In 1960, under the guise of independence, Nigeria went from a full colonial of the British to the partial indirect control of a small group of narrow-minded individuals who are now referred to as the Fulani Oligarchy. Unlike the European colonisers, they have been more subtle and unscrupulous with their Machiavellian moves and their grip appears to be stronger.
This group which is populated mostly by people who are mostly of the Fulani stock, owns and runs every military and paramilitary outfit in Nigeria which has helped them solidify their unrelenting hold on power in the country.
Southern Nigerians have refused to acknowledge or perhaps come to terms with the simple reality that gaining and sustaining power is not about education or the number of certificates one is able to acquire. All over the world power, the common practice is that power has always been secured and sustained through the control of the instruments of coercion which is a country’s security architecture. The Fulani Oligarchy controls the barrel of the gun in Nigeria and that is an evident fact.
Granted that the Fulani ethnic group had inherited some powers from the 1804 Jihad which was later sustained by the British, the group however, understands the power game and they have been using it for over a century. Though with little education in the Western sense, small in population, and usually tiny in physique, an underestimation of the Fulani political prowess in Nigeria has always proved to be dangerous, while over-estimation of its dexterity is a fleeting illusion. From 1500 when Hausaland was besieged by the Tuaregs, Arabs, and Berbers, the Fulani were less known in this hemisphere until the 1804 Jihad which completely erased old things and reshaped the history of West Africa.
Read Also: Is Nigeria Perpetually Under The Fulani Oligarchy?
Today, the Fulani who are less than 7% of Nigeria’s population are the ones who dictate the political economy of Africa’s most popular country by at least 60%. Power has been one of the greatest things sought by the Fulani, this is because they realised quite early that with political domination, every other thing falls in place. In this pursuit, power is to be attained by all means possible. They are reputed to be patient and diplomatic in statecraft. These attributes may have helped them to sustain their stronghold in Nigeria.
To achieve their mission of domination, they have always needed the services of willing Nigerians usually from the southern extraction whom they use and discard at will in their never-ending power schemes. For many decades, the Fulani Oligarchy has always employed the services of different stooges to achieve their selfish mission. For any recruited southern stooge, the job is simple – work against your interest and the interest of people while holding onto illusory promissory notes.
The pattern has always remained the same for donkey years, yet, nothing has changed in the thought patterns of the foolish Southerners who have remained willing tools at any point when their services are needed. These Southerners are everywhere and are virtually uncountable. Southern politicians such as Rochas Okorocha, Orji Uzor Kalu, Chukwuemka Nwajiuba, Rotimi Chubuike Amaechi, Tunde Bakare, Nyesome Wike, Festus Keyamo, Adams Oshiomhole, John Odigie Oyegun, Godwin Emefelie, Hope Uzodinma, Dave Umahi, and many others have in recent times learned painful lessons from the Fulani Oligarchy. Let’s briefly look at some of these personalities and how naive they were in serving the Fulani Oligarchy foolishly.
1. Orji Uzor Kalu
In the build-up to the last Presidential primary elections of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Kalu was mentally unstable or beholden to the Fulani caliphate interest, to the extent that he almost lost his senses. His desire to be president saw him travelling from village to village in Northern seeking to be turbaned just to ‘belong’. He made massive investments worth billions of naira in Northern Nigeria under the guise of building illusory political structures. He spent lavishly on the movers and shakers in the region and concluded in his tiny mind that he had secured the precious nod of the Fulani cabal.
The primary elections eventually came, and he was served the bitter medicine which they had served others before him. Not done with him, the Fulani exploited the loophole of stupidity perpetually domiciled in Kalu’s brain to sell him another dude cheque. This time, it was the promise of Nigeria’s Senate Presidency. As expected, Kalu bought the promise and returned his medulla Oblongata to the men from the upper Sahel. He was sent to media houses to denigrate a fellow Igbo who was running for Presidency on the platform of a smaller party. Kalu reminded his Igbo brothers and sisters that to become president, one needed to ‘build bridges’ across the North.
The Senate Presidency election came, and once again, Kalu was left without any votes. Almost immediately, the futility of the bridges he built flashed before his face, and he remembered that the ‘country was not fair’. It can only be hoped that the Igbere politician has learnt his lessons.
2. Rotimi Chubuike Amaechi
The former Governor of Rivers State was recruited by the Fulani in 2012 to fight his brother, the then President Goodluck Jonathan whom the Fulani Oligarchy wanted out of Aso Rock by all means. The cabal promised the Ikerre-born politician that his dream of becoming President of Nigeria was going to be realised on a platter on the condition that he did his best to ensure that Muhammadu Buhari emerged President. Typical of fellow southern politicians, Amaechi bought the idea and immediately emptied the Rivers State treasury into the presidential campaign council of the man from Daura. Worried that Amaechi could soon run into problems with the angry people of Rivers State whose future and collective patrimony he was siphoning, the cabal made him the Director General of that campaign to ensure he doesn’t change his mind and to increase his hopes of actualising his future dreams.
For several months after he switched camps, he used every available fora to attack Jonathan and shower accolades on his newfound ‘family’. At a point, they went on a dramatic solidarity visit to Port Harcourt, where they heaped garbage on the president
The elections came and went, and Jonathan, Amaechi’s former ally, was thrown out of Aso Rock. Satisfied with his achievement, Amaechi was sent to go around the country to mock Jonathan and his fellow southern brothers. As compensation, the cabal offered Amaechi a ministerial slot, and he became the Minister of Transportation. The gullible Amaechi stood confused until the cabal remembered him and immediately converted him to an errand boy whose job description centered on borrowing loans and building infrastructure in Northern Nigeria and for Buhari’s cousins in Niger Republic. He was not allowed to take any project to his people in Rivers State or even in Southern Nigeria. At some point, Amaechi confided in close aides that the humiliation was becoming too much, the cabal heard it and immediately invited him to Daura to crown him ‘Dan Amana’ in Buhari’s village. When loosely translated, Dan Amana means ‘the trusted one’ in Hausa. That title spurred Amaechi to do more exploits, and he redoubled his efforts in completing all ongoing projects in the Northern region. When the time for the APC primary came, the cabal made sure it milked him dry of any resources he must have acquired while in office before sending him back home to his people in Rivers State.
3. Nyesome Wike
Former Governor Wike, just like his predecessor, was a willing tool in the hands of the owners of Nigeria. As a governor of the oil-rich Rivers State, the careless-talking politician had his eyes set on the Presidency of Nigeria from the very day he was sworn in as Governor.
He concluded in his tiny mind that the only way he could gain access to the exalted position as the President of Nigeria was by being in the good books of the Fulani Oligarchy. Armed with this conclusion, Wike went into battle mode and made Northern Nigeria his permanent second address.
He hijacked his Party – the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) by funding it’s party structure and almost immediately, invited a son of the caliphate who was Sokoto State Governor at the time to come and contest the ticket of the party while still in the APC.
Wike’s plan to run as Tambuwal’s running mate kissed the dust, and the brash Ikwerre politician intensified his push for the number one office. Soon, he was everywhere – from Sokoto to Kaduna, down to Kastina, making hefty donations running into billions of naira. This was going on while Rivers State teachers were threatening to embark on industrial action due to unpaid salaries. By Wike’s reckoning, those hungry teachers didn’t matter because they lacked the capacity to make him president.
Wike’s desperation grew with time. The closer the primary of the PDP became, the more money he threw relentlessly at Northern politicians. The D day came, and they all deserted him. To ensure that the mortal blow was well delivered, it was his friend and ally, Governor Tambuwal, that was drafted in to openly betray him. Till date, Wike is yet to recover from that shock.
4. Godwin Emefelie
Emefelie’s case is perhaps the worst of all. His tenure as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria was renewed by the cabal simply to serve the interests of the Fulani Oligarchy.
Just like his fellow Southern wilful tools, his subservience was at sycophantic dimensions. He converted the country’s apex bank to the personal banking unit of the cabal and was doing their bidding without any form of restraint. Expectedly, the country paid heavily for Emefelie’s ineptitude, but that didn’t bother him. By his estimations, he was better off watching the Nigerian economy in tatters than watching his relationship with the Fulani Oligarchy get sour.
Emefelie was used to build a refinery for a loyal son of the Fulani Oligarchy, Dangote and Nigerians could only groan. Several other Northern business interests were revived by Emefelie over the period he was at the apex bank. Due to Emefelie’s longstanding loyalty, at some point, the cabal even considered him as President Buhari’s replacement.
Today, Emefelie is fighting the battle of his life. He is being investigated for simple errands he carried out for his slave masters and his masters are nowhere to be found to put up a defence for him. By their calculations, he is no longer useful in any capacity. Perhaps Nigerians will have been everywhere defending him if only he defended their interests when it mattered most.
The lesson every southern politician must learn from the experiences of these Efelefus in Igbo parlance is that no one serves the Fulani Oliarcgy foolishly and gets away with it. Their pattern is the same and will never change. First, they make you juicy offers and promise you the world, as soon as you become useless to their schemes, you are immediately dropped and in extreme cases, it could even cost you your freedom or your life.
