An Elder statesman, Ben Nwabueze has weighed in on the recent proposition of Cattle Colonies by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Nwabueze says that President Buhari is using the ‘Cattle Colony’ idea to pursue a Fulani Supremacy agenda. He warned that establishing these colonies will aggravate the Farmer/herdsmen crisis.
In a statement released on Tuesday in Enugu, titled ‘President Buhari should not lure us into the deadly trap of establishing cattle colonies for Fulani herdsmen in every state of the federation’, Nwabueze said that the proposition was basically settling Fulani Herdsmen in all parts of the country, warning that there would be serious political and religious implications.
“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 forebear, 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 Muslim claiming to be divinely directed, with utter disdain for democracy, and with the Sharia as the supreme governing law; the non-Muslim 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.”
He continued further;
“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 Hausa paid for their hospitality in granting access to grazing land to the Fulani immigrant settlers”.
