Ethno Religious riots in the North
By
IT is an irony that this country has probably lost more lives to ethno-religious crises the last two years than in the 15 years before this short period, particularly in the North alone. Tragically and correspondingly, the interest of governments (federal, state and local) to halt the carnage repeating itself in another location seems to wane. Rather, the state and local governments look for false alibi as if to justify the destruction of lives and property and avoid any responsibility for security lapse. Yet the events continue to drive the economy of the North to the woods. In both Kano and Kaduna states, with declining independent revenue, the economy is bound to suffer as the crises take their toll. Non-indigenes, non-Moslems, and non-Nigerians alike, especially now that anti-American feeling rises in Sharia states with increasing American action in Afghanistan, coupled with the unending ethno-religious crisis, continue to flee for safety, abandoning the economy. Moslems too feel unsafe, even in places that used to be traditional safe havens like the Middle Belt, in Jos and Makurdi especially.
My objective in this article is to attempt addressing the ways and means for arresting the continuous and snowballing ethno-religious crises that remain largely a threat to coexistence of non-indigines and non-Moslems with the majority Moslem communities in the northern parts of the country, particularly in the Sharia states. The crisis could be identified with religious bigotry and claim of supremacy. Moreover, these days any little hiccup arising from sharing of resources, including farmland, grazing land, party funds, political pots and the like, triggers ethnic animosity and intolerance resulting in the slaughter of non-indigenes and non-Moslems even when the issues started as a disagreement among the indigenes. This very quickly engulfs the non-indigenes and non-Moslems who are then subjected to massive assault, a common occurrence during Kano and Kaduna riots. One is bound to ask whether these people do not wish to tolerate outsiders in their midst any more unless perhaps such people are ready to convert to Islam.
In cases that involved loss of economic supremacy to non-indigenes, and in the Nigerian polity in general, we now clearly can see a pattern. The feeling of inequitable distribution of resources, and a likely threat of access to resources in many of these northern towns have become a major problem. The opportunity of any crisis is used to assault and liquidate the lives and property of non-indigenes, sometimes generally more industrious and ingenious with business and their callings. What is also quite clear is that the foot soldiers usually deployed to the dastardly exercise are the neglected young men, without jobs and without hope in the enterprise called Nigeria. It is indeed easy to see that the poor economy is largely at the root of the problem in the northern parts of the country.
Coming back to the religious crises, it is easy to see that the concern for the protection of the purity of Islam has been a subject of insinuation for some time but on its own cannot be said to be responsible for the religious crises. The introduction of sharia was not also an attempt to destabilise President Olusegun's administration but a plan that has been hatched much earlier. That the agitation have been on for decades is an indisputable fact even if the later Sir Ahmadu Bello, the then Premier of the defunct Northern Nigeria found a suitable arrangement for the times. The weakness of President Obasanjo's administration in matters of religion merely provided the opportune time realising that he was the candidate of the northern political caucus.
In any case, virtually all military heads of state of northern extraction, including Ibrahim Babangida, and except perhaps General Yakubu Gowon, have schemed relentlessly to give the sharia a vantage position in the constitution. In particular, the 1999 Constitution was intentionally weakened, mesmerized and equivocated through the secularity of religion and fundamental principles of state in order to accommodate the introduction of full-scale sharia. The recent vituperation of Mohammadu Buhari actually betray his sincerity and fairness in most of his decisions as a head of state, actions still in line with this thesis. The introduction of sharia by religious nitwits, people of lower pedigree, hue and mien compared to the northern politicians of the first republic was merely procedural given the various doctoring of the 1999 Constitution to eventually accommodate it.
Thus religious crises in the North and subsequent killings of non-Moslems and non-indigenes will continue as long as violations of sharia tenets continue by these groups of people. That they are not adherents of Islam will not matter contrary to the constitution since Sharia cannot succeed among Moslems as long as there are people in the immediate polity authorised by the constitution to act differently in accordance with their own professed religion. Sharia is an all or nothing thesis and practice, if it must succeed, contrary to the deceit of proponents. Yet we must all stop the killings of non-Moslems and non-indigenes in every community crisis in the North. Those being used to assault and kill people are the no-hopers and government owes them the responsibility of winning them from the practice of being used in such dangerous and dastardly exercises. Why must we frown at the introduction of the full-scale Sharia anyway as both a right and a religious injunction to Moslems? By doing so we allow religious fundamentalists and bigots to use the jobless, the poor and mercenaries from our neighbouring countries to visit mayhems on the innocent realising that both the president and constitution are weak to stop them. As the non-indigenes and non-Moslems desert northern communities, the rest of the country owe it a duty to safe the North from itself. The North was not always like this before the civil war, and it was more prosperous than this. More grinding poverty is beginning to take its toll as the politicians criminally and selfishly share resources for development while the poor are killing themselves in the former's design to dominate the people rather than allow the people to dominate them.
First a new constitution for Nigeria must recognise unambiguously the right of Moslems in Nigeria to practice full-scale sharia if they choose but the constitution must go the extra mile to protect the right of others to practise their own religion, including the safety of their lives and property in Sharia states. Unless Moslems do not want to co-exist with others in a federal Nigeria, they will have to subscribe to respecting the religious right of others if they want that reciprocated. That is what the clamour for the Sovereign National Conference is all about. The Nigerian flag, we are educated by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, is wide enough to accommodate all. Islam in Nigeria, or any religion for that matter, cannot be geographically exclusive.
A good constitution should actually permit an immediate declaration of a state of emergency in any state or part there-of within a maximum of 30 minutes after killings had started. An immediate movement or transfer of troops, not police, to hit back at gladiators on sight or wherever they can be located should also be declared along with this. Many now wonder whether this government has lost any concern for human life, like the perpetrators of the crises we now witness. The two problems in the North today are religion and the economy. All the crises now taking place there can conveniently come under these two problems. The poor state of the northern economy, dominated by non-indigenes can be blamed on their thieving politicians and their elite sons and daughters, hiding under the cloak of Sharia. The Federal Government must push the Universal Basic Education to its very limit in the North. The civil society particularly the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) of the civil right category, already very active in the South should enlist northerners to establish similar organisations in the North to work against corrupt politicians and governments.
Peace and prosperity must reign in the North for indigenes, non-indigenes and Non-Moslems to be safe in their communities and help develop the place. Save the North from itself and the elite.
November 2001