Very often we hear the Southerners complain of Northern hegemony, especially singling out the Fulani. It is not only talk because we know how the Fulani attacked Oyo Empire in the West to Kwararafa Confederacy in East, creating the largest Caliphate in Africa. We have seen their power play and politics of exclusion against those who don’t belong to their Afroasiatic civilization.
But some will argue that Fulani are like an intelligent boy that always comes first every time due to hardwork and strategy and hated by his peers for it. Though small in population, it’s high collective intelligence has made it focus on its interests as a group and cement an Islamic civilization to be their Vanguard.
Less than ten percent of the Nigerian population, the Fulani have strengthened and united the Afroasiatic civilization to claim 33 percent of the population, which it uses to divide and rule the unarticulated disparate Original African civilization of Southern Nigeria. Though not battle shy, their greatest success have been through politicking as they won over the entire military elite of Oyo Empire before taking over. Just as they used corruption propaganda to make Hausa masses to overthrow their local rulers.
No group of people are born smarter than the other, but certain elite might take proactive measures to increase the collective intelligence of their people with a well articulated cultural narrative linking origins to aspirations. Fulanis had traditional sufis and in modern times have thinktanks to guide the collective, understanding the concept of collective information management.
In 1415 Europeans took their first African foothold in Ceuta Morocco, which was to destabilize the whole West African subregion since Morocco was the African frontier trade post, having moved westward from Egypt to Carthage (Tunisia). The second coming of Christians on African soil unsettled Fulani and other Afroasians that were the buffer zone between the Arabic trade posts on the North African coast and the resource rich Original African civilizations in the forests and wooded grasslands.
Since their middleman role was being negated by Europeans that were to access the riches of Original Africans from the sea, the Fulani began migrating to Hausaland at the fringe of the Original African heartland by 1430s and by 1490 had taken infiltrated the power structure in Katsina and Kano. The key was that they propagated and deepen Afroasiatic cultural identity, traits and aspirations.
Unfortunately, the largest Original African groups in the Black heartland in what is now known as Southern Nigeria allowed their civilization to be fractured into Pan-Tribal groups. Being the origin of humanity and civilization that produced the world’s first knowledge bank and religion, time had faded the glitter and identity of the Original civilization.
Benin was to allow the creation of the Aruosa Church in 1506 with Jesuit influences, while Oyo allowed the first mosque by 1560, starting a process that they negated their cultural linkages to Ife, eventually using European weapons to attack their source. At the end, the Islamists overran Oyo while the Christians burnt down Benin.
On the East Bank of Niger, Igala shunned its cultural linkages with Igbos, Kwararafa and Benin for a piece of the slave trade. Igbos shunned their glorious Nri kingdom and headed towards the coast moved towards coast where they wrestled Arochukwu from Ibibio to get a share in the Western coastal arms for slaves trade.
After 350yrs of millions enslaved and a greater number killed in the war for slaves, the Europeans colonized Africa. However, shortly before the Europeans moved in, the Fulani moved enmass to takeover huge swathes of land across in Nigeria in anticipation of the new European world order.
It is very doubtful that the Fulani would have been able to suppress and keep the new territories without the superior British war machine that suppressed Original African groups and placed them under the Caliphate Northern Protectorate.
Once again, the Fulani were able to bury its Pan Tribalism differences with the Kanuri Islamic empire, uniting on an Afro-Arabic Islamists civilizational platform, while Yorubas, Igbos and other Southerners and Middlebelters acted as tribes that couldn’t present a unified cultural platform, an Original African civilizational front. This is despite being genetically close unlike the genetically diverse Afroasians.
Moreso Southern and Middlebelt groups spoke mere dialects of the same mother tongue, known as the Niger Kongo ethnolinguistic family, and all their societies were founded on Ifa-Afa-Iha-Eha-Fa, the 16 sector Original African Information Retrieval system. However, Western education that translated their languages and disparaged their culture as evil and backward promoted their cultural and political disorientation.
When the British divided the Southern Protectorate, Southerners didn’t see it as their collective being decimated, but as an opportunity to get closer and suck up to their enslavers. Oyo and Benin challenged Ifes cultural leadership, despite their dynasty were from Ife.
The Yorubas made Igbos relocate their political networks to the other side of the river, Eastern Region, as personality clashes and Pan Tribalism thrived in the South. At independence, the combined vote of Southern Protectorate was higher than that of the North, but the Igbos of the East would rather align with the North than their West siblings.
It appears that Yoruba and Igbo, the two largest Original African groups, and the most enslaved in the Americas, got over the physical slavery, but their mental and cultural slavery made them political slaves that found it easy to politically slave on their Western and Afroasian aggressors political platforms than to build an Original African alliance and powerbase among themselves.
Now, do we blame the Fulani for uniting its Afroasiatic civilization all the way to Medina, and expect them to help us unite our Original African civilization to defeat them? Is it a case that those culturally enslaved can only divide and never unite?
If we are to blame anybody, we might first have to blame our paramount cultural leaders for not educating and unifying our civilization. The Sultans of Sokoto did a good job of working with other Afroasians, especially with Bornu empire, the oldest Islamic state, which could only be done by the Fulanis relegating their tribal interests to their collective civilizational interests.
Time and time again, the Fulani have shown that they are confident of backing another tribe into power to push their collective interests, and when the Fulani are in power, like Buhari, they share the spoils across their civilization. This is how advanced civilizations behave as we saw how Queen Victoria was able to bring together all European monarchs together in their scramble for Africa. As a good civilizational leader that would go out of their way to ensure the interests of their smaller groups, she gave Congo Zaire to little Belgium.
Our Original African groups have a selfish Pan-Tribal perspective and won’t lift a finger to help the less fortunate in their civilization. Yorubas and Igbos have failed to stand up for the interests of the Original African Middlebelt groups being cleansed from their lands by Afroasiatic herdsmen, terrorists and politicians. They won’t even side each other and always tend to outplay each other on Afroasiatic and European platforms.
This why Afroasiatic and European platforms regard Original Africans as slaves and self centered simpletons that could be easily swayed. If you don’t stand for anything, you will fall for everything. The Afroasian knows his interests and will even rise to fight for them, as they did with the July 1966 Northern counter coup which they used to reverse the January 1966 coup that they believed was inspired by the West using their Southern slaves.
While the Afroasiatic civilizations play for the long term collective aspirations, the Southern politicians play for short term individual goals and ambitions. Lamido Sanusi, the desposed Kano monarch, once referred to Southern politicians as area Boys that grovel for personal favor with no longer term collective aspirations. This is because we are not civilized to understand our natural civilizational linkages.
The Ezeora of Enugu stated that if all Black people were Catholics that Ooni of Ife will be the Pope. The Nigerian state recognizes this fact and choose two co-chairmen to head the Traditional council – Sultan of Sokoto as the leader of the Afroasiatic monarchs while Ooni as the leader of Original Africans. We can’t blame Ooni whose closest linkages, Oyo and Benin, went wayward due to the slave trade.
After colonization, there was some semblance of unity until it was broken in 1935 when the British split the Southern protectorate. While Ooni of Ife, Oba Aderemi fought for independence and labelled was Britain’s greatest pain in the Ass, once independence was obtained Oyo and Benin waged supremacy battles, which broke the linkages of all Original Africans to their origins. If Benin had stayed with Ife, it would have been much easier to unite Yorubas, Igbos and Ijaws, and we would have been exponentially better.
Now, working from the answer back to the question, the hegemonic and imperialistic tendencies of the Fulani has made it clear to the South and Middlebelt that the Nigeria state has to be restructured towards ethnic self determination. However, their united political aspirations can’t work without a civilizational platform that can withstand the Afroasiatic civilization, or the Southern tribes will be susceptible to divide and rule.
As it is, based on rotational presidency principle, the Southeast region should logically produce the next president, but being uncivilized the other Southern regions will not show civilizational Brotherhood and respect and therefore do everything to sabotage or jump the queue.
Once again, we will see the Fulani play the superior game to take the moral high ground and political positioning by choosing an Igbo president that won’t work against their interests with restructuring, while putting in place an Afroasiatic Vice-president to take over in 2031, instead of an Original African Middlebelter when next power shifts back to the North.
Just like Azikwe aligned with the North in 1960, Ekwueme and other Igbos refused to back a Yoruba two horse race in 1999, Yoruba will most likely back themselves and lose, only to continue the bickering with its closest genetic and cultural sibling instead of building an Original African powerbase to uplift not only Nigeria but the Black Race.
As much as you try to convince their elite that in addition to their subservient relationship with the North, they should also create an alternative powerbase to prevent their people always having to beg Afro-Arabic and other civilizations for national power, their petty Pan Tribalism makes them cut their noses to spite their faces.
Whether they like it or not, if the Fulani decide to do the right thing an Igbo will become president but since the two largest Original African groups, Yoruba and Igbo, don’t have a high collective intelligence to unite and present a pro-restructuring Igbo candidate, the Northern backed Igbo president will not serve Southern interests until power goes back to the North. So tell me who is to blame?
If the South and Middlebelt have a powerbase that balances the North powerbase, Nigeria would be progressively stable on two legs, and no group will resort to violence to leave. So blaming Fulani for instability of Nigeria hopping on one leg is wrong, and the South and Middlebelt should put down their civilizational foot.
It must be said that Original Africans have been so culturally derailed that it would take the cultural leadership of Ooni, Attah, Obi, Aku Uka, Amanyanbo and others, as well as think tanks to socially re-engineer our collective intelligence through reeducation and mass campaigns to an Original African civilizational perspective which can crystallize unity. Otherwise for the lack of knowledge the Southern and Middlebelt peoples shall perish over time.
