THE HAUSA ETHNICITY: AN IDENTITY IN CRISIS?

Abstract

The Hausa ethnicity has been undergoing identity crisis since pre-colonial days. It has assumed the status of a pan-ethnicity by subsuming peoples and cultures, transforming them into Hausa or at least Hausa-speaking. This is why the Hausa Race is grossly misunderstood even by members within the society. The introduction of the ‘‘Hausa-Fulani’’ identity by selfish northern politicians with Fulani bloodline in the early 1980s is the greatest miscalculation of the century. The ‘‘Hausa-Fulani’’ identity is only a segment of a segment of the Hausa society. Recognizing it in place of Hausa ethnicity by members will amount to committing a cultural suicide. This paper is therefore aimed at clearing misconceptions and correcting wrong impressions. It detects the deficiency of the imposed ‘‘Hausa-Fulani’’ identity as a replacement of Hausa ethnicity. It realizes that the imposed Hausa-Fulani conundrum does not only underrate the might of the Hausa pan-ethnicity but also ostracizes all other important composite identities through intermarriage with the Hausa e.g. Hausa-Kanuri, Hausa-Tuareg, Hausa-Babur, Hausa-Nupe,, Hausa-Gwari, Hausa-Jukun, etc. The paper recommends a banishing of the Hausa-Fulani collocation and identity except as a segment within the pan-ethnicity. The paper provides a comparative historical treat of Hausa and Fulani ethnicities in order to update the uninformed including those who created and  imposed  the ‘‘Hausa-Fulani’’ project.