Word: hausa
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...power, the nation would be racked by a renewal of the tribal hostilities that claimed more than a million lives during the fratricidal Biafran war of 1967-70. His fears were based partly on the bitter controversy generated by publication of suspect 1973 census figures. Those ranked the Moslem Hausa and Fulani tribesmen of northern Nigeria as more numerous -and therefore more politically powerful under the proposed electoral system-than the predominantly Christian Ibos of the south and the Yorubas of the west...
There are no serious ideological differences between Gowon and Mohammed; both are defenders of African nationalism and free enterprise. But there are tribal differences. Gowon is a Christian northerner from the relatively small Anga tribe. Nigeria's new leader is a Hausa Moslem with strong tribal loyalties-a factor that led Gowon to regard Mohammed as a threat to his own Lincolnesque policy of "national conciliation" after the Biafran civil war. The least sign of regional or tribal chauvinism on Mohammed's part might well lead to countercoup or renewed civil war. Foreign diplomats in Nigeria also fear...
...discovered that although they have gained the right to vote and to seek positions of leadership, the rigid customs and dictates of their tribal societies have not kept pace with the times. The nomadic Turkana women of East Africa still perfume their bodies over fires of scented wood. The Hausa wives of northern Nigeria still amass huge fortunes in the form of thousands upon thousands of Japanese-made enamel bowls, which they cram into their huts, causing at least one Hausa husband to complain bitterly: "I don't even have enough room to pray...
...worked in Eastern Nigeria and Biafra for nine years, and I was struck by your quote from a diplomat in Lagos: "An Ibo would be out of his mind to show up in Hausa towns like Kano, Kaduna or Sokoto. They don't want him there." In this statement the real reason for the secession in 1967 is touched: the fact that the Easterners were not wanted and not safe in their own country...
Groaning Lorries. The bedraggled caravans are filled with Hausa tribesmen in flowing white robes, bare-breasted Yoruba women from Nigeria, Malian water carriers, Upper Voltan gold miners, Ivorean timber merchants and beggars of all nationalities. The luckier ones started out in trucks or wood-frame "mammy wagons" whose fares have jumped more than 400% since the exodus got under way. For many, travel by whatever means stopped at the border. Groaning lorries carrying homeward-bound Nigerians and Dahomians are stalled in columns miles long because they have not received permission to cross tiny Togo. An unknown number of people have...