1959 – 2025
The Polo
Professor.
They did not call him that for the trophies. They called him that because he could explain the game — the line, the ride-off, the horse under you — to anyone who would stand still long enough to listen.
The life
From Maiduguri to the fields of England.
Born in Maiduguri on 24 February 1959, schooled in the city, then to the School of Forestry in Ibadan — where the polo found him. He was one of the most watched players on the Ibadan circuit before he ever turned professional.
He carried a +5 handicap from 1988 and held it for ten years, a rating matched in Nigeria only by Bello Buba. He rode against Argentine professionals and, on a field in England, against Prince Charles — who is said to have sought him out afterwards to say so.
He died in Egypt in 2025, at sixty-six, a serving member of the Kaduna Polo Club Board of Trustees.
1982
Turning professional
Joined Usman Dantata, whose reach opened the door to international competition — the United States, England, Brazil.
1988
A +5 handicap
Reached the rating he would hold for a decade, standing among the highest-rated players in the country.
Late 1980s
Allied Ranch
Rode for Muktar Aruwa's Allied Ranch, representing the team at home and abroad.
1993
Dee-Bee Farms
Founded and sponsored his own team and his own house — importing, schooling and trading horses, and opening Nigeria's first polo equipment shop.
2025
The field takes his name
Kaduna Polo Club unveiled the Dawule Baba Polo Field at the close of the first memorial tournament.
The memorial tournament
Four days, every June,
in Kaduna.
The Dawule Baba Memorial Tournament runs at the polo grounds of Murtala Mohammed Square: high-goal, medium-goal and low-goal, alongside a youth challenge, a beginners' category, and a veterans' game for the men who shared a field with him in his prime.
It is the one week of the year when the whole Nigerian game stands in the same place. If you want to see what this house is for, come then.
What continues
The academy is the point.
He taught for free more often than he was paid for it. The academy, the youth challenge at the memorial, and Play Chukka — the simulation that puts the game in front of children who will never own a horse — all come from the same instinct: that polo survives by being explained.
