By Tony Eluemunor

A few years ago, Boko Haram appeared to be the only evil in the land. But it was not the root of the insecurity that it embodied. Many people shouted themselves hoarse that something subterranean was behind the formation of that deadly squad, and so the problem must be addressed from the root; but they shouted in vain as no leader listened.

Boko Haram

Zamfara Killings: Borno will be more peaceful

This is a country that refuses to learn any lessons from events. Chinua Achebe once lamented that Nigeria learnt no wholesome lessons from her civil war and so had “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, while Japan snatched victory from the jaws of defeat” after World War II. He argued that experience is not just what happened because much could happen to a stone without making it any wiser but that experience comes from the wisdom acquired from a happening.

Well, if we had not been deceiving ourselves, we would have known that a real problem was growing with the disturbing frequency of religious clashes in several Northern states since the late 1970s. When Lawrence Anini terrorised  Bendel State, robbing banks  and killing police officers in the 80s, a professor of sociology then, the late Ikenna Nzimiro, told me that Nigeria was lucky then because Anini had no ideology. If he had an ideology, he argued, he would have become a war lord and people would have flocked to him.

The fears I harboured over insecurity in Nigeria became multiplied over and over again in the 1980s/90s, when wanton killings would take place in several Northern states and nobody would be held responsible. It was becoming clear that the killers had or were developing an ideology; that they could kill in the name of Islam, and they would go scot free.

Now may we pause and revisit the religious mayhem visited on the Christians from the 1980s, and the perpetrators were never punished. Between June 1978 and December 1980 alone, 34 religious clashes were recorded involving Islamic groups. The bloodiest was the one by the Maitatsine Islamic sect. Starting in December 1980 in Kano, the Maitasine riots, spread like wild fire engulfing several cities in the North. Between 1980 and April 1985, Maitatsine struck in five States: Kano State (February 18, 1980), Borno State (October 26,1982), Kaduna State (October 29,1982), Kano State again, ( October 30, 1982), defunct Gongola State (February 27, 1984), and Bauchi State (April 26, 1985). These riots took their toll of lives and property as the insurgency lasted for five years.

It was clear since the Maitasine riots that ideology, a religious one, had exacerbated the security problems such as ethnic disagreements, in Nigeria but our leaders did not take notice.

This religion/ethnicity-induced massive blood-letting continued even after democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999. Just before the handover to civilian democratic rule in 1999, Kafanchan again, erupted when against wise counsel the out-going military administrator attempted to impose another Hausa Fulani Emir over the indigenous population.

So, for decades the Northern part of the country has been a war zone and has continued to threaten the corporate entity called Nigeria. From a Naira worth of meat to a quarrel between children, among other pretensions, Muslim fanatics have visited havoc on millions of innocent Christians living in the North. No, I did not make this up:

On April 20, 1991 violence broke out of Tafawa Balewa which quickly spread to other towns leaving hundreds of people dead. This is how a historian recorded the event: “On April 20 a ten year Fulani boy, a Muslim, is said to have bought one Naira worth of suya from a Basayi boy, a Christian…. As the Fulani boy was leaving, a Hausa and Muslim boy, asked him how he knew he had not bought either pork or dog meat. The Fulani boy reacted by throwing away the suya. Some Christians standing by blamed the Hausa boy for the deceit and falsehood. While the scolding was still on some Muslims came to the scene and unreservedly justified the Hausa boy’s action. Like a stage prepared for action, the two sides clashed with knives and before one could ask what was happening heads were already falling off necks of human beings. From the market area, destruction spread to the town and to other towns including Dass where bands of Muslim extremists went on the rampage killing and injuring Christians and non-Christians alike.”(Sylvanus I. Udoidem in F.U.Okafor,eds,).

Then on Friday, September 7, 2001, when a female Jos North indigene of the Jarawa ethnic group was just doing nothing apart from walking on the two legs God had given her, she was attacked. Why? Answer: she was trying to cross a Moslem praying ground on Bauchi road, in an area with the rather exotic name of Congo-Russia.

She was attacked by Moslem youths. With blood flowing freely, she ran back to her brothers who lunched a counter offensive. Within minutes, the formerly serene Jos Tin City, was turned into a battle ground. Hundreds were killed within the first one hour. By the end of the day, places of worship were torched. Residential buildings and hundreds of cars were destroyed. Their human occupants were simply burned where they were sitting. Innocent commuters who were merely passing through the city were not spared.

Reacting to the tragedy, the Acting Governor, Mr. Michael Botmang went on air to impose a dusk to dawn curfew on Jos and Bukuru metropolis. Despite government moves, the battle for the destruction of the former innocence of Jos, raged on for another five days.

On the second day of the riots, President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the Army to stop the hostilities.  The GOC of the Brigade in Jos ordered his troops to shoot the militant Moslem/Christian rioters at sight. The soldiers, when overwhelmed, invited the Air Force to help out. As peace still refused to return and as the Navy could not bring its naval armaments into a land-locked Jos, the Police, the Customs, Immigration, and paramilitary out-fit that could muster a few guns were called in to do battle against those who were murdering the peace of Jos.

Yet, it took at least five days for the carnage to be quelled. By then, pregnant women’s wombs had been ripped open and also suckling infants were snatched from their mothers’ breasts and smashed against walls. It was as though all the demons in hell had been called to duty in the once peaceful Jos.

Just days later, Hausa/Fulanis Moslems in Bassa LGA, Barkinladi, Riyom, Jos East and Jos South LGAs and Christians and engaged in a free for all fight.

Yes, innocence lost can never be regained. That is the problem in the Middle Belt. For instance, violence first broke out in Yelwa in 2002s when it was invaded by a group of Muslim-Fulani militia suspected to have entered from the neighbouring Taraba State. In February 2004, an invasion of the town was carried out by another armed group of Muslim militants who completely sacked the town driving out the indigenous Christian population. 71 Christians were killed in the dawn raid, 46 of them, were killed in a church while attending morning prayers.

For the next three months the armed militia declared that town: “New Zamfara State” (named after the Northern State where the Islamic Shari’ah criminal law was first imposed) and pasted the picture of Osama bin Laden all over the town.

There followed a systematic killing of Christians in and around the town. For example a vehicle passing through the town was stopped and its seven Igbo passengers were slaughtered. A young lady on national service (NYSC) was murdered in cold blood.

I have run out of space and must stop. A turning point comes when an amateur turns professional; it happens to great footballers and prostitutes; they do the same thing but for money. Now, the killers are doing it now for the money, no longer for the fun of it. Next week we’ll show that religion—certainly not Islam—is not to blame; or the streets of North Africa would be as mean as that of West Africa. Yes, the bandits of Zamfara state and kidnappers on Abuja-Kaduna highway kill both Christians and Muslims. They are professionals now.