JOS CRISIS: LET TRUTH BE TOLD

Another crisis erupted in Jos the Plateau State capital on Monday, 29 August, 2011 with the usual attendant random killings of fellow Nigerians. It’s now difficult to even keep a log of the number of the incidents of rioting in the city hitherto renowned for its peace and scenic beauty.

By 10:00 am all access roads to the University of Jos were blocked. It was at 1:00 pm that soldiers of the two-year-old Special Task Force in Jos managed to clear the congested roads. However, the Gada Biyu to Farin Gada axis remained inaccessible. By 3:00pm, thick black smoke was bellowing from the environs of the Jos Central mosque and Gada Biyu.

What was really happening in town? This was and still is the question on many lips. Probably only those who were at ground zero can accurately answer that question, provided they are willing to be honest to their consciences. I say if they are willing to be honest to themselves because of the deluge of conflicting reports that greeted us in the press on Tuesday morning, barely 24 hours after the carnage.

I was bemused by the conflicting reports in our national dailies and online papers this morning. I therefore, decided to take time to juxtapose the different stories and see if a meaningful picture can emerge. Here is what I found out:

Sahara Reporters is an online paper which has been very quick and fearless in its reportage on events in Nigeria but based in the US. They could only quote Associated Press (AP). What they obtained from AP actually came from officials of our own National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). They claimed that the fighting began after Muslims began praying in a predominantly Christian neighborhood. Next, for no stated reason, the Muslims were suddenly attacked by unidentified persons using knives, machetes, bows and arrows. The aftermath was at least four deaths and over 50 burnt cars and 100 motorcycles burnt. The only mention of the presence of law enforcement agents in their report was that the Special Task Force soldiers and policemen “moved into the affected neighborhood late Monday.”

The Daily Trust newspaper reported that no fewer that ten persons were killed following an attack on the members of the JIBWIS Muslim sect as they filed towards a prayer ground along Rukuba Road to observe the Eid-el-fitr a day ahead of other Nigerian Muslims. Road blocks to the mosque had been mounted by youths in the area to stop the Muslims. All entreaties by security personnel to dissuade the youths from blocking the access failed. Other youths in their hundred later joined the protest, asking the sect members to beat a retreat. According to the report, “A fight soon erupted and shots rang out from all directions as security men tried to disperse the crowds….the security men were outnumbered.” Skirmishes broke out in other parts of town as the news of this fracas spread. Dr. Lass David of the Bingham University Teaching Hospital who treated the injured was reported by the State Commissioner of Information as saying that of the 35 casualties brought in all had bullet wounds while 2 were already dead on arrival.

The Daily Trust report contained a vital piece of information. 3 days earlier, JIBWIS youth had gone to the same site to prepare it for the Eid prayers and they had been confronted by youths in the area who told them not to hold the payers there. The Police Commissioner had earlier in the week marked certain routes for the Muslim faithful to use and areas to avoid. I wonder on which list Rukuba Road was. Why did the JIBWIS sect not heed the advance warning by residents of the area anyway?

The Sun News reported that the Rukuba Road area is the same area that was bombed by unknown persons on Christmas Eve last year for which Government has done nothing to date. According to the paper, youth in the area had vowed to make the Muslim sallah celebrations this year “unpalatable.” That means everyone had a prior notice of the impending danger. The paper said after the worshippers were trapped in the area for hours, skirmishes broke out resulting in the deaths of one Muslim of the Izala sect and 9 Christians, all from bullets fired directly at them by soldiers of the STF. The paper added that residents of the area confirmed the ten deaths.

Thisday Newspaper carried their report on the incident under the caption, “17 Killed as Sallah Turns Deadly in Jos.” They reported also that as many as 30 cars were burnt as well as several houses. They too reported that Apparently, the same Muslims had gone to the site on Sunday to prepare the grounds for the prayers and were warned by “indigenes” not to hold the prayers there. The Muslims insisted and contracted soldiers of the STF to convey them in their official Toyota Hilux vans to the ground. So the worshippers were escorted by security agents to the venue knowing fully well that civil unrest could result.

The Punch Newspaper titled its story, “20 Killed in Renewed Jos Violence.” It reported that the victims were allegedly shot by soldiers who escorted some Muslims to a prayer ground. It also said that the Muslims were chanting “Allahu Akbar.” A leader of the Gada Biyu youths, Mr. Yusuf Khadiya, later held a press conference in which he claimed that soldiers shot directly into the Kabong market where most of the casualties were recorded.

allAfrica.com reported that 10 deaths resulted from a Muslim-Christian clash on Monday 29 August, 2011 at the Rukuba Road area. The paper quoted Dr. Lass David of the Bingham Teaching Hospital as saying that 3 dead bodies were brought to the Hospital along with 50 injured persons bearing bullet wounds.

Under the caption, “Casualties As Christians/Muslims Clash Again in Jos”, the Vanguard Newspaper reported that Jos, which has enjoyed relative peace for some weeks was engulfed in bloody violence on Monday, leaving 20 people dead and over 50. “A witness said Christians involved in the clashes spoke of preventing Muslims from marking their holiday in revenge for a string of bomb explosions in Jos on Christmas Eve last year”.

The Vanguard report went on to say that eye witnesses gave conflicting versions of what led to the clash. One version has it that members of the Izala Islamic group were attacked by youths along Rukuba Road, a Christian dominated area, while going for prayers at an abandoned mosque located in the area. Apparently, the mosque had been abandoned years ago in the wake of sectarian violence as the town became polarized along religious divides. However, another version has it that the Muslim youths going for the prayers, contrary to the directive of the Police that they must not carry dangerous weapons to the praying ground, brandished daggers, knives and other dangerous weapons at the residents of the areas as they drove past. This infuriated the residents. Youths who reside in the area approached the mosque for a showdown but were fired upon by the STF men causing death. In retaliation, the youths stormed the mosque, torched parked cars and motorcycles inside and even killed some of the worshippers.

From all these reports, one can pull out some facts:

(1) That no one is sure how many human lives were lost in the mayhem.

(2) That Hausa/Fulani Muslims do not live around that Rukuba Road mosque anymore.

(3) That Muslims were warned of the impending danger should they attempt to use the mosque in question.

(4) That security agents perceived the inherent danger but decided to give the Muslims cover against the Commissioner of Police’s directive days earlier not to use that route.

(5) That dangerous weapons were taken along to the prayers by Muslims.

(6) That the Rukuba Road residents were out to exact revenge on Muslims Christmas Eve 2010 bomb attack in the neighborhood.

(7) That while Christians have been forced to abandon their Churches in Muslim dominated areas, Muslims are insisting on using mosques grounds in Christian dominated areas.

(8) That Jos city is highly polarized along religious lines with known no-go areas for Muslims and Christians.

(9) That security personnel of the STF could have prevented the clash but perpetrated most of the killings themselves instead.

Still, the truth of the matter has not yet been told. These are all just symptoms of the cancer in Jos. No one has yet placed a finger on the sore point. The bone of contention should be clearly identified if we are ever to solve the problem. In the rest of this article I will attempt to pin-point key issues in the Jos crisis as fairly as I can.

The Hausa/Fulani Muslims in Jos are migrants who have settled there for any period from the time of the Dan Fodio jihads of 1904 up to one or two years ago. Their claims to ownership of land in Jos have been proven to be baseless by competent authorities. All the land they occupy is an Anaguta, Afizere and Berom inheritance. Their large numbers today in Jos can be attributed to their practice of polygamy and fresh continues migration from elsewhere. Though they occupy up to 10% of the heart of Jos today, they don’t even have traditional burial grounds.

One major problem with them is that they have not integrated into their host community the way the Igbo and Yoruba settlers have done. These other tribes, Muslims and Christians alike, have intermarried into their host communities, whereas no indigene has ever married a Hausa of Fulani Muslim girl. A few Christian girls have married Muslims men and have even been Islamized.

Peaceful coexistence between the Hausa/Fulani and their host communities has never happened. When their numbers were small, they tolerated their hosts. However, now that their numbers are large, they have declared a full scale war in order to take over whole territories by force. What their ancestral Uthman Dan Fodio jihadists could not do, they would want to achieve.

The Federal Government’s seeming insensitivity to the Jos crisis is because it has since taken side in the matter. The Babangida administration knew exactly what it was doing when it totally disregarded the rights and wishes of the indigenous peoples of Jos and went ahead to create a Jos North Local Government Area covering exactly the area settled on by the migrants. The request of the indigenous people at the time was for a split of the defunct Jos LGA into Jos East and Jos West instead the Jos North and Jos South that was eventually done. The people’s protest letter is still on the President’s table according to former President Babangida’s submission through his counsel to the 2010 Justice Ajibola Judicial Commission of Inquiry.

Bloody clashes commenced in 1994 and several even deadlier ones have occurred since then. Today, murder takes place daily affair in Jos and environs without retribution. Four Reports of Judicial Commissions of Inquiry, a Plateau Peace Commission, a House of Reps investigative Commission and other parley reports are gathering dust in Government vaults unimplemented. Whenever the truth about the Jos crisis is told, nobody in Government, State and Federal, takes up the courage to implement it. Why? Because the forces behind the Hausa/Fulani forceful takeover over of Jos always intimidate Government officials and matters are swept under the carpet. Compromise, lack of political will and outright cowardice are always at play. This was the situation in Southern Kaduna too until the people took up arms and chased away even the Military Administrator when he attempted to reach them.

One reason for the Hausa/Fulani expansionist tendency is to spread their religion, Islam, whether they openly accept this fact or not. To ‘dip the Quran in the Atlantic’ is their agenda numero uno is the way some put it.

Another cogent reason for the expansionist tendency of the Hausa/Fulani is hardly ever discussed. It’s the loss of their ancestral lands to desert encroachment. While the residents of the periphery of the Sahara Desert long ago saw the danger posed by draught & desert encroachment (plus global warming today), the rest of us are just waking up to that realization. Desertification is fast eating up their ancestral homes.

The Hausa/Fulani know that their land is as good as gone and so they must migrate. They have a discriminating religion - Islam, a rich language – Hausa and they don’t mix up with others. These three elements put them on collision course with every other group of people.

Their migration southwards is a natural survival instinct. However, their claim to their hosts’ homes is unnatural and always a source of conflict. To succeed in such nefarious claims, they have to be in governance perpetually, hence their insistence on a North-South zoning instead of a rotation between our 6 administrative geo-political zones.

This is the reason why they deceived Gowon into jettisoning the beautiful ‘Aburi Accord’ in 1967. This is also the reason why IBB promulgated the most retrogressive piece of legislation ever called the Land Use Act 1978.

The Land Use Act in force today has 8 parts and 51 sections. Part 1A, S.49 takes away all rights to land & vests same in the State Governor who must issue you the most-difficult-to-obtain Consent to Mortgage, which is required for the creation of legal mortgages. Oil communities, cocoa plantation owners, Nigerian Institute of Surveyors, property developers and others have been demanding for its abrogation. Nigeria's huge housing deficit today is largely due to the un-workability of that obnoxious Land Use Act.

The Act authorizes a Local Government to allocate up to 50 hectres only for developmental purposes, but up to 500 hectres to a cattle owner for grazing purposes. Benue, Nassarawa and Plateau States are today experiencing funny attacks from Fulani herdsmen that defy reason. Here is the secret. They are deliberately making a nuisance of themselves so that they will be allocated grazing land. Once they have secured that legal document, then that large chunk of land in Nigeria becomes theirs in perpetuity while the farmers who originally inherited it from their forefathers would have lost it forever. So, cattle owners who have had no fixed address for millennia can easily acquire Rights of Occupancy from LGs while serious investors have to slog it out through Government House red tape to get our power-drunk Governors to personally assign such rights to them.

The Hausa/Fulani want that piece of legislation in place because it will gives them access to ALL lands in Nigeria. I assure you, it will be easier to break up Nigeria than to abrogate the Land Use Act. There is rumor right now as we speak that GEJ's constitutional amendments might include a provision to grant rights hitherto reserved for indigenous peoples to any Nigerian who stays for just 6 months in any locality - rights like ministerial appointment. The Tiv were smart decades ago when they quietly adopted the policy of never allowing settlers to acquire title to land or have direct market stall allocations. Let the Hausa/Fulani remain perpetual tenants in Tiv land, they decreed. Even at NTA Makurdi, the Tiv did not allow the news to be read in Hausa language from inception.

CAR (Central African Republic) did something similar to what the Tiv did. Being a very small land-locked country and having hoards of rich Fulani nomads criss-crossing their countryside, they passed a law to the effect that CAR does not have a Fulani tribe. CAR thus secured the future ownership of her lands. No history book will ever tell you that Plateau State had Fulani people at any time. However, that history is about to be re-written according to the Land Use Act when Local Governments in the State are coaxed under duress to allocate Fulani people grazing land between Barkin Ladi, Bokkos Riyom and Bisichi so that there will be in the land. Arise oh compatriots!