The Soft Issue
August 2017
Photoseries
The Backyard People
Photographs by:
Adebayo Abayomi
Words by: Notiki Bello
M
uch of the narratives surrounding
the lives of the Fulani, in our mind,
are couched in images of violent
clashes between farmers and herders.
Photographer, Adebayo Abayomi believes that
there is more to these people than what you are
shown.
The Fulani are a very mobile set of people.
Their lives are often determined by the needs
of their cattle. This transience is exemplified in
the type of houses they live—modest huts that
are immediately pulled down when it is time to
move again. In Bolorunduro, the huts are freshly
built from mud, which is abundant in the area.
Because it is rainy season, the huts may have
been rebuilt following a collapse, or it could be
that new settlers have arrived. Around this time,
the Fulani do not move; they wait until the rain
is gone.
Some of the settlers have not moved in a long
while. They say the forest is thinning and there
is no grass for their cattle to graze on. They
have been here for ten years, some twenty
years, giving birth to more children to take over
their trade. They are more or less citizens of
here now, since they have no intention to move
anytime soon.
But the real locals do not think so. This is not
helped by the sedentary nature of the Fulani
when it comes to seeking out people who
are not them. It is only their cows that matter.
Nothing else. So, they are often estranged.
They live in the back of town where possible
interaction and contact with locals are often
impossible: schools, electricity and pipe-borne
water are also out of reach. They do not speak
any other language except Fulfulde or Fulde.
They and their children do not even understand
universal gestures so hand signs are useless.
Adebayo Abayomi, in spite of the
communication barriers, challenges our
perception of the Fulani with these set of
powerful portraits in “The Backyard People”
a result of his trip to Bolorunduro, a Fulani
settlement in Oke Odo, Ilorin, Kwara State,
Nigeria.
11
the
LENS