Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria Fulani Herdsmen Terrorism: USA May Seek International Coalition to Protect Christians in Nigeria

Thanks.

I wonder if I would  describe this largely one sided warfare as 'Fulani Against the Rest of Nigeria'.

The majority of Hausa and Fulani are in the unfortunate situation of being dominated by an extremist core of leaders pursuing goals the majority unwisely enable through various means.

It is a little like the situation of most Germans in the face of the Nazi created  Holocaust against the Jews.

Some Germans actively collaborated either as members of the Nazi party or as executors in other contexts, such as the sad story of the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

The rise of the Nazi party was predicated on wiping away the humiliation of Germany at the Treaty of Versailles that concluded WW2, with Hitler defying the treaty's ban on Germany's rearming by building an advanced industrial system with which he created  the most advanced army in Europe.

He proceeded to exterminate the Jews through a gradual process of isolation, denigration and eventual systematic massacre and  commenced empire building by annexing much, if not all of Eastern Europe and France, and  through his ally, Japan, attacking the US, and eventually  attacking Russia , empire building  overreach for which Germany eventually paid dearly.

The right wing Hausa-Fulani warlords are couching their current war strategy in terms that some of their demographic are able  to identify with as a campaign reflecting the supremacist mentality which these leaders have projected as the rightful role of the Muslim North in Nigeria, although this perspective is more expressed in action than speech,  enfolding within that the idea that they are struggling for land rights for nomadic Fulani, hence their demographic is encouraged to cooperate, often through silence.

To what degree are the Hausa-Fulani evident across Nigeria culpable in this horror?

That is the crux that is proving so terrible for a person like Farooq on this list, whose life has been deeply positively shaped by Fulani people, and who seems to still be trying to understand how an ethnicity can be so negatively projected by the initiatives of what can only be a core composed of a small but tremendously influential faction of this ethnicity. 

The Middle Belt, which is now the epicentre of massacre and land theft by the terrorists, was among the staunchest allies of the Muslim North in the Nigerian Civil War and the 1966 counter coup that preceded it, an action through which the Muslim North achieved dominance in the Nigerian military and eventually, of Nigerian politics through the coup plotters' murder of Southern military officers, particularly Igbo officers, in revenge for the earlier 1966 coup in which Igbo officers played a central role and which wiped out the top political and military leadership of the North and the SW  while Igbo political and military elite were left untouched.

 Central to the counter coup and the ensuing war was Theophilus Danjuma, the same ex general and ex minister of defense from the Middle Belt now crying out about  genocide agst his people by a govt run by Buhari, with whom he fought in that war, representing the Middle Belt/core North alliance of the war and the subsequent political and economic empowerment of the army that has seen the elevation of both the fortunes of Buhari and of Danjuma as well as of Olusegun Obasanjo from the SW, another key figure on the federal side in the war and who having been central to Buhari's election, has now committed himself to removing him.

Such tangled histories may be seen as also reflected in the time it took Moses Ochonu on this list, a historian from the Middle Belt, whose scholarship embraces the rapacious ideology of the Sokoto Caliphate, an ideology at the core of this terrorist war, to grasp the systematic character of the carnage as an institutionally organised terrorist campaign,  a slowly dawning shock coming after what seems to have been his support for Muhammadu Buhari.

The one ethnic group a good number of whose vocal members seem unsurprised  by these developments are the Igbos, bcs they have been there before, with these events seeming to play out the picture painted by Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu in the 1969 Ahiara Declaration in the depths of the civil war,signalling his determination to keep fighting though some would have described the war as almost lost by then, the Igbos in particular, paying grievously in and for their loss in that war, with one group of contemporary Igbos holding that their ethnic group  has recovered fully from those losses and another claiming they have not.

The current terrorist war foregrounds structures of conflict that define Nigeria.

toyin

On 5 May 2018 at 01:52, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

Toyin,

Thanks a lot  for the detailed response.  I guess it  falls under "C".

 Gloria

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 3, 2018 4:06 AM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria Fulani Herdsmen Terrorism: USA May Seek International Coalition to Protect Christians in Nigeria

 

Thanks, Gloria.

First, I would not call it a conflict. A conflict implies a degree of mutuality of violence which is present but not much so in this instance.

It is a self declared colonization war against Nigeria by right wing Northern Muslim Hausa-Fulani supremacists using Fulani herdsmen as an advance guard, in alliance with the Fulani led Nigerian government, which manipulates political processes in pursuit of this colonization vision, in tandem with the military and propaganda campaign advancing the vision, a strategy reinforced by  the Fulani national ruler's  creation of a largely Hausa-Fulani led Nigerian armed forces and police force, in which the Minister of Defense, the Inspector General of Police and the head of the State Security Services explicitly collude with the terrorist strategy, a campaign  coordinated with Miyetti Allah, the umbrella organisation of the Fulani herdsmen, led by the most elite Nigerian Fulani, of which the Emir of Kano and ex Nigerian central bank governor , Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, and the Sultan of Sokoto, head of Nigeria's Muslims, are the most prominent figures, an organisation acting as spokesmen and manager of the terrorists.

This jihad has the tacit backing of most Nigerian Hausa-Fulani, as demonstrated by their strategy of largely keeping silent as the nation increasingly awakens to the harvest of blood being shed in the the name of Hausa-Fulani dominance,  or try to dilute the horror by insisting on the rights of the Fulani herdsmen terrorists while ignoring the huge culpability of massacre after massacre  on their side, or  outrightly justifying the carnage of the decimation of entire populations , like the Fulani professor who  claimed that  Benue state, the immediate epicentre  of this nation wide terrorist campaign, belongs to the Fulani by right of conquest, a publicly stated claim for which his fellow Fulani did not challenge him,  talk less deem it fit to publicly and loudly dissociate themselves from such anachronistic war mongering.

I am happy to respond to further questions for clarification or challenges to my description of this crisis.

When I began my outcry over this coordinated military and political terrorist campaign in 2015 I was recurrently described up till perhaps last year on this group as an alarmist and negative ethnic profiler  and many Nigerians were yet to see the light.

They are seeing it now.

Some of us are not surprised at this development because we fully or partly anticipated it, given Buhari's embodiment of some of the worst aspects of right wing Northern Muslim mentality, the dominant, though not the only mentality in the Muslim North, as well as the vociferous ascendancy of this mentality inspired by  the 2011 election of the previous  Christian, Southern President and the aggravation and protection of Boko Haram Islamic terrorism by this mentality as the first opposition to the GEJ govt, until that face of that terrorist movement  collapsed after two years, when they turned on the general populace and fellow Northern Muslims along with their previous focus on churches and govt establishments and agents which had led them to them being  publicly declared  as freedom fighters, protectors of the interest of the Muslim North, by some of the highest ranking public figures from that region, such as Bamanga Tukur, then head of the ruling party, the PDP, and Sheikh Gumi, one of the most outspoken Muslim leaders in the region, while Buhari himself described the govt's offensive agst Boko Haram  as war agst the North, while Murtala Nyako, then governor of Adamawa state, circulated a letter to Northern governors calling the anti-Boko Haram  campaign anti-Northern genocide.

I am struck, however, by the absolute brazenness and crazy daring of the current govt aided Fulani herdsmen terrorist campaign, a self destructive martial madness, that if not checked, will lead either to the combustion of the nation or a severe backlash agst the Fulani, to the extension of future decades of increasing underdevelopment, to general misery, rather than the nation wide conquest and kingly enthronement the idiots are working towards.

I use the term 'idiots' deliberately bcs I see their strategy as the very depths of short sighted and retrogressive, ultimately self destructive behavior, a mania out of touch with reality, even as they must consider themselves clever as they manipulate Nigerian political processes, the greed of the political class and the erstwhile faith of Southern Nigerians in the Buhari govt, citizens only slowly awakening to reality  in the face of  the difficultly of absorbing the fact that your own central govt is a terrorist entity working agst your interests through the most bloodthirsty means.

thanks

Toyin

On 2 May 2018 at 20:07, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

Toyin Adepoju, you are an expert on this matter. Is this a conflict between:

a. Herders and sedentary farmers (occupation based conflict)

b. Christians and Muslims (religious conflict)

c. Fulani and the rest of the population (ethnic conflict)

d. North vs South  (regional conflict)

e.  .....................

Professor Gloria Emeagwali

---

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <tvoluade@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2018 12:08 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigeria Fulani Herdsmen Terrorism: USA May Seek International Coalition to Protect Christians in Nigeria

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Africa Today africatoday80@gmail.com [NaijaObserver] <NaijaObserver@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, May 2, 2018 at 3:57 PM

 

Re: Herdsmen terrorism: U.S. may seek international coalition to protect Christians in Nigeria

 

Herdsmen terrorism: U.S. may seek international coalition to protect Christians in Nigeria

https://atlanticpostng.com/herdsmen-terrorism-u-s-may-seek-international-coalition-to-protect-christians-in-nigeria/

In what sounded like the main reason for inviting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to White House, U.S. President Donald J. Trump has warned that his country will no longer accept the further murder of Christians in Nigeria by herdsmen and other Islamic extremists and terrorists.

In what sounded more like the reason for inviting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at this moment to White House, U.S. President Donald J. Trump has warned that his country will no longer accept the further murder of Christians in Nigeria by herdsmen and other Islamic extremists and terrorists.

"We have had very serious problems with Christians who are being murdered in Nigeria, we are going to be working on that problem very, very hard because we cannot allow that to happen," Trump said.

But going by the report of a prominent U.S. group, Open Doors USA, the Buhari administration is complicit and can therefore not be relied upon by the Trump administration to achieve this goal.

In a carefully crafted op-ed by its President/CEO, David Curry, which was published first, by America's most widely circulated print newspaper, USA Today and later by The Atlantic Post, the protection of Christians in Nigeria can only be achieved by an international coalition.

He said, "World community must work together to stop increasing anti-Christian violence in Nigeria. New wave of Islamic extremism can't be allowed to succeed."

"When he meets with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari Monday, President Trump needs to seize this opportunity to call Buhari to account for allowing unchecked atrocities against Christians in his country.

"While Boko Haram has made headlines for murdering and terrorizing people in Nigeria, in this case  President Buhari is allowing members of his own ancestral group — the Fulani — to attack innocent communities.

"The unimpeded actions of this group of extremists, loosely known as "militant Fulani herdsmen," are creating a humanitarian crisis of shocking proportions in Nigeria.

"Indeed, most people have never even heard about this brutal group, which earlier this month executed an attack that killed 19 Christians.

"President Trump must not pass up a prime opportunity to fight this injustice by facing down its chief enabler. Buhari intends to speak with Trump about the promotion of economic growth, fighting terrorism, and building on Nigeria's role as a democratic leader in the region.

"But the conversation must not stop there.

"Buhari's Fulani kin are responsible for hundreds of deaths already in 2018, attacking villages and forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and land. The scale of the Fulani aggression threatens to surpass Boko Haram's reign of terror, based on the sheer number of deaths."

David Curry concluded by saying, "Just as with Boko Haram, the Fulani's violence must be acknowledged in White House hallways, covered by media with depth and nuance, and confronted by the leaders of the free world, beginning with President Trump when he meets on Monday with President Buhari."

https://atlanticpostng.com/herdsmen-terrorism-u-s-may-seek-international-coalition-to-protect-christians-in-nigeria/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Group seeks new U.S.. religious freedom post for Nigeria

http://www.bpnews.net/50505/group-seeks-new-us-religious-freedom-post-for-nigeria

by Diana Chandler, posted Thursday, March 08, 2018 (one month ago)

Tags: Persecuted churchBoko HaramFulani herdsmenNigeria

Email To Friend

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (BP) -- A religious and secular coalition will urge Congress to create a U.S. coordinator for religious freedom in Nigeria as terrorism against Christians and other religious minorities intensifies in the African nation.

Muslim Fulani herdsmen are helping drive a resurgence of terrorism in Nigeria that is largely directed at Christians.

Screen capture from Biafra Television

Muslim Fulani herdsmen are helping drive a resurgence of terrorism in Nigeria that is largely directed at Christians.

Screen capture from Biafra Television

Termed the special coordinator for religious minorities and terrorism, the post would serve as a direct link between U.S. and Nigerian governments to address religious persecution, terrorism and the resulting economic crisis in Nigeria, a coalition representative told Baptist Press today (March 8).

The Global Coalition Working to Defeat Persecution and Violence in Nigeria, including representatives of the Baptist World Alliance (BWI), the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative (21Wilberforce) and the newly formed International Committee on Nigeria (ICON), decided to petition Congress for the new post after hosting a meeting with Nigerian governors and others Feb. 27-28 at BWI headquarters in Falls Church, Va.

The U.S. State Department currently operates an Office of International Religious Freedom, headed since Feb. 1 by U.S.. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, as well as an embassy and consulate in Nigeria.

"But there's been no sort of special coordinator, no individual that's taken up the cause or mantel of addressing specifically the Boko Haram and the Fulani pastoralist militia," ICON Director Kyle Abts told BP today.

Joining the coalition at the February meeting were Adeniyi Ojutiku, a North Carolina Southern Baptist working to help his Nigerian homeland through the Lift Up Now grassroots group. Also in attendance were several governors from Nigeria's Middle Belt, the Church of the Brethren, International Christian Concern, Doctors Without Borders and other groups.

Boko Haram terrorists and a militant group of Fulani herdsmen have reportedly strengthened in Nigeria's Middle Belt in recent months, more than two years after Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari declared a technical defeat of Boko Haram.

Texas native Elijah Brown, BWI general secretary since Jan. 1, said Nigeria is at a critical human rights juncture that could affect the entire continent of Africa with global consequences. The longstanding dispute between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers can no longer be viewed simplistically, Brown told BP.

"I believe that the violence sweeping through Nigeria is no longer best understood through an analysis of farmer-herder conflict," he said, recapping an address he made at the coalition meeting. "With thousands of individuals killed, entire communities burned to the ground, famine-inducing conditions inflicted upon entire populations, and the use of helicopters, machine guns mounted to vehicles and sophisticated weapons, this conflict has morphed into one of militant attack.

"Predominantly Christian communities currently account for over 85 percent of the victims," Brown said. "With ongoing discrimination against religious minority communities across northern Nigeria, Boko Haram to the northeast, and Fulani militancy in the Middle Belt, Nigeria is the only country in the world to be currently facing two of the top five most lethal terrorist organizations, and Christians, including some Baptists, are caught in the crossfire."

Within the next month, the coalition will seek a Congressional hearing and request the new post, Abts said. ICON promotes itself as a diverse "group of committed Nigerians and other nationalities joining forces, resources, and voices" to strengthen oppressed and minority groups in Nigeria.

In most recent waves of violence, Fulani herdsmen have been blamed for killing at least 170 Christians in attacks on villages and towns in Nigeria's Middle Belt in January, according to reports. Nigeria's military has launched a six-week offensive to combat the violence that has increased in conjunction with several new local anti-grazing laws meant to protect the farmers.

In February, Boko Haram terrorists kidnapped as many as 101 Nigerian schoolgirls who remain missing, mirroring the terrorists' kidnapping of more than 300 schoolgirls in 2014 from a school in the Christian town of Chibok.

Buhari claimed in December 2015 he had technically defeated Boko Haram, weakening the group so much that it would only be able to carry out isolated suicide bombings.

Boko Haram, which began attacking first Christians and then others in its attempts to establish Sharia law in Nigeria, has killed an estimated 20,000 people and displaced 2 million in Nigeria and neighboring nations since 2009. The terrorists have claimed allegiance to the Islamic State and have been accused of killing Christian farmers increasingly in raids since 2017 in cooperation with or under the guise of Fulani herdsmen.

http://www.bpnews.net/50505/group-seeks-new-us-religious-freedom-post-for-nigeria

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.