Two cities fused on the seasonal Ngadda River
Maiduguri is capital and largest city of Nigeria’s Borno State, sitting on the seasonal Ngadda River before it vanishes into Firki swamps near Lake Chad. Yerwa, founded in 1907 by Abubakar Garbai as Bornu’s capital, pairs with Old Maiduguri, chosen as British military headquarters in 1908.
The wider region cradled the Kanem–Bornu Empire for centuries before colonial capitals shuffled. Yerwa rose west; Old Maiduguri east replaced Mafoni as the British Resident’s seat the same year troops planted headquarters.
Yerwa had been a small village called Kalwa before Abubakar Garbai made it his capital. In 1957 Yerwa was officially named as the urban centre, with Maiduguri applied to the surrounding area, and residents still use both names. The city is one of fifteen local government areas making up the traditional Borno Emirate, and it was once praised as a hub of Islamic scholarship in West Africa known for tolerance.
Inter-religious riots have flared since the mid-1960s, with sectarian violence in 1982 and 2001, and on 18 February 2006 riots over the Danish Muhammad cartoons killed at least 15 people. In 2002 the cleric Mohammed Yusuf founded Boko Haram here, opening a mosque and religious school that drew children from poor families in Nigeria and neighbouring states. The city became the heart of the insurgency: fighting in late July 2009 left over 700 dead, and President Goodluck Jonathan put the northeast under emergency rule on 14 May 2013, including an overnight curfew in the city.
Attacks continued through 2014 and 2015, including a Monday Market bombing that killed 19 on 10 January 2015, a large assault repelled that month, and five suicide blasts on 7 March 2015 that killed 54. A 65-kilometre earthen berm now rings the city. In 2016 Amnesty International called the Giwa barracks detention centre a place of death, reporting 149 detainee deaths in the first half of that year. The climate is hot semi-arid; temperatures have ranged from 5 °C on 26 December 1979 to 47 °C on 28 May 1983.
Source: Maiduguri
