Fulani Oligarchy and the death of Bola Ige

By Femi Awoniyi Speyer, Germany http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/farticles/fulani_oligarchy_and_the_death_o. htm

Bola Ige was one of a very few number of our politicians in the South who have been able to cut through to the core of our dilemma: the Fulani politics of power supremacy. He was no rabble-rouser who indiscriminately lumped more than 150 diverse peoples who inhabit the north of our country together as "these Northerners". Bola Ige had a clear vision of a democratic Nigeria where no ethnic or racial group will dominate our polity, and his activities in the Obasanjo government have been geared towards this goal. Fulanis hated Bola Ige for he understood the mechanism of their dominance in Nigeria. Hes therefore held responsible by the Fulani power elite for what they perceive as the "anti-North" policies of the government. Of course, the President makes no policies against the North, but the interest of the Fulani Oligarchy is deceitfully called the "interest of the North" by Fulanis. The vitriolic media campaign against him by Fulani politicians and intellectuals (and their lackeys in the Muslim North), which began as soon as he was named a minister in the Obasanjo government, has no

precedence in our political history. The virulent attacks on the person of the politician was only a precursor to his physical elimination. Unfortunately, many of his contemporaries in Yoruba politics did not understand that he was already advancing the same struggle they claim to lead. And Bola Ige himself obviously underrated the enormity of the danger he represented to the racial and power supremacist Fulani Oligarchy hence the feeble attention he paid to his personal safety and that of his family. The professional way in which Bola Iges elimination was carried out shows that his detractors far beyond Yorubaland were the perpetrators of his demise. The mode of his murder shows that it had nothing to do with the machete and dane gun thuggery of the Akande-Omisore rift. It should also be remembered that unknown persons had twice broken into his Abuja office and destroyed documents in the past one year. The logic of his elimination marks out the Fulani elite as prime suspects. Nigeria must not be misled by the hypocritical condolence visit of M. D. Yussuf, the Fulani chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum, to the Ige family in Ibadan or by the statement issued by the organisation warning against the imposition of emergency rule on Oshun State. We must refuse to be deceived by the feigned kind comments of some Fulani politicians on Bola Ige, because they are presently revelling in schadenfreude, joy over misfortune that befalls ones enemy. The real killers of Bola Ige must be unmasked, Yorubas must refuse to accept any Dele Giwa-style deadlock in this case. If the Fulani elite were indeed behind with this assassination and if they get away with it, they will very soon kill again. And they will

have enough camouflages. They could send a hitman to kill Works and Housing Minister Tony Anenih and pin it on the Aihkomu-PDP dispute in Edo State. The Ishan man after all is perceived as a strong back-watcher of Obasanjo. There is panic in the Fulani Oligarchy over the style of Obasanjos governance. It is afraid that if the President completed two terms in office, its hold on Nigerian politics would be neutralised for ever. Hence, they might even take the desperate step of eliminating him so that power would fall back to a fellow Muslim Northerner. They have done this before. In 1966, they instigated mutiny in the army that led to the brutal murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi. Fulanis and the rest of us in Nigeria The Fulani establishment has been the driving force of our politics and has unequivocally set its agenda for the past 41 years. Fulanis depart from a premise of greater entitlement to power in Nigeria than the rest of us. This attitude is inspired by racistsupremacist instinct similar to the Tutsi natural resentment of Hutu leadership in Burundi and Rwanda or the Tuareg rebellion against African rule in Mali and Niger from the 1960s to as recent as the mid-1990s. The Fulani establishment could build alliances like HausaFulani, Muslim North, North or Nigerian Muslims, their game-plan has been always to secure Fulani supremacy in our polity. This politics requires that "external" enemies must always be found against which to define the common identity they seek to share with their chosen allies. Therein lies the danger of perpetual crisis in Nigeria. And Fulani politicians are superior to their counterparts in the rest of Nigeria. Fulanis have been shaped by thousands of years of

battle with the harsh forces of nature to be more clever, more canny, more aggressive, to have sharper instincts of survival and sense of perception. And our leaders do not understand them. Imagine fighting against an enemy you do not know well! An example of our faulty perception of the North and Fulani politics is provided by the speech delivered by Chief Abraham Adesanya at the "first Alhaji Abdulrahman Okene memorial Lecture", organised by Gamji Members Association (GAMA), in Kaduna on 15 August. In the speech, which after a critical reading would make a Yoruba look foolish, the Afenifere chief said: "You have invited me, the leader of Afenifere and leader of the Yoruba to be your special guest of honour. History will record that this is the first time in Nigerian political history whether ancient or modern when a descendant of Oduduwa will be honoured in such an environment so closely and so warmly associated with a descendant of Othman Dan Fodio." Chief Adesanya speech writers elevated Dan Fodio to the rank of Oduduwa, placing a Fulani man who died less than 200 years ago on the same level of the mythical cultural hero of Yorubas. They also chose an event in honour of Okene, an Igbira man, to seek dialogue with the Fulani power establishment. Yet Okuns and Igalas, both Yoruba poeples, have been living with Igbiras for thousands of years, far, far long before Fulanis first appeared as destitute nomads in our horizon. We have overindulged the insensitivity of the Fulani elite and thus have emboldened them to act with impunity in Nigeria. The Fulani Oligarchy has fought the popular clamour for fundamental changes in our polity almost to a standstill. The governors of the southern states have abandoned their call for

state police, although it is the most logical solution to the problem of crime in Nigeria. On resource control, they have told us that people do not have any claim to resources for "merely sitting on them". They have cowed the proponents of a Yoruba traditional leadership institution in Ilorin with the threat of imported violence. Yet against our loud protestations they have introduced an autonomous judicial space in Nigeria with sharia. And, to boot, they have a local police to enforce the Islamic penal code (Islam was the chief weapon in the Fulani conquest of Hausa country and culture, and their other fiefdoms in the North, and sharia amounts to an aggressive reassertion of the religion as the chief agent of cultural unity in the Fulani-ruled North and the Muslim North as a whole). They claim they have the right to practise their religion the way it suits them, but we have no right to adopt measures we consider appropriate to safeguard our lives and properties. The Fulani Oligarchy in its traditional form is an outdated system that resists social progress. It is a system that inculcates subordination and acquiescence and these have come to characterise the society and polity of the Fulani-ruled Muslim North. Nigeria will not move forward until the Oligarchy is defeated like in Cameroon. Yet we are disadvantaged in the battle against this force of backwardness because our leaders are too given to infighting, too self-centred, too prone to being satisfied with little achievements. Our scholars are busy fighting for better conditions of service instead of enlightening their people, our popular intellectuals are confused ideologues, our prominent social critics keep quite to avoid being labelled tribalists. Gani Fawehinmi is a tribalist, Professor Peter Ekeh is a tribalist, Tiv generals are tribalists etc. Fulani intellectuals and journalists use the label so

often that it seems only Fulanis because of their facial features transcend ethnicity and tribalism. Fulani supremacist politics is comprehensive. Their few newspapers have well-programmed content. Their few intellectuals pursue an ideological objective: the Fulani supremacy in our politics, and they are very effective in working for their race in Nigeria. They co-ordinate with their traditional rulers, politicians, top civil servants, military officers, both serving and retired. Arewa has successfully mobilised into its membership almost all the prominent retired military and police officers in the whole North. This kind of co-ordination is lacking in the South. Bola Iges death marks a turning point in the struggle for a peaceful, stable Nigeria, free from the choke-hold of Fulani power supremacy. A general in this war has fallen and his demise has dire implications for the nation. The message of Bola Iges death is that we must be ready to do an all-out battle with the idea of Fulani supremacy in Nigeria. We must stop shying away from a fight. Our politicians must seek allies in the North, we must undercut the influence of Fulanis in its regional politics. Our journalists must become conscious of this evil idea of Fulani supremacy in our land, our students must be sensitised to it. Our civil servants, policemen, military men and women, the whole of the civil society must be awaken to this obnoxious ideology of racial superiority. Only this encompassing mobilisation can defeat the Fulani Oligarchy which is the hinderer of our progress in Nigeria. Fulanis are not invincible. Southerners must only stop lumping all Northerners together for condemnation for our problems. The South must reach out to the North. Kanuris and Yorubas, for example, are related peoples. All ethnological studies of Nigeria

since the beginning of the 20th century have always pointed this out. Why cant Yoruba intellectuals help to make political capital out of this? Why can Southern Christians not reach a strategic consensus with the Christian North, not against Islam but against Fulani-inspired political Islam? Until the politics of Fulani supremacy is correctly recognised for what it is; a cancer in our nation, we will not be able to move forward. ---------Bola Ige: Eulogy

"The great man understands the essence of a problem; the ordinary leader grasps only the symptoms. The great man focuses on the relationship of events to each other; the ordinary leader sees only a series of seemingly disconnected events. The great man has a vision of the future that enables him to place obstacles into perspective; the ordinary leader turns pebbles in the road into boulders." - Henry Kissinger, October 1981, on the difference between great and ordinary leaders The American doyen of diplomacy was speaking of Anwar Sadat, extolling the leadership quality of the Egyptian leader who had just been murdered by Muslim extremists. While Sadats fellow Arabs were rejoicing over his death, for daring to make peace with Israel the world mourned a great leader of vision. Of course, events since then have shown that Sadat had a far greater foresight than his critics. Bola Ige confounded many in the tail end of his life.

When he joined the Obasanjo presidency in 1999, his detractors in Afenifere shouted: Ige has jumped ship like Akintola! But Bola Ige unlike Akintola, led by his sharp instincts and powerful sense of insight, only broke rank in order to explore the road ahead so that he could point the way forward for his Yoruba people and Nigeria. When he said "no need for sovereign conference", his people shouted: What a betrayal. They didnt read between the lines. He never said there was no need for a national conference or a constitutional reform. An ardent supporter of resource control, the court case on littoral rights of states he initiated as Federal Justice Minister caused consternation in our compatriots in the South-South, but luckily the politics of the case was not lost on his friends in the region. For it was the first step in the constitutional struggle to confer primary sovereignty over resources in a geographical space on those who inhabit it. He recognised that reality is not a thing, but a process that is always changing. And he believed that there could be more than one way to a desired goal. The Oduduwa Republic illusionists who dominate Afenifere did not understand him, they believe rather in the big-bang solution. Iges death is the greatest tragedy that has befallen Yorubas since Egbe omo Oduduwa was founded about 50 years ago, the beginning of modern Yoruba nationalism. He was no hopeless romantic who espoused lofty ambitions with belligerent rhetoric without much of a thought of how to achieve them. He wanted the best for Nigeria and he was a believer in black redemption. That he was an exponent of Yoruba interests didnt

make him a tribalist like his Fulani detractors labelled him. Ethnonational politicking is the logic of the reality imposed on all of us in Nigeria by the antics of the Fulani Oligarchy. Harry Truman once wrote that "Many are indispensable, but no one is irreplaceable". The unfillable vacuum created by Iges death in Yoruba politics has proved the American soldierstatesman wrong. . Femi Awoniyi is a journalist and he lives in Germany

http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/farticles/fulanis_yorubas_islam_and_politi.htm

Fulanis, Yorubas, Islam and Political Power in Nigeria Re: The Role of "Resource Control" and Restructuring in the Political Economy of Nigeria By Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa
By Femi Awoniyi Speyer, Germany

Anytime the racist-supremacist Fulani Oligarchy is jittery we must be prepared for trouble. The last time they inflicted a civil war on Nigeria, unleashing a season of violence, on a scale never seen before in our history, on our land. Fulanis spare no weapons in battle and hence it is not surprising that they are making appeal to Islam in their desperate efforts to weaken Yoruba nationalism. The article, "The Role of "Resource Control" and Restructuring in the Political Economy of Nigeria", whose content bears very little semblance to its title makes amusing, albeit a difficult reading. My advice to Ado-Kurawa, obviously an over-excited young advocate for the Fulani supremacy, is to desist from the unscholarly habit of abusing facts, because it amounts to crime against public opinion. It is always difficult to inhabit the same plane of logic with a Fulani hence you can hardly argue with him. On the one hand Ado-Kurawa disparages ethnic politics and on the other, he repeatedly mentions what the "North" must do to keep together! He would attack Afenifere and Ohaneze and describe the South-South or Niger Delta nationalism as misled, but he would swear that Northern unity is unbreakable! Ado-Kurawa wrote: "The Southwest with its concealed but deeply rooted internal division can never be a viable entity outside Nigeria. Without Nigeria the oppressed Muslim majority will struggle to assert its rights of self-identity now swept under the carpet because any agitator will be a ready prey of Afenifere blackmail." How can a sane person claim that Muslims are oppressed in Yorubaland? And I would not be drawn into a debate over the relative strength of Muslim and Christian populations in Yorubaland. Until now Yorubas have been the main scapegoat of Fulani frustration with his inability to control power like he used to do. Since Obasanjo became president, irrespective of the issue at stake, Fulani

commentators dont miss an opportunity to take a swipe at Yorubas. Be it on "Education in the North", NNPC exploration policy, whatever, Yorubas must be depicted as the enemy. Wada Nas, the Joseph Goebbel of the Fulani establishment, even went over the tops to describe Yorubas as a "Godless people" last year in an article published on gamji.com. This writer was forced to send a protest writing to the publisher of the website. Of recent, it seems Fulani politicians, intellectuals (if you can call them that) and journalists seem to have suddenly discovered a new weapon in their perpetual battle against peace, stability and social progress in Nigeria; Islam in Yorubaland. While they are still going around the Christian North pleading that "Northerners" must unite and keep the dubious heritage of the fascistsectionalist Ahmadu Bello alive, they are, at the same time, coming to Yorubaland to appeal to Muslims there to remain united against Christians in Nigeria. That is classic Fulani politics of divide and rule! Yet, in times of violent crisis in the Fulani-ruled North, to ensure that no Yoruba there is spared, Muslims among them are systematically degraded by Fulani imams and journalists into "unbelievers" to make them legitimate target of "sacred terror". During the anti-American Kano riots, last November, a Yoruba Muslim butcher, Alhaji Kamorudeen Olawore from Offa, Kwara State, was literally cut down in cold blood by his Fulani and Hausa colleagues with whom he said daily prayers and with whom he worshipped in the same Mosque while Alfa Ali Dawodu, a Quranic teacher from Epe, Lagos State, was killed by his neighbours. So much for Muslim solidarity.

In earlier articles, Ado-Kurawa did not discriminate in his negative reference to Yorubas. For example, in "Dim Light in the Dark Tunnel: The Northern Gas Pipeline Project", he blamed Yoruba technocrats in the countrys petroleum industry for advising against further prospecting for hydrocarbon deposits in the North. Yet among the most prominent technocrats are Muslims such as Dr Ahmed Onabule, key expert on refining, Dr Lekan Oyekan (junior brother of Alhaja Latifa Okunnu), former director of petroleum inspectorate in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, and Dr Dare Bademosi, popularly called Nigerias gas Tsar. How oppressed are Muslim Yorubas? Frontline traditional rulers in Yorubaland who are Muslims include Alhaji Lamidi Adeyemi, the Alafin of Oyo, Alhaji Iyiola Oyewale Matanmi, the Ataoja of Oshogbo, Alhaji Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland and Alhaji Mustapha Olanipekun, the Oloffa of Offa. Mr Ado-Kurawa, please can you name a single Hausa Emir of a prominent town in Hausaland today? Out of the 7 Yoruba-dominated states in Nigeria, four of them have Muslim governors; Senator Ahmed Tinubu, Lagos, Alhaji Lamidi Adesina, Oyo, Chief Abdulkarim Bisi Akande, Oshun, and Alhaji Mohammed Alabi Lawal of Kwara. The deputy governor of Ogun State, Alhaji Sefiu Gbenga Kaka, is also a Muslim. In fact, in Oyo and Oshun states the speakers are also Muslims; Alhaji Asimiyu Alarape and Alhaji Mojeed Alabi respectively. And in the past, we have had a situation where both the governor and his deputy have been Muslims like in Lagos. For example, during the second republic, Alhaji Lateef Jakande and Alhaji Rafiu Jafojo were the governor and deputy governor respectively of Lagos.

In Oyo and Oshun States, in which the late Chief Bola Ige, a Christian, was said to have single-handedly chosen the gubernatorial candidates of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 1999, two Muslims were put forward. In the nomination for Lagos, Funsho Williams, a Christian, a supposedly more popular candidate in the states AD, lost the partys primaries because the Afenifere leadership, allegedly "dominated by Christians", preferred a Muslim, Ahmed Tinubu. A bit further into history. During the political crisis, sponsored by the sectional Ahmadu Bellos NPC, in the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the "Christian-dominated Action Group" removed Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, a Christian, and replaced him with Alhaji Dauda Adegbenro, a Muslim. Who betrayed Alhaji Moshood Abiola in Yorubaland? They were prominent Muslims like him; Alhaji Azeez Arisekola Alao, Dr Lateef Adegbite and Alhaji Lamidi Adedibu. While Yoruba Christians like Chief Alfred Rewane laid down their lives, and numerous others like Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, Chiefs Abraham Adesanya, Ayo Adebanjo, Olanihun Ajayi and the late Chief Ige risked theirs for him. Of course I must not fail to mention gallant Muslims like Alhaja Suliat Adedeji who was killed for her support for Abiola, and Alhaji Adesina for his firm support for Abiolas mandate even at a risk to his live. Abiola is on record to have donated generously to support the construction of many churches in Yorubaland and beyond and Chief Bode Akindele, a Christian, has also helped build several mosques in Oyo State, to mention a few example. In fact in most Yoruba towns, Obas irrespective of their religious affiliation attend both Muslim and Christian celebrations. Can you beat that when you talk of enlightened religious tolerance and high-culture civilisation?

Yoruba society makes a textbook example for the peaceful coexistence of adherents of Islam and Christianity in the whole world. The lesson is that religious difference is not an issue among Yorubas. However, the Fulani Oligarchy is fighting to introduce religious disharmony into Yorubaland. They sponsored the Pro-Osama bin Laden protest in Ibadan last November and seeing that the Yoruba political elite were too busy fighting among themselves to react, they upped the scale. The next protest they bankrolled two weeks later, in Oshogbo, was more violent; 15 church buildings were set ablaze and a Christian Yoruba was murdered. Of course, the whole Islamic establishment in Yorubaland rose to condemn the mindless act of violence but it does not seem to understand the motive behind it hence it is still to take the necessary measures to expose the agents of Sokoto Caliphate in organisations like the so-called National Council of Muslim Youth Organizations (NACOMYO) led by one Isiaka Sanni, who were behind the two incidents. The current attempt to weaken Yoruba nationalism by seeking to create a distinct Muslim Yoruba political view-point must be situated within the role which Islam played in the ascendancy of Fulanis to political power in Nigeria. Islam has been the justification for Fulani power in their empire in Northern Nigeria. The Sultan and Emirs are after all supposed to be the "Leaders of the Faithful"! Shehu Othman dan Fodio and the other Fulanis who overthrew the Hausa states in the 19 th century did it with the help of Muslim Hausas who resented their rulers and believed in the just order which Fulani Muslims would impose after their victory. (These wars, waged to bring Hausaland and other territories and the peoples inhabiting them under Fulani control, is still fraudulently

referred to as "Jihad" in history books until today. But they were no Jihad, but treacherous wars fought over power and territory.) Hence, it should not be surprising that Fulanis are going back to the basics, which is Islam, in their present battle to retain their privileged position in Nigeria. The current attempt will fail, but Yoruba politicians must wake up to nip the Fulani-sponsored seed of discord in the bud. Israel has not been able to divide Palestinians along religious lines, hard as it has tried in the past 50 years. Therein lies the sure hope that the Fulani Oligarchy will fail in its devilish endeavour to divide a determined nation like the Yorubas. In conclusion: For how long would the Fulani Oligarchy be able to deflect the massive resentment among Hausas over Fulani privilege in the direction of non-Muslims, Yorubas, Igbos, or what have you, away from its legitimate target? For how long would Fulanis be able to uphold their privileges in Nigeria and hold down the Hausas and their other subordinate peoples in the North? For how long must the rest of us suffer for the Fulani oppression of Hausa people? For how long can Fulanis keep the yearnings of Hausas bottled-up ? For how long would Fulanis be able deceive the whole world? ----------------------------------------------------Footnotes: On Lateef Adegbite and the OPC

Adegbite is the secretary-general of the so-called Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, the instrument of the Sokoto Caliphate to manipulate Islam in Nigeria for the entrenchment of Fulani hegemony in our polity. The "Sultan of Sokoto" is the permanent chairman of the hypocritical body. Adegbite, who is also the Baba Adinni of Egbaland, made a speech recently to Muslim youths in Oshogbo in which he warned OPC Oduduwa Republicans to desist from their activities because Yoruba Muslims would not abandon their brothers in faith in the North. He then appealed to the youths to "educate the generality of the Muslims on this preposterous Yoruba agenda." The Egba man was only being mischievous and the unfortunate statement could only be interpreted to mean a message to his masters in Sokoto, reassuring them of his loyalty. Adegbite is known to be a nuisance hence he was largely ignored on the speech. Adegbite has no credibility in Abeokuta, his birthplace, talk less in Yorubaland. And he is not in a position to speak on behalf of Yoruba Muslims. Bola Ajibola, an Egba prince and Muslim leader, has done much more for Egba Muslims than Adegbite. And Ajibola is not a member of "Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs". Adebgite is one of the greatest enemies of Islam in Yorubaland and his actions weaken the faith of Muslim believers in the region. For people like him, Islam is not a faith, but a means to acquire wealth by pandering to his Sokoto lords. He is in the league of people like the notorious Arisekola Alao, Lamidi Adedibu and Sanni who peddle their belief for money and juicy business and employment opportunities for themselves and their families. When Abiola, a fellow Egba Muslim leader and the Baba Adinni of Yorubaland, who during his lifetime was vice president of "Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs", was incarcerated unjustly and was denied

the mandate the Nigerian people gave him in 1993, what did Adegbite do? What the did "Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs" do? Nothing! "Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs" was even a conspiratorial party to the annulment of the June 12 election. Adegbite kept the silence of a coward while Christian Yorubas put their lives on the line for Abiola. When Yoruba Muslims were murdered in the North in the last two years nothing was heard from him. On Ilorin, Adegbite forgets that the advocates in Ilorin are also Muslims, chief among whom is Alhaji Olola Kasumu. He even forgets that Ganiyu Adams is also a Muslim. What qualifies him to speak for Yoruba Muslims but disqualifies Ganiyu Adams? January 2002