HAVING examined some sociological issues that often spark off violence between the Hausa/Fulani and their host communities, I would like to discern the root cause of the Sunday March 9 tragedy in Dogo Na Hawa, near Jos in Plateau State.

“In spite of the effusive enthusiasm of this Administration, some Nigerians refuse to celebrate the recent debt relief conditions granted by our major creditors of the Paris club. “Under the terms of the Paris club deal, Nigeria will see $18bn of its total debt of $30bn cancelled on condition that it pays the remaining $12.4bn between now and March 2006.

Adulthood is supposed to be the period in our lives when we take full responsibility for our actions, our responses to other people’s actions and general well being. It’s that period of our lives when we determine who and what we are on our own terms. The choice of determining how we are treated is not ours as children but emancipation should ideally come at the onset of adulthood.

The title of our essay today appears contradictory or, at best, puzzling. How is it possible that something changes and still remains the same, when the very idea of change entails that that which has changed cannot be the same thing again? We know that reality, in all its diverse manifestations, is subject to flux.

Reflect on this irony: a young army captain helps to organize a military coup and supervises the liquidation of his commander-in-chief and the host governor, another senior military officer, of a region to which he was paying a state visit. The facts are bare: even in a military situation under a properly trained and disciplined military officer, a General must be accorded his full compliments even in death.