Bello, Sir Ahmadu [formerly Ahmadu Rabah], sardauna of Sokoto (1910–1966), premier of Northern Nigeria, was born at Rabah, a small riverain town upstream of Sokoto, one of ten half-brothers and fifteen half-sisters born to his father, Ibrahim Rabah, the district head. Both parents were Sokoto Fulani, though his maternal grandmother was a daughter of Ibrahim Dabo, emir of Kano (r. 1819–46). His paternal grandfather was Abubakar Atiku, the seventh sultan of Sokoto (r. 1873–7). ‘Sardauna’, the title by which he was later universally known and which he preferred to all others awarded him, was one of the senior traditional Fulani titles in Sokoto, restricted to scions of the ruling family. It glosses as ‘captain of the royal bodyguard’.