Nigeria, April 30 -- There is a strange thing happening in Nigeria today. A people who have existed as one for over two centuries are suddenly being told they must choose. Pick a side, they are told. You are either Hausa or Fulani. You cannot be both. And when those same people look their challengers in the eye and say, "We are Hausa-Fulani, and that is who we have always been," they are met with anger, suspicion, and a kind of intellectual hostility that pretends to be debate but is really an attempt to erase a living history.

Let us be clear from the start: you can call yourself Hausa zalla, purely Hausa, and there is nothing wrong with that. You can call yourself Fulani zalla, purely Fulani, and there is equally nothing wrong with th...