The Anglo-Fulani Joint Venture To Suppress Sovereignty In Nigeria
Ndidi Uwechue, 15 June 2024
Prelude:
In his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” (1972), Dr Walter Rodney mentioned the hijacking of Sovereignty. Sovereignty being a people’s right to determine and to pilot their future, a right to make the decisions that affect them in their ancestral land. He stated that one of the ongoing crimes of European colonialism (White Supremacy) in Africa was suppressing the Sovereignty of African peoples.
Citation:
Permission taken to take liberally from the podcast: Retake Your Sovereignty or Fulani Invaders will Grab It For Themselves: Fraud of 1999 Is Dead, LINK:
Fulani is marching into your space wherever you are in Nigeria because they have nowhere of their own. Their fathers, their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers were always looking towards there to create a Homeland. Mark the word “create”, and how do you create a Homeland for yourself? You DISLODGE the owners of that land, kill them off, VALIDATE yourself in that space and become the Sovereign. YOU TAKE OVER THE SOVEREIGNTY - what is Sovereignty? It comes from the land occupied by a DISTINCT people UNCHALLENGED by others. Therefore, if you are Yoruba dwelling in Yorubaland or you are Ijaw on Ijawland, that is what vests you with Sovereignty. It is the right to be in that space by yourself, to be the one that has to negotiate how you federate with other lands – that is your Sovereign right expressing the right to Self-Determination. When you are no longer able to do that because there is a supervening power it is described as a Suzerainty. That is when a foreign or an adverse Sovereignty or power imposes itself into your space.
When the British came to what would be Nigeria and set up governance there, they were a foreign entity with adverse interests to the natives, they had the power, just sheer military power by which they enforced their view, their will, their desires over and above whatever the Natives may have preferred for themselves. They began to govern. However, Sovereignty remained with the indigenous peoples, they did not exterminate them such that Yoruba was no longer to be found in Yorubaland, or that Ijaw was no longer to be found in Ijawland.
If the British objective in Nigeria was to take over the land permanently they could well have brought more of their own people, they could well have killed off quite a number of Natives to strengthen their hold. We can see that the Whites in South Africa are not going anywhere anymore. They have become part owners of the Sovereignty and they could have been whole owners if they were not challenged in the manner that the ANC and the other anti-Apartheid campaigners had done. Eventually they had to negotiate after fighting for 80 years under the Apartheid Constitution that was imposed by this Suzerainty – white-skinned foreigners who wanted to become the owners of all of South Africa over and above the Black indigenous peoples. So Nigerians are in that kind of situation in which there is an active attempt of land grabbing by the Fulani invading their spaces.
This is how it all began: Having imposed themselves in these parts, the British came by guile and deceit signing up Trading Treaties that became Protection Treaties that then became the hijack and confiscation of Natives’ Sovereignty. Eventually, when the British Crown took over from the Royal Niger Company there was a military force started by a Constabulary, West African Frontier Force, etc. Guns came in, governance began to be set up and in 1914 the Northern and Southern areas were merged to become Nigeria.
That Nigeria has the indigenous Nationalities, the Yoruba, Igbo, the Ogoni and everybody else who had been there for hundreds or thousands of years and were in their ancestral spaces, therefore Sovereignty belonged to them even at that time in 1914, even in the 1850s and 1860s Sovereignty belonged to them. What happened was that a foreign power supervened and suppressed their Sovereignty. The fight for Independence was to recover that Sovereignty: the right of ultimate power and ultimate control in their space. Meaning that you owned your land and everything underneath it and the control of the air above it. You would have ultimate control therefore of the governance structures you want in place. It would be your prerogative to set up the culture, the education, and infrastructure - whatever you want to be in place in that space is your prerogative on account of being the owner of the Sovereignty and the identified owner of the land. If the various peoples want to form a Union it must be the discussion between the owners of those various ancestral lands. All the indigenous Ethnic Nationalities wanting to be in Union bring their land. It is all about lands and peoples that will federate in a Union. It is all about the terms of that federating. It is all about the boundaries of responsibilities and duties, and all the powers that everybody will have. Those things are theirs to discuss and organise on account of their Sovereignties.
In Nigeria from the time the supervening invader foreign powers, first the Fulani Caliphate in the Northern part, then the British in the whole, then the Joint Venture between them: all the time they found ways to AVOID ANY DISCUSSIONS with the owners of Sovereignties. They carried forward what they first did in 1914, and through all the Constitutions that Nigeria has ever had. At no time did they discuss with the owners of the Sovereignty, the owners of the land because they set up a governance system that suppresses those owners.
The negotiations at Lancaster House to be one political Union of three federating units were sabotaged by the British so when they left in 1960 there was Incomplete Decolonization. The British were setting something up: they deceived Awolowo, Azikiwe, Enahoro, Tarka and everybody else. People thought that the British were leaving and therefore that Nigerians were taking over. However, the British left booby traps, creating structures that gave their Joint Venture partner the immigrant settler Fulani veto powers over Nigerians.
At Lancaster House each of the three Regions had its Constitution meaning that autonomy was in their hand, BUT their Sovereignty was not back in their hands because the British were still holding that Sovereignty. When those talks finished there was a pretense that Sovereignty had been handed back, but what they gave to Nigerians was bogus because it was to Ahmadu Bello-Caliphate that the British handed the baton since the guns that were supposed to have been put behind those three Regions were left at the command of the one that the British had empowered to form government. Thus, by rigging and guile the British did not hand Sovereignty back to the owners of the land, but made the Fulani overlords of Nigerians, with the guns therefore in their hands. So, although the Regions had autonomy, without control of guns they could not defend themselves against any aggression that might come. While Nigerians were busy building up their Regions, the Fulani with the gun is sitting and watching, and any day he wants to he attacks.
The British created a structure where the Northern Region of the time had 55% of the Parliamentary seats leaving 45% for the two Southern Regions that became three in 1963 when the Midwestern Region was created. This meant that at every point the North could take a decision in Parliament almost without consulting anybody else. There were also flawed characters from the South who would sabotage what was in the best interest of their people.
This backdrop needs to be understood so that Nigerians can relate properly with the workings of the ongoing Fulani Conquest Agenda. It is to never allow the owners of the land, the owners of the Sovereignties that are conscripted into the Nigerian Union to discuss that Union and how they will relate, which is how an authentic Constitution is obtained, for, a Constitution is a Union Agreement.
Those today asking for a return to the 1963 Constitution should NOTE that in 1963 there was the pretense that it was the Ethnic Nationalities that had empowered the Parliament of the time to make the 1963 Constitution. That was deceitful because Parliament cannot make any legitimate Constitution. Parliament does not have the powers to make Constitution. It was on account of that Incomplete Decolonization of the British, giving Fulani domination over Nigerians that it was wrongfully left to remain the business of Parliament in Nigeria. Just like it is today, where the National Assembly continues to swindle Nigerians by discussing Constitution-making when they have no powers and no business to do so. The Constitution of 1963 was not a departure from 1960, it only accommodated one new Region, so the guns were still not given to the Regions.
It was because the Caliphate-led Central Government had monopoly of the guns that they were able to prevent Awolowo from rightfully being Nigeria’s first leader, and why Central Government could unlawfully suspend the Regional Constitution of Western Region which was the representation of their Sovereignty. So at that point, on 29 May 1962, the Caliphate suppressed the Sovereignty of the Yoruba. The commotion from the suspension of that Regional Constitution never abated, it led to massacres in various places, and the Biafra Genocide. Also, other massacres since then, and the current genocidal violence against the Middle Belt peoples as the Fulani Conquest Agenda against Nigerians that re-started in 1960, pushes on.
Thus, to reiterate, the British deliberately placed their Fulani agents in charge of everything: to have veto powers over everything, and to be in control of the guns. Therefore, even after Nigeria’s (flag) Independence the Sovereignties of indigenous Ethnic Nations continue to be suppressed, Constitutions continue to be imposed, so too rules and laws. All attempts by Ethnic Nationalities to get to a Sovereignty discussion are foiled or ignored. The nearest that came to meaningful discussion was at Aburi in 1967 and the main business that was to be transacted was the control of guns. At Aburi it was agreed that the Regions could now control their own guns, but on returning to Nigeria the British encouraged Gowon to unilaterally abandon the Aburi Accord, and to thereafter create a situation that would allow a violent take-over of the entire Nigeria but packaged as a civil war against Biafrans.
Today, Sovereignty is suppressed using the illegitimate 1999 Constitution, a fraud that conscripts indigenous Ethnic Nationalities into a Union by the falsehood that they submitted themselves to that Union. It is on account of having been so conscripted without their consent that they have lost their economic assets (natural resources) and are facing the Fulani Conquest Agenda.
The owners of the Sovereignties have organized themselves as NINAS to take back their Sovereignties and call for a discussion by the owners of the land that has thus far been avoided. This requires shutdown preparations to any further national elections under the 1999 Constitution to have time-bound Transitioning for Constitutional Renegotiation. Otherwise, official collapse of the Nigeria Union if needs be, if that is the only way to recover from being dispossessed, and if the only way to save themselves from being overrun by the invader Fulani.
Ndidi Uwechue is a British citizen with Igbo heritage from the Lower Niger Bloc. She is a retired Metropolitan (London) Police Officer, she is a signatory to the Constitutional Force Majeure, and she writes from Abuja.
NOTES
Much of the text for this article was taken from the Transcript of a NINAS podcast with Permission as stated in the Citation above. Here is that podcast:
Retake Your Sovereignty or Fulani Invaders will Grab It For Themselves: Fraud of 1999 Is Dead,
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