Jos: Taming the hyenas of ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria
They soon overwhelmed the police with skillful display of tactics and the state governor, Abubakar Rimi, ran to the presidency for help. The army was summoned to restore law and order which it did with the utmost dispatch after two days of fierce fighting. Maitatsine was killed in the rebellion, but an army commander at […]
They soon overwhelmed the police with skillful display of tactics and the state governor, Abubakar Rimi, ran to the presidency for help. The army was summoned to restore law and order which it did with the utmost dispatch after two days of fierce fighting. Maitatsine was killed in the rebellion, but an army commander at the Maitatsine Inquiry, indicated that the fanatics fought with amazing zeal and courage. “They kept coming,” he said.
That comment underlines the potent danger which the country faces from renegades who dare to rock the ship of state with violent attacks against their fellow citizens. Yet, the presidential inquiry into the Maitatsine incident declared that the military had employed “excessive force” to bring the situation under control.
Repeatedly ever since, that phrase has coloured the public response to military intervention in the quelling of violent civil disturbances. However, everyone agrees that the military, by its training and doctrine, cannot be expected to treat rioters with kid gloves.
At one time, the government of the day toyed with the idea of a National Guard, to serve as a buffer against internal threats to law and order. The idea has since been shelved but the menace of sectarian riots and killings has continued to bedevil the peace and progress of the nation.
Through their determined plots against the people of Nigeria, Jos, the scenic capital of Plateau has turned from a world famous tourist destination to a by-word for sectarian violence and spontaneous bloodletting. Serial riots beginning since 2001 have cast a dark pall on the economic potentials of this beautiful state and thrown up ugly social and political schisms between segments of the populace.
Trust dies first in any sectarian riot and usually, the people on both sides of the atrocious divide have succumbed to overpowering panic and hopelessness before the army arrives on the scene. According to various reports, nearly 1,000 people, or more, lost their lives in the 2001 riots in Jos. The mayhem sparked off on September 7, and lasted nearly two weeks during which several houses, mosques, cars and churches were burnt to cinders. The madness was only brought to a close after the introduction of soldiers who quelled the riots by strictly enforcing curfews and conducting detailed searches on commuters.
The 2008 riots occurred over the result of a local election on November 28 and 29 of the same year. By the time the Nigerian Army arrived on the morning of the 30th with orders to “shoot on sight,” over 400 had been injured and 381 killed. A 24-hour curfew was imposed on four areas of Jos metropolis; flights to and from Jos were cancelled and transportation restricted on some roads out of the city. The Nigerian Red Cross reported 10,000 displaced persons taking refuge in government shelters.
Violence erupted again on January 17 2010 and lasted four days during which 200 persons reportedly lost their lives. Bonfires of cars, churches, mosques and homes completed the usual pictures of mindless destruction. A 24-hour curfew imposed on the city that same day signaled government’s intention to deal with the crisis decisively. A presidential order was released asking troops to restore order. Police records indicated that 362 lives had been lost.
The pre-dawn raid on 7 March, 2010 on Dogo-Nahawa village near Jos sparked off fresh outrage and pitted Major General Saleh Maina, the beleaguered commander of the peace enforcing troops into a vicious public relations storm. Nearly 100 Berom villagers were slaughtered in that dawn raid by Hausa-Fulani cattle rearers, who admitted carrying out the attack in revenge for the murder of their kith and kin in the earlier riots. The Dogon-Nahawa murders evoked chilly reminders of a similar incident tagged the Yelwa Massacre in 2004, when hundreds of unarmed settlers were killed in that town and many more displaced, due to a spontaneous face-off between the indigenes and the Hausa-Fulani settlers.
This is the salient background to the loud orchestrated controversy that has trailed the intense efforts of the military, under General Maina, to restore public order on the Plateau. Several analysts have their differing reasons for the lingering inter-ethnic and seemingly inter-religious schisms in Plateau. The jury is still out on the panacea to the protracted quarrels between the belligerents, but it is noteworthy to observe that the search for sustainable solutions cannot be helped by the resort to emotional outbursts and intemperate conclusions from respectable citizens sitting as accusers, judges and jury on the matter.
As we write, the lifting of the day long curfew in our beautiful Jos is heartwarming enough. It is a sign indeed that Maina and his much maligned officers have won the hard battle to bring sanity back to the streets of the Plateau capital. The task to keep the hyenas of ethnic and religious violence from baring their ugly fangs is well beyond their ken. That is the task for politicians and would-be- statesmen in the mould of retired General Domkat Bali, whose intemperate outburst on the conduct of the peace enforcement troops left absolutely much to be desired.
Bali’s allegation of bias did not have much to commend it. Hear Bali after complaining that General Maina refused to pick his calls: “The reason I called was that there were fake soldiers from Niger, Chad and so on. They were flashed on the television screens and I saw some of them wearing canvas, slippers and so on. The people I saw were not boys who could not be stopped and their weapons collected from them. But with what I saw on the screen, they (the fake soldiers) and the army were virtually operating together, and the army did not arrest or stop them [as far as I know anyway].” Interpretation: Any ill-dressed “soldier” in slippers and canvas must be from Chad and Niger, not Langtang or Shendam! The four-star general was not done. “You see, the Chief of Army Staff is an Hausa man; the GOC is an Hausa man; they dictate who should come here and who is to serve in what position.”
Is that really so? Bali should have provided us with a rundown of the officer strength in the 3rd Mechanized Division, or asked the Senate Committee on Defence to do it, so the nation may know that the division is a Hausa/ Islamic regiment of the Nigeria Army. Accursed be the day when the army, from which he retired not so long ago, turns to be the outpost of ethnic or religious armies. Certainly, we have moved beyond that ugly past which led to the unfortunate civil war in which Bali was a major player.
When the army dealt with Maitatsine using such “excessive force,” nobody accused the commanders of any religious agenda. Indeed, the army and Nigeria is lucky to have General Maina, as a veteran of several peace enforcements against the Maitatsine in Bornu State in the ‘80s and the Boko Haram of recent memory in Bauchi and Bornu States. It is instructive that nobody has yet accused the army of anti-Islamic tendencies in its handling of the Boko Haram tragedy.
Oladejo writes from Asokoro, Abuja. [email protected]