Jos – how ‘intellectuals’ fail Nigeria

What happened in Jos recently, leading to the death of anything between 400 and a thousand people, bears every resemblance to the many incidences between the Tivs/Jukuns, Ife/Modakeke, Ijaws/Urhobos/Itshekiris, Aguleri/Umuleri, Zangon/Katafs or internationally; between Catholic and Anglican Irish, Bosnians and Muslim Serbs, Chechens and Russians, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, or Kikuyus and Luos in […]

What happened in Jos recently, leading to the death of anything between 400 and a thousand people, bears every resemblance to the many incidences between the Tivs/Jukuns, Ife/Modakeke, Ijaws/Urhobos/Itshekiris, Aguleri/Umuleri, Zangon/Katafs or internationally; between Catholic and Anglican Irish, Bosnians and Muslim Serbs, Chechens and Russians, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, or Kikuyus and Luos in Kenya, or the many pogroms in many a war-torn West African country, or between the Jews and Germans in World War 2 Germany?  Ethnic and/or religious cleansing has occurred just about everywhere in the world and at different scales.  My point is that there is adequate sociological evidence to avoid the build up of these problems, and to positively mitigate them when and if they occur.  If we engage our intellectual power.

So why is the Jos crisis being used as a platform for the destruction of this country?  Why are some states evacuating their people and therefore demonising a certain section of the country?  Why is this one yet another opportunity to profile people as good or bad along tribal/ethnic lines, depending on which side one supports?  It is a fact that sojourners and ‘settlers’ tend to do much better economically and otherwise, compared with those who ‘own the land’.  In the UK, for example, many poor indigenes tend to think all their problems are caused by immigrants who come to take their jobs.  Nigerian immigrants have developed an appetite for acquiring 20, 30 houses in foreign countries where they reside, just because they know they have no fallbacks.  The poor indigenes are ready to kill or beat up the immigrants, and they sometimes actually do, and often get away with it.  Remember that UK taught us, alongside so many other countries, ‘civilisation’.

‘Educated Nigerians hide behind their refined facade and stoke trouble.  As the Jos crisis simmered to an end, I get the below text from a number of highly educated friends, some with PhD’s: “Please don’t buy fast food/drinks (poisoned) from Muslim hawkers especially near church premises/convention grounds.  That is their new attack plan in Abuja.  Please spread this to your loved ones.  It’s an extension of the Jos crises…”  Sadness enveloped me.  ‘Educated’ Muslims also sat down and concocted some fearful texts too.  Are we trying to create a country where Christians only talk to and buy from Christians while the Muslims do the same?  How come educated ones among us cannot see that we are creating a modern-day Armageddon?

I watched the SSA on Religious Affairs to the Plateau State government, Reverend Gyang Choji, on Channels TV, and his message was evidently parochial and one-sided.  He kept hammering on how some people ‘imported’ street urchins from Katsina and Jigawa States to come and foment trouble in Jos.  Asked what the Jang Government was doing to keep youths employed, he was lost.  There was nothing on ground apart from the fact that the state government had brought in Israelis to develop agriculture.  Imagination has failed the Nigerian intellectual (not just the leadership).  He has forgotten that no one asked to be born, and so no one should be condemned, or demonised on the basis of the accident of birth, ethnicity and religion.

I write from Dubai, where the Emiratis deliberately mount ambush for Nigerian travellers, playing on our myopic stupidity and willingness to steal from our country to buy properties in other countries.  They accost you aggressively as you disembark, and invite you to presentations at which you will almost be coerced into purchasing some property or the other.  Visiting those presentations reveals that Nigerians are the most frequent visitors.  Every Nigerian wants to just damn his country and ‘move on’, even if getting ahead means using Nigerian money to prop up other economies.  Nigerians are the only people left in the world, actively destroying their country and enriching others!

But on the streets of the UAE, the word is that Emiratis are unfriendly and they are gradually forcing other nationals out of work and business.  Immigrant workers also believe, rightly or wrongly, that Emiratis are lazy.  A cold war is afoot.  What is happening in our country is a fallout of a natural phenomenon and must be understood and actively and intelligently managed with that in mind.  it should not constitute a basis for despair and self-destruction.

The whole matter takes us back to an encounter that took place between two of Nigeria’s great sages, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sir Ahmadu Bello, just as the Nigerian project began to falter.  Azikiwe had asked the Sardauna to ‘Let us forget our differences’, and the Sardauna had quickly quipped: ‘No, let us UNDERSTAND our differences’.  That statement captured the troubles in which we now roil as a nation.  Jos, the pogroms that have happened before it, and probably the ones that are to come if we refuse to take heed, is as a result of the refusal to UNDERSTAND each others’ differences.  To ‘forget’ is to sweep trouble under the carpet.  Rather than understand differences, what we have done as Nigerians instead, is to impose our differences on each other. Christians preach aggressively, condemning the other side openly.  Erstwhile calm Muslims now believe that they too should match aggressiveness with aggressiveness.  ‘Settlers’ (whatever that means), flaunt their wealth to the chagrin of ‘sons of the soil’.  ‘Natives’ also discriminate openly against ‘settlers’.  We forget we are all God’s creations, first and foremost!

I see no other way out but by the intellectual and ideological revolution that should be led by the educated class whom the rest of the society looks up to.  Columnists should be less biased and forge unity instead.  Inviting the military can only bring temporary palliatives.  ‘Governments’ cannot fix this problem entirely because it is distrusted and rumours are believed more than policies.  Governments should focus on job creation.  It is even sheer mental laziness for us to keep dumping problems that we can begin to solve on ‘government’.  

Politicians and religious leaders are naturally programmed to be biased.  Punishing perpetrators is a good deterrent.  But in matters of the heart; like tribe, land and religion, people are ready to die for the ‘cause’.  We may also end up punishing and killing many innocents.  It is usually impossible to accurately determine where and how these troubles start.  As many as ten different stories exist in the current Jos pogrom.  Intellectuals, yes you educated reader, get wise and change your ways!