To us here in Nigeria, a colony is nothing new. The colony
of Lagos established by the British in 1861 has familiarised us to it. But our
acquaintance with it goes much further back to the ancient colonies established
in 7th century B. C by the Greeks on the Mediterranean coastline of Italy, France
and Spain, of which Nice, Marseilles and Naples are notable examples; by the
Phoenicians, notably Utica (Utique) in 1100 B.C. and Carthage in 813 B.C. (both
in present-day Tunisia) and Tripoli in 900 B.C. in present-day Libya; down to
the modern colonies founded by the English in the early 17th century AD in
North America, - thirteen of them, the first of which, Virginia, was founded in
1607.
The idea underlying a colony, both in antiquity and in
modern times, is that of settlement : see British Settlements Act 1887. A
colony is a place for the settlement of people “with common or similar
language, interests or occupations, living together in close association”, like
the farm settlements established in some parts of the Eastern Region of
South-East Nigeria by the Government of Micheal I. Okpara.
A colony as a settlement for people is one integrated idea,
it cannot be separated from a settlement; it cannot meaningfully exist divorced
from such a settlement, except as a mere idea without existential content. So divorced,
it means nothing but an empty word tendentiously employed to beguile or
hoodwink the public. The cattle colonies which the Federal Government proposes
to establish in every State of the Federation can, therefore, mean nothing
other than a place for the settlement of Fulani herdsmen, however much the
Federal Government may try to hide this fact, by, for example, calling it
“cattle colony”; that is what it is intended to be, and will eventually become,
if it is not such from inception.
Its character as a place for the settlement of Fulani
herdsmen is implicit in the Agric Minister (Audu Ogbe) long presentation,
giving details of the proposed project, as published in the Nigerian Tribune
newspaper of 12 January, 2018, which leaves him no room to gainsay it. It is
not the idea that cattle is to be left
in a colony without a herder or keeper, without someone to feed it, give it
water, and keep a watchful and protective eye on it. Rearing cattle or
livestock necessarily requires a herder. From what we know, two or more herders
will be needed to follow and tend 100 cows; accordingly, 300 herders will be
needed to tend 30,000 cows. A colony of 30,000 cows requires 300 herders living
in the colony. It may be expected that a herder may have a family, a wife
(wives) and children living with him in the colony. We are therefore talking of
300 Fulani herdsmen and their families lodged in the body of a State under the
scheme.
Lets listen to what the Agric Minister said:
“We are talking of colonies because 20, 30, or 40 ranchers can share
the same colony. A ranch is usually owned by an individual or a company with
sometimes very few cattle. Some have more than 200 or 300 cows. In a cattle
colony, you could find 30,000 cows owned by different owners.”
“The reason we are designing the colony is that we want to prepare on a
large scale, on economy of scale, a place where many owners of cattle can
coexist, be fed well, because we can make their feeds. They can get good water
to drink. Cows drink a lot of water. We can give them green fodder.”
The Hon. Minister talks only of cattle owners or ranchers, but not at
all of herders, who are essentially the cause of the problem. The cattle owners
or ranchers are no doubt a part of the problem but the part they play seems
somewhat peripheral. The herdsmen are at the centre of the problem.
From the Minister’s presentation, the cattle colony scheme may magnify
the problems beyond what they presently are. The scheme is not intended to, and
will not, stop the open grazing practice, which is the main cause of the
problem. It may well reduce, but will not completely stop it. The Hon. Minister
of Agriculture affirms this when he said: “We will tell the herdsmen, if you
are passing through a state, you can only go to the colony and stay there, feed
your cattle and, when you are moving off, agro-rangers will follow you and make
sure you don’t destroy anybody’s farm.” This statement is confusing to say the
least. It seems to suggest that a cattle colony as a settlement for herdsmen
and their cattle will be combined with the existing practice of herdsmen
roaming over the whole country with their cattle, but stopping at a colony to
feed them.
The Legal and
political implications of the scheme:
The Minister’s emphasis on the process of acquiring land for
the colony is misdirected. The issue is not so much about the process for
acquiring land, but about the ownership of the land after it is acquired and,
more important, about the right to the exclusive use, management and control of
the land so acquired. Does the ownership of the land belong to the Federal
Government, or to traditional communities, villages and families supposed to
have been divested of it? Does the right to the exclusive use, management and
control of the land belong to the Federal Government, the cattle owners or the
herdsmen?
Perhaps, more worrisome, is the issue of the relationship of
the Fulani herdsmen settled on the land and the political authorities in the
State – the state government, the local government authorities and the
traditional authorities, the town unions, the community development
associations, the civil defence and vigilante groups, etc. Will the Fulani
herdsmen settled on the land, the cattle owners and their association, the
Miyetti Allah, not constitute themselves a “state” within a state?
The deadliest of the implications of the establishment of
cattle colonies in every State of the Federation is the religious and cultural
implications.
Religious implications of the establishment of Cattle
Colonies in every state of the federation:
In
considering the religious implications of establishing cattle colonies in every
State of the Federation, it is necessary to recall to mind what Sheikh Gumi
wrote about Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto. According to Gumi, the
Sardauna’s well-known agenda of consolidating and perpetuating the idea of
Northern Nigeria as one united entity “was not borne out of political
consideration only”, but was also conceived as “a personal mission” handed down
to him by his forbear, Sheikh dan Fodio. The agenda had an accompanying
ideology whose object, as articulated by the Sardauna, is to maintain Northern
Nigeria as a theocracy ruled by a Moslem claiming to be divinely directed, with
utter disdain for democracy, and with the Sharia as the supreme governing law;
the non-Moslem minority ethnic groups in the North are to be used as “willing
tools”, and the South is to be subjugated and reduced to “a conquered
territory”, which is not to be allowed to “have control over their future.” The
Sarduana had conceived a kind of jihad, for the pursuit and possible
accomplishment of his agenda, an agenda which President Buhari has now vowed to
carry on to a “finish”.
President
Buhari’s resolve and commitment to pursue the Sardauna’s agenda to a finish was
unmistakably announced in his first major policy statement as President-elect.
In a speech delivered before an audience of exclusively prominent Northern
Moslem leaders on 2 May, 2015 at Queen Amina Hall, Ahmadu Bello University
(ABU), Zaria, he said:
“I charge you to join me as we build a new Northern Nigeria in a
generation.....the best investment we can make in the North is not finding oil
in the Chad Basin....we will start with one local government in each state
until we get to every school in all of Northern Nigeria.....To achieve this, I
have secured a Northern rehabilitation fund.....to rebuild the North after the
devastation of Boko Haram insurgency ... Join me my brothers and sisters and
let us finish the work our forefather, Ahmadu Bello, started.”
The name
Shiekh dan Fodio, the Sanduana’s forbear, is worth recalling again. He was a
Fulani immigrant in Gobir (now renamed Sokoto), who was accommodated and well-favoured
by the King of Gobir. Dan Fodio mobilised an army of Fulani immigrants who, in
1804 – 1808, overran all the Hausa kingdoms and some other neighbouring
communities, dethroned their rulers, installing Fulani emirs in their places,
and imposed the Moslem religion on them. Thus was Hausaland together with other
conquered lands, islamised, and a caliphate established over Sokoto, with dan
Fodio as its Sultan. That was the price the Hausas paid for their hospitality
in granting access to grazing land to the Fulani immigrant settlers. With
knowledge of the tragic experience of the Hausas in 1804 – 1808, we should not
make the tragic mistake of letting history repeat itself in 2018. It should be
mentioned that the Fulani immigrant settlers’ ravaging on-slaught failed to
subdue the Bornu and Jukun kingdoms, whose rulers have continued to maintain
suzerainty over the their territories till date.
The
colonisation and islamisation (by conquest) of Hausaland is reminiscent of the
colonisation and islamisation (again by conquest) of North Africa by the Arabs
in the 7th century A.D. The conquest has been described as “the most amazing
feat in military history[i].”
With Persia, Syria, Iraq,
Palestine, and other countries or cities in the Middle East vanquished and
taken over for Islam in A.D. 632-638, the Moslem Arabs next marched on Egypt in
the same year (638 A.D.) aided by the defection of the native Egyptians who
hated the Greeks and had become disaffected towards the Roman imperial
government because of the Monophysite controversy. The invading Arabs
succeeded, in siege after siege, in subduing one city after another – Farmah,
gateway into the country; Memphis, the former capital; and, finally, in 641
A.D., Alexandria, the new capital, with a loss of 23,000 men (the siege of
Alexandria is said to be “perhaps the most arduous” in the annals of Arab
conquests[ii]).
Having
conquered Egypt, the Arabs embarked next on the conquest of the rest of North
Africa. First Barca and other cities in the province of Cyrenaica, then
Tripoli, Sabratha and the magnificent city of Sufetula, were taken in 642-647
A.D. There followed a lull of nearly 20 years because of succession tumults in
Arabia. The war was resumed in 665 A.D. with the conquest of more territories.
The hero of the renewed fighting was the commander of the Arab troops from
670-675, called Akbah (Okba bin Nafa). It was to him, writes Edward Gibbon,
that “the title of conqueror of Africa is more justly due.....He marched from
Damascus at the head of ten thousand of the bravest Arabs; and the genuine
force of the Moslems were enlarged by the doubtful aid and conversion of many
thousand barbarians ....
The fearless Akbah plunged into the heart of the
country, traversed the wilderness in which his successors erected the splendid
capitals of Fez and Morocco, and at length penetrated to the verge of the
Atlantic and the great desert....The career, though not the zeal, of Akbah was
checked by the prospect of a boundless ocean. He spurred his horse into the
waves, and, raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed with the tone of a fanatic,
Great God! If my course were not stopped by this sea, I would still go on, to
the unknown kingdoms of the West, preaching the unity of thy holy name, and
putting to the sword the rebellious nations who worship any other gods than
thee.” [iii]
The
conquest was, however, not yet complete. The great metropolis of Africa,
Carthage, was yet to be conquered. There was another interruption of many years
followed by renewed fighting. Carthage was easily taken but the Arabs were
later driven out by imperial forces dispatched from Constantinople, (the second
capital of the Roman Empire, renamed Istanbul), joined by powerful
reinforcements from Sicily and Spain. Returning to the charge in 698, with more
numerous armaments by sea and land, the Arabs re-took the city, and North Africa
was irrecoverably lost to the Roman Empire. In the interval, they had also
conquered and Islamised Northern Sudan in the east.
But the
Arabs were not yet secure in their conquest. For they were later driven out by
the Moors. They retreated to the confines of Egypt, but returned some years
later to inflict a crushing defeat on the Moors, taking some 300,000 of them
captive, 60,000 of whom were “sold for the profit of the public treasury.”[iv]
The native Berbers, the indigenous dwellers of the valleys of the Atlas
Moutain, had similarly been crushed.
Nigerians Beware!
Cultural
Implications:
But even
if we are able to avert being subjugated and Islamised by Fulani herdsmen
militia armed with AK47 guns, we may still meet the same fate by peaceful
penetration into our various communities by Fulani herdsmen settled in the
cattle colonies through the process known as acculturation. The Fulani settlers
will bring to the cattle colonies, as part of their baggage, the religion of
Islam, just as the English settlers in the thirteen colonies in North America
in 1607 and the years following took with them, as part of their baggage,
English law, with its political institutions as well as English customs, conventions
and traditions, including the precepts and practices of the Christian religion,
just as the early Greek settlers in their colonies on the coastline of Italy,
France and Spain took with them, as part of their baggage, Greek culture,
tradition and religious precepts and practices. As Will Durant, in his
monumental eleven volume treatise, titled The Story of Civilisation, vol. 11,
p. 127, tells us, these ancient Greek.
“colonies became greater than their mother cities, and
preceded them in the development of wealth and art. The real creators of Greek culture were not
the Greeks of what we now call Greece, but those who fled before the conquering
Dorians, fought desperately for a foothold on foreign shores, and there, out of
their Mycenaean memories and their amazing energy, made the art and science,
the philosophy and poetry that, long before Marathon, placed them in the
forefront of the Western world.”
One of the products of the Greek colonies on the Italian
coastline was Pythagoras (580-500 B.C.), generally acknowledged as the father
of both science and philosophy in Europe — his theorems and his theories of
numbers and proportion became the foundation of geometry, arithmetic and
algebra (the terms mathematics and philosophy were first used by him). He was born of Greek parentage in Samoa, a
Greek colony, and lived most of his life in Crotona, another Greek colony. The great Athenian oracle on philosophy and
political ideas, Plato (427-347 B.C.), took so much of his ideas from
Pythagoras. And the first written code
of law in Greek history originated in one of these colonies in 664 B.C.
The same feature characterised the colonies on the Mediterraneous coastline of North Africa
settled by the ancient Phoenicians and Greeks of which the largest and best-known
were Utica (Utique) and Carthage (both in present-day Tunisia) and Oea (Tripoli
in Libya), founded by Phoenicians in 1100 B.C., 813 B.C. and 900 B.C.
respectively, and Cyrene, founded in 641 B.C., by Greek settlers (Cyrene
together with four other Greek colonies, constitutes the province of Cyrenaica,
one of the three provinces of present-day Libya.) Like the English settlers in North America in
the 17th century and Greek settlers mentioned earlier, these Phoenicians and
Greek settlers in North Africa also took with them to their new settlements,
the civilisation, the habits, traditions, the political ideas, governmental
institutions and processes they had imbibed in their home countries.
*Professor Ben Nwabueze, a renowned constitutional lawyer, contributed
this from Lagos.
[i] Will
Durant, The Story of Civilisation, vol iv, pp. 155
[ii] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, vol. V. P. 343
[iii] Gibbon,
ibid, v., pp. 356 – 358
No comments:
Post a Comment