2. ADAMAWA STATE
The area that is now Adamawa State was conquered by Modibbo Adama Bin Ardo Hassan, a warrior of the Ba’en clan of the Fulanis, in the beginning of the 19th century. Modibbo is a Fulani courtesy title that means ‘The Lettered/Learned One’ (in Hausa, it is Mallam). Modibbo Adama was also the regional leader of the Fulani Jihad led Uthman Dan Fodio in 1804. That made the Adamawa Emirate a vassal state of the Sultan of Sokoto. He hailed from the Gurin region (now a tiny hamlet) and got the green flag (to lead the jihad) in 1806. A man of humble beginnings (father was a local teacher and mother, a simple Shuwa Arab lady, according to some historians), he later founded Adamawa Emirate in 1809.
A brave warrior of Dan Fodio, he fought at Ngazzargamu (capital of the old Borno Empire now in Yobe State) and was later ordered by his teacher, Dan Fodio, to return home and become the Lamido Fumbina (the Ruler of the Southlands in Fulfulde, the language of the Fulanis) and then carry out the jihad from the River Nile to the Bight of Biafra (shoooo!). He was followed back to his place by Hausa and Fulani (Toronkawa) fighters. Even trainers and instructors came from as far as the Maghreb (now Northwest Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya) and the Ottoman Empire -in the light of recent events in Nigeria, does this ring any bell at all? Think about that for a minute. Thereafter, he conquered many areas and regions (including incursions into Northern Cameroon where we now have mainly Fulani Muslims), moved his capital to Ribadu, then Joboliwo and eventually died in 1847 in Yola, which he also founded but not after he had formed his new state which he named after himself. His tomb is in Gurin, Furore LGA till today and at the height of his power, Adamawa Emirate stretched 103,000 sq km as far as Lake Chad and had as much as 1.5 million inhabitants. Expansion towards the south was prevented by the thick jungle and tsetse fly (dangerous to cattle). He also founded Garoua in northeastern Cameroon.
Today, his descendants rule as the Lamidos of Adamawa, and the emirate is like the only one in the north in which Hausa is regarded and learnt as a second language. The current one is Muhammadu Barkindo Aliyu Musdafa (a former chairman of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria) whose father, Aliyu Musdafa, was one of the longest-serving traditional rulers in Africa having spent 57 years on the throne. Adamawa (cattle breed), Adamawa Region (in Cameroon), the 4,000 ft-high Adamawa Plateau called Lesdihosere by the Fulanis (in Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic), Adamawa languages such as Chamba-Mumuye, Kim, Mbum, Wiyaa and Laal are all named after him. Okay, enough of Adamawa before my Akwa Ibom friends start to dey vex…lol!
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