There is a renewed interest in the Jihad led by Shehu Usmanu Danfodio in recent times with the sole aim of pitching the Hausa against the Fulani because he was Fulani. This is a political project because some politicians want to desperately gain a foothold in Northern Nigeria.
This is not a new strategy, as even the British colonialists and missionaries had tried it at the beginning of the twentieth century. The British were confident that the Hausa people would support their colonisation project because they were “oppressed” by the Fulani rulers. This was the idea Reverend Walter Miller sold to them (Ayandele, E.A. 1966, “The Missionary Factor in Northern Nigeria, 1870-1918” in Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, III: 3).
In recent years, there is a renewed anti-Fulani sentiment, which began in the 1990s with a series of hate articles written by Chief Bola Ige in the Nigerian Tribune newspaper, which was a political project. Another impetus for this hate campaign gained currency with the recent criminal activities of some Fulani herdsmen.
This morning (December 14, 2021), I saw a news clip in the website of the Hausa magazine, Fim (www.fimmagazine.com), widely circulated in Internet discussion groups in which some comments were attributed to my respected elder brother, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu. In the story, Professor Abdalla was quoted saying that the Jihad led by Shehu Usmanu Danfodio was the first colonisation project in Hausaland and that the second was the British colonisation of the twentieth century. This was exactly what the British colonialists preached when they conquered the territory. They claimed that they were just like the Fulani who led the Jihad in the 19th century.
However, all historians of repute have discredited this assertion because it has no basis in history but in British politics of colonisation. There is no intellectual argument about this, but because the statement came from an intellectual there is need for this short response.
Several studies by credible professional historians such as Abdullahi Smith, Jacob Ade-Ajayi, Murray Last, Bala Usman and Ahmad Kani have debunked the idea propagated by racist historians such as MG Smith and the colonial official HAS Johnston that the Jihad was a Fulani affair. Therefore, there is no need to repeat the arguments but to emphasise that the intent of the Jihad was not colonisation for economic exploitation as the British did in the 20th century, but a revival of Islam and unification of the people under a just system.
Professor Ade-Ajayi has written on the process of unification. According to this distinguished historian, the Jihad led by Shehu Usmanu Danfodio was “the most important theme of our history” since the 19th century because it began “the gradual process of unification”. He added that the Jihad “was the first event of a truly nationwide significance in our history. Hardly any part of the country entirely escaped its influence. Its effect was considerable”.
This was because it affected “peoples as widely separated as the Yoruba, the Igala and the Kanuri. And above all, it began to knit together the histories of the Fulani, the Hausa, the Nupe, the Jukun and a host of other peoples in what is now Northern Nigeria” (Ajayi, J.F.A., 1980, ‘Milestones of Nigerian History’).
The Jihad established the Caliphate whose ideals of social justice were based on the universal principles of Islam, which Shehu Usmanu Danfodio taught his students and the people of Hausaland. The Jihadists established an inclusive society, Governor Fayemi, who was speaking against divisiveness and advocating inclusion, drew his inspiration from the Shehu when he wrote: “Because as Shehu Danfodio in his book ‘Bayan Wujub al-Hijra’ noted, ‘One of the swiftest way of destroying a State is to give preference to one particular tribe over another or to show favour to one group of people rather than another’” (Fayemi, Kayode, 2020, “Unfinished Greatness: Towards A More Perfect Union in Nigeria”, Arewa House, p. 10).
Professor Abdalla was quoted saying that the Jihad led by Shehu Usmanu Danfodio was the first colonisation project in Hausaland and that the second was the British colonisation of the twentieth century
It was this sense of social justice that made the Sokoto Caliphate to become the largest and most complex in organisation and the most prosperous state in pre-colonial tropical Africa (Lubeck, P., 1986, ‘Islam and Urban Labour in Northern Nigeria’, Cambridge, p.12 and Iliffe, J., 1995, ‘Africans: The History of A Continent’, Cambridge, p. 171).
Clapperton’s account of the state of the Sokoto Caliphate when he visited the area during the reign of Sultan Muhammadu Bello confirmed the tranquility that existed in the caliphate: “The laws of the Qur’an were in his (Bello’s) time so strictly put in force… that the whole country, when not in a state of war, was so well-regulated that it is common saying that a woman might travel with a casket of gold upon her head from one end of the Fellata dominions to the other” (Clapperton, H., 1829, ‘Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa’, London, p. 206).
The Europeans expanded their domination to Africa and colonised most of the continent. The Sokoto Caliphate and other kingdoms, chiefdoms and communities that subsequently became Nigeria fell within the area the British allocated to themselves. So, how could an existing independent state established by the people of the area be a colonisation project? This is just an idea imposed in the psyche of the products of British colonial education because they want to justify British domination.
The ruling elite groups of the Sokoto Caliphate were not foreigners. Some of their ancestors migrated from Futa area of Guinea, Senegal and Mali over four centuries before the Jihad of Shehu Usmanu Danfodio that established the Sokoto Caliphate.
The Europeans who colonised Africa, on the other hand, had different culture. They were alien to Africa. The Fulani who participated in the Jihad led by Shehu Usmanu Danfodio had more in common with the Hausa people than differences. They were all Muslims, wore the same types of clothes, ate the same types of food, intermarried and finally the Jihad made Hausa language the lingua franca of all the people of the area. Apart from nomads and animist Fulani, the Fulani who became resident in the towns and cities became Hausa in their culture because they adopted most of the Hausa customs. Is this colonisation?
Professor Mahadi has properly documented this level of integration and even noted that the whole of Northern Nigeria became Hausanized (Adamu, Mahadi, 2011, “The Major Landmarks in the History of Hausaland”, Inaugural Lecture, Usmanu Danfodiyo University).
In Nigeria today, people even talk about Hausa-Fulani, why? This is because of the degree of integration of the two peoples and the fact that ethnicity is a social construct.
For political gain, politicians construct new ethnicities. In pre-colonial Nigeria most of the states and chiefdoms were territorial, not ethnic. But the colonial social formation provided the impetus for the creation of ethnicities and even later ethnic nationalities that claimed a pre-colonial existence. It became very difficult to isolate the identities of the peoples of Northern Nigeria and therefore people of the area are just considered as Hausa by many. But the politicians later realised that they must entrench identity politics to gain foothold in the North through divisive strategies. Therefore, even the Hausa must be separated from the Fulani so that identity politics can become pervasive in the region.
The statement that the Fulani were the first colonisers was further exacerbated with the narrative of the menace of kidnappers and bandits who are mostly animist Fulani herdsmen. Therefore, this fits into the propaganda that these Fulani criminals are fighting for their kinsmen to dominate and colonise the territories of others and their menace in the forests of Niger State is used as an example. Yes, the Fulani herdsmen engaged in banditry and kidnapping are criminals but they are not engaged in these activities for the benefit of their fellow Fulani kinsmen therefore profiling them as “Fulani”, is a hate propaganda. The idea of bringing the Jihad as a colonisation project is another attempt of perpetuating the British colonial agenda of continuous social instability as well as the agenda of ethnic politicians who want to destroy Nigeria.
The Fulani herdsmen engaged in criminal activities of kidnapping and banditry are products of the Nigerian State and have no relation to the Sokoto Caliphate or the Jihad of Shehu Usmanu Danfodio, therefore articulating them with the so-called first colonisation project is a hate- propaganda.
Four decades, ago, armed robbery rarely occurred in Northern Nigeria. Two decades ago, there were little or no kidnappings in this part of Nigeria. Why the recent upsurge? From where did these crimes originate? Are other crimes ethnically ascribed in Nigeria? Why the sudden upsurge in anti-Fulani propaganda and the determination to separate Fulani from Hausa? When we get the answers to these questions then we can deconstruct the political agenda.
* Malam Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa is the Editor, Nigeria Yearbook and Who is Who
