All well-meaning people everywhere in the Southern part of Nigeria have watched in horror as what has been described as the purported or planned invasion of the southern part of Nigeria by Fulani cattle herders continues to manifest.
This trend needs some critical re-examination and analysis. Can anyone who really puts on a neutral cap on his head consider a group of confused youth who willingly stack themselves in crowded cargo trailers headed to destinations they are unfamiliar with an invading force with serious military intent? To really be a cattle herder, there has to be cattle. As we observe these youths march meekly out of cargo trailers with minimal prompting towards detention sites, repatriation joints, and uncertain future, one cannot help but wonder, what is really going on here?
Some of these youths that we see coming out of trailers may have sponsors, who have cattle that needs herding. It is not clear at this point how these sponsors, if they exist will make these herds of cattle available to these youths to herd, in our neighborhoods. Yes, there are already instances of people herding cattle in places within southern Nigeria but this is not a new trend. We have been seeing “Hausa” people herding cattle since anyone can remember. These days, some of them are spotted carrying assault rifles on their shoulders while following their cattle. Are these people really trying to provoke a military-type confrontation? Whatever may have changed needs to be examined, analyzed, and understood if an unplanned calamity must be avoided. In human history, events occur, even when unintended and some events have a way of taking a life of their own, and sometimes once situations ignite, they assume a life of their own and control becomes very unpredictable. Let’s refocus on the northern youths that now risk their lives by willingly packing themselves into cargo trailers for destinations into the south of Nigeria.
Yes, there are already instances of people herding cattle in places within southern Nigeria but this is not a new trend. We have been seeing “Hausa” people herding cattle since anyone can remember.
Several years ago, I attended a Zumunta event in St. Paul, Minnesota. A Hausa Alhaji I sat at the table with got into a conversation with me about the need for them in the North to do something urgently about their youth who are increasingly becoming indigent. I reminded him that the north has lots of resources and they did not need to be raising funds publicly to address hunger in their areas. He looked at me as if I descended from Mars. When he recollected himself, he asked me if I knew that all the beggars anywhere in Nigeria are from the north. He asked me what I think would happen if all the beggars in Lagos, Ibadan, Onitsha, Enugu, and even Awka were forced to return to their places of origin….immediately, I began to comprehend his point and the picture.
The word in the street amongst the burgeoning northern youths is that once any of them could make it to the south, their bleak lives will be transformed. There is a marked difference between life and existence in northern Nigeria and life and existence in southern Nigeria to this day and the gap is widening uncontrollably due to several factors that may be argued in a different essay. The northern youths hear these massages of disparity on their social media, radio, and various modes of communication. It is not a surprise therefore that a northern youth will willingly embark on a Don quixotic foray into uncharted territory in the hope of finding a pot of gold waiting for him at the end of the rainbow at any location in the south of Nigeria –especially in the Igbo section of the “promised land”
The northern youths may be simply copying our youths from the south. Let us not forget how in recent years our youths have been losing their lives as their bodies get washed ashore while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
Point to me a northern youth that will not currently exchange his existence in his rural village in Zamfara, Bornu or Taraba States, just to name a few, for some new opportunity anywhere in the south. Do we really blame the youths? A wise man has told us that “The trouble with YOUTH is that it is wasted on the young”…. The Hausa youths migrating to the south of Nigeria is not unique in this case. If they have militarism as their agenda, they are woefully ill-equipped.
The northern youths may be simply copying our youths from the south. Let us not forget how in recent years our youths have been losing their lives as their bodies get washed ashore while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Recently our youths have begun to convince themselves that once they set their foot on Italian shores or Spanish shores or anywhere in Europe, riches will await them. Many of us even know parents who encourage their children to risk the dangerous journey to Europe. There is always a common factor in the attempt. There is never a plan as to what should be done once one actually lands on the expected shore, there is never a plan about accommodation or even feeding. It is always a leap of faith with attendant disastrous consequences.
Should the ill-fated migration of the northern youths to the south be examined in the same light as our southern Ibo youths migrating to South Africa? I remember a father from my village confronting me a few years ago charging me that I have not been helping any youths in the village by taking them over to America just as “Okoro” (not the real name) has been taking our young people over to South Africa. When I demanded from him to tell me what those youths being taken over to South Africa do once they get there he promptly told me “Njezuga bu Njezuga” …. To him, the important thing was just to get out of the village regardless of the consequences or whatever may lie ahead. I left him remembering the United Negro College Fund slogan that says “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”.
Demographers tell us that any population doubles every twenty-five (25) years. When I was in secondary school, the population of Nigeria was around 55 million, now, it is more than 200 million and the square footage of the country has not increased an inch or millimeter. Social conditions must and usually dictate the course of human existence and as long as our Governments pay little or no attention to social issues, there will always be trouble. Some Northern elites have argued that southerners have migrated to their areas for years and were tolerated. On the surface, this is true but the major difference is that most of the southerners that migrate and live in the northern parts of the country do so well prepared. Most of the time, they do not migrate as alamajiris. They migrate prepared to start businesses and improve the economy of the host areas. I submit that this is the main reason for the toleration. If Igbo youths descend in the City of Kano to beg for survival with no hopes of taking care of themselves, the hospitality will quickly turn to repulsion. It is a human norm that once indigenous people perceive that visitors are usurping the resources they believe belong to them there will be resentment. Look at what has been happening to our people in South Africa.
I am not convinced that the youth that I have spent time observing piling out of cargo trailers represent trained insurgents of the Fulani extraction poised to exterminate the Igbo race.
I am not convinced that the youth that I have spent time observing piling out of cargo trailers represent trained insurgents of the Fulani extraction poised to exterminate the Igbo race. This is the time to find a lasting solution to the social revolution that awaits Nigeria if things are left the way they have been. The history of the Fulani in Nigeria, in particular, enjoys some myth that is not really based on any reality. Modern history is replete with these myths that have been told and retold. By the time we all learned to read, we have been hearing of the Fulani talking of dipping the Quran in the sea of Southern Nigeria. Well, let us briefly examine the much-talked-about jihad of 1804 – 1808 that Usman Dan Fodio supervised. He suffered the same military realities and constraints that Napoleon faced in 1815, the same constraints that Hitler faced in 1945. In military terms, it is called LOGISTICS and there is no way of getting around it. Ask the American Army in Viet Nam or currently in Iraq.
Usman Dan Fodio was a religious man, not necessarily a military general. He was an Islamic scholar that a lot of Hausa Dynasties identified as “Mahdi” – Divinely guided one. As his influence rose, the then Sultan Nafata decided to cut down his influence and he carried out a hiraji (migration) to Gudu about 30 miles to the northwest. Despite his reluctance, he was elected Imam of the community thereby marking the formal establishment of a new caliphate. Usman Dan Fodio despite popular beliefs did not take part in military expeditions but he appointed army commanders and encouraged the army. He handled diplomatic questions and wrote widely on problems relating to the jihad and its theoretical justification. His position was that the Sultan of Gobir had attacked Muslims, therefore he was an unbeliever. This logic also informed the attack on Bornu.
Usman Dan Fodio in his treatise “Bayan wujub al-hijra of November 1806 stated that the central bureaucracy of the caliphate must only be limited to a loyal and honest vizier, judges, a chief of police and a collector of taxes. Local administration should be in the hands of governors (emirs) selected from the Muslim scholarly class due to their learning, piety, integrity, and sense of justice.
LOGISTICS plagued the jihad. Food supplies were continuing problems as the constant requisition for food antagonized the peasantry. At the battle of Tsuntua in December 1804, the forces of Usman Dan Fodio suffered a major defeat that saw over 2000 (two thousand) of his troops killed. Of these 2000 men, history has it that about 200 of them knew the Quran by heart. It was not until a successful campaign in the spring of 1805 against Kebbi that he was able to establish a permanent base in Gwandu in the west. Thus between 1805 and 1806 Usman Dan Fodio’s caliph authority was recognized by the leaders of the Muslim communities in Katsina, Kano, Daura, and Zamfara. When Alkalaua. the Gobir capital fell finally after the fourth assault on October 1808 the main military objective of the jihad got accomplished.
For students of military history, the jihad was not necessarily a blazing successful affair. If it had been, my bet is that Usman Dan Fodio would not have stopped when he did.
For students of military history, the jihad was not necessarily a blazing successful affair. If it had been, my bet is that Usman Dan Fodio would not have stopped when he did. Most of the Hausa caliphates invited him in based on religious sentiments and beliefs as opposed to military conquests. Usman Dan Fodio died at the age of 62 in 1817. Times have changed tremendously. If Usman Dan Fodio could not proceed further even in the north after October 1808, how would expect his descendants to be able to do so in the twenty-first century?
Based on military logistics and reality, it is extremely a very tall order to even begin to imagine that Fulani cattle herders, no matter who their sponsors might be could invade and conquer the South militarily. The ONLY possible option remains their current strategy of infiltrating the south of the country, exactly in the same manner that our youths have been infiltrating Europe and other parts of the World. So the question arises….as we now focus on cattle herders without cattle, will there be a time soon when we will be compelled to deal with “herders” with actual and real cattle? It does not hurt to be prepared…as the Boy Scouts will insist. If you ask me, the debate needs to begin.
♦ Isi-Ichie Chi E. Onwuchekwe, P.E., a professional engineer, consultant, is former Chairman, World Igbo Congress
