“Nobody should try to remove Buhari in 2019. All Fulanis in
Nigeria today our eyes are open. All of us are behind Buhari.We
have seen that they want to destroy the Fulani because of Buhari.
We would be ready to follow him and fight it”
Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodeji, President of Miyetti Allah
Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), The Sun Newspaper,
3rd February 2018.
I was tempted to respond to the unveiled threats and the
bellicose and boastful words of this provincial cattle-rearer and
itinerant Fulani herdsman called Bello Abdullahi Bodeji in this
contribution but when I picked up the saturday newspapers
I realised that I needed to deal with a far more insidious and
dangerous individual whose views are as abhorrent, frightful and
unacceptable as Nazi Germany’s Adolph Hitler’s ever
were.
This is a long essay but please stay with me till the end
because the message and information that it seeks to convey is
vital. Permit me to begin.
In a fascinating and provocative interview, the Punch Newspaper
(3rd February 2018) asked one of the greatest advocates, most
consistent proponents, most powerful voices and most compelling
rising stars of Fulani supremacy, hegemony, irrendentism and power,
Professor Umar Mohammed Ladbo of the Humanities Department of
Maitama Sule University, Kano, the following question.
“You say Benue belongs to Fulani by right of conquest. Is such a
right greater than that of the original owners or people who the
Fulani met there?”
Ladbo’s response betrayed the mindset of the quintessential
conqueror and ethnic supremacist.
Though long, I shall qoute him extensively and fully in order
for readers to get a clear picture and vivid glimpse into what can
only be described as a diseased mind. He said, “Don’t talk about
original owners. Now that the right of conquest is recognised
worldwide. And many of the people, who live presently in different
countries, they are there and are living there by the right of
conquest.
And this right of conquest is recognised, even by our Supreme
Court. One of my followers on Facebook, who is a lawyer, said he
could mention 10 cases in which our Supreme Court recognised
conquest as one of the basis of getting titles for land.
So, don’t talk about that. Who are the original owners?
Original! When did they come? We submit that the first father of
the Tiv was Mohammed Alla, who migrated from Katsina, that is why
today, you have Katsina Alla! Let them explain, what is the meaning
of Katsina Alla?
So, this Fulani man, when he got to that area and fathered Tiv,
there were other Fulani people there. That was why he came to join
his own brothers.
So, if you are talking about any original owners of the Tiv
land, it is actually the Fulani. And the Fulani are the fathers of
the Tiv and the Jukun are their mothers.
Many of the people living in the area they live today migrated
to that area. And I also mentioned in my Facebook post that Fulani
are very kind and benevolent conquerors because when the Europeans
settled in North America, that is, today’s USA and Canada, they
massacred all the people.
That is why there is no one to call them settlers today. They
killed them all and destroyed their means of livelihood. When the
Europeans settled in Australia, they killed the Aborigines.
That is why there is no one to call them settlers now. But
Fulani, we did not kill anybody. We ruled over the people and some
people are asking if it is true that Benue belongs to Fulani?
Why are they not Muslims? Now, the answer is Fulani did not
force anyone to embrace Islam. Even today in Kano here, you have
people who are not Muslims and they are originally from here.
We call them Maguzawa. That is why the missionaries had the
opportunity to come here and convert them to Christianity. You have
them in Bauchi and even in Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara and Katsina”.
(CONCLUDED).
Why am I not suprised by these frightful and startling
submissions and assertions and this false narrative.
For Professor Ladbo to essentially claim that “the fact that we
Fulani did not kill all those we subjugated and all the indigenous
people we defeated in battle, conquered and enslaved is something
that Nigerians should be grateful for” is cruel, demeaning,
dishonorable, insulting, disingenuous and shameful.
Worst of all it is not true. It is false and it is historically
incorrect. The fact of the matter is that the Fulani conquerors
slaughtered more people in their series of jihads in northern
Nigeria than ANY other invasion force in the history of Africa.
Has this so-called “professor” never heard about the barbarity
and genocide committed by Usman Dan Fodio when he offered either
“the sword or the Koran” to those he conquered in the north?
Has he never heard of the massacres and mass murders that
accompanied the Fulani jihads, the destruction of the Habe empire
and the establishment of the Caliphate?
Ignorance is a terrible thing but deceit and historical
revisionism is even worse.
To say that the Fulani were gentle and kind in their conquests
of parts of northern Nigeria and in their quest to establish their
caliphate and forcefully spread Islam is a lie from the pit of
hell.
It is like saying that Lucifer loved God and never rebelled
against him or that Hitler’s Nazis showed kindness to the Jews or
that the white slave-owners of the pre-civil war “confederate”
southern states of the United States of America loved their black
slaves.
The truth is that the history of the caliphate is paved,
painted and tainted with ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocide
and blood and their cruelty to those that they attacked, conquered
and enslaved was legendary.
They utterly humiliated, broke down and destroyed their subjects
and took everything away from them including their dignity,
liberty, land, identity, religion and culture.
Worse of all they effected a relentless “scorch the earth”
policy, burnt everything in sight, raped ALL the women, enslaved
ALL the children, took millions of lives and even slaughtered the
animals.
That is the history of the caliphate and Fulani conquest and not
the rosy picture that Professor Ladbo and other historical
revisionists seek to paint.
This is not hate, it is history.
Sadly Ladbo’s hubristic delusions was not limited to the
above.
He went a step further down the abyss of hate and delusion by
telling the same Punch Newspaper that
“the Fulanis are destined to continue leading Nigeria”.
He said the Fulanis brought literacy to the country and that the
Fulani tribe had transcripts dating back to 500 years ago “when no
other tribe knew how to write”.
Permit me to share his exact words: “Those who rule are those
that are more civilised and educated. Now, Fulani happened to be
more educated than all other tribes in Nigeria before the Europeans
came.
We are the ones who brought literacy here as we have
manuscripts, hundreds of them, which were written between 300 and
500 years ago, when no other tribe knew how to write.
And that is why the lot fell on our people to lead in this
country and we are still leading the people. We are destined to
continue leading people; but I know, if people read this, they will
say he is a supremacist or something like that, no!
It is not like that. This is a burden and we pay for it.
Sardauna was killed because he was a ruler. If he had not been a
ruler, why would he have been killed? Murtala Mohammed (former
Military Head of State) was also killed. Why? It was because he was
a ruler.
It is not something we are proud of: it is a burden but we
have to shoulder the burden because we are the ones who are
qualified for it.
In 1840 the Yoruba defeated us in Osogbo and sent us packing but
you are talking of only one defeat when we conquered the whole of
the North including Kano and even Benue. We are the owners of Benue
by conquest.
Our man was already ruling Borno by then, there was no need to
attack them. We don’t even eat cow meat. It is you Yoruba and Igbo
that are ready to die for cow meat. Look we are destined to lead
Nigeria for long” (CONCLUDED).
For these asinine and absurd assertions coming from a depraved
and desperate simpleton who can be better described as a
village idiot than a Professor of Humanities, I have no words other
than to say that his views have no basis in rationality, logic or
history.
It is also trite history that the Fulani came from Futa Jalon in
modern-day Guinea (from a place called Vulture Mountain) and that
their progenitor, Usman Dan Fodio, did not set foot in what was to
later become modern-day northern Nigeria until 1797 or begin his
jihad until 1804.
So when this Kano “Professor” compares the Fulani to “other
tribes” in Nigeria “300 to 500 years ago” he is making a grave
error because the fact is that at that time the Fulani were not
even here!
If any tribe or ethnic nationality can be described as
modern-day immigrants and aliens in Nigeria it is the Fulani. Every
other tribe in our nation has been here for centuries, thousands of
years and indeed from time-immemorial but the Fulani are relative
newcomers to our geographical space.
As a matter of fact they have far more in common genetically and
in terms of bloodlines with the Tutsis of Central and East Africa
(who also originally came from Futa Jalon and who are also
migrants) than they do with ANY tribe or ethnic nationality in
Nigeria.
They were not originally part of us and neither are they
completely negroid. Their blood is mixed with Taurag and Berber
blood and they are a product of long-term and thousands of years of
cross-breeding between the local black Africans of Futa Jalon and
the Arab, Taurag and Berber traders that plied that route.
To suggest that they were indigenous to the land that was later
to be known as “Nigeria” or even “northern Nigeria” before the
mid-1800’s is simply not true and it is historically incorrect.
That is the bitter truth and another is as follows.
The last three years have proved that the Fulani know far more
about cow-herding and cattle-rearing than they do about
nation-building and governance.
They have also proved that they place far more value on the life
of a cow than that of a human being. What on earth could be more
backward, primitive, uncivilised uneducated, illiterate,
condemnable and reprehensible than that?
Contrary to what Professor Ladbo would have us believe, the
Fulani are not more educated than others, they are not more
literate than others, they were not educated before others, they
are not born to rule, they are not destined to lead, they have no
understanding of collective and all-inclusive leadership in a
multi-religious, multi-racial, multi-cultural nation and, as long
as Jesus is on the throne, they will not lead or rule Nigeria
forever.
Permit me to end this contribution with an interesting and
insightful extract from Professor Ozodi Thomas Osuji’s
well-researched and seminal essay titled ‘The Fulanis Quest To Rule
West Africa’. He wrote, “I have been reading up on the Fulani. I am
now a walking encyclopedia on them. I have accepted that they want
to rule all of Nigeria.
They conquered the Hausas states (1804-1809) and now they want
to conquer all of Nigeria. That six million Fulanis in Nigeria (and
13 million in all West Africa) want to rule 150 million Nigerians
is amazing!
When five million white Afrikaners ruled 45 million Africans in
South Africa we described their behavior as racist.
But in the Fulani case folks do not seem to grasp the
racist angle to the whole bizarre thing where the most uneducated
group in Nigeria wants to rule the most educated folks in Nigeria,
such as the Edos, Ijaws, Efiks, Igbos and Yorubas.
Fulanis originally lived in Morocco as part of the Maghreb Arabs
that conquered the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal in 711
A.D. and swept into France in 732 A.D. before the Franks
(Germans…Arabs still call Germans Franks) under their leader,
Charles Martel, the Hammer of God, stopped them at Tours, near
Paris, at the famous battle of Poitier.
Many of those Arabs mixed with Africans and are now called
Fulanis. They drifted south and eventually settled around Senegal
and Guinea. Fulanis drifted into Northern Nigeria in the eighteenth
century (1700s).
They used a well-known ruse (which they are now using allover
Nigeria) to get Hausas to attack them and used that pretext to
attack and conquer Hausa states.
Their leader, Othman Dan Fodio named himself the Sultan of what
he called the Sokoto Caliphate and appointed his relatives the
Emirs (Chiefs) of major Hausa towns.
Apparently Fulanis want to extend their rule all over Nigeria.
We must check the diabolical intention of the Fulanis, a minority
Arab group that wants to rule the majority of Africans in Nigeria,
just as a minority white group wanted to rule the majority of
Africans in South Africa. This must be stopped. Democracy requires
that it be stopped”. (CONCLUDED).
Osuji is absolutely right.
And just in case anyone is still in any doubt about how
determined the Fulani are to hold on to power in Nigeria they
should consider the words of Alhaji Ahmad Usman Bello, the National
Chairman of the Fulbe (Fulani) Development Association
(FULDAN).
Last week he told the Nigerian people that ”any ethnic group
that fights the Fulani will be doing so at their own peril. No-one
can defeat the Fulani in Nigeria”.
As we lawyers say, ‘res ipsa loquitor’ (meaning ‘the facts speak
for themselves’).
Ahmed Usman Bello, Umar Muhammed Labdo, Bello Abdullahi Bodeji
and all those that share their reckless views forget that hubris
comes before nemesis and that pride comes before a fall.
May God deliver them from their dangerous and provocative
delusions before it is too late.
“Nobody should try to remove Buhari in 2019. All Fulanis in
Nigeria today our eyes are open. All of us are behind Buhari.We
have seen that they want to destroy the Fulani because of Buhari.
We would be ready to follow him and fight it”
Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodeji, President of Miyetti Allah
Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), The Sun Newspaper,
3rd February 2018.
I was tempted to respond to the unveiled threats and the
bellicose and boastful words of this provincial cattle-rearer and
itinerant Fulani herdsman called Bello Abdullahi Bodeji in this
contribution but when I picked up the saturday newspapers
I realised that I needed to deal with a far more insidious and
dangerous individual whose views are as abhorrent, frightful and
unacceptable as Nazi Germany’s Adolph Hitler’s ever
were.
This is a long essay but please stay with me till the end
because the message and information that it seeks to convey is
vital. Permit me to begin.
In a fascinating and provocative interview, the Punch Newspaper
(3rd February 2018) asked one of the greatest advocates, most
consistent proponents, most powerful voices and most compelling
rising stars of Fulani supremacy, hegemony, irrendentism and power,
Professor Umar Mohammed Ladbo of the Humanities Department of
Maitama Sule University, Kano, the following question.
“You say Benue belongs to Fulani by right of conquest. Is such a
right greater than that of the original owners or people who the
Fulani met there?”
Ladbo’s response betrayed the mindset of the quintessential
conqueror and ethnic supremacist.
Though long, I shall qoute him extensively and fully in order
for readers to get a clear picture and vivid glimpse into what can
only be described as a diseased mind. He said, “Don’t talk about
original owners. Now that the right of conquest is recognised
worldwide. And many of the people, who live presently in different
countries, they are there and are living there by the right of
conquest.
And this right of conquest is recognised, even by our Supreme
Court. One of my followers on Facebook, who is a lawyer, said he
could mention 10 cases in which our Supreme Court recognised
conquest as one of the basis of getting titles for land.
So, don’t talk about that. Who are the original owners?
Original! When did they come? We submit that the first father of
the Tiv was Mohammed Alla, who migrated from Katsina, that is why
today, you have Katsina Alla! Let them explain, what is the meaning
of Katsina Alla?
So, this Fulani man, when he got to that area and fathered Tiv,
there were other Fulani people there. That was why he came to join
his own brothers.
So, if you are talking about any original owners of the Tiv
land, it is actually the Fulani. And the Fulani are the fathers of
the Tiv and the Jukun are their mothers.
Many of the people living in the area they live today migrated
to that area. And I also mentioned in my Facebook post that Fulani
are very kind and benevolent conquerors because when the Europeans
settled in North America, that is, today’s USA and Canada, they
massacred all the people.
That is why there is no one to call them settlers today. They
killed them all and destroyed their means of livelihood. When the
Europeans settled in Australia, they killed the Aborigines.
That is why there is no one to call them settlers now. But
Fulani, we did not kill anybody. We ruled over the people and some
people are asking if it is true that Benue belongs to Fulani?
Why are they not Muslims? Now, the answer is Fulani did not
force anyone to embrace Islam. Even today in Kano here, you have
people who are not Muslims and they are originally from here.
We call them Maguzawa. That is why the missionaries had the
opportunity to come here and convert them to Christianity. You have
them in Bauchi and even in Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara and Katsina”.
(CONCLUDED).
Why am I not suprised by these frightful and startling
submissions and assertions and this false narrative.
For Professor Ladbo to essentially claim that “the fact that we
Fulani did not kill all those we subjugated and all the indigenous
people we defeated in battle, conquered and enslaved is something
that Nigerians should be grateful for” is cruel, demeaning,
dishonorable, insulting, disingenuous and shameful.
Worst of all it is not true. It is false and it is historically
incorrect. The fact of the matter is that the Fulani conquerors
slaughtered more people in their series of jihads in northern
Nigeria than ANY other invasion force in the history of Africa.
Has this so-called “professor” never heard about the barbarity
and genocide committed by Usman Dan Fodio when he offered either
“the sword or the Koran” to those he conquered in the north?
Has he never heard of the massacres and mass murders that
accompanied the Fulani jihads, the destruction of the Habe empire
and the establishment of the Caliphate?
Ignorance is a terrible thing but deceit and historical
revisionism is even worse.
To say that the Fulani were gentle and kind in their conquests
of parts of northern Nigeria and in their quest to establish their
caliphate and forcefully spread Islam is a lie from the pit of
hell.
It is like saying that Lucifer loved God and never rebelled
against him or that Hitler’s Nazis showed kindness to the Jews or
that the white slave-owners of the pre-civil war “confederate”
southern states of the United States of America loved their black
slaves.
The truth is that the history of the caliphate is paved,
painted and tainted with ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocide
and blood and their cruelty to those that they attacked, conquered
and enslaved was legendary.
They utterly humiliated, broke down and destroyed their subjects
and took everything away from them including their dignity,
liberty, land, identity, religion and culture.
Worse of all they effected a relentless “scorch the earth”
policy, burnt everything in sight, raped ALL the women, enslaved
ALL the children, took millions of lives and even slaughtered the
animals.
That is the history of the caliphate and Fulani conquest and not
the rosy picture that Professor Ladbo and other historical
revisionists seek to paint.
This is not hate, it is history.
Sadly Ladbo’s hubristic delusions was not limited to the
above.
He went a step further down the abyss of hate and delusion by
telling the same Punch Newspaper that
“the Fulanis are destined to continue leading Nigeria”.
He said the Fulanis brought literacy to the country and that the
Fulani tribe had transcripts dating back to 500 years ago “when no
other tribe knew how to write”.
Permit me to share his exact words: “Those who rule are those
that are more civilised and educated. Now, Fulani happened to be
more educated than all other tribes in Nigeria before the Europeans
came.
We are the ones who brought literacy here as we have
manuscripts, hundreds of them, which were written between 300 and
500 years ago, when no other tribe knew how to write.
And that is why the lot fell on our people to lead in this
country and we are still leading the people. We are destined to
continue leading people; but I know, if people read this, they will
say he is a supremacist or something like that, no!
It is not like that. This is a burden and we pay for it.
Sardauna was killed because he was a ruler. If he had not been a
ruler, why would he have been killed? Murtala Mohammed (former
Military Head of State) was also killed. Why? It was because he was
a ruler.
It is not something we are proud of: it is a burden but we
have to shoulder the burden because we are the ones who are
qualified for it.
In 1840 the Yoruba defeated us in Osogbo and sent us packing but
you are talking of only one defeat when we conquered the whole of
the North including Kano and even Benue. We are the owners of Benue
by conquest.
Our man was already ruling Borno by then, there was no need to
attack them. We don’t even eat cow meat. It is you Yoruba and Igbo
that are ready to die for cow meat. Look we are destined to lead
Nigeria for long” (CONCLUDED).
For these asinine and absurd assertions coming from a depraved
and desperate simpleton who can be better described as a
village idiot than a Professor of Humanities, I have no words other
than to say that his views have no basis in rationality, logic or
history.
It is also trite history that the Fulani came from Futa Jalon in
modern-day Guinea (from a place called Vulture Mountain) and that
their progenitor, Usman Dan Fodio, did not set foot in what was to
later become modern-day northern Nigeria until 1797 or begin his
jihad until 1804.
So when this Kano “Professor” compares the Fulani to “other
tribes” in Nigeria “300 to 500 years ago” he is making a grave
error because the fact is that at that time the Fulani were not
even here!
If any tribe or ethnic nationality can be described as
modern-day immigrants and aliens in Nigeria it is the Fulani. Every
other tribe in our nation has been here for centuries, thousands of
years and indeed from time-immemorial but the Fulani are relative
newcomers to our geographical space.
As a matter of fact they have far more in common genetically and
in terms of bloodlines with the Tutsis of Central and East Africa
(who also originally came from Futa Jalon and who are also
migrants) than they do with ANY tribe or ethnic nationality in
Nigeria.
They were not originally part of us and neither are they
completely negroid. Their blood is mixed with Taurag and Berber
blood and they are a product of long-term and thousands of years of
cross-breeding between the local black Africans of Futa Jalon and
the Arab, Taurag and Berber traders that plied that route.
To suggest that they were indigenous to the land that was later
to be known as “Nigeria” or even “northern Nigeria” before the
mid-1800’s is simply not true and it is historically incorrect.
That is the bitter truth and another is as follows.
The last three years have proved that the Fulani know far more
about cow-herding and cattle-rearing than they do about
nation-building and governance.
They have also proved that they place far more value on the life
of a cow than that of a human being. What on earth could be more
backward, primitive, uncivilised uneducated, illiterate,
condemnable and reprehensible than that?
Contrary to what Professor Ladbo would have us believe, the
Fulani are not more educated than others, they are not more
literate than others, they were not educated before others, they
are not born to rule, they are not destined to lead, they have no
understanding of collective and all-inclusive leadership in a
multi-religious, multi-racial, multi-cultural nation and, as long
as Jesus is on the throne, they will not lead or rule Nigeria
forever.
Permit me to end this contribution with an interesting and
insightful extract from Professor Ozodi Thomas Osuji’s
well-researched and seminal essay titled ‘The Fulanis Quest To Rule
West Africa’. He wrote, “I have been reading up on the Fulani. I am
now a walking encyclopedia on them. I have accepted that they want
to rule all of Nigeria.
They conquered the Hausas states (1804-1809) and now they want
to conquer all of Nigeria. That six million Fulanis in Nigeria (and
13 million in all West Africa) want to rule 150 million Nigerians
is amazing!
When five million white Afrikaners ruled 45 million Africans in
South Africa we described their behavior as racist.
But in the Fulani case folks do not seem to grasp the
racist angle to the whole bizarre thing where the most uneducated
group in Nigeria wants to rule the most educated folks in Nigeria,
such as the Edos, Ijaws, Efiks, Igbos and Yorubas.
Fulanis originally lived in Morocco as part of the Maghreb Arabs
that conquered the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal in 711
A.D. and swept into France in 732 A.D. before the Franks
(Germans…Arabs still call Germans Franks) under their leader,
Charles Martel, the Hammer of God, stopped them at Tours, near
Paris, at the famous battle of Poitier.
Many of those Arabs mixed with Africans and are now called
Fulanis. They drifted south and eventually settled around Senegal
and Guinea. Fulanis drifted into Northern Nigeria in the eighteenth
century (1700s).
They used a well-known ruse (which they are now using allover
Nigeria) to get Hausas to attack them and used that pretext to
attack and conquer Hausa states.
Their leader, Othman Dan Fodio named himself the Sultan of what
he called the Sokoto Caliphate and appointed his relatives the
Emirs (Chiefs) of major Hausa towns.
Apparently Fulanis want to extend their rule all over Nigeria.
We must check the diabolical intention of the Fulanis, a minority
Arab group that wants to rule the majority of Africans in Nigeria,
just as a minority white group wanted to rule the majority of
Africans in South Africa. This must be stopped. Democracy requires
that it be stopped”. (CONCLUDED).
Osuji is absolutely right.
And just in case anyone is still in any doubt about how
determined the Fulani are to hold on to power in Nigeria they
should consider the words of Alhaji Ahmad Usman Bello, the National
Chairman of the Fulbe (Fulani) Development Association
(FULDAN).
Last week he told the Nigerian people that ”any ethnic group
that fights the Fulani will be doing so at their own peril. No-one
can defeat the Fulani in Nigeria”.
As we lawyers say, ‘res ipsa loquitor’ (meaning ‘the facts speak
for themselves’).
Ahmed Usman Bello, Umar Muhammed Labdo, Bello Abdullahi Bodeji
and all those that share their reckless views forget that hubris
comes before nemesis and that pride comes before a fall.
May God deliver them from their dangerous and provocative
delusions before it is too late.
Read more https://nairalaw.com/the-dangerous-delusions-of-umar-muhammed-ladbo-by-femi-fani-kayode/