Prince Justice J Faloye
President Tinubu’s statement at the launching of an Agricultural Program in Niger State on Monday 11th 2024 that he will end the Farmers-Herders conflict within two weeks if every state gives up land for Afro-Arabic ranching, is an ‘instance of the fingerpost’ that he wants to continue Buhari’s disguised policy of Fulanization called RUGA, grazing routes, cow colonies etc. Cow colonies are nothing more than internal colonization of indigenous African peoples in Nigeria. Confucius, the greatest of Chinese philosophers stated that the rectification of names and terminology is the first step towards uplifting and empowering people.
President Tinubu should know that it is too late in the day to hide behind a finger of terminology what has been an open secret revealed by the Late Sarduana of Sokoto Ahmadu Bello as the agenda to dip the Koran in the sea. For too long what is a clear case of Afro-Arabic civilizational imperialism across the African grasslands has been hidden with deceptive terminologies like Farmer-Herdsmen conflicts, deceptively portraying a case of ‘two-fighting’ when it has been one side conducting ethnic cleansing under different guises.
There are just two civilizations in Nigeria and across Africa – Indigenous African and Afroasiatic, recognized by the Nigerian government that made the respective leaders of their civilization, Sultan of Sokoto and Ooni of Ife, the co-chairmen of Nigerian Traditional Council, and no responsible government should take one’s land or rights for the other under any guise, robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Put aside divisive election games like Muslim-Muslim ticket, we know that this is neither a religious or tribal gambit, but civilizational imperialism played by those using Islam or Christianity to grab resources. Just as the British mischievously labeled the colonization of our lands and subjugation of our people as Protectorates – colonizing Africans by claiming to ‘protect’ us from the Transatlantic slave trade that they initiated – President Tinubu is using the same fallacy claiming to protect us from killer herdsmen by giving them a cow colony on our lands.
Buhari’s policy of internal colonization using cow colonies/RUGA was defeated by the logic that government has no right to back private business of any kind through legislation of taking other peoples land. Tinubu is fulfilling his promise to continue Buhari’s policies, which was not only limited to economic destruction but internal colonization by the Northern Afro-Arabic civilization. Being students of history, we know that imperialistic civilizations normally use citizens of the intended colonization to push their agenda, from Mali and Kanuri Empires where indigenous African puppets were first used to Arabize their fellow indigenous people, to Kongo where King Alfonso was illegally enthroned to turn Kongo into a slave colony to sell his own people.
It is a well known and established strategy of herdsmen imperialism from Biblical times when Abrahamic Afroasiatic herdsmen known as Hyskos Kings took over ancient Black Egypt around 1650BC to Genghis Khan Monghols Empire of 1200AD that extended from China to Europe, that herdsmen first attack rural areas to chase away farmers in order to impugn the food security of the metropolis before laying siege on the metropolis. Regardless of their religion – Islam, Christian, Buddhist – the herdsmen imperialistic strategy is the same.
Second only to the era of European slavery and colonization in terms of loss of life and livelihoods, over the last decade hapless Nigerians have been subjected to kidnapping of thousands of people to fund Afro-Afro-Arabic terrorism. Though most kidnappings and deaths have occured in the deceptive terminology of the ‘North’, it is obvious that majority of the atrocities have been committed against indigenous Africans in Benue, Plateau and pockets of Zamfara, in what is clearly ethnic cleansing since once the Indigneous farmers are killed or chased away, their villages are renamed in Afro-Arabic terminology.
The Buhari/Tinubu APC government can be said to engaging in policies of Apocalypse proportions, as they move from the Apocalyptic First Horsemen Ogun Ajagungbade policy of brutal killing of Indigenous African farmers by Afro-Arabic herdsmen, to the Second Horseman policy of Olokun using state propaganda to accomplish the imperialistic agenda through state policy. They are being warned that We the people stand firmly on the Third horseman policy of Shango Justice and equality for all, regardless of religion or tribe. President Tinubu is implored to desist from dragging Nigeria and the subregion into what is termed as the Final Conflict. Some say that President Tinubu is just using it to pacify the restive North over the worsening economy and their loss of direct political control, but we shall not stand idly while he trades the inheritance of our future generations for his personal political exigences.
No state governor that truly stands for his people will accept the proposal to give land to non-settlers of a known imperialistic civilization. During the slavery era, some Europeans distinguished between the policy of ‘Colonies of Trade’ from which they traded from seaports, like in West Africa where they couldn’t settle due to malaria, while others embarked on Colonies of Settlement like in South Africa, Australia and Americas where huge numbers of Europeans emigrated to overwhelm and decimate the indigenous peoples before they took over sociopolitically. The Arabs did the same in North Africa and Mesopotamia. Therefore this modern day attempt of making our lands Colonies of Settlement is rejected in all its ramifications.
Yes, we Yorubas and other indigenous African peoples welcome all and sundry to do business, but reject biased institutional involvement. Let those that want to do cow business buy their own lands as private enterprises, and not as institutionalized Colonies of Settlement. It is a falsehood that giving up our land will stop the Afro-Arabic civilizational imperialistic agenda. Guided by redemptive religious dogma, they will continuously seek means to dominate and subjugate those around them labelled Keferi/Kaffirs/Unbelievers.
The Cow Colonies will be filled up by Afro-Arabians from all over the Sahel, to a point it becomes a local government, as surrounding rural dwellers are chased off their land, and they will attempt to takeover the collective destiny of the state in the name of proportional representation. Therefore President Tinubu, state governors and the political class are implored not to create ethnic problems for current and especially future generations that will have to go to war against their colonization.
Prince Justice Faloye, author of The Blackworld: Evolution to Revolution and other books, is an Economist, author, President ASHE Foundation and Deputy Publicity Secretary Afenifere.
