This piece was originally intended to mark Hausa Day on 26 August 2026, but I held off publishing when I learned that Farooq Kperogi and colleagues had scheduled their “Diaspora Dialogue” session on the same subject. With an array of professors lined up to lead the conversation, I chose to wait and listen first. Not all the announced speakers ultimately joined, but the discussion was thoughtful and well managed. This is no small feat given how emotive a subject like this can become.
A few days before that, a friend and former colleague in academia, who is conversant with my research interest in Identity Politics, had called to ask my perspective on what is increasingly being described as Hausa Zalla: the emerging agitation for, and assertion of, an independent or exclusive Hausa identity. What was once a peripheral conversation has, over the past few years, grown into a significant and increasingly fraught debate within “Hausa-Fulani” communities. It has also opened up a wider conversation about history, identity, political power, religion, and the nature of the relationship between the two groups. We spoke for over thirty minutes, openly and at length, and I promised him I would put something in writing to help guide further discussion. This piece is that attempt.
I am approaching this issue not as an expert or a historian and certainly not as someone attempting to settle the historical arguments about the origin, nature and dynamics of Hausa and Fulani identities. I am approaching it as a student of political economy and identity politics.
I am therefore not interested in who is historically right. My interest is largely in why this identity is becoming politically salient now. What grievances are producing it? Who is mobilising it? What interests does it serve? What could its consequences be for the political and social order of northern Nigeria? These are questions I have also touched upon, albeit in a limited way, in my soon-to-be-released book, State of Anarchy: Politics, Violence and Disorder in Nigeria. I am aware, like Professor Toyin Falola noted, that this conversation is not peculiar to Nigeria, as both Hausa and Fulani are transnational ethnic groups. I believe the Hausa Zalla debate needs to be understood within this broader framework. Identity is never simply about ancestry. It is also about power, recognition, representation, resources and belonging.
Hausa Zalla’s Case
First, let us look at the key arguments from both sides of the divide. Proponents of Hausa Zalla advance several strands of argument. I do not necessarily subscribe to all of them, nor do I dispute them. They, however, deserve to be understood on their own terms.
The first is the assertion that the Hausa are an ethnic group, organically and historically distinct from the Fulani. According to this argument, the long association between the two peoples has sometimes been presented in ways that distort this distinction. In this telling, the Hausa are not simply a linguistic category or a cultural identity that anyone who speaks the Hausa language can claim. They constitute a distinct historical community with its own political traditions, institutions and collective identity.
The second strand concerns the history of the Sokoto Jihad of the early nineteenth century. A growing body of Hausa Zalla discourse interprets the jihad not as a purely religious movement but more as a Fulani political revolt against the Hausa ruling establishments of the time. The argument is that Hausaland was already substantially Islamised before the jihad and that, therefore, the jihad cannot simply be understood as an attempt to introduce Islam into a largely non-Muslim society. Rather, proponents argue, religion provided the ideological framework through which a political transformation took place.
From this perspective, the jihad fundamentally altered the political balance in Hausaland. It displaced or subordinated many existing Hausa ruling establishments and established a new political order in which Fulani elites became dominant in many emirates. The argument is not that every element of the jihad was motivated by ethnicity, but that its political consequences created a durable hierarchy between Hausa and Fulani elites.
The third argument extends this historical interpretation into the colonial and postcolonial periods. According to the Hausa Zalla perspective, British colonial rule did not fundamentally reverse the political hierarchy created by the jihad. Instead, the colonial system institutionalised and, in some respects, strengthened existing emirate structures and political elites. The postcolonial Nigerian state, in this reading, subsequently reproduced many of these patterns through politics, traditional institutions and the bureaucracy.
This brings us to perhaps the most contentious aspect of the argument: Islam as the social glue between the Hausa and Fulani. Hausa Zalla proponents increasingly contend that Islam, which historically brought the two communities into a shared religious and cultural space, has also become an instrument through which existing political and social hierarchies are reproduced. They point to the prominence of Fulani elites within traditional institutions, religious establishments, politics and parts of the bureaucracy and argue that religious solidarity is sometimes invoked to discourage questions about ethnic representation and political power.
The fourth argument, therefore, is about identity and representation. Proponents believe that the Hausa have, over time, been persuaded, or compelled, to accept a political and historical identity that does not adequately reflect their distinctiveness. They are particularly critical of the expression “Hausa-Fulani,” which they regard not as an accurate description of two closely associated but distinct peoples, but as a political construction that has served to obscure the numerical and political interests of the Hausa.
One of their strongest objections is to the increasingly common argument that “Hausa is merely a language rather than an ethnic group”. To the advocates of Hausa Zalla, this amounts to rewriting history. They argue that while millions of people who are not ethnically Hausa speak Hausa, the existence of a Hausa language does not invalidate the existence of a Hausa people, just as speaking English does not make someone ethnically English or extinguish the English or French people.
From this perspective, their answer is straightforward: the Hausa must reclaim and assert their identity, strengthen their political representation and become more conscious of their historical position. Some advocates (Hausa Tsantsa) go further, arguing that the traditional institutions of Hausaland should be reassessed and that leadership of emirates historically associated with Hausa communities should, where appropriate, return to Hausa custodianship.
A Counter to Hausa Zalla
However, an increasingly strong reaction is emerging against this position. Those who oppose, or are deeply concerned about, Hausa Zalla do not necessarily deny that Hausa and Fulani have distinct historical origins. Their concern is that the movement is turning historically complex relationships into rigid ethnic boundaries and, in the process, creating a potentially dangerous form of political mobilisation.
Their first argument is that Hausa and Fulani have become deeply intertwined over centuries. Geography, Islam, migration, trade, political alliances and, above all, intermarriage have produced a social reality in which it is increasingly difficult to identify large numbers of people as exclusively Hausa or exclusively Fulani. In many communities, identities overlap. Families have Hausa and Fulani ancestry. People may have one ethnic identity by ancestry, another by language and yet another by cultural or political affiliation. For this group, therefore, the attempt to establish a rigid distinction between Hausa and Fulani risks imposing categories on a social reality that has become much more complicated. Their argument is essentially that history has already done what contemporary identity politics is attempting to undo.
The second concern is the timing. Northern Nigeria is experiencing perhaps its most severe security crisis in a century or two. Insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, communal violence, displacement and the emergence of new extremist networks have weakened social cohesion across large parts of the region. Critics therefore worry that the increasing mobilisation of Hausa identity against Fulani identity could introduce another layer of conflict into an already volatile environment. They fear that a conversation which begins as an attempt to reclaim history could gradually become a politics of exclusion, raising questions about who belongs, who owns particular territories and who has the legitimate right to occupy traditional or political institutions.
The third argument concerns the political consequences of weakening what some regard as the historical Hausa-Fulani political and cultural compact. For generations, Hausa and Fulani have formed an important social and political bloc in northern Nigeria. Although the relationship has never been free of tension or inequality, the two communities have also developed a shared political, cultural and religious space. Those opposed to Hausa Zalla worry that deliberately dismantling this relationship could weaken northern Nigeria politically at precisely the moment when the region is already experiencing fragmentation.
Some go even further; a conspiracy theory has emerged among sections of this camp that Hausa Zalla is being encouraged or manipulated by interests outside northern Nigeria with the objective of fragmenting the region and weakening its political influence. There is, of course, a major difference between identifying a political consequence and proving a conspiracy. The latter requires evidence.
