Kainji National Park visit-planning guide for its protected Nigeria setting

Nigeria's largest national park protecting savanna ecosystems and wildlife around Kainji Lake

Kainji National Park

Kainji National Park represents Nigeria's premier effort to conserve the country's savanna ecosystems and the wildlife they support. The park's creation in 1978 formalized protection for a vast tract of Guinea savanna woodland interspersed with gallery forests along the Oli River and its tributaries. The central feature of the park is Kainji Lake, a 136-kilometer-long reservoir created by the Kainji Dam on the Niger River, which forms a critical aquatic habitat within the protected landscape. The Borgu Game Reserve to the west of the lake comprises the majority of the park's terrestrial area and remains the primary zone for tourism and wildlife management. The Zugurma Game Reserve to the southeast, while smaller, provides important dry-season refuges for wildlife around permanent waterholes. The park is managed by the Federal National Park Service with direct government funding, enabling enforcement actions under national park law rather than local courts. Recent developments include a 31-year co-management agreement signed in October 2023 with the West African Conservation Network to restore and strengthen protection amid ongoing security challenges that led to temporary suspension of operations in 2021.