Femi Fani-Kayode: The Fulani of Nigeria

The Bible says “knowledge is power”. It also says “know the truth and it will set you free”.

This is made all the more important given the fact that history is not taught in Nigerian schools.

Let us join hands and walk down the beautiful path of knowledge, truth and history together. Our focus and subject-matter for today is the Fulani tribe of northern Nigeria.

The Fulani are only partially African and only partly negroid. They are the product of cross-breeding between the Taurags, Berbers and Arabs of north Africa on the one hand and the local black African women of Futa Jalon, Guinea in west Africa, on the other.

In those days Futa Jalon was a popular trade route between north and west Africa. After hundreds of years of cross-breeding the final product of this union was the Fulani race.

If you doubt this assertion I challenge you to look at the texture of their hair, their thin lips, their slim and pointed noses, their tall and slight build and their, more often than not, light complexion and you will know that they are only partially African and only partly negroid.

Like their Tutsi cousins (who also originally came from Futa Jalon but who migrated to central and east Africa over the centuries) they are primarily and in the main gypsy-like wanderers and nomads who are deeply courageous and notoriously ruthless and ferocious in battle yet who have a strange and inexplicable attachment to and affinity and affection for their cattle and cows.

They betray little emotion, even in the most difficult times and even when going through immense and the most grueling form of hardship and they are focused, mentally-strong, disciplined, patient, calculating, proud, ruthless, wise and totally unforgiving.

They have long memories: never forgetting a friend or a favour and never forgiving an insult or a slight. Most important of all is the fact that they overwhelm and conquer very slowly and incrementally and they do so primarily by infiltration, assimilation and guile.

It is only when they are fully entrenched and empowered and when they have totally won the confidence of their host community and infiltrated them that the sword is brought out and the most extreme forms of barbarity and violence are employed to achieve their objective.

That is how they conquered the Habe Kingdom, subjugated the Hausa and turned them into vassals and that is how they took Ilorin from the Yoruba Aare Ona Kakanfo, Afonja. In both cases they dethroned and murdered the sitting Kings that they had earlier befriended.

Some historians have argued that they value the life of cows more than that of human-beings. This may be true of the uneducated herdsmen and pastoralists amongst them but I do not believe it is entirely true of their traditional rulers and their educated and political elites.

Some have also argued that their greatest desire is to establish a homeland for themselves by grabbing the land of others because there is nowhere in Africa that they can call their own.

Even in Guinea where they originally came from they constitute a tiny minority of the population, they have never been trusted with political power and they are viewed with the utmost suspicion.

They arrived in the shores of what later became known as northern Nigeria in 1804 when they launched their first jihad, under the leadership of Sheik Usman Dan Fodio, and conquered the Habe (Hausa-speaking) Kingdom of Gobir.

That is how they got a foothold in Nigeria and they have been here ever since, imposing their Emirs over the local indigenous populations all over the north in the name of Islam and turning the children of the conquered Hausa into almajiris.

They constitute only 7% to 10% of the 200 million-strong Nigerian population yet they wield and control more power and authority than any other tribe or ethnic nationality in the country.

This has been the case since Nigerian independence in 1960 by either holding power directly or wielding it through a series of spineless, cowardly, pliant, willing and loyal surrogates who do their bidding out of ignorance, fear and a pitiful inferiority complex and who consider them to be the “master race” that were ordained by God to lead Nigeria and that were “born to rule”.

Through Islam they have conquered most of the core north because the Emir is not just an ethnic overlord but he is also the leader of the Islamic faithful in his domain.

This is a powerful and dangerous mix of religion and ethnicity and it is one that the Fula’s have used very effectively in their quest to dominate, conquer and subjugate the whole of Nigeria and impose their will on the local indigenous tribes and populations that have been there for thousands of years before they came.

Other than Usman Dan Fodio, two other Fulani leaders stand out as the custodians and flagbearers of this messianic mission. The first of the two is Sir Ahmadu Bello, the erstwhile Saurdana of Sokoto and tye Premier of the old Northern Region and the second is General Muhammadu Buhari, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

It is for this reason that Usman Dan Fodio is often referred to as the First Mahdi of the north whilst Ahmadu Bello and Muhammadu Buhari are referred to as the second and third Mahdi’s of the north respectively.

You can say what you want about the Fulani but one thing you cannot take from them is the fact that they fully understand and appreciate the awesome power and beauty of ethnic and tribal unity in a wider multi-ethic, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation like Nigeria.

Despite all pretentions to the contrary and rather like the English of the United Kingdom, the Fulani will always put the Fulani interest before the Nigerian interest and this has served their tribal purpose and vision very well.

That is a lesson that other Nigerian tribes and ethnic nationalities would do well to learn.

Mr. Obadiah Mailafia, who is a former Deputy Governor of Central Bank and a former Presidential candidate from Southern Kaduna said the following on 25th August 2019,

“Loyalty, honour respect, integrity are defining features of the Yoruba leadership tradition.

Fulani leadership traditions is rooted in feudalism, pretence, hiding ones thoughts and taqquiya.

The game plan is to exploit to the fullest the political and financial capital of Tinubu. They will keep him onside until they’re able to destroy him.

To turn Nigeria into a Fulani Caliphate they will happily sacrifice social progress for ambition. They understand that hungry desperate people would be too broken to raise their heads.

To assist they continue to allow murderous and terrorist hordes from Central and Western Africa to take over ancestral lands by force.

They are ruthlessly imposing total control over culture, mass media, public administration and the economy.

They govern by fear and are willing to plunge us into another civil war.”

Obadiah is an old friend of mine. He studied at Oxford University and he is one of the brightest stars and most formidable intellectuals in Nigeria today.

Judging from his words he appears to know the Fulani very well indeed. I do too. How? Because even though I am a proud Yoruba man, my maternal great grandmother was a full-blooded Fulani woman and consequently 1/8 of the blood that runs through my veins is Fulani.

I have never hidden this and I never will. As a matter of fact I wear it as a badge of pride and honor because it proves that I cannot possibly hate the Fulani because I cannot possibly hate myself.

Criticism is different to hate. The former is healthy whilst the latter is not. That is the point that many of my Fulani brothers and sisters fail to appreciate and find it difficult to comprehend.

In any case not all Fulanis are bad and not all non-Fulanis are good. What I hate are not the Fulani people but the callous, barbarous and unspeakable atrocities that the Fulani herdsmen and terrorists are perpertrating in my country and the racist, hegemonist, ethnic and religious agenda that the Fulani leaders are seeking to impose.

What is also clear to me is that the history, the disposition and the ignoble intentions of the Fulani ruling elite raises concern and has serious implications for the peace, welfare and unity of Nigeria.

If the Fulani do not retrace their steps, change their ways and moderate their actions and if they do not reign in their vaulting ambition of conquering the Nigerian space and becoming Nigeria’s “master race”, they can be rest assured of the fact that history, posterity and the Nigerian people will be very harsh on them.

Worse still they may plunge our nation into a second savage, barbaric and fratricidal civil war which would make the first one look like child’s play and which would shatter the very foundations of the West African sub-region and tear the African continent apart. Let us pray that it never comes to that.

This is the end of today’s history lesson. Thanks for finding the time to read and learn.