"The year was 1965.
I was an innocent starry-eyed 13 year-old and Nigeria was in turmoil.
It was the era of the "wetie," when the houses of politicians and key
public-figures were burnt down in the brouhaha that was then Western
Nigeria.
We
lived in Oke-Ado in Ibadan and our next-door neighbour was Chief
Ogundiran, a minister in the government of Chief S.L. Akintola , the
Premier of the Western Region. (Ogundiran was famous for only wearing
white.) In the spirit of the times, a mob came early one morning and
burnt down his house. He jumped out of the window and managed to escape.
Fani-Power,
Fani-igbo: I was having private lessons in Mathematics at the home of a
colleague, Enitan Abiodun, when we heard the noise of a crowd outside.
We rushed to the veranda to see Chief Remi Fani-Kayode (alias
Fani-Power), then Deputy Governor of the Western Region, standing on the
seat of a moving convertible. He was surrounded by a mob, which was
shouting and hailing him. On hearing the noise, Enitan's mother rushed
to the veranda shouting "Awo!" only to discover that the people outside
were not supporters of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, but those of his
arch-enemies.
The
shout of "Awo!" by Mrs. Abiodun brought the procession to a screeching
halt. "Who said that? Who said that?" demanded the mob, enraged.
"Fani-Power" turned and looked up at us. His eyes were the usual
blood-shot red. At the time, many claimed it was because he regularly
smoked Indian-hemp. Fani-Kayode pointed to our building and identified
to his thugs that the offending shout came from our direction. We did
not know that the floor of the convertible he was standing in was loaded
with empty bottles. His thugs reached for the bottles and rained them
down on us as we all scrambled back inside the house for dear life."
Femi Aribisala describing Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, the father of Femi
Fani-Kayode.
Like
father, like son: Today, Femi Fani-Kayode, the son of "Fani-Power" is
gladly continuing the irresponsible tradition of his father. In recent
years, he has been throwing inciting vituperations and launching
venomous attacks on some ethnic and religious groups, all in an attempt
to remain relevant and score cheap political points. Of recent is this
his immorality, bigotry, gross irresponsibility, and sheer ignorance of
history displayed in one of his usual inciting write-ups, titled "The
Sons Of Futa Jalon" in which he foolishly voiced his sheer hatred
against the Fulani tribe, Ahmadu Bello Saurdana of Sokoto, Caliph Shehu
Usman Bn Fodio and Islam as a whole.
I
have learnt a very vital lesson in life which i always tend to reflect
upon in the course of my daily interactions with people of all colours
on this earth: SILENCE IS THE BEST ANSWER TO A FOOL. However, in as much
as one might be entitled to his opinions which he owe nobody an apology
for any reason whatsoever, he must in every respect make sure those
opinions remain within personal jurisdictions but in a scenario where
such opinions have the tendency to influence or distort the thinking of
others or affects their wellbeing, then such a person cannot and will
never said to be entitle to such opinions. When people foolishly voice
out their opinions to influence the psychology of the gullible few, then
it becomes imperative to call them to order for the good of all and
sundry.
This
prompted the need to call Femi Fani-Kayode to order over his recent
ethnic ejaculation against the Fulani race, because ignorance is
communicable and once an ignorant person releases the pheromones of his
ignorance with pride, the gullible ones could be tempted to emulate him
and in no time, the spread of ignorance become imminent. Therefore it
will be heinous not to call Femi Fani-Kayode to order, if nothing, to at
least lower the spread of ignorance.
I
read with dismay and at the same time pity the way Femi Fani-kayode's
half baked-truths and vexatious fallacies derided the great Usman Ibn
Fodio, Northern leaders, Fulani tribe, and Islam. Which perhaps catalyse
the adrenaline to dilute his gross verbal stupidity and educate him a
little bit: but before then, permit me to use this medium to condemn the
activities of some alleged Fulani herdsmen in some parts of the nation
and expect all well meaning Fulani to do the same: it is inhuman,
ridiculous and absolutely barbaric to find joy in taken the lives of
innocent citizens for any reason whatsoever. Albeit the activities of
these so-called Fulani are worrisome and disgusting to a certain extent,
i however feels it's idiotic to distort facts just to paint the entire
Fulani race and Islam black as Fani-kayode has often been doing in
recent time. To me, Fani-Kayode's piece "The Sons Of Futa jalon" is
nothing but a continuation of his defeat aggressive syndrome against the
northern region and northerners for the region's refusal to return his
demigod "the ineffectual buffoon" for another 2nd-term after failing to
make any impact in the first period, through which medium he intends to
incite some section of the country against others and plunge Nigeria
into another civil war, just to make governance uneasy for President
Muhammadu Buhari.
In
his usual hypocrisy to paint the north black, the hate-monger quoted
Ahmadu Bello Sardauna's speech of out of context and even went ahead to
quote the demonic Abubakar Shekau (a non Fulani), his ethnic hypocrisy
further got thicker by quoting yet another concocted hogwash against the
personality of President Mohammadu Buhari - despite all apologies to
the President by the fabricators of such fallacy - all in an attempt to
buttress his islamaphobic points. The unrepentant bigot again publicised
his ignorance of history and geography of religion by insinuating that
Fulani tribe originated from Futa Jalon in modern-day Guinea, because
he read that Usman Ibn Fodio came from somewhere near there. This is a
clear indication that Fani-Kayode lacks every bit of history and
geography of the Fulani stock. Let me for the emphasis of education,
educate him and his gullible sympathisers a bit:
History
has it that the ancestor of Fulani is Jacob son of Israel, son of
Issac, and son of Abraham. When Jacob left Canaan and went to Egypt
where Joseph was established. The Israelites prospered and grew in
population while living in Egypt. Fulani people descended from them.
After a long time a new Pharaoh who did not know about Joseph’s fame in
Egypt, came to power. He made the Israelites work hard at slave labor.
The Pharaoh oppressed the people, including Fulanis who were rich in
cattle. They emigrated from Egypt, some of them went back to Palestine
and Syria under Moses guidance and the other crossed the Nile with their
cattle and headed west. They took the name of fouth or foudh meaning
those who left. A group from the latter moved along the edges of the
Sahara to Touat-Air and then to West-Africa.
Those
who came to Masina (in present day Mali) spread to the neighboring
regions where they were rejoined by Fulani groups from Morocco. It has
established that about 700AD, Fulani groups from Morocco, moved
southward, and invaded the regions of Tagout, Adrar, Mauritania, and
Fuuta Tooro. The cradle of the Fulani group is situated in the Senegal
River valley, where Fulanis established kingdoms. Until the beginning of
the IX th Century. Around that period they continued their migration in
the regions of Bundu, Bambouk, Diomboko, Kaarta, and Bagana. Finally
those who were concentrated in the Ferlo from the XI to the XIV century
moved in various groups to the Fuuta Jalon, to the Volta river basin, to
the Gurma, to the Haussa land, and to the Adamawa, Boghirme, and to
Ouadai. See (Tishkoff SA, et al. (2009) The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans, 1035–1044).
At
the time of their arrival to Hausa land in the early fifteenth century,
many Fulani settled as clerics in Hausa city-states such as Kano,
Katsina, and Zaria. Others settled among the local peoples during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the seventeenth century, the
Hausa states had begun to gain their independence from various foreign
rulers, with Gobir in present day Sokoto becoming the predominant Hausa
state.
The urban culture of the Hausa was attractive to many
Fulani. These Town or Settled Fulani became clerics, teachers, settlers,
and judges—and in many other ways filled elite positions within the
Hausa states. Soon they adopted the Hausa language, many forgetting
their own Fulfulde language. Although Hausa customs exerted an influence
on the Town Fulani, they did not lose touch with the Cattle or Bush
Fulani. See (Ehret C (2008) The Early Livestock Raisers of Southern Africa, 7–35.)
In
his drug induced elucidation, Fani-kayode thought Sokoto was where the
Fulani settled first when they came to Nigeria as claimed in his
mischievous piece, not knowing there were Fulanis scattered allover
parts of the northern region even before the birth of Shehu Usman Ibn
Fodio. And to say that it was from "Sokoto that the Fulani waged a
bloody islamic war led by their spiritual father, infiltrated and
conquered all what is known as Northern Nigerian today" isn't only
hypocritical of him but a sheer ignorance of history. Sheik Usman Ibn
Fodio came and met established Fulani towns/kingdoms in Adamawa and
several other places across the North, what Ibn Fodio did was to only
call them to order.
Shehu
Usman Ibn Fodio, a Fulani of the Torodbe clan migrated to Gobir, in
present day Sokoto, many generations before. He was born in 1754 into a
scholarly family and he and his younger brother Abdullahi, were given a
broad Islamic education. At that time of his youth, Gobir, as have seen,
had become the most powerful of the Hausa states, particularly in
Zamfara and Kebbi, but Gobir’s domination was hated. The people
generally resented the heavy taxation that was used to maintain the
armies and to make the big men in society greater and richer than
before. The weak feared enslavement by the strong. Though the kings at
that time thought of themselves as Muslims, they did not always follow
islamic principles and often tolerated and even participated in ‘pagan’
practices. The Muslim communities of Hausaland deeply resented the
‘paganism’ of their rulers and their failure to do justice to the poor.
When Usman dan Fodio, at the age of twenty, returned to Gobir from
Agades, where had has been taught by a Muslim revolutionary teacher,
Jibril, there were many who were willing to listen to someone who would
challenge their rulers. Usman dan Fodio held the attention of large
crowds when he criticized the Hausa rulers for their bad government, he
found eager response from his listeners. In such circumstance, many
flocked to join Usman dan Fodio who was becoming a major political force
in Gobir.
At
a time when Shehu was oblivious of the potentials of his growing
companions, the Hausa rulers were certainly not. For Shehu, the growth
of his followers may only mean an end to the ignorance that propelled
him into action in the first place and a hope for a more enlightened and
therefore peaceful Muslim community. But for the Hausa rulers, every
growth of Shehu's followers represent a shrink in their power base and
more seriously it represents a threat to their tyrannical and corrupt
status-quo, where the rulers did as they pleased. As early as 1797 or
so, following the rise to power of a new king in Gobir, Napata, in 1796,
Shehu's companions started to face organised state persecution, in the
form of physical attack, arrests and imprisonment. Having sensed danger,
Shehu started to prepare the community for a confrontation that turned
out to be inevitable. The tension continued to heighten and Yunfa who
took over from Napata as the king of Gobir in 1803 only made matters
worse. The mood of the community had changed and the followers grew
restive. Following a skirmishes and a threat for an all-out attack on
the community from Yunfa, Shehu called for a migration to Gudu, a place
on the boarders of Gobir just to maintain peace and avoid violence.The
migration itself started in February of 1804, and before Shehu and his
folowers could finish assembling at Gudu, they came under attack, first
by Yunfa and consequently by other kings of Hausa states, and this was
what prompted the war between Shehu and the Hausa rulers. Until April of
1806 when Shehu's loyalists captured Kebbi, they had no base and had to
be constantly on the move, carrying their families as well as their
libraries, often pursued by their enemies. It was here that Shehu wrote a
letter to all Hausa rulers calling them to accept good governance
according to Islam principles, those that accepted Shehu's request were
subsequently issued with flags symbolising his endorsements while others
who refused to accept declared war on him (Usman Ibn Fodio), Shehu with
help of other kingdoms under his control fought them and eventually
conquered their kingdoms. Thus forming what is today the Sokoto
Caliphate.
Going by the aforementioned, one
must concur with the fact that all what Fani-kayode have been saying
about Shehu Ibn Fodio was a mere blackmail to portray the great Danfodio
as violent and non-peaceful.
To further
upgrade his gross ignorance and hatred towards the fulani tribe,
Fani-Kayode went ahead to draw ethno-physical and postural similarities
between the Tutsis of East Africa and the Fulani of Nigeria, tactically
calling on other tribes to apply the "Hutu solution" on the fulani.
Thus advocating for an ethnic cleansing of the entire fulani race in
Nigeria.
Worst
still is Fani-Kayode's double standard and his hypocritical support for
Igbo tribe and Biafra, a tribe he once waged verbal war on with all
manners of fabricated blackmail against the great Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe, calling him an ethnic bigot and describing the agitators of Biafra as terrorists. For Fani-Kayode to insinuate
that "a Fulani-led Federal Government and Fulani-led Armed Forces are
killing thousands of young igbos in the east simply because of their
support for Nnamdi Kanu and their call for the establishment of the
independent state of Biafra", he's clearly indicating his support to a
group he once called a terrorists group. Should one be wrong to call him
a terrorist sympathyser? It is not surprising that the hate-monger has
now became an Igbo friend, and so also not surprising to see the
gullible Igbos accepting him back as a friend. This is a man who always
changes colour when it serves his purpose, he's always changing identity
to go in line with his hypocritical way of life.
Fani-Kayode
even cited the Zaria fracas between the military and the members of the
shiite islamic movement as a move by President Buhari and Gen Tukur
Burutai to implement the Fulani agenda of Islamizing Nigeria. All in his
quest to demonise Islam, Muslims, the Fulani tribe(s) and the present
day leadership of President Mohammadu Buhari. What a hypocrisy!
What
Femi Fani-Kayode and his likes need to understand here is that the
ongoing crisis involving Fulani herdsmen in some sections of the country
has no religious affiliation neither ethnic, the Fulani herders feel
victims of injustice because their cattle are killed or stolen and are
not compensated for losses incurred, the anger resulting from this
situation thus drives them to behave in the terrible way they have been
behaving so far. As one can see, the problem is primarily economic not
religious or ethnical contrary to how the agents of ethno-religious
division have been pointing out in recent times. I am not trying to
justify the actions of these so-callled Fulani herdsmen, what I am not
contend with is making their atrocity a communal crime rather than
individual, the point I am trying to make is that persecuting Islam or
the entire Fulani tribe for the actions of some demonic few or aligning
it to the struggles of Shehu Usman Ibn Fodio is absolutely an injustice
to Islam and the Fulani clan in general. Crime knows no tribe, region or
religion, we have criminals from all races and beliefs who are involved
in various acts of crimes worldwide. Is it fair to demonise the Yoruba
tribe for reasons that their kinsmen are involved armed robbery or
demonise the Igbo for the actions of kidnappers and baby factory
operators? Then why Fulani? Why Islam?
Sincerely
speaking, Fani-Kayode with his write-up has only substantiated the fact
that he is an unrepentant ethnocentric and eccentric, who view all
races apart from his as inferior and second-class, he has only succeeded
in displaying his unrefined and undiluted mediocre and ethnic
stupidity. I pity those who see him as a role model, because all they
will be gaining from their role model is gross ignorance, hypocrisy,
irresponsibility, and a large chunk of dedicative immorality. At a time
when Nigeria continue to heal gradually from the blatant rape on
its national treasury and outrageous pen robbery supervised by Jonathan
and co. (Femi Fani-Kayode inclusive), the unrepentant son of an ethnic
miscarriage continue to heat up the polity and ignite violence in
continuation of his commitments to see Nigeria fail under the
stewardship of President Mohammadu Buhari.
Sincerely,
Fani- Kayode’s article under reference is the most idiotic, pitiful,
hypocritical, devilish and watery article I have ever read. He is indeed
all a graduate of Cambridge University should not be – a loose,
unpatriotic and an ineffectual buffoon. He has so much degenerates
himself into an ethnic nuisance, a political liability and a religious
jackass. Calling anyone Femi Fani-Kayode in Nigeria today, is a cool and
polite way of saying that person is an IDIOT.
No comments:
Post a Comment