Wake up, Nigeria is dying: A reply to my Fulani friends (1)

By  Obadiah Mailafia
ON Friday 11 May, I wrote an article titled, “Genocide, Hegemony and Power in Nigeria”, featuring on the back page of the financial newspaper BusinessDay.

In the said article, I sought to explain the ongoing killings being perpetrated by Fulani militias in the Middle Belt. I linked it to the political economy of pastoralism in West Africa. I also argued that part of the problem lay in the fact that in spite of the fact that Fulani make up 41 percent of the population in their original homeland of Guinea, they have never enjoyed political power there. As a consequence, they have turned their attention to Nigeria, which they believe to be their patrimony as of right.