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.
When the Governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, CFR, took the microphone in Awka on Sunday morning to deliver his victory speech, he did so not just as a re-elected governor, but as the beneficiary of something significant in Nigerian politics: an unambiguous popular mandate. His resounding re-election marks not just a personal triumph, but a watershed moment in Anambra’s democratic journey.
With 422,664 votes representing 73 percent of ballots cast, and victories across all 21 local government areas, Governor Soludo’s triumph transcends the arithmetic of electoral politics. It represents a decisive endorsement of governance, a validation of vision, and perhaps most significantly, a repudiation of the cynicism that too often characterises our democratic discourse.
The statistics from Saturday’s election deserve careful scrutiny, for they reveal a narrative far more compelling than mere electoral victory. Four years ago, when Governor Soludo first ascended to the governorship with 112,000 votes amid low voter turnout, skeptics questioned the strength of his mandate. On Saturday, the people of Anambra answered those doubts emphatically. Voter participation broke the historic 20 percent ceiling, reaching 22 percent, a milestone achievement in a state and nation where electoral apathy has become endemic.
Of course, this is not simply about percentages. It represents a fundamental shift in civic engagement, suggesting that when citizens believe their votes matter, when they see tangible results from governance, and when the electoral process inspires confidence, they would participate. The contrast between Governor Soludo’s initial 112,000 votes and his current 422,664 is not just a mere testimonial but a concrete one that the people have spoken emphatically
Governor Soludo’s gracious acknowledgement of INEC’s performance deserves particular attention.
His description of Saturday’s election as “the best election INEC has organised in Anambra so far” is quite significant, coming from a sitting governor with every incentive to remain diplomatically silent about the electoral body. His specific praise for INEC’s ICT department and the real-time upload of results on the IReV portal, with over 99 percent of polling unit results uploaded by midnight, also speaks to the technological transformation gradually reshaping Nigeria’s electoral landscape.
Besides, the transparency enabled by technology has been the great democratiser of this election cycle. When every citizen can download polling unit results in real-time, when the pathway from ballot box to final tally is illuminated by digital accountability, the space for manipulation narrows dramatically. And Governor Soludo’s victory is thus doubly legitimate: won at the polls and verified by digital precision.
An instructive element of Governor Soludo’s victory speech was his praise for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a “true democrat” committed to free and fair elections in Anambra. For long, ours has been a political culture where federal might has historically been deployed to influence state elections, but the presidential restraint in the Anambra election represents a form of democratic maturity that should not go unnoticed.
When presidents allow states to choose their own leaders without federal interference, when ruling parties accept defeat gracefully, when the machinery of state remains neutral in electoral contests, these become the building blocks of democratic consolidation.
In another dimension, Governor Soludo’s margin of victory, defeating his closest rival by more than 320,000 votes, creates an interesting political dynamic. Such comprehensive victories can be double-edged swords. They provide governors with the political capital to pursue ambitious agendas without the constant distraction of defending narrow mandates. Yet they also eliminate the moderating influence of competitive pressure, potentially fostering complacency or insularity.
But the governor’s gracious words to his fellow contestants, acknowledging that “sixteen of us were on the ballot, and obviously, one person will win”, suggest an awareness of this dynamic. His extension of fellowship to all contestants and his description of politics as “a contest of ideas, not enmity” reflects a maturity that Anambra’s political culture increasingly demands.
Yet, here lies the paradox of overwhelming victory: expectations would now soar proportionally to the mandate received. When nearly three-quarters of voters endorse your leadership, the burden of delivery becomes correspondingly heavier. Governor Soludo’s closing declaration, “you ain’t seen anything yet”, is both promise and prophecy, both aspiration and obligation.
In fact, as a leader who is fondly called ‘Oluatuegwu’ (one who doesn’t fear work), Governor Soludo had already got back to work before his victory declaration, calling the Commissioner for Budget for briefing while awaiting election results! For him, there is no luxury of time to indulge in any victory celebration. As he said, “It’s time to get back to work!”
He now has the leverage to go all the way and turn Anambra into an axis of sustainable flourishing of the African-Dubai-Taiwan-Silicon Valley
The broader significance of Saturday’s election may lie not in Anambra alone but in what it represents for Nigerian democracy. When electoral technology works, when results reflect genuine popular will, when incumbents are judged on performance rather than partisan or sectarian loyalties, when voter participation increases, we glimpse the democracy Nigeria could become.
Yes, Governor Soludo’s victory is historic not only because he won in all 21 local government areas but because of how he won: through a process widely acknowledged as transparent, through a mandate clearly expressed, through civic participation notably increased. Indeed, Anambra has spoken. And in a democracy, that is both the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega verdict.
As the formidable ‘Oluatuegwu’ begins his second term with this strengthened mandate, the people of Anambra have sent an unmistakable message: we have employed you again. In response, the governor spoke of moving “into high gear to deliver more for the good of Anambra.” A new era begins now.
Positioning Nigeria Towards a N1 Quadrillion Economy, By Dr. Olisa Agbakoba
We currently have one of the highest currency volatilities in Africa, with the naira depreciating by over 40% in 2024 alone, ranking among the continent’s worst performing currencies.
Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) is offerring insights on how Nigeria can achieve a ₦1 Quadrillion economy in 10–15 years.
Dr Agbakoba, in a letter: IDEAS FOR A QUADRILLION NAIRA ECONOMY IN 10 to 15 YEARS, dated November 7, 2025, and addressed to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, propose three transformative reforms that could create the fundamentals and unlock over 1.5 quadrillion Naira in economic values.
The document reads: “
Dear Honourable Minister,
“I refer to your recent statement, “Nigeria Turns Towards Prosperity.” You highlighted the Tinubu government’s significant achievements including GDP growth, declining inflation, stabilized exchange rates, increased foreign reserves, and improved oil production.
Despite these successes, exchange rate volatility remains our most pressing challenge.
We currently have one of the highest currency volatilities in Africa, with the naira depreciating by over 40% in 2024 alone, ranking among the continent’s worst performing currencies.
With 1 billion naira worth less than 1 million dollars, demand naturally tilts toward the dollar. The root cause is simple.
The naira lacks fundamentals—tangible economic pillars that give people reason to hold and use.
To reverse this, we must create fundamentals to back the naira. I propose three transformative reforms that could create these fundamentals and unlock over 1.5 quadrillion naira in economic value.
The first is land and real estate titling.
1. Land and Real Estate Titling Reform
Studies done by the World Bank, PwC, and my firm OAL show that 90% of Nigerian land and real estate have tainted, defective, or no titles.
This creates “dead capital”—assets that cannot be traded, serve as collateral, and cannot be indexed to the financial system.
Economist Hernando de Soto demonstrated in his book “The Mystery of Capital” that converting dead capital into productive assets through formal property rights revolutionizes developing economies.
Margaret Thatcher called De Soto’s work a potential “enormously beneficial revolution” that addresses the fundamental weakness of Third World economies: the lack of property rights and enterprise frameworks.
Property titling reform transforms dead capital in land and real estate into legally recognized assets. Owners can use their land or homes as collateral to access credit. Banks become willing to lend because the property now represents secure collateral with enforceable legal backing.
This process releases the equity locked in land, converting illiquid assets into financial capital that can circulate through the economy.
The result is substantial new liquidity—more individuals and businesses gain access to loans, properties become tradable assets, and dormant wealth enters productive use.
The foundation for reform is already being laid. Your administration is implementing the National Land Registration, Documentation and Titling Programme, which aims to digitize land records and create a unified, transparent system. What is needed now is acceleration and scale.
By indexing property values to the financial system through digital integration and legal harmonization across federal and state systems, we can create an instant credit market worth potentially thousands of times our GDP.
The money flow would then be available to finance development across the nation.
Unlocking trapped property assets that are presently dead capital will encourage investors who currently prefer to buy properties abroad to buy in Nigeria.
This will deepen naira denominated asset markets, reduce dependency on dollar denominated assets for wealth storage, and strengthen demand for the naira by creating viable local investment alternatives.
Using the World Bank and PwC’s conservative estimates of $900 billion in dead capital, at today’s rate of ₦1,500 to $1, this represents 1.5 quadrillion naira.
The economic impact of releasing 1.5 quadrillion naira into productive use cannot be overstated.
If this is done with the same strategic approach as the tax reform, it will transform Nigeria’s economy, provide sustainable backing for the naira, and create the foundation for long term prosperity.
By creating a vast, liquid real estate market indexed to the financial system, land titling reform establishes a critical fundamental that anchors the naira’s value and dramatically reduces exchange rate volatility. I must also acknowledge challenges of inflationary pressure. Let me now move to the next coequal fundamental, and that is a credit economy.
Naira-denominated credit will boost domestic consumption of locally produced goods and services, reduce import demand and foreign exchange pressure.
2. Credit Economy Expansion
Nigeria operates a cash economy. This limits the economy’s potential because people can only buy what they can afford.
By contrast, a well-developed credit system allows people to buy what they cannot afford provided they manage their debt. For instance, 90% of Americans cannot afford a house without a mortgage.
In the same vein, any Nigerian who can pay rent can afford a mortgage, but this is not possible without a legal framework.
A robust policy and legal framework to support a credit process will be transformational. 200 million Nigerians, each with ₦300,000 in credit facilities, would inject ₦60 trillion into the economy.
Naira-denominated credit will boost domestic consumption of locally produced goods and services, reduce import demand and foreign exchange pressure.
A thriving naira credit market will deepen domestic financial markets and make the naira more attractive as an asset and reduce the speculative attacks that drive exchange rate volatility.
When citizens can access credit in naira to own homes, start businesses, and build wealth, the currency gains intrinsic value and stability.
This credit infrastructure becomes a vital fundamental—a reason for people to hold and transact in naira—thereby reducing our vulnerability to exchange rate shocks.
3. Agricultural Mechanization
In the United States, only 2% of the workforce are in agriculture, yet the sector contributes 5.5% to GDP and generates $1.5 trillion annually. In Nigeria, by contrast, 30 to 38% of the workforce, 15 to 19 times more workers proportionally, is employed in agriculture.
With our GDP at approximately $188 billion, the sector contributes 25 to 26% to GDP but generates only $47 to 49 billion annually, less than one thirtieth of America’s agricultural output despite having a vastly larger workforce.
This stark disparity reveals a fundamental truth: productivity, not the number of workers, determines agricultural success.
America achieves higher output with fewer workers through mechanization and a fully developed value chain: cold storage facilities, food processing plants, packaging companies, logistics networks, agricultural equipment manufacturing, fertilizer production, warehousing, quality control laboratories, marketing and distribution channels, agricultural finance services, and export infrastructure.
Nigeria, meanwhile, remains trapped at subsistence level using manual tools: hoes and cutlasses.
The transformation we need is mechanization, and the potential money flow would be tremendous. With a well developed policy and legal framework, capital will flow into the economy.
The agricultural sector is badly impacted by the titling challenge as defective and tainted land titles are precisely why we remain at subsistence level. Farmers cannot access capital for mechanization without proper collateral.
Moving from subsistence to mechanized agriculture will increase productivity, reduce post harvest losses, enhance food security, and position Nigeria as a net agricultural exporter.
Agricultural exports will generate substantial foreign exchange earnings, increasing FX supply and strengthening the naira.
More critically, food self sufficiency will eliminate the need to import basic staples, currently a major source of FX demand.
Reducing food imports alone could save billions of dollars annually, directly stabilizing exchange rates and reducing imported inflation. When a nation feeds itself and exports the surplus, its currency strengthens naturally.
Agricultural transformation thus creates a powerful fundamental: robust FX earnings and reduced import dependency that provides lasting stability to the naira and shields it from volatility.
What I have done here is to show that if these three reforms are implemented, along with many others like oil and gas, maritime sector optimization, and manufacturing, and are fully developed to back the naira, the naira can exchange at optimal rates because there is a fundamental backing it.
If well handled, we will see significant improvement in the next few years with reduced volatility and a stronger naira.
Honourable Minister, this is not going to be easy work. It is painstaking but doable.
The success of the tax reform shows it can be done. I project a timeline of 10 to 20 years, which is not too far-fetched.
During my lifetime, I have witnessed three presidents whom each served 8 years, so it can be done.
The difference between incremental improvement and transformative change is ambition matched with execution.
These reforms would not merely stabilize the naira; they would fundamentally restructure our economy and create sustainable prosperity for generations.
I have attached for your consideration Olisa Agbakoba Legal’s October policy paper, “Devolution is the Solution Foundational Reform Agenda for Nigeria’s Transformation.”
Setting The Record Straight on Recent False Reports About Sylva, by Julius Bokoru
While the Defence Headquarters has already debunked the swirling rumours of a coup in Nigeria, it is important to state emphatically that Chief Timipre Sylva, CON, has no involvement whatsoever—either in planning or in logistics—with any such plot.
• Timipre Sylva In the past forty-eight hours, I have been inundated with calls from members of the press, political associates, and concerned individuals regarding a circulating report alleging that His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, has “fled” the country in connection with certain purported matters.
For the avoidance of doubt, it is true that the residence of His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, was recently subjected to a raid by individuals believed to be operatives of the Defence Headquarters.
During the said operation, considerable damage was inflicted upon the property. Despite sustained efforts, I have been unable to ascertain the reasons or authorisation for this raid.
To the best of my knowledge, the officers involved did not provide any categorical explanation for their actions, either at the time or subsequently.
It is important to state unequivocally that His Excellency, Chief Timipre Sylva, and his esteemed wife, Her Excellency, Alanyingi Sylva, were both outside the country at the time of the incident.
As at my last communication with His Excellency, he was engaged in a routine medical check-up in the United Kingdom, after which he was scheduled to proceed to Malaysia to attend a professional conference.
The next development I was made aware of, regrettably, were reports circulating across social media and other platforms concerning the raid on his residence.
While the Defence Headquarters has already debunked the swirling rumours of a coup in Nigeria, it is important to state emphatically that Chief Timipre Sylva, CON, has no involvement whatsoever—either in planning or in logistics—with any such plot.
Chief Sylva is a thoroughbred democrat, whose entire political journey has been defined by his faith in democratic processes and institutions.
From the 1990s, when he was first elected into the Old Rivers State House of Assembly, to his tenure as Governor of Bayelsa State, Sylva has achieved every milestone through transparent, democratic engagement and the will of the people.
His unwavering support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a matter of public record.
It remains fresh in memory how he mobilized the entire Bayelsa APC structure to unanimously endorse President Tinubu at the APC Bayelsa Expanded Stakeholders’ Meeting.
These rumours are nothing more than the handiwork of desperate and narcissistic politicians, already consumed by ambitions for 2027, who see Sylva as their last real obstacle—a man whose political presence and credibility continue to expose their dark, self-serving ambitions.
• Julius Bokoru Special Assistant on Media and Public Affairs to H.E. Timipre Sylva
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