I hope this novel will become my signature. I am a lawyer by training and have been in tourism for most of my career but I hope I will be remembered for this novel
Increasing inter-tribal conflicts inspired him to return to school and get a PhD in law with a thesis on “An Assessment of the Legal and Institutional Framework for the Prevention and Mitigation of EthnoReligious Conflict in Nigeria.”
Dantata has written three non-fiction books before but two years ago something shifted, something made him develop an interest in writing a novel that he now hopes will be his “signature.”
“I hope this novel will become my signature. I am a lawyer by training and have been in tourism for most of my career but I hope I will be remembered for this novel,” he said, taking a sip of water.
But what pushed him into fiction writing, what did he want to say that his articles or essays suddenly seemed inadequate to address?
“The defining moment came two years ago when the Fulani came into the news for the wrong reasons, not only in Nigeria but across West Africa. They were expelled from Ghana, with the Ghanaian government claiming there is no indigenous Fulani population in the country. There were problems with the Fulani a contribution to that dialogue,” Dantata said.
“When I was young, the Fulani were romanticized, the Fulani milk maid, the Fulani dances. For years they have been romanticized but when did these depiction change from Fulani the romantic to Fulani the terrorist? The whole transformation took place within the last two years and the media played a part in that,” he explained.
His determination to pass a message through fiction became imperative following increase in clashes between Fulani herdsmen, a now dreaded term in Nigeria, and pastoralist communities that have claimed thousands of lives across Nigeria.
One thing that is glaring while interviewing Dantata is his desire to correct perceptions about the Fulani, but he is also very clear that the Fulani need to make changes to their ways, something he hopes they will realize when they read his novel.
“I think the Fulani are now being profiled in a certain manner, not that I am holding brief for them, because I think they have their own faults too, but
now things are getting out of hand and they are being profiled as if every herder is a terrorist. Most of them are not. They are just going on with their lives as they have been doing for centuries,” he said. “I am not trying to launder their image, I am trying to tell a good story.”
For Dantata, that refusal to change in itself is a problem. He talks extensively about change and people’s resistance to it. It is not only the Fulani he picks a bone with for resisting change but just about everyone else.
“Kano is my homeland but it has failed to modernize. It is a trading center like Dubai but has refused to modernize. In some parts of Kano, there are narrow alleys that even bicycles can’t access because people won’t let their houses be demolished to make way for development,” he said, the passion echoing in his voice.
“Can the Fulani modernize and somehow retain their cattle? Can the Yoruba and Hausa and Igbo modernize? We talk about some countries that have Can the Fulani modernize and somehow retain their cattle? Can the Yoruba and Hausa and Igbo modernize? We talk about some
countries that have modernized overnight and we wonder if this is applicable to us