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BURNING POT BY PRINCE CHARLES DICKSON An Igbo Reverend Sister, An Hausa Ulamah, And Killing In Allah’s Name (Another Senseless Ethno-Religious Purge) Jos, Plateau Nigeria
Yours sincerely
refused to be drawn into the controversy of the Danish cartoon and the
sensibilities of the Muslim world that was abused, the use of press
freedom and freedom of expression issues that the episode gave rise to
and still causing. Everyone has commented, people still are commenting
and protests have continued. However one line that refuses to run in the
entire place these riots and protests and burning took place is the
Christian/Muslim animosity. And this is so because everyone whether
Christian, Muslim or pagans have condemned the cartoons. However,
immediately we started to show our displeasure in these parts some
underfed, confused, street urchins have taken to burning churches,
killing other Nigerians in the name of Almighty Allah and now it has as
usual turned ethnic and religious.
You cannot fight for
the Almighty Allah that I know because the Holy One can and always fight
His battle whether committed by traditionalist, Muslim or Christian. In
Borno, Gombe, Bauchi, and Anambra States lives and properties that have
nothing to do cartoon or Danes, French or Swedes have been touched. In
Kano the most matured thing to do was done, embargo on Danish products,
and Danish commitments were broken. So why the senseless killings of
christians and ethnic residing minorities, besides let us not forget
that the Christian community worldwide and nationwide offered their
heartfelt disapproval. So what is the real matter? Why do we hate
ourselves? How has a pastor or Igbo/Yoruba man in Maiduguri got any
thing to do with a cartoon?
And then, as if it
was not expected all the government has done is to censor information.
This is not oil matter so the people can die for all they care Our
leaders have failed, now not just the political but the religious
leaders both Christians and Muslims, because like Jawaharlal Nehru said
“I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the
masses scarified to live in hunger, filth and arrogance. I want nothing
to do with any order, religion or otherwise, which does not teach people
that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this
earth…"
Each time we blame
touts, jobless young men for these wanton destruction, but what has this
society done in encrypting the virtues of the practice of religion into
them, be it Christian virtues, Islamic beliefs or traditional and moral
teachings…R ather because threy are willing tools in the hands of
political manipulators they leave them impoverished, uneducated and
diseased in mind, spirit, soul and body.
I will not bore
us with the history of sectarian clashes; the Plateau State state of
emergency has its history in one of such. Between 1999- date, one is
beginning to lose count. It seems that our diversity in ethnicity and
religion is posing the largest threat to our mutual existence apart from
our political confusion as one other factor
Each time all these
crises are dissected, it has always been politicized, manipulated,
ethnicized and all this do not make up for the loss, the dead ones and
we keep promoting a culture of self waste, we set up panels, reports are
submitted, yet to no avail. These crises benefit some people up stairs
so the p eople downstairs can die as well.
In the Jos September
2001 Riots, it was a girl, crossing the road while prayers were going
on, now 2006; it is a teacher ceased a Quran from a student who was
reading it during class. In Kaduna it was ‘ba na so’ (we do not want)
shariah … In fact it seems we are just doomed, in 1987 (Kafanchan Riots)
it started in the College of Education and centered around such issue as
misquotation of the Holy Quran by a Christian convert from Islam.
Bauchi Riots 1990
originated from a misunderstanding between the Sayawa ethnic group and
the local Hausa/Fulani, Muslim community in Bauchi. The misunderstanding
led to the murder of many prominent leaders of the Muslim community. The
Zangon Kataf Riots 1992 was just a continuation of the Kafanchan one.
This nation is one
of deep seated grievance, when the chips are down, another panel and
then again we hear the same song; the issue of conflict always has to do
with perceived cultural, political, economic oppression and
marginalization. No one bothers to look at the relevance of these crises
to the polity and society. This is no longer a flirting phenomena, it is
becoming permanent. The deployment of violence has merely acted as an
agent in recycling violence.
Sequel to the
present excuse we call democracy and even since its inception the very
fabric of this society has been strained by crisis in the religious
field and so many people are benefiting and in cases investing in the
misfortune especially those obsessed in the quest for power, our leaders
who are ready to invest in poverty, death, ignorance do so without
recourse to the same God we use as an excuse in our exercise of
dissipating our population. We have not seriously explored these crises
to the point of analyzing the content and substances that precipitate
these slaughters. Instead we do a confused labeling of very direct
issues. No one of us took the decision to be Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba; we are
Nigerians who happen to be Christians or Muslims and pagans.
I never forget this
analogy, now whether it was a paper presentation or essay I cannot
remember but I am sure it was on religion by either Matthew Hassan Kukah
or Lateef Adegbite. There is this book called disappearance
it was divided into two parts. Part one was an imaginary account of a
world in which men wake up one day and discovered that all women had
vanished. All the women! The rest of that first part talks about how men
tried to survive on their own. The second part was a vice versa, our
women woke up and discovered that the men had disappeared from the face
of earth. The speaker asked us to imagine both scenarios.
Would life be easier
for Christians if we woke up and found that all Muslims have vanished?
Would life be easier for us Muslims if we woke up and found all
Christians gone? like waking up to find PDP is no m ore, all the crooks
have vanished… these questions sound a bit silly, but they are the true
test of our appreciation of our slaughter house mentality especially in
the North, the Niger Delta anad the nation as a whole. Does the killing
of one another bring back the already dead? No, it only berths a circle
of revenge, vengeance, retaliation, retribution and the madness
continues. We cannot fight for the Almighty Allah and He created us the
way we are, color, creed, race, tribe, and religion, but we are one in
this sight –Equal!
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