USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: The Fulani Burden in Governor Bala Mohammed’s Discourse ( On Terrorist Colonisation Vision in Nigeria by Fulani Leadership, Fulani Private Army and Fulani Herdsmen)

Thanks Gloria.

How did I insult the memory of Usman Dan Fodio?

Empire building is akin to  large scale armed robbery, I stated.

I evoked all empire builders.

Some enable some ongoing creative transformations, such as the spread of widespread writing in Africa as the Europeans did.

You have indicated the possible negative consequences of Dan Fodio's imperialistic efforts.

I wonder why you don't address the implications of his placing ONLY his fellow Fulani as rulers.

If my information is wrong I am.happy to be corrected with verifiable facts.

Fulani supremacist mentalities evident in Nigeria at the moment, have their roots in the ethnocentric supremacist character of that jihad.

I am informed that after their conquest of Illorin through the misadventure of Afonja, rulership of Illorin has remained fixed among the Fulani ruling house, rather than rotating among the various ruling houses as was the case before the conquest.

Again, I am happy to be reeducated through verifiable facts.

You referenced what I describe as the hard line Islam he developed.

May we not see in such orientations the too often inhuman attitudes to others of different ideological or ethnic orientations that define Northern Nigerian Islam?

What is the value of Usman Dan Fodio's legacy at the present time?

He may have fought for the downtrodden but he was fundamentally a feudualist.

How is that legacy playing out in today's Northern Nigeria?

Also, what is the contribution of Northern Nigetian Islam to the rest of Nigeria?

Ideas,. philosophies, art, science etc?

If one wants to learn about Islam as a humanistic religion, you go to the SW, where Muslims do not engage in such silliness as blasphemy allegations, or such abominations as murder in the name of Islam, nor are they known for decade after decade of massacres of non-Muslims and non-Yorubas nor for recurrent emergence of terrorist movements nor for politicians who are terrorists in their pronouncements, from Atiku Abubakar to Muhammadu Buhari to terrorist pressure groups such as Miyetti Allah nor for civilians who have transformed an ancestral.occupatoon into a terrorist strategy, as the Fulani Herdsmen.

Again, I ask- what is the contribution of Northern Nigerian Islam to Nigeria?

It's not difficult to find out about Islamic mysticism and art in Senegal, about the intertwining of the lofty aspirations of the mystical in Islam and the lofty in traditional African spiritualities in Senegal and Mali through such figures as Maimouna Gueressi , Ahmadou Hampate Ba and Tierno Borkar but why are such humanity illuminating creatives not readily visible, if at all, from Northern Nigeria?

Islamic literature is one of the greatest in the world.

Why are we not reading translations of examples from Northern Nigeria as we do of Rumi, Ibn Arabi, among others from centuries ago Persia and Andalusia whose influence trasccends religion, geography and time?

To read the thought of Northern Nigerian Islamic thinkers that speak from within their religion, in English, a good source is Facebook.

But most of what I read them write about Islam has little or no value beyond Islam and the kind dominant in Northern Nigeria.

If one is able to find a Northern Nigerian Islamic writer whose ideas are relevant for humanity generally and is not locked into the sectarian specifities of Northern Nigerian Islam I would like to be directed to that writer so I may read them.

The current struggle amongst the African intelligentsia is the global positioning of Africa's cognitive capital, it's use in enhancing African well being and the demonstration of it's value for humanity in general.

What is the contribution of Northern Muslim intelligentsia to this imperative?

To what degree are they able to separate themselves from the ethnocentrically  empowered inhumanities that some Northern Muslim politicians are unique in demonstrating?

What is the value of Dan Fodio's legacy now?

Is it centred in dreams of conquest, as represented by Professor Uma Labdo's declaration that Benue belongs to the Fulani by right of conquest, is it represented by the delaration attributed to El Rufia that the Fulani are forever vengeful, or the declation  atriibuted to the Bauchi governor that Nigeria has to take care of all Fulani everywhere and that living in forests is a befittijg lifestyle for Fulani, or Miyetti Allah's conjunction of the Fulani and terrorism?

What is the legacy of Usman Dan Fodio?

To what degree has what is positive about his attitudes to women and to scholarship shaped society in general, as different from the elite classes alone?

Is it not time his challenge to Western imperlism is used as an inspiration against Fulani imperialistic attitudes instead of the blood fueled imperialism Fulani elite and their foot soldiers have now soaked the Fulani name with?

Thanks

Toyin

On Sun, Feb 28, 2021, 05:00 Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emeagwali@ccsu.edu> wrote:

I wonder why you continue to insult the memory of Usman Dan Fodio (UDF) with such venom.

I  am not happy about UDF's attitude to music and dance which I believe is a puritanical approach to culture that some sects of Islam and Christianity embed in their theological infrastructure. They  often do more harm than good in their self righteous and moralistic posturing that may directly and indirectly serve the interest of various supremacist agencies, in the long run.

UDF succeeded in unifying Hausaland and the city states, and historians often throw eyes of approval on such processes. However empire building and unification often go together and UDF could be accused of fomenting unease and the political destabilization of neighboring regions.

I have doubts that he set out on a process of Fulanization although this may have occurred to some extent, in the long run, in the process of dynastic consolidation.

But If you admire Alexander of Macedon or  Germany's Bismarck,  Qin  Huangdi the Chinese unifier or even Narmer, the Egyptian Counterpart, then you would  be less hostile to Dan Fodio.  If you see them all as imperialists, then you have a reason to pause. But even so, the unprovoked insults of a historic multifaceted figure  such as Dan Fodio seem unnecessary to your current mission, Toyin Adepoju.

 I have admired UDF for the following:

1.  Encouraging his daughter to be a poet and learned individual  and undermining gender discrimination in this case. See Nana Asmau's works. 

2.  Encouraging intellectual endeavors. He was really a scholar activist.

3.  Fighting on behalf of the talakawa peasants, 

 or at least recognizing their plight.

4.  Challenging human trafficking (the so called slave trade) 

5. Encouraging divorced women to marry without stigma.

6. Introducing more relatively liberal attitudes to property inheritance by women 

7.  Inspiring Samory Toure, the great fighter against French colonization. He also inspired the Mahdi of Sudan in the struggle against British imperialism.

Gloria Emeagwali 

Vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2021 3:14 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: The Fulani Burden in Governor Bala Mohammed's Discourse ( On Terrorist Colonisation Vision in Nigeria by Fulani Leadership, Fulani Private Army and Fulani Herdsmen)

 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Thanks, Cornelius.

Can you share evidence with us, perhaps a consistent pattern of news reports over the years, that shows Fulani herdsmen as being terrorised by Nigerians, leading to the herrdsmen recently taking up arms in self defense and clarifying the time span of "recently"?

I'm also interested in knowing why you see the various Fulani Herdsmen and Fulani militia massacres in the Middle Belt, in Nimbo in the SE, their various individual killings, rapes, maimings and land and farm spoilage and disposessions and their entry into kidnapping, spreading blood and tears across the nation as self defense.

How did you change your mind from admitting the culpability of this group to disavowing or trying to modify such responsibility?

You have thought it through or have new evidence?

Who is responsible for the terrorism in the North apart from Boko Haram?

What group of ethnic centred terrorists has the vocal backing of the Presidency and Nigeria's Fulani elite?

Everyday is for the thief, one day is for the owner.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

That madness at times emerges as hubris, as the Greeks put it.

Some scions of a backward, feudalistic, violence sustained and poverty generating system think their primitive imperialism implies they are wiser than others.

Eating fat,  they condemen their brethern to living in forests, brigands depending on crime for survival, outcasts rich in tools of death but having no place in the modern world, while their own children live in palaces, attending prestigious schools across the world.

 May God bring justice to the evil members of the Fulani elite, those blood stained vampires who insist on taking us backward in their primitive ethnic supremacist mindset, even as those they lead live in squalor exceptional even by the standards of poverty in Africa.

The name "Fulani" has become a byword for evil machinations, "Fulani herdsmen" a byword for the grossest inhumanity, all theough the leadership of the massacre justifying Miyetti Allah, the terrorism enabling Muhammadu Buhari and his govt and such atavistic creatures as that apology for a governor decreeing that his own people are free to live in any forest in Nigeria, while his luxuriant beauty of features shows he himself and his family live in great comfort.

May God help us  deal with these people who insist on taking us back to the stone age when others are going into space.

May their evil be unshrouded even to those whom they consign to a life of perpetual wandering, welcome nowhere, companions with wild animals as they sojourn in forests, their presence anathema as they have become merchants of death, people with no place in a world defined by technological wonders, by the global unity of humanity, people reading no books, building no institutions but coddling weapons of murder.

Fulani  need to reexamine the legacy of Usman Dan Fodio.

The culture of imperialism, a form of large scale armed robbery, has no place in the modern world.

In the depths of poverty, of helplessness in the face of environmental challenges to your people's livelihoods, you make conquering others, through guile, betrayal, slaughter, rape and land dispossession your primary goal?

Is there a greater form of stupidity than that?

Invest in education?

No, I will invest in terrorism.

Invest in ICT facilities to develop my people to live modern lives?

No, I will invest in AK-47s and rocket launchers.

Invest in developing modern professional skills?

No, I will invest in military training so as to control others through the fear of blood and death.

Invest in creating irrigation schemes in my people's places of origin so they can feed their livestock, live stable lives  and develop themselves and their children?

No, I will invest in political manipulations, backed by rivers of blood, so that others will be forced by fear to surrender their own lands.

Who am I?

I am a scion of the conqueror Usman Dan Fodio.

I am lost at the intersection of the past and the present but I think I have a right to rule others because my ancestors once subdued Hausaland and Illorin by force of arms.

The ideas of social reform that Dan Fodio espoused are lost for me in the fact that he made us, his clans people, first among others, preaching social reform yet dedicated to ethnic superiority of his clansmen alone, and even then, recognising levels of superiority even within that group, between those directed towards representing others at the UN and those living in forests, those moving across the world's elite schools at huge monetary expense and those trekking great distances in the company of cows, an AK-47 a central possession.

We are Nigeria's Fulani elite.

Thanks

Toyin

On Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 04:04 Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

You don't understand? I suppose you understand Israel , the Palestinians and Iran , the way that you understand Nigeria and Boko Haram. 

Whilst my Better Half does sophisticated crosswords as mental gymnastics, for balance, about two hours everyday, I play the guitar - it's an extremely logical instrument – as JT says, "Never does grow impatient, for the changes I don't know - no"

If you are looking for coherence in madness, look hard enough and you will surely find it.

You will find it (coherence) – one thought after the other) in sublime Hebrew poetry, juxtaposed against your bio-computer.

You should also certainly find it here, where the Holy Quran peaks beyond John Lennon's "ideal humanism", requesting that we move beyond the hatred, the walls, cobwebs, borders, boundaries, fences, obstacles, and other obstructions in our own minds:

"O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that ye may know one another. Lo! the noblest of you, in the sight of Allah, is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware." (Surah Al-Hujurat, Ayat 13)

One of the things that I most admire about you is your usually civil and civilised tone when for example addressing some big or not so big ass professors, and so far, you have been consistent in your views. With no respect whatsoever, ad nauseam, not sparing Nigeria's most important Muslim leaders, namely, His Eminence the Sultan of Sokoto and the erstwhile Emir of Kano , you have named by name the most eminent Fulani Leaders in Nigeria as the "enablers" and facilitators of what you call Fulani Herdsmen "terrorism". You have also said repeatedly, that the patron saints of Fulani Herdsmen "terrorism" are the Fulani big shots in Miyetti Allah and that in your special book of angelology, the one you are writing, they are not saints but demons, all of them, only moved by self-interest, and acting in the name of your greatest fear/nightmare, what you refer to as "Northern Hegemony"

Re- "... oscillating between "Fulani herdsmen are terrorising Nigerians" and "Fulani herdsmen are an endangered species who are justified in carrying AK-47s across Nigeria".

Those are your words, not my words, so why do you attribute them to me and place them in inverted commas?

1. As everybody who has even half a brain knows, the truth is that there is no contradiction between those two perceptions – your on the one hand, "Fulani herdsmen are terrorising Nigerians" - and the absolute truth of the matter, the corollary to that as provided by overwhelming evidence is that the people you call "Nigerians" – not Boko Haramis, are 100% guilty of terrorising Fulani Herdsmen - whether they believe that the are "merely" avenging themselves on Fulani Herdsmen as their scapegoat and public enemy number one and that's why in self defence - and only of late, they have been forced to arm themselves, to defend themselves and their cattle – like the cowboys of old Texas….

The victims – dead and alive of the ongoing conflict the warring factions are all Nigerians.

No. I do not believe that all the banditry and other crimes committed in Nigeria are committed by "Fulani Herdsmen!"

Gouye Gui

On Fri, 26 Feb 2021 at 15:22, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks, Cornelius, for sharing your views.

The problem is that these views keep oscillating between

"Fulani herdsmen are terrorising Nigerians" and "Fulani herdsmen are an endangered species who are justified in carrying AK-47s across Nigeria".

Don't you owe yourself a careful analysis that would enable your views to demonstrate coherence, even coherence that projects the logic of moving from one stage of thought to another?

I don't need to reiterate my views right now because the reality I have described even before 2015 is now clear to everyone, not through my arguments but through the unfolding of events, culminating in the  self unmasking of the people whose destructive orientations I have long described.

Toyin

On Fri, Feb 26, 2021, 00:19 Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, 

"Change" in my "reasoning"? That happens all the time., but not like Mulla Nasrrudin ( His friend asked him How old are you Mulla Nasrrudin?  He replied, " I'm fifty ( 50) years old !" But that's what you said five years ago! - Yes," asserted the Mulla, " You see, I'm consistent !!"

The way I see it, John Lennon and Bala Mohammed (in his capacity as Governor of Bauchi State, and as Prof Gundu so aptly describes him, "a ranking spokesperson for the Fulani of the whole world."), that Lennon and our Bauchi State Governor are clearly two distinct and unique persons.

The tragic end of a pacifist

The CIA, the conservatives and conservationists really never felt threatened by the pacifist, "All you need is love", pot-shmoking John Lennon's song "Revolution" or the Beatles Album "Revolver"

Brother Bala Mohammed is on a completely different wavelength. I'm sure that you can't imagine Bala Mohammed growing his hair long and singing any of these songs or any of the John and Yoko songs, or indeed any of the Beatles' Paul McCartney/ George Harrison/ Ringo Star songs.

As I pointed out previously John Lennon, Julius Malema and Bala Mohammed have this one thing in common: A world without borders.

Prof Gundu writes rather glibly – and only in passing as it were, about The Bauchi State Governor "justifying the Fulani substitution of the shepherd stick with the AK-47" but does not delve into any details about the Governor's reasoning and the reasons undergirding his justification. Independently, dear Adepoju, in the name of self-preservation / self-defence you and all the eminent logicians in this forum will readily agree that common sense alone from your point of view and certainly from mine too should justify "the Fulani substitution of shepherd stick with the AK-47". Do we need to go into details? You that it's not fun being a sitting duck for someone else's lethal target practise, or being a Fulani Herdman armed with only a shepherd's stick when facing Goliath or cattle rustlers. Especially now that Fulani Herdsmen have been demonised to the extent that local vigilantes are now on the lookout for Fulani Herdsmen, determined to murder them, In cold blood.

The alternative to the bloody mess would be for either the Federal of State Governments to provide military escorts for the Fulani Herdsmen during their long trek to the abattoirs and from there the Fulani cattle to the market place on the way to their penultimate destination to the Southern dinner tables of the hungry meat eaters and from there to the cemeteries that your vegetarian Brother George Bernard Shaw spoke of, and from there to you know where

You say that you are "not expressing an opinion on the issues." - but your position on many of the issues arising, are well known and I don't expect some "change in your reasoning " - but one can never tell. I'm oddly reminded of these lines, which I don't imagine apply to you at all:

"The change in the day that makes them rant and rave
Black Power! Black Power!
And the change that comes over them at night, as they sigh and moan:
White thighs, ooh, white thighs"

On Thu, 25 Feb 2021 at 18:19, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

Cornelius,

i simply asked you to explain the reason for the  change in your reasoning.

i am not expressing an opinion on the issues.

toyin

On Thu, 25 Feb 2021 at 14:01, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Oluwatoyin Vinccent Adepoju,

Do you recall that John Lennon once boasted that they (The Beatles) were "more popular than Jesus"?

It looks like your problem is that you can't see any redeeming features in Governor Bala Mohammed. I for one believe that the Bauchi Governor is a better Muslim than John Lennon ever was.

So, by their nomadic mode of existence these past several hundred years, the way that Governor Mohammed puts it, you may feel that he is claiming some exclusive special privileges for the Fulani, no respecter of colonial borders etc. - they brought Islam to Sierra Leone for example, as Herdsmen and itinerant preachers, and as you know, I sincerely believe that Usman Dan Fodio of blessed memory, is the greatest Nigerian that ever lived.

Professor Zacharys Anger Gundu is reasonable, argues his case is forcefully. It's difficult to follow Governor Balla Mohammed into " justifying the Fulani substitution of the shepherd stick with the AK-47" less so his, in the meantime "also justifying the Fulani colonization of the Nigerian forest wherever it is found for grazing his animals." - until the matter is settled – non-violently of course. I don't think that anybody is going to Jannah after he finishes exterminating everybody with his AK-47.

Professor Zacharys Anger Gundu's last paragraph is devastating. Our best bet is getting the besieged governor to wrestle with "Muhammad Bello's policy of settling nomads, and his belief that nomadic herding was un-Islamic"

Assuming that the professor is reporting the Governor's words accurately, it's not clear, exactly what is meant here:"The Governor had also argued on the programme that whatever monies Nigeria would spend to 'settle' the Fulani in one place would have to cover those in Nigeria and those in other countries."Charity surely begins at home. If such a policy were to be adopted/ implemented, I suppose your main objection would be that it could be putting an unwelcome strain on Nigeria's cash-strapped economy, but I admire the way that the Governor wants to stand up for his people – his brothers keepers mentality - it is you who are not generous enough to want to extend your sense of responsibility / Brotherhood and love to the Fulani Brethren outside of Nigeria in the same way that I'm sure you would like the Nigerian Edo people's Diaspora to - to some extent be the responsibility of the Nigerian Government - especially in trying to reverse some of the brain drain by embarking on some kind of resettlement programmes for some of the lost sheep of Nigeria currently domiciled in the United States and Diaspora both those struggling to make ends meet and those who are succeeding beautifully in "making it "developing the overseas countries.

Don't you have a Minister of Diaspora Affairs?

"Imagine all the people sharing all the world "

This is exactly where John Lennon and Julius Malema and Bala Mohammed meet, in their humanistic idealism

Zoumana Diarra

Balla et ses Balladins; Bambo

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 at 18:49, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

Cornelius,

It would be helpful to know how you moved from characterizing Bala Muhammed's views as ''crudely expressed'' disregard for 'the legality of landmarks, fences, borders, marks of demarcation that are supposed to separate [ Fulani herdsmen] and their cows from trespassing on other people's private property, trampling, all over other people's private property, dropping their dung on other people's farms and eating up all their crops''to understanding those views as visionary, comparable with John Lennon's utopian humanism.

If I misread your earlier posts, please let me know.

thanks

toyin

On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 at 14:47, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

--
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.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTR2P5p-z6VAjaUY_UuWFm1uwnxfQDmG2zQ%3DYCiWL4nRAQ%40mail.gmail.com.