OODUA GROUPS WRITE SULTAN OF SOKOTO

 OODUA GROUPS WRITE SULTAN OF SOKOTO

Open letter to the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Said and the Fulani leaders

August 08, 2019

The Sultan of Sokoto and Fulani Leader
His Eminence Alhaji Abubakar Sa’ad

THE STATE OF THE NATION
We write this letter to you considering your importance as the head of the Fulani people in Nigeria. You are also the head of Fulani Muslims in Nigeria. It is our hope that you will be able to share the thoughts expressed here with the 7 million Fulani people in Nigeria through your traditional means of communication.

We write to honour you with this letter, given the floundering opportunities for a dialogue on the future of Nigeria, which has eluded the various ethnic groups in Nigeria and which may not enhance itself too soon.

Given the drumbeats of armed violence and extremism perpetrated largely by your people, and the fleeting prospects of a national dialogue, we hope this letter will not be the last opportunity to constructively engage you and the Fulani nation.

We, on behalf of Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA), a coalition of several Itsekiri, Edo and Yoruba groups write with our deepest feelings about the Nigerian state and what appears to be the pitfalls that lay ahead, most of which are oiled and orchestrated by your own people, the Fulani, albeit consciously.

THE PAST

There was no history of Fulani in today’s territory until 1804. This was 800 years after the Yoruba Kingdoms had been established, about 600 years after the Hausa, Ijaw, Tiv, Igala, Junkun Kingdoms had flourished. The Igbo Nation had existed for centuries before your people wandered into this hemisphere.
We recall that your forebears came to power through brutal and bloody conquest of indigenous peoples in many parts of Northern Nigeria under the guise of Islam even though Islam had taken firm roots in Yorubaland, Kano and Bornu Empires as early as the 11th century.

Since your sojourn in Nigeria, you have been very lucky.

A whole country of over 300 ethnic groups, was handed over to you a foreigner, first through the conquest of some of its part, you, who never owned an inch of land centuries earlier in this hemisphere.

You have reaped the fruits which trees you did not plant and you knew not when they were planted.

Moreso, you were from a family of wanderers and your emergence as Emir and the traditional ruler was unusual, having no royal blood in your veins ab initio.

No doubt, You succeeded in taking over the land, the main means of production of these innocent peoples whose main offence was that they were too caring, too gentle, too subservient and accommodating of foreigners in their ancestral homeland, Today, you sit on a throne soaked with the blood of millions of innocent souls anguished with deafening ears to the agony of the spirit of millions of victims of the horrendous killings by your men, who came from Fouta Jallon in Senegal, only some 210 years ago.

The British left in 1960 and you emerged as the main benefactor even though your people were not known to have fought for independence.

You were wise enough to plant your people in the security institutions, a reflection of your preference for force and brigandage instead of a knowledge-driven society.

Through direct military intervention or subterfuge, sly plots, you have been ruling Nigeria or determining who rule Nigeria since 1960. This is rare luck that only courageous people can manage for some time, but needs wise, intelligent, decent and conscientious people to manage for a millennium.

Under the false, artificial creation called Nigeria, your people produce no oil, yet you appropriate and decide how the resources should be expended.

You have no access to the Ocean, yet you decide which goods should be imported and which vessel should ply routes that indigenous owners of this God-given oceans had been using for centuries.

All the military weapons were bought not by your money, but you decide who should use them and who should be killed by the same weapons. You have no rich scholarly tradition, yet your people sit on the Nigerian Universities Commission, (NUC) and decide the faith of other Nigerians.

You located all the military institutions in your land, more out of fear than out of love for justice and fair play.

90 percent of Nigerian resources are sourced from the South and Middle Belt, yet you decide how the funds should be spent. Did you think this irresponsible way of life will continue for ever? Did your people think we are foolish and even if we are, did you think coming generations will accept this brazen exploitation? We have called for dialogue on these issues, but you call it treason.

The truth is that you have grossly mismanaged this opportunity. Your ruinous and destructive tradition has robbed on all Nigerians. Your intuition for aggression has become a national culture. Your disdain for debate and logical criticisms has been imbibed by Nigerians who continue to gravitate towards the custodians of political power, whose way of life must be imbibed for recognition.

You have ruined and destroyed this whole nation at your beckon due to your exclusive, narrow, primordial and savage instincts driven only by your self interest and your brutal and non-negotiable desire to conquer and subdue every nationality in Nigeria. This is a tall task which you are hell bent in executing.

THE INVASION OF YORUBALAND BY FULANI HERDSMEN

We like to caution you on your latest antics to renew your grand 1804 design to conquer the entire country, not through ideas but through the most savage tradition of killings and maiming.

This to us is at the bottom of the current Fulani kidnapping in Yorubaland. We wish to inform you that we are aware of your grand plan to renew a project done half way and put on mute mode since the defeat of your forces in 1840 by the Yoruba Army.

We are worried that you and your Fulani people have been suspiciously silent on the kidnapping of Yoruba people, the killing of our young professionals including the killing of the daughter of a prominent Yoruba leader.

We were not surprised that you and the other Fulani leaders did not consider it necessary to send condolence messages or even visit the family of the slain woman. This can only mean your tacit approval or at least, a philosophy of cold compromise.

Please be aware that in the past two years, records show that 689 Yoruba people have been kidnapped by your people, Fulani, about 400 reported cases of rape, including rape of toddlers. Out of this number of the kidnapped, 356 were women, and out of that number, 250 were married women.

In all, 112 people were killed by your Fulani people either for resisting kidnap or for failing to pay ransom. This may mean nothing to you, but to us, it means a lot.

We urge you to imagine a group of armed Yoruba cocoa farmers storming forests in Kano, Katsina and Sokoto, kidnapping Fulani people, raping their young girls and even killing the daughter of an Emir or a prominent Fulani leader? Can you also imagine the same heavily armed Yoruba cocoa farmers occupying your forests, stopping your people from farming and preventing your people from plying the highways in their ancestral homes?

To make the matter worse, imagine the armed Yoruba cocoa farmers carry out these terrible crimes under the banner of a Yoruba man as the Nigerian President. How will you feel?
As it is, your people, the Fulani are digging their hands down our throats. They are entering our bedrooms and sleeping with our mothers and wives. These actions are not only against Islam, they are against humanity.

These latest actions plus our experiences in the past have combined to renew the energy of millions of Yoruba people who want a country of their own. Either you like it or not, this will happen. God, before whom you and your big crown are like but a filthy rag, will make it happen.

We urge you to prepare your self to dialogue or if you chose the path of violence, there will be proportional response. Having Yoruba or Igbo Republics is something you do not wish to hear, but which is imminent and inevitable.

Please be aware that the Yoruba do not begrudge your values and the ways of your living, all we are saying is that we want to live our lives, design our political and cultural architecture, live and die on our own terms.

The forthcoming Yoruba Republic will be glad to accommodate righteous Fulani people who respect our civilisations and the laws of our fatherland.

We wish to use this opportunity to advice you and your people to be aware that you have no power to conquer Yoruba Nation. Your forebears tried and failed. Your military and political surrogates tried, marked with killings, maiming and destruction of our economy, yet they failed.

We ask you to instruct your people, the armed Fulani herdsmen to withdraw from Yoruba territories and on their own, mop up the cache of arms and ammunition stored in Yoruba territories.

Sir, the Yoruba people stand for peace and not war. We would prefer these issues to be resolved amicably without firing any gun shot. But, we wish to say that if your heart remains rebellious and your soul defiant, the Yoruba people are not afraid to confront you once again the way we did some 175 years ago, this time in the most ferocious manner you can ever imagine. It is necessary to let you know this even though we are aware that you will not change the conquest desires of your heart.

We wish you a happy Salah and Allah’s wisdom to know and do what is right.
Yours Sincerely,
Col Abimbola Sowumi (rtd)

Mallam Salau Ahmed Akorede
For Apapo Oodua Koya, (AOKOYA)
The Yoruba self-determination group

{COPIED FROM https://www.facebook.com/biafradigest/}

THE FULANI TERRITORIAL CONQUESTS

This is why history must be taught in our schools. Those who neglect History are bound  to repeat the mistakes of the past.  Please read below and learn.    BEWARNED!!!!!!!

The Gross influx of Fulani herdsmen presently and now calls for the sharing of this history.
By John. (All JUKUNS SHOULD READ THIS.)

The story is told of how King Yunfa, the Hausa Sarki in Gobir (now called Sokoto) hosted a Fulani immigrant called Usman Dan Fodiyo and his group in February 1804, as a result of this and since 1808 the whole of the northern region lost its kingdoms and were replaced by Fulani emirates.

King Yunfa is said to have been killed in 1808 and the Fulani warrior (Usman Dan Fodiyo) established Sokoto caliphate, making himself Sultan.

Gradually, other Hausa kingdoms were pillaged and taken over by the Fulani emirs. The ethnic groups in the core north were the first victims of Fulani imperialism, a venture that occurred because the people were given access to grazing land as a result of the hospitality of the hosts.

They however failed to overrun the Bornu and Jukun kingdoms  , so the Shehu of Bornu and Aku Uka  remains paramount till  today!

The Afonja dynasty compromised by allowing a Fulani warrior known as Janta Alimi to settle in Ilorin, the Fulani guerrillas killed Afonja in 1824

And Ilorin, a Yoruba town under the Oyo empire, fell into Fulani hands, becoming an emirate under Sokoto caliphate till today! Even the attempts of the O'odua People's Congress (OPC) to revert to status quo ante and crown an Onilorin of Ilorin became an exercise in futility.

The Yoruba warriors got wise and defeated the Fulani jihadists in Osogbo in 1840, if this didn't happen there would most likely have been Fulani "emirs"  as rulers in Oyo Alaafin, Ibadan, Owo, Osogbo, Ede, Ado, and Igede Ekiti today!

If the Bini Kingdom did not fight and repel the jihadists, they would have penetrated the Edo/Delta region beyond the present day Edo North Senatorial District which gave in and allowed the jihadists to overrun & islamize them.

Along with some ignorant folk most of them are now angling for grazing areas and a corridor through the entire federation. These grazing areas will in future become Fulani settlements, later communities and finally local government areas with elected officials.
If you think I am being alarmist look towards the once beautiful and serene Middle Belt state of Plateau.

The exact same thing happened in Jos.

Therefore, it will not be farfetched to conclude that the Fulani herdsmen are pawns in an agenda to overrun all towns in Nigeria! So that we will have emirs in Owerri, Enugu, Benin, Agatu,Wukari, Abeokuta and other towns where FG creates "grazing reserves" for Fulani herdsmen!

If Yunfa didn't accommodate Fodio and his warlike immigrants from Futatoro, Hausa sarkis would be ruling today in the north!

And if Afonja didn't conspire with Alimi, a Yoruba kingdom would not have been ruled by Alimi's offspring till today!

It is a subtle continuation of the 1804 Fulani jihad by the fully-armed and protected Fulani herdsmen with an age-old agenda to overrun and Islamize the whole of Nigeria very quickly.

I will end this with what someone rightly said- "The grazing bill is not an attempt to solve the problem, it's a subterfuge to progress the agenda"

It's an age-old political strategy really- ..create a problem, come up with a "solution" that advances the cause, and then give it a legal backing.
Make it look like a win-win situation.

Be as wise as serpents....

Spread this message for people to be aware.

"They were not even born when the war happened."

A good number of Igbos, and I dare add, other young Nigerians, are totally not understanding Nigeria as it is right now. It is not enough to make dismissive remarks like "They were not even born when the war happened." Or remarks like "They don't understand what they're asking for."

Make them understand. That is, if you understand what you're asking them to understand. If it makes sense to you. It even gets more annoying when you hear the older ones, the actors and spectators of the unfortunate war, urge the younger ones to learn from history.

According to Osibanjo, "experience is the best teacher for a fool. History is a much gentler teacher.'
I agree.

But comments like that could even draw the ire of the young ones who have today been denied history classes in school.

Who keeps a people ignorant of their history? But even more annoying is the fact that those who urge this learning have themselves not only failed to learn from experience, but have bluntly refused to learn from history, the much gentler teacher.
And what is there to learn? What is there to understand?

• That a boy from Anambra State aspiring to get some education at the prestigious Unity schools has to score about 139 marks in the entrance examination while his counterpart, perhaps even his classmate or neighbour from Zamfara State would only have to score 4 marks

• And that it takes an even weirder turn when they're done with school, at which point the Zamfara boy would have over 80% more chance at a federal job than the 80% more studious boy from Anambra. How do you explain that to a young Nigerian so that he may understand?

• How can they understand that a State like Kano, created at about the same time as one like Lagos, has about 44 local govt areas while Lagos State has a paltry 20 constitutionally recognized local govt areas. Bear in mind that Kano state has long been sub divided into two states of Kano and Jigawa. Jigawa alone has 27 LGAs of its own.
• You can say that the old Kano State has 71 LGAs while Lagos still lags behind with 20. And that the entire South East of five states has only about 94 local govt areas? Did it strike you that the South East is the only region still dawdling with five states? It would not have mattered of course if the National cake wasn't shared on the basis of local governments. Only if it was baked on that same basis. How would any young person without a brain for understanding twisted things get this?

• How can they understand that in the present Govt, the entire South East has no representation in the security body of the country. So when the security chiefs sit to discuss security, the primary role of any govt, there is nobody from the entire SE region in attendance. How can anyone understand this.

• How can even a gentle teacher make anyone understand that a South South youth would die for daring to steal crude oil from what used to be his fertile and arable farmland, while his Northern counterpart can freely mine minerals from his backyard. We only get to hear anything about it when lead poisoning begins to ravage communities.

• How do you understand that we have Petroleum Equalization Fund which ensures that petroleum products get to the people in the North at the same price at which it gets to those in the South but we do not have Tomato Equalization fund or Carrot Equalization Fund to trim the cost for people in the South? Break it down for me so that I may understand since I didn't witness the war.

• How do you break down the brazen massacres of Igbos, Christians and other innocent Nigerians any time the North wakes up from the wrong side of the Asuku Ezra: bed? Or when an artist draws a denigrating sketch of Mohammed in countries some of the victims have never heard of? Or when a group of girls decide to bare their bodies in beauty pageants? Or when a man cannot win elections? Or when a farmer must till his farmland? Or just about when anything...just unbelievable impunity. And no one ever gets justice.

• But we can start by explaining how Katsina State alone just got allotted more slots that the entire SS, than the entire SW, than the entire SE, than the entire N.Central in the ongoing (or is it completed?) recruitment by the DSS.

And a host of flustering matters.

So what is it you want History to help you teach? That the oppressed should stay calm and "ask nicely" like Obasanjo put it? They should ask nicely for their share of a piece of cake jointly baked by all? They should treat Nigeria with love like Obasanjo again suggested. It shouldn't matter that they get only rebuffs in return. I don't blame Obasanjo. It's probably the way he knows love and reconciliation...one sided. Any wonder his daughter would literally disown him publicly?

I listened to all the speeches made at the Biafra@50 event. They were all rich in flowing grammar, beaming with rhetorics but glaringly bare on commitment. Nobody but Nwodo dared point a way out. Osibanjo's speech had no mention of restructuring, something I can bet my last finger that he believes in. It would seem like we don't want to find a way out of our predicament yet.

Make no mistake, the clamour for Biafra is getting more tumultuous by the day that I fear that the voices of some of us preaching 'restructure' may soon be drowned.

And this house may come crash

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COPIED  FROM FACEBOOK  (

Benjamin Chinwendu )

Biafra: The Southeast Igbo Did Not Kill Ahmadu Bello

 Biafra: The Southeast Igbo Did Not Kill Ahmadu Bello By SKC Ogbonnia

The recent quit notice issued by the Arewa Youths to the Igbo (or rather the “South-Easterners”) residing in Northern Nigeria has provoked peppering opinions. But there is a cogent reason to take it easy on the innocent youths. They are plainly the victims of gross distortion of national history that began during the civil war but is today causing more harm than any good intended.

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by SKC Ogbonnia Jun 28, 2017

The recent quit notice issued by the Arewa Youths to the Igbo (or rather the “South-Easterners”) residing in Northern Nigeria has provoked peppering opinions. But there is a cogent reason to take it easy on the innocent youths. They are plainly the victims of gross distortion of national history that began during the civil war but is today causing more harm than any good intended. 

First and foremost, the provocative quit notice would not have come to pass if the Arewa youths had any clue that the South-South zone, the thin thread that currently holds Nigeria together, boasts of many parts of Igboland, including such big cities as Asaba and Port-Harcourt (formerly Iguocha). The gullible youths were basically acting the script of the government of the day that is crudely attempting to re-write the history to decree the Igbo nation merely as the “landlocked” Southeast political zone—as if the Hausa-Fulani people are limited to the Northwest political zone.

Instead of inundating the polity with bogus threats of arrests, the government might as well make hay of the ignorant proclamation by the Arewa Youths to educate the younger generation the true Nigerian history. The true history will teach them that, besides the Southeast, there is a large natural Igbo settlement in the North Central and South-South zones. The gained knowledge can help them to come to terms with the objective fact that Ohaneze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural group in Nigeria, for example, is historically constituted and led by the native Igbo from seven states, including Delta and Rivers States.

The most nauseating duplicity, however, is that the Igbo political leadership aids and abets the federal plot to marginalize the Igbo nation squarely to the Southeast. Notice, for instance, how they succumbed to ensure that all consultations with the federal government since the quit notice were limited to the ‘red caps’ from the Southeast. But the raison d'être is not difficult to fathom. Such errant politicians are the prime beneficiaries of the Nigerian corrupt enterprise and thus afraid that perceived opposition to the federal conspiracy could draw the ire of the anti-corruption agency against them. The following but dizzying claim by the Igbo governor of Delta State, Ifeanyichukwu Okowa, adequately tells this story:

“Biafra agitation, we criticize it. Anioma land as it is said, was part of Bendel State; we were part of the Midwest State, we have not been part of the South East. So obviously, we cannot be said to be part of them (Biafra). We may speak a similar language, but we are not part of the South East. We were part of the Mid-West, now we are Deltans.”  Hmmm…
Okowa’s statement is not only furiously spacious but also grossly grotesque. This explains why it is imperative to educate the governor along with the Arewa youths by exhuming here the tragic history that Chukwuma Nzeogwu, the leader of the coup cited by the Arewa youths as the ringing reason for the deep hatred on the Igbo, and the very man most closely linked with the death of the political totem of the North in Ahmadu Bello, is not from the Igbo Southeast—but from the Igbo South-South in the present Delta State where Okowa himself is the governor. Needless to remind the moronic governor that the “Midwest” location of his “Anioma land” did not prevent the federal side from inflicting the most gruesome genocide of the war in the area. The Igbo was the Igbo then and still today. Thus, the long-standing scapegoating of the Southeast Igbo based on the Biafran experience is a paradox.

All these go without saying that the ongoing propaganda by the federal authorities to isolate the current Biafran agitation to the Southeast is a serious security gamble. The truth is that the Biafran struggle has never been a solely Southeast affair. Besides millions of Igbo South-South people, including Nzeogwu, the non-Igbo from the South-South zone naturally played or have continued to play important roles. The government must recognize that mere lies are not sufficient to dampen the stake of millions of ordinary South-South people who subscribe to the Biafran cause, including the likes of the spunky Ijaw High Chief Asari Dokubo.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the Coalition of Niger Delta Agitators swiftly responded to the quit notice given to the Igbo by issuing their own quit notice to the Northerners living in the South-South zone. Although the government is, interestingly, doing its best to undercut the Niger Delta threat, such counter ultimatum from the Niger Delta youths is whistling reminder that the attempt to separate the Igbo Southeast from their kith and kin in the South-South in the current crisis is gibberish.
Vladimir Lenin famously said that, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”, which is sadly true. But a nation built on a cacophony of lies is a sizzling time bomb. Perhaps one can grasp the idea of implementing a divide and conquer policy—glossed with false history—to end the civil war. But to continue to peddle such fallacy as facts in the present-day Nigeria is a poisoned chalice.

Often said is that the younger generation from the East did not experience the war and thus ought to shut up. But that admonition is mistaken. The harsh economic condition and the obvious lack of equity in the land, which is attributed to the Biafra, have combined to push the Eastern youths to dig deeper in their research on the war. They are finding the bitter truth. They have found a pattern of state conspiracy to obliterate their history, which has become synonymous with Biafra. They are angry and rightly so.

They are angry at the mean-spirited strategies adopted by successive governments to undermine development and job opportunities in the East—from the Abandoned Property saga, man-made landlocking of the Southeast, and lack of viable seaports and international airports in the region. These Eastern youths are perplexed why the tribes in the entire South are being balkanized into hostile units while any semblance of bond in the Northern Region is religiously guarded.

Their findings thus far are right on the nose but obliquely incomplete. A further study will reveal to the Eastern youths that their worst enemy are the local politicians who connive with federal authorities against the region. Similarly, instead of targeting the Igbo who have contributed immensely in the development of the North, the true enemy of the Arewa youths are the Northern politicians who have for several decades hoarded political power as well as huge individual wealth; yet their region is the most impoverished in the country.

Clearly, both the Northern and the Eastern youths have a common enemy in the political elites. Therefore, instead of divisive rhetoric and vile hatred, the posterity beckons on the Nigerian masses—from east, north and west—to unite and explore democratic ways of ousting the corrupt oligarchy that has continued to cling onto power through mass deceit. True.

SKC Ogbonnia writes from Houston. You can reach him at SKCOgbonnia1@aol.com.
http://saharareporters.com/2017/06/28/biafra-southeast-igbo-did-not-kill-ahmadu-bello-skc-ogbonnia