In 2006, when the Borgu Emirate chose Tinubu, 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. Achebe said a man cannot live by the riverbank and wash with spittle. If only Borgu could suffer lack and not terror.
Nigerians love titles. Illiterate pastors become Doctors. Politicians are the most afflicted. When they are not lions and tigers — even the most cowardly among them — they are 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.
Borgu made Tinubu its Jagaban, its chief warrior. He was then 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.
On Friday, 21 August 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 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 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 communitues now wonder whether their fate is a mockery of their choice.
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 villagein 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 1 February 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. Attackers operated for hours. Toward the end of February, gunmen hit Tashan Maje, Saduro and Runtuwa, all in Borgu kingdom. Amnesty and local reports put the dead at about 15.
In March, the bridge on Luma Road linking Luma, Babana and Agwara was blown with an IED. Another device on the Nuku–Woro axis killed the occupants of a commercial vehicle. The pattern is no longer occasional highway crime. It looks like a terror corridor: school abduction, market massacre, mosque raids, attacks on police and NSCDC posts, IEDs on bridges. Many have fled the Kingdom.
Governor Umaru Bago has said more than 300,000 people have been displaced by banditry across ten local government areas of Niger State. That figure is statewide, not Borgu alone. But Borgu sits in the worst of the belt. Those who havent fled now live like refugees: battered, broken, and, in their own telling, betrayed. The man goes about and people hail him Jagaban Jagaban. But the very people who made him Jagaban, their warrior are perishing helplessly.
The story of Borgu and its Jagaban is hauntingly ironic. Tragic as it is, it is only one thread in a larger tapestry of contradiction that critics now hang on the president. If the nation had been asked, those military years ago, to pick a leader who would deepen democracy, hold the country together and guarantee rights, many would have named a NADECO figure. Many would have named Tinubu. His opponents now say democracy has suffered a blow comparable, in spirit, to the plight of Borgu. An opposition weakened by political bandits working for Tinubu. A harsh political weather orchestrared by Abuja and its mercenaries who have issued threats against the opposition. Oppostion leadsr Nasir El-Rufai remains in custody for over 200 days for bailable offences . In one instance bail was granted with near impossible terms. If a president can keep a leading opposition figure out of circulation during a national election in this manner , then our democracy is at his mercy.
Late Adebanjo said Tinubu was an Afenifere impostor.
Peter Obi thinks Tinubu has changed fundamentally. Perhaps some in Borgu will seize that line to soften the feeling of being duped. How Tinubu’s old NADECO colleagues feel is another question. They might have foreseen patronage and mega-projects without due process. Whether they foresaw the scale of insecurity in the very emirate that named him chief warrior is a different matter. Many didnt forsee the current scale of tribalism.
The nation needs a real Jagaban . A warrior leader against terror and corruption and moral decay . And an authentic democrat. If only Tinubu could become Jagaban indeed.
The post Besieged Borgu and Their Jagaban, by Ugoji Egbujo appeared first on Vanguard News.