By Jing Thomas
A Tale of Two Sultans, a piece by Kenneth Ndeh posted on the Imhotep collective blog provides for very interesting reading. However, I seem not to share one of his views on Modibo Adama. In the article, he writes: 
“Usman Dan Fodio established his Sokoto Empire around 1804. Shortly thereafter he sent his son, the Modibo Adama to the east, to establish. The Modibo established his headquarters in 1805 in present day Cameroon, at Gurin, near the River Faro.”
According to all the documents I have consulted so far on the Fulani jihads in northern Nigeria and Cameroon, I have not come across any which states that Adama was the son of Usman Dan Fodio.
In his work, Fulani Hegemony in Northern Cameroon, Professor Njeuma, a leading authority on the subject, simply states that he was a local modibo or teacher who answered the call of the sheik, went to Sokoto and obtained the flag in order to come and start the wars in Fombina (now Adamawa).
This view is shared by Rainer Chr. Hennig in his piece Rise and Fall of the Adamawa Emirate. To him Modibo Adama only “received the white flag of the jihad, and the title as chief of command against the kirdi in Fombina.”
Joseph Kizerbo, in Histoire generale de l’Afrique noire, maintains that
“during the jihads of Usman Dan Fodio, there were many candidates eager to take the doctrine and power of the teacher to these regions. Adama was designated in 1805 and he settled in Gurin.”
To further corroborate the above evidence, the two men did not even come from the same clan. Usman Dan Fodio was of the Torobe clan while Adama was of the Ba clan.
The prominent persons close to Dan Fodio who seemed to have played a prominent role in these wars were his son Bello, who ruled the western part of his empire and eventually succeeded him; and Abdallah, his brother, who controlled the eastern part of the empire after having served as overall commander of the forces of the believers (Amir al Mouminin).
In the course of my reading, should I come across any information that runs contrary to any I have stated above, I’ll share it with other readers. Thanks to Mr. Ndeh for a wonderful piece that blends the past and present.
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