All that my father left as heritance is 200 cows, 50 rams. While growing up, I heard of the encounters my father and his friends had with dangerous wild animals that wanted taking their cows. Whether those stories are true or not, that I don’t know but what I know is that my father had a good reputation in our entire village. His name was Jauro alias Sarkin Yaki (warlord).
My name is Umar Jauro, am Fulani and I live in a village in Sokoto, a state that shares borders with Niger Republic. We can hardly get clean water in my village because the ground is extremely dry. As kids, we walked 7 miles to get water for the family’s use. That was a daily routine for us.
Rainfall became a myth in my village, as a matter of fact, we only hear of rainfall in the morning news of the BBC. I think that perhaps Allah doesn’t love us like He does the people of other places like, Plateau, Benue and Kaduna states.
As a child, the Mallam I attended his Madarasah always told us stories about heaven and hell. Because of how Mallam would describe hell; how the fire doesn’t go out, and how hot it was there, I believed perhaps hell is close to my village.
My father became a herder by inheritance. He and his friends travelled great distance down south of the country in search of green grass for our cows. They usually left during February and returned sometime in June. As a kid I always anticipated his coming, because he came with bush meat (halal) that my mum made delicious dinner with.
As time passed, I am older now and people began leaving their villages for the ‘cities’ in search of a good life and for some, education. People became wiser due to the education they were getting.
Education in my village was a taboo. All that was expected of a young man/woman is to learn Arabic language so that he/she would know how to read the Koran; because we are predominantly Muslims in my village. Rebelling or questioning this norm may lead to being an outcast.
My father hardly stayed at home but I am so thankful to him because unlike Jambe, one of his friends, we didn’t move with him when he take our cows down south to graze.
I grew up with my mother. The opinion of women in village is not considered valid except it has a male backing to her story.
My mother was always at home; she hardly socialize except for Sundays when she goes for Arabic classes in the Madarasah I attend every evening on weekdays.
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- I was 15years old when I met Abdullahi. Abdullahi was the first person I met who had western education. He was a very intelligent boy. I later learn that his father sought western education which warranted his banishment from the community.
Abdullahi’s father relocated to Sokoto town because of how he has brought disgrace on his family. His father thought that he could do anything without anybody questioning his conscience; he was now free to do anything outside the thinking of his former community.
It was because of this that Abdullahi’s father enrolled him in a school in hope that perhaps, my friend will grow up and speak with the eloquence of the former Prime Minister of Nigeria, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa; a man that Abdullahi’s father greatly admired and revered.
My friendship with Abdullahi grew to the point we considered getting married on the same day. That didn’t happen anyway.
In his old age before my father died, he passed on the family’s tradition to my older brother who had already been travelling with him to graze our cows.
It was from my older brother that I began hearing of horrible stories of him killing people along the way as they grazed with the cows.
It was so bad that I saw my elder brother with guns, machetes and dangerous weapons just to fight. Uncomfortable with the situation, I confronted my brother and asked him, and he said locals are stopping them from grazing on the same routes that our father and his friends were used to grazing for many years.
My brother’s battle stories won him the sympathy of people in our village and our entire ethnic group—Fulani. They said it was a deliberate move to stop them from plying their trade, living and to exterminate the Fulanis from Nigeria.
I was unsettled with this position because something in me told me that no one can exterminate a people except Allah Himself.
I shared this story with Abdullahi and in his usual way, he paused, looked to the heavens and said, “I don’t blame either of the parties’ involved in the crisis. The problem is their ignorance about the issue”.
My friend continued, “Allah is against killing”, I nodded in agreement, “He is also against ignorance, in fact He has commanded Muslims to search for knowledge as far as China”.
Abdullahi touched his lower chin and in deep thought said, “mankind have depleted their resources and that is why they have resulted in killing each other to control the little left”, he reflected a second and concluded, “that is why they are fighting, killing each other”.
My friend’s answer was unconventional and it bothered me. So I asked him and he said, “we don’t have grass that is why our people go south to graze. This is not our immediate making. Only if our fore-fathers saw this and worked preserving the resource of our village, our brothers and farmers would not engage in this mindless killings”.
I became uneasy listening to Abdullahi, because why would he put all the blame on us and our fore-fathers? So my friend continued, “if only the farmer and our people will listen to me, they would understand that they share the same interest.”