Re: Dear "Son of the Soil"

(Published Saturday, 13 December 2008)

When Allah created the Earth, it was empty; no indigene no settler. At that time, our great-grand-ancestors Adam and Eve (Adam and Hauwa) were ensconced in heaven. But for God’s Plan, the Earth would have remained empty and barren. But then the Devil, first claimant to the title of ‘indigene’ and ‘son of the soil’ in heaven, and who had been banished for arrogance, deceived our ancestors and caused their descent. And so it came to pass that Allah settled Adam and Eve on this Planet Earth. In essence, therefore, Adam and Eve were the first ‘settlers’ in history. Luckily, the place they first landed was empty, and no one could put up a claim to it and brand them ‘strangers’. All other creatures, if there were then any, were high up in their fastnesses. And these two settlers sojourned thereon, until they had Cain and Abel (Qabil and Habil). One murdered the other, murder most foul, and from then on the Earth has seen no peace. The phenomenon of ‘settling’ in other than one’s original habitat, country, town or village is as old as history itself. Prophet Yusuf (Joseph, upon whom be peace) was such a settler who made good: rising from prisoner to become Prime Minister of Egypt; Shaikh el Kanemi who rose from adviser to Shehu of Borno. Many other examples abound. Forget America, forget Canada and other nations that developed on the brow and sweat of ‘settlers’. Closer home, Lagos and Kano are what they are today (great metropolises) because of one thing only: their accommodation of others. Lagos is great in all ramifications. An example of its accommodation: just before the 2007 elections, many of the commissioners and top civil servants from other states who had served under the former governor moved over to their ‘ancestral’ states to contest for political offices. Lagos had accepted them that high up. Kano, which this writer knows better, started out as a state of Hausa who, according to the Kano Chronicle, had been long civilised they have a written record of all their Kings from Bagauda in 999 AD to the present. The Hausa have been very accommodating: though not necessarily according to this chronology the Kanuri came first, followed by the Fulani and their cattle. Then the Touareg, moving south from the Sahara Desert, came soon after. The Arab merchants and scholars followed. (For example, the great Sharif and Islamic scholar Shaikh Muhammad Al-Maghili of Tlemcen, now in Algeria, had ‘settled’ in Kano during the reign of Kano King Muhammadu Rumfa, who died in 1499 AD). The Nupe came next, as merchants and students and scholars. So did a great variety of other nationalities that came and settled in Kano over the centuries, creating their own little reminders of home: Zangon Barebare; Tudun Nufawa; Yakasai. This is what made Kano tick, and that has been the history of every great city and every great nation. And this can be replicated in every Hausa state: Katsina, Zaria, Sokoto, Minna, Bida, Lafia, Bauchi. Except Jos North. The ‘Hausa’ Diaspora comprises people of all nationalities swallowed under the term ‘Hausa’. Whereas here at ‘home’ (Nigeria and Niger Republic) Hausa-Fulani is the compound norm, the Greater Hausa Diaspora outside here includes Fulani, Kanuri, Nupe, Djerma (Zabarma of Niger Republic), their cousins the Songhay (who straddle the Niger Republic-Mali border), the Kwatakwali (Kotokoli) of Northern Togo, the Dagomba of Northern Ghana and may other Muslim types. This Hausa Diaspora (going east from Chad to Sudan to Ethiopia to Eritrea and on to Saudi Arabia; going west through Ghana and places further; going south through Cameroon, Central African Republic and Gabon) has not been a ‘settler’ community for nothing: some among their number have been a Prime Minister in one country; a Vice President in another; a Governor in yet another; several Tankos (Tanko being a typical Hausa name) have been ministers in countries such as Gabon and Cameroon. And to cap it all, a ‘Hausa’ has been muezzin (ladan) of the Great Ka’aba in Mecca. But he can’t be a local government chairman in Jos North. The very sad fact about the Jos crisis is that Hausa in Jos means Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Nupe and all other Muslim types. In fact, in a crisis such as this, Christian Hausa-by-association also become victim. We all remember, don’t we, the tragic story of one non-Hausa (but Hausa-speaking) Northern Pastor in one of the South Eastern States. When a few years ago riots broke out in the South East as reprisal for yet another crisis in these parts, this Pastor gentleman was set on by fellow Christians to avenge their kin killed elsewhere. Shouting and screaming that he was Christian like them and was not ‘Hausa’ did not help him any: he was told before he was murdered that he could not be ‘Christian’ as well as ‘Hausa’. He could well have been Berom; but in the eyes of many, you are ‘Hausa’ if you spoke it. Period. Such is how intertwined we all have become. Let us now hear other voices: Abdul Usman, Minna: I will like you to know that there were other tribes of the Northern Region that were killed innocently because of their names and religion. A Nupe man, Aliyu, was on his way back from a seminar in Bauchi State. Unknown to him, the Jos crisis was at its highest. On their arrival in Jos aboard a commercial taxi, the so-called indigenes stopped the driver and began asking the names of the passengers. Those with Hausa/Muslim-sounding names were told to remain in the vehicle while those with Christian names were spared and told to run into the nearby bush. The car and the Muslims (who were NOT SETTLERS but PASSERSBY) were set ablaze and roasted alive! Aliyu’s family in Minna called to find out if he was OK, because the news of the clash had already started spreading. The murderers of Aliyu (and also robbers of his phone) shamelessly answered the phone and told the family that they had just murdered the owner of the phone! Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un! Binta Shuaib: That was a good caption you got there. But you made reference to languages within the Middle Belt area as ‘Babel of Voices’. My brother read it first and got offended before I read it and similarly became offended. But I later said to myself, this guy is making a point here, but in some other way he is wrong. First, it isn’t a fault that we are Middle Beltans, and it takes a very perfect linguist or polyglot to speak and understand any of the various languages found within the zone. Your anger was posed specifically on the Berom people; please take it out on them, not on the entirety of the Middle Beltans. No reasonable human would hack down another’s brother or child or mother…Blame Jang! Blame his unrepentant government. Don’t let us go the way of Rwanda. What happened shouldn’t make you detest the average Berom man; still love him. God will do the punishing. Ibrahim Musa, Kano: You have unveiled the truth. The genocide in Jos is uncalled for. Tears ran down my cheeks and my heart bled. Plateau is a home in pieces, not a home of peace! Barrister Danlami Wushishi, Minna: I have lived in Jos since 2006 as a post graduate student, shuttling between Minna and Jos. I was in Jos when the February LG polls were aborted, to every one’s utmost amazement, at 7pm the previous night. I prayed that may Allah never return me to Jos during crisis. Allah answered my prayers because all my efforts to return to Jos before 28 November were thwarted by certain compelling reasons. I wish to suggest to the stake holders in Plateau State irrespective of religious creed to have a rethink and proffer a lasting solution to this problem; the root of which is the open animosity against perceived ‘settlers’. After all, most cities such as Kano developed with contributions of non-indigenes.