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Five Hundred Nigerians Massacred Over a Political, Not Religious Divide
March 10, 2010 by Dr. Ibram H. Rogers
Dr. Rogers can be reached at ibramrogers@aol.com.
Mass burial in Nigeria (Source: latimes.com) (picture missing)
When I heard that almost five hundred Nigerians were massacred over the weekend in Jos, Northern Nigeria, my heart dropped in silence. For over three hours Sunday morning, hundreds of Nigerians were hacked to death with machetes in their homes. Those that were able to flee were caught in large animal traps, and murdered.
After it took me a while to re-center myself emotionally, the next line of thought was WHY? Why did this happen? Why? Why did five hundred people get massacred like this? Why?
Most of the American news stories did not answer this question, as they rarely do. They briefly presented the notion of religious strife, saying Christians were massacred by Muslims. But to me, that is not saying anything. That does not provide any answers. For most Americans, who have this idea that Muslims are barbarous, ruthless, natural killers, who murder to murder, and hate just to hate, that explanation provided an answer. But to me, who see Muslims as people, I still did not learn the reason behind such a massive tragedy.
So as usual, I had to leave the American media, and start searching in obscure places for answers. From reading a variety of foreign sources, I realized the massacre seemed more about power politics than religious tension. In human history, merely religious tension has rarely if ever caused massacres of this magnitude. I knew something else was up.
I came to realize that Nigeria’s former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida created in 1991 the Jos North local government bringing together this rival under one political banner and he ultimately empowered the Hausa Fulani, who actually requested the government be created.
As Nigerian columnist Charles Kumolu wrote, “It all began with the creation of Jos North Local Government Area through States Creation and Transition Provision Decree No 2 of 1991. Unknown to those who conceived the idea and gave concrete expression to it, it has now become synonymous with the recurring decimal now known as the Jos crisis with high toll in human lives and property. In the process, the bond of brotherhood that used to exist appears to be permanently broken.”
In effect, it appears that this local political structure brought together rival ethno-religious groups under its jurisdiction. One group, the Muslim Hausa Fulani, was empowered by the federal government to rule in the early 1990s, and ever since they have sought to assert their power over the other Christian groups in the local government.
The governor of the state where these atrocities occurred set up a commission last year, which investigated the tensions that previously have resulted in deaths of lesser numbers. The commission recommended in a 339-page report that the present Jos North Local Government be sliced into three local governments with the state government giving “due consideration to all ethnic groupings in appointments, nominations and promotions with the state.” It made a series of other recommendations to eliminate the power struggle. None were instituted.
Therefore, the blood and the stench from the corpses are on the hands of state officials who through instituting some of the recommendations of the commission could have prevented this massacre. But even more blood has stained the hands of former president Babangida, who snatched these religious rivals from separate political rooms, threw them into one room, handed the Muslims machetes, and closed the doors.
Violence has reigned ever since in that room. And it may continue. This may not be the last massacre we hear about until the door is opened and they are allowed to reside and operate in their own political rooms like they did pre-1991 when this area of Nigeria was a beacon of peace.
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