Mohammed Bello was the second Sultan of Sokoto and reigned from 1815 until 1837 and was an active writer of history, poetry, and Islamic studies and the most learned if not the most powerful of the Fulani sovereigns . Bello was responsible for the founding of Sokoto which would become the key capital for his father’s conquest of Hausa lands in the Fulani War(1804-1810).
Mohammed Bello was carrying out an ethnic cleansing policy of people whom he claimed were not Africans. The people he was referring to, according to him, were spread across the SUDAN. This territory is currently known as the interior regions of West Africa, Central and East Africa. He also mentioned the people; spread across the SUDAN region by name.
This is the statement BELLO gave to an explorer named Capt. Hugh Clapperton (18 May 1788 – 13 April 1827) who was a Scottish traveller and explorer of West and Central Africa.
Quote – ” Yarba is an extensive province containing rivers, forests, sands and mountains, as also a great many wonderful and extraordinary things. In it, the talking green bird called babaga (parrot) is found.” ” By the side of this province there is an anchorage or harbour for the ships of the Christians, who used to go there and purchase slaves. These slaves were exported from our country and sold to the people of Yarba, who resold them to the Christians.”
” The inhabitants of this province (Yarba) it is supposed originated from the remnant of the children of Canaan, who were of the tribe of Nimrod. The cause of their establishment in the West of Africa was, as it is stated, in consequence of their being driven by Yar-rooba, son of Kahtan, out of Arabia to the Western Coast between Egypt and Abyssinia.
From that spot they advanced into the interior of Africa, till they reach Yarba where
they fixed their residence. On their way they left in every place they stopped at, a tribe of their own people.
Thus it is supposed that all the tribes of the Soudan who inhabit the mountains are originated from them as also are the inhabitants of Ya-ory.
Upon the whole, the people of Yarba are nearly of the same description as those of Noofee (Nupe)