Ahmadu Dan Tanimu, known as Ahmadu Kuran Daga or Ahmadu Mai Rinji was the Sultan of the Sultanate of Damagaram from 1893 to 1899. His reign marked the height of Damagaram's military and political prowess. He inherited thousands of muskets and dozens of canons from his father, along with canon factories and ammunition plants. Ahmadu soon found himself in a power struggle with the Emirate of Kano under Aliyu Mai Sango, Bornu under Rabih Az-Zubayr, and French Colonialists. After the assassination of French officer Marius Gabriel Cazemajou and his interpreter in Zinder under Ahmadu's orders, he was subdued and killed by the French in retaliation. Reign Ahmadu was the son of Damagaram's most accomplished ruler, Sultan Tanimu. He succeeded Sultan Suleimanu in 1893. Around the same time, the ill-famed Rabih az Zubayr captured Damagaram's suzerain, Bornu. The French were also actively expanding their colonies in Africa. Relationship with the French As the French began encroaching into his Sultanate, he sent a message to the French party that he only recognized the authority of the Ottoman Empire. He soon invited the leader of the expedition, Captain Cazemajou to his court where he treated him courteously. But Ahmadu suspected an alliance between the French and Rabih and was warned by his marabouts about an impending christian domination. As Cazemajou prepared to depart Zinder, he and his interpreter, d'Olive were slaughtered and discarded in a well. Confrontations with Kano Ahmadu felt the best way to impede Rabih was to engage in an expansion of his own. Damagaram had enjoyed a strained relationship with Kano for decades and the maltreatment of Kano's traders in Damagaram was a regular occurrence. Negotiations for peace were brought to a halt by the successive deaths of Sultan Suleimanu and Emir Muhammad Bello. Ahmadu soon entered Kano by way of Daura and Kazaure and took the town of Malikawa, where he collected their leader, people and much booty and returned to Damagaram. This aggressive act took Kano by surprise. The Emir of Kano at the time, Aliyu Babba, believed it to be a ploy by the Sultan of Sokoto, Abdu Danyen Kasko, to get him to submit to his suzerainty again as their relationship was strained by the Kano Civil War and Abdu had at one point considered moving the rest of the Caliphate against Aliyu. Given this interpretation, Emir Aliyu chose the option of war with Damagaram alone