Official records of the early history of Miyetti Allah is sparse, the oral history by some members trace it to the 1960s while others to 1972 when the association was formed in Kaduna. The association’s early members were largely dominated by settled Fulanis whose early concept of Miyetti Allah was to promote the welfare of all Fulanis through self-help. In the 1970s, the organization was led by Muhammadu Sa’adu with membership in Kaduna and Plateau States. Sa’adu, who was born in Jos, but spent his adulthood in Kaduna was a key figure in the campaigns to get new members to join.
Both Kaduna and Plateau states had local branches affiliated with a local government or community. Meetings were irregular and not all national or state level resolutions were adhered to. But as the association expanded to more states, aims favouring nomadic education and access of grazing reserves by cattle breeders became a common theme.
A major goal of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria is to be the umbrella organization of Fulani herdsmen within the country. The activities of the organization involves liaising with the government on behalf of pastoralists, land use rights, nomadic education and conflict resolution between pastoralists and farmers. The group also supports protecting and increasing grazing reserves for cattle breeders in the country. However, not all pastoralists intend to stay within grazing reserves and the organization provides information to convince grazing reserve sceptics among the nomads to buy into the idea.
As the major promoter of welfare of Fulani pastoralists, increase incidence of farmer-herder conflicts and cattle rustling since 2011 brought the previously unknown group into wider consciousness.
The group’s board of trustees is led by the Sultan of Sokoto and it receives funding from the board and other donors. The national chairman is elected every four years. When MACBAN was founded it received support from Sultan Abubakar III, Aminu, Emir Zazzau, Usman Nagogo, the Emir of Katsina and Ado Bayero, late Emir of Kano. The emirs of these emirates compose a part of the group’s board of trustees. MACBAN has a national secretariat at Kaduna and state offices”
Above is a clean sweep of Miyetti Allah’s history borrowed from Wikipedia. Today MA is no longer a localised and tribalised defender of Fulani cattle herders’ right, but a global self-idolising cabal of well-armed Nomads who are daily clogging this nation’s security aspirational artery.
They are now regarded as a privileged terrorist group. MA group is becoming too settled in their lawlessness so much that they have morphed into the fiercest demons. They possess such powers that the Federal might could not even cast out. I will therefore substitute the Allah here with Satan. Any group that is primed to do the will of Allah will not go about killing mindlessly as we see in Miyetti Satan’s operational doctrine across Nigeria. Their tenet is to kill for the protection of cows. The phenomenal growth of Miyetti Satan from a sleepy, docile, rag tag Nomadic cattle shepherds into a monstrous, notorious, demon-driven and hawk-eyed zealots boggle the mind. They have been managing to hold and control the murder hegemony in Nigeria for decades now. They have been able to sell into our consciousness fabled tales of invincibility, valour, fearlessness and mercilessness. They are now regarded as a privileged terrorist group. Nobody has punctured this orthodoxy.
Worse is the stoical silence of President Muhammadu Buhari to rein in the violence and murderous atrocities of Miyetti Satan. Rather the president has been retreating into the old essentialism of Fulani clannishness, tribal solidarity and that queer sense of belonging because he also own cows in his Daura cattle ranch. Nigerians have been shrill in their outrage against the blood lust tendencies of Miyetti Satan, but that strident condemnation has been contained with a brick wall of silence and weak response. Instead, placatory carrots have been offered to the Fulani herdsmen to contain their rage against defenceless and helpless Nigerians. The price is N100 billion!!! That ugly tribe I called government has come to deny this humungous gift to Miyetti Satan high command, but there is no smoke without fire. Armageddon, I know. Welcome to Miyettiddon!!! More on this later.
The governor of Kaduna State, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai is a venomous, courageous and direct talker. This Daudawa man holds an impressive academic record – University of London and Harvard Business degrees. He was the wiz kid Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja from 16 July 2003 to 29 May 2007. He raised dust, created legend and left footprints of both achievements and controversies. Vainglory is essentially one of Rufai’s great attributes. Last week, he raised a storm by lobbing a grenade against the Jagaban of Borgu, the Asiwaju of Lagos and the National Leader of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, BAT, for short. His argument, narrative, polemical assault, crude vulgarities and disrespect of Tinubu are all design to further reinforce his iconic signature as a dismantler of godfatherism in politics. He wants to be seen as an epochal figure that will redirect the course of Lagos political history of slavish and subservience attitude towards the whims and caprices of the mythic Tinubu, who, in all honesty, looms larger than life in South West politics.
El Rufai is a child of radical politics and a dedicated apostle to political belligerency that seeks to destroy hierarchical monolithic foe like Tinubu through polemical interventions, though theatrical and crude vulgarity. Someday, El-Rufai will embrace Tinubu and apologise for puncturing the delicate ego of the god of the Yoruba.
Is Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the race for 2023 or still mired the valley of decision? The full lunacy of our politicians is now full on. We are yet to inaugurate President Muhammadu Buhari and some selfish, power-driven, egomaniac and desperate politicians are about to start heating the polity with vaunting personal ambition that has nothing to do with the welfare of the pulverised Nigerian masses. Yes, desperate politicians may want to justify the virtues of preparing for 2023 poll now, but such blind obduracy and irrational haste for power must yield to reason. The ember of fire we all started in 2019 election – anger, distrust, bitterness, distrust, election rigging, judicial adjudication, appeal court errands and disenchantment – are yet to find a rational closure, so why would a Yoruba Jagaban Borgu or an Asiwaju stretch out his head on the carapace and expect not to be mercilessly cut down by the menacing and raging sword of that ambitious, feudal and hegemonic-driven Fulani man called El-Rufai?