By Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. Former President of Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Another civil war in Nigeria has become imminent and inevitable. The reason for its inevitability is simply because Muhammadu Buhari, the Northern Nigeria Fulani oligarchs and the wider network of Fulani in Sub-Saharan Africa have concluded plans to adopt Nigeria as the homeland for all Fulani in Africa.
They have realised that the wandering and rootless lifestyle of cattle herding Fulani is no longer tenable in the twenty-first century. Fulani need to have land to call home and rear cattle and that land should be Nigeria. The indigenous peoples of Nigeria have vehemently and stridently opposed this diabolic plan and both sides are mobilising for war. The Fulani won’t relent and the indigenous people will not give up their land.
The same Fulani Project, having failed so shamelessly and woefully in the Central Africa Republic, will not be allowed to fail this time as the Nigerian Fulani project is better funded with the massive creaming of the sovereign wealth of Nigeria through nationwide kidnapping for ransom by lower class Fulani and seizure of the reigns of Government and wealth by the elite Fulani.
Kidnapping and the seizure of the institutions of Government are all for the purpose of implanting Fulani into the mainstream and control of politics and the economy of Nigeria for the objective of funding the Fulani Project in Nigeria.
The Central Africa Republic (CAR) has gone through exact same experience that Nigeria is going through right now in the hands of the Fulani. The country has been run down by the killings and destitution wrought by rival gangs in the fight to destroy the chokehold the Fulani had on the politics and economy of their country. Although the Fulani hegemony over the CAR has been defeated, the street gangs that defeated the armed forces have turned on one another and themselves, unable to rise above petty gang warfare to rebuild their nation.
The Fulani have become a blight on Africa and it’s biggest country Nigeria. Unable to break out of its centuries old cow herding and wandering culture, it continues to pull down every nation wherever it has any populations. Some countries in West Africa, Ghana and their ancestral home Guinea, have mastered the brutal tactics of dealing with Fulani and the Fulani have learnt the bitter lesson by staying away from these countries.
In the CAR, the Fulani following the pattern of their ethnocentric politics, had seized control of the commanding heights of the country’s military and financial institutions, the foreign exchange trade, the mining and export of gold and above all the governing structures of Government. Mitchel Djotodia, a hare brained military officer and his Fulani faction seized power in a brazen coup by a demographic minority. All the non-Fulani military officers were flushed out of the forces, all the mineral deposits in the country were seized by Fulani merchants, non-Fulani traders were barred from trading in foreign exchange and the entire top echelon of the Civil Service were occupied by Fulani by as much as 83%.
France, the former colonial masters of CAR watched them do all these over the years and did not raise a protest. As in Nigeria, the Fulani were just 3% of the population of CAR, tucked in the desert recesses of the nation’s Northwest. No world or regional power raised a whimper even though the ethnic groups of the rich southern forest regions roiled. The Fulani went even beyond the provocative as they are doing now in Nigeria.
They started seizing ethnic lands, raiding churches and killing worshippers, the most brazen being the attack on Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in a town near Bangui the capital, where dozens of Catholic faithful were massacred during mass. The Fulani used their cattle bases allotted by Government to launch attacks and gun fights on the surrounding communities for robberies and ransom paying kidnaps as is happening now in Nigeria.
Again, as is happening in Nigeria today, the purpose of all the action of the Fulani was simple; to transfer all wealth available in the CAR by all and every means and place it in the hands and control of the Fulani. It is the same play book guiding the actions and policies of the Buhari Government in Nigeria. The Fulani elite are raiding the Central Bank, buying dollars and other currencies at heavily discounted rates, other Fulani are raiding the NNPC, ploughing through the vaults and trading Nigerian crude for personal gain.
The educated wing are mowing down governing structures, taking forceful charge and control of all commanding heights of Government and the armed forces. The uneducated Fulani herdsmen are engaged in kidnapping for ransom and now primed to take over ethnic lands, spreading themselves across the nation in settlements acquired with public funds to terrorise indigenous populations.
It will be of great use to retell the story of CAR so as to have the understanding of how the youth of the country removed the yoke of unremitting oppression by the Fulani. The youth formed street gangs and committed to take on the army with all their vaunted training and intimidating and deadly weaponry. The youth had locally fabricated flint guns and machetes, while the army was menacing with their machine guns, grenade throwers and rocket launchers.
When the fight started on that fateful day in 2013 in Bangui, everyone expected a complete annihilation of youth on the streets but the youth took the fight straight to the Guard Brigade near the Presidential Palace.
By evening of the same day, soldiers bodies were seen littering the streets while some were cut to pieces. By night fall, the streets of Bangui had become the play ground and the killing field of the youth of Bangui. In three days of street fighting, the entire Presidential Guards of the army of the CAR was decimated, in disarray running to their ethnic base in the far north and President Djotodia, the Fulani tyrant had abdicated and run away from the Presidential Palace and Capital, Bangui.
Tyrants survive for only as long as the people live in fear and choose to tolerate them. The Buhari Government is counting on deploying the Nigerian armed forces against the many ethnicities where the RUGA will be sited, beginning with the minority groups.
Buhari’s plan is to deploy Nigerian troops to subdue Nigerian people for the benefit of Fulani. Central Africa Republic provides a veritable lesson on how to deal with the unrelenting Fulani menace. The Niger Delta and Boko Haram if anything, have shown that the Nigeria army is not invincible in a fight with local forces. If anything, the Nigeria Army will likely disintegrate if made to fight in many fronts at once.
It is a known truth that the Fulani will not relent in their quest for the conquest of Nigeria until they have seized all sources of income and made everyone else subservient to their rule and hegemony.
The Fulani in Nigeria, in nearly a century of political and economic ascendancy have acquired so much power and money that it will defeat the purpose of such acquisition if they don’t deploy it for the very purpose for the grasp for power, which is the conquest of Nigeria for the overlordship of the Fulani. The final stage of the grand plan to subdue Nigeria for Fulani overlordship are afoot and Buhari and his people cannot back out now. So a war has to be fought to resolve matters.
Our people say that you don’t strip a woman Unclad just to start looking. Nigeria has been stripped Unclad and with the RUGA monstrosity on the works, the next thing is to start the deployment of troops to protect RUGA in their various locations of development.
It was bound to happen that the Fulani who have been taking so much out of Nigeria and have succeeded in binding Nigeria hand and foot politically and economically, will take the wrong step into the abyss one day. The logical culmination of all the rapaciousness would be the last ditch attempt at the ultimate land grab, to seize the lands belonging to indigenous communities and hand it over to Fulani.
Internecine war in different RUGA locations and different fronts is therefore inevitable. Communities will rage to keep their land or lose it to their eternal shame and regret. Communities, particularly in Igboland will rather choose to be annihilated than lose their land to a hostile and predatory People.
Fulani have no land in Nigeria because they are not indigenous to Nigeria. They are migrants into Nigeria. The decision by the Fulani to seize land by force in Nigeria can only lead to war in the many places where this seizure will happen. The people must resist as of necessity. They have done so in the Central Africa Republic and reduced the country to rubble and they will do it again in Nigeria.
Buhari will be compelled to deploy police and soldiers to defend the settlements and war will be declared everywhere there is a RUGA settlement in Nigeria. Fulani have no land to hold dear and protect in Nigeria. In fact, Fulani have no stake or investment in the project called Nigeria and will not care if Nigeria burns, in fact Fulani will be very willing to let Nigeria burn if the people are not willing to submit to their overlordship.
So they are minded to adopt a scorched earth policy to obliterate Nigeria. They have nothing to lose. They did it in CAR and they will do same in Nigeria. It will be the responsibility of the indigenous people of Nigeria to find common grounds to protect the land of their ancestral inheritance and prevent the Fulani from putting a knife on their unity and their need to bind themselves together in one nation, but they cannot do this without first containing the Fulani. Fulani will try to divide them.
Buhari and the Fulani oligarchs are counting strongly on deploying the armed forces to quell insurrections that will arise from this massive land grab, but that will be the Achilles heel of their grand plan. Once soldiers are armed to put down these insurrections, they will turn against their commanders to defend their communities. Nigerians should therefore await the great unravelling of their armed forces.
Do the Fulani have the firepower, the men and the capacity to fight? In the entire history of the Nigerian armed forces, the Hausa/Fulani officers and enlisted men have always been promoted far beyond their qualifications and competencies. The capacity to fight and man the different departments of modern warfare will be put to overwhelming test in any ensuing encounter.
The Fulani never fight an enemy in a frontal war. They attack isolated and undefended villages. In any direct confrontation, they run away. It was evident even in the battle of Bangui. Well armed Fulani soldiers could not take on street gangs with flint guns and machetes. It has also shown in the war against Boko Haram. The poor performance of commanders of their ethnic stock is a bad joke among soldiers in the front.
Hausa/Fulani soldier had to be sorted out and protected from slaughter by Boko Haram forces. This is not to talk of unending betrayals of their Christian colleagues and commanders in the battlefront.
Buhari, a Fulani irredentist, will use to his advantage and for the benifits of his agenda to divide, the ethnic and religious cleavages among the people of Nigeria. But the people aught to know that the Fulani are friends to no one and that a Fulani friend today can become an adversary tomorrow. You are only friend to Fulani for as long as you continue to serve a purpose in their overall plan.
Let the talk cease and the battle begin.
