Thanks for posting the image Gav (and of course the kind comments).
That particular shot is from North Cameroon, where some of the traditional emirates are still pretty active culturally I believe.
Period photos of this style of sword are a bit harder to find, I have a few that have been posted in various threads before. But I have never encountered this style of brass forte plate before - only the more practical steel forte plates sometimes used to reenforce a blade mount. Usually the brass is just a little piece, or three pieces like on this sword:
http://takouba.org/takouba42/ or this one:
http://takouba.org/takouba45/
A similarly wide sword, although later and without the brass can also be seen in “Waffen aus Zentralafrika” also coming from North Cameroon.