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Maiduguri maɪˈduːgʊri is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria, on the continent of Africa. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the Firki swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maiduguri was founded in 1907 as a military outpost by the British Empire during the colonial period. As of 2022, Maiduguri is estimated to have a population of approximately two million. The region was home to the Kanem-Bornu Empire for centuries. Maiduguri actually consists of two cities: Yerwa to the West and Old Maiduguri to the east. Yerwa was founded in 1907 by Abubakar Garbai of Borno as the capital of the Bornu Kingdom. The location had before that been a small village known as Kalwa. This involved the transfer of the capital of the Kanuri people from Kukawa. Old Maiduguri was selected by the British as their military headquarters in 1908 replacing Mafoni. The same year it became the location for the British Resident Commissioner over British Bornu. In 1957 Yerwa became the designated name for the urban centre while Maiduguri was officially applied as the name of the surrounding rural area. In 1964 the railway was extended here which led to its rise as a major commercial center in the region. The city was once known as a "hub of Islamic scholarship in West Africa that ... [taught] tolerance and hospitality like its welcoming neem trees." Maiduguri is one of the fifteen Local Government Areas (LGAs) that constitute the Borno Emirate, a traditional state located in Borno State, Nigeria. Since the mid-1960s, Maiduguri has witnessed outbreaks of large inter-religious riots with members of religious sects leading intercommunal violence in 1982 and 2001. On 18 February 2006, riots related to the Muhammad cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten left at least 15 people dead, and resulted in the destruction of approximately 12 churches. Soldiers and police quelled the riots, and the government temporarily imposed a curfew.

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Related concepts (9)

Borno State

Borno State is a state in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered by Yobe to the west, Gombe to the southwest, and Adamawa to the south while its eastern border forms part of the national border with Cameroon, its northern border forms part of the national border with Niger, and its northeastern border forms all of the national border with Chad, being the only Nigerian state to border three foreign countries. It takes its name from the historic emirate of Borno, with the emirate's old capital of Maiduguri serving as the capital city of Borno State.

Boko Haram

Boko Haram, officially known as Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād (جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد), is an Islamist militant organization based in northeastern Nigeria, which is also active in Chad, Niger, northern Cameroon, and Mali. Boko Haram was the world's deadliest terror group during part of the mid-2010s according to the Global Terrorism Index. In 2016, the group split, resulting in the emergence of a hostile faction known as the Islamic State's West Africa Province.

Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping

On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance in order to take final exams in physics.