Lagos, January 21: Politics and ethnicity, rather than religious extremism, are at the roots of the lingering crisis in the central city of Jos, where hundreds have been killed in the latest wave of violence, many experts believe.
“There is a mixture of religion, ethnic and politics. [But] the controlling elements in the whole crisis are politics,” Titus Mann, President of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Nigeria’s most prominent civil rights organization, told.
At least 20,000 people have reportedly took refuge in military barracks, churches and mosques after gun and machete wielding gangs went on rampage in Jos despite a 24-hour curfew.
The imam of the central mosque in Jos said about 200 bodies had been brought to the mosque by late Tuesday while a Christian clergyman said he had counted 65 bodies.
Unrest in Nigeria, Whom to Blame?
But there was no official confirmation.
Mann says it would be totally wrong and confusing to blame the crisis in Jos on religion, which he doubts is a strong motivation in the attack and counter attacks by varied ethnic groupings.
“Our investigation revealed that the Hausa youths attacked their Yoruba counterparts because of a memo the latter submitted to the presidential committee investigating the November 2008 violence.”
CLO is specialized in human rights protection and probes into abuses by individuals, groups or government agencies.
“Our sources say the Hausa youths were not happy with the position of their Yoruba counterparts that it was the Hausa community that caused the 2008 violence which killed hundreds.”
In November 2008, hundreds were killed in two days of fighting in Jos triggered by a rumor that a mainly Muslim party had lost a local election to a Christian-dominated party.
Nigeria is a multi-religious society with 50 percent of the population Muslims and 40 percent Christians.
Citizenship
Mann, the CLO president, cautioned the media against describing every crisis in the Muslim-majority North as being religiously motivated.
He recalled that Yoruba Muslims were killed in the 2008 mayhem as well as in the latest violence.
“The invaders don’t make distinction between Muslims or Christians. This is why I said politics is the controlling elements,” he contended.
“It is all about who controls Jos North.”
Jos North comprises mostly the Hausa-Fulani settler population, who are largely Muslims.
The rest of the city is inhabited by the Birom people, known as the land owners, Yoruba and Igbo community as well as Europeans and other non-Nigerian business people.
Audu Onoja, a journalist who has lived in the area for more than 20 years, agrees with Mann.
“What happens here are indiscriminate attacks between Hausa-Fulanis and other tribes,” he told IOL over the phone from Jos.
“But the main thing is who controls Jos North.”
Onoja believes politics is at play.
“The main issue is politics and this must be addressed. Until the crisis of citizenship is genuinely addressed, this region will continue to record this problem.
“The native Biroms feel government is deliberately empowering the Hausas by giving them key political slots at the expense of the original owners of the land,” he contends.
“If you ask me, the only trace of religion is that the Hausas are Muslims and the Biroms Christians.”
Terhemen Agbedeh, a journalist, believes that until the government addresses the indigene/settler question in Jos and in every other place, the problem will remain.
Isaiah Joseph, a 28-year-old Birom man, agrees.
“I don’t agree that the crisis is religiously-motivated because I have Muslim friends who have been killed,” he told.
“The main issue, which has long been ignored by authorities, has been the problem of the Hausa/Fulani settlers wanting to dominate us.
‘We are not going to take it. May be the lasting solution will be for them to get own state.”
-Agencies