PREAMBLE:
An Argument We Have Heard Before
Sani Ibn Salihu has written a sophisticated piece of advocacy masquerading as historical scholarship. His essay, “The Historical Indigeneity of Hausa-Fulani Communities in Plateau State,” leans heavily on colonial gazetteers and constitutional provisions to argue that Hausa-Fulani residents of Jos are “indigenous” and therefore cannot be excluded from political representation.

We at the Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO) do not dispute that Sani Ibn Salihu’s grandfather lived and died in Jos. We do not dispute that his father was born there, or that he himself draws his first breath within its boundaries. We do not dispute that the colonial records of C.G. Ames document Hausa settlements on the Plateau from the early 1900s. And we certainly do not dispute that Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution prohibits ethnic and religious discrimination.
But we reject, very categorically so, and without apology, the conclusion that these facts entitle Hausa-Fulani communities to the same claims of autochthony as the Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta. And we reject even more strongly the suggestion that Plateau State must simply accept the logic of “cosmopolitanism” while other parts of Nigeria, including the very regions that Hausa-Fulani elites control, operate on entirely different principles.
This is not an argument about hatred. This is an argument about hypocrisy. And it is time to name it as such.

PART ONE:
The Constitutional Sleight of Hand
Salihu invokes Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution as though it were a magic wand that erases history, demography, and political reality. He argues that every Nigerian citizen meeting INEC requirements is eligible to contest elections “anywhere within the federation.”
Let us accept this premise for a moment, not because we agree with it, but because it exposes the intellectual dishonesty at the heart of his argument.
If Salihu truly believes that place of birth and long-term residency are the only legitimate criteria for political participation, then he must answer a simple question:
Can what he is asking for in Plateau be replicated in Kano State?
Not rhetorically. Not hypothetically. Practically.

The Federal High Court case of Adamu Garba and 20 Ors v Federal Attorney General (2011) specifically named Fagge LGA, Kumbotso LGA, Nassarawa LGA, and Tarauni LGA in Kano State as respondents in a constitutional challenge against the indigene-settler divide. Why? Because in those local government areas, the same “long-term residency” that Salihu champions for Hausa-Fulani in Jos is systematically used to exclude Igbo, Yoruba, and other “non-indigenes” from political participation, employment, and public services.

Let us be precise about Fagge LGA. It is one of the largest local government areas in Kano State by both landmass and population. It is also one of the most heterogenous, being a home to significant populations of Igbo, Yoruba, and southern Nigerian traders who have lived there for generations. These are people whose grandparents moved to Kano during the colonial groundnut and textile trade, just as Hausa traders moved to Jos during the tin mining boom.
Why has Fagge LGA never been subdivided? The answer is uncomfortable but clear: if Fagge were delineated into smaller units like other LGAs in Kano, an Igbo man would almost certainly become a Local Government Chairman or a member of the Kano State House of Assembly. The Hausa-Fulani political establishment has prevented this outcome not through constitutional argument, but through the deliberate manipulation of administrative boundaries, the very same “gerrymandering” that Salihu’s allies in Jos North benefit from.
This is the heart of the matter. Salihu wants the protections of the constitution applied to Hausa-Fulani in Plateau while remaining silent about their systematic violation in Kano. He wants “one Nigeria” when it serves his community, and “one north” when it does not.

PART TWO:
Fagge LGA and the Politics of Demographic Containment
Let us examine Fagge LGA more closely, because it is the most instructive counter-example to Salihu’s entire thesis.

Geography and Demography
Fagge is situated in the heart of metropolitan Kano, adjacent to the historic city wall. It contains some of Kano’s most important commercial zones, including the famous Singer Market and parts of the larger Kantin Kwari Market complex. Its population is estimated at over 200,000, making it one of the most densely populated LGAs in northern Nigeria.
What makes Fagge politically significant is its demographic composition. Unlike most Kano LGAs, where Hausa-Fulani Muslims constitute over 95% of the population, Fagge has substantial minorities of Igbo, Yoruba, and other southern Nigerian ethnic groups, many of whom have lived there for three or four generations. These are not “transient migrants.” They are families who have called Kano home since the colonial era.
The Subdivision That Never Happened
During the wave of local government creations in 1991 and 1996, when Nigeria’s military administrations carved new LGAs out of existing ones across the country, Fagge LGA remained largely intact. Why? Because fragmenting Fagge would have created political space for non-indigenes to gain electoral footholds.

Consider the logic: If Fagge were divided into three or four smaller LGAs, at least one of those units would likely have an Igbo or Yoruba majority, or at minimum, a large enough minority to elect a chairman or legislator. This is precisely what the Hausa-Fulani political establishment in Kano has worked to prevent for over three decades.
The contrast with Jos North is stark.

In Jos, the 1991 creation of Jos North LGA concentrated Hausa-Fulani voters into a single, gerrymandered district where they became a political majority. In Kano, the refusal to subdivide Fagge has contained non-indigenous populations within a single LGA where their numerical strength is diluted by the larger Hausa-Fulani majority.

The Constitutional Challenge,
This is why Fagge LGA was named as a respondent in the Adamu Garba case. The applicants specifically challenged the discriminatory treatment of non-indigenes in Kano LGAs, including Fagge, arguing that:
“The discriminatory treatment faced by ‘non-indigenes’ defeats the idea of integration which should help in moulding society and strengthening the ‘One Nigeria’ belief.”

The court struck out the case on technical grounds, what it describes as the lack of specific claims against federal respondents, jurisdictional issues, and not on the merits of the constitutional argument. The substantive question of whether Fagge’s political architecture violates the rights of long-term Igbo and Yoruba residents remains unresolved.

We ask Salihu: Where is your essay defending the Igbo traders of Fagge? Where is your outrage that a man born in Kano, whose father was born in Kano, whose grandfather moved there in 1945, cannot become Chairman of Fagge LGA because he is not “indigenous” to Kano State?
Your silence is your argument. And it is damning.

PART THREE: Lagos, The Oba, and the Selective Application of “Cosmopolitanism”
If Salihu believes that long-term residency in Jos makes Hausa-Fulani “indigenous,” then he must also accept that long-term residency in Lagos makes Igbo and Yoruba “indigenous” to Lagos State. Does he?
The evidence suggests otherwise. During the 2023 elections, following the victory of Peter Obi’s Labour Party in Lagos State, the Oba of Lagos reportedly threatened to “chase away” Igbo residents . As one analysis put it:
“At the root of this conflict is the tension between nativism and cosmopolitanism, a trend discernible in many megacities across the world… In Nigeria’s megacities like Lagos where diaspora-oriented ethnic groups like the Igbos are disproportionally represented, the idea of a ‘universal community’ is confronted by the glaring failures in the country’s nation-building processes.” See: Lagos and the politics of nativism – Tribune Online
The Oba’s comments, and the broader pattern of Igbophobia that emerges in Lagos during every election cycle, are not isolated incidents. They reflect a deep-seated nativism that treats even third-generation Igbo residents as perpetual “strangers” who have no claim to political power.

A faction of Ohanaeze Ndigbo responded by vowing to hold the Governor of Lagos State and the Oba himself responsible for attacks on Igbo communities, stating:
“We are holding the Governor of Lagos State responsible for any calculated attack against innocent Igbo traders… we are holding MC Oluomo and the Oba of Lagos if anything happens to traders and the community in Lagos State.” See: Ohanaeze faction says it’ll hold Sanwo-Olu responsible for attacks on Igbos in Lagos – Ripples Nigeria
Where is Salihu’s condemnation of the Oba of Lagos? Where is his essay arguing that the Oba’s comments violate Section 42 of the Constitution? Where is his demand that Lagos State issue indigeneity certificates to Igbo residents whose families have lived there for three generations?
We are still waiting.

This is the selective constitutionalism that BECO rejects. Salihu cannot invoke the constitution to protect Hausa-Fulani “residency rights” in Jos while remaining silent when the same constitution is violated against Igbo “residents” in Kano and Lagos. The constitution is not a cafeteria where you choose only the provisions that benefit your community.

PART FOUR:
What Colonial Records Actually Say—And What They Do Not Say
Salihu relies heavily on C.G. Ames’ Gazetteer of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria, Vol. 4: The Highland Chieftaincies (1920s-1930s) to argue that Hausa-Fulani presence on the Plateau was “well-established before 1910.” He points to tin mining, trade, administrative settlement, and recognition in colonial censuses as evidence of indigeneity.

Let us grant these facts, because they are largely true. Hausa traders and labourers did arrive on the Plateau in significant numbers during the early colonial tin mining boom. They did establish settlements. They were counted in the 1921 and 1931 censuses. They did participate in the Native Authority system.
But what the colonial records do not say is equally important.
The Ames Gazetteer records that the “highland chieftaincies” within the Berom, Afizere, Anaguta, Mwaghavul, Ron, and others ethnic lands, were the autochthonous inhabitants of the Plateau long before Hausa migration began.

These groups had established farming systems, ritual landscapes, clan structures, and defensive hill settlements stretching back centuries, if not millennia. The Nok Culture, which flourished on the Plateau from approximately 1500 BC to 1 AD, represents one of Africa’s earliest iron-smelting civilizations. The Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta did not “arrive” in the colonial period. They were the Plateau.
The Hausa, by contrast, arrived. They came because tin was discovered. They came because the British needed labour. They came as part of a colonial economic project that displaced indigenous communities, destroyed sacred shrines, and transformed the ecological landscape. Their presence, however long and however documented, was not autochthonous.
This distinction between autochthony (originating from the land itself) and long-term residency is not a “narrow definition” invented by BECO to exclude anyone. It is a distinction that colonial administrators themselves recognized.

The same Ames Gazetteer that records Hausa settlements also records that the “pagan” highland groups were the “original inhabitants” of the area. The same colonial censuses that counted Hausa residents also recorded their places of origin as Kano, Bauchi, and other emirates.
If Salihu truly believes that “documented residence prior to colonial administrative reorganization” is the test of indigeneity, then by that standard, the British colonial administrators who lived in Jos for decades would also qualify as “indigenous.” They paid taxes. They participated in administration. They were counted in censuses. Their children were born in Jos.
Absurd? Yes. But no more absurd than claiming that Hausa traders who arrived in 1905 are “indigenous” in the same sense as Berom clans who have occupied the same hills since before the Sokoto Caliphate existed.

PART FIVE:
The Fiberesima Commission and the Official Recognition of Autochthony
Salihu omits any mention of the Fiberesima Commission of Inquiry (1994), which was established by the Plateau State Government to investigate the root causes of the Jos riots. This is a curious omission, because the Commission’s findings directly contradict his argument.

The Fiberesima Commission explicitly classified the Berom, Anaguta, and Afizere as the indigenous residents of Jos North LGA, while granting the Hausa and Fulani “settler” status. This was not a “manufactured narrative of exclusion.” It was the conclusion of a formal judicial inquiry based on extensive evidence, oral testimonies, and historical documentation.
The Commission’s report stated:
“A recurrent friction for many years between the Berom, Anaguta and Afizere tribes on one hand, and the Hausa/Fulani tribes on the other hand is a remote cause of the riot.

Each part lays claim to Jos. The Berom, Anaguta and Afizere claim that they are the undisputable indigenous people of Jos… the Hausa/Fulani contend that they are owners of Jos, had had the privilege of producing rulers of the town since way back in 1902.” See Full article: The politics of paper: negotiating over and around indigeneship certification in Plateau State, Nigeria
The Commission did not dismiss the Hausa claim outright. But it did affirm that the Berom, Anaguta, and Afizere were the indigenous peoples of Jos, a finding that has never been overturned by any subsequent judicial or administrative body.
Salihu may disagree with this finding. But he cannot erase it.

PART SIX:
The 2010 Indigeneity Form and the “Closing” of Ethnic Categories
Henry Gyang Mang’s joint research with David Ehrhardt, published in the Canadian Journal of African Studies (2019), documented a critical shift in Jos North LGA’s indigeneity certification process. Before 2000, the indigeneity form was “open,” it did not specify which ethnic groups qualified as indigenous. A 1994 certificate, for example, could be issued to a Hausa resident. But after the return to democracy in 1999, under the chairmanship of Frank Bagudu Tardy (an Anaguta), the form was “closed.” The 2010 certificate explicitly listed only three ethnicities as potentially indigenous: Afizere, Berom, and Anaguta. Full article: The politics of paper: negotiating over and around indigeneship certification in Plateau State, Nigeria
Salihu interprets this as ethnic exclusion.

BECO interprets it as democratic correction.
Why was the form changed? Because the Hausa had used their control of the Jos North LGA machinery, won through the 1991 gerrymandering, to issue indigeneity certificates to Hausa residents, thereby gaining access to jobs, appointments, and opportunities that rightfully belonged to the indigenous communities. The “closed” form was not an act of xenophobia. It was an act of self-defense against a political and administrative structure that had been deliberately rigged against the autochthonous population.

We acknowledge that the “closed” form system has problems. It can be arbitrary. It can exclude individuals who genuinely belong to indigenous communities but cannot “perform” their identity adequately during the certification process. But these are problems of implementation, not principle. The principle that indigeneity in Jos North should be restricted to the autochthonous Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta, is sound.

PART SEVEN:
The Burden of Proof and the Double Standard
Salihu demands that Plateau State accept Hausa-Fulani as “indigenous” because of their long-term residency. He invokes Section 42 of the Constitution as though it were a suicide pact requiring communities to erase their own identity in the name of “national unity.”
But he never applies the same standard to the regions where Hausa-Fulani are the majority.

Consider Kano State’s official indigeneity policy. The Kano State Government explicitly recognizes only “indigenous” ethnic groups predominantly Hausa and Fulani, as eligible for state government employment, scholarships, and political appointments.

Igbo, Yoruba, Tiv, Berom, and other “non-indigenes” are systematically excluded, even when their families have lived in Kano for generations.
This is not speculation. This is documented fact. The Human Rights Watch report “They Do Not Own This Place” (2006) documented extensive discrimination against non-indigenes across northern Nigeria, including Kano State. The Adamu Garba constitutional challenge specifically named Kano State and four of its LGAs as respondents . The applicants, many of whom were Igbo and Yoruba residents of Kano, argued that their classification as “settlers” violated their fundamental human rights.
What was the outcome? The case was struck out on technical grounds. The substantive issue remains unresolved. And to this day, a man born in Kano whose family has lived there for seventy years cannot become Chairman of Fagge LGA because he is not “indigenous” to Kano State.

Where is Salihu’s essay defending that man?
Where is his demand that Kano State adopt the “cosmopolitan” standard he demands for Plateau?
Where is his outrage that Section 42 of the Constitution is violated daily in the very region where his community holds political power?
Silence. Silence. Silence.

PART EIGHT:
The “Pre-Colonial” Fallacy
Salihu argues that Hausa-Fulani presence on the Plateau “predates colonial administrative boundaries.” He cites early 20th-century records, that is, records from the colonial period, as evidence of “pre-colonial” presence. This is a sleight of hand.
The pre-colonial period ended in Plateau State when the British arrived in the early 1900s and began the process of “pacification,” a euphemism for military conquest.

The Hausa traders who accompanied the British expeditionary forces were not “pre-colonial” residents. They were colonial auxiliaries. They arrived with the colonial administration, not before it.

The distinction matters. The Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta did not “arrive” with the British. They did not need “pacification” because they had never been conquered. They had successfully resisted the Sokoto Caliphate’s expansion for most of the 19th century, defending their hill refuges against slave raids and jihadist incursions. Their presence on the Plateau was not documented by colonial gazetteers because it predated documentation itself.

The Hausa presence, by contrast, is coincident with colonial documentation. The earliest colonial records that Salihu cites (the 1910s, the 1921 census, the 1930s Gazetteer) are records of colonial presence. The Hausa did not exist as a documented community on the Plateau before the British arrived. They existed as occasional traders and raiders, but not as permanent settlers.

This is not a minor historical quibble. It is the difference between autochthony and migration.

PART NINE:
The Political Stakes—Why This Matters
We must be honest about what is really at stake in this debate. It is not about history. It is about power.
Jos North LGA was gerrymandered in 1991 specifically to create a Hausa-Muslim electoral majority. The boundaries were drawn to concentrate Hausa voters in a single district, ensuring that no matter how the other groups voted, a Hausa candidate would likely win the chairmanship. This was not an accident. This was a deliberate political strategy by the Babangida administration, a strategy that Sani Ibn Salihu’s essay defends by framing it as natural demographic outcome rather than engineered political advantage.

Since that gerrymandering, Jos North has produced Hausa chairmen. It has issued indigeneity certificates to Hausa residents. It has become, in effect, a Hausa-dominated enclave within a state where Hausa are a demographic minority.
BECO’s position is simple: This must change. The 1991 gerrymandering should be reversed. Jos North LGA should be re-delineated to reflect demographic realities, not political manipulation. Until that happens, indigeneity certification in Jos North must be restricted to the autochthonous Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta, not as an act of exclusion, but as an act of affirmative action for communities that have been systematically marginalized in their own homeland.

We do not say that Hausa residents of Jos should be disenfranchised. They are Nigerian citizens. They have voting rights. They can participate in elections. They can even win elections (as they have done in Jos North, through the very gerrymandering we oppose). But they cannot claim autochthony. They cannot claim to be “indigenous” in the same sense as the Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta. And they cannot use the constitution as a weapon to erase that distinction.

PART TEN:
The Way Forward—Beyond Hypocrisy
BECO does not advocate for the expulsion or marginalization of Hausa-Fulani residents of Plateau State. We recognize that they have lived here for generations. We recognize that they have contributed to the economy and culture of Jos. We recognize that many of them consider Plateau their home.

But we insist on reciprocity.
If Hausa-Fulani in Plateau are to be treated as “indigenous,” then Igbo and Yoruba in Kano must be treated as “indigenous.” If long-term residency in Jos qualifies a Hausa man for indigeneity certification, then long-term residency in Kano must qualify an Igbo woman for the same. If Salihu wants Plateau State to adopt a “cosmopolitan” standard of belonging, then he must demand that Kano State, Lagos State, and every other state in the federation adopt the same standard.

We know this will not happen. Not because Salihu is personally insincere, but because the political logic of Nigerian federalism militates against it. The indigene-settler divide is not a Plateau invention. It is a national pathology. And it will not be cured by selectively applying constitutional provisions to benefit one community while ignoring the same provisions when they would benefit others.

Until that day comes, until the Oba of Lagos apologizes to the Igbo, until Fagge LGA is subdivided, until Kano State issues indigeneity certificates to third-generation Igbo residents, BECO will not accept the argument that Plateau State must unilaterally disarm in the battle over belonging.

We did not create the indigene-settler divide. We inherited it from the British, who found it convenient to govern through native authorities and ethnic hierarchies. But we will not be the ones to abolish it while other states, including those dominated by Salihu’s community, continue to weaponise it against our people.

CONCLUSION:
The Burden of Consistency
Sani Ibn Salihu has written a clever essay. He has marshalled colonial records, constitutional provisions, and historical evidence to construct a compelling narrative of Hausa-Fulani belonging in Plateau State. But cleverness is not the same as truth.

And narrative is not the same as justice.
The truth is that the indigene-settler divide in Nigeria is a national crisis, not a Plateau anomaly. The truth is that every major ethnic group in Nigeria, Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, Igbo, Ijaw, Berom, Tiv, and dozens of others, has benefited from this divide in some contexts and suffered from it in others. The truth is that no single state can resolve this crisis on its own.

But the truth also is that the Berom, Afizere, and Anaguta of Jos have suffered disproportionately from the 1991 gerrymandering, from the destruction of their sacred shrines by tin mining, from the violence of 2001, 2008, and 2010, and from the systematic erosion of their political power in their own homeland.

According to the Berom in Diaspora Coalition and BECO, over 10,000 Berom people have been killed in ongoing attacks, with 151 communities displaced and vast lands forcefully occupied. These are not abstract historical claims. These are lived realities.
We say this not to demand pity, but to demand consistency. If Salihu wants Plateau State to open its political doors to Hausa-Fulani “indigenes,” he must first open his mouth to demand the same for Berom “residents” in Kano, for Igbo “residents” in Lagos, and for every other Nigerian who has been told that their birthplace is not their home.

Until then, his essay is not a contribution to peace. It is a brief for one side in a battle that has already claimed too many lives.
The Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO) stands for justice, not selective justice, but justice for all. We stand for history, not selective history, but history that acknowledges both autochthony and migration. And we stand for the constitution, not as a weapon to be wielded against our enemies, but as a promise that must be kept for everyone, or kept for no one.

We await Salihu’s essay on Fagge LGA.

We await his condemnation of the Oba of Lagos.

We await his demand for indigeneity certification for Igbo residents of Kano.

When those essays are written, and when they are written with the same passion and erudition he has brought to his defence of Hausa-Fulani in Plateau, then, and only then, will we consider his argument on its merits.

Until that day, this is BECO’s answer.
Issued by the Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO)
June 11th, 2026.