| Zubairu bin Adama | |
|---|---|
| Lamido Adamawa | |
| Reign | 1890 - 1 September 1901 |
| Predecessor | Umaru Sanda bin Adama |
| Successor | Bobbo Ahmadu |
| Died | 1903 Gudu |
Zubairu, Zubeiru or Zubayru bin Adama (died 1903) was a ruler of the Adamawa Emirate founded by his father, Modibo Adama. By the time he came to the throne in 1890, the emirate was threatened by the Germans, French and English. Zubairu attempted "a hopeless, though spirited, rearguard action" against European attrition of the emirate.[1]
His rule was weakened by war against Hayatu ibn Sa'id and then attempts to resist the Royal Niger Company and British administration under Frederick Lugard. In 1901 he was forced to flee Yola and become an exiled renegade.[2]
In his letter to Sultan Abdur Rahman Atiku, announcing his own ouster from Yola by the British, he pledged
I will not be two faced, on your side and on the side of the Christians too. My allegiance is to you, to God and the Prophet, and after you to the Imam Mahdi. There is no surrender to the unbeliever even after the fall of the strongholds.
Zubairu kept his pledge, he continued resistance against both the British and the Germans till he was killed around Gudu, allegedly by "pagans", who mistook his identity, eighteen months after he was forced out of his capital.[3]
While in German Adamawa after he was driven out of Yola, Lamido Zubairu fought the Germans in a number of places. Garwa was one of those places. After hiding for six months among the people of Adumri, he attacked a German garrison there with the help of the local population. He also fought them at Marwa with the help of the local population massively helping Zubairu and suffering very heavy casualties. Lamido Zubairu and the chief of Marwa, Lamido Ahmadu, moved to Madagali. The Germans caught up to him and engaged in battle. After his defeat, he went back to British Adamawa in October 1902. He took refuge at Gudu, a non-Fulbe town north of Song. While he was there, he was distributing propaganda leaflets "doing as much as he could to stir up the Fulani to rise up". He remained there for over five months before the British zeroed in on him. The British burnt down the town of Gudu but he managed to escape with his life. He was later killed by the Lala at Go, the latter not knowing his identity.[4]