PEOPLE AND POLITICS BY MOHAMMED HARUNA

Genocide on the Plateau: The Way Out

ndajika@yahoo.com

Predictably virtually all the major newspapers in the country gave last Sunday’s horrible massacre of Beroms in a village on the outskirts of Jos, allegedly by some pastoral Fulanis, the front page headline coverage it deserved. Monday’s editions of Nation, Tribune, Compass and Sun, for example, reported no fewer than 500 people killed. The Guardian reported 300, Trust and Peoples Daily reported 200 while Punch reported 150.

Whatever the casualty figure, this counter-genocide, allegedly by the pastoral Fulanis out on a revenge killing spree for their loss of about as many people as the Beroms and much more of their cattle in the crisis of January 17-19, must be condemned by all men of goodwill. It stands condemned not only because of its criminality but also because it is bound to escalate the vicious cycle of ethnic killings that has gripped the once peaceful Plateau State since at least 1994.

Condemnations are, of course, not enough. Those who carried out the massacre must be identified and be brought to justice. But even that won’t be enough if we wish to have a lasting peace in the troubled state.

As trite as this may sound a lasting solution can only come from having a correct understanding of the nature of the crisis. Most analysts, including occasionally this reporter I must admit, have tended to highlight the religious dimension of the crisis. This is understandable because of the overlap between the ethnic and religious identities of the two warring camps, namely the Berom Christian “indigenes” and the Hausa Muslim “settlers.”

However, in spite of this overlap, the crisis on the Plateau, as with all crises the world over, is essentially about the control of society’s political economy. In the case of Plateau what has since degenerated into a blood feud between the Beroms and the Hausa has been about the control of Jos as the state’s capital. As usual members of other ethnic groups resident in the city have found themselves caught in the cross-fire between the two.

Naturally each of the antagonists has tried to draw the sympathy and support of third parties with the Beroms having much greater success in the propaganda war by appealing to their minority status and, even more so, by appealing to their religious identity in a world dominated by media that is instinctively hostile to Muslims.

Nothing demonstrates this Berom success in the propaganda war better than a comparison of the media coverage of the January genocide and last Sunday’s. For example, whereas last Sunday’s made the front-page lead story of almost all the major national newspapers, last January’s made it to the front page as lead of no more than five. Where it made the headlines it was to depict the so-called settlers as the aggressors, based on a claim by the state’s commissioner of police that they attacked a Church during its Sunday worship unprovoked, a claim that has since been debunked in a Radio France International interview by the Catholic Archbishop of Jos and the President of the state’s chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Ignatius Kaigama.  

Even more important than the media’s comparatively scanty coverage of the January massacre compared to last Sunday’s is the fact that the newspapers largely shied away from identifying the identity of the attackers and victims alike. The Guardian of January 20, for example, talked only of “rampaging youths in Jos” but mentioned neither their identities nor those of their victims. In contrast the newspaper’s coverage of last Sunday’s massacre left the reader in no doubt that the perpetrators were Fulani and the victims Berom. What was true of The Guardian was also true of virtually all the other newspapers.

As I said earlier if we want to get to the bottom of the bloody crisis on the Plateau, we must first of all accept that it is not a quarrel about religion even though the antagonists have each used it to good effect to drum up support for their side.

The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja and the national President of the CAN, Reverend John Onaiyekan, I believe, got it just about right when he reportedly told Vatican Radio on Monday that the crisis on the Plateau is rooted not in religion but in social, economic, tribal and cultural differences. “Armed people, itinerant pastoralists...” yesterday’s Nation quoted him as saying, “attacked the village of farmers of the Berom ethnic group. It is a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers.”

 I say the Archbishop got it just about right because the crisis is by far more economic than social, tribal and cultural. After all until the late seventies when power hungry politicians began to use tribe and religion as their primary weapon in seeking for office, the religious and ethnic groups in the state have lived in harmony among themselves.

As I have said identifying and bringing the perpetrators of the killings in Jos to justice and also identifying the essence of the crisis are important as ingredients of the solution to the problem. But by far the most important ingredient is the character of the political - and traditional - leadership in the state.

This is what has made a difference in the return of peace to Kaduna State which, until recently, was worse than Plateau State. As a Muslim and “Hausa”, its former governor, Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, eschewed belligerence towards the Southern Kaduna Christian minority groups that have felt marginalized in the political-economy of the state. Instead he did all he could to assuage those feelings.

It was also the character of leadership that made the difference in averting what could have easily turned into a religious crisis in Kazaure, Jigawa State, recently following the beating of a son-of-the-soil driver by a traffic police, a beating which resulted in the driver’s death. But for the quick intervention of the Emir of Kazaure, Alhaji Najib Hussaini Adamu who, with his court in tow, physically stood between some rampaging youths and the non-indigenous residents of the police man’s neighbourhood, only God knows what would have happened in the state.  

You can hardly say the same of the character of Governor Jonah Jang who is fond of reminding anyone who would listen that he is an old soldier ready to fight his enemies, real or imagined. This, in a state that sorely calls for the language of reconciliation.

For instance only the other day in late February he used the occasion of commissioning some projects in Pankshin to remind those he called his enemies that they would be making a mistake if they think they can get away with making trouble in the state. “They do not know,” he was quoted as saying by Peoples Daily of February 25, “I am an old soldier ready to fight to my last blood.”

This cannot be the attitude of a leader who wants peace in his state. Jang must accept that he is the governor of all the residents in his state and not just of the Berom, his ethnic group. He therefore has the moral and constitutional responsibility to protect the lives, limbs and property of all the residents of his state regardless of their tongue or religion.

Unless the political - and traditional - leaders on the Plateau imbibe the spirit of tolerance that has worked the magic in the hitherto violence-prone Kaduna State, last Sunday’s massacre can only lead to an ever escalating vicious cycle of bloodletting which may ultimately spell the end of Nigeria as we know it.

Of course tolerance must be a two-way street between antagonists. But the onus for ending the hostilities in any society lies with its leaders rather than with its followers because, with or without society’s consent, its system of reward and punishment lies in their hands.

Surely it does not say much for the quality of Jang’s governorship that under his watch there has been at least three well-known attempts at ethnic cleansing.