Fulanisation just like Islamisation is a term or an agenda that is based on the process of bringing someone or something under the influence of Islam or under Islamic rule using archaic Fulani laws and traditions. In contemporary usage, fulanisation may refer to the perceived imposition of an Islamist social and political system on a society with an indigenously different social and political background and this society in question here would be Nigeria.
Nigeria as a Nation-State is on the verge of being completely ‘Fulanised’ by a systematic dominance, commandeering and control of all the laws, legislation and systems that make run the country and this has been done by taking over the top powers and authority of the country and instilling a nepotistic, fulanised agenda as the modus operandi. President Muhammadu Buhari is the ceremonial president of Nigeria on the books but in real life, Nigeria is being run by a sect-like cabal which has been known as the Fulani Cabal and they have done a good job of making sure that their tentacles of power have extended to all the six geo-political zones of Nigeria especially to the southern regions. The southern regions where this fulanisation agenda was supposed to meet the most resistance because of the cultural and religious differences was ironically the easiest conquer. One might wonder how this was done. The cabal knew that the weakness of the average southern politician was greed and self-centerdness and they used this particular knowlwdge to their advantage.
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Southern politicians especially those from the South-South and the Southeastern region have a knack for greed, looting, embezzlement and stealing as much as they can from public coffers. They are talented in the act of fraudulent dealings and the siphoning of funds from wherever they can and they do this with the help of their aides and other loyalists who help them to hide and launder the stolen funds. This stealing is done irregardless of the class or level of the politician, from Governors, Senators to Local Government Chairmen and Chairwomen and then to the lowly Special Advisers and their assistants. The average Southern politician treats politics and leadership like it is a business venture, an avenue to generate capital and revenue for lifestyles that are too bogus or extravagant for them all in a bid to show their power and grandeur and oppress the common masses. This is why corruption and political jobbery is the order of the day among Southern politicians and their stooges. The fulanisation advocates saw this flaw and expressly used it against the Southerners. One of the incentives that they offered was immunity from the law during and after their respective tenures when they would be called by their wards to give account of their looting exploits and misdemeanors while in office. Like rats who have stolen some cheese and are looking for a small hole to hide from the cat, the southern politicians quickly took the deal and swore their full allegiance to the cabal at the expense of their wards.
Another way that the fulanisation advocates have succesfully used the greed of southern politicians against them is through the use of politics of population and this has also helped them have an effective hold of political power in Nigeria. Their dominance ensures that the bulk of the Country’s resources go into providing infrastructure in the north even though the north contributes least to the Country’s resource wealth and revenue. For example, out of 774 local councils, the north has 418 and the south 356. These numbers are important because each local government council irrespective of its revenue and expenditure (and resource profile) gets exactly the same amount from the federation account. The federal revenue derives 85% from the sale of crude oil, which is obtained 100% from southern Nigeria, thus, the bulk of the 20% of the federation account reserved for local governments end up in the north. Similarly, out of 336 seats in the Federal House of Representatives, the north is allocated 182 seats and the south 154 seats, thereby re-enforcing the British colonial legacy of centralising control under the leadership of the caliphate. Moreover, northern cities like Abuja were built exclusively from oil wealth. In comparison to oil powerhouse states like Bayelsa, Abuja boasts some of the most sophisticated infrastructures in Africa whereas cities like Yenagoa, Owerri, Aba, Umuahia lack basic amenities like roads, pipe-borne water, electricity, and hospitals. This is why most of the Southern politicians rally round the Fulani cabals to do their biddings in order to win favors from them.
In analysing the Fulani cabal, it has been observed that their power derived from their occupation of command positions within the government bureaucracy. These positions are constitutional. It is the authority domiciled in the office of the president, for example, that gives the American presidency its power. In the Nigerian case, the power of the Fulani Cabal does not obtain from the constitution or for that matter from the authority encapsulated in executive positions of government. The power of these elite derives chiefly from their possession of religious and cultural capital. Through the spiritual headship of the Sultan, the Hausa-Fulani aristocracy is able to exercise near absolute control over northern populations and this control extends into the military, the top echelon of which is made up principally of Muslim officers from the north. The religious authority and power of the Sultan and members of the Sokoto Caliphate can be attributed to the powerlessness of the northern mass. The fact that politics in Nigeria is not functionally differentiated from the sociocultural considerations that govern everyday life enables the Fulani cabal to systematically manipulate the Islamic system and by proxy, Nigeria as a whole.
This same corruption and self-interest among these southern Nigerian politicians are some of the major reasons for many unresolved problems that have critically hobbled and reduced development in Nigeria and it has led to the poor state of electricity, major hitches in the transport sector, health sector, education sector, road infrastructure, and communications which are core precursors to poor economic development and a major handicap for doing business in the zone. This unquenchable greed does not favour the region as it gives the fulanists more opportunities to further implement their fulanisation agendas and it does more harm than good to the wards under these politicians who most times are at the receiving end of this unquenchable desire to amass fraudulent wealth.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
