Damaturu is a
Local Government Area
A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...
and the capital city of
Yobe State in northern
Nigeria. It is the headquarters of the
Damaturu Emirate
The Damaturu Emirate is a List of Nigerian traditional states, Nigerian traditional state based in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State, Nigeria. It is a first-class emirate.
At one time the Damaturu Emirate was part of the Ngazaragamo emirate, whi ...
.
History
Damaturu came into existence as a colony when it was carved out of the Alagarno district by the
British. It resulted in the conquest of the
Bornu Empire in 1902 by colonial forces under the command of Colonel
Thomas Morland
General Sir Thomas Lethbridge Napier Morland, (9 August 1865 – 21 May 1925) was a senior British Army officer during the First World War.
Early life
Born in Montreal, Canada East, Morland was the son of Thomas Morland and Helen Servante. Edu ...
.
Boko Haram
Damaturu has been attacked many times by
Boko Haram
Boko Haram, officially known as ''Jamā'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da'wah wa'l-Jihād'' ( ar, جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد, lit=Group of the People of Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad), is an Islamic terrorist organization ...
jihadist insurgent
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric na ...
s in their
violent campaign to establish a
caliphate in the northeast.
In November 2011, they killed over 100 people in
a series of attacks.
In December 2011, they carried out
two bombings.
In June 2012, 40 insurgents
broke into a prison. 40 inmates escaped and eight people were killed.
In June 2013, insurgents attacked a school and killed thirteen people, including students and teachers.
In October 2013, militants engaged security forces in a lengthy gun battle and raided a hospital.
In December 2014, militants carried out attacks again. Gunshots and explosions were heard and a base of the riot police was reported to have been set on fire.
Yobe State University
Yobe State University is located in Damaturu, Yobe State, Nigeria. It was established under the Yobe state law in 2006 by Alh. Bukar Abba Ibrahim, the then Executive Governor of Yobe State(1999-2007).
Programmes
Yobe State University offers cou ...
also came under attack.
In February 2015, a teenage female
suicide bomb
A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...
er
killed 16 people at a
bus station.
In February 2020, a massacre occurred in Auno on the Damaturu-
Maiduguri
Maiduguri is the capital and the largest city of 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 form ...
highway. Insurgents killed 30 commuters, burned vehicles and kidnapped people.
Geography
The
postal code of the area is 620.
The Local Government Area has an area of 2,366 km and a population of 88,014 at the 2006 census.
The town of Damaturu is on the
A3 highway This is a list of roads designated A3. Roads entries are sorted in the countries alphabetical order.
* A003 road (Argentina), a road connecting the junction with National Route 9 and Camino de Cintura to Tigre
* ''A3 road (Australia)'' may refer ...
and in 2010 had an estimated population of 44,268.
The northeasterly line of equal
latitude and
longitude passes through the area, including in the north.
See also
*
List of Local Government Areas in Yobe State
References
{{Authority control
Populated places in Yobe State
Local Government Areas in Yobe State
State capitals in Nigeria