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Hadiza Wada, DBA …September 18, 2010
The unbelievable stories about the rate of heinous religious and ethnic incited massacre of innocent citizens commuting along the Plateau State highways on their way to or from Nigeria’s capital (Abuja) or Kaduna need the most urgent and decisive attention from the Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria. No commander-in-chief should neglect such routine breach of security, or else rest while the citizens who look up to him by right to be protected from harm and loss, come under such drastic challenges to their lives and property on a regular basis.
Reports from Nigeria identify the victims as Muslims, usually Hausa and Fulani commuters. Years earlier up to about mid nineteen eighties (1980s) these same highways including the city of Jos, the capital of Plateau State were known as one of the most peaceful and thriving modern communities in Northern Nigeria, but today it has been reduced to a dying ungovernable city where rogues and criminals run their show unhindered. Victims of the Plateau highways not only lose their lives, vehicles, and properties, but sometimes the bodies of the victims are either hacked beyond recognition, burnt beyond recognition, or else thrown away in a manner no dignified human will think it appropriate to conduct on another human being.
When the story first reached us, we thought they were a few random incidents, until our investigation from several sources reveal that it is a routine occurrence that has forced regular and even private irregular users to find a longer but safer route to the nation’s capital (Abuja), avoiding Plateau State highways completely. Heipang Airport, located a few miles from Jos, which used to serve several cities from within and outside the state was reported to have become a dying airport too, due to the insecurity on Plateau Highways. People from Bauchi and Gombe States are now patronizing the newly launched commercial airport at Gombe, while some from Bauchi go as far as Kano International airport, a travel of more than three hours to access an airport, avoiding Heipang almost completely. The capital city Jos, and the state in general are gradually dying, as their leaders have lost control.
Farming being the most popular profession of its inhabitants has also seen a drastic impact, as people who use to buy agricultural products from Plateau, including trailer drivers that load and distribute them have abandoned the state. Agricultural merchants have moved to neighboring states to find sources of the products they use to trade in. Other merchants, who trade in unique manufactured items and products in the city of Jos, have also moved out to neighboring states of Bauchi, Niger, and Nassarawa to enjoy peace and security.
Though most reports attribute the crimes to local and indigenous populations of Plateau state, others have pointed to the growing lackluster attitude of state leaders for decades. Such leaders they allege neglected the growing menace of criminals from Southern Nigeria, who under the guise of sharing the same religion (Christianity) have manipulated its leaders. These criminals, it was revealed parade themselves as students of the University of Jos during the day, but turn into robbers, bandits, cultists and grave raiders at night.
The situation got worse after the return of democracy, when the ruling Party PDP failed to conduct credible background check on candidates seeking political offices. These candidates having come into positions of power, allow themselves to be manipulated by those hard criminals, who have nothing to lose since Plateau State is neither their state of origin where their relatives and family live, nor do they care about any issue of development in Northern Nigeria. State leaders have failed for years to take back and clean up the University of Jos.
Writing during the 49th independence ceremony last year, under the title “The Elephant in the Room” this writer singled out security threat as the most important challenge that requires immediate attention of Nigerian leaders. A year later it is still number one. The article started:
“The most urgent situation Nigeria faces at this point in time, when it turns 49, one that has the potential to destroy it completely by turning it into a ghost nation, the likes of Somalia and Afghanistan is the lack of resolve by its leadership to seriously take up and crush the challenge to its security. And I am not talking about the Boko Haram, Dar –us-Islam and others who those in leadership in Nigeria and abroad want us to believe are the real threat to security in Nigeria. I am talking about the elephant in the room which no one wants to acknowledge… How can a nation with all the apparatus and might under its wing, choose to play the disabled and castrated role unable to face the serious security challenges it face.” (Optimist: Oct. 3, 2009)
The problem was compounded by another deliberate neglect. The federal government is yet to define and execute a targeted and swift method of punishing and ultimately controlling rogue leaders. People sometimes fail to see why Nigerians by themselves will keep preferring military leadership, with all its tyrannical and non consultative methods. These are some of the fundamental reasons; i.e. the civilian leadership’s basic failure to secure lives and property. Most military governments in the past, regardless of who headed them, are almost identical in their decisive and timely arrest of any threat to peace and security.
Former Plateau Governor (1999-2007) Joshua Dariye still runs free after the deaths of thousands of innocent citizens under his watch, so also those behind the Shagamu, Zaki Biam and other crises. People with visible roles are going about their business with the blood of thousands on their hands as if nothing happened. To crown and make matters worse, the fact that the ruling party, a national party the size of Peoples Democratic Party can continue to allow people with shady backgrounds to run under its umbrella controlling millions of people is another enigma.
Reading the background of the present Plateau Governor Jonah Jang, this writer could not believe how such a person who was quoted as having used the same crisis incitement tactic in Taraba State as a military governor will pass investigative screening by the Nigerian security and given a mandate to run for governorship of such a state which have hitherto been plagued by crisis since the Dariye years.
The cliques of political leaders responsible for igniting and accelerating such crisis generally label themselves as messiahs, but those who have access to revealing documentation know it is a charade masqueraded under the guise of local patriotism. The real motive is greed, evidence of which were blatantly carried on the pages of Nigerian dailies, where the same self-righteous state governor Joshua Dariye responsible for thousands of innocent lives, was apprehended by British security and officially charged with money laundering, which literally means trying to legitimize illegally acquired funds. Such leaders fail to realize that safeguarding the life and property of citizens is a key element of democratic ideals and surpasses by far, any of their personal ambitions.
It is also important to call attention to the role of the press in such security issues. The Press, especially those run with glaring sectarianism are the backbone and supporting framework for the cancer. While on some occasions some Nigerian press are part of the problem directly through incitements and half baked stories, at other times they take such divisive and explosive events they did not initiate further by adding fuel to it. This they do by sitting on the fence, ignoring credible evidences that may diffuse and quell the crises, and sometimes blatantly creating non existent evidences and witnesses just to fan the crises. The militancy of some of the dailies, weekly magazines and others could be traced all the way back to the era of nationalism and fight for independence.
Since independence, half a century later, those newspapers have failed to wean themselves away from militancy. Some go further even further by labeling themselves as crusaders or guerilla journalists. In an academic study (Olukoyun, 2004), the author described the militant Nigerian print media positively as “imbued with a self-conscious tradition of outspokenness, which at the limits sometimes teeters on anarchy. The “crusading” names of such titles as; the Vanguard, the Punch, the Guardian, and the Champion, testifies to a militant press ideology dating back to the nineteenth century.” The question to ask is; what does the militancy aim to achieve, religious divisiveness or ethnic rancor? Surely it cannot be nation building. For they have woefully failed to achieve that.
Such labels, if anything, have made Nigerian Press a laughing stock abroad, because no genuine journalist in the mainstream and professional world openly bases his publication on subjective goals. The author of the widely acclaimed book “The Africans” Professor Ali Mazrui, whose series based on the book ran on American Public Television in 1986, sees such divisive press tendency as contributing to the nation’s lack of development by strapping it in constant battle against itself.
Professor Mazrui in an online article described such South Western prejudice in favor of their ethnic group (Yoruba) as “Ethnocracy in South-West Nigeria” further tagging it as “deeply worrying.” The Nigerian press must join its colleagues worldwide in nation building and responsible journalism not destruction and fanning divisiveness. Nigeria is not the only nation faced by heterogeneous challenges, but its press stands out as one that insists on divisiveness and other goals underlined by personal gain and serving individual interest at times through crisis, and contributing to the killing of their brothers and sisters. In other words actively contributing to the retrogressive way its nation is limping.
Finally those in leadership positions, including the nation’s security and media should as a matter of urgency stop serving as proxies for external interest, organizations, ideals and governments at the expense of the country and its people. This is a very serious issue, and stands as a serious threat to the unity and security of the nation. Nigerians should not allow greedy politicians, zealots parading themselves as nationalistic and religiously upright, enriching themselves at the expense of the nation’s security, prosperity and progress.
Security on Continental Level
On continental level, some peculiar challenges stand out, while others are similarly shared by most nations including Nigeria. The proliferation of the use of force to effect change and control resources by distinct communities within several nations of Africa, for example, has resulted in principally intra-national conflicts. The story is the same in all four regions of the continent. Most wars that plague the continent are not between different countries, but civil wars and sectional insecurities rooted in greed principally more than anything else. The elements are usually sponsored by local goons in collaboration with invisible multinational corporations.
Stories coming out of the Democratic Republic of Congo recently ( an ongoing crisis for many years) places like Sudan (from Civil War based on Politics, back to resource control after discovering oil), Sierra Leone (War for diamonds and other precious minerals), Niger Delta Situation in Nigeria (crude oil) etc reminds one of a menace demonstrating the lack of effective structures in many nations of Africa to sit, discuss, and come up with effective solutions to check what usually is greed by a few members of the population to make money for themselves, regardless of the consequence for the entire population of the country.
The irony of it all is, those people who carry the arms terrorizing civilians and the country are usually tools in themselves. They gain only a small fraction of the value of the resource that they are up in arms fighting for its control. Local politicians in the vicinity use them, and international benefactors support them clandestinely. Just as any curse that may besiege a people, the young militants recruited by the goons look wretched and uneducated with a mentality that speaks tons about how dehumanized people can become for just the elation and sick mentality that feeds their sick ego, i.e. holding guns and feeling empowered.
Many organization and even African governments themselves have acknowledged the need to control the proliferation of small arms and light weapons across the continent. It is so embarrassing when you look at the sophistication of such weapons in contrast to the poverty in the eyes of the youths that carry them; you just know some greedy goon is supplying the weapon free for them to kill themselves and terrorize others. It was with that understanding that a moratorium on the importation and manufacture of such arms in African countries was reached by ECOWAS nations October 31, 1998 at a meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. A year later the blueprint for its implementation was passed by ECOWAS nations. It has been eleven years since then, but one wonders what the countries of the region or Nigeria in particular has gained by it.
The movement of arms within the continent has remained a problem, with many incidents of large caches of such arms discovered from time to time while in shipment. Just recently a plane load of such weapons on their way to another country was impounded in Aminu Kano Airport, as many others may not even be known. Had it not been for the glitch the plane had which forced it to land, and the chance effectiveness of the security personnel on duty that day at the airport, the plane might have finished its business and taken off again to its destination.
African states and their leadership have to understand that condoning and cover-up for highly placed individuals behind such crisis, war, displacement, and economic sabotage is heinous, talk less of its impact on their overall national development. Whether military or civilian, any government or its officers found to be conniving, and the security forces that conveniently look the other way because of bribery and greed should be apprehended and tried for treason. It is that serious. Local politicians, who use such crisis without shame, defraud their local population in the process and then turn around and blackmail the nation must be made to understand that there is a price to pay for their crimes. The rate at which nations and its wealth are looted, politics played with such serious issues through such schemes just for a few dehumanized goons to enjoy peanuts from their national wealth is alarming, and must be stopped.
