If we have the imagination to grasp the true significance of the events which led, a century ago, to the break-up of the Hausa dynasty by the Fulani, we shall find the key to the moral side of permanently successful government in Northern Nigeria. The motive of the Fulani _jihad_ has usually been attributed either to mere religious fanaticism or to personal and racial ambition; or, again, as an incident in the prolonged struggle for power on the part of this or that ruler or dynasty which has destroyed the fertile uplands of Western Africa south of the Sahara since the shattering of the ancient Niger civilizations by the Moorish invasion at the end of the sixteenth century. It appears to me that this appreciation is superficial, and that we must look deeper than the surface results. I am not sure that these surface results themselves do not suggest the need of doing so. A man of letters galvanizing a whole countryside to revolt against oppression. Shepherds and cowherds flinging away their sticks and staves and rallying to his standard. Initial defeat turned into victory. A number of independent States converted into a homogeneous entity acknowledging a temporal and spiritual over-lord. An immense region ill-provided with means of internal communication brought to recognize one common authority—and all within a year or two. These are remarkable occurrences. They insinuate the existence of some driving force below the surface. Is it possible to trace that force in the chequered annals of this part of Africa?