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The Jos Mayhem and the Rest of Us By Kadir Ahmed Abdull-Azeez
Davidson Audu Gorjo is about the best friend I made during
the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) compulsory one year
service in Akure, Ondo State. Davidson is from Jos, I am
not. He is a Christian, I am not. During the last Jos
mayhem, I would have sent him to his early grave. However,
thanks to the technology of Global System of Mobile
Communication (GSM).
Akure, the capital of Ondo state has become a home of a
sort for us having rummaged the nook and crannies of the
town as corps members. Dave, as we all call him, stays
behind to run a post graduate programme at Federal
University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) where he had his
primary assignment while some of us scampered back home to
eke out a living. Supposedly, his abode becomes our ‘quest
house’ any time we find our self in Akure.
On Friday 21 November, 2007, I got a short message (sms)
from the Institute of Strategic Management of Nigeria (ISMN)
Akure, notifying me for an examination slated for 29 of
November by 12 noon at St. Matthias College, Alagbaka,
Akure.
Before leaving Kaduna for Akure, I notified Dave of my
coming to which he replied that he would leave Akure for Jos
on Friday, 28 November. Consequently I left Kaduna on 27
November, Thursday. I arrived Akure to the welcomed hands of
Dave.
Having been born in Jos, Jos North to be precise, one
delights in getting first hand information about the
going-on there. So onto late at night, we were discussing
the local council polls. As early as 5.00am, calls started
pouring into Dave’s cell phone cautioning him not to head
to Jos as danger looms due to the previous day’s polls.
Dave was in a dilemma; to go or not to go. Thinking that
with a retired Air Force officer and a two-time governor in
the calibre of Jonah David Jang as the chief security
officer there was little cause for alarm, and any uprising
could be easily contained. However, Dave reminded me that
that was how the 2004 crises started until many lives and
properties were lost.
Thinking Jang was different from Kawu Mishere as we call
Dariye; atleast the president was not looking for an excise to exile Jang,
I propped Dave on to embark on the journey.
“Mu da garinmu” I said to him in Hausa meaning ‘we that own our town’.
“Shi ne fa” Dave responded. With that, he got ready and a neighbour
dropped us at the park.
We parted at the park with the promise that he should head
to Abuja first and once there, make calls to Jos to get
situational reports. And that seemed to be the saving grace.
However, what baffles me until date is how my friend’s
parents and siblings knew that early that something like
that was in the offing?
For one week Dave a Christian ‘indigene’ of Jos, was
held ‘hostage’ in Abuja as he dare not venture into Jos
for the fear of the unknown or is it the known. This writer
a ‘settler’ Muslim was ensconced for a whole week in
Dave’s abode in Akure.
Since that gory macabre episode, many have lent their voice
and pen to the genocidal acts of the perpetrators. The
Nigerian media; especially the print, have proved how prone
they are to be used to ignite ethno-religious unrest in this
country. A section of the media in this country practiced
what a former lecturer this writer aptly termed ‘mercenary
journalism’. For the one week this writer spent in
Akure, not for mobile phone ‘luxury’ of keeping in touch
with family and friends in Jos, some of the dailies were so
misleading in their reportage of the whole situation.
The reporters it seems were feeding the gullible public with
doctored or to use the Nigerian political parlance,
‘rigged’ second hand information from Jos. And if you
were like this writer familiar with some group of
journalist, you would not be surprised.
It is has been the practice of most Northern-owned or based
media houses to not only employed but also deploys indigenes
or those who have good knowledge of particular geographical
area as reporters. This does not only give a grasp of the
knitty-gritty of the nook and crannies of the area, but also
give their report more credibility. However, that is not the
case with other media houses. They would rather deploy
reporters who do not only speak the common language of the
people but are not even interested in learning the language.
And when they get to the venue of an event and language of
communication is the local one that they do not understand,
instead of asking from colleagues who understand and speak
the language, they ‘assume’ what they think the
dignitary said. Do you remember the ‘Buhari said Muslims
should vote for Muslim’ saga?
Another set are those called “press centre journalist’.
This group see themselves as elite journalists; they gather
at press centres, do not go for events but wait for the
field Journalists to report and when those media houses
published, they are among the early callers at the
newsstand. Senior free readers; they selectively buy the
ones with ‘juicy stories, copy verbatim and send to their
own media. In Kaduna for Instance, if you report for the New
Nigerian Newspapers, a day or two after yours has was
published, you would read the exact report word to word
without your by-line in another paper.
Though there is nothing wrong in a journalist relying on a
fellow colleague for information on events because he cannot
be everywhere at the same time, but taken it to a point of
plagiarism is very absurd and unethical.
These same kind of fellows also form a cartel and organizes
interviews with top dignitaries; especially politicians at a
price and give the individual the utmost freedom of giving
them fictitious ‘fact’. And to the press they go with
‘exclusives’. More absurd was the habit of waiting for
handouts in the name of press release. Like the interview
alluded to above, the journalists some time are the authors
of the same releases; not manufactured but doctored.
As one Hassan Omolowo wrote in Federal Radio Corporation of
Nigeria (FRCN) news commentary of 20 November, 2007,
“….the ink in a journalist pen can turn into milk and
honey or blood of destruction depending on how he used
it”.
These and more were what we saw during the Jos mayhem in
some dailies. A situation that, if not for the tenacity
shown by most state governors, and the posture of the
federal government, ‘retaliatory’ killings would have
erupted in other parts of this great country. Infact, the
efforts of the neighbouring states of Kaduna, Bauchi,
Nassarawa and Gombe must be commended in curtailing what
would have been another horrendous round of national
ethno-religious crises.
But if this is very appalling, the arm chair newspaper
columnists who rely on the report of these ‘field’
reporters to feed the reading public with a worst
imaginary fiction in the name of opinion is highly
nauseating. I now agree with Pa Lateef Jakande more than
ever who once wrote that most of those who write and call
the north by sort of names know nest to nothing about the
north and northerners. Some of these individuals who Dr.
Ibrahim Tahir would call ‘hoity-toity, arty-tarty, gold
water’ columnists exhibited that much.
And talking about Dr Ibrahim Tahir, for those who take as
‘alibi’, the Indigene-settler dimension to further
perpetrate and insult the sensibilities of Nigerians, the
expose by the effervescent sociologist, in an interview with
New Nigerian on Sunday of 23 January, 2009 is an eye opener.
For those who said a Berom man can not go to Kano and
seek political office even after spending donkey years
there, let them research into the history of those
personalities who under civil regimes, has ruled (ing) Kano
from Bakin Zuwo, to Rimi down to Shekarau. They would
realize that if a Berom man would cast away his tribal toga
and see himself as a ‘kanawa’ and possesses all the
necessary but not sufficient qualities; he can be anything
he wants to be. Lagos is another example. Most of those who
have served (serving) Lagos are not Lagosians by
‘indigenship’ but by ‘setlership’. Who knows, the
Commandant General of Kick Against Indiscipline (KIA) in
Lagos, Retired Captain Maigari who is doing his best to give
Lagos a humane face may be a Berom (?) man.
Having participated in the NYSC scheme and finished barely
six months ago, I feel and share the agony of the families
and friends of the three-slained corps members during the
crises. But the dimension of its reportage and consequent
calls for the scrapping of the scheme shows how myopic and
shallow the thinking of ‘intellectuals’ are. It is
rather unfortunate.
In some parts of this great country, especially for
those from the northern part of Nigeria, serving in another
could be a nightmare. Because even in peace time, you could
leave in perpetual fear of arm robbers even in broad day
light, ritual killers, cultists and other unholy acts. as a
matter of fact, in some communities, to guarantee your
safety, you have to taken round by the traditional rulers’
courtier who warns of any attempt by his subjects to stay
away from and do no harm to ‘government pikin’ in their
midst.
These are some of the dangers facing but not limited to
corps members nationwide. Yet some of us still clamour for
its retainership because the advantages far outweigh and
overwhelm its shortcomings. The NYSC like many things
Nigerian needs overhauling. However, not from the tribal,
sectional and myopic prism that some are proffering because
of that unfortunate Jos situation.
The Jos mayhem, like many reasonable Nigerian have pointed
out is far from religious. It was a political infamy where
political elites in a bid to sustain their illicit class
interest, use the gullible poor masses as cannon fodder. And
this where the inordinate passion of one political party or
individual to it all portends a great danger to the polity.
Like General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida who incidentally
created both Jos North and South said, is impossible to
bring some one from Modakeke to be chairman in Ife and vice
versa. But between Jos North and South, our political lords
lord it over the poor masses not minding the lethal
consequences.
The mercenary angle of the discourse was more absurd.
Does one import arm and instruct others to kill him just to
render his wives widow and his children orphans, or, even
pay them to lock the whole of family indoors and set the
house ablaze?
A visit to any of the refugee camps or the burnt house and
business premises within Jos would provide answers to these
questions. The composition of the victims speaks volume but
our myopic, tribalist and religious bigots did not or
refused to see it that way. Those they blame for this
heinous crime have co-existed, trade together and even
intermarry for many years without animosity.
And lest you forget, in the eyes of those writers, the
North of Nigeria has graduated from using ‘almajirai’
(those fragile little boys who can hardly lift an empty pale
bucket of water) to execute civil strife to importing
‘mercenaries’. How ridiculous the way some
‘educated’ fellows think. Truly there is a whole lot of
difference between been educated and been enlightened.
Rather the later than the former. The probe panels sure have
lots of job to do
And in Nigeria, probe panels at least in the past hardly
proffered solution to crises and that of Jos may not likely
be different especially going by the multiplicity of the
panels. And the trade of words between the state and others
so far falls short of the expected; no thanks to the likes> of Nuhu
Gagara, Jangs’ megaphone.
A single probe panel with members cutting the various
institutions at the three stages of government, traditional
and religious would have sufficed but not so with usand
no thanks to a recalcitrant chief security officer of a
state. Zangon Kataf is model example. But that was under
the military. Now we are under civil rule, but the question
is how civilized?
What the victims need now is re-appraisal of their
traumatized situation to provide for and compensate them for
their material loss. This will at least go a long to cushion
their suffering and enable them revert to a more normal life
instead of politicizing the situation further.
Widows and orphans are in dire need of new lease of life
and the time to act is now. Not waiting for a probe panel
that dust is anticipating, in a remote cabinet somewhere in
a bureaucratic office.
If Dariye was accused of been lily-livered and retreated
while his state burnt, his successor like the ‘General’
that he is neither ‘retreated nor surrender’ but watched
as foot soldiers pummelled the same people he swore to
protect “without fear or favour”.
If Dariye was been hunted by the federal might, by the
tentacles of an umbrella of a political party, by the
inordinate ambition of political class and associates turned
foes, and even by un-loyal surbodinates and Yelwa-Shendam
gave them an alibi to execute that, his successor enjoyed
their goodwill all and but decide to boot what they all root
for.
As most crises always leave one with post-crises insoluble
problems, the Jos mayhem has already it first it post crises
political victim. The speaker of the House of Assembly Goar
Emmanuel seen by many as Jangs’ stooge was impeached and
replaced by Istifanus Caleb Mwansat by majority vote in a
purely democratic model as against the EFCC induced
impeachments in days of yore.
Luckily both Goar, Mwansat and the state PDP chairman-Shown
are all from the same local council of Pankshin. The
majority leader Joe Bukar representing Shendam who moved the
motion is been maligned as a stooge of, or acting the
script of the deputy governor; Pauline Tallen who has kept
her peace all this while.
Insinuations are rife in some quarters that she is angling
for the top seat. And as Professor Wole Soyinka said in the
case of Diya versus late General Abacha; any attempt to
unseat him was a welcome development and a patriotic act.
That, to this writer is treason but some would say it is
democracy in action.
But even treason has it price tag. As General Babangida
would say, you either succeed and ‘enjoy’ the fruit of
your labour or fail and get shot.
For the Jos mayhem and the rest of us, may those with
goodwill for Jos, Plateau and Nigeria as a whole always
succeed whatever the price tag, such that we all would enjoy
the fruit of their labour or learn from the consequent of
their behaviour |