Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Gulf Between Nigeria's MuslimNorth and Largely Christian South : Debate on Plan by Muslim North Led FedGovt to Settle Fulani Herdsmen on Lands Across the Nation

Oga Falola,

It's quite unfortunate. I do not blame people who are skeptical and are constructing their narratives based on worst case scenarios of future Fulani colonization. Not only have they seen that ethnic colonization agenda unfold in some parts of the Middle Belt (Kajuru is the latest example), they see a government unabashedly dedicated to protecting and privileging the transhumant Fulani over autochthonous farming communities. It is the rampage of the herders' murderous militia and the Buhari government's mollycoddling of them that has caused this climate of suspicion in the Middle Belt and South over any proposal the federal government presents. The government has destroyed trust and actively engendered legitimate suspicion and distrust.

 In that sense, the government is a victim of its own disastrous and blatant advocacy for the Fulani to the exclusion of farmers and people displaced by killer herdsmen. The Buhari government had a window of opportunity when there was a clear national consensus on ranching being the solution to the outmoded and disruptive transhumance of the Fulani herdsmen. Instead of going that route, Buhari, probably egged on by the many Fulani supremacists around him, decided to adopt a maximalist approach that portrayed the Fulani as the victims and people who are being massacred on their ancestral lands and their lands being forcefully confiscated by herders as villains who, to quote the former minister of defense and a former IGP, caused the herder massacres in Benue and other parts of the Middle Belt by "blocking grazing routes" of the Fulani herdsmen. Accordingly, the government tried to force or blackmail people in the Middle Belt and the South to give up their lands or face more terror, with Femi Adeshina, Buhari's spokesman, infamously saying in the wake of one of the killer herdsmen massacres in Plateau that it was better to give up your land to the herdsmen militia than die. 

They wanted cattle colonies by any means necessary. It was dead on arrival as it spooked people in the Middle Belt and the South who rightly feared that it would be a land grab by other means and create de facto Fulani enclaves that would exacerbate the conflict and serve as a future base for claim making. The government still would not give up and, pushed by extremist advisers, fanatics, and by his own well known Fulani irredentism, Buhari and his provincials came with Ruga. Now Ruga was been rested because people were ready to challenge its implementation with their lives.

The point I'm making is that what the maximalist, inconsiderate, insensitive, all-or-nothing, and imperial approach of Buhari and his extremist advisers has done is to decimate the previous consensus around ranching. Now, as you say, people in your natal Ibadan are even opposed to ranching. This is what happens when you want to use power to go for people's jugular and forcefully cause them to bow to people they regard as interlopers. They will withdraw the previous concession/compromise they offered to you regarding ranching, which you arrogantly rejected because you insisted on all or nothing.

On Fri, Jul 5, 2019 at 3:01 AM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Moses:

It is far more complicated, I think. Ranching is not being interpreted as taking care of cattle, but as a device for ethnic colonization and land grab. Writing from Ibadan, the way people speak is that if established, they will eventually be converted to autonomous local government.

I still think that the win-win solution is for cattle feeds to be produced in the South and transported by rail to the North. This way, everyone will benefit—land owners will have access to money; and pastoralists will have access to grass. Shortage of underground water will later create problems as there is a trade-off for all policies.

 

Meanwhile, the federal government must work harder to change the narratives and orientation, become transparent, and ensure security.

TF

 

From: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of moses <meochonu@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, July 5, 2019 at 8:49 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Gulf Between Nigeria's MuslimNorth and Largely Christian South : Debate on Plan by Muslim North Led FedGovt to Settle Fulani Herdsmen on Lands Across the Nation

 

Yinka,

 

Ruga is the latest rebranding of the widely panned and ridiculed cattle colonies ideas. As for ranching, the consensus is clear. You say "if the federal government establishes ranches all over the country..." That is where you got it wrong. Under the ranching solution, the federal government is not establishing ranches. The land use act vests the power to allocate land on governors, so it is governors, or state governments, who will give out land for ranching purposes. People interested in establishing ranches, either as individuals or a groups of investors are supposed to acquire land from states with the approval of host communities to build ranches. Ranching is a business, just like any other, whose investors acquire land from states to build their businesses.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 5, 2019, at 8:09 AM, Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com> wrote:

Farooq:

Nigerian categories don't define Salone politics—majoritarian vs minoritarian duality is not an issue in Salone politics. 

Sent from my iPhone

On 5 Jul 2019, at 00:15, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:

As someone who takes exception to his name being spelled in any variant other than "Farooq," I understand where you're coming from. Most people have an emotional investment in how their names are spelled. My apologies. It won't happen again.

 

But how can you not be a "minority" in Sierra Leone when you don't come from any of the major ethnic groups from there?

 

To Professor Jibrin "Jibo" Ibrahim, I got the information about the murderous religious persecution of your dad from a friend of yours in Kano in the 1990s. Someone else shared the same information with me many years later. My apologies if this information is false. But many people in your erstwhile radical Marxist constituency repeat this falsehood. (I say "erstwhile" because you are now an unapologetic, out-and-out, reactionary status quo defender, except that you do such an astonishingly poor job of being one.) 

 

Maybe you're being mistaken for someone else. Or it's the unusualness of your being a Hausa Christian from Kano that inspired the falsehood. Nevertheless, accept my sincere apologies.

 

Now, let me piggyback on Professor Abdullah and also say to you that my name is not "Farouk"; it's Farooq. Thank you.

 

Farooq

 

On Thu, Jul 4, 2019, 6:19 PM Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com> wrote:

Farooq:

My name is Abdullah, not Abdullahi. Moses has this extreme idea of labeling-he sees ethnicity everywhere! He is on record to have invented me as an Igbira and a minority in Sierra Leone. Truth is that am not Igbira nor a minority in Sierra Leone. I was never raised in an ethnic context even though my dad is Hausa—Keffin Hausa—-and my mom Fulbe—her dad is from Senegal but born in Sierra Leone. I was born in Sierra Leone and I speak Yoruba and Hausa. 

Sent from my iPhone

On 4 Jul 2019, at 18:22, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> wrote:

You beat me to it, Professor Abdullahi! I was going to point that out. Because of his name, a lot of people mistake Jibrin "Jibo" Ibrahim for a "Hausa-Fulani Muslim." He is not. He is a Hausa Christian from Kano. Nothing in his physical features, for those of us who know him, suggests the presence of even the remotest tincture of Fulani blood in him. His father converted to Christianity and paid the ultimate price for it. Jibo used to be critical of the traditional institutions in the North because his father was a direct victim of its inhumane viciousness. Today he sings the praises of the same institution that murdered his father in cold blood for exercising his liberty of conscience. He has also become a knee-jerk, pro-regime conservative ideologue, even if he does it without any intellectual stamina. He wants to be accepted by the mainstream and strains hard, mostly too hard, to "belong." I call this the paradox of the extremism of the margins. People who are on the gaunt fringes if an identity tend to go to ridiculous extremes to justify being admitted to the mainstream--much like the zeal of the convert. Or maybe it's just protective mimicry, that is, blending in with one's immediate surrounding so as not to stand out like a sore thumb. I don't know. But it's distressing nonetheless.

 

Farooq

 

Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
 

Sent from my phone. Please forgive typos and omissions.

 

On Thu, Jul 4, 2019, 1:53 PM Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com> wrote:

Jibo is NOT a Fulani. He is Hausa from Kabo, Kanu ; a Christian Hausa by upbringing not a Muslim. 

On 4 Jul 2019, at 07:45, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

I had no idea that Jibo was one of the propagandists for the now suspended Ruga Fulani settlement scheme. Thanks for posting this, Toyin. Oh well, what is new--he's always been the chief propagandist for his Fulani kinsmen--killer herdsmen he considers victims and endangered, an alternate narrative removed from our terrestrial reality. 

 

They say they want to solve "herders-farmers" crisis but why the clear land grab on behalf of Fulani herders? Why is there nothing in the plan to resettle the hundreds of thousands of people in IDP camps in many Middle Belt states and communities destroyed by the killer herdsmen who have now forcefully taken over these communities and converted them to their own conquered Ruga? Why is there nothing in the plan for farmers and for keepers of other domesticated animals? If you're truly interested in solving the crisis, why is there nothing in the plan to disarm the heavily armed, roving Fulani militias who have left a trail of death and destruction and have already confiscated and cleansed vast swathes of land in the Middle Belt for their herding kinsmen? 

 

This disastrous administration consistently infantilizes Nigerians. First cattle colonies. It didn't fly. Then Ruga. Now it's rejected and suspended. Will they come to their senses and embrace the consensus on ranching or will they revise, rebrand, and resubmit their Ruga/cattle colonies?

 

And by the way, why not simply commandeer the vast, "empty" landmass in the Northwest and parts of the Northeast that Northerners are always bragging about, lands where the Fulani herdsmen have ancestral and natal roots, to implement Ruga, if you must have Ruga? With technology the state of Israel turned their deserts into fertile, cultivable land, so spare us the excuse that these regions are arid. Let the North put its money where its interests are and invest in modern land regeneration technology for their Ruga Fulani settlement scheme. There, they'll be among their kinsmen, with no tension or complaints of land grab.

 

On Thu, Jul 4, 2019 at 1:36 AM OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> wrote:

But we heard from the Kperogi analysis on this forum that not all Fulani pastoralists are Muslims.  Was he lying?   He listed at least 8 Fulani identities which are now being homogenized and lumped together in a knee- jerk reaction of fear.  If that claim is true how could there be a threat of emirates all over the country?

 

Could a specific event in the Kaduna hotbed be generalised for the country?

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

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From: Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com>

Date: 01/07/2019 16:45 (GMT+00:00)

To: 'Chika Onyeani' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Gulf Between Nigeria's MuslimNorth  and Largely Christian South : Debate on Plan by Muslim North Led FedGovt to Settle  Fulani Herdsmen on Lands Across the Nation

 

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Still on this issue. Please let all informed minds read and digest this post. In the Social Sciences, we call it participant observation. 

NEWS

How Fulani converted Ruga settlements in my community to emirate —Obasanjo's ex-aide

Published June 28, 2019

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Eniola Akinkuotu, Abuja

A former Senior Special Assistant to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, Jonathan Asake, has said the new move to create Ruga settlements in some parts of the country is nothing but an attempt to 'Fulanise' the country.

Asake, who was a member of the seventh House of Representatives between 2011 and 2015, said this during an interview on Channels Television's Sunrise Daily on Friday.

He said the term 'Ruga' was a Fulani word and it was thus hypocritical of anyone to say when it is implemented across the nation, it would not be exclusive to Fulani.

READ ALSO: COZA: Don Jazzy, Toke Makinwa, Daddy Freeze, others hail Busola Dakolo for speaking up about rape experience

Asake, who is from southern Kaduna, said in 1987, the then government of Kaduna State approved Ruga settlements in the old Kachia Local Government Area which now comprises Zangon Kataf, Chikun, Kajuru and Kachia Local Government Areas.

He, however, said over time, the Fulani began to expand these settlements and today, some of them are being converted to Emirates.

Asake, who is a leader of the Middle Belt Forum, said, "I'm from Zangon Kataf Local Government Area in Kaduna State. We have what was established in 1987 as the Kachia grazing reserve in the then old Kachia LG which comprises Zangon Kataf, Chikun and Kajuru and Kachia Local Government Areas of today.

"That grazing reserve has been changed to Laduga. Laduga is actually a Fulani word and no indigene is there. The land has been taken over from the indigenes. And that place is now a big town, with big hospitals and roads.

"In fact, the last voter registration exercise there, two registration machines were put there. Today, they have a district head and they are asking for an emirate. It is just a model of what will happen tomorrow in this country when these settlements are established. You will have state constituencies in the state assembly established all over the country strictly for Fulani."

Asake said the Ruga initiative must be rejected because government's ultimate plan is to take over ancestral land from indigenous owners and give it to a particular people.

He hailed socio-cultural groups in the South, especially Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo for rejecting the idea

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On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 6:55 AM Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com> wrote:

The poster of the Facebook update represents views likely to be encountered from the Muslim North, in my view, while most of the commentators represent views likely to come from the South.

 

 

 

Jibrin Ibrahim

2 hrs · 

There has been a sustained & largely uninformed campaign against pastoralism. In response, the government decided to initiate the Ruga Settlement programme to settle them. Now there is a new campaign to frustrate stop it. So what do they want?

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Mohammed Mohammed Haruna Heads you lose, Tails you lose. It seems Prof.

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Joe Attueyi Well if we are being honest with each other: The root problem is that the FG's emotional trust bank account with most (?) many (?) non Fulani citizens of Nigeria is basically empty. 

There is absolutely no way they can sell this RUGA plan south of theNiger. 

Either they start replenishing that trust account ( which is not a short term thing) or find a solution that does not exacerbate already existing tensions. 

That is why I suggest the FG clearing sambisa forest and building the infrastructure that will turn it into animal husbandry economic park. 

That way you kill two birds with the same stone. Convert that forest into useful purposes while eliminating the unnecessary ethnicity altercations that may lead to internecine warfare among our people

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Jibrin Ibrahim Please note that it is a voluntary programme restricted to the six states that have said they want it.

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Joe Attueyi Jibrin Ibrahim 
So why is it in Benue who have vehemently rejected it?

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Joe Attueyi https://thenationonlineng.net/benue-community-rejects.../

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