Mohammed Abubakar Bambado, the Sarkin Fulani of Lagos, sits on his throne while presiding over an assembly with Fulani people looking for his advice in his Palace at the district of Surulere in Lagos, Nigeria, on April 28, 2019. –

Mohammed Bambado is a prominent businessman who was crowned as the Sarkin Fulani of Lagos, and Chairman of the Association of Fulani Chiefs in South West Nigeria and he advocates and protects the interest of Fulani and Hausa-Fulani people in the Lagos State and other areas of South West Nigeria.

The Sarkin Fulani of Lagos sinks into his white upholstered throne, lays a hand on the sculpted golden cow head that forms the armrest and scans the subjects gathered at his feet.
Mohammed Abubakar Bambado is a busy 49-year-old businessman with a successful port handling firm in Nigeria’s economic metropolis.

He is also a king.

The Sarkin Fulani of Lagos is one of Nigeria’s most influential members of a mainly Muslim community of nomadic herders from the far north, at a time when relations with the country’s largely Christian farmers are deteriorating.

All of those waiting for an audience to air their problems in Bambado’s cramped assembly room are ethnic Fulani-Hausa, two closely-tied northern ethnic groups.

But few of them know the herding life.

Fulani-Hausa now make up around a quarter of the population of Lagos — around five to seven million people — in the ethnically Yoruba-dominated south of Nigeria.

The congregation is overwhelmingly urban — district chiefs kneel alongside the representatives from the ranks of the “okada” motorcycle taxis and the beggars who wander between the racing traffic in downtown Lagos.

“I am here to solve their problems,” said Bambado, a thick-set man with a Mercedes 4×4 who himself does not fit the stereotype of the weather-beaten wanderer.

Their problems are centred on the push and hustle of life in Nigeria’s frenetic economic capital.

A money-changer was kidnapped and murdered. His family does not trust the police and begs the influential chief to follow up on the investigation. He says he will.

There are land disputes, family quarrels, beatings and armed robberies, all brought to the chief for advice and help. He has no official powers, but when he speaks, the police and politicians listen.

“He is a good man. When something serious happens, even if he is travelling overseas he always picks up his phone. And if it is necessary, he flies back to Nigeria,” says Suleiman Ibrahim, a trader who has come to Bambado to adjudicate a family feud.

Indeed, the time Bambado spends on his gilded throne in his somewhat ramshackle palace in Surulere, the popular residential district of Lagos where he lives, is just part of his busy schedule.

The married father-of-three often travels for work and spends around half the year in London and Dubai on business.