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The Emerging Fulani Dictatorship

September 4, 2009

The Yar’Adua’s government is the most dangerous in post-Indepedence Nigeria because it’s pursuing determinedly and vigorously a policy of enthroning the supremacy of an ethnic group in our national life.


 The government considers itself as the mandate inheritors of the Othman dan Fodio Jihad and considers it its duty to continue, in the modern state of Nigeria, the war of domination which the Fulani cleric fought to conquer some territories in Northern Nigeria more than two hundred years ago.
 
Unfortunately, the Southern Nigerian elites have missed the signs of this war or chosen to ignore them although they’re very visible. No government in our land has made such obviously and ridiculously lopsided appointments into national offices like Yar’Adua’s. And never before have so many important national offices been occupied by members of a single ethnic group.
 
From the top levers of federal bureaucratic administration to the headship of the important institutions of the state economy, Fulanis unmistakably predominate in the present dispensation.
 
The current attempt of Lamido Sanusi to illegally dispossess the owners of the five banks of their legitimate properties marks a watershed in the politics of power in Nigeria. And its ultimate objective is to seize control of the organised private sector for Fulanis. And their desperation is frightening; they’re even criminalising illustrious citizens who have contributed immensely to the development of this country. Ibru and Akingbola have won many genuine international awards for being able to build such formidable banks in a country like Nigeria.
 
By dominating both the public administration and the private economy, the plotters seek to create a sustainable basis for Fulani supremacy in Nigeria.
 
Many commentators on the bank crisis have often spoken of a hidden “Northern” agenda. But they’re wrong as the whole North could not be held responsible for Yar’Adua’s actions.
 
We must remember that it was Ibrahim Babangida that liberalised the banking industry which gave birth to the so-called new generation banks, mostly owned by Southerners.
 
In fact, many groups in the North are also suffering under Fulani oppression. An example is Plateau State, where a war aggression is currently being waged on the indigenes with the intent to forcefully create an Emirate in Jos, where the Hausa-Fulani community is actually not a native one. The Kanuris in Bornu and other parts in the North don’t feel represented by this federal government while the Christians in most of the far northern states have been politically emasculated and now live in fear of religious violence.
 
Nigeria will not know progress under this government because the Fulanis due to their history are hostile to progress as it’s deemed a threat to their capacity to dominate the country. And they consider this country a territorial possession hence Yar’Adua will not be able to solve the Niger Delta problem because he views it as the revolt of his people’s subjects. It is in that context that one could understand the thinking behind the president’s Amnesty scheme.
 
What options are available to Nigerians to resist this obvious process of internal colonialism?
 
The political system has been permanently rigged that no fundamental changes to the constellation of power in the country could be achieved within it. And the Fulani establishment will fight tooth and nail to preserve the present system because it best suits its purposes.
 
Soyinka’s or Fawehinmi’s style of activism will also not make a dent on this system neither are the activities of the rights groups. Hence, young Nigerians whose future is most at stake will have to invent their own ways of resisting an emerging system that seeks to keep them permanently hopeless.
 
The prophecy of many in the West that Nigeria will disintegrate soon might after all not be a scare prognosis. But we can prevent this horror scenario from coming into being.
 
Time to act is now and the answer is mass, peaceful action by civil society against a formidable dictatorship that is attempting to put down long, deep roots in our land.
 

Bristol, UK

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