President Buhari and the deadly trap of cattle colonies

(Continued from Wednesday)

The agenda had an accompanying ideology whose object, as articulated by the Sardauna, is to maintain Northern Nigeria as a theocracy ruled by a Moslem claiming to be divinely directed, with utter disdain for democracy, and with the Sharia as the supreme governing law; the non-Moslem minority ethnic groups in the North are to be used as “willing tools”, and the South is to be subjugated and reduced to “a conquered territory”, which is not to be allowed to “have control over their future.” The Sarduana had conceived a kind of jihad, for the pursuit and possible accomplishment of his agenda, an agenda which President Buhari has now vowed to carry on to a “finish”. President Buhari’s resolve and commitment to pursue the Sardauna’s agenda to a finish was unmistakeably announced in his first major policy statement as President-elect. In a speech delivered before an audience of exclusively prominent Northern Moslem leaders on 2 May, 2015 at Queen Amina Hall, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, he said: “I charge you to join me as we build a new Northern Nigeria in a generation…..the best investment we can make in the North is not finding oil in the Chad Basin. We will start with one local government in each state until we get to every school in all of Northern Nigeria. To achieve this, I have secured a Northern rehabilitation fund to rebuild the North after the devastation of Boko Haram insurgency…..Join me my brothers and sisters and let us finish the work our forefather, Ahmadu Bello, started.”

The name Shiekh dan Fodio, the Sanduana’s forbear, is worth recalling again. He was a Fulani immigrant in Gobir (now renamed Sokoto), who was accommodated and well-favoured by the King of Gobir. Dan Fodio mobilised an army of Fulani immigrants who, in 1804 – 1808, overran all the Hausa Kingdoms and some other neighbouring communities, dethroned their rulers, installing Fulani emirs in their places, and imposed the Moslem religion on them. Thus was Hausaland together with other conquered lands, Islamised, and a caliphate established over Sokoto, with dan Fodio as its Sultan. That was the price the Hausas paid for their hospitality in granting access to grazing land to the Fulani immigrant settlers. With knowledge of the tragic experience of the Hausas in 1804 – 1808, we should not make the tragic mistake of letting history repeat itself in 2018. It should be mentioned that the Fulani immigrant settlers’ ravaging on-slaught failed to subdue the Bornu and Jukun kingdoms, whose rulers have continued to maintain suzerainty over their territories to date. The colonisation and Islamisation (by conquest) of Hausaland is reminiscent of the colonisation and Islamisation (again by conquest) of North Africa by the Arabs in the 7th century A.D. The conquest has been described as “the most amazing feat in military history” : Will Durant, The Story of Civilisation, vol iv, pp. 155

With Persia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and other countries or cities in the Middle East vanquished and taken over for Islam in A.D. 632-638, the Moslem Arabs next marched on Egypt in the same year (638 A.D.). aided by the defection of the native Egyptians who hated the Greeks and had become disaffected towards the Roman imperial government because of the Monophysite controversy. The invading Arabs succeeded, in siege after siege, in subduing one city after another – Farmah, gateway into the country; Memphis, the former capital; and, finally, in 641 A.D., Alexandria, the new capital, with a loss of 23,000 men (the siege of Alexandria is said to be “perhaps the most arduous” in the annals of Arab conquests.) Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. V. P. 343.

Having conquered Egypt, the Arabs embarked next on the conquest of the rest of North Africa. First Barca and other cities in the province of Cyrenaica, then Tripoli, Sabratha and the magnificent city of Sufetula, were taken in 642-647 A.D. There followed a lull of nearly 20 years because of succession tumults in Arabia. The war was resumed in 665 A.D. with the conquest of more territories. The hero of the renewed fighting was the commander of the Arab troops from 670-675, called Akbah (Okba bin Nafa). It was to him, writes Edward Gibbon, that “the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due…..He marched from Damascus at the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs, and the genuine force of the Moslems was enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many thousand barbarians…..The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the country, traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the splendid capitals of Fez and Morocco, and at length penetrated to the verge of the Atlantic and the great desert… The career, though not the zeal, of Akbah, was checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He spurred his horse into the waves, and, raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic, Great God! If my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship any other gods than thee”. Gibbon, ibid, v., pp. 356 – 358.

The conquest was, however, not yet complete. The great metropolis of Africa, Carthage, was yet to be conquered. There was another interruption of many years followed by renewed fighting. Carthage was easily taken but the Arabs were later driven out by imperial forces despatched from Constantinople, (the second capital of the Roman Empire, renamed Istanbul), joined by powerful reinforcements from Sicily and Spain. Returning to the charge in 698, with more numerous armament by sea and land, the Arabs re-took the city, and North Africa was irrecoverably lost to the Roman Empire. In the interval, they had also conquered and Islamised Northern Sudan in the east. But the Arabs were not yet secure in their conquest. For they were later driven out by the Moors. They retreated to the confines of Egypt but returned some years later to inflict a crushing defeat on the Moors, taking some 300,000 of them captive, 60,000 of whom were “sold for the profit of the public treasury”: Gibbon, ibid, v, pp. 362. The native Berbers, the indigenous dwellers of the valleys of the Atlas Moutain, had similarly been crushed.  Nigerians Beware!

 Cultural implications

But even if we are able to avert being subjugated and Islamised by Fulani herdsmen militia armed with AK47 guns, we may still meet the same fate by peaceful penetration into our various communities by Fulani herdsmen settled in the cattle colonies through the process known as acculturation. The Fulani settlers will bring to the cattle colonies, as part of their baggage, the religion of Islam, just as the English settlers in the thirteen colonies in North America in 1607 and the years following took with them, as part of their baggage, English law, with its political institutions as well as English customs, conventions and traditions, including the precepts and practices of the Christian religion.

• Professor Nwabueze (SAN) is an elder statesman