The Principle Promoted by The Northern (Fulani) Elders Forum For The Economic Underdevelopment Of Nigeria
“Is this position based on any principle which the NEF has actively promoted in the past? Is it a generally applicable policy for economic development?” — Dele Sobowale
The Vanguard Newspaper Columnist Dele Sobowale in the essay titled, ‘NEF Ignorance and Gold Refinery’, asked the above quoted questions. He asked the telling questions in order to seek the rationale why the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) is currently up in arms against the establishment of a privately funded gold refinery in Lagos.
Sadly, the correct answer to the first question is Yes, the position is based on principle which the NEF has actively promoted in the past. Similarly the answer to the second question is also Yes, if the question is reframed as, “Is it a generally applicable policy for economic underdevelopment”?
The position of the Northern [Fulani] Elders Forum cannot be easily understood without first recalling an often quoted but never really fully understood statement of the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sadauna Ahmadu Bello, which he enunciated publicly in October, 1960. He said:
“The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future.”
— Sadauna Ahmadu Bello (1960)
The Northern [Fulani] political elites since 1960, have never wavered in their dogmatic determination to follow and to act on one accord, in their zealous effort to implement the spirit and the letters of the quote, at every opportune moment in Nigeria. The statement has served to rally together Ahmadu Bello’s protégés in politics and it is the linchpin on which the policy engagements of the Fulani Elders Forum (FEF)* with the other ethnic groups in Nigeria, has squarely rested. Particularly, the last phrase of the quote, which says, “never allow them to have control over their future”.
Every opposition raised by the FEF on any national issue — economic, political, cultural, religious — that is going to be beneficial to either the minorities in the north or the entirety of the Southern Zones of Nigeria are based principally on the supremacist views articulated by the ‘Most Venerable’ Sadauna Ahmadu Bello. Which is, that the Fulani ethnic group must “never allow them [other ethnic groups] to have control over their future.”
How has the FEF been carrying out this onerous strategic duty of disallowing other ethnic groups from having control over their future?
Since 1960, the FEF has fulfilled this diabolical mandate by sabotaging all promising national policy initiatives, by obstructing secular constitutional due processes, by diverting attention and resources of the nation towards the pursuit of inanities — prioritising religious pilgrimages over economic development; by distracting and filibustering national discourses on serious issues; by hounding and blackmailing principled and honourable public officials out of office, and by other unscrupulous covert measures that continuously sow the seeds of discord, distrust, enmity amongst ethnic brothers and between the ethnic groups.
Fortunately for the people of the world, time and seasons are changing rapidly for the beckoning ‘New World Order’. The spiritually awakened people are perceiving that there is an uncommon cosmic wave blowing across our planet. The light frequencies and the sound vibrations of the wave are bringing healing to the spiritually blind, deaf, dumb and crippled. Hence, every person, every nation or country is feeling the disruptive — negative or positive — effects of the cosmic wave. The status quo of all the powers that have been selfishly controlling and manipulating the affairs of the world is now being challenged, is now being shaken to their core and is about to be broken down into smithereens.
This developing and growing spiritual perspective of life on our planet has to be mentioned in order to help the intransigent Fulani Elites of Nigeria to appreciate the magnitude of the force behind the evolving global renaissance of peace and love. At this momentous point in time, the precious words of advice we can offer to the FEF, and in good faith too, are: Stop the bickering over useless nothing. Stop the supremacist madness. Stop the jihad of hate and cruelty against fellow nonFulani Nigerians.
It is time the members of the Fulani Elders Forum (FEF) repented from their old ways, which are based on the manipulation of fear, force and fraud as political weapons of control and domination of the other ethnic nations in Nigeria. It is time FEF began to learn how to cultivate and to embrace new cultural values that will be fundamentally rooted in the true love of God and of Fellow Mankind. And it is time FEF joined hands and hearts with other ethnic nations in the country to build a New Nigeria on the most cherished and the most beneficial divine spirit of common brotherhood based on equality, freedom and justice.
In The Spirit Of Truth
SAM ABBD ISRAEL
Note:
*The Northern Elders Forum is appropriately called The Fulani Elders Forum. This is because of the observed open hostility and the high-handedness of the Fulani members to the generality of the other ethnic groups in the organisation.
Links
NEF : Ignorance And Gold Refinery by Dele Sobowale https://www.vanguardngr.com/2026/02/nef-ignorance-and-gold-refinery/
The Underdevelopment of Nigeria: The Fulani Caliphate And It’s Cardinal Political Agenda For Nigeria by SAM ABBD ISRAEL https://samabbdisrael.com/2021/04/19/the-underdevelopment-of-nigeria-the-fulani-caliphate-and-its-cardinal-political-agenda-for-nigeria/
ITSOT 