By Ochereome Nnanna
On Tuesday,
30th August 2016, at exactly 10.41am, I received a text from an
unidentified frequent sender of messages to my platforms whenever he reads
topics that agitate his mind, whether written by me or others.
He wrote: “Greetings. How can Dr. Patrick
Dele Cole, in today’s Vanguard Newspaper…assert that the Igbo were slaves of
the Ijaw? If, for the purpose of argument, one or two Igbo men were captured,
held as slaves, or were sold into slavery in those days, how does that
translate to the Igbo (an entire ethnic nationality) becoming slaves to the
Ijaw…?”
Dele Cole’s article was
entitled: “Nigerians And
Their Origin”. He was
displaying his rich knowledge of how people, not just in Nigeria but also in
different parts of the world, acquired their current ethno-racial identities;
how some powerful conquerors like the Jihadist Fulani, “dropped” their language
and adopted those of their majority subjects, the Hausa, in order get
assimilated and rule over them effectively.
Cole, at the tail end of
his very interesting tapestry of sampling, however, made a conclusion I found
both curious and contradictory compared to his earlier conclusion about the
“Igbo” and “Ijaw” (I am putting these words in inverted commas for a reason
that will be explained shortly). According to Cole: “Who are the Hausa-Fulani? The
French of Normandy conquered England in 1066 and adopted their language.
They were not known as French-English but English…Thus in the North of Nigeria they (Fulani) should be known as
Hausa”.
Before I go on, let me
correct Cole. The Fulani never dropped their language. Though they adopted the
Hausa and other languages in areas they conquered (such as Nupe in Bida and
Yoruba in Ilorin)
they still maintained their Fulbe language and identity. In fact, former
Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, a
Fulani royal who hails from Bamaina in Birnin Kudu Local Government of the
state, told me he did not “learn” Hausa until he went to school.
