How the Lobi of Ivory Coast resisted Fulani invasion

By John Ashimota

The only cure for madness is exactly madness. As long as we continue to appeal to the Fulani to reason with us the more they will do worse things. Until we revenge on a grand scale by killing the good the bad and the ugly Fulani. The stupidity will not stop.

I know I have told the story of the Lobi and Fulani here before. The Lobi live in north western Ivory Coast. The Lobi are a very small ethnic group but filled with courage, determination and raw rage when they are attacked by strangers.

The population of Lobi is about 250,000 in Ivory Coast, but they rose up and resisted Fulani. They didn’t wait for the Government to help them. They organised and defended their land. They didn’t quarrel over donations for arms and equipment. They actually raised the funds in secret, running into millions of dollars. They got their men in the military who trained their young civiilans

They organised a secret armed group, no noise,no zoom meetings, no protest to the United Nations, no video showing the plans to attack Fulani or showing their dead bodies.

The mainly cultivate yams. In 2014- 2016 they had Fulani problems killings and their crops being harvested for cattle. After meetings to stop the madness yielded no fruits. The lobi declared that any Fulani on their land is carrying a death sentence on their head and their cows fair game.
For six months without stop every Fulani settlement in Lobi territory was surrounded and raised killing every single living thing within it. Even chicken. Those wondering through to graze their cattle did not fair well either. The leaders who came from neighboring countries to sue for truce didn’t leave alive.
It took the government of Ivory Coast, the sultan of sokoto ( the current person) to make concessions to the Lobi for them to agree that for the next 10 years no Fulani or cattle can pass through without first getting a permission slip from their king. The truce will end in 2027.