APC REGIME AND THE BRITISH CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE NIGERIAN PEOPLE
“The Fulanis are settlers in Nigeria. They are the only ethnic group not indigenous to Nigeria. The fact that the Nigerian constitution made them Nigerians citizens does not give them the licence to kill their host without any consequences!” — @MalcomInfiniti
Even with the outrage that generated that tweet, I considered it to be indecorous. I thought it might be helpful to add a bit of historical context to it.
“Gunmen attacked remote villages over the weekend in north-central Nigeria’s Plateau state, killing at least 140 people, officials and survivors said Tuesday, the latest case this year of such mass killings blamed on the farmer-herder crisis in the West African nation.” — Chinedu Asadu; AP
In the final analysis, the sectarian violence against Christians and minority ethnic nationalities in Southern Kaduna and the Middle Belt serves only one purpose — the ruling party, APC, has to create a religious divide in Nigeria order to remain in power!
Historical Background
Koli Tenguella, known to Portuguese historians as the Great Fula, founded the first homeland for the hitherto nomadic Fulani in Futa Toro in the upper and middle basin area of the Senegal River during the heyday of Askia Mohammed, emperor of Songhai.
But it was Tenguella’s father, sometimes called Tenguella Ba to separate them, who had begun to gather and rally his people for common cause. Both the town Fulani and the pastoral Fulani have two primordial missions:
- To protect what they regard as their grazing rights in the entire savannaian region, and
- To spread Islam
The Fulani were remarkable for being one of the few minority ethnic nationalities to survive intact the rise and fall of the Sudanian empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. But their most important historical importance were three-fold:
First, the sociocultural relations between the Fulani and Arabs were the primary agency for the penetration of Islam across the Sahelian and savannaian divides.
The Arab conversion by the sword ended with the conquest of Egypt and the Maghreb (the other African countries on the Mediterranean coast — Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) at the turn of the millennium. Henceforth, Arabs concentrated on slave trade, and the Fulani jihads became key to the Islamization of the sub-Saharan region.
Malick Sy, a Fula scholar-warrior, led the pioneer jihad in Bondu in Mali in the 17th century.
Second, the spectacular success of Uthman dan Fodio’s 19th century jihad which converted Hausaland to Islam was followed by the erection of the Sokoto Caliphate. Uthman dan Fodio was from Gobir, one of the seven Hausa Bakwai states. Note that the Habe, the Hausa ruling class, had converted to Islam 500 years earlier.
Third, this Islamic state provided Sir Lugard with the ideological and structural bases of Indirect Rule with which he administered the Northern Province, and it became therefore the centrepiece of British economic policy in Nigeria.
Uthman dan Fodio, and later his son Mohammed Bello, did something remarkable after the jihad. He allowed the Hausa language to remain lingua franca in Hausaland. That was a genius move, and it achieved two purposes.
It allowed the Hausa trade hegemony to remain intact, secured, and viable. The Hausa traded:
- Due west with the Wangara or Dyula and Mandinka in the Volta region and Inland Delta of the Niger/Niger Bend
- Northward with the Berber and Tuareg in The Sahel
- Due east with Kanem-Bornu on the plains of Lake Chad
- On the confluence of the great rivers with the Nupe, Borgu, Kwararafa, Idoma, Igala, Ebira, and Ilorin; and,
- Due south with Oyo, Igbomina, Ijesha, Egba, and Ijebu
Consequently, the Fulani entered into a spiritual and political kinship with the Hausa and, in that way, became a demographic majority. Thus, do we speak of Hausa-Fulani, which is a practical misnomer. But it worked and ensured the existential survival of the Fulani in the upheavals created when Britain and France contested and delimited territories in sub-Saharan Africa and displaced diverse peoples from their ancestral lands.
Lord Lugard was absolutely besotted with what he saw as the Fulani’s political and religious control over a vital and prosperous trade region in central Sudan. That meeting of minds between Lugard and the leaders of the Sokoto Caliphate was not surprising for, in practice, there were no philosophical differences between imperialism which Lugard championed and the feudalism in Northern Nigeria before British colonial rule.
Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not! — Hilaire Belloc
https://vickynwugo.medium.com/queen-elizabeths-colonial-legacy-in-nigeria-c38da9027de1
The basis for this alliance was laid when Lugard vanquished Sultan Muhammad Attahiru 1 in battle, at Burmi, on the banks of Gongola River, which completed the overthrow of the hegemony of the Sokoto Caliphate. With the death of Muhammad Attahiru I in March 15, 1903, Lugard immediately caused to be installed as Sultan, his brother, Muhammad Attahiru 11, even before the colonial office in Whitehall could tell the difference.
That singular action restored the power of the Sultan and his emirs, and it has remained the basis of the mutually beneficial relationship between the northern political elite and Britain. British policy in Nigeria up to the present time continues along those Lugardian markers. It is thus understandable how we got a mediocre and underperformer like Maj. General Muhammadu Buhari as military head of state in 1983 and president in 2015.
In the same vein, however, the emergence of the wily Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu as president in 2023 was also a conspiratorial scheme endorsed by our former colonial masters in collaboration with France and the U.S. The systemic malpractice of governance in Nigeria serves the Western economic interest of looting Nigeria’s natural resources without supervision and compensation.
That is how we ought to understand the sectarian violence in Southern Kaduna and the Middle Belt. It’s APC’s power-keeping strategy of dividing Nigerians by religion.
