The cultural and ethnic melding of Northern Nigeria’s Hausa and the Fulani people is so deep, so labyrinthine, so time-honored, and so unexampled that a fictitious ethnic category called the “Hausa-Fulani” was invented by Nigeria’s southern press to describe the emergent ethnic alchemy it has produced.
Northern intellectuals resented the label at first. For example, the late Dr. Yusufu Bala Usman, the famously iconoclastic professor of history at the Ahmadu Bello University who was ethnically Fulani and who was the scion of the Katsina and Kano royal families, condemned the hyphenation of Hausa and Fulani as both ill-willed and ignorant.
But several Northern Nigerian elites of Hausa and Fulani filiation have now enthusiastically embraced it. President Muhammadu Buhari, for instance, told the Weekly Trust in 1999 that he loved the hyphenated Hausa-Fulani identity that the southern press invented because it encapsulates the complexity of his own identity. His father is Fulani while his mother is half Kanuri and half Hausa.
More than that, though, Buhari is culturally and linguistically Hausa. Like most people in Nigeria’s northwest who trace patrilineal bloodline to the Fulani (including most of the emirs), he doesn’t speak a lick of Fulfulde (as the language of the Fulani is called in Nigeria) and is completely divorced from the culture of the “unmingled” Fulani who now live mostly in Nigeria’s northeast and in the bushes elsewhere in the country.
Over the years, the northern political elite not only used the common Islamic heritage of the Hausa and the Fulani people as an instrument to construct and cement the notion of an undivided and indivisible Hausa-Fulani identity, they also encouraged other parts of the country to see them as one, undifferentiated people.
In time, the rest of the country came to regard the Hausa and the Fulani as indistinguishable. A popular quip among the Yoruba says, “Gambari pa Fulani ko lejo ninu,” which roughly translates as “If a Hausa person kills a Fulani person, there is no case,” implying that the Hausa and the Fulani are homogenous people whose internal strife are no more than evanescent, resolvable sibling squabble.
But the emergence and unabating intensification of kidnapping for ransom and other forms of rural and urban banditry in the Northwest where most of the villains are Fulani and most of the victims are Hausa are rupturing the centuries-old ethnic harmony between the Hausa and the Fulani that Nigerians had taken for granted.
In response to the rural and urban banditry by mostly Fulani brigands against Hausa people, Hausa people have formed vigilante groups called yan sakai or yan banga for self-defense, but Fulani people say the yan banga self-defense groups often indiscriminately murder innocent Fulani people who are not even remotely connected with abductions and murders.
This has provoked an endless cycle of recriminations and retaliatory violence between Hausa and Fulani people and is threatening the age-old, Islam-inspired ethnic fusion between them.
This has been going on for years under the radar of the national and international media until BBC’s BBC Africa Eye brought it to the forefront of global attention in its Jul 24, 2022, documentary titled “The Bandit Warlords of Zamfara.” The documentary showed that although the Hausa and the Fulani share a common culture, religion, heritage, and language, they are, for the most part, divided and rarely mix in rural areas. They fight over land, water, and food.
Self-confessed Fulani bandits told the BBC that Hausa people enjoy preferential treatments in government jobs, that Fulani people face discrimination in the formal sector in northern Nigeria, and that kidnapping, banditry, and indiscriminate mass murders were the only way they could call attention to their neglect.
Following the documentary, which so unsettled the Nigerian government that local TV stations that rebroadcast it were fined, there has been an open discussion, particularly in Arewa social media circles, of hitherto culturally taboo subjects such as whether Usman Dan Fodio whose jihad inaugurated the current Fulani ruling families in much of Muslim northern Nigeria was a Hausa-hating Fulani ethnic supremacist.
Islam had been centuries old and already deeply entrenched in Hausa land before Usman Dan Fodio’s nineteenth-century jihad, which many historians have called a “Fulani war.” The well-regarded seventeenth-century Songhai Muslim scholar by the name of Ahmad Baba, for instance, had recognized Hausa land as a bastion of Islam.
In a 1613 essay titled, “Al-kashf wa-l-bayān li-aṣnāfmajlūb al-Sūdān” (translated into English as “The Exposition and Explanation Concerning the Varieties of Transported Black Africans”), he wrote that “the people of Kano, some of Zakzak [Zaria], the people of Katsina, the people of Gobir, and all of the Songhay” lived under ideal Islamic rule and could never be enslaved by other Muslims.
About 200 years later, when Dan Fodio decided to “reform” the Islam he met in Hausa land, he repudiated the Islam that the Hausa people had practiced. In his 1806 treatise titled “Bayan Wujub Al-Hijra, Ala L-Ibad,” Dan Fodio rebutted Ahmad Baba’s thesis by asserting that what was true of Hausa land when Ahmad Baba wrote, “might not necessarily be true at all other times, since every scholar relates what he sees in his own days.” Dan Fodio’s son, Muhammad Bello, also wrote Infaq al-mansur in 1813, exactly 200 years after Ahmad Baba, and contested the notion that Hausa land was ruled by Islamic precepts.
Now, in everyday dialogic engagements on social media, in the marketplace, and in the streets, Hausa and Fulani people are openly talking about the jihad and its decidedly ethnic character. Hausa people are asking why all the emirs that emerged from the jihad, except for that of Bauchi, were Fulani. (Emirs in Borgu in Kwara and Niger states are not the product of the jihad and are not Fulani.)
These questions are especially important because the Fulani emirs who dislodged Hausa Muslim rulers have been doing exactly what the Hausa Muslim rulers were accused of by Fulani jihadists—keeping multiple wives and concubines, oppressing everyday folks called the talakawa, believing and partaking in fortunetelling, etc. Besides, in Islam, leadership isn’t hereditary, so Hausa people are asking why a supposedly Islamic jihad has entrenched Fulani ethnic monarchies to the exclusion of the native Hausa populations.
These debates aren’t new, of course. For example, in a June 30, 2000, article titled “The Fulani Factor in Nigerian Politics” published in the Weekly Trust, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (who later became the emir of Kano on June 8, 2014, and was dethroned on March 9, 2020) caused a stir among not just other Nigerians but also among Hausa people when he said although the Fulani in northern Nigeria have lost their language and culture to the Hausa, they still cherish the irreproducible cultural and genetic distinctiveness that their ethnic identity imbues them with.
He isolated Nigerian leaders of putative Fulani line of descent—Ahmadu Bello, Shehu Shagari, Murtala Mohammed, and Muhammadu Buhari—whom he said even their “greatest enemies” respect because they supposedly embodied incomparable and uniquely Fulani values (even when they are/were not culturally Fulani).
He pointed out that the same could not be said of “other prominent non-Fulani contemporaries of these great men,” including military Head of State Ibrahim Babangida, who is Hausa, and Sani Abacha, who was Kanuri but born and raised in Kano. Sanusi then said the Fulani are “culturally programmed, generation after generation, to imbibe the best spirits of what makes good leadership, to a far greater extent than competing cultures.”
Garba Shehu, now a spokesperson for President Muhammadu Buhari, who is ethnically Hausa from Jigawa, was incensed. In a response titled “Sanusi’s Racist Rubbish” on July 7, 2000, Shehu wrote: “When I read Sanusi L. Sanusi’s article ‘The Fulani Factor in Nigerian Politics’…I came away with the feeling that the writer wanted to do one of two things: to either be ridiculous or to insult all of us who are not Fulani with some racist crap.”
Shehu invalidated Sanusi’s ethnic supremacist notion of a Fulani culture that makes Fulani people such good, just leaders by calling attention to the atrocities that were perpetuated against Hausa people by Fulani emirs—or what he called the “well-documented acts of brigandage” by the “Fulani oligarchy”— which instigated the emergence of the Northern Elements Progressives Union (NEPU).
“Where was he when the late Sa’adu Zungur, Aminu Kano, and company fought Fulani rulers who forced Hausa peasants to work the emirs’ farms, snatched wives, plundered what was kept in their trust, and appropriated/mismanaged farmlands and other resources belonging to their subjects?” Shehu wrote.
These sorts of emotive brickbats between everyday Hausa and Fulani people are escalating and becoming mainstream in the aftermath of the bloodstained conflict between Hausa farmers and Fulani herders. In fact, there are now calls, from both Hausa and Fulani interlocutors, for the reformation of the emirate system to strip emirship of its exclusivity to people of Fulani ancestry.
I think these are transitory, spur-of-the-moment tensile pushes and pulls that may soon abate, but it’s astonishing that it’s even happening.
I write to you today with a sense of outrage, disappointment, and frustration. Despite your lofty pledges to achieve a just and equal world, you have consistently ignored days dedicated to celebrating men. This blatant disregard for half of the global population is a stark reminder of the systemic gender bias that pervades your institution.
You proudly proclaim your commitment to gender equality, yet you hypocritically ignore the unseen sacrifices of fathers, husbands, and sons. You claim to champion the rights of the marginalized, but men are seemingly invisible to you. Your silence is deafening. It perpetuates a harmful narrative that men are not worthy of recognition or celebration. This not only harms men but also has far-reaching consequences for families, communities, and society as a whole.
You celebrate numerous days dedicated to women, including:
International Women’s Day (March 8)
International Girls’ Day (October 11)
International Day of the Girl Child (October 11)
Women’s History Month (March)
International Women’s Day of Peace and Disarmament (May 24)
These celebrations are important and necessary, but they also highlight the stark contrast in recognition and celebration of men. There are no UN-recognized days dedicated to celebrating men or boys, a disparity that perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes and discrimination.
This omission is not only a slight against men but also has far-reaching consequences for society. It perpetuates a narrative that men are not equally valuable or important, contributing to systemic gender bias and discrimination. It reinforces harmful gender stereotypes, limiting men’s ability to express emotions, seek help, and pursue non-traditional roles. It also neglects the unique challenges men face, such as higher rates of suicide, homelessness, and incarceration.
I demand accountability from the United Nations. It is time for you to acknowledge the importance of celebrating men and their contributions. It is time for you to recognize the value of fathers, the impact of positive male role models, and the sacrifices men make for their families and communities.
Your failure to act will have far-reaching consequences. It will perpetuate a world where men are marginalized, boys are disenfranchised, and families suffer. It will undermine your credibility and legitimacy. It will show the world that your commitments to gender equality are nothing more than empty promises.
I expect a response and a plan of action to address this issue. The world is watching, and men deserve better. It’s time for the United Nations to practice what it preaches and truly champion gender equality for all.
As the world continues to shift, subsequently affecting all aspects of industry as we know it, Africa’s manufacturing sector has proven resilient.
The world is changing at an unprecedented rate in terms of innovative technologies, shifting customer expectations, as well as increasing social awareness of gender equality and restoration of previously marginalized communities.
These major shifts have a considerable impact on the future of Africa’s manufacturing sector.
If African manufacturers can efficiently balance a combination of efficient economics of production and supply chains, strong and reputable products, loyal customers, an established logistics network, as well as reliable on-line business elements, they will be well-positioned in the future industrial marketplace.
Technological advancements have given rise to the revolutionary Industry 4.0.
This phenomenon represents the complete digitisation of factories and manufacturing facilities that will ultimately merge with the unique needs of individual customers, resulting in benefits such as customised product design and manufacturing processes, as well as speed to market, in order to maximise customer satisfaction levels.
Moreover, Industry 4.0 brings with it a host of additional benefits for manufacturers such as cost, productivity, profitability and operations that manufacturers are striving to control, streamline, optimise and enhance.
Similarly, these opportunities extend to small and medium businesses, allowing them to establish new business models and integrate into global value chains.
Despite concerns that the continent lacks the requirements of global advancements to capitalise on innovative technological initiatives, African countries are uninhibited by infrastructure legacy challenges, thereby providing a higher degree of flexibility than their developed counterparts.
Accordingly, Industry 4.0 remains a considerable opportunity for African manufacturers, ultimately giving the continent a cutting edge over the global economy.
Further to this, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will provide improved levels of safety to manufacturing facilities.
Humans are restricted by the tasks they are able to carry out in hazardous environments, as well as the degree of accuracy to which they can complete them. Machines, on the other hand, are far more superior in terms of executing these tasks safely and competency, essentially minimising work-place accidents along with Workman’s Compensation claims.
By encouraging industrial safety, automated machinery enables producers to reduce medical claims of workers, reduce downtime, save on long-term capital expenses and improve overall productivity for African industrialists.
In the face of increasing digitalisation, barriers to entry with reference to the manufacturing sector are dwindling, translating into a positive outlook for new African market entrants who are more flexible than their larger, more cumbersome counterparts, thereby providing products and services that were once the exclusive domain of major incumbents.
Experts purport that Africa conveys a positive economic growth trajectory, deeming it a feasible alternative to other markets.
Africa is regarded as the world’s fastest-growing continental economy and its Business-to-business market is fundamental to this boom.
B2B expenditure in the continent’s manufacturing landscape is projected to reach $666.3 billion by 2030, $201.28 billion more than it did four years ago.
Accordingly, Industry 4.0 remains a considerable opportunity for African manufacturers, ultimately giving the continent a cutting edge over the global economy.
As the buying power of Africa’s middle class continues to rise, demand for products and services across the continent, subsequently increases, thereby enabling sustainable economic growth and the much-needed integration amongst regions.
Radical transformations within both a global and African manufacturing context will be integrated into the entire supply-chain, thereby optimising operations and ultimately stimulating efficiency and innovation for years to come.
By successfully assimilating advanced technologies into their systems, existing and prospective African industrialists can expect to realise even greater revenue and profits from their investments.
As the world continues to shift, subsequently affecting all aspects of industry as we know it, Africa has proven steadfast. Improved political stability, growing investment prospects, business-friendly trade agreements, Industry 4.0, enforcement of policies empowering black and female manufacturers in addition to governmental funding solutions, to name a few, are pivotal factors demonstrating a positive and thriving manufacturing future for Africa.
As the flagship symposium of the continent’s entire industrial sector, the up-coming 7th edition of the Nigeria Manufacturing and Equipment Expo (NME Expo) & the Nigeria Raw Materials Exposition (NIRAM Expo,) Conference and Exhibition, organized by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), taking place at the Convention Centre, Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, from November 21-23, 2023, is set to empower its manufacturers to rise on an international scale and realize their true potential at long last.
▪︎ Segun Ajayi-Kadir, is the Director – General of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN)
A journalist and public affairs analyst, Dapo Okubanjo, has showered accolades to Festus Egwarewa Adeniyi Keyamo, a social crusader in politics who held two cabinet positions at different times in the Muhammadu Buhari years and now a member of the cabinet of President Bola Tinubu, from Abuja.
According to Okubanjo, “it is not always the case in Nigeria for an individual to be considered worthy of federal cabinet positions in two successive administrations” .
“He has transited from being a Minister of State in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and later at the Ministry of Labour and Employment in four years to a substantive Minister of Aviation with the added responsibility of overseeing the newly created Aerospace Development arm of the ministry”.
Okubanjo said Keyamo is a man who had been as constant as the Northern star as a social and legal activist with a rich history of activism which dates back to his early years as a lawyer in the chambers of the late legal luminary Chief Gani Fawehinmi at the peak of pro-democracy agitation over the annulment of the June 12 1993 election by the then military administration.
Within one year of joining arguably the most activist law firm of the 1990s, young Festus became one of the lighting rods of legal activism and had an excellent performance in many landmark cases that earned him the award of best lawyer in the Gani Fawehinmi Chambers in March 1994.
But today, his credentials are being questioned by some younger elements because of his decision to take up the position of Director of Strategic Communications/Spokesman for the second term campaign of President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2019 as well as a similar role for the Tinubu/ Shettima Presidential Campaign Council
What many find amusing is the manner opposition elements especially the younger ones have opted to play politics by downplaying the pedigree of a man, who by a dint of hardwork, emerged as Chief Fawehinmi’s right hand man in legal activism before venturing into the political arena.
While the new minister may have decided to take the misleading narrative in his strides, it won’t be out of place to inform Keyamo’s traducers that sometime in 1997, he formed a group known as Youth Against Misguided Youths as part of efforts to direct thousands of youths against the self-succession bid of the late General Sani Abacha being championed by some youths. This is instructive,if not ironic!
So this is a man with a history and is also part of the nation’s pro-democracy history. He understands what it means to fight for what is right and has been audacious in his face-off with the authorities long before many of those calling him names came on the scene.
His crusade for justice, human rights and fight against corruption has led to several run-ins with security agencies, arrests and court charges which were all later dismissed.
Little wonder many Nigerians who had followed Keyamo’s trajectory since at least 1994 would have been shocked to see millennials been egged on to call his legal prowess to question.
But let me cite just one example of how Festus Keyamo’s legal activism altered governance in the country.
From the Obasanjo years to the Jonathan era, it was normal for Presidents to unilaterally name Service Chiefs who then assume duty immediately but Keyamo felt something was amiss and took the matter before a Federal High Court in 2008.
It however took 5 years for the court to set aside the Armed Forces Modification Order of 2008 (purportedly made under Section 315 [2) of the Constitution) and ruled that the President must seek the confirmation of the two chambers of the National Assembly for newly appointed Service Chiefs.
It is very much likely that online trolls who are encouraged to question Keyamo’s legal prowess have no clue about this immense contribution to governance in Nigeria.
Still in his fifties, he is in his thirtieth year of active legal practice, twenty eight (28) of which have been spent running his own law firm, which has three offices in Lagos, Abuja and Warri as well as liaison offices in many states with over 23 lawyers and more than 30 para-legal staff.
So in local parlance, he effectively has another address where his crusade for social justice continues to gather steam inspite of his foray into public office in the last few years.
Without any notable ‘godfather’, he has risen from the streets of a small town in Delta State and literally lifted himself by his bootlaces to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, a Commander of the Order of the Niger, an International Arbitrator and now a two-term Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He has achieved all these by sheer grit, dint of hardwork and an uncommon doggedness not found amongst his peers.
Now having cut his teeth in previous cabinet positions at a lower level, Festus Keyamo is set to prove that he can excel on a bigger stage and only a few are bigger than the cabinet role President Tinubu has thrust on him.
Bet against him failing at your own peril.
Dapo Okubanjo can be reached via dokubanjo@yahoo.co.uk.
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