This book deals with an aspect of the social and political history of the Rima Basin during the period covering one and a half centuries, i.e. from c. 1650 to 1808 A.D. During this period, the region experienced many significant social and political developments. Central in these developments was the emergence and development of the Gobir factor. Though it was created around the kingdom of Gobir which was founded long before the mid-seventeenth century, the Gobir factor itself, was a distinct phenomenon which unfolded in the Rima Basin from the second half of this century. The factor arose with the shifting of the capital of Gobir from Birnin Lalle in the Tarka-Kaba region southwards to the Gulbin Maradi region in the central part of the Rima Basin in the middle of the seventeenth century. From then on, Gobir became involved in all the major social and political upheavals which characterized the region and its surroundings right through to the nineteenth century. It was this involvement of Gobir in the major developments in the Rima Basin during the period from the mid- seventeenth century to the nineteenth century which produced the Gobir factor and which this work attempts to examine.