Basil Okoh
(Long read alert. Please, know that the information contained here is sensitive. Don’t share this write up carelessly. As much as possible don’t share it anywhere!)
A member of our church does business that takes him to Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Niger Republic often. He told me something that is difficult to believe except you know he has no reason to tell me lies. He said there is a full scale war going on between Fulanis and Hausas in the North, especially in the states mentioned above. He said what we hear as armed banditry in the far North is a war in which the Fulanis want to annihilate the Hausa race and take over their lands. He said, the Fulani land grabbing in Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa, Benue and other Middle Belt states, is nothing in comparison to what is happening in the far North! In fact, he said what is happening in Arewa is a hundred times worse than the carnage in the Middle Belt! Because he speaks Hausa fluently and dresses like one of them they often assume he is their own! So even though he is a stranger among them but they are not careful to express their frustrations and anger in what the Fulanis are doing to their villages, and that when they get opportunity they go on revenge missions. Hundreds of people are killed almost every day, in hundreds of villages burnt and thousands of people are displaced. The governors, and lawmakers from these states, most of whom are Fulani, are fully in the picture of what is happening and are doing their best to conceal it! But the situation is getting out of hand.
The genesis of the crises goes back to over 200 years ago! In 1804 a Fulani cleric, Usmanu Dan Fodio, staged a ‘jihad’ in Hausa land in which he alleged that the Hausa kings, who were already Muslims, were corrupt, oppressive to the talakawas (poor masses), and were mixing Islam with paganism. So he said he came to reform Islam in the North. Dan Fodio was able to mobilize the Hausa talakawas to help him fight and overthrow their rulers. From 1804 to 1809 Dan Fodio succeeded to uproot all the Hausa kings and replaced them with Fulani Emirs. He, his younger brother, Abdullahi and his son, Bello, established a Caliphate based in Sokoto, which extended up through the present day Adamawa state to Northern Cameroon, and through Nupe land to Ilorin in the South. It extended even outside the shores of present day Nigeria into Niger republic. They ruled the North for about 100 years before the Britons came and colonized them. It is important to note that the Middle Belt ethnic nationalities successfully withstood the Dan Fodio “jihad” and so where never part of the Sokoto Caliphate, until the Britons came and forcefully subverted some Middle Belt communities under the emirate system.
Having successfully taken over the rulership of the land, the Fulanis systematically began to suppress the Hausa populations by ensuring no Hausa man became prominent in anything. They started using the Hausas as drawers of water and hewers of wood. Many of them were castrated and used as palace eunuchs and some were sold as slaves. But a casual observer would hardly distinguish between the Hausas and the Fulanis, because the town and the ruling Fulanis adopted Hausa language and culture as theirs. In fact, many of them cannot speak Fulfulde, the language of the Fulanis. But they have never forgotten their ethnic pedigree. However, to deliberately blur the distinction between the two tribes, they invented the hyphenated name, Hausa-Fulani, as an ethnic group. But nearly all the Northern Muslim Presidents, Governors, Ministers, and Federal lawmakers have been Fulanis, with the exception of those from Borno, who are Kanuri. The oppression of the Hausas by the Fulanis in the North has been ruthless and comprehensive. Successive Federal governments have always had the Fulanization agenda, but they have executed it stealthily and cautiously.
However, the nearly 8 years of Buhari’s rule has exasperated an already explosive situation. First, Buhari imported some Fulanis from outside Nigeria in numbers to help him win the 2015 presidential elections. After winning, he decided to make Nigeria home to not just the Fulanis who have been part of the country since the jihad, but every Fulani from anywhere in Africa! So although, all communities outside the far North have felt the effects of Buhari’s Fulanization agenda, the far North is reeling more from its aftermaths. The Fulani warlords, the likes of Aliero and Bello Turji, are fully armed and financed by the Fulanis in power, as President, Governors, Ministers, Emirs, lawmakers and religious clerics. Their first assignment is to annihilate the Hausas and make Hausa land their permanent inheritance. When they have a firm grip of the land then they extend their tentacles to every part of Nigeria. That is why the situation is more precarious in the North for now.
But the Hausas are rising up to fight back! Some Hausa educated elites who are clear minded of the trajectories of the Fulani exploits in their native hand have decided to mobilize their kith and kin to stand up to the genocide happening among their people, and to tell the Fulanis, that enough is enough! According to some of the Hausa elites, Hausa people make up 30% of Nigeria’s population, but the Fulanis make up 3%! So the Hausas have population as their advantage. But the Fulanis have the political and the economic power to their advantage. The Fulanis control almost everything in Nigeria today. The strategy of the Hausas now is to ensure no Fulani man ascends Nigeria’s Presidency again! The Fulani’s have always used religion to get the Hausas to elect their oligarchs into power. And the Hausas are saying, never again! The Fulanis used them to dislodge their rulers, and have been using them to install Fulani rulers all along. 2015 was the turning point. Buhari presented himself as a righteous man who loved the talakawas and would work for their interests. But as at last count, more than 1.5 million Hausas have perished in the hands of Fulani gunmen in the last 8 years! So they can’t wait to see Buhari vacate Aso Rock Villa for any genuine Nigerian of whatever ethnic stock or religious persuasion, but not another Fulani! And not anyone who has pledged to continue the Buhari legacies!
There are many Hausa intellectuals who are determined to educate, inspire and mobilize their Hausa brothers and sisters, both Hausa Muslims, Hausa Christians and Hausa traditionalists, derogatively labelled as Maguzawa! They are saying that they acknowledge the existence of millions of pure blooded Hausas who are Christians and Maguzawas. The Fulanis have suppressed the knowledge of the existence of such people, to give the false impression that the far North is 100% Muslim! And to achieve the goal of 100% Muslims and Fulanis, they are wiping off all Hausas, Muslims and Non-Muslims! The ongoing war is both physical and intellectual. Please type ‘Jaruma Hausa tv” on your You tube search engine, and listen to the full exppsitions of the Hausa elites on the injuries done to them by the Fulanis. It may take you several days to exhaust the contents of the videos and audios contained therein. Jaruma Hausa tv is just one of such media outlets being used by the Hausas for the intellectual and/or psychological warfare. There are several others. If you don’t understand Hausa don’t waste your time and data.
Of course, the Fulani ruling class and their religious clerics have begun to react to the social media warfare. At first they pretended not to be aware of such developments, and wished it would just fizzle away. But when they saw it was gathering momentum they had to take action. Some of them are saying that Jaruma Hausa Tv producers and presenters are Hausa Maguzawa, and/or Hausa Christians and/or hired mercenaries by Jews and enemies of Islam to destabilize Islam in the North. But all the speakers on that media outfit say they are all pure blooded Hausa Muslims! Many of them are proficient in their knowledge of Islam and Arabic language, in addition to their flawless Hausa language, and they demonstrate their proficiency as they speak. They are also well versed in the history of Northern Nigeria, especially the role Fulanis have played to bring us all to where we are today.
Some of the major messages of Jaruma Hausa tv is sending to their fellow Hausas is that there is no such thing as Hausa-Fulani. That they are a distinct ethnic group, with their distinct language and culture. That the Fulanis arrived Hausa land just over 200 years ago. And that they, the Fulanis, did not bring Islam with them! That Islam had been in Hausa land for about 1000 years before the Fulanis came. That the so-called jihad of 1804 was not to reform Islam as claimed but had a pure ethno-political agenda. That this was the beginning of terrorism in Northern Nigeria that has persisted till today! That the Kano Central mosque, for example, had been built in its present form, for more than 400 years before Dan Fofio came! That Queen Amina of Zazzau, for another example, who ruled Zazzau and as a military general extended the limits of Hausa land in the 16th century, was a devout Muslim, hundreds of years before Danfodio came!
That the town Fulanis have abandoned their Fulfulde tongue and have adopted Hausa language and culture, which is superior to the Fulani culture. That the bush Fulanis are being armed by the town Fulanis to wipe out Hausas in their native land. That the terrorism across Nigeria today is spear-headed and executed by the Fulanis to create space for their fellow Fulanis outside Nigeria. That the Hausas consider all other ethnic nationalities as fellow Nigerians who have lived together in peace for millennia before the Fulanis came and want to use Hausa and Islam as camouflage for land grabbing.
That even though there has been much inter-tribal marriages between the two tribes, as with several other tribes, their separate ethnic identities have never been obliterated. That although the majority of Hausas are Muslims but they acknowledge the existence of millions of pure blooded Hausas who are Christians and traditionalists. That even among the Fulanis they know that there are also a large number of them who are Christians and traditionalists. That they are aware that the Fulani Muslims, Christians and traditionalists have a forum where they meet and discuss issues of exclusive interest to the Fulanis. So why can’t they as Hausas; Muslims, Christians and traditionalists, also have a forum to discuss issues of exclusive interests to them?
In conclusion, it may look unfortunate that people who seemed to be one and the same people have decided to part ways and are taking their fight to the public square. But I think it is to the benefit of us all! It also serves as warning to some groups with hegemonic tendencies, that afflictions will not be tolerated forever! Indeed, the liberation of the Hausas from the tyranny of the Fulanis will be the emancipation of the Middle Belt and of Nigeria as a whole. Can’t wait for it to materialize! Let us pray for the producers of Jaruma Hausa tv, who are on the hit list of the Fulani powers that be. May their efforts yield bountiful harvests to God’s glory.
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