The Borgu region currently straddles two West African countries, Nigeria and Republic of Benin. Not much has been written about this ancient and historically strategic polity. The little that has been written about it is mostly tentative, fragmentary, and little more than footnotes to the histories of its neighbors. Hussaini Abdu’s Partitioned Borgu arguably offers readers the first comprehensive scholarly exploration of Borgu, from pre-colonial to its post-colonial period, detailing its complexities, nuances and contours and the roles of the state and society in each of the phrases. Abdu, particularly examines the role of imperial powers, especially before and during colonial rule. It elevates the discourse on colonial boundaries, identity politics and the rural political economy, and examines the challenges of the one of the most marginal and excluded border regions in West Africa. In Partitioned Borgu, Abdu, provides an authoritative account of a relatively little known local and yet vital dimension to the classic imperial diplomacy that occasionally came close to outbreaks of war between the fiercely competing European powers, particularly France and Britain, as they sought for spheres of influence and African territories in the infamous era of the so-called Scramble and Partition of Africa.