Nigeria: Hausa-Fulani’s Burden of Leadership

By

Abdullah Musa

kigongabas@yahoo.com

The title of this discourse will surely anger many. It is not meant to please any group either. What I intend to do is to discuss the recent crisis in Plateau State in a different context. At the end we may be able to understand what roles we are to play in the political configuration called Nigeria.

Many are knowledgeable about Nigeria’s history. Many know that there were at one time two protectorates: North and South. There came to be an amalgamation in 1914, followed by regions with NA system; then States with the present Local Government system, (includes the blood-spilling Jos North Local Government area.

The transformation of the political structure of Nigeria has not yet given us an acceptable living condition. We are at home with riots, killings, maiming; and we have our share of IDP’s (internally displaced persons). Can we say that we heard the last of crisis after the recent one in Jos? Nothing on the ground seems to suggest that. Of more importance to me is the fact that Nigerians seem to stick to their past, however ugly and unrewarding it might be.

The politics of Nigeria is still the first Republic model: extreme hatred amongst Nigeria’s major tribal groups; that is the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Igbo. One would have thought that with the success of power shift, the main contending blocs would have sheathed swords, and redefined the battle to be of ideas and programs. But that seems not to be the case. We have moved to a more dangerous platform: the politics of religion.

Conflicts bring out the beast in man. When people are in conflict, all the contending parties are right; and no Jupiter will make any of them to agree the he has some share of the blame. Political intrigues know no bounds. You do not tell someone the weapons to use in war: any weapon that gives victory or causes the most harrowing damage will willingly be used. You can for instance entice someone to a course of action by doing an act which you surely know will lead your enemy to act in the way you want. If you decide to take your preaching to the territory of an opposing believer, brazenly trying to show that he is not in majority in the area you are targeting, you surely know the outcome you want: your enemy will riot, certain number of your followers will lose lives and properties; but in the end you achieve your propaganda value: your enemy is behaving true to type.

Hausa-Fulani gave Plateau State a lingua-franca: Hausa language. The diverse tribes within or on the Plateau do not understand each others dialects. Hausa is spoken by all of them. We may see changes in the future if the ethnic cleansing ideology takes root. Hausa-Fulani gave the non Hausa-Fulani residents of the Plateau their traditional dress. Before that they were naked, or wearers of animal skins. In turn the different tribes offer to the Hausa-Fulani alcohol; and this they vehemently reject as a societal culture. Many leaders of Hausa-Fulani do guzzle alcohol, but it is not the culture of the majority of the society.

We digressed to the realms of values to show that it is one of the impediments to integration. Ironically, Botswana, to my understanding a predominantly Christian country, is waging war against alcoholism. Why is it that the regulatory agencies of aviation have zero tolerance for alcohol in those who pilot planes? Alcohol is evil and we all know it. But some insist that it must form part of their culture.

Lagos prides itself as being the economic nerve centre of the country. It generates the highest internal revenue, and consumes 70% of the nation’s power output. However, are the Yoruba the only consumers of Lagos’s industrial output? The Igbo can be found in the remotest corner of the North; trading and making fortunes in the midst of the legendary poverty of the Northerner. However they are safe as long as the political machinations of their politicians do not cause the host communities to seek vengeance.

Whenever there is a crisis in the North, whether ethnic or religious, it is the fault of the Hausa-Fulani; and this will be the line of majority of the Yoruba press. When IK Mou wrote his version of what happened in Plateau in the BusinessDay, he wrote that the Hausa-Fulani started the conflict by burning churches and the market place before there was a reprisal on the mosques. Would you want him to write otherwise? Would any commission of enquiry make him to accept that the Hausa-Fulani can be a victim? He was generous enough however to concede that the Hausa-Fulani have found themselves for the first time at the receiving end. First time? There was no Mile 9, there was no Sagamu? There was no Zangon Kataf, there was no Numan? Like I said earlier, you cannot win against prejudice.

There was a time when the Western world wanted a united Nigeria. Then the Hausa-Fulani were the darlings. Having more experience with governance based on knowledge, (due to their Islamic heritage) they were able to lead because thy understood human nature better. Their earlier leaders were able to eschew corruption, and to care for the down-trodden. Today, Western intelligence agencies want a more fragmented Africa: an Africa with dispersed population, living in camps in the dense forests, unable to farm, and being fed through Western-donated food packs. They want Nigeria to disintegrate.

When you look closely, there are more clamors for resource control, for ethnic identity, then you had twenty or thirty years back. MASSOB exists to keep on tearing the Nigerian identity. Would the reader want to remember when the United States wanted the Nigerian Government to let OPC be? Who then owns or funded the OPC? The Yoruba would say it is a justifiable outrage against Northern hegemony then using the Nigerian army. But what of today, is the hegemony still a reality?

Humans and conflicts seem inseparable; for though we always call for justice and fair play, we are not able to inculcate same; nor are we able to set up and maintain institutions that ensure that we don’t play with justice. The Nigerian State, nay the Nigerian Constitution, does not exist in the minds of the citizens. You believe that you are a Nigerian in an area where your tribe is not in the majority to your own peril. So whether there are ten million Hausa-Fulani in Jos North local government of Plateau State is not the issue. The main issue is: who are more in number in all the surrounding areas of the State? And it is those in the outlying area who will be fueled by the zeal of ethnic identity to try to cleanse their state of those who ‘forced’ them to wear clothes. You may reflect on certain characteristics of two tribes that are many in number and are enterprising: Hausa-Fulani and the Igbo. Wherever they set up business do they try to bring in those who might be the earlier settlers of the place? Most unlikely. They go about their lives as traders but not as missionaries. It is the missionary who is after winning hearts and minds. He is also the one most qualified to use incendiaries, even if they are in the form of words, and mutilated ideology.

The integration that Nigerians desire in order to really be democratic is really still domiciled on Jupiter. It is many light years away. In the interim, sanity demands that we understand our limitations. There was failure in the normal traditional peace brokers when they allowed an election contest between a Hausa-Fulani and a Birom: the Hausa-Fulani must (‘pentacostically’) lose. I may have offended some, but it is the reality is it not? It is a contest defined to be between a Muslim and a Christian; and it is apparent the Christians have overall majority in that State; your majority in a particular Local Government does not give you electoral advantage: the State is ours, you are a settler, accept that status or pay with your lives, limbs, and property, and so on.

So what is next? The onus is on the one who found himself in an enemy territory. Sit down with your ‘canine’ host and decide a charter of your ‘tenant’ and ‘landlord’ relationship. Should you have voting rights? Or would you accept the one that says you can vote and not be voted for? Should you have property rights? Or should you take cue from the PDP youth leader who says that those whose properties were burnt should not be compensated, for that will entice them to burn their properties for gain in the future?

This is all a manifestation of intense hatred. But what is the source of this intense hatred? It comes from religious leaders, and the inheritors of the politics of the First Republic. Can you fight it? You can, if you remove religion from people’s hearts! Then they will kill each other due to causes such as ethnic grouping, land disputes, creation of local government, and so on. Concluding on a wishful thinking note, Nigeria may know more peace if South- West changes its perception of what politics is all about; or be brave enough to leave Nigeria.

As for minorities of the North, and even those of the South, you may not want to believe it, but the Hausa-Fulani you despise is your best guarantor against extermination. If Nigeria disintegrates, you may come to the same realization.