Insecurity: Buhari taking Nigerians for granted – Oyebode

A professor of International Law and Jurisprudence, Akin Oyebode, in this interview with TUNDE AJAJA, speaks on Nigeria’s foreign relations, the challenges facing the country and the future of Africa
The President once said the herdsmen killing Nigerians were from Libya, and some people have also said that the insecurity in the country is being fuelled by the influx of foreigners into the country, aided by the ECOWAS protocol that allows freedom of movement of persons among members states. Do we blame the protocol or it’s just an excuse?

I can’t speak for President Muhammadu Buhari; he has more information than my humble self, but I am aware that Cameroon and Chad are not members of ECOWAS, so if he says the Fulani coming in are from outside, we should look at it critically.

For me, Buhari wants to be clever by half by talking of invaders, whereas he’s just shopping for an excuse to justify the tyranny of his kinsmen who want to impose themselves on the country.

But, let me give you a bit of background; the Fulani originated from Futa Jallon, Senegal, Mali and to some extent Guinea. Even Usman dan Fodio, their arch-priest or father confessor, was not a Nigerian. The Fulani had no state or homestead in Nigeria.

They overran the Hausa states in the 19th century and imposed themselves as Emir on them and Usman dan Fodio himself said he had to come and dip the Quran in the Atlantic but the Yoruba people stopped him in Osogbo.

People know the Afonja story in Ilorin, and even in the northern fringes of Yorubaland or places like Ikare and Auchi, where they wanted to impose emirs.

They wanted to impose themselves and they continued blaming the British for stopping their thrust towards the southern part of the country.

So, maybe they (Fulani) wanted to re-establish their caliphate over the whole country and transform Nigeria from a secular state to a caliphate. I don’t know what their plans are but I read things from so-called Miyetti Allah and the people who romanticise about overrunning Nigeria.

Some of them even claim that Nigeria was ordained by God to be theirs and they have a sacred duty from providence to reclaim what was given to them. If overrunning Nigeria is their game plan, then you can’t point fingers at others as being foreigners.

As we say in my town in Ekiti, everybody knows his father’s house. If they can’t point to their parents’ houses, then, they would continue to look for places they can overrun