When Bailor Barrie is also Davidson Nicol: The Kortor factor

When Bailor Barrie is also Davidson Nicol: The Kortor factor

By Fayia Sellu, Special Contributor, USA

When Siaka Stevens was destroying the fabric of Sierra Leonean society with the divide and conquer politics he learnt so well from the British, he farmed decadence on every field. In the field of degrading and bastardizing education, educationists and the educated, there was this fertilizer wisecrack attributed to him: “Den Say Bailoh Barrie, you say Davidson Nicol.”

First, every country has place for a Bailor Barrie (a self-made, rags-to-riches, multi-millionaire, who could barely spell or sign his name in English) and a Davidson Nicol (Cambridge trained Scientist, educationist, diplomat, and writer/poet…System man), as both in their respective capacities are useful to progress. The problem of diversity and difference of types in a nation is accentuated by the politics brought to it.

Politics determines who has access, preference, and privilege, and who gets marginalized and/or oppressed. The country’s history is replete with Bailor Barries and Davidson Nicols who have known both glory and disdain, been preferred or marginalized by politics that are rooted in party or ethnic belonging. Currently the third largest ethnic group in the country, Fullahs/Fulas were never thought of as a bloc with regard to politics (well that has changed recently),as they were from time immemorial, a people known to be a conservative, unified, dignified, simple, and who promote and protect their business and other interests- a posture that saw them rise to being arguably the foremost indigenous ethnic group in business in the nation. That fits neatly the typing of Fulas as business-oriented people, who also are cattle herders, and file them away in the cabinet of the nation.

That is mistaken! It lacks any interiority, an understanding of the complex constitution of people who have roamed the West Africa region for over a thousand years. The following excursion into Fula hegemony- rise to excellence and power- tells of an underdog ethnic group that knows how to keep their heads down and get what they want.

Fullah/Fulbe/Peuls as one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa and the Sahel and as a hegemony? Confusing? Most people prefer to think of the Fulas in Sierra Leone as a bunch of stereotypes that are undeniable and unavoidable constants in their daily lives, the first and last person they speak to outside their home, where they get breakfast bread and condiments or candle and mosquito coil at night at the street corner table or shop. Let me shock you: In the last elections, they were running mates in both SLPP and APC.

For SLPP their two running-mate contestants, Juldeh Jalloh and Alpha Timbo, were Fulas. For me, that says for the near future, Fulas will be among No. 1, 2 or 3 most powerful people in any government. Currently, they hold both 2nd and 3rd most empowered citizens next to the Fountain of Honor, President Bio. In the region, whether it is little The Gambia, influential Senegal, or to the giant itself, Nigeria, they are powerful in the professions and business, have held or currently hold the presidency. ZOOM OUT. How does one sketch the paths of a constellation, people(s)? that may have, thanks to their nomadic inclination, reached the Free World even before Columbus? When they did get captured as slaves, and there are recorded cases in U.S. archives, some armed with Arabic literacy proved more educated than their masters, escaped field labor and were in quasi clerical roles and kept the books, and some still, even their religion: Islam. As for spreading Islam South of the Sahara, the Sahel, all the way to Futa Jallon Highlands and beyond, there is hardly an ethnicity that carries more credit than the Peul, via Jihad, trade, or settlement. You must have heard of Mansa Musa’s epic and legendary pilgrimage to Mecca, but I would urge you to Google Othman Dan Fodio to learn more about Jihad in West Africa and if you get lucky the basis for the Fulani-Hausa hegemony in Northern Nigeria. Their peoples are scattered from South Sudan, through Egypt to Ethiopia, all the way down the West Coast of Africa. And before you ask, “Are you one of those conspiracy theorists worrying about a regional pan-Peul or Fulani takeover agenda?” The answer is no. ZOOM IN.

And no, it is not random. Probably only rivaled by Creoles, Salone Fulas, (well, that too is changing) are known to practice exclusive marriage as part of their culture. They are a walking contradiction, bipolar, are conservative and model, as they are liberal and diverse, peaceful, and pliable and could be very disagreeable and violent, pastoralists, but are also sedentary and assimilationist. Make no mistake, no matter how vastly different they are in life, place and station, their show of trust, support, and unity among some day to night Fulas, is astounding and exemplary. My project, partly, is to admonish the leadership-bereft political elite who parrot and peddle ethnic, tribal, bigotry- the refuge of the contemporary charlatan African politician. This negative of the political picture which suggests that ahead of Fulas, the Mende and Temne (the two biggest tribes on record) form the lines by which the country is so very deeply divided dissolves into more mythology than fact in thorough exposition. People live and speak as the two ethnicities more than there really are, with inter-marriages so pervasive.

In Sierra Leone, as anywhere, marriage conservatism is one way to keep purity or its illusion by any ethnicity. The Fulas have both numbers (unlike the Creoles) and broader cohesion to instrumentalize ethnicity than the Mende or Temne. Zoom In further, close ups, illustrations. As every smart Fula person knows, there are many shades that color who they are, that defines them more and uniquely as Salone Fulas. That could appeal to them more than zero-sum naked bigotry or even regional nationalism. There is the question of allegiance when more than one country or place is known as marking one’s origin narrative, the question of “Diaspora.” I will get close and personal to illustrate this point. The “Sellu ’’ family have always been “in diaspora” for as long as I could recall or try to pry. Let me begin with the dead-end origin narratives. As a Kissi, we populate what was Kissi Country that was arbitrarily sliced (Like Kurdistan maybe) up into the three bordering countries–Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia by clueless Europeans in Berlin in 1884.

So, though I identify with the Kailahun District, Sierra Leonean, side of the bloc, I can easily cross over to Lofa County in Liberia and Kissidugu in Guinea and be totally at “Home.” A precocious kid, I once pressed the most educated uncle of mine–five post-graduate degrees– about where we came from. Dr Bondi, who had helped set up Opportunities Industrialization Centers (OIC) in East and South Africa, said he had met our folks in Kenya and that we were the Kissi who came “looking for salt.” Delicious enough legend to stick with me and be the question to pursue in graduate school. My father (studied in the US in the 60s) worked (in diaspora) at Njala University College and built a holiday “Home” in Koindu, which was a Mano River Union market center and host to many Fulas (mostly from La Guinee) like the then Chief (they also crown a chief in any major settlement…order!) Alhaji Mornoma Bah. We would go to Koindu for Christmas and Summer vacations and were acquainted with the Mornoma Bahs.

Fast forward to about ‘99/2000. I met Cherie Bee the son of the Koindu Fula Chief who had turned into a fine lawyer with his many and thriving siblings at Kingtom where the family now lived (and he looks at me as a brother, in diaspora, from Koindu). Like tens of thousands of their compatriots, they had lost businesses, houses, sometimes everything but the clothes on their backs (and these Fulas were loaded) and were displaced living in Freetown. This was the case for businesspeople, Fula or not, low, or high means and station. To speak to their resilience, thriftiness and frankly support for one another and the fact that they move capital around, sometimes across the borders fluidly, most got back on their legs and thrived. Lest I forget, getting their own lawyers from their own loins as businesspeople in the majority was smart, calculating, and progressive. Why do you think one of their most noted organizations is called the Fullah Progessive Union? When did they get into the law profession to have the highest per- square- Country- non-Creole-men Chief Justices, Charm and Timbo. With the article title in mind, let that sink in. The spirit of forbearance soaked in resilience and the adventurousness of the pastoralist or nomad made it an easy call to drift away from the Fouta Djallon base, whence they grazed cattle historically, but settled only in trickles, in movements along trade and religious lines, hitherto in Salone. The tidal waves swelled their numbers within Sierra Leone borders and started in reaction to the stifling, oppressive even, policies of the self-styled African Socialist Guinean President, Sekou Touré, that was persecuting free markets proponents, intolerable to the lives and thriving of the Peuls.

The battle for ethnic dominance was never far from the core of the problem, the impetus for the exodus that started in the late sixties; intensified in the late seventies and beyond that and massively bolstered the population of Fulas in Salone. You look at the Fulas and think “Profit” and “Capitalist,” but again they are very Socialist in their dealings, especially with one of their own. Many Fulas came to Salone dirt poor! They did menial jobs. I was old enough to notice them coming into people’s premises to split their wood and do chores, drive the pushcarts from the marketplace; when they started grinding our cassava leaves, cutting up vegetables and expanding and ruling the meat and bakery businesses, front and back end. And mostly just on handshake, they could loan or open credit lines for each other in astounding ways and means. To help a Kotorhood (brotherhood), up! And they sure do climb! Never quite where you left them, they are always moving northward on the life ladder. Enough on new arrivals.

Before, during and after colonialism, Fulas had traveled and settled along the trade routes way into the country’s Hinterland. Let us look again at the two leading ethnic groups. The Mende: The Jahs and Kaikais are Fulas who came, settled in Pujehun, Mende heartland, and excelled in Islamic scholarship and trade, so much so that they elevated themselves and households to royalty, to date. They are Mendes now by every measure but ancestry. The same way it is hard to know whether the Timbos and Bundus of Gbinti, elsewhere, are Fulas or Temnes.

The British had their Royal Naval Base stationed in Freetown for policing the high seas to enforce the Abolition Proclamation ending slavery in 1863. There are a few waves of Liberated Africans who turned into the Creoles that settled in Freetown and its environs, among them the Black Poor from England, the Nova Scotians, Maroons, etc. And there are also the Recaptives, those who were liberated before they made the journey across the Atlantic and deposited in Freetown.

Slaves who were embarked on ships for the Americas were picked up in what was the Bight of Biafra, that part of the West African coast that spans for the river Niger in current day Nigeria to Cape Lopez in Gabon. Among those rose the Fullah Tong and Fourah Bay people with the persistent and dominant Nigerian ethnicities and cultural practices. Because the Recaptives did not make it across the Atlantic, they kept Islam as their religion and most of their culture, birthing the Hunting and Ojeh societies. Some Yorubas, Hausas and Fulanis, etc reconnected to their original “Home” in what became known as Nigeria and Cameroon. So yes, the Fullah Tong people are Fulas as are some Fourah Bay-the Muslim-Creoles. When you hear (Fadlu)-Deen, Alhadi, Alghali, Iscandari, Macauleys, you are talking to Fulas who are Creolized. “All over the map,” does not begin to define the one ethnic group that can be potently hegemonic, hopefully not bigoted, in the nation and region, yet their fibrous roots and disparate (re)constitutive parts in Sierra Leone, uniquely, defies the stereotypical essence which we (or they themselves) normally cast them. Nobody was born, already, a “We Vs. Them” bigot. Ethnicity itself helps to identify us, but lacks any essence cast in stone.

The jury may be out as to something of an essence to the Puel DNA that makes them excel by values most religious books teach and major folklore embodies forbearance, trustworthiness, resilience, and good old hard work. It is intriguing what you can see if you care to look. Salone Fulas have made their mark in every substantial area of society: The Good, Bad and Ugly…they are human. Par exemple, take the same family of Fula-Creoles, the Alhadis. They produced Justice Alhadi who suckled from the same breast as Abayomi “Highway” Alhadi, the most legendary thug, Thief and Hitman in the country, ever. They are represented in all the professions, white collar, blue collar to artisanal. It is more than a convenient accident that Siaka Stevens’ wisecrack used a Fula magnate and a Creole academic to fit typology as Creoles started schooling in Freetown in the 1800s and Fulas are businesspeople. Wrong! Name a major profession and I will point to a Fula at it, excelling or pioneering or playing a leading role. Davidson Nicol types? More PhDs than anyone can care to count. Sixty percent of citizens are involved in (unmechanized) Agriculture. ACRE, a USAID Project attached to Njala University College in the eighties, engaged in cutting edge research. By the time it turned Institute of Agricultural Research in the nineties its first Director was a Crelole-Fula Prof. Dhaniya (who was killed in cold-blood by rebels) and was succeeded by a traditional Fula named Dr. Jalloh, married to a Mende woman named Pemagbi. Before the rise of the Neoliberal creation, Civil Society, which hotwired popular representation of working folks, which labor unions and professional organizations that matters had not a Fula headed? Is it SLTU, Alpha Timbo, Labour Congress, Barrie…SLAJ, Tayib Bah, SLAFA, Alimu Bah…? Pioneering? Giving back? How about Prof. Alusine Jalloh, who was a Fulbright Scholar at his alma mater FBC, saw the need for and founded the Social Work and Sociology department! He took an early retirement at University of Texas, Arlington and is currently Head of Department, History and African Studies, where he initiated a private scholarship program for students in his department paying tuition and stipend for almost thirty economically challenged students. He went to St Edwards and that is why it is now fenced with gates, and Trinity Primary School, where he helps with a feeding program, supplementary emolument, and supplies. He’s Christian! Wow! I am not applying for the job of Fula P.R.O They have fine journalists, even the current SLAJ Scribe, Asmieu Bah, and younger generation voices that run the gamut from Rapper LAJ to Chernor M Bah of Africanist Press. However, it is a shame I dropped all these names and there are no women. There is another wisecrack of a younger generation than the Bailor Barrie one: “It is the Fula Man you don’t know whom you call Kotor.” We have seen that there are a million ways to be a Kotor, but most of the Fula Musus (Women) remain hidden or stay behind. Or may that be the secret? Are they too busy raising kids who would succeed? I pause, will not speculate!

Fulas are the ethnic group that teach us about integration, diversity and conservatism, the range of contradictions in the construct of ethnicity itself as a unit of analysis. There is no model Fula, but models of Fulas, disparate, separate. One thing that is constant is that mostly, they excel in whatever identity, vocation or life path they choose or destiny offers them.

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