06/09/2022
The Fulani Question.
At the peak of the banditry, there were so many unnecessary and unsubstantiated allegations of attempts to Islamise and Fulanise Nigeria. This baseless allegations were anchored on the predominant involvement of the Fulanis in the banditry. But nothing can be far from the truth than this.
While Fulani as an ethnic group is restricted and localised to the West African sub region, Islam is a universal religion with adherents cutting across all racial groups.
In attempts to justify the baseless allegations, history was falsified with allegations of heroic resistance to Jihadists incursions where such did not even happened. This allegations were mostly peddled by some groups whose animosity against Islam and Fulani has become interchangeable. Facts does not really matter. They are playing to a local audience where Anti Islamic/Fulani sentiments confers Political advantage.
But let's look at the facts. The Kanuris of Kanem Borno Empire were the first to embrace Islam in the 9th C and did not the Hausa states until around the fifteenth century. Therefore it was not the Fulanis that introduced Islam into the Hausa states but rather was introduced by traders from the Northern African region who were commercially involved in commerce.
But even before then, the Fulanis who already Muslims were part and parcel of the populace and were cohabiting peacefully with their Hausa neighbours with active social and economic interactions between them.
It should also be understood that when we talk of the Fulanis then and now, we are talking of three related groups . You have the nomadic Fulanis who move about with their Livestock in accordance with the seasons in search of fodder. They are neither constrained by national or international boundaries. They possess no Passports or do they need entry and exit permits. They have no interest in the Political or Social order of a state. Their lives revolves around their livestock. It is this group that usually clashes with farmers in their movements. Their plights have been worsened by factors of Climate Change as competition between them and Farmers on shrinking space have pitted them against each other as witnessed in Darfur in Sudan and Nigeria.
The second group are the "Ruga" based Fulanis. They are sedentary and compliment their efforts by involving in subsistence Agriculture. Their relationship with their neighbours are characterised by economic interactions in which they supplied each others needs. In some instances, you find the Fulanis adopting the local language as the medium of interactions with the neighbours. Some of these "Ruga" based groups were to disagree with their kinsmen during the Jijad by siding with their host communities to be later on referred to as the "Ki Taku." Literarily meaning, "Those who rejects their own."
The third group are the urban based Fulani. They lived among the Hausawa before the Jihad as Scholars, Coutiers and Scribes.
With declaration of the Jihad by Dan Fodio in 1804, they rallied round him in association with the pre-dominant Hausa Peasants whose promise of a just social order by Islam as against the oppression of the Hausawa rulers attracted their support.
Thus each of the groups played a distinct role in accordance with its interest. The Jihadist have no standing Army and relied on volunteers comprising of Commanders and foot Soldiers who are mostly Hausawa.
With the victory of the Jihadist forces, the urban based Fulanis were later on joined by their kinsmen who took up other Administrative positions as Qadis, Religious Instrucors, Scribes and Messengers. Their living among the predominantly Hausawa forced them to adopt the language for Administrative purposes as against Fulbe. With time, through intermarriages and social interactions, they lost the use of Fulbe as a language. As time goes on, lacking a better point of reference, and having lost their language and culture to Islam and Hausawa, they come to be generally referred to as the " Hausa Fulani." Wither then is the "Fulanisation?" If they never even attempt it then, can they now?
To be continued.
