A former Minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, is reportedly planning to move from the opposition to the ruling political party. He has an image in the Nigerian political space alright. But he also has an image problem. There’s a way he’s perceived by his fans. There’s another way he’s perceived by members in the political party he wants to join. How his antecedent can affect his chances in the new home he seeks is, I think, one angle he didn’t thoughtfully consider before he began to make his move.
I once stated on this page that some have equated the Federal Government with a certain ethnic group in Nigeria. They equate the ruling party with the ethnic group as well. From his writings, it’s obvious Fani-Kayode belongs to the category. It’s in the public space many of the inciting comments he has written against members of this ethnic group. Now that Fani-Kayode wants to move into the ruling party some among those he stridently attacks are speaking up.
There was that last time I expressed my view in regard to how this well educated Nigeria went about blaming just one ethnic group for every of Nigeria’s challenge. There’re many Nigerians who have the same mentality. Their own tribe is perfect. No kidnappers, no criminals, no internet fraudsters. No member of their tribe ever sat in government to take decisions that served privileged few, primitively drawing public funds into their own pockets. Certainly, Fani-Kayode wasn’t one of the government officials who collected public funds from a former National Security Adviser, funds meant to purchase arms and protect our people in the north-east. Now that he’s out of office, he sees a certain ethnic group as the only entity harming Nigeria. Yet, all that most of the issues ethnic champions like him raise amount to is the usual approach of calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
From my more than 20 years encounters as a journalist, earning three different degrees in Political Science, as well as researches for my award-winning plays and other books that have taken me to remote parts of Nigeria, I conclude that no version of history is as one-dimensional, neatly horizontal or vertical as some ethnic champions present it. Issues in human relations are often multi-pronged, with tentacles spread in every direction, and black and white line isn’t always so easy to draw. I have examples in our history in regard to this. I shall state just two. One that has to do with Fani-Kayode’s attacks against a certain ethnic group in his writings, as well as another that has to do with some of his friends among minority ethnic groups in the north who applaud when he goes the way he goes in his writings. I refer to the kind of writings in regard to which one of Fani-Kayode’s readers wrote to me and described as “childish”.
Clear in Fani-Kayode’s writings is his demonization of the Fulani ethnic group. One aspect is how he presents them, like so many other ethnic champions do, as expansionists. Yet whoever read Political Science or History knows that mankind has engaged in it throughout history. So for anyone to place it on an ethnic group like a stigma is something I don’t get. In any case, and as I had stated in the past, any Yoruba person who accuses others of expansionism doesn’t have a full grasp of the history of the Yoruba. The Yoruba are expansionists of the highest order, conquerors to the core and they have no apologies about it. My forebears and of whom I am very proud, the Alaafins in Oyo Empire, presided over an ever-expanding territory for centuries. As I tell people in private conversation, because of what my ancestors did, I have no moral standing to accuse another ethnic group of expansionism. The reader may research into the historical activities of their own tribe too, and check if they had never lorded it over the next village or the next town or the next kingdom at one time or the other.
The other angle to this is how, many people wouldn’t let the past be in regard to the many wars fought between the Yoruba and the then new Fulani rulers of Ilorin from about the third decade of the 19th century onward. For these wars, some in their narratives demonise the opponents in Ilorin, accusing them of being expansionists. But it’s often left out of such narrow narratives how many Yoruba elements assisted the new rulers in Ilorin against their fellow Yoruba. Were it not for this internal disloyalty, the old Oyo wouldn’t have fallen to invaders. In all the battles fought from this period onward, hardly was there any in which some notable Yoruba warriors didn’t fight on the side of the Ilorin army against Yoruba towns. These Yoruba elements always had their excuses, their grouses, and their ambition for engaging in such acts. Regularly, Yoruba towns switched support from one side to the other – the Ilorin this time, the Ibadan on another occasion. At one point, Ayikiti, the ruler of Ile-Ife was with the Ibadan, and on other occasions he wasn’t against Ilorin and Yoruba allies defeating Ibadan in the war against Ikirun (as this would help his own ambition). This was how fluid and muddled this historical occurrence was. But ethnic champions forget this. Instead they call the Fulani opponents in Ilorin names for happenings at that stage in history when forming alliances to fight in wars and the attendant expansionism were as easy as substituting IOS for Android, or Yahoo for Google.
Even as late as 1878, major Yoruba towns formed alliances with Ilorin to attack other Yoruba towns. Some of the allies of the Fulani rulers of Ilorin at this particular time were the Ijesha, the Ekiti, Ila, and Ile-Ife from where Fani-Kayode comes wasn’t averse to it. These allies fought against the Ibadan who were always loyal to the Alaafin and were protecting the interest of the Yoruba. Yet Fani-Kayode overlooks these details whenever he presents a neat narrow narrative, insulting the ethnic group created by the same Maker he likes to mention in his writings.
As for his friends among minority ethnic groups up north, they specialize in presenting the Fulani as their enslavers. It’s not untrue. But locals also took active part in the process. In fact, after 1900, a period when the British severally punished even sons of Emirs for purchasing slaves from areas belonging to minority ethnic groups, the locals themselves were still selling their own people as slaves. There’s written evidence where colonial officers complained that these minority groups sometimes gave their children away as slaves under certain circumstances. Yet, the linear narrative these days from Fani-Kayode’s friends up north is that the “Fulani enslaved our people.” This happened in the past. The question clear-minded listeners should pose to promoters of this narrative is: “So what do you want to do about the past?” What some basically use this narrative to do is sow hatred in the minds of the younger generations. What benefit is that to them? They simply harbour hatred and bitterness over a historical event that no human being can undo. This has been helped by people like Fani-Kayode who wouldn’t let the past be, as well as his friends in the north, some of them religious leaders who should preach forgiveness, asking their people to move on. Instead they constantly promote hatred.
Now the man in the south-west who has assisted them in this effort wants to switch to the party he has always equated with the ethnic group he bashes. He hasn’t even landed when those he has been attacking fired back. One was the Director-General of the Progressive Governor’s Forum who said Fani-Kayode didn’t have the kind of credentials the party needed. I don’t know about who’s qualified to be a member of any party, but I know what any Nigerian whose tribe too isn’t perfect shouldn’t be promoting. After all the hatred he’s been spreading about an ethnic group, that Fani-Kayode has to wait to be told he can’t belong is baffling. Obviously some simply utter; they never think things through regarding the implications of the ethnic hatred they express?
Credit: Tunji Ajibade