EL-RUFAI, DRUMMER IN ADARA’S DANCE OF DEATH By FELIX OBOAGWINA

With the announcement of Ambassador Ahmad Nuhu Bamalli on October 7 as new Emir of Zazzau within two weeks of the demise of the last one, could the world pause its outpouring of well-deserved felicitations and confront Governor Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai with why he has refused to deal the same honour to a neighbouring Chiefdom whose ruler died over two years ago? What does His Excellency have against the Southern Kaduna people of Adara to have warranted the lingering two-year delay in naming a successor to their late monarch?

Zaria got a new ruler in two weeks. Ambassador Bamalli, the immediate past Nigerian Envoy to Thailand and El-Rufai’s former Commissioner, will be stepping into the shoes left by the late Emir of Zaria, Alhaji Shehu Idris, who died on 20th September 2020 after chalking up 45 years on the throne.

Meanwhile, Adara, a town in Southern Kaduna, lost her monarch, the Agom Adara III, His Royal Highness Maiwada Raphael Galadima, on October 26, 2018, and since then, his sheep have been left without a shepherd. Why? Not for want of a befitting successor has Adara been left without a titular head. The word around town says the Governor has deliberately buried any talk of permitting the enthronement of a successor. Last heard on the matter, His Excellency had plans to carve Adara Chiefdom into four. Last heard on the matter? Well, that is in a manner of speaking. For the plan to balkanise the Christian-dominated community by the Muslim Governor predated the death of its Christian monarch. Actually, Agom Adara III had vehemently opposed the proposed balkanisation, considering it as superfluous, prejudiced, hegemonic, insulting, inciting and unwarranted. In opposing the plan the man may have signed his own death warrant. Soon afterwards, he was abducted. Despite his people paying his kidnappers' N10 million ransom, this First-Class Chief still got murdered. The context of his killing, coming in the wake of his vociferous resistance to the Governor’s partitioning proposal, raises questions.

Is it true that the late ruler of Adara paid with his life for trying to steer Mallam Nasir away from plans to reconfigure Kajuru under the Adara Traditional Council to a Kajuru Emirate through an August 2018 gazette? Why, since its Agom’s death, has Adara’s 350,000-strong predominantly Christian population, with a good sprinkling of Muslims and Animists, been blocked from crowning a replacement? For this, the world must demand answers from Governor El-Rufai, a Fulani who flaunts his Islamic ancestry like a peacock feathers.

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https://thisage.com.ng/opinion-el-rufai-drummer-of-adaras-dance-of-death/

He is the president of the north