By Ikechukwu Amaechi
17/12/2020
“For too long, the North has enabled Buhari in his transgressions. They share in his vision. They are his cheerleaders.
In September 2019, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, granted a most illuminating interview to Channels Television where he insisted that the federal government-promoted National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) must accommodate every Fulani herdsman including those from Chad, Niger, Mali and other neighbouring countries.
“I think there is a lot of mistrust and misconception as regards the Fulani man,” Mohammed said.
“The Fulani man is a global or African person. He moves from The Gambia to Senegal and his nationality is Fulani. As a person I may have my relations in Cameroon but they are also Fulani. I am a Fulani man from my maternal side.
“We will just have to take this as our own heritage, something that is African. So, we cannot just close our borders and say the Fulani man is just a Nigerian.”
As if that is not provocative enough, he added: “In most cases, the crisis is precipitated by those outside Nigeria. When there is a reprisal, it is not the Fulani man within Nigeria that causes it. It is that culture of getting revenge which is embedded in the traditional Fulani man that attracts reprisal.”
This is the crux of the matter. Nigeria cannot be Fulani heritage, particularly when the Fulani in question are not Nigerians. The insalubrious agenda of Buhari to make Nigeria home for every Fulani is the root cause of the crisis threatening not only to consume the North but the entire country. It is an agenda that is bound to fail. But it is an agenda that will wreak so much havoc before it fails.
The bandits that have taken over the forests in the Northwest and ancestral homes in the North Central are non-Nigerian Fulani who have abandoned animal husbandry for kidnapping for ransom and all manner of terrorist acts. The attempt to forcefully alter the country’s demographics with a population that is not indigenous is the reason why Nigeria is in a mess right now.
But it is an existential crisis which the Northern elite, particularly the indigenous Fulani population and their Hausa cousins, must lead the way in mitigating before it is too late.”
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