FULANI ARISTOCRACY

by

Patrick Onigbo Olu

Ikeja – Lagos

In the North, the legacy of the Sokoto Caliphate and its Islamic traditions bore handsome fruits for the Fulani aristocracy as the great – grandsons and direct descendants of the conqueror of the Hausa, Nupe, and Ilorin – Yoruba state walked back into supreme and expanded power in Northern Nigeria.



As the minority ruling group was in full control in the Northern Region while in the Southern Region, there were fresh political ethnic majorities in power. Today, those who exercise national power do so from minority positions, Indeed, of the three groups that attained national power in the early politics of the decolonisation decade of the 1950s namely Yoruba, Igbo, and Fulani, the only group that still retain power at the national level is the Fulani aristocracy which was not a demographic majority in the first place.



Consequently on the above, reaches, some controversial conclusions.:

· It no longer makes goods academic sense to rate the Igbo as a majority power bloc in the past bellum era of Nigeria political history.

· Not could one say of the Yoruba that they constitute an effective power bloc despite producing the present Head of State.

· Inspite of the views in the South to the contrary, the majority Hausa have never been an independent power bloc in the north, as they have only exercised as much power as their Fulani overlords have allowed them.

· It is not far to rate many so-called minority ethnic groups as minor power-holders in modern Nigeria politics. In relative terms, many ethnic groups in the Benue – Plateau complex have itched towards greater control of national power than the Hausa majority (witness: Langtang Mafia).



Above all else, contends that the Fulani aristocrats, more than other ethnic power in Nigeria, have through strategic thinking and strategic planning (twin-virtues in power schemes that are absent in others), steadily insinuated (themselves) back into handsome amount of power-holding by strategically locating themselves into the major engine of power, exploiting the shallowness of their major rivals for power. In the post-colonial Nigeria, the Fulani Hegemony with the British were able to create and nurture political bankruptcy among the political elite.



After examining in insightful details, the long-hegemonies of Atlantic minorities over their majority neighbours, which chronicles the coming of the Fulani to the geographic space that later become Nigeria.



Given the desertification of the Sahara region, many of the populations that were indigenous to the Sahara fled to other areas, eastwards and southwards (West Africa). These nomadic Nubians, who are escaping from drought, then took over the agriculture – based civilization of the Kush in the upper Nile Valley.



In West Africa, the most famous of this nomadic group escaping the desicating Sahara that went on a conquering escapade is that of the Fulani. The political history of what historians label as the Western and Central Sudan, in the two centuries before the onset of European conquest and colonization, was dominated by the rise of Fulani hegemonies in a political revolution of an unusual character. Most probably resulting from their itinerant herding occupation that compelled them to rely on, and negotiate for, the trans human resources of diverse agricultural communities on whom they depend on seasonal basis, the Fulani were the first self-conscious ethnic group in West Africa, possessing vast networks of relationship among themselves and maintaining political ties with the rulers of the host communities.



Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the Fulani were transformed from pagans in a dramatic political revolution that had two main features. First, they virtually established an ethnic aristocracy, whereby they expected to and in several instances did actually occupy the highest political offices in any (country) in whose politics they participated. Second, through the instrumentality of Islam, to which they have become converts, and in cooperation with networks of fellow Fulani, they overthrew the rulers of several existing agriculture – based states, replacing them with theocratic Islamic regimes that they control.



The standard pious explanatory scheme that is offered by Dan Fadio scholars in legimising the Fulani Jihad which began in 1804. He places the power-matrix at the foundation of this Jihad and perhaps subsequent religious zealotry which admittedly, has served the hegemony well, even in present day Nigeria.



The overthrow of Habe (Hausa) rules in the long – established Hausa states in the Central Sudan. Although, it all started as a religious campaign in which Hausa generously used, the outcome was unmistakably to lead to the subjugation of the indigenous Hausa population to a theocratic and immigrant Fulani aristocracy. Despite the cracy for Nigeria historiography to engage in tarik – style eulogies of every pre-colonial, Africa conqueror, and therefore to see the Sokoto caliphate in glorious light, there is good evidence to suggest that its governance was clear retrogression from a Moroccan invasion of 1591 which had plunged the Western and Central Sudan into a power vacuum that the nomadic Fulani were then filling their conquests. In the North, there is few real Hausa in any position of authority.



The Sokoto Caliphate was significantly lacking in any conception of the responsibility of providing security in its region of operation, for its citizens and subjects. Instead, it created insecurity particularly by engaging in slavery and the slave trade, inflicting state-sponsored terrorism on several communities, especially on the so-called pagan districts of the Benue region and in Adamawa. Whatever the theological justification for the 1804 jihad and despite the apparent puritan motivations of Dan Fodio in stirring up this revolution its outcome was one in which an aristocratic ethnic minority terrorized a whole region with force of arms rather than by religious persuasion. The Hegemony sponsored inter-tribal wars and influenced religious violence.



Lord Frederick Lugard, described by historians as a Fulaniphite, posited the claims on the terror visited by the Fulani jihadists on their Hausa hosts. The population of the North – described some 60 years ago (in the 1850s) by a Historian Barth as the densest in all of Africa – had by 1900 dwindled to some 9 million owing to inter-tribal war, and above all, to the slave raids by the religious zeal which had promoted the Fulani jihad . In 1900 the Fulani Emirates formed a series of separate despotism marked by the worst forms of wholesale slave-raiding, spoliation of the peasant, inhuman cruelty and debased justices, Lugard who wrote that Fulani, established the firm framework of northern (Fulani) advantage over the south in the political arrangement of his amalgamated country. But this inhuman cruelty and debased justice, many have been sign-posts of an emergent hegemony which, his now grown in sophistication.



The Fulani aristocracy has grown in sophistication in the exercise of power since the British arrived on their territory of conquest some ninety year ago. Many of the political abuses in the Sokoto Caliphate before the arrival of the British can easily be to their status as power holders. But they have now been in power for almost two hundred years and their areas of influence is virtually now coterminous with modern Nigeria. Today, using tools historically attributed to elite managers of political power who emphasize convert rather than overt influences and who exercise power in a latent rather (than) manifest manner, the Fulani aristocracy has been able to subordinate governance in Nigeria (including military rule) to its authority, and the Sultan of Sokoto has by now acquired a quantum of power and influence that his forebears could not have dreamt of. What Head of State of Nigeria whether military or civilian – would dare to stay in office for the first six months without going to Sokoto to pay homage to the Sultan?



The Basis of Fulani Hegemony

The crux of the mater on the devices used by a minority ethnic group (the Fulani) to effectively stay in power and expand its influence to such an unprecedented level in post – colonial Nigeria.



Organizational Abilities:

An important source of power of the Fulani aristocracy is that common tool of every successful ruling minority that its rival lacks, is its organizational abilities. In the particular case of the Fulani aristocracy, it has so many of its ethnic stock involved in organizing for power in a coordinated manner, and with such continuity across time, that no other group in Nigeria can match.



Although, it has strong clan divisions, its various fractions share a common need to stay in power for their collective survival. But there is much more to Fulani success than his common denominator of ruling minorities. The scholar underscores three contrapuntal principal deployed by the Fulani aristocracy in organizing for power.



Islam vs Christianity

By right of conquest, the ruler of the Sokoto Caliphate was also its Islamic authority. The tradition continues in post-colonial Nigeria. As such, the ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the Islamic region in Nigeria rest in Sokoto. Since the leadership of Sokoto Islamic establishment, is pre-dominantly Fulani, the aristocracy’s self-interest naturally dictates the fortunes of Islam. Up to the present, the Fulani aristocracy has used every bit of its political power to promote the versial formal membership of the Organization of Islamic Conference (IOC) under Babaginda; Nigeria’s controversial formal membership of D-8, a group of developing Islamic countries under the Abacha regime; Ghadafi’s ‘invasion’ of Nigeria to open a mosque in Kano where he declared Nigeria an Islamic state, and so on.



Given this masterful use of which the hegemony has put, Christianity in the North has become, much more than a mere profession of faith: it is a political statement of freedom from Fulani control. Not unexpectedly, the Fulani aristocracy has fought the Christian North with all the political means at its disposal. The expansion of this confrontation to the whole of Nigeria, and the subordination of normal constitutional processes to the invidious distinction between Christianity and Islam, portends one of the greatest dangers to Nigeria’s survival. Fulani aristocracy has not refrained from using confrontation method to win its goal, even when they endanger the survival of Nigeria.



This explanation may throw light on the battles that attend the shift in power. The prize at the center has been won and is being closely-guarded by the Fulani aristocracy. It will then mean that if the prizes are broken – up and shared, the Fulani hegemony will collapse.



Northern Nigeria vs Southern Nigeria

The Fulani aristocracy has been most successful in pushing for common Northern institutions and in enhancing the Northern share of vital national sources. In doing so, it has orchestrated the difference between the North and South. For the Fulani aristocracy, the integrity of the North is a matter of its life or else its demise. There are two principal reasons why this is so: first, as now constituted, there is no state or local government area in Northern Nigeria in which the Fulani make up a majority. If emphasis were to switch from Northern Nigeria to the states, the minority Fulani would be politically endangered in any democratic process in which each community seeks its ethnic folk to represent it.



Second, it is only by acting as spokesman for the whole of the North, against the South, that the Fulani aristocracy can justify its existence.



Hausa Nationalism vs Fulani Interests:

Ultimately, the stability and tenure of the Fulani aristocracy rest on the quietude of Hausa nationalism. There is no subject in which it has invested more of its remarkable talents for ideological formulation than in persuading the Hausa that what is good for the Fulani is also good for them. Any act of separatist nationalism that encourage the Hausa to seek their own autonomy as a district ethnic group would be most threatening to the Fulani aristocracy. Whereas the Fulani aristocracy has shown good political sense by dealing with Christians from various parts of Nigeria, North and South, but it is most uncomfortable with the notion of a Christian Hausa apparently because it is subversive of good orderliness in the Fulani – Hausa hierarchy and has therefore behaved harshly towards Christian Hausa.



Military vs Democratic Rule

For the Fulani hegemony perhaps more than any other tool, military governments have been useful in ensuring the reign of the aristocracy. As a book written by late Mr. Ikoku: Inside Out reveals, Ibrahim Tahir, one of the leading torch-bears of the hegemony, told late Ikoku in detention about his regrets over Shagari’s trumpeted plan to give the South a “presidential chance” which led to the Buhari – Idiagbon coup, to protect the “sanctity” of Fulani rule.



Military rule, has shielded the Fulani from harassment from local vested interests. As in the history of the aristocracy in many other regions of the world, Fulani aristocracy would benefit from the subversion of democratic Nigeria. What followed the (1983) presidential election must be understood to be one of the most mysterious and troubling in modern Nigeria history. Shehu Shagari was “overthrow” in a military putsch headed by two army generals who were not only fellow Fulani but were well-know to be close to the president. Was it carried out as a pre-emptive measure to prevent others from overthrowing a government headed by a Fulani aristocrat, thus (signaling) possibility of a new power-holding ethnic bloc? (Although most southerners mistaken Idiagbon for Yoruba, he was thoroughbred Fulani from Ilorin).



The Fulani Strategic Resolve

(1) It now seems fairly clear, that the Fulani aristocracy has decided that the free-floating democracy is dangerous for its survival and has used considerable resources to disrupt democratic processes. eg impeachment saga meant to remove Obasanjo.



(2) As the only viable corporate power bloc in modern Nigeria politics, it has for now at least considered its disadvantageous to allow power-sharing arrangements among Nigeria’s political regions, and is apparently satisfied that it will continue to retain the top position of presidency or else control whoever takes up this position.



(3) Military rule has been particularly beneficial to the Fulani aristocracy, since under its regimes its members have occupied strategic positions on the economic and government, at will.



(4) The federal principle is all but dead, as the state are dictated to from the top, as military rule which appears preferable to the Fulani aristocracy for whom genuine state bases of federalism could prove troublesome.



Jan 2003

books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1592213200,

The Nigerian presidential election was all over bar the shouting or the rioting. Incumbent Goodluck Jonathan was getting an excess of 90% of the vote in some states in the south, in suspiciously high turnouts, while putting up a reasonable showing in the north, where main challenger Muhammadu Buhari was expected to be strong.

As the outcome became clearer – as if it was ever in doubt that an incumbent president would be defeated in Nigeria – the violence kicked off in northern cities like Kano, Kaduna, Gombe, etc, ostensibly in protest that Buhari didn’t win.

The reports on the violence follow the same pattern – supporters of Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), are protesting against what they saw as rigged elections. The riots are in the predominantly Muslim north, so religion comes in handy as a convenient explanation. But Nigeria is way too complicated for readymade explanations of Muslims rioting in the north because a southern Christian (Jonathan) won an election. To understand Nigerian complexities you need to delve into history a bit.

In most of pre-colonial northern Nigeria before the 1800s, Islam was predominantly practised by the kings of the Hausa city-states, the Shehu of Bornu, etc and itinerant Fulani clerics and teachers. Most of those kings were only Muslim in name and allowed their subjects to practise African traditional religions. Their subjects were predominantly indigenous Hausa people (there are hundreds of other ethnicities in the north), while the Fulani were mainly nomadic migrants. There were two types of Fulani, the pastoralist that usually reared cattle and the urbanised that were literate in Arabic. They constituted the minority in most of northern Nigeria.

The dynamics in northern Nigeria were transformed from 1804 when a Fulani cleric Usman Dan Fodio launched his jihad in the Hausa city-state of Gobir. Dan Fodio and his followers conquered most of northern Nigeria, with the exception of the Bornu Empire in the northeast, and came within the northern outposts of the Oyo Empire in the southwest of modern-day Nigeria. Dan Fodio’s jihad set up the Sokoto Caliphate also known as the emirate system, putting Fulani emirs as the rulers of each city-state, such as Zaria and Kano, with Sokoto as the spiritual home. It established a theocracy in the region with Islam as the template for governance, but with a minority ethnic group – the Fulani – providing the ruling class and the religious leaders.

The legacy of this merger of religion and politics would continue to reverberate in Nigeria two centuries later.

When the British conquered northern Nigeria they found a system of government in place that allowed them to rule the region at little cost. A Fulani aristocracy was at the top of the hierarchy, literate in Arabic and using Islam as an instrument for legitimising their dominance over the Hausa majority, with the Fulani Sultan of Sokoto known as the Amir al-Muminin (Commander of the Faithful). The British decided to keep the emirate system intact and introduced “indirect rule” in which the emirs retained political control over their kingdoms with the few British colonial officials as overseers and “advisers”. The emirate system was deployed to serving British imperial interests.

With British conquest in southern Nigeria came Christian missionaries who built a few schools. However, in northern Nigeria the British recognised that western education and possible conversion to Christianity would challenge the supremacy of the Fulani aristocracy and threaten the “indirect rule” system. So a conscious decision was made to curtail Christian missionary activities and the spread of western education in the north.

By independence in 1960, there were significantly higher numbers of educated southern Nigerians, in comparison with northern Nigerians and the few northerners with western education tended to be from the ruling Fulani dynasties.

Northern Nigeria also had a culture of sending the children of the poor to religious schools to learn about Islam. They are known as “almajiris” – an Islamic term for someone who leaves his home in search Islamic knowledge. In reality these children become street urchins, begging and being reliant on alms from mosques, and the Muslim requirement for every wealthy Muslim to give generously to charity (zakat).

In a society that was not penetrated by western education, where a minority Fulani controlled access to political and religious power and the wealth that flowed from it, an army of poor youths (almajiris) reliant on the beneficence of the powerful, are easily subject to manipulation to further certain political goals.

The alliance of the British colonisers and the Fulani aristocracy was threatened by the increasingly militant independence movement in the south of Nigeria. To prolong colonial rule, the British, in typical divide and rule mode, sold independence as a matter of southern/Christian domination of the north. The Fulani aristocracy used instability to delay the independence movement in the 1950s by instigating riots by the almajiri in cities like Kano in 1953. This would be the first time southern Nigerians would be attacked in northern cities and it wouldn’t be the last.

The attacks usually followed the same patterns. Something would have gone against the wishes of the Fulani aristocracy. They would then use their control of over mosques, where the religious leaders are usually Fulani, to orchestrate orgies of violence by almajiris, with carefully selected targets – usually southern Nigerians/Christians. But the targets are not exclusively southern/Christian. They are sometimes fellow northerners/Muslims who have acted against the interests of Fulani aristocrats – like Dr Bala Muhammad who was lynched by almajiris in the 1980s and vice-president Namadi Sambo, whose house in Zaria was burnt yesterday. As traditional and political power in northern Nigeria is usually in the hands of Fulani aristocrats, they are also capable of controlling the deployment of security forces to quell any violence. Usually, the police and the army tend to go missing when the rampaging mobs hit the streets. This helps feed the suspicion that they are ordered not to act. The intention of the violence is usually to send a message that they would make Nigeria ungovernable if you messed with them.

Practically all outbreaks of violence in northern Nigeria, including the massacres of Igbos that preceded the civil war, have been as a result of acts that threatened the plans of Fulani oligarchs. The trigger for the pogroms against Igbos in 1966, was the coup in January 1966 led by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, in which the most powerful Fulani aristocrat of that era Ahmadu Bello, the premier of Northern Nigeria, was killed.

There have been several inquiries after violent riots in northern Nigeria. They usually expose the fact that the riots were carefully planned and orchestrated and there was nothing spontaneous about them. Some inquiries have fingered one or two emirs, some imams, etc as being involved in the planning of the riots. But the inquiries are usually shelved with no action taken on the recommendations and none of the plotters is ever charged.

So who should really be surprised that when Buhari, a Fulani, lost the election, almajiris would go on the rampage? Apart from this being standard operating procedure, Buhari was going around warning that there would be “consequences” if the elections were rigged. His running-mate Tunde Bakare threatened that it will be the “wild, wild north if PDP rigs”.

Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: The Realities of Regionalism

By Nicole Lancia

In Africa, colonial administrations and imperial occupations carved up boundaries that divided territories inhabited by indigenous societies and brought together a diversity of ethnic communities within unitary administrative structures. In Nigeria, between 1914 and 1915, British colonial administrators created three regional territories that explain ethno-genesis and later ethnic tensions: the Northern region occupied by Hausa/Fulani, the Eastern region inhabited by the Ibo, and the Western region of the Yoruba. Within this divisive colonial structure, ethnic tensions emerged between these unequally developed groups primarily in the 1950s. The colonial tripartite division of Nigeria prevented a Nigerian nationalistic movement, manipulating geographical boundaries to reinforce separation between ethnic groups and transforming ethnicity into an identity by which to gain political power; this structure along with other administrative decisions emphasized ethnic nationalism and regional politics, resulting from significant uneven development within each region. The colonial division of Nigeria that reinforced ethnic groups, the rise of ethno-political consciousness, and the development of ethnic/regional political parties demonstrated that the British administration intentionally prevented the rise and success of Nigerian nationalism, instead promoting regionalism as a means to gain political power.

The hyper-federalism of the Nigerian state by British colonial officials highlighted ethno-genesis and the tensions between majority and minority ethnic groups; furthermore, it reinforced ethnic/ regional boundaries and marginalized minority ethnic groups, encouraging groups to compete as interest groups vying for political power. The Nigerian State is composed of various ethnicities, but the existence of multiple nationalities does not by itself constitute a political problem; in the process of modernization, the interests of ethnic groups elevate to the political realm (Ethnicity and the Nigerian State). In “Ethnicity in sub-Saharan Africa,” Welsh asserts that “the precipitation of ethnic identities becomes incomprehensible if it is divorced from colonial rule” (479); similarly, ethnicity is not a “natural cultural residue but a consciously crafted ideological creation” (480). These two statements directly apply to colonial Nigeria as they discuss the relevant connection between colonialism and ethnic or cultural identity, the former creating and manipulating the latter. British colonial administrators implemented policies through this tripartite structure with the intention of producing a Nigerian federation presiding over three regional governments with legislative power (Cooper 69). This tripartite division perpetuated ethnic divisions between the Northern Hausa/Fulani, Eastern Ibo, and Western Yoruba and between the majority and minority ethnic groups; it strengthened these ethnic identities as interest groups fighting for political representation and power. In support of this point, Cooper states that “instead of allowing a wide-variety of interest groups to make claims on the Nigerian state, the federal system focused power on the three regions,” ignoring the concerns of unrepresented minority ethnic groups (70). The existence of these three politically-dominant ethnic groups conveyed the contribution of colonialism to ethno-genesis and its effect on the individual ethnic identities of the various peoples within Nigeria.

Colonial structures ignored and marginalized minority ethnic groups within Nigeria, as they were not recognized as one of the three main peoples. Osaghae states that ethnic minorities are usually defined in contradistinction to major groups with whom they co-exist in political systems (3). The terms “majority” and “minority” evolved only after the creation of the three regions in the 1940s, which mobilized the main regions to unify and push the minorities to the periphery (5). This rise of hegemonic nationalism and use of exclusionary politics by the majority groups inhibited the minorities from demonstrating political participation beginning in the 1950s. The majority versus minority conflict as a subset within the larger ethnic divisions between the Hausa/Fulani, Ibo, and Yoruba indicated that British colonial administrators desired to exclude certain ethnic groups from political participation and maintain ethnic tensions to prevent a rise of Nigerian nationalism.

The growth of ethnic nationalism among the Ibo, Yoruba, and Hausa/Fulani illustrated that Britain’s vision of a Nigerian federation sparked uneven sociopolitical and economic development in each region and introduced competitive politics, which preserved ethnic conflicts. Nigeria emerged in 1914 as a composite political unit and, as a result, westernizing influences impinged unevenly upon the people of Nigeria; as Cooper points out, the three regions were not equivalent: “the north was the most populous, but had the weakest educational system,” ruled by a Muslim elite; the west was the wealthiest as the capital city Lagos lay within its borders; the east possessed the best educated population (69). Coleman describes two manifestations of regional tension arising from uneven development: the struggle between the Yoruba and the Ibo and the rivalry between the north and southern provinces (331).

Because of the early advantages of the Yoruba in “educational and professional attainments,” the group’s monopoly over political activity centered in Lagos. Until the 1930s when the Ibo-led National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) emerged, the Yoruba held an overwhelming majority of higher positions in the African civil service (Coleman 331). Because of the densely populated, infertile rural area where the Ibo resided, the Ibo expanded territorially and migrated to urban centers for work. By the end of World War II, Ibo clerks and laborers constituted a sizable minority group in every urban center of Nigeria and the Cameroons (Coleman 332). As a consequence of the comparative lack of opportunity in the east, the Ibo embraced Western education and Christian missions; by 1945 the educational difference between the Yoruba and the Ibo had been closed. However, the Ibo strove to assert themselves politically, which incited Yoruba-Ibo competition and tension. The tensions between the Muslim north and the Christian south deepened with the north’s growing recognition of the division. More importantly, rigid structures in the north produced a delayed movement toward nationalism due to the prevalence of Islam, the lack of an uprooted Western-educated class, and the 1922 Clifford and 1946 Richards Constitutions (Coleman 354; Nmoma 315). Since the Muslim community was linked with an authoritarian political structure, the Muslim elite, or Filanin gida, were anti-nationalist and opposed to sociopolitical reform. The most striking feature of the northern situation involved the inactivity and silence of the Western-educated class, or ma’aikata; in other areas, this group had been responsible for leading nationalist activity, but the ma’aikata were recruited into the native administrations and thus, did not experience the abuse and prejudice characteristic of some European officials in the African civil service (355). Furthermore, the Hausa/Fulani never developed a revolutionary mindset against inequality; from the lack of exposure to abusive behavior and unequal treatment, they became “accommodationist rather than revolutionary,” delaying any rise of nationalism in the north (357).

The fact that Nigeria had not one but two constitutions also exacerbated ethnic conflict. The Clifford Constitution (1922) created a legislative council, from which the north was excluded, with the first-ever African elected members in British Africa. From 1922-1939, the British did not involve Northern Nigeria in political affairs, which enabled Southern Nigeria to become, for a temporary period, more politically advanced (Nmoma 315). The Richards Constitution (1946) stated the Nigeria must allow for “unity in diversity” within separate regions and legislatures; this separation of powers served to prevent single ethnic group domination and present territorial politics as the only viable option for political advancement, with each region united by a history of advantages and disadvantages.

As ethnic consciousness resulting from colonialism motivated the majority ethnic groups to develop regional political parties which stimulated inter-ethnic tensions, ethnic politics inevitably became the main deterrent to Nigerian nationalism. In each region, a party dominated by members of the majority ethnic group obtained office and provided services and patronage for the group (Cooper 69). The Hausa/Fulani led the Northern Political Congress (NPC) and the Northern Elements’ Progressive Union (NEPU); in the east, the Ibo formed the NCNC, a party for Nigerian unity; the Yoruba developed the Action Group (AG), a regional political party dedicated to strengthening ethnic organizations in the west and cooperating with other organizations for self-government for Nigeria (Coleman 364; Cooper 69). The NPC, formed in the 1950s, desired to designate power to a conservative coalition of young educated elements and moderate elements (360). Its motto became “one north, one people,” which illustrated its regional objective. NEPU, on the other hand, rejected the notion of regional separation and assumed the reputation as the “radical wing” of northern politics (Coleman 364). The NPC ultimately won the northern 1951 elections since the unifying element among northerners was common opposition to the NEPU due to its working alliance with the NCNC, the symbol of potential southern domination (Coleman 359).

The NCNC based its foundation on anti-British nationalism and its powerful urge for self-transformation motivated it to initiate Nigerian nationalism. Coleman states that poor soil and overpopulation were also factors in Ibo gravitation toward a Pan-Nigerian objective; the wide dispersion of clerks and laborers fostered among the Ibo a consciousness of the potentialities of Nigerian unity and the strength of unification around nationality (338). After the formation of organizations such as the Egba Society (1918) and the Yoruba Language Society (1942), the Yoruba created the Action Group (1951) whose goals included: “encouragement of all ethnical organizations in the Western Region” and “cooperation with all other nationalists…as a united team toward the realization of self-government for Nigeria” (Coleman 350). The Action Group leaders demonstrated that the only avenue to power, given the situation within Nigeria at that time, was a regional political party who opposed the threat of Ibo domination (350). In response, the NCNC employed tribalism among the non-Yoruba to undermine the predominantly Yoruba Action Group, however, “the victory of the Action Group over the NCNC in the 1951 elections in the west was the triumph of regional nationalism” (351). It is clear that while organizations such as NEPU and NCNC aimed at Pan-Nigerian unity, the success of the AG and NPC exemplified the inevitable necessity for regional politics as the ultimate structure of government in Nigeria.

Examining the impact of the British tripartite division of Nigeria, from ethno-genesis to its effects on uneven development to the failure of Nigerian nationalism and success of regionalism, illustrates that within such a diverse nation-state, regionalism was intended, supported, and necessary in order to advance politically and socially. Due to ethnic and regional tensions resulting from uneven socioeconomic development in the Hausa/Fulani north, Ibo east, and Yoruba west, ethnic consciousness influenced the formation of regional political parties and was the main deterrent to Nigerian unity. Hyper-federalism in diverse Nigeria cut across territorial and ethnic boundaries only to allow the majority ethnic group of each region to dominate and minority groups to become marginalized, excluded from the political realm. Most importantly, British colonialism shaped the way the ethnic groups developed and acted upon their ethnic consciousness; each region employed ethnic politics, idealistically striving for Nigerian unity while realistically forming regional political parties: a successful means to gaining political control over a situation imposed on them as well as paving a path toward success in a system determined for them.

Works Cited:

Coleman, James S. Nigeria: Background to Nationalism. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960.

Fulani Oligarchy and the death of Bola Ige

By

Femi Awoniyi

Speyer, Germany

Bola Ige was one of a very few number of our politicians in the South who have been able to cut through to the core of our dilemma: the Fulani politics of power supremacy. He was no rabble-rouser who indiscriminately lumped more than 150 diverse peoples who inhabit the north of our country together as "these Northerners".


Bola Ige had a clear vision of a democratic Nigeria where no ethnic or racial group will dominate our polity, and his activities in the Obasanjo government have been geared towards this goal.



Fulanis hated Bola Ige for he understood the mechanism of their dominance in Nigeria. He’s therefore held responsible by the Fulani power elite for what they perceive as the "anti-North" policies of the government. Of course, the President makes no policies against the North, but the interest of the Fulani Oligarchy is deceitfully called the "interest of the North" by Fulanis.



The vitriolic media campaign against him by Fulani politicians and intellectuals (and their lackeys in the Muslim North), which began as soon as he was named a minister in the Obasanjo government, has no precedence in our political history. The virulent attacks on the person of the politician was only a precursor to his physical elimination.



Unfortunately, many of his contemporaries in Yoruba politics did not understand that he was already advancing the same struggle they claim to lead. And Bola Ige himself obviously underrated the enormity of the danger he represented to the racial and power supremacist Fulani Oligarchy hence the feeble attention he paid to his personal safety and that of his family.



The professional way in which Bola Ige’s elimination was carried out shows that his detractors far beyond Yorubaland were the perpetrators of his demise. The mode of his murder shows that it had nothing to do with the machete and dane gun thuggery of the Akande-Omisore rift. It should also be remembered that unknown persons had twice broken into his Abuja office and destroyed documents in the past one year.



The logic of his elimination marks out the Fulani elite as prime suspects.



Nigeria must not be misled by the hypocritical condolence visit of M. D. Yussuf, the Fulani chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum, to the Ige family in Ibadan or by the statement issued by the organisation warning against the imposition of emergency rule on Oshun State.



We must refuse to be deceived by the feigned kind comments of some Fulani politicians on Bola Ige, because they are presently revelling in schadenfreude, joy over misfortune that befalls one’s enemy.



The real killers of Bola Ige must be unmasked, Yorubas must refuse to accept any Dele Giwa-style deadlock in this case.



If the Fulani elite were indeed behind with this assassination and if they get away with it, they will very soon kill again. And they will have enough camouflages. They could send a hitman to kill Works and Housing Minister Tony Anenih and pin it on the Aihkomu-PDP dispute in Edo State. The Ishan man after all is perceived as a strong back-watcher of Obasanjo.



There is panic in the Fulani Oligarchy over the style of Obasanjo’s governance. It is afraid that if the President completed two terms in office, its hold on Nigerian politics would be neutralised for ever. Hence, they might even take the desperate step of eliminating him so that power would fall back to a fellow Muslim Northerner. They have done this before. In 1966, they instigated mutiny in the army that led to the brutal murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi.





Fulanis and the rest of us in Nigeria



The Fulani establishment has been the driving force of our politics and has unequivocally set its agenda for the past 41 years.



Fulanis depart from a premise of greater entitlement to power in Nigeria than the rest of us. This attitude is inspired by racist-supremacist instinct similar to the Tutsi natural resentment of Hutu leadership in Burundi and Rwanda or the Tuareg rebellion against African rule in Mali and Niger from the 1960s to as recent as the mid-1990s.



The Fulani establishment could build alliances like ‘Hausa-Fulani’, ‘Muslim North’, ‘North’ or ‘Nigerian Muslims’, their game-plan has been always to secure Fulani supremacy in our polity. This politics requires that "external" enemies must always be found against which to define the common identity they seek to share with their chosen allies. Therein lies the danger of perpetual crisis in Nigeria.



And Fulani politicians are superior to their counterparts in the rest of Nigeria. Fulanis have been shaped by thousands of years of battle with the harsh forces of nature to be more clever, more canny, more aggressive, to have sharper instincts of survival and sense of perception. And our leaders do not understand them. Imagine fighting against an enemy you do not know well!



An example of our faulty perception of the North and Fulani politics is provided by the speech delivered by Chief Abraham Adesanya at the "first Alhaji Abdulrahman Okene memorial Lecture", organised by Gamji Members Association (GAMA), in Kaduna on 15 August. In the speech, which after a critical reading would make a Yoruba look foolish, the Afenifere chief said:



"You have invited me, the leader of Afenifere and leader of the Yoruba to be your special guest of honour. History will record that this is the first time in Nigerian political history whether ancient or modern when a descendant of Oduduwa will be honoured in such an environment so closely and so warmly associated with a descendant of Othman Dan Fodio."



Chief Adesanya speech writers elevated Dan Fodio to the rank of Oduduwa, placing a Fulani man who died less than 200 years ago on the same level of the mythical cultural hero of Yorubas.

They also chose an event in honour of Okene, an Igbira man, to seek dialogue with the Fulani power establishment. Yet Okuns and Igalas, both Yoruba poeples, have been living with Igbiras for thousands of years, far, far long before Fulanis first appeared as destitute nomads in our horizon.



We have overindulged the insensitivity of the Fulani elite and thus have emboldened them to act with impunity in Nigeria.



The Fulani Oligarchy has fought the popular clamour for fundamental changes in our polity almost to a standstill. The governors of the southern states have abandoned their call for state police, although it is the most logical solution to the problem of crime in Nigeria. On resource control, they have told us that people do not have any claim to resources for "merely sitting on them". They have cowed the proponents of a Yoruba traditional leadership institution in Ilorin with the threat of imported violence.



Yet against our loud protestations they have introduced an autonomous judicial space in Nigeria with sharia. And, to boot, they have a local police to enforce the Islamic penal code (Islam was the chief weapon in the Fulani conquest of Hausa country and culture, and their other fiefdoms in the North, and sharia amounts to an aggressive reassertion of the religion as the chief agent of cultural unity in the Fulani-ruled North and the Muslim North as a whole). They claim they have the right to practise their religion the way it suits them, but we have no right to adopt measures we consider appropriate to safeguard our lives and properties.



The Fulani Oligarchy in its traditional form is an outdated system that resists social progress. It is a system that inculcates subordination and acquiescence and these have come to characterise the society and polity of the Fulani-ruled Muslim North.



Nigeria will not move forward until the Oligarchy is defeated like in Cameroon. Yet we are disadvantaged in the battle against this force of backwardness because our leaders are too given to in-fighting, too self-centred, too prone to being satisfied with little achievements. Our scholars are busy fighting for better conditions of service instead of enlightening their people, our popular intellectuals are confused ideologues, our prominent social critics keep quite to avoid being labelled tribalists. Gani Fawehinmi is a tribalist, Professor Peter Ekeh is a tribalist, Tiv generals are tribalists etc. Fulani intellectuals and journalists use the label so often that it seems only Fulanis because of their facial features transcend ethnicity and tribalism.



Fulani supremacist politics is comprehensive. Their few newspapers have well-programmed content. Their few intellectuals pursue an ideological objective: the Fulani supremacy in our politics, and they are very effective in working for their race in Nigeria. They co-ordinate with their traditional rulers, politicians, top civil servants, military officers, both serving and retired. Arewa has successfully mobilised into its membership almost all the prominent retired military and police officers in the whole North. This kind of co-ordination is lacking in the South.



Bola Ige’s death marks a turning point in the struggle for a peaceful, stable Nigeria, free from the choke-hold of Fulani power supremacy. A general in this war has fallen and his demise has dire implications for the nation.



The message of Bola Ige’s death is that we must be ready to do an all-out battle with the idea of Fulani supremacy in Nigeria. We must stop shying away from a fight. Our politicians must seek allies in the North, we must undercut the influence of Fulanis in its regional politics. Our journalists must become conscious of this evil idea of Fulani supremacy in our land, our students must be sensitised to it. Our civil servants, policemen, military men and women, the whole of the civil society must be awaken to this obnoxious ideology of racial superiority. Only this encompassing mobilisation can defeat the Fulani Oligarchy which is the hinderer of our progress in Nigeria.



Fulanis are not invincible. Southerners must only stop lumping all Northerners together for condemnation for our problems. The South must reach out to the North. Kanuris and Yorubas, for example, are related peoples. All ethnological studies of Nigeria since the beginning of the 20th century have always pointed this out. Why can’t Yoruba intellectuals help to make political capital out of this? Why can Southern Christians not reach a strategic consensus with the Christian North, not against Islam but against Fulani-inspired political Islam?



Until the politics of Fulani supremacy is correctly recognised for what it is; a cancer in our nation, we will not be able to move forward.



----------

Bola Ige: Eulogy



"The great man understands the essence of a problem; the ordinary leader grasps only the symptoms. The great man focuses on the relationship of events to each other; the ordinary leader sees only a series of seemingly disconnected events. The great man has a vision of the future that enables him to place obstacles into perspective; the ordinary leader turns pebbles in the road into boulders."



- Henry Kissinger, October 1981, on the difference between great and ordinary leaders





The American doyen of diplomacy was speaking of Anwar Sadat, extolling the leadership quality of the Egyptian leader who had just been murdered by Muslim extremists. While Sadat’s fellow Arabs were rejoicing over his death, for daring to make peace with Israel the world mourned a great leader of vision. Of course, events since then have shown that Sadat had a far greater foresight than his critics.



Bola Ige confounded many in the tail end of his life.



When he joined the Obasanjo presidency in 1999, his detractors in Afenifere shouted: Ige has jumped ship like Akintola! But Bola Ige unlike Akintola, led by his sharp instincts and powerful sense of insight, only broke rank in order to explore the road ahead so that he could point the way forward for his Yoruba people and Nigeria.



When he said "no need for sovereign conference", his people shouted: What a betrayal. They didn’t read between the lines. He never said there was no need for a national conference or a constitutional reform.



An ardent supporter of resource control, the court case on littoral rights of states he initiated as Federal Justice Minister caused consternation in our compatriots in the South-South, but luckily the politics of the case was not lost on his friends in the region. For it was the first step in the constitutional struggle to confer primary sovereignty over resources in a geographical space on those who inhabit it.



He recognised that reality is not a thing, but a process that is always changing. And he believed that there could be more than one way to a desired goal. The Oduduwa Republic illusionists who dominate Afenifere did not understand him, they believe rather in the big-bang solution.



Ige’s death is the greatest tragedy that has befallen Yorubas since Egbe omo Oduduwa was founded about 50 years ago, the beginning of modern Yoruba nationalism.



He was no hopeless romantic who espoused lofty ambitions with belligerent rhetoric without much of a thought of how to achieve them.



He wanted the best for Nigeria and he was a believer in black redemption. That he was an exponent of Yoruba interests didn’t make him a tribalist like his Fulani detractors labelled him. Ethnonational politicking is the logic of the reality imposed on all of us in Nigeria by the antics of the Fulani Oligarchy.



Harry Truman once wrote that "Many are indispensable, but no one is irreplaceable". The unfillable vacuum created by Ige’s death in Yoruba politics has proved the American soldier-statesman wrong.



………………………………………….

Femi Awoniyi is a journalist and he lives in Germany

Boko haram the caliphate army.

Nigeria: A Historical Record of Hausa-Fulani Jihad in Nigeria


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAq7fm0BaX0

Nigeria
Usman dan Fodio, founder, Sokoto Caliphate
Nana Asma’u, scholar, author, and pioneer of women's education, Sokoto Caliphate
Umaru Yar'Adua, former President of Nigeria
Shehu Shagari, former President of Nigeria
Muhammadu Buhari, former Nigerian Head of State
Ahmadu Bello, first Premier of Northern Nigeria
Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria
Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, Nigerian politician and the brother of former Nigerian president Umaru Yar'Adua
Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Father of Nigeria and first Nigerian prime minister
Vice-Admiral Murtala Nyako, current Governor of Adamawa State,former Chief of Naval Staff
Ibrahim Gambari, Under Secretary-General/Special Adviser - Africa in the UN; former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Professor Jibril Aminu, pioneer cardiac surgeon, former minister of education and petroleum.
Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi ,central bank Governor of Nigeria
Aliko Dangote,Richest person of African descent.
Mohammed Shata, Former Internal Affairs Minister
Fatimah Tuggar Visual Artist

The Hausa-Fulani has no ideals, no ambitions save such as sensual in character. He is a fatalist, spendthrift and a gambler. He is gravely immoral and is seriously diseased that he is a menace to any community to which he seeks to attach himself".

- Lord Lugard in a Letter to his colleague, Walter H. Lang on September 25, 1918.

“Under the circumstances of what has been happening in Plateau State, some people just have to die……Any society that refuses to be just and fair shall become a jungle where only jungle justice shall operate……… Indeed, majority of our killings were carried out in areas where there was strong government presence.”

Mallam Sale Bayero, Fulani leader and secretary Sultan’s Farmer/Cattle Rearers Conflict Committee boasting as he justified the massacre of the Birom people while protesting the arrest of the Fulani murderers in Plateau State of Nigeria, quoted in THE SUN NEWS of Friday, March 12, 2010



Dan Fodio
Some time towards the middle of the second decade of the 1800s (1815 AD or thereabout), Uthman Dan Fodio was reported to have had a scary dream about his Sultanate empire that he had just built. This dream was said to have saddened him that the empire he had spilled so much blood to build would only lasted 200 years. As a courageous warrior that he was, Dan Fodio was reported to have summoned the will to interpret the dream make this prediction abouthe future of his Empire.

According to informed sources as reported by Adewale Adeoye in The Nation of March 14, 2010, this fear of the realization of Dan Fodio’s dream was what informed the hurried movement of the Capital of Nigeria from Lagos to Abuja. The report said inter alia:

“The source hinted that in the 1970s, Northern leaders of Fulani extraction had met and resolved that the capital of Nigeria be moved from Lagos to Abuja, in anticipation of the prophecy of late Uthman Dan Fodio. He said the meeting was

propelled by the dream the then Sultan of Sokoto had that he saw his offsprings, in years to come, being requested to obtain visa permits before entering the Southern part of the country….”

There are a number of deductions that could be made from the above:

a) That the entire Nigeria was and is still regarded as part of the Sultanate Empire of Uthman Dan Fodio.

b) That this is why the Fulani have been exuding this arrogant attitude permeated with the “BORN TO RULE” mentality.

c) That this is why they have always ruled Nigeria as if we are in the middle ages and consider the wealth of Nigeria as theirs to dispense as they see fit.

d) That the recent liberation struggles in Birom, Niger Delta, and the rest of the South, west or east is being seen as the beginning of the end of the Sultanate Empire by the Fulani people

e) That the Fulani people have been scheming and preparing to get ready for when they would leave or be chased out of Nigeria.

It is this writer’s view that there is nothing wrong if the Fulani have to pull out of Nigeria to sustain and maintain the remnant of their Sultanate Empire. It would definitely serve all concerned very well. But this writer is not convinced that the Fulani would let go very easily, regardless of their palpitation about the dreams of Uthman Dan Fodio. They are going to fight hard. Anyone familiar with their trickery and how they subdued all the fledgling Hausa States one after the other, using Hausa masses against their kings would agree with this writer.

To this extent, I disagree with Lord Lugard that the Fulani (let us leave the Hausa ethnic nationality out for now), “has no ambition.” The Fulani has ambitions and great ones at that. The Fulani ambition is to always rule others whether they (Fulani) have the capacity to do so or not. The Fulani liked and still likes his empires, at least that of Uthman Dan Fodio has been in place before Lord Lugard ever was born.

It is this inherent ambition that forced the Fulani to develop the methodology to use religion to mobilize the Hausa critical mass against their own Hausa rulers and replaced them with blue-blooded turban-carrying Fulani rulers as Emirs across what used to be Hausa kingdoms. As time goes on, the Fulani sought ways to modernize its means of extending the frontiers of the Sultanate and refined its tool that was used against the Hausa Kingdoms in preparation for the conquest of the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

What the Fulani came up with was a different brand of what they did to the Hausa kings and empires. The Fulani concluded that because of cultural and religious factors, it would not be easy to use the critical mass of other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to be able to supplant the leaders of these ethnic nationalities. So, the Fulani to sustain its ambition to rule and dominate, cultivated corrupt satellites in every ethnic nationality in Nigeria while politically annihilating the true leaders of other ethnic nationalities.



In 1957, during the heated battles for self government and independence, Sir Ahmadu Bello referred to Nigeria as “The mistake of 1914.” To correct this “mistake” a meticulous plan to dominate the future Nigerian Armed Forces was surreptitiously embarked upon while the British was helping out on the political front manufacturing Parliamentary seats for the North against the South of Nigeria. Thus, barely six months after independence, Sir Ahmadu Bello was able to say with confidence in the Daily Times of May 3, 1961, the following:

“I’m set and fully armed, to conquer the Action Group, AG, in the same ruthless manner as my grandfather conquered Alkalawa, a town in Sokoto province, during the last century.”

The writer would like readers to pay due attention to the words used by Sir. Bello, in this quote. He used the word “conquer” not "negotiate." Ahmadu Bello executed this desired conquest of the West as he had planned. Though, it backfired temporarily as it consumed him a number of years later, but the Fulani sentries in the Caliphate Armed Forces euphemized as the Nigerian Armed Forces along with its surviving civilian wing have adopted Sir. Ahmadu Bello’s method of propping up political, economic and religious satellites in all ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to be able to maintain control from Abuja, Sokoto and or Gobir, the birthplace of Uthman Dan Fodio.

It would be alright, if the Fulani could live with others as others are willing and prepared to live with them in Nigeria and other parts of West Africa, at least. In Nigeria, there has been more than 100years of evidence that various ethnic Nationalities have accommodated, loved respected and cared for the Fulani in their midst. There are abundant evidence that the Fulani have been treated as fellow human beings and accorded the same rights that the host have always enjoyed.

But it is very unfortunate that the Fulani has not had the same “live and let live” approach to other ethnic Nationalities in Nigeria. The Fulani concept of living is that others have to die, so that the Fulani may live. As far as the Fulani are concerned, other peoples of other ethnic nationalities are second rate slaves to be used, dumped, maimed, raped or killed for the good of the Fulani man. The Fulani see Nigeria as his great grandfather’s inheritance to be toyed with as he wishes and as he wants. This attitude of Fulani makes him believe that he has to rule wherever he is, regardless of his comparative intelligence and capability to that of his host among other reasons.

Presenting a paper reviewing Paul M. Lewis’ book Ethnologue: Languages of the World, (16th Edition), to a study group in Philadelphia recently, Professor Wola Awoyale, a linguist at the University of Pennsylvania noted that the Fulani are recent immigrants in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Benin Republic, Guinea, Senegal, Niger, Mali and Sudan. The Fulani symbol is turban, flag, alukimba, mosque and book. The Fulani are “a very creative” people who are often very “tight-lipped, silent and secretive” in their approach. They are very “mistrusting, calculating and patient.”

The Fulani are described as “cold blooded and ideological.” They are “ascetic, reclusive and tough-minded.” The Fulani places premium on the role of the mosque in its culture and this is why in all of Nigeria, a Fulani would not be a part of Jamaa (the congregation) where another man of different ethnic stock is leading muslims in prayers.

The Fulani language Fulfude with its variations in Fulah, Pulaar and or Pular are very highly priced. It is their weapon to discuss in secrecy and manipulate and carry out their machinations. The Fulani will freely learn the languages of others as a means of infiltrating them for economic, political and religious advantages while rarely speaking Fulfulde in the presence of others.



In the same March14,2010 edition of The Nation, Baba Oluwide, a former economic consultant to the United Nations (UN) was interviewed. Part of the interview read inter alia:

“To him,(Baba Oluwide) the frequent clashes 'reflects a reawakening of consciousness among nationalities which territories were forcefully taken by the Fulani' adding that it also 'signifies the collapse of the Fulani Empire.' He said the 'main cause of the downfall of the Fulani Empire' was the defect inherent in their political and social perspectives which he says celebrates lack of tolerance for diverse culture and a resentment of pluralism of ideas.”

This writer, in disagreement with the interviewee, would not be so swift to sing the dirge of the Sokoto Caliphate or the Sultanate. While one may agree that there is “a reawakening of consciousness among nationalities which territories were forcefully taken by Fulani,” there is still the need for the ethnic Nationalities in Nigeria to remain vigilant. It is one’s view that the battle to overthrow the yoke of the Fulani political imperialism/neo-colonialism, economic exploitation and religious extremism is just about to begin.

While it may be true that the Fulani is being haunted by the dream of Uthman Dan Fodio and are making preparations for the D-Day when they would leave Nigeria or chased out, it would amount to political suicide for the oppressed and enslaved ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to go to sleep, waiting for the time when the Fulani would voluntarily leave Nigeria. There may be eventual negotiations, but this writer doubts it giving the characteristics of a Fulani man.

It is one’s view that freedom is not cheap and neither is it free. There is always a price to pay for one’s freedom. The Fulani is willing to loot, maim, and kill to hold on to its empire. This suggests that to take it from them, all the ethnic nationalities have to be prepared for every eventuality just in case words and negotiations would not solve the problem.

It would be recalled that the Fulani embarked on ethnic cleansing of the Jukun ethnic nationality in Taraba State in the 1990s. The Fulani are vociferously claiming the ownership of Idi-Araba and yelled “barao, barao, barao” meaning “thief, thief, thief” on the then Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu in his own State. The Fulani started war on traditionalists in Shagamu in Ogun State over the celebration of Oro Festival. The Fulani have tried to reduce the Tiv’s population by extermination during the First Republic. The Fulani have tried to emasculate the Katafs in Kaduna before. The Fulani tried to cleanse Zakibiam of non-Fulani blood. The Fulani have been killing owners of the land in Iseyin and Shaki in Oyo State. Media reports noted that scores of owners of the lands in Oyo were left “dead, maimed or raped.” The Fulani are determined to wipe out the Birom people of Plateau from their ancestral lands. The Fulani has just recently killed a policeman in Ekiti State after wounding the owners of the land. The Fulani has an Emir of Ilorin, a Yoruba town. The Fulani is determined to have an Emir of Jos and possibly Enugu too, very soon

The Nation, in its report of March 14,2010 also noted the following:

“In many West African countries, clashes between nomadic Fulani and indigenous communities are well known underlining the fact that the challenge is a sub-regional phenomenon. In Cameroon, Ghana, Mali, Togo and Niger, frequent clashes between nomadic Fulani and land owners constitute a major security problem for national and regional governments. In the Chad basin, clashes between Fulani and Shua Arabs have led to thousands of deaths, reliable sources claim. Many of the clashes were between indigenous communities and Fulani herdsmen accused of trespassing on native lands and in many cases, attempting to take over the lands by force of arms.”

This shows that the Fulani has a character that is antithetical to the hopes and yearnings of other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and around West African sub-continent. They are used to taking things that do not belong to them by force. Exploiting the oil of the Niger Delta in the way and manner it had been for this long is not out of character for the Fulani. Spending the national resources to which they contribute next to nothing like a drunken “gambler” is part of the Fulani nature. The Fulani has no capacity to be compassionate where his interests are at stake. Thus the murdering of a Ken Saro Wiwa here and a Dele Giwa there, or another Akaluka here and Oluwatosin there means nothing to the Fulani. Murdering in coldblooded massacre, several Junkun woemen and children has no meaning to the Fulani. Wiping out the entire villages of the Birom people does not mean anything to the Fulani. Looting, raping, maiming and murdering innocent and generous Yoruba hosts has no meaning in the consciousness of the Fulani. It is just a way of life.

The essence of bringing this to the attention of the world, especially the ethnic nationalities in the bondage called Nigeria is to let them know what they are engaged with in the struggles to be free and have self determination. The Fulani is not prepared to negotiate if he is going to lose out. The Fulani will fight. And he will be ruthless and cold-blooded in the fight.

The only language the Fulani understands is war and conquest. All you need to do is just listen to Mallam Sale Bayero in the quote above. Listen to the post-humous voice of Ahmadu Bello echoing from the grave as he uses the words “ruthless” and “conquer” in speaking about his supposed fellow countrymen. Listen to Mallam Bala Garuba in the West African Pilot newpaper speaking of “conquest” of his supposed countrymen. Listen to Mallam Falalu Bello (MD, Unity Bank of Nigeria) threatening “there will be no real peace in this country moving forward,” because he feels the Fulani has no control over the resources and means of others. Listen to Balarabe Musa making a case for permanent rulership of Nigeria by the Fulani. Listen to the Bala Usman of this world as to why no one of other ethnic nationality should be allowed to rule Nigeria. Listen to the silent yells of Maitama Sule making the same case. Yes, the nightmare of Dan Fodio’s dream may hang like a noose around the Fulani’s neck, but the Fulani would never give up without a fight.

The Hausa people are still wondering how they have become so slavish to the Fulani. They are still wondering how their very valuable heritage has been polluted and dumped for that of the Fulani settlers. The Hausa are still wondering how the great histories of their forefathers have been supplanted by that of the Fulani to whom they have shown great love and hospitality.

Every ethnic Nationality in Nigeria needs to be aware that the Hausa people are very confused right now. Some of their elites have been incorporated by the scheming and secretive Fulani. The Fulani are very few in numbers and they have brainwashed the Hausa people to believe that their (Hausa) destinies are tied together with that of the Fulani because of Islam. The Fulani use the Hausa numbers as a buffer to perpetrate Fulani evils in Hausa name. What they have done to Hausa people is to make them believe in the Fulani as the path finders for them (Hausa).

Now, it is the Hausa who is used to fight the Fulani fights and battles. This is what Sir. Ahmadu Bello, taking a page off the book of his Fulani great grand father, Uthman Dan Fodio, has also done with other minority groups in the North of Nigeria, using them as tools for the Fulani conquest of Nigeria. As pointed out above, this trick has been extended to all ethnic nationalities in Nigeria and as such one could find among them corrupt leaders who hold allegiance to the Sultanate rather than their peoples.

This writer has his doubts if the Hausa people would ever wake up. Even, if and when they wake up, the benefits of greed and the unabated appropriation of resources for which they have never labored out of the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria would still guarantee the Hausa - Fulani cooperation.

The minority ethnic nationalities in the North are waking up. They are realizing that they are slaves in their own lands. They are just realizing that they have been fighting the battles of Fulani to their own and their peoples’ detriment. They have just realized that cows are much more treasured by the Fulani than the Birom mothers, Tiv wives, Jukun sisters, Igala children, Nupe brothers and Kataf fathers.

The Fulani is a fiercely ambitious man, contrary to what Lord Lugard is trying to make us believe. The Fulani would plunder, loot, rape, maim and kill in pursuit of this ambition. The Fulani would take advantage of the weaknesses of his host and supplant him and appropriate his wealth and means. The Fulani for the last 200 hundred years has been at loggerhead with every known hospitable host of his, not just in Nigeria but in West African sub region. The Fulani ambitions are intolerant of the existence and well being of others. This is where one could agree with Lord Lugard – that the Fulani is “seriously diseased” and “a menace to any community to which he seeks to attach himself.”

The ethnic nationalities in all of Nigeria still stand a good chance to be free. That chance would fizzle and dissipate without standing firm, strong and willing to make the necessary sacrifice that would be required. It is time to repel the Fulani imperialism and or neo-colonialism. It is time to reclaim our freedom and rights. It is time to seek any means necessary to be free from the bondage called Nigeria. Cows could not, should not, would not and must not be more important than our daughters and sons, brothers and sisters as well as our mothers and fathers.

^ Oh boy. . .long stories and no time to read now. I will get to this maybe by the weekend. So, how would anyone convince the Hausa to separate itself from the Fulani? Maybe Hausa people can tell us if they see themselves same as the Fulani?

The Fulani is determined to have an Emir of Jos and possibly Enugu too, very soon

I mean look at this rofl.

I dey laugh @ people that post all this and have never been up north. Seperate looooooooooooooooool. Most the people are mixed hausa + fulani o. so wetin be Fulani or Hausa? smh.

go on twitter do #Hausa search see the gals that you guys will say they look 'Fulani' (even though they aint) ask them what they are. And see response. I dey laugh o. No Hausa/fulani guy is governor of south states worry about your own. With all you sophisticated 'education' devise a way to outwise the so called 'fulani oligarchy',  See nonsense. This sort of stuff makes me laugh.

Is it not Ebele in charge now? Whats he done ? what Obasanjo do ? If they care so much about you guys why not seperate then? From the 'Fulani oligarchy'. Then again they probably dont even trust each other down south aka secession of south Naija = balkanization lol. Naija not by force o you got the power secede lols.

The conquest to the sea is now in sight. When our god-sent Ahmadu Bello said some years ago that our conquest will reach the sea shores of Nigeria, some idiots in the South were doubting its possibilities. Today have we not reached the sea? Lagos is reached. It remains Port-Harcourt. It must be conquered and taken.” --- Mallam Bala Garuba in WEST AFRICAN PILOT, December 30, 1964.

One of the greatest maladies of ignorance is to be ignorant of one’s own ignorance. I am not aware whether the Nigeria’s Vice President is aware of the context in which he is operating or not. If he is not aware, it would mean that he is inflicted with this malady of ignorance. If he is, then it means he is playing the game the best way he thinks it ought to be done.

Either way, he would not be able to change the fact that he remains a VP in an estate of the grandfather of the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello who was also a former Premier of the Northern Region. When Sir Ahmadu Belllo made the above statement in 1960, he knew what he was talking about. With the connivance of the diabolical British colonialists, he was able to put machineries in place to achieve his objective of turning Nigeria to the “estate” of his grandfather.

In 1957, Ahmadu Bello undermined and stood very virulently against the independence of Nigeria. He did not think that his Fulani people would be able to control the destiny of Nigeria the way and manner they deem fit. As a result of this the Western Region and the Eastern Region were granted self governing status. But the plan to hand Nigeria to Uthman Dan Fodio’s grandchildren commenced immediately after that.

It would be recalled that as a result of the elections of 1954, there were 162 seats in the Nigerian National Assembly. Out of this, the South has 83 seats and the North has 79 seats since this was based on population. But because Ahmadu Bello was afraid that his kinsmen would not be able to effectively compete with the rest of the country and dominate it the way he envisaged, he refused to allow Nigeria to have independence. After the West and the East received self governance, the British overlords, in order to assuage his fears and put Nigeria in his control, created in 1959, 312 seats for the Nigerian National Assembly without any election or new Census. Out of this 312, the North was allocated 174 in the anticipation of the Parliamentary Political System being put in place for Nigeria’s independence. This effectively put political control of Nigeria in the hands of Ahmadu Bello and his stooge, Tafawa Balewa who in 1950 said the following as quoted in TIME MAGAZINE of October 10, 1960:

The events since 1960 flag independence have since confirmed that Nigeria is the estate of Uthman Dan Fodio. Rather than a republic, Nigeria is a sultanate. Efforts of the other ethnic groups especially in the Southern part of the country to be masters of their own destinies have been flagrantly undermined and frustrated using the minorities in the North as the tools over and over.

The statement credited to Ahmadu Bello above was made just 11 days after Nigeria’s so-called independence. Soon after that, the process of taking up the whole country as an estate commenced. In 1962, the Balewa government organized another census “by headcount.” Historical records show that the preliminary results of that exercise gave the South “a clear majority.” A “supplementary count” was “immediately taken in the Northern region that turned up additional 9 million persons” reportedly missed in the first count. The questions are: (1) How could such an exercise miss 9 million persons? (2) How could there be supplementary headcount in one part of the country to the exclusion of the others?

The controversy that trailed that 1962 fraud by Ahmadu Bello and his stooge in Mohammadu Ribadu gave birth to a repeat exercise in 1963. The earlier figures released for the 1963 census was 60.5 millions. But when this was not able to meet the demographic variables it was arbitrarily reduced to 55.6 millions. No scientific or demographic explanation was given as to how that figure was reached. Out of this figure, the North was allotted 29.8 millions and the South 25.8 millions!

In 1973, the Military wing of the Uthman Dan Fodio estate organized another census and came up with 79.8 millions. Out of this, the North was given 51.4 million (over 64%) and the South was given 28.4 millions. This figure means that the Northern population in the throes of the heat radiating arid desert increased in 10 years by almost 70% (that is if we accepted the 1963 census in itself), while the South in the comfort of the rain forest, increased by woeful 5% in the same period of time. Since then they have been creating states and local governments in the North to the disadvantage of the South. They have also been using these states to siphon resources to the North to the disadvantages of the people in the South.

Ahmadu Bello engineered the 1962 crisis in the West to be able to bring the Western Region to its knees; he and his great grand siblings of Uthman Dan Fodio cooked up lies against Chief Obafemi Awolowo alleging that he tried to overthrow the Federal Government by force. He was sent to prison without any evidence except so called verbal confessions of some disgruntled elements who were later rewarded in kind, The Federal government were NEVER able to show any proof of that allegation in terms of recruits for the exercise or the ammunitions they planned to use. Even, the judge that headed the kangaroo court admitted that his “hands are tied” and had to sentence the innocent man to jail. Given the trajectory of the judiciary, the result of that fraudulent use of that arm of government among others, has led Nigeria to the present precipice.

There have been a lot of other incidents that one does not need to go into their details here but which have shown that Nigeria is a conquered territory or if you like the inherited estate of the grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio. The fact that they have ruled Nigeria for the most part and have only allowed their stooge in Olusegun Obasanjo a return trip to power on their behalf is the most important proof of this control of Nigeria as their inheritance. The reluctance to allow the present Vice President, Jonathan Goodluck to take over the presidency is just another of the evidences that the taste of the pudding is in the eating. Is it not instructive in the light of the above statement by Ahmadu Bello that it is Andoakaa, a minority from the North that is in “the front and back” of frustrating the “legitimate” assumption of power by a Southerner called Jonathan Goodluck? A “willing tool” just like Ahmadu Bello planned and envisaged?

All the efforts that have been put in to deny VP Jonathan the “legitimate” acquisition of power is part of the credo laid down by Ahmadu Bello. It is not by mistake that the motto adopted by the Sokoto State is “BORN TO RULE.” This kind of arrogance was what informed the statement credited to Maitama Sule at an Arewa Forum in Kaduna as he made case for the permanent political rulership of Nigeria by the grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio. He spoke in Hausa Language and it was translated as follows:

“Everyone has a gift from God. The Northerners are endowed by God with

leadership qualities……”

It is not by mistake that the last road bordering the sea in Lagos is named Ahmadu Bellow Way. It is not by mistake that Musa Yar’Adua refused to handover VP Jonathan. It is not by mistake that when the Arewa Consultative Forum complained about the ownership of the Commercial Banks in Nigeria in February 2009, then Mallam Falalu Bello, the Managing Director of the Unity Bank came out in March to say the following:

“It is indeed in the interest of the South-westerners and South-easterners for some affirmative actions to be taken to redress the situation, else there will be no real peace in this country moving forward.”

Then Mallam Lamido Sanusi appeared on the stage in May through June 2009 to put this in practice under the guise of cleansing the banking sector of corruption. I was wondering where he was in the Shehu Shagari era when the Prince of Wurno, Shehu Malami was asking the Yola Branch Manager of the Union Bank of Nigeria of which he was then the chairman to open the bank vault around 2.00am and reportedly took millions of naira he spent at the birthday party of his friend Bamangar Tukur who was then recently “selected” as the Governor of Gongola State after accumulating astounding wealth as the Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority

It is my belief that all those who have been commenting on this Jonathan Goodluck problem and asking for the constitution to be followed are addressing the wrong problem. They seemed not to understand what is going on here. How can anyone expect those who own the estate not to do what they wish and will with their inheritance? The have forgotten what history has taught us and of which example abound. Fredrick Douglas put it clearly in his 1857 speech as follows:

“This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical………. Power concedes nothing without a demand…, it never did….and it never will…, ”

The Berom people in Jos seemed to have taken this lesson to heart just as the Niger Delta peoples. That is why there have been so many riots in Jos in recent times. A sincere look at the recent Jos Riots by any objective observer and socio-political analyst would show that the root of the problem is the attempt of the so-called “Jasawa” Hausa-Fulani minority settlers trying to politically lord it over the majority owners of the land, the Berom. The great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio have been so confident and arrogant that they have been asking for an Emir of Jos just as they have imposed an Emir on the acquiescent Yoruba people of Ilorin.

Unlike the people of Ilorin, the people of Jos are not willing to lie down and just accept such a ridiculous and preposterous affront. The Berom have made up their minds that they would not be slaves in their land. The Beroms have sworn that any attempt by the minority Hausa/Fulani to appropriate political power in Jos and the environs through the use of the Federal might would continue to be resisted by all means. They have followed their promises with concrete actions and the riots that have been occurring in that vicinity are the products of political liberation struggles of the Berom and resistance to the settler Hausa/Fulani political domination. Hopefully, someday the people of Ilorin would wake up and claim their birth rights from the Hausa/Fulani rulership in Ilorin.

Without any iota of doubt, it is clear that the understanding of the country called Nigeria by its constituent units is very different. Why some see it as a collective Republic, others perceive it as their conquered territory and or an inherited estate of their great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. To this end, the way and manner it was being handled is patently different. This is one of the reasons that I am of the view that we need to break this country up. Doing so would mean liberation for the other ethnic groups from the conquest of the Hausa/Fulani oligarchy.

It is hoped that the great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio would see the handwriting on the wall and cease their arrogant attitude and allow Nigeria to be re-negotiated or be broken up peacefully. It is in their interest to note that this kind of approach to politics and power in Nigeria would not be sustained. It is in their interest to allow peaceful resolution of the Nigerian question either in restructuring or dissolution. They have to be reminded, if they do not know already, that this is not the early 19thCentury when they operated without let or hindrance. This is not the early part of the 20th Century when they were aided and abetted by the diabolical British colonialists. The fact that they have a Sultanate Army in place would not be able to help them when the chips are down. This is the 21st century. The context is different. The elements are different. The variables are different. The world has changed and is still changing. The Hausa Fulani people can not continue to hold the peoples of Nigeria in political bondage against their will and continue to treat them as vanquished peoples.

It is up to the rest of us if we want to remain conquered in Nigeria and continued to be treated as second class citizens or even slaves if it suits the conquerors as such. Just like Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the US once said, “No one can make you a slave without your consent.” It is up to the rest of us, if we want to remain in slavery or not. This is because according to Fredrick Douglas once again:

“Find out what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and those will continue until they are resisted with either blows or words, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress…….”

It is up to the great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio if they would allow words rather than blows as a means to restructure Nigeria or dismember it. It is up to the rest of us to determine if the limits of their tyranny has been reached. TIME WILL TELL.

The Berom people in Jos seemed to have taken this lesson to heart just as the Niger Delta peoples. That is why there have been so many riots in Jos in recent times. A sincere look at the recent Jos Riots by any objective observer and socio-political analyst would show that the root of the problem is the attempt of the so-called “Jasawa” Hausa-Fulani minority settlers trying to politically lord it over the majority owners of the land, the Berom. The great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio have been so confident and arrogant that they have been asking for an Emir of Jos just as they have imposed an Emir on the acquiescent Yoruba people of Ilorin.

Unlike the people of Ilorin, the people of Jos are not willing to lie down and just accept such a ridiculous and preposterous affront. The Berom have made up their minds that they would not be slaves in their land. The Beroms have sworn that any attempt by the minority Hausa/Fulani to appropriate political power in Jos and the environs through the use of the Federal might would continue to be resisted by all means. They have followed their promises with concrete actions and the riots that have been occurring in that vicinity are the products of political liberation struggles of the Berom and resistance to the settler Hausa/Fulani political domination. Hopefully, someday the people of Ilorin would wake up and claim their birth rights from the Hausa/Fulani rulership in Ilorin.

It is hoped that the great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio would see the handwriting on the wall and cease their arrogant attitude and allow Nigeria to be re-negotiated or be broken up peacefully. It is in their interest to note that this kind of approach to politics and power in Nigeria would not be sustained. It is in their interest to allow peaceful resolution of the Nigerian question either in restructuring or dissolution. They have to be reminded, if they do not know already, that this is not the early 19thCentury when they operated without let or hindrance. This is not the early part of the 20th Century when they were aided and abetted by the diabolical British colonialists. The fact that they have a Sultanate Army in place would not be able to help them when the chips are down. This is the 21st century. The context is different. The elements are different. The variables are different. The world has changed and is still changing. The Hausa Fulani people can not continue to hold the peoples of Nigeria in political bondage against their will and continue to treat them as vanquished peoples.

It is up to the rest of us if we want to remain conquered in Nigeria and continued to be treated as second class citizens or even slaves if it suits the conquerors as such. Just like Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the US once said, “No one can make you a slave without your consent.” It is up to the rest of us, if we want to remain in slavery or not. This is because according to Fredrick Douglas once again:

“Find out what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and those will continue until they are resisted with either blows or words, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress…….”

Sardauna's philosophy has worked with great efficiency. Have the Hausa/Fulanis not always used the Middle-Belters and southerners to achieve their political objectives?
Who advised Gowon not to accept the Aburi accord? What percentage of the Nigerian fighting force against Biafra were Hausa/ Fulani? Who waged the propaganda war for FGN? At that time, the refrain was and even now in some quarters is, that Biafran war was Ojukwu's personal war. It is a paradox that this same Ojukwu was demoted in rank in the Nigerian Army because he had the courage to refuse leading troops to quell the Tivi uprising against oppression.
In recent times, OBJ blamed resource control as the cause of the war. Either the pogrom never happened or it was an "understandable" revenge.

This New Nation called Nigeria, should be an estate of our great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South, as conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us, and never allow them to have control over their future.
Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto in THE PARROT of October 12, 1960

Ahmadu Bello engineered the 1962 crisis in the West to be able to bring the Western Region to its knees

Would FGN have declared a state of emergency in the Western Region without the active support of NCNC?

Tafawa Balewa who in 1950 said the following as quoted in TIME MAGAZINE of October 10, 1960:
�There is no basis for Nigerian unity.�

This was exactly Gowon's view in 1966 until he was dissuaded from secession. Subsequently he appealed for calm since power was once more in the hands of another northerner. Although Gowon was the head of state, it seemed the real power resided elsewhere. Was OBJ in total control as a military head of state? Again, Sarduana's philosophy at work.

I believe that for the nation to move forward, we must put the past behind us and deal with the current realities on the ground. Umaru Dikko recently decribed the north as the senior partner in the union. We must reject such arrant nonsense and discard the tradition of appeasing the north at all costs.
We must all accept that every ethnic group, irrespective of its size, has an inalienable right to live in dignity and on equal terms with others. Therefore as a first step, let us strive to have a weaker center and grant greater autonomy to states or regions, so that each will develop at its own pace.

The Arewa People's Congress (APC) is a group in Northern Nigeria established to protect the interests of the Muslim Hausa and Fulani of the area. It has been described as a militant wing of the Arewa Consultative Forum. The group was formally launched on 13 December 1999. It was chaired by a retired army officer, Brigadier General Sagir Muhammed, who had been an operative in the Directorate of Military Intelligence.
Boko haram .

The Arewa Consultative Forum

The forum originated from a meeting held on 7 March 2000 in Kaduna at the initiative of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammadu Maccido. The purpose was to establish unity of Northern leaders, working through elected officials to achieve progress in the Arewa area within the democratic framework.In September 2000, former head of state General Yakubu Gowon [/b]agreed to act as chairman of the Board of Patrons of the forum. The forum appointed a retired Inspector General of the Nigerian Police, Alhaji Muhammadu Dikko Yusufu, as chairman. Belying its common image as a champion of the interest of the Moslem Hausa and Fulani,[b] the ACF appointed Sunday Awoniyi, a Christian Yoruba as chairman of the Board of Trustees in 2000, a position he held until his death in November 2007

You must love this guys.

The events since 1960 flag independence have since confirmed that Nigeria is the estate of Uthman Dan Fodio. Rather than a republic, Nigeria is a sultanate. Efforts of the other ethnic groups especially in the Southern part of the country to be masters of their own destinies have been flagrantly undermined and frustrated using the minorities in the North as the tools over and over. The statement credited to Ahmadu Bello above was made just 11 days after Nigeria’s so-called independence. Soon after that, the process of taking up the whole country as an estate commenced. In 1962, the Balewa government organized another census “by headcount.” Historical records show that the preliminary results of that exercise gave the South “a clear majority.” A “supplementary count” was “immediately taken in the Northern region that turned up additional 9 million persons” reportedly missed in the first count. The questions are: (1) How could such an exercise miss 9 million persons? (2) How could there be supplementary headcount in one part of the country to the exclusion of the others? The controversy that trailed that 1962 fraud by Ahmadu Bello and his stooge in Mohammadu Ribadu gave birth to a repeat exercise in 1963. The earlier figures released for the 1963 census was 60.5 millions. But when this was not able to meet the demographic variables it was arbitrarily reduced to 55.6 millions. No scientific or demographic explanation was given as to how that figure was reached. Out of this figure, the North was allotted 29.8 millions and the South 25.8 millions! In 1973, the Military wing of the Uthman Dan Fodio estate organized another census and came up with 79.8 millions. Out of this, the North was given 51.4 million (over 64%) and the South was given 28.4 millions. This figure means that the Northern population in the throes of the heat radiating arid desert increased in 10 years by almost 70% (that is if we accepted the 1963 census in itself), while the South in the comfort of the rain forest, increased by woeful 5% in the same period of time. Since then they have been creating states and local governments in the North to the disadvantage of the South. They have also been using these states to siphon resources to the North to the disadvantages of the people in the South. Ahmadu Bello engineered the 1962 crisis in the West to be able to bring the Western Region to its knees; he and his great grand siblings of Uthman Dan Fodio cooked up lies against Chief Obafemi Awolowo alleging that he tried to overthrow the Federal Government by force. He was sent to prison without any evidence except so called verbal confessions of some disgruntled elements who were later rewarded in kind, The Federal government were NEVER able to show any proof of that allegation in terms of recruits for the exercise or the ammunitions they planned to use. Even, the judge that headed the kangaroo court admitted that his “hands are tied” and had to sentence the innocent man to jail. Given the trajectory of the judiciary, the result of that fraudulent use of that arm of government among others, has led Nigeria to the present precipice. There have been a lot of other incidents that one does not need to go into their details here but which have shown that Nigeria is a conquered territory or if you like the inherited estate of the grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio. The fact that they have ruled Nigeria for the most part and have only allowed their stooge in Olusegun Obasanjo a return trip to power on their behalf is the most important proof of this control of Nigeria as their inheritance. The reluctance to allow the present Vice President, Jonathan Goodluck to take over the presidency is just another of the evidences that the taste of the pudding is in the eating. Is it not instructive in the light of the above statement by Ahmadu Bello that it is Andoakaa, a minority from the North that is in “the front and back” of frustrating the “legitimate” assumption of power by a Southerner called Jonathan Goodluck? A “willing tool” just like Ahmadu Bello planned and envisaged? All the efforts that have been put in to deny VP Jonathan the “legitimate” acquisition of power is part of the credo laid down by Ahmadu Bello. It is not by mistake that the motto adopted by the Sokoto State is “BORN TO RULE.” This kind of arrogance was what informed the statement credited to Maitama Sule at an Arewa Forum in Kaduna as he made case for the permanent political rulership of Nigeria by the grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio. He spoke in Hausa Language and it was translated as follows: “Everyone has a gift from God. The Northerners are endowed by God with leadership qualities……” It is not by mistake that the last road bordering the sea in Lagos is named Ahmadu Bellow Way. It is not by mistake that Musa Yar’Adua refused to handover VP Jonathan. It is not by mistake that when the Arewa Consultative Forum complained about the ownership of the Commercial Banks in Nigeria in February 2009, then Mallam Falalu Bello, the Managing Director of the Unity Bank came out in March to say the following: “It is indeed in the interest of the South-western
e
rs and South-easterners for some affirmative actions to be taken to redress the situation, else there will be no real peace in this country moving forward.” Then Mallam Lamido Sanusi appeared on the stage in May

through June 2009 to put this in practice under the guise of cleansing the banking sector of corruption. I was wondering where he was in the Shehu Shagari era when the Prince of Wurno, Shehu Malami was asking the Yola Branch Manager of the Union Bank of Nigeria of which he was then the chairman to open the bank vault around 2.00am and reportedly took millions of naira he spent at the birthday party of his friend Bamangar Tukur who was then recently “selected” as the Governor of Gongola State after accumulating astounding wealth as the Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority It is my belief that all those who have been commenting on this Jonathan Goodluck problem and asking for the constitution to be followed are addressing the wrong problem. They seemed not to understand what is going on here. How can anyone expect those who own the estate not to do what they wish and will with their inheritance? The have forgotten what history has taught us and of which example abound. Fredrick Douglas put it clearly in his 1857 speech as follows: “This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical………. Power concedes nothing without a demand…, it never did….and it never will…, ” The Berom people in Jos seemed to have taken this lesson to heart just as the Niger Delta peoples. That is why there have been so many riots in Jos in recent times. A sincere look at the recent Jos Riots by any objective observer and socio-political analyst would show that the root of the problem is the attempt of the so-called “Jasawa” Hausa-Fulani minority settlers trying to politically lord it over the majority owners of the land, the Berom. The great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio have been so confident and arrogant that they have been asking for an Emir of Jos just as they have imposed an Emir on the acquiescent Yoruba people of Ilorin. Unlike the people of Ilorin, the people of Jos are not willing to lie down and just accept such a ridiculous and preposterous affront. The Berom have made up their minds that they would not be slaves in their land. The Beroms have sworn that any attempt by the minority Hausa/Fulani to appropriate political power in Jos and the environs through the use of the Federal might would continue to be resisted by all means. They have followed their promises with concrete actions and the riots that have been occurring in that vicinity are the products of political liberation struggles of the Berom and resistance to the settler Hausa/Fulani political domination. Hopefully, someday the people of Ilorin would wake up and claim their birth rights from the Hausa/Fulani rulership in Ilorin. Without any iota of doubt, it is clear that the understanding of the country called Nigeria by its constituent units is very different. Why some see it as a collective Republic, others perceive it as their conquered territory and or an inherited estate of their great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. To this end, the way and manner it was being handled is patently different. This is one of the reasons that I am of the view that we need to break this country up. Doing so would mean liberation for the other ethnic groups from the conquest of the Hausa/Fulani oligarchy. It is hoped that the great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio would see the handwriting on the wall and cease their arrogant attitude and allow Nigeria to be re-negotiated or be broken up peacefully. It is in their interest to note that this kind of approach to politics and power in Nigeria would not be sustained. It is in their interest to allow peaceful resolution of the Nigerian question either in restructuring or dissolution. They have to be reminded, if they do not know already, that this is not the early 19thCentury when they operated without let or hindrance. This is not the early part of the 20th Century when they were aided and abetted by the diabolical British colonialists. The fact that they have a Sultanate Army in place would not be able to help them when the chips are down. This is the 21st century. The context is different. The elements are different. The variables are different. The world has changed and is still changing. The Hausa Fulani people can not continue to hold the peoples of Nigeria in political bondage against their will and continue to treat them as vanquished peoples. It is up to the rest of us if we want to remain conquered in Nigeria and continued to be treated as second class citizens or even slaves if it suits the conquerors as such. Just like Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the US once said, “No one can make you a slave without your consent.” It is up to the rest of us, if we want to remain in slavery or not. This is because according to Fredrick Douglas once again: “Find out what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and those will continue until they are resisted with either blows or words, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress…….” It is up to the great grandchildren of Uthman Dan Fodio if they would allow words rather than blows as a means to restructure Nigeria or dismember it. It is up to the rest of us to determine if the limits of their tyranny has been reached. TIME WILL TELL.

Told you guyz to be wary of the hausa fulani never ion your life trust them.

Look

Please read and share

Spread the word the truth shall set us free.

You all have been told read and understand what is happening.

The real (APC) Arewa Peoples Congress now you know your new political party.You have been freed but you want to go back to prison.

Tinubu the new Akintola selling the yoruba race for a bowl of porridge.

Share this page let the world know and let them know we know them.

It would be recalled that the Fulani embarked on ethnic cleansing of the Jukun ethnic nationality in Taraba State in the 1990s. The Fulani are vociferously claiming the ownership of Idi-Araba and yelled “barao, barao, barao” meaning “thief, thief, thief” on the then Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu in his own State. The Fulani started war on traditionalists in Shagamu in Ogun State over the celebration of Oro Festival. The Fulani have tried to reduce the Tiv’s population by extermination during the First Republic. The Fulani have tried to emasculate the Katafs in Kaduna before. The Fulani tried to cleanse Zakibiam of non-Fulani blood. The Fulani have been killing owners of the land in Iseyin and Shaki in Oyo State. Media reports noted that scores of owners of the lands in Oyo were left “dead, maimed or Molested.” The Fulani are determined to wipe out the Birom people of Plateau from their ancestral lands. The Fulani has just recently killed a policeman in Ekiti State after wounding the owners of the land. The Fulani has an Emir of Ilorin, a Yoruba town. The Fulani is determined to have an Emir of Jos and possibly Enugu too, very soon