Actually it wasn't really "warlords". When the Songhai empire stole both the salt and gold mines that their precedent empires had merely extorted taxes from,
Morocco,no longer in possession of the salt mines along the southern perimeter of their lands necessary for converting salt production into gold through trade with the tribes near the Niger Delta, petitioned countries in the Iberian Peninsula to navigate the west coast of Africa around to the Niger Delta. Portugal took up the call, armed the citizenry of the Niger Delta and financially incentivized them to crush the Songhai Empire and sell the vanquished into slavery.
Source; my daughter's 7th grade curriculum that we went over together this school year for her big African Empires social studies project; tis is exactly what the material suggested. Essentially: the subtext of the entire lesson is/was that the most shortlived empire in West African History rose and abruptly failed due to West African Greed, and thievery. California public schools.
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