Kaduna: Vengeance most violent, most vile

From the first of such incidence in the early 80s at Kasuwar Magani, a seemingly cosmopolitan urban settlement in Chikun Local Government Area, to the latest one just after the April 16 presidential polls, they also always had political undertones. As the result of the presidential elections began to trickle in the following day after […]

From the first of such incidence in the early 80s at Kasuwar Magani, a seemingly cosmopolitan urban settlement in Chikun Local Government Area, to the latest one just after the April 16 presidential polls, they also always had political undertones.

As the result of the presidential elections began to trickle in the following day after elections, tension began to mount as several people in the north expressed shock and utter disbelief at the results coming from the south-south and south-eastern parts of the country. To them, the results had been rigged for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). For instance people could not explain or understand the massive turn-out of registered voters, almost exclusively, at the presidential polls, which they weighed against the miserable amount of votes given to the leading opposition parties.

That infuriated the army of largely unemployed youth in Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Kano and other key towns in the North. They instantly mobilised and poured out almost spontaneously onto the streets, mounting roadblocks and making bonfires that forced vehicular traffic to move stealthily. The situation allowed the rampaging youth the opportunity to molest the motorists, forcing them to chant the solidarity slogan of ‘Sai Buhari’ before they were allowed to proceed.

The miscreants who eventually infiltrated the rank and file of the agitated youth decided to attack houses of leading northern politicians belonging to the PDP and its perceptible allies. In Kaduna, among the houses of prominent people destroyed by fire were those of the Emir of Zazzau and Vice President Namadi Sambo. So, the whole thing looked more of party affair.

However, soon it degenerated and got out of control of the rioting youngsters, as hoodlums, hooligans and ruffians begun to touch places of worship, shops and residences of people of all religious beliefs. Before anything could be done to arrest the ugly situation, already, an irreparable damage had been done.

There were accusations and counter accusations that Christians were rising up against the Muslims and vice versa, but it was confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the first attack came from the largely Christian-dominated satellite settlements of Mararraban Rido on Kaduna-Kachia highway where a big Juma’at Mosque was burnt and vehicles belonging to preachers destroyed. Also, numerous houses belonging to Muslims in the area were devastated and their occupants fled to safety in near-by refugee camps in Kaduna.

The Sarkin Hausawa of Zonkwa, Alhaji Uba Ado, born in Zonkwa about 75 years ago, lost everything including four of his 33 children who also left behind 12 grandchildren, he also has other extended family members now scattered in various refugee camps across the state. He blamed the police and other traditional rulers in the area for failure to respond to numerous distressed calls by Hausa people when they were being murdered. He and his people had to undergo an awful experience that lasted the whole night after hostilities began without any intervention from the security forces.

Meanwhile, the inability of security operatives to nip the violence in the bud led to its spread, with its attendant enormous destruction of lives and property. It quickly spread to Kafanchan, the biggest and most populous urban settlement in southern Kaduna. The violence there had taken a new twist that provided a frightening dimension of viciousness yet to be witnessed in the history of the area; the natives converged at the centre of the densely populated Muslim town, in the middle of the night, to unleash dastardly attack which left many dead.

We have heard people say the violence was not religious which at the onset looked really so, what happened subsequently contradicted that assertion. In Kafanchan, a mosque and a school attached to it opposite the central market, belonging to Ansar-ul Deen Society of Nigeria was recklessly assaulted and ruthlessly burnt. In an unconfirmed report, 26 mosques including the one built by the wife of former Secretary to the Government of the federation, their own daughter, were destroyed.

Bishop Joseph Bagobiri of the Kafanchan Diocese, instead of calming the situation was inflaming passion as he told white lies while the spiteful destruction went on. He has accused Muslims of not only starting the mayhem but said they harboured arms and ammunition.

The security personnel in Kafanchan who had heeded the Bishop’s call, immediately began a house-to-house search in the middle of the curfew-imposed nights in all the selected or pin-pointed houses where such weapons are suspected to be hoarded. They did not find anything of such in the house of those accused of precipitating the unrest and hording weapons. Eight Muslims had been arrested and taken to Kaduna, where they met 50 others, from Zaria charged with committing atrocities, for further interrogation. The suspects from Kafanchan were charged with arson and setting the Kafanchan Central Market on fire, but interestingly none from the natives of Kafanchan had been apprehended despite the widespread allegations that the masterminds for the market inferno were the leaders of the natives.

The Jema’a Foundation described Bagobiri’s statement as false and misleading because it was the Christian and the aborigines in Kafanchan who attacked Muslims in the evening. The Foundation said it was in support of the Bishop’s call for the search  of arms and ammunition not be limited to Kafanchan but the entire southern Kaduna as well as probe the sources of arms and ammunition and the uniforms of Army and the Police used by the Kafanchan fighters. The Emir of Jema’a Alhaji Muhammadu Isa Muhammadu disturbed by the ugly development, advocated the establishment of Army and Mobile Police formations in Kafanchan, though the request has since been made in 1987, yet no response.

With deep sense of humility and extremely heavy heart, the Emir extended his heartfelt condolences to the families of the bereaved and all those traumatised by the sad, regrettable happenings.

For now normalcy is back in the area, the fear of reprisal attacks was still palpably implanted in the people’s hearts because of tomorrow’s inauguration. The Hausas had told the world that they did not have any other land beside the southern part of Kaduna and since God in His infinite wisdom created them there, they had to remain in that land as Muslims till eternity.  Their cry now is peace, tranquillity and progress not only in Southern Kaduna in particular but in the whole state and the nation at large.

Baba-Ahmed  Wrote from Kaduna.