Understanding Ethno-Religious Conflicts in Northern Nigeria
It is very difficult for anyone to discuss the socio-economic cum political problems bedevilling Nigeria without attributing it to two things. First, lack of social justice which characterised our political landscape and secondly the rampant corruption that eats deep into the fabrics of Nigerian society. Even if other factors are responsible for the problems we see today, for instance, in some parts of the country, the underlying factor has to do with lack of order - leissasfair and lack of ensuring conformity to the rules governing our lives. Nigeria has been faced with so many conflicts since before independence and after it, to the civil war in 1967.
But no time in Nigeria’s history that lives were lost, and people became suspicious of each other than in recent times. Apart from the crises in Niger-Delta of kidnapping, killings and vandalisation of the country’s main economic stay, no crises threaten the unity of this country like the ethno-religious crises that engulfed the Northern parts of the country. It is not the intention of this writer to discuss the functional and dysfunctional forms of these conflicts, as a sociologist could do because, in our case, since the introduction of non-ideological politics after the scrapping of all political parties during the unending political transition in the late ‘80s, functional conflicts ceased to exist. Therefore, conflicts in Nigeria became dysfunctional, mostly ignited by politicians who became irrelevant in their communities, therefore mobilise their people for riots which in many cases led to loss of lives, property and displaced hundred of thousands of people and rendered them homeless and refugees in their own country.
Writers, analysts and political commentators alike, have, in the past tried to identify the remote causes of these crises and have attributed it to hypocrisy and insincerity on the part of most of our religious leaders, traditional rulers and politicians. This might be correct, considering the fact that from the Kafanchan crises to Zangon Kataf and reprisal killings in Kano, Aba and other similar crises in other places, nobody was punished as a result of role he played in the crises. This gave other people the courage to ignite further crises in other areas that have no history of such crises in the past.
However, the issue of ethno-religious crises in Northern Nigeria, although might be caused by some of the reasons above, it is compounded by the total breakdown of institutions that ensure societal control. These institutions include the family, law enforcement agencies, religious and community leaders, and more importantly the political system. Most of these institutions over the years are left on their own. Our educational institutions are in shambles, there are no regulations guiding the practice of religion in the country; so the country becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of criminals, hoodlums and thugs.
Moreover, as the elder statesman Alhaji Abbas Dabo said in an interview recently (Suday Trust, March 8, 2009) we don’t want to hear the truth. We all want things to be done to favour us and our families and to large extent our ethnic and religious groups. It is quite unfortunate that after twenty years of going through the same problem, our leaders failed to come up with workable solutions to ethno-religious crises in the North. The North started experiencing religious crises back in the late 1980s, which later spread to schools. I quite remember when most secondary schools in 1990 in the then Bauchi State were closed down due to unrest between Christian and Muslim students. Almost all secondary school in Bauchi state had had their own test of the crises at that time, in some cases resulting in the death of some students and destruction of school property. Don’t you think that now after about 18 or 20 years these same students that were part of what happened in most secondary schools are at the centre stage that carries this to larger society?
Gradually these crises were taken to next level, engulfing the entire North. Politicians at all levels try to capitalise on the ignorance of the populace, introducing divide and rule tactics, thereby creating a permanent enmity between different ethnic and religious group. This serves them (the politicians) because as the people, walloped by poverty, hunger and lack of basic amenities maim and kill each other; they are busy stripping the public purse naked building mansions in Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Port Harcourt or even in places like Dubai, London and Washington. The political elites continue to exploit these differences by keeping them focussed on trivial issues, forgetting about their real problems like lack of good roads, portable water, hospitals, schools and the teeming unemployed youth.
Do we deserve this? Is that the dream of our founding fathers? If Sardauna, Tafawa Balewa and even Murtala were to come back today would they be proud of the kind of leaders they trained to develop the North? This will be hash, but the generation of leaders trained with tax payers’ money in the ’70s and ‘80s need a rethink. Someone should start taking responsibility. They failed the North and the entire country. The North and the country deserve better than what we are seeing today.
How can the North get out of this and establish a harmonious relationship between various ethnic and religious groups? The answer is very simple; ensure social justice. Justice as some writers put it is constant and perpetual will to give every man his due. When each and every one of us feels he has less to worry about feeding his children, educating them and providing medical care, nobody can accuse his neighbour (a settler) of trying to take over his land. But as long as we continue deceiving our people, stealing the money for healthcare, for education etc. the crises will continue and who knows and God forbid when the entire North will be at war with itself.
As long as we continue to show non-challant attitude towards education, towards agriculture and we continue emphasizing on spending money on projects that have no direct bearing on our people, then expect the institutions of societal control to fall under the tutelage of Okada riders, local manicurists, hooligans, and restive youth. Then these set of people according to one scholar, who in the first place are ignorant of the teaching of their religion and who hardly, if at all, pray and know nothing about the religion other than its name become its defenders. The result is what we saw in Jos, Bauchi and Kaduna. And it is bound to happen again and again.
And as long as perpetrators of these heinous crimes remained the peace-makers and conflicts managers, who in many cases exhibit duplicity, bias, and show opportunistic piety of its operatives and discriminatory patronage of one religion against the other we will not see peace in the North for a foreseeable future.
Kabiru Danladi,
Lawanti Village, KM25,
Along Gombe-Bauchi Road,
Akko LGA, Gombe State,
Nigeria
Kblondon2003@yahoo.com
08054546764, 08035150369