By Ike Chi-ukwu Eluigwe
Nigeria is split in many respects between north and south. While the Fulani are the undisputed leaders of the north, the south has no such leadership. However, the Fulani see the Igbo as the major obstacle to a lot of their machinations, especially with regards to the spread of Islam; this makes the Igbo the other arrowhead of the north and south dichotomy.
The Igbo people are found mainly in Nigeria where their population dwarfs that of their Fulani counterpart. However, when you consider other Fulani across West and Central Africa, their population begins to approximate that of their Igbo counterpart in Nigeria. While the international spread of the Fulani is obvious, you won’t read any account of the Igbo that credits them with an international spread. By international spread, I mean recognition as natives beyond one country.
It is instructive that much of the spread of the Fulani across West and Central Africa happened between the 17th century through the 18th century; with some movements in the 19th century. Despite what is obviously late arrival by the Fulani in a lot of places they are found, they have no lesser status than the indigenes that were there before them.
Some may not know that Igbos were already settled in Bioko, Equatorial Guinea in the 18th century much before lots of Fulani settlements in West and Central Africa -including parts of Nigeria. Many do not realise that Igbo Sierra Leoneans and Liberians were already settled in Sierra Leone and Liberia before some Fulani settlements. Early missionary activities in Igbo land in the 1800s were conducted by Igbo Sierra Leoneans; and they were behind the first Igbo translations of the Bible.
Despite what may be considered as relatively early settlement in Bioko, the Igbo in Bioko do not command the same weight in Equatorial Guinea as the Fulani in Nigeria do or the Fulani in Central African Republic have done. This cannot be attributed to population; as while the Igbo in Equatorial Guinea are roughly 24% of the entire population, the Fulani in Nigeria are just about 7% of the Nigerian population. Secondly, while the Igbo populations of Sierra Leone and Liberia have disappeared by all appearances, Fulani settlements wherever they are found are still known as Fulani regardless of if they are Muslims, Christians or Animists.
The result from this last paragraph is that we can have a situation as is presently the case where the president of Nigeria (Muhammadu Buhari) is Fulani, the President of Senegal (Macky Sall) is Fulani, the President of Gambia (Adama Barrow) is Fulani, the President of Guinea-Bissau (Umaro Sissoco Embalo) is Fulani, the Vice President of Sierra Leone (Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh) is Fulani, and the Prime Minister of Mali (Boubou Cisse) is Fulani. They also have provided presidents in both Cameroon and Central African Republic. This privileged positions give these rulers further opportunity to place their kith and kin in strategic positions like we have with the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations (Amina J. Mohammed), the 74th President of the United Nations General Assembly (Tijjani Muhammad-Bande), and the Secretary-General of OPEC (Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo).
While the Fulani asserts themselves boldly in all these places, we cannot find their Igbo counterparts in places where they ought to have supposedly become indigenised: Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gabon, Ivory Coast and maybe Cameroon. Due to this absence, while the Igbo cries about Igbo challenges from just Nigeria, the Fulani can cry about Fulani challenges from over a dozen points. Due to this, you have a situation where if, for instance, the Igbo of this Buhari’s dispensation bring up an issue against Buhari before ECOWAS, it would be his fellow Fulani that would adjudicate on it. Just like when Buhari, as head of state of Nigeria, voted against a non-Fulani Nigerian candidate for OAU secretary general just to pave way for a Fulani from Chad. Truth is that the Fulani advantage from cohesive Fulani consciousness will not abate after Buhari’s tenure, because it preceded it.
We have Omar Bongo of Gabon, an Igbo scion, in the position of power. But what does he stand to gain -risking his presidency- if he identifies with the Igbo? What can the Igbo offer him? Is it possible we may have had in recent times leaders in Sierra Leone and Liberia who are of Igbo stock and we didn’t even know, because such ones did not retain an Igbo identity? An Igbo descendant may ascend tomorrow as president of the United States and we may never know. Have we considered what the international Igbo clout would be like if the Igbo descendants in Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, USA, etc., are made to continue with a deep Igbo consciousness? Igbo problem would not be confined as Nigeria problem; it would automatically always be internationalised.
A friend from Bahamas, and another from Trinidad and Tobago, each estimated the Igbo blood in their countries to be about 80-90%. What that tells you is that Igbo descendants have severally ruled those countries and will still rule them; yet, this reality conferred no advantage on the Igbo as it does for the Fulani. Both in the Obama presidency and now with Kamala Harris as vice president, the Igbo have inched closer to the White House. But how has that benefited us? We have the parliamentarian, Chuka Umunna, in Britain. But what advantages has his foray into British politics brought to the Igbo? It is to be noted that he is not a lone Igbo in British politics!
So, while the Fulani who are dispersed are still pursuing Fulani interest in their various locations, many do not even know that the Igbo -within about the same period of Fulani dispersal- was equally dispersed (not to mention these ones pursuing Igbo interest); probably, to more places. The Igbos’ case is so unfortunate that no one sees Igbo as having a dispersal in the manner of Fulani dispersal, because millions who should be counted as Igbo did not retain that identity. Where they do, as in Bioko, they have remained there standing timidly with one leg for centuries -as a hen that finds herself in a new environment- while their Fulani counterpart are busy working themselves into strategic positions wherever they find themselves. The supposed timidity might be due to a subconscious knowing that they are on their own without a big brother, or umbrella, to pick up their matter if any problems arise.
Some people would want to blame this on Christianty, as has been the latest fad for some; but, it is a lazy thinking that simply tells us presumptuously that the goat ate the yam in the storehouse without telling us how the goat accessed the storehouse to enable a confirmation of that assumption. If Christianty is indeed the problem, should we not be asking ourselves why despite our dislocation from Igbo land -before Christianty in most of the cases- that wherever we went, we moved into Christianty? If we exist in several places, with different experiences, why are we suffering from the same sickness as though cuddled together in one location? Are there genes in us drawn to Christianity, or unable to resist Christianty, such that wherever we find ourselves, we must be Christians?
Our tendency to lose ourselves is not due to Christianty! Whatever role Christianty plays, rides on something else in us. Groups that bond greatly are groups that consider themselves weak; they depend greatly on group strength for survival. Another set of groups that bond greatly are those who see themselves as a different people from others in the environment they find themselves. People in these two sets are likely to bond, plan ahead and strategize for advantage.
The Igbo, as individuals and as a collective, have never seen themselves as a weak people. There is this brimming confidence that wherever they find themselves, they will not only survive but will make it big. Add to that the tendency to prove to whoever it may concern that he can conform, then add to these the actual ability to transform into whatever kind of peoples, and you have a people who are skilful and largehearted enough to drop their own identity and pick up other identities in order to make everyone else at ease with them.
Travel to anywhere outside Igbo land and you will find so many instances of being surprised that someone/people you thought were natives of that place are actually Igbos. The sad reality though is, that when this conforming and adapting goes beyond one generation, the loss of identity sets in and may be irreversible if no connection to the homeland exists.
While the Fulani sees himself as different (he actually does not believe he is African), the Igbo thinks himself to be the same with everyone. He is quick to shout Pan Africa; but he would die in South Africa from mobs, his shop would be locked up in Ghana by natives there, he will be threatened in Gambia by the locals… and the list continues. On the other hand, his Fulani counterpart maintains his claim of being different and seeks the security and advantage of his group amongst those he deems as strangers. The Igbo simply thinks his brother can take care of himself and may get irritated if his brother proves incapable of that. The result is that each Igbo does what he thinks is convenient to survive, which includes often blending with his immediate environment to achieve that; and thereby risking a loss in identity in the next generation.
Before now, if we were to compare the Igbo international weight with the Fulani international weight, our minds would run to the World Trade Centre DG, Ngọzi Okonjo-Iweala; our minds would run to the inventor, Ndubuisi Ekekwe; our minds would run to our celebrated sportsmen like JayJay Okocha; indeed, our minds would run to all our international achievers, Gabriel Omalu and co.
What we do not realize is that, while these bear some weight, almost all these ones do not have a vote where strategic matters like the present challenge the Igbo is facing in Nigeria is discussed. The weight of the array of presidents and prime ministers of Fulani extraction, in any such discussions, would be humongous and make nonsense of that coming from the Igbo quarters. Imagine what it would be like having presidents of Igbo extraction, and with strong Igbo consciousness, from Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, USA, etc., in a United Nations discussion on any Igbo matter, with each of these presidents lobbying their respective allies from other nations?
We may think it primitive what Buhari did as a Nigerian leader voting for a Fulani from Chad than a Nigerian who is not Fulani. The truth though is that many other peooles such as the Chinese, Indian, Jew, Russian, Briton, etc., would have done same; just that they won’t have done it as brazenly as Buhari did, who was almost dancing when his fellow Fulani emerged victorious. These others would simply have been clandestine in their approach to achieve same end.
If it was an Igbo in Buhari’s position, he would have used the opportunity to announce to the world how detribalised he is. If it was an Igbo that was contesting for that position, he would have used the opportunity to announce to the world how he and his people are not Igbo; and how they originated from Congo. But no, the Fulani won’t do such!
Fulani interest is pushed regardless of Muslim professions, Christian professions or Animistic professions. While those plotting Islamisation in Nigeria are Muslims, a lot of the foot soldiers in the bushes and forests to make this happen are Animists who do not conform to any Islamic rule. If they were Igbo, the Fulani Animist would be arguing about how it is impossible to be a Muslim and be Fulani; and will ice it with tags of slave on the Fulani Muslim. On the other hand, the Fulani Muslim would look down on the Animist and will rather push the interests of non-Fulani within Fulani communities as long as these non-Fulani are Muslims. The Fulani Christian will stand by the corner, hoping that these other two would cancel themselves out, so that he can take over.
Lots of Igbos are dangerously convincing themselves that there is no meeting point as Igbo regardless of Christian, Traditional, Muslim, Hindu, New Age, Atheistic or other inclinations; these ones want to force everyone into one mould. This thinking presents the greatest obstacle to Igbo unity, recovery and ascendency!
Finally, if we are to re-engineer Igbo consciousness in all the places the Igbo are found, we will need to found something akin to an Igbo Descendants Commonwealth, with offices everywhere he have substantial population of Igbo descendants. One thing this establishment will do amongst other things, is to device an advantage that is acrueable for being Igbo and identifying with the Igbo regardless of wherever you are; that advantage is necessary if we must recover lost brethren. With such advantage, you will see hundreds of thousands -if not millions- of people fathered by Igbos, from India to Angola, from Australia to Romania, across decades, suddenly showing up. This won’t be an easy task, but it is both worth doing and achievable.
This sort of project is the type Igbo billionaires and millionaires should be endowing. Would they? Time will tell. I remember giving suggestions similar to this, but not this, in the 2016 World Igbo Summit where a number of Igbo who-is-who were gathered that resulted in a spontaneous standing ovation. You would have thought it would result in immediate planning and strategizing, but it was not so. I was left to handle it alone; something I had no capacity for. It is sad that when you bring up things like this, people first calculate what money they would make out of it, or to what extent it can boost their political profile. Some others are busy checking out how much you who brought the idea would make out of it. Corporate organisations founded by Igbos in Nigeria are wary to push anything Igbo lest they be axed. Well, if Igbo would move beyond being a talented ostrich that can outrun a horse, but foolishly buries her eggs in the sand thinking it has secured posterity, we must go beyond docility and take actions that will push the group forward.
This is not about a competition with the Fulani, this is about survival as a people. If we knew we would be facing such vicissitudes as we do today, we would have planned for it. The Atlantic Slave Trade happened, we adjusted and didn’t plan for the future. Colonialism happened, we adjusted and didn’t envisage what the future holds. The war happened, we adjusted and didn’t plan for tomorrow. We never thought that hostilities will always remain a constant. Our present existential challenges are proving us wrong. Even with the threats over our very homeland, we have not seen need to begin planning how to hold our own over the coming decades and centuries in a hostile world. Our supposedly main foes, Western powers and the Fulani, plan ahead -covering centuries- on how to seize and retain advantage. Is it any wonder they appear so formidable?
The Igbo say, “Gidigidi bu ugwu eze”; which captures the advantage in boisterousness, especially boisterousness that is the result of numbers. The Bible also tells us that the glory of a king is in the number of his subjects. We all know the phenomenon of the prodigal son. Can we say that we are a prodigal father if we allow to waste the strength that comes from uniting all Igbo descendants across the globe? We do not know what tomorrow holds. However, one thing we know is that there will never be a cessation of hostilities until the end of the world. To face the present and coming hostilities, numbers, especially numbers spread across the globe, will count for so much. The British is making capital of her people in Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, USA, etc. They have helped us spread our people, thus making us a global people. We should equally make capital of this spread.
It is never late… echi dị ime, taa bu gboo!
[It should be noted that the Yoruba also have a spread reaching Benin Republic and right into Togo; also right into South America… and also the Hausa that have a probably greater African spread than the Fulani. None of these, unlike the Fulani have done, have tapped into the advantages of that spread.
