Birnin Kebbi

Birnin Kebbi stood beside the Sokoto River in the lower Rima valley, in the western reach of Hausaland. Its name means the walled town of Kebbi, and it was one of the fortified towns that Kanta Kotal drew together from scattered villages after Kebbi broke from Songhai in 1516–1517, serving as his base against Songhai's armies. Under Kanta and his successor Muhammad Kanta, Kebbi grew from a rebel province into a power that beat the army of Askia Muhammad Bunkan, took Agadez and exacted tribute from much of Hausaland, while Surame, with its great stone-and-earth walls, served as the royal capital.

After Kanta's death in 1556 the Hausa states stopped paying tribute, and by the early eighteenth century Gobir and Zamfara had thrown off Kebbi's rule. Birnin Kebbi nonetheless remained a seat of the Kebbi kings until the jihad of Usman dan Fodio, when his brother Abdullahi dan Fodio drove out the sarki, Muhammadu Hodi, and placed the country under the emirate of Gwandu. The Kebbawa went on fighting, first from the Zamfara valley and then from Argungu, which Karari made the kingdom's new seat. Silt and the shift of power to Gwandu and to Jega, at the head of navigation, left Birnin Kebbi a lesser river town.