By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
4-1-2026.
LEST I be seen as a Hausa jingoist, I used the term ‘Hausa’ to mean the people called Hausa/Fulani people of Northern Nigeria.
RECENTLY I saw a video on the internet where a young Nigerian ‘journalist’ in London, asked an even younger Nigerian damsel where she came to London from. She said she was from Kaduna state of Nigeria.
UPON hearing that she came from Kaduna state, the ‘journalist’ quickly asked the 26-year old woman “ah, then you are a Hausa girl”. To which she promptly answered him in the NEGATIVE, saying that she is GBAGYI by tribe (which the Hausa people refer to as GWARI), and that, “not all Northerners are Hausas”.
SHE added that she was Christian, and that she so loved her UNBORN children that she would not be in love with anyone, so as not to marry and born the children in the current world of unrest.
AND her aping of the Western culture did not stop there, the young woman was shown to be ‘proudly’ displaying her 19 TATTOOS (her confession), her bare midriff and her barely concealed mammary glands.
SHE is of course right, and he is wrong. Many people from the Southern Side of the Niger Bridge (Southerners), especially the little educated ones, think that everyone from the Northern side is a Hausa person. That is clearly not true.
RELIGION (ISLAM) is the common denominator for most of the Northerners. For instance, people like late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the first and only Prime Minister of Nigeria was not a Hausa man, he was of Bageri tribe from Tafawa Balewa of Bauchi state.
EVEN the larger than life Prince of the Sokoto Caliphate and first and only Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello’s (Sardaunan Sokoto) mother, was allegedly a Bachama woman, in Adamawa state.
GENERAL Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) is a GBAGYI by tribe in Niger state, late General Sani Abacha (military ruler) was Kanuri by tribe, but based in Kano and Alhaji Adamu Chiroma, a one time Governor of the Central Bank Of Nigeria (CBN), was a Bole by tribe in Potiskum of Yobe state.
ALHAJI Abdullahi Adamu, a one time Governor of Nasarawa State and former chairman of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC) is also a Gbabyi by tribe from Nasarawa state, Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim was a Kanuri from Borno state, the centenarian Alhaji Tanko Yakasai is Chamba by tribe from Adamawa state, and the former governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, is of Babur tribe of Borno state.
OTHER Northerners who are neither Hausas nor Muslims abound in the country. They include but not limited to Mr. Samuel Aliyu Ajayi an Okun tribe from Kogi state, General Theophilus Yakubu (TY) Danjuma, a Jukun by tribe in Taraba state, and Mr. Audu Ogbe, a Tiv (MUNCHI) by tribe from Benue state.
FOR our sanity, it is better to take a rest from hearing or reading about the news of gloom and doom in Nigeria all most all the time. Such news has permeated the media (hard or soft), because it is globally known that, bad news sales much more copies than good news.
MAY God prevent any bad news from reaching us at any time. May He also limit bad news to its purveyors and their loved ones.
Malumfashi wrote from KATSINA.
