The Middle Belt Forum’s 17 August 2026 statement on the Federal Government’s cattle-ranching policy is troubling not because concerns about land acquisition, consultation, compensation or security are illegitimate, but because it frames them within a doctrine of ethnic territorial ownership. At its core is a claim that must be rejected: that parts of Nigeria belong exclusively to particular ethnic groups and that other Nigerians may be treated as outsiders regardless of citizenship or constitutional rights. This is inconsistent with the Constitution and with the region’s complex history. It seems to have been a page extracted right out of a Stone Age Manuscript!  2. The portrayal of Adamawa, Taraba and parts of Plateau State as exclusively indigenous Middle Belt territory from which Fulani people are historical outsiders is a historical and political revisionism. The Fulani are not strangers to these areas any more than other ethnic groups. In Adamawa and Taraba in par...

One of the trending issues on the table recently in the North is the political aspiration of the Cleric-turn-politician, in his quest to become the next Governor of Gombe state come 2027. I am not going to support Jafar Jafar's dismissive article of Pantami's unrealistic effort to juggle the moral compass of his clerical uprightness against the immoral stance of Nigeria politics which thrives mostly on corruption and deciet. Nor am I going to agree with Professor Abba Aji's rejoinder to Jafar Jafar, seemingly endorsing Pantami's ability to eat his cake and have it, as he maintains the dual role of Cleric-Politician. What I am going to do is simply remind us of the antecedents and precedents of Pantami's role in the last two decades, from both the religious and political spaces he traverses.  In a viral video in recent years, we have seen the skinny, vocal and passionate Pantami castigating, condemning and distancing himself from politics and politicians....