AGAIE

town and traditional emirate, Niger state, west-central Nigeria. The town lies at the intersection of roads from Bida, Baro, Tagagi, Lapai, and Ebba. Originally inhabited by the Dibo (Ganagana, Zitako), a people associated with the Nupe, it fell under the sway of Malam Baba, a Fulani warrior, in 1822. After Baba had extended his territory south to the Niger River, he requested the emir of Gwandu, the Fulani empire's overlord of the western emirates, to establish a new emirate; in 1832 Baba's son Abdullahi was inaugurated as the first emir of Agaie. Shortly after the chiefs of Agaie emirate had given military aid to Bida (the adjacent Fulani emirate to the west) in its campaign of 1897 against the Royal Niger Company, Agaie was occupied by the British. In 1908 the emirate, a 737-square-mile (1,909-square-kilometre) area, became part of a newly created administrative unit. Its present population, still predominantly Nupe, is mainly engaged in farming. Agaie town is a market centre (yams, sorghum, millet, rice, shea nuts, cotton, and peanuts [groundnuts]). Swamp rice, an especially important cash crop south and west of the town in the Niger's floodplains, is cultivated both on small farms and at the government's irrigated rice project at Loguma, 20 miles (32 km) south. Pop. (1972 est.) town, 13,766.