Living with Fulani Folks

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I was born in Jos South, but I am native to Irigwe land in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State. I attended primary school and the first three years of secondary school in Jos South. I spent the last two years of secondary school in Irigwe land.

During my time in Irigwe land, I met a classmate with whom I became close. He was Fulani by tribe and spoke Irigwe fluently—Fulani people have a talent for understanding languages with ease. Of course, he also spoke Fulani, Hausa, and English, which he learned in school; this is common among children born in that part of Nigeria.

My friend felt that our school lacked the resources to help him achieve his dream of becoming a medical doctor. It was ironic: I had left my previous school because I felt it lacked the resources to help me fulfil my ambition in the sciences. I tried all I could to persuade him to stay, especially since we had become inseparable. We were so close that he often took me to his ruga home, where we would spend weekends. Eventually, he left for Science School, Toro, in Bauchi State. I remained in Irigwe land in Plateau State, pursuing my dream of building a solid science foundation. I had no intention of becoming a medical doctor, preferring instead to acquire a solid science foundation before making a decision. I knew, however, that I would not study Medicine or Pharmacy—careers that teenagers were crazy about.

I achieved my dream of a solid foundation, just as he did. That was why we met again at the University of Jos. I was studying geology, while he was not in medicine. Instead, he had enrolled in one of the biological sciences, a field he disliked. He later moved to the University of Maiduguri to study Veterinary Medicine.

It was at the University of Jos that the bond of brotherhood became unmistakable between us. Each time we wanted to communicate in secret, we spoke in Irigwe. That was when I learned that if you grow up in the same locality, you become brothers in a foreign land. I felt this too when I was in Port Harcourt. Whenever I became homesick, I would go to the Presidential Hotel in Port Harcourt, meet the Hausa people selling their wares there, and spend some time talking about Jos. Though he was not Irigwe by blood, he felt that Irigwe land was home to him. And indeed, we never felt that Fulani people were strangers until the devil paid a visit and poisoned our minds.

After graduating from our respective universities, we met a few times and then lost contact. That was in the mid-nineties. When the security situation deteriorated on the Plateau and elsewhere across the country, I started thinking about him. He seemed to have vanished so completely that none of our schoolmates could say where he had last been seen or heard of. Thanks to social media, someone posted his phone number on a Whatsapp group for our former secondary school classmates. Posting his number on that group meant that his whereabouts were unknown not only to me but to many others. That was my interpretation of seeing his number alone on Whatsapp.

I quickly copied and saved the number. When I called for the first time, he did not answer. I tried again a couple of days later. This time, he answered. He told me he had been living in Kaduna and practicing his profession. I asked why he never visited. His answer was, in his own words, “the thing is that your land has become what it has become.” Then he asked which part of Jos I lived in. I told him. He then promised that whenever he was passing through, he would give me a call.

Since then, he has not called—probably because he has not visited, or because he has visited but his schedule made it impossible.

This is how things have become messy between native Plateau communities and settlers—so messy that the feeling of brotherhood has eroded. In its place, there is now only hatred and enmity