Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
In 2006, when the Borgu Emirate chose Bola Ahmed Tinubu as its Jagaban, it could not have known it was choosing a future commander-in-chief as its chief warrior. Twenty years later, the jackpot looks like rotten luck: no better than a dud cheque. That is the verdict of columnist Ugoji Egbujo, writing in Vanguard on September 19, in a searing piece titled “Besieged Borgu and Their Jagaban,” which confronts the painful irony of a traditional title conferred in honour now standing as a monument to abandonment.
Egbujo invokes Chinua Achebe’s proverb — a man cannot live by the riverbank and wash with spittle — to frame the central absurdity: Borgu made Tinubu its Jagaban, its chief warrior, when he was governor of Lagos and a rugged opposition leader. Add the NADECO credentials, and Borgu could reasonably have assumed it was honouring a freedom fighter. Perhaps because the name sounded like jaguar — a strong man, more menacing than Asiwaju — it became his preferred title, even his name. Now Borgu, while Tinubu is president and commander-in-chief, has become a bandit playground.
The column catalogues a year of relentless violence that has turned the emirate into a byword for insecurity. On August 21, 2026, gunmen stormed mosques in Dekara district of Borgu, Niger State — Dekara, Kpenya, Sabon-Gida and Gidan-Zana among them — during Jumu’ah prayers. Officials and residents gave conflicting counts. The local government chairman said over 60 abducted and about 30 killed. Abductors released a video claiming hundreds. International reports cited a hunt for hundreds of worshippers. A few weeks later the bandits sent a message to the villagers to come for some hostages. The villagers arrived at the location and met 25 cold corpses. Those not confirmed dead hopefully are still in captivity. Some 2,000 people were reported to have fled toward Benin. That is Borgu, where Tinubu is Jagaban.
The litany of terror does not end there. In November 2025, gunmen took 303 children and 12 teachers from St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, in Agwara, Borgu Kingdom. Fifty pupils escaped early. The rest were reported freed in stages by late December. The scare outlasted the headlines. In January 2026, gunmen attacked Kasuwan Daji market in Demo village in Borgu Kingdom. Police put the dead at over 30. Church and community sources said more than 40. Later counts were higher. Shops and houses were looted and burnt. Many residents were abducted. Follow-on raids hit nearby posts and villages. On February 1, 2026, attackers burnt the Agwara police station and the United Missionary Church of Africa, all in Borgu Kingdom. They abducted many people. In mid-February, coordinated assaults on Tungan Makeri, Konkoso/Pissa and Feyi left more than 30 dead by local tallies, houses burnt, a police outpost destroyed. Many people were abducted.
The country has been ravaged by insecurity, but Borgu has borne more than a share. New armed groups have sprouted around the Kainji forest belt. In the last year they have raided the emirate again and again. Schools have been closed. Farms have been abandoned. The fate of Borgu has become starkly bleak. When will Tinubu live up to his cherished title? When will he be a true Jagaban? The bereaved and battered communities now wonder whether their fate is a mockery of their choice.
The column’s power lies in its invocation of the traditional title’s moral weight. Egbujo notes that Nigerians love titles — illiterate pastors become Doctors, politicians are the most afflicted, styling themselves as lions and tigers, sun and moon, providers for the poor they are accused of looting blind. If only people lived true to the titles they brandish. Borgu must have seen something in Tinubu. Now it must endure the rude awakening.
The prince of the emirate, Murtala Haliru Dantoro, has repeatedly reminded Tinubu that the Jagaban title is not merely ceremonial but a representation of a sacred bond between him and the people of the land. In January 2026, he warned that the continued attacks threatened the survival of the Borgu Kingdom and questioned the relevance of traditional titles if the people were left unprotected. “Mr President, when the Borgu Kingdom falls, what meaning does the title Jagaban hold? What honour is there in a title if the emirate is destroyed,” he asked. He called for the immediate deployment of a special military task force to Borgu within seven days and the establishment of permanent military bases in strategic communities. He demanded the sealing of porous borders linking Nigeria, Benin Republic and Niger Republic, alleging that attackers were exploiting the borders to carry out assaults and escape. He urged the Federal Government to appoint a Special Security Adviser for Borgu Kingdom and ensure regular security briefings directly to the President.
The wider political context makes the column’s timing particularly charged. The 2027 presidential election is less than four months away, with the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for January 16. Tinubu is seeking a second term, and his traditional title in Borgu is both a cultural asset and a moral liability. In June 2026, Kwara State Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq presented the APC governorship candidate, Salihu Yakubu Danladi, to Tinubu at the Presidential Villa. Danladi, who hails from Baruten Local Government Area in Kwara North, became the first candidate from the Borgu Kingdom to secure a governorship ticket from a ruling party since 1999. Speaking after his emergence, Danladi said: “I thank Mr President. He is truly the Jagaban of Borgu. This is the first time since 1999 that Borgu kingdom will have a governorship candidate from a ruling party, and sincerely, we thank His Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for looking at where he got the title Jagaban of Borgu and taking it to that side.”
Egbujo’s column does not mention that development. Its focus is narrower and more devastating: the gap between the honour Borgu conferred and the protection it has received. The question it poses is not whether Tinubu has rewarded Borgu politically, but whether he has defended it as a Jagaban should. The answer, the column suggests, is written in the 25 corpses villagers were summoned to collect and in the 2,000 who fled toward Benin. For a title that means chief warrior, the ledger is damning.
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