Accession Before his death,
Umaru Sanda, the
Lamido of Adamawa and a half-brother to Zubeiru, devised a plan with his councillors to have his favorite son, Iya, succeed him as Lamido. The plan involved having Sanda buried in his personal residence, which would then be inherited by Iya. This would allow Iya to use the occasion to garner the support of the people of
Yola, as, according to Adamawa customs, a new Lamido is chosen on the burial day of the previous one. However, after Sanda's death in 1890, another of Adama's sons, Aliyu, who was aware of Sanda's scheme, persuaded the palace slaves to bury the body next to Adama at Zubeiru's house, which Zubeiru had inherited from his father. As a result, Zubeiru hosted the people of Yola who came to mourn the Lamido, and he was automatically selected as the new Lamido. in the 19th-centuryUpon his accession, Zubeiru began a series of wars and, according to Adamawa tradition, never spent a full month in Yola. Throughout his reign, Zubeiru was determined to preserve the territorial unity and integrity of his emirate. 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. == Death ==