Follow Us on Google
Their claim is sinister. Indeed, detrimental to our collective existence and well-being. Trust them, they bother less. They maintain an eerie affirmation.
All the same, their assertion is hugely inimical. They have an unsettling history to their credit, advantage and favour. That, they avow with great intensity. They have been benefiting from it richly from ages past.
Now. You understand why the Fulani North is not at ease. They detest the current situation. It is even perceived in their weird imagination as unjust, unfair to them. They cry foul to high heavens.
They have “good” grounds to be so inherently aggrieved. There was this grand conspiracy dropped on their laps in 1946. On a gold platter, by the colonial overlords. They cherish this ominous scheme of the British with rich relish. They hold it dear to their bodies, souls and spirits. They aren’t prepared to let it go for anything.
But Chief (Mrs.) Tejumade Alakija exposed them. She graciously let us into that despicable secret unsolicited. Without any cost. It’s a prized but priceless discovery.
The dastardly project was to eternally lord the tiny Fulani tribe over the rest of us. Even the Fulani-enslaved Hausa were exclusively excluded. The rest of us were to be added to Hausa as endangered species. To be subjugated, suppressed. Explored and exploited.
The colonialists vowed to make this happen to us. Under their long noses and keen watch, they swore. Professor Banji Akintoye put an apt tag to the evil document: The 1946 British Scheme that Shaped the Future of Nigeria! No better label! He leads the Yoruba Nation Movement (YNM).
He tells here the story Alakija told him in faraway Philadelphia, USA, in 2013. Alakija was Ooni of Ife Oba Adesoji Aderemi’s oldest daughter. At the time she let out the cat. She was quite advanced in age. She couldn’t walk anymore.
She told her story with a heavy heart. She displayed it as much: “Banji, there is a story that I have needed to tell somebody since my youth that I have never told anybody but I must tell you now.”
It’s a fairly long story. But you won’t regret you read it: “The war (World War 2) came to an end in September 1945. In January 1946, I was offered admission into a girl’s college in London (UK).
“My father was able to pay the fees, but there was no way for me to get to London. In those days, there were no aeroplanes yet. Every journey to London had to go by boat.
“But all the boats leaving Nigeria and Ghana, the British colonies, were filled with British officials stranded in Nigeria since the beginning of the war in 1939, and returning home with their families. So, there was no place for anybody at all on any ship.
“And as I sat home weeping, my father decided to go and ask for the help of the Governor General. He went to Lagos, appealed to the Governor General on behalf of his little daughter who was crying at home. And the Governor General said, ‘Okay, I will see how I can help.’”
Akintoye picked it up from here: “A few days later, the Governor General called her father and told him, ‘your daughter has a place on a boat now to go to London.’ And so, she found herself on a boat going to London.
“She said the entire ship was filled with white people, British civil servants returning home with families. There was no room for any other person. But she then discovered after a few days that there were some other Nigerians on the boat!
“Five of them! And that all of them were Northerners; Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sir Tafawa Balewa, Alhaji Ribadu, Alhaji Inua Wada and Dipcha Rima.
“She became curious. She began to find out what they were going to do in London that other people from other parts of Nigeria were not entitled to go.
“She found that those people were being taken to London, where they were going to be briefed and educated and mentored about how to rule Nigeria; how to hold Nigeria in their hands after independence.
“That’s our story. The story of a country that was started deliberately with the intention of enthroning some people on it and it was the least educated, the least capable to run the affairs of a modern country that the British chose. And they chose them because they were the easiest to manipulate.
“Then came the events of the 1950s. The British became more and more convinced when they saw the stunning achievements of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region. That they would never let this man and his people rule Nigeria. Whatever had to be done would be done to prevent them from ever tasting power in Nigeria.
“That in the future of the country called Nigeria, it was determined that a people called the Fulani would rule Nigeria. That a people called the Yoruba would never taste power in Nigeria because they were too well educated.
“Every later event proved this story as true! Even after Awolowo died, Hansard, the confidential report of British Parliament, released the debate of Nigeria’s elections of 1959. The report admitted that Awolowo truly won the elections.
“But directives from the Parliament to the British Governor General, Sir James Robertson, was that Awolowo must not be declared winner! That the British would not accept Awolowo to create another Japan in Africa because he was capable of doing it.
“How the British colonial masters carried the instructions out was later broadcast only five years ago in a video interview of the officer put in charge of the rigging! That’s why our salvation is to opt out of the jinx called Nigeria or we’ll be enslaved forever!” Akintoye stopped at that.
This is startling and frightening. For the North, it’s a matter of life and death. They opted to stick to the baleful document. That explains their Kaduna gathering christened; The Government-Citizens Engagement Forum. It was put together by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABMF), Kaduna.
It was obvious on that Tuesday, July 29, 2025. The 1946 British hideous scheme must not derail. But kept alive, active, living and kicking.
They were taken aback how the scheme is becoming more and more difficult to implement. Just 69 years after! They came together to re-strategize, re-tune and possibly re-work it.
Things are not working as the 1946 scheme so intended. Things are speedily falling apart. The centre can no longer hold. And there’s no need for control. Because the situation is deeply under alarm. The North is scared of this stark reality.
At their gathering in Kaduna, they claimed all kinds of claims. They insisted they almost single-handedly installed President Bola Tinubu. And were angry he’s not doing their bidding.
We should not lose sight of this. In that all-important gathering. The North did not publicly speak with its so-called one voice. That’s quite noteworthy. It’s a pointer to what to expect in the nearest times to come.
A gulf was created. And it was massive. They couldn’t hide it. It was a breakthrough for the Tinubu presidency. They were divided. And they flaunted it in their discordant voices. A resemblance of the biblical Babel of voices. What a beauty of democracy!
The two divides dared each other. It was supposed to be a coterie. But it never was. What came out of it was the farthest cry from that. It became riotous. The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and the northern governors openly locked horns. They were at loggerheads. They didn’t pretend.
Other News
They washed their extremely dirty linen in the open. In fact, they made a public show of their festering differences. They did it to the delight of anyone who cared. And we did. We enjoyed every bit of it.
The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) suspected their intention. The forum wisely stayed off. It refused to get involved in matters that were strictly “core North.”
Its national president, Dr. Bitrus Pogu, neither showed up nor sent a representative. They gave the Kaduna assemblage a total blackout. They watched in amusement how they took themselves to the cleaners by themselves.
The main characters in the movie that played out: ACF chairman, Dalhatu, and Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State. They took the centre stage one time and the other. They were two opposing parallel lines.
Dalhatu was the first to pour out: “Northerners went out en masse on February 25, 2023, and cast their ballots for Tinubu. In the event, 5.6 million out of the total 8.8 million votes he got (or 64 per cent), came from the North.”
And what did the North get in return? Dalhatu: “And yet, two years into the four-year tenure of Tinubu, the feeling among the people of the North is, to put it mildly, completely mixed.”
But Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, stoutly rose to Tinubu’s defence. He violently threw one pertinent poser. That validates the big crack in their “one” North. He was honest enough: “The real question is, have we kept faith with our people as northern leaders?” Great doubt!
His verdict: “The North must rise and take charge of its own destiny.” He was on spot! The North should stop dreaming weird and wild dreams. They should stop having nightmares over the 1946 British scheme. Its end has come for good.
The North believes, wrongly of course. That they own the land. You would want to pity them for being resentful all the time. They have been under illusion this long past. They were pampered from the very beginning. The colonialists painted a picture of their superiority over the rest of us.
They were deceived. That they were the sole custodians of our collective power and commonwealth. They were deluded and utterly misled from the outset. That they were born to rule and govern.
It spurs the arrogance and pomposity that flow in their veins. In their utmost delusion, they lay perpetual claims to power. It has stuck as their trademark. When things don’t go their way. Even if only briefly, they run riot.
Throwing up funny narratives particularly marginalisation. They would want to call down fire on us. As if monopoly of violence resides in them exclusively. They forget to remember our immediate past.
For eight dark years, the late former President Muhammadu Buhari happened to us. He ruled, reigned and ruined us. And he confirmed it; from-top-bottom. The North neither blinked nor winked. Not even for a minute second. They enjoyed it when it lasted. All alone!
They coasted home with him. And practically urged him on. Any sign of resistance was deliberately misinterpreted. Erroneously dubbed “bloody” attempt to derail Buhari’s regime. Because he was a northerner! They made it a northern affair. Or better still, a Fulani affair, all through.
They carelessly cared less whose ox was gored. Even bruised or brutalised. One classical and telling instance stood out, tall: #ENDSARS protest it was! The bootlickers intentionally coloured it as an uprising against the North.
Sympathetic sycophants and do-gooders were even recruited from the South. Many feigned not to see beyond their short noses. Just for a cold pot of porridge. The rest belongs to a tragic and disturbing history.
The North lives in total and awful obsession. They feel deeply afflicted. Now, they desperately curry favour wherever they can secure one. And gasp for pity. It’s their lifeline. So they demonstrated.
We mustn’t oblige them. Or flatly to their inordinate cravings. It can come with high risk. Old habits die hard. It’s difficult to disengage the North from this mind set. They have lived it for 69 years. Passing it down from generation to generation.
They have drunk and imbibed it. It’s now very clear. Why Ahmadu Bello dreamt all his life to dip the Quran in the Atlantic Ocean in Lagos. All the way from Sokoto. His descendants are still adamant and unrelenting. They believe they owe Bello that obligation.
That’s the sordid and bitter seed of discord the greedy British sowed. It was never for the interest of the North. But for the avarice in-built in them. To loot and plunder our resources unabated. It was the easy manner of having their despicable way unchallenged.
The British hated the guts of the South. They detested their independent mind-set. They loathed with disdain their thought process and uncanny audacity. They knew they could not ride over the sophisticated South. The smooth way they ran over. And subjugated the North.
Their option was devastating: Put a huge wedge between the South and North. And keep them at loggerheads for life. Divide and rule; their usual stock in trade.
They went for the weakest vessel. And upgraded it far above its contemporaries. That way, they could have “peaceful reign and maximum economic gains.”
See where it has landed us. We debuted with insurgency, aka Boko Haram. We upped the game. The results: kidnapping, banditry, terrorism, et al, in that order. And still counting, far beyond expectations.
The colonialists would fester our weaknesses than harmonise our strengths. They would rather spotlight our differences. Than emphasise our similarities. Carrot and stick is the game. Manipulations and intrigues, their watchwords.
Till now, the colonialists and their allies are still reaping from the seeds of discord. They supply weapons we use in fighting the hostilities they deliberately planted.
And they are ever eager. To “assist us in clearing the bad blood.” Of which they are the architects. They send in aids. They come in varied forms; grants, funds, scholarships and outright loans.
That way, we are crushed and conquered. They reap bountifully from our misfortunes and plight. Invariably, they turn our predicament into a lucrative business. A sub-sector of our struggling, fragile economy.
Let’s be clear in our minds. The new actuality is real. This should sink deep. It should sit well with all of us. It’s the great change envisaged long ago. The North should be made to see what all others are seeing. Now is the best time to uproot this bitter seed of discord and its like.
If the North insists on the British seed. Because they have been used to it in the past 69 years. So be it. But they should also let the rest of us breathe our breath. It is convincing. The solution is nothing but restructuring. That will nail all our shortcomings.
This will lead us seamlessly to our ultimate destination: Parliamentary system of government. It worked wonders in our times past. It still can now, even better. We have its old template at our beck and call. It’s there for our asking.
Let’s dust it. Retool it to fit and fix our present needs. And we are done for good, forever!
