarkin Gobir, King of Gobir, at Tibiri. A reunited traditional sultanate later settled at Sabon Birni in Nigeria in 1975, continuing today as a non-sovereign ceremonial institution.