By Farooq Kperogi
News reports quoting Kashim Shettima as saying that the North isn’t supporting him because he’s Kanuri are misleading. I just finished watching the video in Hausa. He never said that.
He only implied that Atiku’s supporters in the North who have popularized the expression “Naka sai naka” [yours is yours] say he’s Kanuri, who can be found in only two states, in order to “other” him but that there’s no difference between Kanuri, Hausa, and Fulani people because they’re united by Islam and intermarriage.
He gave examples to buttress his point. He said Mamman Daura’s father, Dauda Daura, who was a title holder in Daura, had Kanuri ethnic heritage; that Buhari’s mother was Kanuri; that the Musa Yar’adua family in Katsina town are also Kanuri; and that he, too, a Kanuri man, has Fulani bloodline.
The Yar’adua bit isn’t true except I misheard him. The Yar’adua family are actually descended from Tuareg immigrants to Katsina in the dim and distant past, but they are, for all practical purposes, Hausa, although I won’t be surprised if they do have some Kanuri filiation through intermarriage.
I, too, have distant Kanuri bloodline through my maternal grandmother’s side.
I don’t say this to support Shettima, but to straighten the record.
Culled from the Facebook page of Farooq Kperogi
