Aliyu Babba occupies a crucial place in the history of Kano and the wider British conquest of Northern Nigeria. Known in some records simply as Alu, he ruled Kano from 1894 until 1903, when British forces occupied the city and ended the political order under which he had exercised authority as emir.
His fall did not bring the Kano emirship to an end. Instead, the institution survived under radically altered conditions. Aliyu’s brother, Muhammadu Abbas, was installed as emir under British supremacy, while Aliyu himself was removed from political power and eventually confined far from Kano.
The story of Aliyu Babba therefore reaches beyond the personal fate of a defeated ruler. It illuminates the transition from the emirate system that had developed within the Sokoto Caliphate to a colonial structure in which traditional rulers continued to govern locally but under the overriding authority of British officials.
Aliyu Babba and the Kano Civil War
Aliyu Babba was born in 1853 into Kano’s ruling Sullubawa dynasty. He was a son of Emir Abdullahi Maje Karofi, who ruled Kano from 1855 to 1882, and he received an extensive Islamic education. Kano Emirate historical material records that his studies included the Qur’an, Islamic jurisprudence, Qur’anic commentary and Arabic grammar.
His route to the throne was shaped by one of the most turbulent periods in nineteenth-century Kano history.
Following the death of Emir Muhammadu Bello in 1893, a fierce succession dispute developed. Muhammadu Tukur became emir, but opposition to him grew into the conflict remembered as the Basasa, or Kano Civil War. The struggle divided major branches of the ruling family and mobilised powerful political and military factions.
Aliyu had been closely associated with Yusuf dan Abdullahi, leader of the Yusufawa faction. After Yusuf’s death, Aliyu emerged as the faction’s leader. Following the defeat of Muhammadu Tukur, Aliyu entered Kano in 1894 and became emir.
He would rule for approximately nine years.
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His reign unfolded at a moment when European imperial expansion was transforming the political landscape of West Africa. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain had established the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and was steadily extending military and administrative control over territories that had previously governed themselves under indigenous political systems.
The Road to the British Conquest of Kano
Relations between Kano and the British administration deteriorated as Britain’s authority expanded northwards.
One immediate source of tension concerned the Magaji of Keffi. In 1902, Captain Thomas Moloney, the British political officer at Keffi, was killed during a confrontation involving the Magaji and his followers. The Magaji fled northwards and eventually sought refuge in Kano.
British accounts later accused Aliyu of receiving him.
Frederick Lugard, the High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria, cited the affair among the reasons for military action against Kano. The confrontation, however, belonged to a much wider struggle. British colonial power was already expanding through Northern Nigeria, and Kano was one of the largest, richest and most politically significant centres remaining outside effective British administrative control.
Kano was also an important commercial city whose markets connected extensive trading networks across the western and central Sudan.
In January 1903, British forces under Colonel Thomas Morland advanced from Zaria towards Kano.
Aliyu was not in the city when the decisive attack came.
Aliyu Babba Leaves Kano for Sokoto
On 2 January 1903, Aliyu left Kano for Sokoto with a large mounted following. A contemporary British report estimated that between 1,000 and 2,000 horsemen accompanied him and recorded that the stated purpose of his journey was to salute the new Sultan of Sokoto.
Aliyu left officials and military defenders responsible for Kano during his absence.
This detail is important because Aliyu did not personally command the defence of Kano when British troops reached its walls. By the time Colonel Morland’s force arrived, the emir was away.
The British expedition had departed Zaria on 29 January 1903. Resistance was encountered along the route before the force reached Kano itself.
On 3 February 1903, British troops attacked the fortified city.
The Fall of Kano on 3 February 1903
Kano’s walls were formidable, but they could not prevent the British assault.
A contemporary notice in the Northern Nigeria Gazette recorded that Kano was occupied after severe fighting on 3 February. British forces used artillery against the fortifications, breached the defences and fought their way into the city.
The emir’s palace was occupied the same day.
The fall of Kano represented much more than the capture of a city. Kano had been one of the most important emirates within the Sokoto Caliphate and one of the great commercial centres of the region. British control therefore represented a major expansion of colonial power in Northern Nigeria.
News soon reached the British that Aliyu had left Sokoto and was moving back towards Kano.
For a short period, the possibility remained that the emir and his supporters might challenge the occupation.
British troops subsequently moved out from Kano to confront the forces associated with him.
The Collapse of Resistance
The forces attempting to return towards Kano included leading officials and warriors of the former administration. Fighting took place outside the city as British detachments sought to prevent them from re-establishing control.
Aliyu’s position became increasingly precarious.
According to Lugard’s contemporary report, the night before the Waziri’s forces advanced towards Kano, Aliyu separated from them and travelled north in disguise. The report states that he was dressed as a salt merchant when he was captured by the ruler of Gobir.
Captain Foulkes of the Anglo-French Boundary Commission subsequently travelled to take custody of him.
Later historical traditions differ in some details concerning the circumstances of his capture and the role of French frontier authorities. The contemporary British account identifies the ruler of Gobir as the person who apprehended Aliyu before he was transferred into British custody.
His reign was over.
Muhammadu Abbas Becomes Emir
While Aliyu was being removed from the political struggle, his brother Muhammadu Abbas, who had held the title of Wambai, chose not to continue armed resistance.
The British administration subsequently selected him to head the Kano emirate.
On 3 April 1903, Muhammadu Abbas was installed as Emir of Kano.
This moment fundamentally altered the political meaning of the emirship.
The British did not abolish Kano’s traditional political institution. Instead, they preserved the position of emir while making its holder subject to the colonial administration. British officials claimed authority over appointments and exercised ultimate power through the Protectorate government.
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The system that developed across Northern Nigeria became closely associated with indirect rule, through which existing political institutions were retained and incorporated into the colonial state.
Aliyu Babba was therefore the last Emir of Kano to rule before the British conquest transformed the emirate’s relationship with political power.
Muhammadu Abbas remained emir until his death in 1919. Later emirs continued the institution through the colonial period and beyond Nigerian independence.
Aliyu Babba in Yola
After his capture, Aliyu became a political exile.
By 1904, there is firm contemporary evidence for his presence in Yola, in what was then Adamawa Province.
The official Northern Nigeria Report for 1904 recorded Aliyu, identified as the former Emir of Kano, living in Yola under the supervision of the Emir. Another deposed ruler, Muhammadu Lawal Kwassau of Zaria, was also there.
Aliyu remained politically important even in exile.
Colonial officials were concerned about his correspondence and his continuing influence. Frederick Lugard warned that if Aliyu continued activities regarded by the colonial administration as political intrigue, he could be moved to a non-Muslim area.
The concern reveals the problem former rulers posed for colonial governments. Deposition removed their official authority, but it did not necessarily erase the loyalty, religious prestige or political influence they retained among former subjects.
Aliyu’s distance from Kano was therefore itself politically significant.
Exile in Lokoja
Aliyu was subsequently confined in Lokoja, at the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers.
Lokoja had long been an important centre of British commercial and administrative activity. It was also used by the Northern Nigeria administration as a place of residence for a number of deposed rulers and politically sensitive prisoners.
Historian Philip Atsu Afeadie, drawing upon Colonial Office records, identifies Aliyu Babba among prominent former rulers associated with political exile in Lokoja. Other deposed leaders sent there included figures from Nupe, Zaria and Bauchi.
Removal to Lokoja served a practical colonial purpose. A former emir placed hundreds of kilometres from his political base was far less capable of mobilising supporters, communicating freely with former officials or organising resistance.
Aliyu would spend much of the remainder of his life away from Kano.
The Photograph of Aliyu Babba in Exile
One of the most striking surviving images associated with Aliyu appeared in Albert Frederick Calvert’s 1910 book, Nigeria and Its Tin Fields.
The illustration identifies its subject as the former Emir of Kano and describes him as a prisoner in Lokoja.
The photograph is historically significant because it provides a visual record of the deposed ruler during the colonial period. Calvert’s publication shows that the image was in circulation by 1910.
The image captures a man whose political world had changed dramatically within a few years. Aliyu had moved from the palace of one of Northern Nigeria’s greatest commercial and political centres to life under colonial confinement hundreds of kilometres from Kano.
Lokoja and Northern Nigeria’s Colonial Administration
Lokoja’s importance in Aliyu’s story reflects the city’s significant role in early British administration in the region.
The British administration moved the headquarters of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate to Zungeru in September 1902, before Kano was conquered.
By the early twentieth century, Lokoja nevertheless continued to perform important administrative, communications and river transport functions. The Marine and Post Office departments, for example, remained associated with the city.
Its location at the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers made Lokoja strategically valuable to colonial administrators. It also became associated with the confinement of politically important rulers removed from territories brought under British control.
Aliyu Babba became one of the best-known of these exiled northern rulers.
Aliyu Babba’s Final Years and Death
Aliyu never returned to the Kano throne.
Kano Emirate historical material records that he remained in Lokoja and died there in 1926, more than two decades after the British conquest had ended his reign.
His death closed a remarkable life that had stretched across two dramatically different political eras.
Born into the nineteenth-century emirate system, educated in the Islamic scholarly tradition and elevated to power through the violent politics of the Kano Civil War, Aliyu eventually confronted an imperial power equipped with a different military system and determined to establish colonial authority across Northern Nigeria.
His successor, Muhammadu Abbas, governed within the colonial order that emerged after Aliyu’s defeat.
The contrast between the two reigns marks one of the clearest turning points in Kano’s modern political history.
Conclusion
Aliyu Babba ruled Kano from 1894 until the British conquest of 1903 transformed both his life and the political structure of the emirate. He was absent in Sokoto when British forces occupied Kano on 3 February, attempted to return towards the emirate after its fall, and was eventually captured in the Gobir region before passing into British custody.
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His brother Muhammadu Abbas was installed as emir on 3 April 1903, preserving the institution of the Kano emirship but placing it within a colonial political order.
Aliyu’s subsequent exile in Yola and Lokoja illustrates another important feature of colonial expansion. Defeated rulers whose influence remained politically significant were often removed from their former territories rather than allowed to remain among their supporters.
He died in Lokoja in 1926.
Aliyu Babba’s story is therefore not simply the story of a ruler who lost his throne. It marks the moment when Kano’s political relationship with power changed fundamentally, from an emirate within the Sokoto Caliphate to a traditional institution functioning under British colonial supremacy.
Author’s Note
Aliyu Babba’s life demonstrates how the British conquest of Northern Nigeria altered indigenous political institutions without necessarily destroying them. Kano’s emirship survived 1903, but the authority behind it changed decisively. An emir who had previously operated within the political and religious framework of the Sokoto Caliphate was replaced by a ruler whose position functioned within the colonial administration. Aliyu’s defeat, capture and long exile reveal both the military force used to establish British rule and the political strategy employed afterwards to neutralise displaced leaders while retaining traditional institutions as instruments of government.
References
Great Britain, Colonial Office. Northern Nigeria: Report for 1902. Colonial Reports, Annual No. 409. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1903.
The Northern Nigeria Gazette. 28 February 1903. Contemporary government notice recording the occupation of Kano on 3 February 1903.
Great Britain, Colonial Office. Northern Nigeria: Report for 1904. Colonial Reports, Annual No. 476. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1905.
Great Britain, Colonial Office. Northern Nigeria: Report for 1907–08. Colonial Reports, Annual No. 594. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office.
Kano Emirate Council. Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa, Sarkin Kano Alu, Aliyu Babba, 1894–1903, in Sullubawan Dabo: An Illustrated History, 1819–2019.
Fika, Adamu Mohammed. The Kano Civil War and British Over-rule, 1882–1940. Oxford University Press, 1978.
Afeadie, Philip Atsu. “The Semolika Expedition of 1904: A Participant Account.” History in Africa, Vol. 31, 2004, pp. 1–18.
Calvert, Albert Frederick. Nigeria and Its Tin Fields. London: Edward Stanford, 1910.
