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.
One of our Sudanese brothers once shared a deeply touching story titled “Am I a Thief?”—and honestly, it’s not just a story… it’s a mirror to the soul.
He spoke of two moments that seemed small on the surface, yet carried profound weight.
He had traveled to Ireland for a medical exam. The fee was £309, but without change, he paid £310. It felt insignificant—just £1 extra. He completed his exams and eventually returned to Sudan, probably never thinking about it again.
But then… a letter arrived.
Inside was a check for £1, with a message that pierced deeper than the money itself:
“You made a mistake when paying your exam fees. The fee was £309, but you paid £310. This is your £1… we do not take more than what is rightfully ours.”
Pause for a moment and let that sink in…
The envelope, the stamp, the process—it all costs more than £1. Yet, integrity was not measured by cost, but by principle.
It wasn’t about the money. It was about doing what is right… even when no one is watching, even when it doesn’t “make sense.”
The second moment:
On his daily route between college and home, he would stop by a small grocery shop run by a woman and buy chocolate for 18 pence.
One day, he noticed something different. The same chocolate—same size, same quality—but now there were two prices: 18 pence and 20 pence.
Curious, he asked why.
She calmly explained: “There were issues in Nigeria, where we get cocoa. Prices have gone up. The new stock is 20 pence, but the old one remains 18.”
He thought logically, like many of us would: “Then people will only buy the 18 until it finishes, before moving to 20.”
She nodded, “Yes, I know.”
So he suggested what seemed like a “smart” solution: “Why not mix them together and sell everything at 20? No one will know the difference.”
She leaned closer… lowered her voice… and asked a question that struck like lightning:
“Are you a thief??”
He was stunned. Speechless.
He walked away—but that question followed him… echoed within him… refused to let him go:
“Am I a thief??!!”
Sometimes, we think being a thief is only about taking what is not ours in obvious ways.
But this story challenges something deeper.
It asks: What do we do with the little things? The unnoticed moments?
The quiet opportunities to bend the truth… just a little?
Because integrity is not proven in grand gestures.
It is revealed in the smallest decisions—when profit is possible, when shortcuts are easy, when no one would ever know.
And perhaps the real question is not what others call us…but what our conscience whispers when we are alone.
As Nigerians commemorate Democracy Day, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared that three decades after the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election, democracy remains under severe threat in the country.
In a strongly worded press statement issued on Thursday, the PDP paid tribute to the freest and fairest election in Nigeria’s history and the sacrifices made by citizens who defended the people’s mandate.
The party recalled the remarkable enthusiasm displayed by Nigerians during the 1993 polls, when citizens transcended ethnic and religious fault lines to vote for national progress.
The statement, signed by Comrade Ini Ememobong, National Publicity Secretary of the PDP Interim National Working Committee, noted that undemocratic forces aborted the popular will, triggering a prolonged resistance that claimed many lives.
“Thirty-three years later, the lessons of June 12 ring out more resoundingly than ever,” the PDP said, urging the Federal Government to uphold democratic principles, guarantee civil rights including the right to peaceful assembly and protest, and protect the rights of the opposition.
The party also reminded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of its sacred duty to conduct elections with “transparent impartiality and unimpeachable fairness,” describing these as minimum standards rather than mere aspirations.
However, the PDP expressed deep disappointment over what it described as the current administration’s failure to learn from history.
“Reality check, however, provides damning evidence that under this APC-led Federal Government, the lessons of June 12 remain painfully unlearnt,” the statement read. “Today, of all days — a day set aside to honour the blood of democratic martyrs — peaceful protesters were teargassed and assaulted in Abuja.”
The party highlighted the case of activist Omoleye Sowore, who was reportedly injured and hospitalised while demanding the immediate release of schoolchildren and teachers held hostage in different parts of the country.
The PDP accused the Tinubu administration of prioritising “optics over action, propaganda over policy,” and living in “a dangerous utopian self-delusion,” thereby reducing Democracy Day to a mere historic remembrance instead of a celebration of democratic consolidation.
Looking ahead to the 2027 general elections, the opposition party called on all citizens to remain vigilant and unrelenting in their demand for genuine democratic consolidation.
“The sacrifices of the past must not be reduced to ceremonial memory. They must be active warnings that this country must never again travel the path of state-engineered anti-democratic actions,” the PDP warned.
Comrade Ini Ememobong, mnipr is the National Publicity Secretary, Interim National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Nigeria Cannot Build Flood Resilience While Destroying Its Wetlands
The next 10 to 20 years are likely to bring even more dangerous combinations of intense rainfall, river flooding, urban flooding, and coastal flooding/erosion.
Every rainy season in Nigeria now arrives with a familiar sense of anxiety. Roads disappear beneath floodwaters, homes are submerged, businesses are disrupted, and lives are displaced.
What was once considered a seasonal inconvenience has become a recurring national emergency.
But Nigeria’s flooding crisis is no longer simply about rain.It is the result of a dangerous collision between climate change, environmental degradation, and weak urban planning.
Climate change is intensifying rainfall patterns across Africa, but human activities like deforestation, wetland destruction, poor drainage systems, and uncontrolled development on floodplains are multiplying the scale of destruction.
The uncomfortable truth is this: flooding in Nigeria is becoming structural.
Climate change may trigger the rainfall, but environmental degradation determines whether rain becomes disaster.
Climate Change Is Intensifying the Risk
Scientific evidence continues to show that extreme rainfall events are becoming more intense across Africa.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), both the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events are projected to increase as global warming accelerates.
In cities like Lagos, the impacts are already visible. Urban flooding has become more widespread, with both short-duration high-intensity rainfall and prolonged rainfall events increasing flood risks.
However, climate change alone does not explain the scale of devastation we are witnessing.
Ordinarily, heavy rainfall should not automatically become a disaster.
Healthy wetlands, functional drainage systems, protected floodplains, and well-planned urban infrastructure are designed to absorb and manage excess water.
” In Lagos, this issue is particularly critical. Water bodies, lagoons, creeks, and wetlands cover more than 62% of the state’s land area, while another significant portion remains seasonally flood prone.”
But when these natural and engineered systems fail or are deliberately compromised, communities become increasingly vulnerable.Nigeria’s flood challenge is therefore not only a climate issue. It is also a planning and governance issue.
Nigeria Is Destroying Its Natural Flood Defences
One of the most overlooked aspects of flood resilience in Nigeria is the role of nature itself.
Forests, wetlands, mangroves, and floodplains act as natural flood buffers. They absorb excess water, slow runoff, reduce erosion, and minimize flood peaks.
In many ways, they function as invisible infrastructure protecting communities from disaster.
Yet across Nigeria, these ecosystems are being degraded at alarming rates.
Deforestation reduces the soil’s ability to absorb water, increasing surface runoff and erosion. Sediments washed into drainage systems reduce their capacity and worsen urban flooding.
At the same time, wetlands and floodplains are increasingly being sandfilled and converted for construction and urban expansion.
The irony is embedded in the name itself: floodplains exist to absorb floods.
In Lagos, this issue is particularly critical. Water bodies, lagoons, creeks, and wetlands cover more than 62% of the state’s land area, while another significant portion remains seasonally flood prone.
When these ecosystems are filled, degraded, or built over, floodwater has fewer places to disperse safely. Instead, it ends up in homes, roads, and communities.
Wetlands are not vacant land waiting for development; they are natural infrastructure protecting cities from collapse.
The implications are enormous. Sensitive ecological areas such as the Lekki Conservation Centre continue to serve as natural buffers by receiving, retaining, and absorbing water from surrounding environments.
If such ecological buffers are lost to uncontrolled development, entire communities become significantly more exposed to flooding risks with attendant consequences for human health, livelihoods, wellbeing, infrastructure, and property.
Nigeria’s Adaptation Gap Is Growing
Nigeria is not standing completely still. There are signs of progress.
The Lagos Climate Adaptation and Resilience Plan identify dozens of adaptation projects and estimates financing needs between US$9 billion and US$16 billion by 2035.
This reflects increasing recognition that climate resilience must become a development priority.
But adaptation efforts are still not keeping pace with the speed of urban growth and climate risk.
Rapid urbanization, inadequate drainage systems, weak urban governance, and insufficient climate-resilient infrastructure continue to increase exposure across many Nigerian cities.
The next 10 to 20 years are likely to bring even more dangerous combinations of intense rainfall, river flooding, urban flooding, and coastal flooding/erosion.
Sea level rise will further worsen risks in low-lying coastal cities, especially Lagos.
Without urgent intervention, the economic, social, and environmental costs will continue to rise.
The cost of protecting ecosystems today is far lower than the cost of rebuilding cities tomorrow.
Nature-Based Solutions Must Become National Policy
Nigeria cannot engineer its way out of this crisis through concrete alone. Flood resilience requires a combination of infrastructure investment and ecological protection.
Nature-based solutions must become central to national and subnational climate adaptation strategies.
This means:
• Protecting and restoring forests, wetlands, mangroves, and floodplains
• Preventing development on ecologically sensitive areas
• Improving solid waste management to prevent blocked drainage systems
• Investing in low-carbon and climate-resilient growth pathways.
These actions are not optional environmental luxuries. They are essential investments in public safety, economic stability, and national resilience.
The future of flood resilience in Nigeria will depend as much on ecological protection as on engineering.
A Defining Choice for Nigeria
Floods are no longer isolated disasters. They are warning signs. They reveal the growing consequences of ignoring environmental limits while cities expand faster than resilience systems can keep pace.
They expose the cost of treating ecosystems as expendable rather than essential.
Nigeria still has a choice. We can continue reacting to flood disasters after they occur, or we can invest in prevention, resilience, and nature-based infrastructure before the next crisis arrives.
Protecting Forests, wetlands, restoring degraded ecosystems, and strengthening climate adaptation systems are not simply environmental priorities.
They are national development imperatives.The future resilience of Nigeria’s cities may well depend on how seriously we take them today.
• Dr Joseph Onoja , a conservation scientist, is the Director – General of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF).
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