What my sister told me about the Fulani - part 1

The Fulani armed herders are the biggest problem Nigeria has currently.

My sister has never lived in the north of Nigeria, so how does she know the Fulani relatively well? She alternates her life between Ibadan, Lagos and Abeokuta, where she comes from. The Fulani armed herders are the biggest problem Nigeria has currently. Everybody in Nigeria hates them, and they hate everybody. Everybody fights them, and they fight with everybody. They are accused of every evil imaginable. Their cows eat up the crops of every farm they drive their cattle through, they herd their cattle with AK-47, and nobody can call them to question, even though carryingAK-47 is not lawful in the country. They rape their neighbours anywhere they find themselves, they kill their neighbours and they are suspected of wanting to grab the lands of their neighbours, they are labelled Jihadists who in the guise of spreading Islam want to establish a kingdom. It was religion they gave as a reason before they conquered the Hausa and established a kingdom over them. They are said to be subtle, deceitful and unforgiving. Hurt a Fulani man today, and he can wait for the next hundred years to take vengeance, and when he takes vengeance, it is very destructive, it is alleged and confirmed by Fulani who have settled and become educated and political leaders in the country.

My sister lives in Abeokuta in a place called Randa, on the outskirts of the city, so called because the suburb sits near a roundabout. There also live many Fulani. According to my sister, who started her story not knowing my desire to know these Fulani, that is on the lips of all Nigerians, the Fulani live in the bush, and it is the city that expands to meet them wherever they live. Each time the city expands to where the Fulani live, they will, like the Gwari of the middle belt, move further into the forest. That is the story of "Randa." The Fulani had been there because it was a thick forest, but when Abeokuta expanded to meet them, they pushed into the bush until there was no forest to move to again. So they are settled. They know they didn't own the place, but nobody buys land in the bush, and so they live there until people began to buy land in the bush.

Whatever my sister has to offer became of interest to me because of my quest to know about these people who are called bandits among the Hausa with whom they live in the North West and North East, who have ravaged the Middle Belt states of Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba, who are in the East and South West and everywhere fighting with farmers; anything anybody has to offer will interest my curiosity. I listened with rapt attention as my sister narrated her story. She had lived among them, she had put up a building near them and is a teacher to their children, she sells stuff to them, she became friendly to their wives and husbands and even the children. She watched their culture, marriage and children's upbringing and their devotion to their cattle, which they rear as their only occupation, their cuisine and how they prepare it, their communal relationship, their relationship with modern lifestyle, especially western education, their devotion to the Islamic religion, and so many other things. She has become an anthropologist of sorts without knowing it.

An elder among them had erected a modern house at Randa where his family, nuclear and extended, live. The building was so modern that the Yoruba in Randa wondered who had erected the building. It was a bungalow where the man's two wives and the man lived. Soon, his younger brother joined him in the compound, and then another one who had three wives joined as well. He erected his building within the larger compound. He had four rooms, all of them without windows. The three wives live in three rooms while the husband lives in one. Although without windows, the rooms are beautiful to behold in traditional furnishing. Each room has a bed brought by the wife as she comes to her husband's house in marriage. The room is also exquisitely furnished by the wife with plates and china wares and a calabash, well decorated with carvings. These are pasted to the walls with cellotape. A well-decorated and flowery bedspread adorns the bed. Each room has a wall fan. The rooms of the elder brother have windows in a modern way, and each has a ceiling fan. The man moves into the room of any wife of his choice at night for conjugal companionship.

No Fulani man is found in the house during the day. They are all out during the whole day working. They are in Kara, the market where they sell their cattle. Only their wife and young children are in the house. This gives a picture of the Fulani as quite hardworking. The wives at home do nothing. But that is changing. The wives engage in animal husbandry, too. They rear goats and sheep. They also keep fowls. But they don't eat meat. "What do they do then with the sheep and fowls which they rear?" I asked? "They go to the market every market day to sell them, but when it is a major festival, it is their husbands who help them to sell them because they know the operational market rate at those times," she replied. "What do they do with the money since it is their husbands who take care of the household, as I supposed, I asked?" I was wrong, she told me, "the husbands do not take care of the household, the wives spend this money they made from their sales to run the house. The husband's once in a while, can buy things for the home from the Kara market, which they give the wives to prepare." This gives the women out as not just an indolent type waiting for the husband to run the whole home. The husbands have learned to eat meat from the Yoruba who sells food at Kara market. They buy food from food vendors with meat and "ponmo" - cooked cow skin. But when they get home at night, their wives serve them food without meat except on occasions when the husband buys little meat and brings it home to be cooked.

“Do the wives farm?” "They don't, but the children do. The wives fetch firewood. Although the husbands buy coal-pots for the wives, they seldom use them. They prefer firewood and go out every day to gather it. They stack them in their kitchens, which are built within the compound. Although there is a modern-day kitchen built within the house, the wives don't use them, they prefer the traditional kitchen outside the house. Each wife brings her mortar from her father's house as part of the utensils she brings to her new home. They pound a lot, always pounding one thing or the other, which they use in preparing their soups. Off-season, the husband buys bags of maize and other grains.” "What about quarrels between husbands and wives?” "None. Fulani marry among their relatives like Abraham in the Bible. And this prevents any quarrel. Their eating habit also show a high degree of camaraderie. Each wife brings her food to be eaten by everybody. And after the first wife, followed by the second wife and the third, if they are up to three or more. That I think guarantees confidence." “What about divorce?” "Yes, there is divorce. I have seen one. A woman who is divorced, which happens when the husband is irresponsible, returns to her father's house with all the things she brought into the husband's house, bed and beddings and all the decorations which she will take to the next husband when she eventually remarries." Interesting! It's not the woman who gives herself a husband; it is the parents who give her one. "I have also witnessed a case where a woman has lost three husbands to death. I asked them if that woman fell from her mother’s back when she was a baby. They took a deep interest. I did not know they had a similar culture to the Yoruba that if a daughter falls from her mother's back when she was young, she will lose her husband to death. They were surprised to know that the Yoruba have a similar culture. This particular woman, whose husbands have been dying, is from a prominent and rich parentage, and so she’s not found it difficult to remarry. Everybody wants to marry into that family."

"The Fulani procreate a lot. They tell you they could marry up to four wives as allowed by Allah in their Islamic religion. And there is no end to how many children a woman can bear. Except that a woman is stopped by a doctor, she goes on bearing children. One can have twelve children. They give birth at home. The woman in labour is taken into the room by the senior wife, who is the midwife. Only when the birth is complicated do they go to the hospital. Once the doctor tells them to stop childbearing the woman stops with the husband's cooperation. The typical Fulani family can be very large." “What effect does that have on modern living ?” "Very significant effect, especially in these current times when everything is scarce. It affects schooling. The Fulani don't encourage their daughters to go to school. And the girls can be very brilliant. I had three girls I taught. They were very brilliant. I had to go and beg their father to allow them to continue school. But he pleaded as the mates of those girls were already mocking them, asking what kind of school they were going to when all their contemporaries had married. They marry the girls off very early. While I was pleading, unknown to me, the girls were married off. You can see a boy in Junior Secondary School who has already gotten married, but is still in school. They marry very early."

“What about the males?” I asked. "I know some who attended a private school. No matter what standard you set, if it conflicts with their cattle-rearing, your standard will not be obeyed. If you say exams are starting the next day and their father says they are herding the cattle off to some distant place, they will boycott your exams. When they come back and you are ready to set exams for them, they will do it, but if you are not ready to bend your rules, too bad." This was the problem with the nomadic education fashioned out during the era of late Professor Jubril Aminu as Minister of Education. Jubril Aminu, himself a very brilliant medical doctor, who cleared all the prizes in his class at the University of Ibadan, and a very clear example that many among the Fulani have great intellectual potential, but are being wasted holding on to cattle-rearing. How possible it is for anybody to learn while following a herd of cattle everywhere in the thick forest is a mystery, except to late Prof Jubril Aminu and his co-travellers. At the end of the day, the scheme failed. Jubril Aminu had only extended his tribal bigotry without giving good thought to what could work. As shown here, many potentially great Fulani are being lost to cattle-rearing. Even many of them who could have been great ranchers are lost to cattle-rearing, which is now a source of anarchy to the country. According to my sister, the Fulani in Randa can drive their cattle as far as the Republic of Benin.

Except there is a well-fashioned policy, of course supported by the settled Fulani to encourage these potentially great Fulani who are being lost to outdated cultural practices, which leaves them perpetually in the bush to the companionship of brutal animals, the country will never tap their great potential. According to my sister, "each time they are to embark on that journey, you see them strap a sword to their arms with leather. In other words, they are prepared to battle to the death with any animal that may cross their paths as they navigate the jungle. Imagine now, when such fierce men who have conquered fierce animals are given AK-47s by enemies of the nation, who want to use them to foment trouble to gain political power, that they don't know what to do with them. Until this particular problem is solved, and the great potential of the Fulani males and females is unleashed to join those of others in the country to move the nation forward, we will continue to have trouble in the country. No prayer will heal this kind of trouble. We must agree that we are cheating these great Nigerians by keeping them in the bush while others are in the cities studying in the universities.

Culture is dynamic. A cultural practice that has become antiquated must be jettisoned. We should ask, why are the educated Fulani who have become great because of education holding big positions of responsibility in society and sending their wards into prestigious universities abroad, think the best they can do for their brothers is to keep them in the forest? This is wicked and unforgivable.

We will continue in part two.

Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos