The Fulani wanted to make a fiefdom of Nigeria and the British obliged them through her divide and rule policy. Nigerian military adventurers helped them to consolidate their position after settling the battle for the soul of Nigeria in 1970. As a persevering schemer and calculating fortune hunter, Obasanjo from the onset saw the value of being in the good books of those who constitute the hegemonic power in Nigeria and resolved to perfect how to navigate the tight rope of Nigeria’s politics. When therefore the opportunity to influence the future direction of Nigeria came his way in 1979, he invested wisely by picking an ill-prepared Fulani – Shehu Shagari who had wanted to be just a senator over tested Obafemi Awolowo, his kinsman.
He patiently waited and allowed Nigerians including the late Obafemi Awolowo with his prophetic “ship of state heading for the rocks” warning, to battle Shehu Shagari who smoked away as NPN (National Party of Nigeria) stalwarts destroyed the economy before administering the lethal blow that swept Shagari away. He allowed Babangida, a Fulani puppet, to run out of wits as Nigerians battled him over his ill-advised economic policies and eight years transition without end before talking about a leader “without honour who compromised all we hold dear as a people”. He installed ailing Umaru Yar’dua as president and watched as his life ebbed away before advising him to resign and allow Sule Lamido, another Fulani take over if he could no more perform his functions.
In 2015, he supported Buhari, a Fulani as president. In 2019, thinking that the herdsmen crises and APC intra party feuds that made the country ungovernable had weakened Buhari, he tried to replace him with Atiku Abubakar, another Fulani man. President Buhari however survived Obasanjo’s intrigue.
The prevailing atmosphere of disenchantment of Nigerians with President Buhari over his handling of the ongoing herdsmen killing, banditry in Zanfara and kidnapping for ransom across the land yet provides Obasanjo another opportunity to delegitimize Buhari’s second mandate he had been unable to truncate through the ballot box. Obasanjo’s strategy is to blame Buhari for all that is wrong with us as a nation including the ‘fulanisation’ of Nigeria.
For instance, only Buhari, an image maker’s nightmare can adequately defend himself against the accusation that he responded with greater fury to cattle rustling by promptly deploying soldiers to flush out bandits than he had done with herdsmen killers who allegedly took over sacked villages with surviving farmers marooned in IDP camps. He alone can find explanation for the pro-Fulani body language of some of his political appointees. For instance while survivors of herdsmen vicious attack are claiming that their assailants were not traditional Fulani with whom they had lived for years but violent AK 47 wielding herdsmen who speak neither English nor any known Nigeria local dialects but French, the President’s Minister of Defence seemed to be defending the killing by claiming: the blockage of grazing routes across the country was the remote cause of killings. As he put it “If those routes are blocked, what do you expect will happen? “These people are Nigerians and we must learn to live together with one another. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave. Finish”
It is also on record that while Miyetti Allah cattle breeders associations out-rightly rejected ranching insisting grazing is part of their culture, their patrons, , Sanusi Lamido, the emir of Kano, Lamido of Adamawa and emirs of Zazzau and Katsina and the sultan of Sokoto Saad Abubakar their grand patron have not condemned violent resistance to anti-grazing laws enacted by some of the besieged states of a federation where states by the virtue of the constitution are not answerable to the federal centre.
And some have said if government is interested in finding a lasting solution, why don’t they deploy what is left of the N100b approved by President Jonathan in 2014 to build ranches in virgin Sambissa forest said to be the size of Lagos instead of confronting farmers in their farms across the country.
And finally, the president alone has an answer as to why he has not declared Fulani herdsmen a terrorist organization long after Global Terrorism index had named it the fourth deadliest known terrorist group after Boko Haram, Isis, and al-Shabab following its mindless killings of 1,229 Nigerians in 2014
When we add the above to the fact that the north has more states, more LGAs, controls majority in the two federal houses, all of which make the clamour for restructuring, devolution of power, state and community policing, fiscal federalism a mere academic exercise, it becomes difficult to understand that Obasanjo’s sinister motive in choosing this period to alert Nigerians about the fulanisation of Nigeria is to delegitimize Buhari’s new mandate.
Believing Buhari was very vulnerable; Obasanjo carefully selected an exclusive Christian audience that has consistently claimed the president habours an Islamic agenda. He also carefully chose Oleh, Isoko South council area of Delta State as his venue. There, he told his captive audience that the aim of the terror sect Boko Haram and herdsmen is ‘Fulanisation’ of West Africa and Islamisation of Africa. He blamed government for deploying outdated materials and equipment and soldiers poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly motivated, and poorly led without intelligence support. He blamed government for payment of ransom, to secure the release of some of the abducted girls because such an act according to him only strengthens the insurgents.
And concluding, he said security threat by the Boko Haram insurgency and cattle rustling in the north, “is no longer an issue of lack of education and lack of employment for our youths in Nigeria which it began as, it is now West African fulanization, African Islamization and global organized crimes of human trafficking, money laundering, drug trafficking, gun trafficking, illegal mining and regime change.”
Many including parents of the abducted school girls may not agree with Obasanjo on the payment of ransom. And if soldiers are poorly kitted, Obasanjo could not have forgotten so soon that he and his PDP boys were in power from 1999 to 2015 and that those who are currently trying to defend their honour in courts for sharing $2b cash meant for procurement of arms are his adopted children. And since most informed Nigerians know that the country has already been fulanised by Obasanjo and his military adventurers, he should as a global statesman reach out to his international friends to prevent the fulanisation of West Africa if that is his objective.
While Nigerians are grateful to Obasanjo for reminding them of “fulanisaion” of Nigeria, they no doubt understand that the distortion of our constitution and our negotiated federal structure were responsible for Fulani strangle-hold on Nigeria, insecurity, herdsmen mindless killings, banditry, Boka Haram etc. I am not also sure Nigerians who believe what is needed is a political will on the path of the political elite to address our national question will agree with Obasanjo that the way forward is to rely on ex-presidents, ex-generals ex-IGs ex-governors ex-law makers, the sources of our nation’s nightmare and beneficiaries of current anarchy.
The final intriguing question Nigerians would also want Obasanjo who claims to be driven by altruism in all his interventions in the affairs of our country is whether he would have shown this type of concern about the ‘fulanisation’ of Nigeria, an enterprise in which he had played a leading role if Atiku Abubakar, his anointed Fulani candidate had won last March’s election.
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