dominated Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and the premier of the
defunct Northern Nigeria, the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello, in
a 1960 newspaper interview, saying, “The new nation called Nigeria
should be the estate of our great-grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must
ruthlessly prevent the 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 rule over their
future”. His statement was disgustingly hegemonic. It was a nauseating
exposé of Fulani stratagem for absolute domination of Nigeria.
The estate of Ahmadu Bello’s great-grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio, was
limited to parts of northern Nigeria that Dan Fodio and his band of
Fulani freebooters defeated and Islamized in their 19th Century jihad
against Hausa and other tribal kingdoms. After Dan Fodio’s conquests,
his followers continued the jihad, and would have taken it all the way
to the Atlantic Ocean. In another instance, Ahmadu Bello said that: it
was the British that interrupted the jihad to the Atlantic Ocean. As
such, once the British leaves, they will continue their jihad, and
ultimately, dip the Koran into the Atlantic Ocean. President Mohammadu
Buhari is a Fulani fanatical Moslem and unabashed irredentist. Not
surprisingly, his presidency has emboldened and empowered the Fulani,
and provided them the enabling environment to advance Ahmadu Bello’s
dictum. So, unlike, at no time, since the British interrupted their
religious thrust towards the Atlantic, the Fulani are heartened,
determined and poised to continue their jihad. It is imperative that the
other peoples of Nigeria, especially, the Igbo and Yoruba defeat the
Fulani planned 21st Century jihad.
Thus far, many Igbo and Yoruba leaders have not demonstrated the
commitment and resolve needed to defeat the spear-head of the jihad: the
killer herdsmen. In his first term, President Buhari, in his toxic
nepotism, was totally indifference to the federal character in his
political appointments; disproportionately, he appointed the Fulani to
head the most powerful security agencies. His brazen anti-Igbo bias in
these appointments elicited the usual Igbo outcry of marginalization.
Secondly, the Igbo and Igbo communities have suffered enormously from
his administration tacit support for Fulani herdsmen’s murderous binges
across parts of Nigeria. Therefore, the Buhari presidency is
antithetical to Igbo political interests. Paradoxically, most Igbo
governors campaigned for his re-election. .
According to villagers living in parts of Ondo State, Fulani herdsmen
had taken over their area, and converted the Ondo State Government
forest reserve in Odigbo Local Government Area into a militia camp. They
insist that the herdsmen terrorizing the area reside in the forest and
their other hide-outs tucked deep in the bush. They graze their cows by
the road, and then, strike to kill and/or kidnap, and run back into the
bush. It is a narrative corroborated by different newspaper accounts. In
addition, newspaper reports and eyewitness accounts buttressed
widespread allegation that Mrs. Funke Olakurum, the daughter of the
leader of Afenifere, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, was killed by herdsmen that
sneaked out from the bush to kill and kidnap along the Benin/Ore road.
Lamentably, for unfathomable reasons, some Yoruba leaders are holding
briefs for the killer herdsmen.
Contrary to overwhelming evidence, the Ondo State government denied the
presence of Fulani herdsmen in its forest reserve. A government
spokesman dismissed it, “It is a lie; herdsmen are not in the reserve”.
And, in his desperation to exculpate the herdsmen from the murder of
Mrs. Funke Olakurum, the foremost Yoruba political leader, Ahmed Tinubu,
said, “I will ask where are the cows”. It was an insincere and
hypocritical question that incensed many Nigerians. To insinuate that
the only discernible feature of Fulani herdsmen is a throng of cows is
hogwash.
The killer herdsmen kill and rape, torch and raze down entire
communities, and seize, occupy and rename villages. Their excessive
brutality and criminality debunk the pretext that their concerns are
limited to grazing routes and space; they have a hidden agenda: total
subjugation of the peoples of Nigeria. These herdsmen are not renegades
or lawless adventurers randomly kidnapping, killing and stealing. They
are the foot soldiers of an orchestrated Fulani expansionism, with the
precise goal, as articulated by Ahmadu Bello in the video, to take over
Nigeria politically, economically, and religiously. The master-minds of
this irredentist design have the resources, resolve and ruthlessness to
attain their goals. The other ethnic groups of Nigeria, especially, the
Igbo and Yoruba must forestall their nightmarish design. It demands our
organizing, training and arming ourselves to engage Fulani hegemony fire
for fire. It is only after they have been beaten to a bloody retreat
that the absurdity of their planned 21st Century jihad will crystallize
to them.
It is horrifying to image the triumph of a Fulani jihad in 21st Century
Nigeria. It will reduce us to a defeated, broken and battered lot, on
our knees and in trepidation of our new masters, watching helplessly, as
the triumphant jihadists gleeful dip their Korans into the Atlantic
Ocean.
Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
maciln18@yahoo.com
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