Dosso

Dosso lies east of the Niger in the Zarma country, where farming villages occupy the Sahelian plains. It became the seat of a Zarma polity ruled by a chief known as the Zarmakoy or Djermakoy. Local authority rested on ties among the ruling family and neighbouring villages, in a region exposed to pressure from several surrounding powers.

Tradition dates the establishment of the Dosso state to the eighteenth century, when a leader of the Taguru lineage gathered communities under his authority. In the early nineteenth century the expansion of the Sokoto Caliphate brought war into Zarma lands. Dosso became a centre of resistance and negotiation as its rulers faced the growing influence of the new Muslim state to the east.