Nigeria’s Unity And Cohesion, For How Long Will Fulani Threat Continue?
Tuesday (Orie) 08-04-2025.
Though associated with an obscure history, the Fulani, also known as Fula, Peul, Fulbe or Fellata, are said to have originated from Futa Toro in the Senegambia Region, from where they started migrating eastward in the 16th Century AD. By the 17th Century AD, they had gotten into Hausa land and had started integrating themselves into Hausa Culture. Their leader, Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, was an Islamist Jihadist, and by 1804 had, through indoctrination, persuasion, propaganda of calumny and deceit, succeeded in using enviously vulnerable Hausa indigenes to rise against Hausa Kings, and, consequently, was able to attack, conquer and overthrow the Hausa Kingdom of Gobir, which he renamed Sokoto Caliphate.
From Sokoto, Usman Dan Fodio became relentless in attacking, conquering and overthrowing such other Hausa Kingdoms as Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Zaria, and even up to Ilorin which was originally Yoruba, after his Fulani Jihadists had killed a Yoruba Warlord, General Afonja in 1823 and consequently took it over, installing a Fulani Jihadist, Abdulsalam, as Emir of Ilorin, a purely Yoruba Kingdom.
Further West, the Fulani tried to invade the larger Yoruba Empires but met a brick wall in their encounter with the warriors of Oyo Empire. In the same vein towards the East, the Tiv proved impregnable to the Fulani. It is believed that the arrow that struck and led to the death of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio in 1808 was shot at him in Tiv land by one of the Tiv warriors. This is why it is believed the Fulani will never wish any Tiv well.
Fulani desperation to attack and conquer all tribes that presently make up Nigeria seemed to have abated after British conquest of all tribes in Nigeria in the 18th Century AD.
Ironically, the British Colonial Government developed interest in the Fulani and tilted towards their favour in all their considerations. The reason for such favour was very simple. While many Nationalists and Politicians from the South of Nigeria were educated, very articulate and vocal in their demand for Political Independence for Nigeria, the Fulani leaders, less educated and exposed, made themselves a willing tool in the hands of the British Colonialists. Nigeria would have gotten her independence in 1956 following a Motion moved by Chief Anthony Enahoro in 1953 but was strongly opposed by Fulani Legislators who preferred ‘as soon as practicable’ to a deadline of 1956.
The mindset of the Fulani in Nigeria has remained the jihadist objectives of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio. On October 12, 1960, just less than two weeks after Nigeria had obtained her Political Independence from Britain, according to the Parrot Newspaper, the Premier of Northern Nigeria and Sarduana of Sokoto, late Sir Ahmadu Bello, stated as follows;
”The new nation called Nigeria should be an Estate from our Grandfather, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South as conquered territories. We must not allow them have control over their future”.
Shortly before Nigeria’s Political Independence on 1st October, 1960, late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who would later emerge the first and only Prime Minister of Nigeria, had this to say in the Northern House of Assembly; “We do not want, Sir, our Southern neighbours to interfere in our development. I should like to make it clear to you that if the British quitted Nigeria now at this stage, the Northern People would continue the interrupted conquest to the sea”.
Intelligence available to some young Military Officers in the Nigerian Army, which had started manifesting the Fulani goal of not allowing the Minorities of the North, and the South have control over their future, as represented by the Government of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa unjustly sending Chief Obafemi Awolowo to Prison, necessitated the Coup of January 15, 1966, which was erroneously and unjustly labelled ‘Igbo Coup’. It was a Nigerian Coup, only faulted by human flaws in its execution. These are some of the reasons why the Fulani will not want History to be part of Secondary School Curriculum in Nigeria.
Nigeria, under normal circumstances, should be a peaceful and progressive country. In terms of human capital and material resources, Nigeria lacks nothing. But the intransigence of the Fulani has not allowed it the much needed vigour, confidence and stability to thrive.
Without wishing to profile the Fulani, there is hardly any violent crime in Nigeria that is not either orchestrated or perpetrated by the Fulani. Mass killing of the Hausa in the North-West is attributed to the Fulani. In the North-Central, including the recent ones in Agatu in Benue State, and Bokkos in Plateau State, are the handiwork of the Fulani. Their method of violence in the North, especially in the Middle-Belt, including the Christian Communities of Southern Kaduna, is characterized by brutal killings, maiming, arson, raping, looting and occupation of their victims’ ancestral lands.
It was rumoured that some Fulani leaders in Nigeria had arranged for influxes of the Fulani from the Sahel region to Nigeria in their thousands in 2014 to cause mayhem if General Buhari would lose the election of 2015 but, being a Christian and Man of peace who believed his reelection as Nigeria’s President was not worth the blood of any Nigerian citizen, President Goodluck Jonathan accepted Professor Atahiru Jega’s INEC verdict of electoral loss to General Muhammadu Buhari, and peacefully went his way.
Unfortunately, those Fulani that brought their Fulani terrorists from all over West Africa and the Sahel could not know what to do with the devil they had insidiously brought into Nigeria. President Jonathan had seamlessly beaten them to their evil machination.
Not deported, and left uncared for, the Fulani must have decided to resort to self help. They are assumed to have taken to all manner of violence and criminality, including commercial kidnapping for ransom. How they acquire arms and ammunition has remained bizarre.
Fulani terrorists have extended their terrorist activities to the South of Nigeria, and on each occasion, armed with automatic assault raffles, such as AK 47. Their preoccupation in the South has been Commercial kidnapping for ransom. Who can vouch that Fulani leaders, in pursuit of the goal set by their progenitor and Conqueror of the Hausa Kingdoms, Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, and re-echoed by the duo of Sirs Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, are not using the huge ransoms squeezed out of Southerners to purchase and build weapons cache, for continuous onslaught on ancestral land owners of Nigeria?
Not long ago, it was reported that Local Vigilantes in Uromi in Edo State intercepted a lorry conveying some Fulani to the North. On inspection, it was reported that the Fulani hid some guns in the lorry, and consequent actions led to the death of some of the armed Fulani who were said to have claimed they were hunters.
It will be recalled that Edo State has had the misfortune of having most of her forests occupied by Fulani terrorists and it had also been reported that the State had lost many of her indigenes to brutal attacks by the Fulani.
Under the Nigerian law, it is yet to be made clear what section authorizes a civilian Fulani, Nigerian or foreigner, to keep possession of AK 47 and parade himself as a hunter either in Delta or Rivers State. By the way, what justification could there be in a Fulani ‘hunter’ carrying AK 47 to go as far southern as Rivers State to hunt?
The Fulani, despite the fact that they have no ancestral home of their own in Nigeria, except by conquest of the Hausa and Ilorin, and also not as thickly populated as the Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba, have produced more Heads of State than any other tribe in Nigeria. Yet poverty in the North of Nigeria is worse than poverty in any part of Africa. The North has more than 70% of Children out of School in Nigeria. Insecurity in the North can not be compared with insecurity in any part of the world, including Somalia. Only recently, a former Director-General of National Youths Service Corps, Brigadier-General Maharazu Tsiga was abducted in his home, Katsina, of all places, homeland of Nigeria’s former Military Dictator, and immediate-past President of Nigeria, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, and, as shamefully reported, many persons, including Military Officers, had to contribute money in order to secure his release!
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu fought tooth and nail to secure the Presidential Ticket of All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2022 Convention of the Party. President Buhari, whom he had given all his support in 2015 Presidential Election without which Buhari could not have defeated incumbent President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, was all out against him. He made it clear, through the then National Chairman of APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, that his preferred candidate was the then President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan, another Fulani. But Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not allow such betrayal to deter him from pursuing his goal. Even after Senator Tinubu had emerged as APC Presidential Candidate, Buhari’s Government went ahead to change denominations of the country’s currency, the Naira. But, as God would have it, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a rugged democratic fighter, won the election and is now President of Nigeria.
Of course, by doing everything he thought he could do to vainly prevent Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu from emerging President of Nigeria, General Buhari was simply adhering to the injunction of both Sirs Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa that the Fulani should ruthlessly resist any change of Power that could be favourable to the South, and that the South should not even be allowed to have control over her affairs. How wicked a people can think!
In less than two years of being out of Power, May 29, 2023-April 2025, the Fulani have become extremely desperate to ‘recapture’ Power. They now resort to all manner of accusations and propaganda of calumny against President Tinubu. They want Power to revert to the North, forgetting that Nigeria is made up two major geo-political zones, former Northern, and Southern Protectorates.
The irony of the Fulani agitation is that they are hiding under the subterfuge of the North to make their vague complaints. Would the Fulani ever allow Nigeria’s President to come from the Hausa or any other tribe in the North, except Fulani?
In 1978, an urbane Hausa Man, Alhaji Maitama Sule, was tipped to be the Presidential Candidate of defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN, but that did not go down well with the Fulani who insisted that it must be a Fulani. That was why Alhaji Shehu Shagari was nominated as the Presidential Candidate of NPN, and eventually became elected in 1979 as first Executive President of Nigeria. Alhaji Aminu Kano was never accepted as a friend of the Fulani because he was Hausa and was determined to assert the identity of the Hausa by forming a distinct Political Party, Northern Elements Progressive Union, NEPU, as opposed to a Fulani formed Party, Northern People’s Congress, NPC.
By deliberate calculation, President Olusegun Obasanjo made it possible for H E Namadi Sambo, already elected Governor of Kaduna State in 2007 to serve as Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s Vice following the death of President Umaru Yar’adua. That created the opportunity for a Christian, Patrick Yakowa, to become, for the first time in history, a Governor in Kaduna State. How he died in a Naval Helicopter in 2012 left much to be desired.
Indigenes of Hausa and other tribes, especially Christians, in the North have been under siege and mass massacre by Fulani terrorists yet no notable Fulani has ever come out boldly to condemn those barbaric actions. They know what the terrorists are set to achieve, which is in consonance with late Sir Ahmadu Bello’s advocacy.
In modern day agricultural practices, it is archaic, primitive and most unprogressive for any person to be seen rearing cattle outside a ranch. Cattle rearing is a very big and lucrative business. Any sane and decent person involved in such a huge business should know it is a big investment that should have a conducive environment. But the Fulani have refused to confine their cattle to ranches. Rather, they take their cattle to ancestral people’s farms, destroy their crops and, in most cases, kill the farmers and or rape the women. The Fulani have always taken the laws into their hands!
The Nigerian Judiciary should be impeccable in the Administration of Justice. If an ancestral land owner was attacked in his farm by a Fulani herdsman whose cattle destroyed his crops, and in self defence he killed such a cruel Fulani herdsman, it would amount to a travesty of justice for the Court to sentence such a farmer to imprisonment, not to talk of a death sentence. Such a judgment requires urgent review.
General Muhammadu Buhari’s governments, be it when he was a brutal Military dictator or an elected President, were the most horrific in Nigeria. Yet, no Fulani ever criticized any of his Administrations. The question is, what is it that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has done or is doing that President Buhari did not do, even worse?
There are realities that must not be ignored if Nigeria’s unity must not be compromised. That there is North and South in Nigeria is a reality. Any consideration that does not take cognizance of this reality is bound to be inimical to Nigeria’s unity.
The Fulani should jettison the conquest agenda of both Sirs Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. Ancestral owners of Nigeria will never again fold their hands and allow the Fulani that are not Indigenous to Nigeria to overrun them and continuously force them to become Internally Displayed Persons, IDPs, while they occupy their ancestral lands, leading to food insecurity and poverty.
Many ancestral tribes in Nigeria have been victims of Fulani tactics of divide and rule. It worked for them in the 18th Century AD and the entire Hausa, and Yoruba in Ilorin became victims and losers.
They have continued to deploy that moribund tactics in their relationship with other tribes, all to their selfish interest.
President Tinubu has been visionary and courageous enough to take decisions that, though have brought about temporary hardship, will serve as elixir to Nigeria’s economic challenges. He should be encouraged to drive both governance, including security, and economy to a successful logical conclusion. His appointments should be more inclusive. The more he runs an all inclusive Government, the easier his re-election.
President Tinubu is doing well. He deserves a second tenure, after which the President should naturally rotate to the North, but not to the Fulani.
Equity Reporters Global Ltd.
