Jos Crisis: Who Speak For Hausa Fulani?

By

Isa Muhammad Inuwa

ismi2000ng@yahoo.com

 

A recent fresh attack by unknown gang of night marauders, on residents of Dogo Nahawwa, Kamang and Ramsat villages of the Jos South Local Government, has surprisingly attracted a gale of sporadic comments of sympathy and condemnations, both from within and outside the Nigerian nation, much more than it ever happened in the past incidents, during which the Non-Muslim Berom people were fingered as principal culprits, who remorselessly massacred their Muslims, Hausa-Fulani neighbours. This time, even the super-power countries of America, France, Britain as well as the Vatican palace in Italy and the United Nations, were all out, without fear or feeling of sentiment and widely lampooned the killings, which were suspected, (until factual and unbiased investigations prove that), was carried out by "Fulani pastoralists".

 

If it is later confirmed that the Fulanis launched the offensive, they would surely have done so as a "reprisal of series of attacks and loss of their cattle herds", to earlier fighting initiated by the Berom people, as narrated by an official of the Red Cross, in a press interview.

 

It is a great wonder to think as to why these seemingly fervent and vitriolic comments were not expressed in much serious tones, until this very time. It is on record that from 2008 to date, since Governor Jonah Jang assumed power as Governor of the state, there were no less than five different bloody fighting, in which thousands of lives and properties were lost, with the Hausa? Fulani people being the worst hit of casualties. In most cases, their attackers prove to be the notorious Berom people, who, after getting battle-ready and fully armed, usually come out to start their offensives, by provoking their Hausa/Fulani neighbours.

 

Up till now, thousands of Hausa/Fulani immigrants who fled Jos, stay in refugee camps along Jos-Bauchi borderline. Most of them are women and children, whose husbands and fathers were slaughtered  before their very sights. Similarly, for the past 5 years, some 135 Muslim women of the Hausa Fulani are still being illegally held as captives, Christian clerics, as a result of Yelwan Shendam crisis in Plateau State. Reports indicated that the Muslim women were tortured and subjected to hard labour and being sexually abused, for refusing to convert to Christianity.

 

According to the President of the Supreme Council For Sharia in Nigeria, Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmad, efforts by the council members to secure the women's' release failed to yield result.  Where were those nations and groups now complaining on the recent attack? Where were all the so-called Human rights groups? Are they not aware of all these realities, or are they merely feigning and pretending ignorance of the episode? 

 

The most conspicuous voices among complainants on the recent attacks, supposedly, on Berom people, include the Plateau State Governor, who unashamedly keep urging authorities to arrest and punish the culprits. During the past episodes whereby himself was accused to have been behind attacks by his tribesmen; the attacks which were based on religious and ethnic grounds of Christian Beroms against Muslims Hausa/Fulani people, he was not heard to have spoken so bitterly. I heard him over the Radio, saying some suspicious people were seen arriving the Southern Jos villages and people (including him, the Governor), alerted security men. He went further that after three hours, the strange gangsters started shooting sporadically. But for me, this indicates a total failure on Governor Jonah Jang, who is the chief security officer of the Plateau State, to have made such a foolhardy statement. He further blundered in one of his comments that he suspected the  attackers were hired from a neighbouring State, he went further to say that some Chadians and Nigeriens were among the suspected culprits in the past incidents. But why should Jang comment much unlike a Governor and a security chief of his State?

 

The Plateau State Information Commissioner, Mr. Gregory Yenlong is also notable for exaggerative comments, in desperate bid to skew towards the side of his townsmen. He told members of the Press that 500 people were killed in the Dogo Nahawwa attacks, while he sheepishly lowered the figures in the past cases, where his tribesmen perpetrated the offensives. Mr. Yenlong went to the extreme of dubbing the recent incident as "ethnic cleansing". But he selfishly refused to call the past crisis which were even worst, with similar phrases, to the worst extent that heads of slain Muslims were hiked on sticks and placed along the village pathways. Is it because he thinks the Berom people (his people) are the major casualties this time around? Hence Mr. Yenlong must be accused for his clear sentimentalism. This is for the fact that no life of any human is better  than that of his human fellow. The lives of people of one tribe and religion are no better than  those in other religions. Only God our Creator knows who's better than who, among us.

 

Sequel to this singular incident, a lot of furore and ratings are being heard in the media, calling on Nigeria's Federal Government or the Acting President Jonathan to deal with one perceived enemy or the other. This seemed to have cost the National Security Adviser, Sarki Mukhtar, his post. However, many people are of the opinion that if anything, Governor Jonah Jang supposed to be the first person to forfeit his seat and a state of emergency be slammed on Plateau State, with view to restore law and order and put the state on tranquil and peaceful footings. To have people of Jang's extract as State Governors, it means automatically tearing the nation apart.  Every well meaning and right thinking person is worried and anxious to see that a final solution for lasting peace is found in the Plateau state. This is s great challenge to the relevant authorities, particular the new NSA, General Aliyu Gusau. It was equally noted that a lot of innocent people were arrested as suspects of the recent incident at Dogo Nahawwa and other villages. These suspects should be treated with humanism and sensibility. They must not be subjected to unnecessary tortures of harassment, for a suspect is never a guilty person, until the law proves him to be so. Finally, as the world speaks for the Berom Christian people, let  others also speak for the Muslim Hausa/ Fulanis.