As whispers become headline news with General Obasanjo, Professor Soyinka and others finally confirming public fears of Islamization and Fulanization, the elephant in the room has remained mute.
Culture is the foundation of politics and economics. The Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar is the head of the Fulani and most important, the head of Islam in Africa, the Maliki school of Islam and Qadri school of Sufism. The Maliki School covers the largest geographic space in the Islamic world and probably the second largest in Islamic population. Therefore we must ask the Sultan of Sokoto what is the Caliphates direct or indirect involvement in the Islamization/Fulanization charge, knowing the historical and cultural trends.
We must ask the Sultan of Sokoto why the institutions he leads continue to allow the description of Original Africans as Banza Bakwai in their official Hausa history. If you train your youth to regard their fellow countrymen as Bastards, how will they have any regard for the lives of farmers and other professional Original Africans. Even though Hausa had been Islamized before the advent of the Fulanis, the current Fulani version of Hausa history denigrates their Original African cultural linkages to make them Afro-Asiatic. So even if the Caliphate denies any direct link with the terrorists, it provided the cultural platform that bred the various terrorists – Boko Haram and Herdsmen.
The Fulanis have been the greatest purveyors of Islam in Africa over the last 200yrs, even though Islam entered present day Nigeria about 1,200yrs ago around Bornu/Lake Chad, the gateway to Egypt. In what appears to be a 250yr cycle, a single mosque is first established, 250yrs later with the increase in Muslim population, they challenge the traditional leadership and install a Muslim traditionalist King through compromise, while setting up a mosque in an adjoining Original African territory. So by 1000, the Original African culture in Bornu had been withered down for the first Islamic rulers and 1250, Bornu had become fully Islamized. It was from Bornu that Islam spread to Daura, and by 1500s the Original African culture had been overthrown, while the Fulani came from 1750 to totally institutionalize Islam in the Northwest.
Further south in Yorubaland, the first mosque was set up in Oyo in 1550, 250yrs later it was overran and now 250yrs later it appears the Islamists are preparing for the final onslaught. For those who know, like the Sufis, we are experiencing the same cosmic trends that brought the 1470-1550 events across West Africa, which culminated in the late 1700s Fulani empire.
Original Africans – Niger Kongo ethnolinguistic family – went to sleep after British colonization, not knowing Fulani Islamization was a continuation of the 4,000yr continuous herdsmen imperialism from Asia through Ancient Egypt to West Africa, where they ravaged the Middlebelt and sent Oyo Empire forest-bound, as 100s of Original Africans groups relocated southward and eastward to Cameroun and Central Africa. Rather than stop, Fulani Islamization actually made more inroads into Original African territories in what was essentially a Cold War in Nigeria.
The Fulani were successful in this colonial/neo-colonial phase because of the cultural and political disorientation among the Original African groups, numbering over 2000 across Africa, who have failed to articulate their cultural origins, identity and linkages. The two largest Original African groups, Yoruba and Igbo, failed to unify their Niger-Congo ethnolinguistic family and correctly identify the threat of Afro-Asiatic imperialism.
The Eurocentric Christian elites unwillingness to highlight the cultural linkages between the Abrahamic herdsmen of their adopted religion to the Fulani herdsmen deprived them of a global perspective and ability to come up with a solution. Though we recognize the Fulani leadership of the Islamic Afro-asiatic imperialists, we fail to see view them as part of a long term united cultural sphere which can only be defeated by an older united Original African cultural sphere.
Original Africans cultural disorientation also affects our political orientation. While Fulanis relegate the concept of nation-states in their collective aspirations and push to solidify and expand their Afro-Asiatic Islamic cultural sphere into a continental caliphate, Original Africans have been culturally and politically enslaved to the European concept of neocolonies disguised as nation-states. Instead of articulating, uniting and solidifying their Original African cultural sphere of citystates into loose continentwide federation from Gambia to South Africa, reactionaries will rather further the concept of nation-states by demanding their own tribal nationstates susceptible to the same problems they ran from.
The Fulani, and most especially the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of the Qadri school of Sufism, the Islamic branch most involved in mysticism, understand and are most probably being guarded by the signs of the times. Many will probably know that we have reached a change of eras and believe the coming of the Mahdi, the Islamic reformer Messiah. A few believe that General Buhari, from Daura where Islam spread across Northwest, might be the Mahdi that makes the final push to Islamize the core of Original Africans situated in Southern Nigeria.
Due to the comparatively recent evolution of Abrahamic religions over the last 2000yrs compared to IFA the first global religion of 10,000yrs, the Islamic scholars lack the experience to understand the 2000yr change of ages that will make religious and political dogma give way to truth and cultural Justice. A necessary change or advance in global human consciousness to make our continued existence sustainable, but which the less than 2000yr old Abrahamic civilization and their 250yr trend scholars can’t appreciate like the 87,000yr old Yoruba and their 10,000yr old civilization.
The Muslim leadership, especially the Maliki school pushed by Fulanis, need to reform Islam away from imperialism to a just world, otherwise they will be utterly destroyed and confined to the dustbins of history. The destruction tied to Apocalypse or coming of the Mahdi in the Holy books is not the end of the world, but the destruction of those that refuse to change with the era. If the Sultan does not do everything in his power to stop this last push, yes they might win the first skirmishes but they will meet their Waterloo and end up in the ocean beds of the Atlantic in their quest to dip the Koran in our waters as dreamed by the previous Sultans.
This is no threat or based on an established agenda but in addition to cosmic spiritual predictions above, logical deductions of natural political evolution. Just like Hindu nationalists rose against Islamists in India, Original Africans will be forced to come together like how Kwararafa confederates united to attack Kano, Katsina and Bornu to check the Afro-Asian excesses of slave raiding and empire building. This time around Original Africans might not take prisoners but send the Caliphate scurrying back to Futa Jallon. So why waste lives on a project doomed to fail in the long run? Therefore the Sultan must publicly address this issue either by calling back his Jihadists, or by coming out to deny and explain the situation in the Sahel.
We know Western Powers are crawling all over the Sahara with weapons playing geopolitical War games, what is the Fulani position? Is this a repeat of what happened in ancient Egypt whereby Coptic Christians handed over Original Africans to the advancing Afro-Arabic armies? Or are the Western Powers playing the religious card and pushing for a religious War as claimed by Buhari? Why? Buhari came to power the same way Usman Dan Fodio to power, vile corruption propaganda, do they have the same collective aspirations?
As stated above, cultural imperialism precedes economic and military imperialism. I have never believed the military option is what is required to tackle Islamic terrorism. Instead what is required is a battle of cultural, intellectual and ideological perspectives. Just as new information led to the Age that brought Abrahamic religious dogma, now previously hidden information is being revealed through DNA and other scientific evidence to enable us know who are the real Banza Bakwai and to unite the rest, as well as to know the true creation and holy lands to challenge cultural foundations etc.
So, it is imperative that the Sultan takes decisive action to pull back the wheels of Islamic imperialism. Being both a Muhammed and an Abubakar, he could be the Mahdi that reforms the Islamic political economy to a sustainable platform of cultural harmony and technological progress. One in which the South could work with the North, regardless of religion or tribe, to help build Norths huge solar and agricultural industries that could turn it from being the poverty capital of the world to one of its most economically viable regions that powers the world.
Failure to stop the Islamization/Fulanization agenda will result in the type of violent anti-Islamic Hindu nationalism among Original Africans that will result in the routing and annihilation of Fulani across West Africa. We have seen the reactions of the Dogon and in Adamawa. A backlash that will not lead to the breakup of Nigeria but an expulsion of troublemakers, especially when we educate and agitate our oppressed Hausa brothers to get a voice and ask for fair political representation and freedom of worship for Borii traditional belief system and the Bazugawas – non-Abrahamist Africans.
The Sultan of Sokoto needs to act fast to avoid pushing the region down the line of a clash that might cost millions of lives. He must ignore those who don’t know the longer trends and believe that this is another one in 500yr chance to complete the Islamization. No, the 2000yr Olokun era of religious and political dogma has changed to that of Shango era of Enlightenment, truth and justice and you will be fighting an unjust war to enter the true Eden, not only against the change of eras, but against the will of God. Insha Allah
