We present iron, magnesium, calcium, and titanium abundances for 235 stars in the central region of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (within 9.0' ≃ 70 pc from the centre) from medium-resolution Keck/Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph spectra. All the considered stars belong to the massive globular cluster M 54 or to the central nucleus of the galaxy (Sgr, N). In particular we provide abundances for 109 stars with [Fe/H] ≥-1.0, more than doubling the available sample of spectroscopic metallicity and α-elements abundance estimates for Sgr dSph stars in this metallicity regime. We find for the first time a metallicity gradient in the Sgr, N population, whose peak iron abundance goes from [Fe/H] =-0.38 for R ≤ 2.5' to [Fe/H] =-0.57 for 5.0 DM = 6 × 10¹⁰M_⊙) and a significant event of mass-stripping occurred a few Gyr ago, presumably starting at the first peri-Galactic passage after infall.

Full Table 1 is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (http://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/605/A46