leadership of the Sultanate. The emirates that came into being after the religious and moral revival were based on the reform movement of Sheikh Uthman bn Fudi, an Islamic Scholar.

Even before the 1800s, those Hausa speaking communities most especially were highly developed and structured.  They had a mature and stable type of political leadership under the Sarki, they had social units headed by mai-unguwa who report to the Sarki, and highly skilled economic system that locally produces foods, clothing including dyeing, and other artifacts and implements made through ironworks, metalworks, weaving, crafts, pottery etc.  They also for centuries carried out local and continental trade across the Sahara desert into other regions.  Up until today, sizable settlement units of Hausa and Fulani people [sometimes referred to as Fula] live across the whole expanse of the African continent.  You can find them especially in other influential countries of West, East, and North Africa, from Cairo, Khartoum [North], to Senegal, Seirra Leone, Ghana, Gambia etc. [West].

Their Southern counterparts [most especially the South East and South-South sections of Nigeria], who are predominantly Christian, however owing to a very simple dissected living culture that is not highly developed up until the subjugation of the country by the British Colonial Government about 1861, had not enjoyed peace before then, and still could not establish stable complex societies that are politically, and socially mature as to check crime, exploitation, robbery, sabotage of community and governmental assets etc.

For the South East residents of Nigeria most especially, taking arms to take economic advantage of their fellow countrymen including the real native residents of the Niger Delta is not new.  This is not the first time that the country’s security and even existence as a whole was threatened by them.  In the early years of Nigerian Independence, just years into the coming in of oil money, their leadership almost exclusively, sought to Cede from Nigeria, then subjugate their much weaker neighbors of the Niger Delta whose land actually contain the oil, and cut away other sections.  Even at that time they used the religious variable, playing the victim card to seek the sympathy of the developed nations.  Most especially as was reported widely then, the nations of Israel and France were the top nations that answered their call for assistance.  

Today, every single resident of Northern Nigeria who knows his region well, the elites and the laymen, all talk about a scheme or conspiracy to perpetrate insecurity by force for economic and political gains. While some have suspected several role players local and foreign, most single out the government.  Only in a country like Nigeria will an issue so important to the nation’s basic existence defy explanation.  How can the leaders convince people that they have no idea as to where the nation’s problems lie?  The simple answer most people tender is; they either have a direct part in establishing such groups, or else just like the hermit crab, they take over the structures others set up and use.  More analysts believe the former; i.e. the perpetrators of violence were directly established covertly to use as a political chip in blackmailing Northern Muslim residents.

The theory

While Nigerians so far in their fifty year history have not developed the appetite for violent radicalization, the occurrence of such violent killings is however not new.  Careful study of the problem of radicalization that comes along with violence has its roots in foreign, and often half educated radical preachers.  Back in the 1970s, Nigerians went through a serious crisis where their similarly nonchalant attitude about the existence of a foreign immigrant preacher from Cameroun called Muhammadu Marwa, popularly known as Maitatsine, coined from his excessive use of Allah-ta-tsine [Allah curse so and so] in his often heated preaching, caused massive loss of lives. 

Maitatsine stayed for years in a ward of inner city of Kano without people paying much attention to his movements and actions.  Not until he grew in radicalism and violence that took many lives, was action taken against him.  Only then was he confronted and again many more lives were lost during that fire exchange.  Quoting from two sources that wrote about Maitatsine, (Kastfelt, 1989) and (Pham, 2006) Wikipedia writes “Although a Koranic scholar, he [Maitatsine] seemingly rejected the hadith and the sunnah and regarded the reading of any other book but the Koran as paganism. Maitatsine spoke against the use of radios, watches, bicycles, cars and the possession of more money than necessary.[3][4] In 1979, he even rejected the prophethood of Mohammed and portrayed himself as Annạbi (Hausa for "prophet").”

Let us not forget that, like its former British Colonial masters, Nigerians by law do not carry weapons, even for self-defense.  The law of the land allows only law enforcement officers, and the military forces to hold weapons.  Even the assigned weapons to such law enforcement officers were closely registered and monitored in a way that any weapon signed out for official use is scrupulously tracked.  As such the use of even small arms such as revolvers and machine guns by civilians to cause any havoc is not common: At least not in the Northern part of the country where the Muslim population of Hausa Fulani speakers reside.

Now the issue of foreign left over rebels from Chadian Civil war is a known issue in the North Eastern Corner of Nigeria, primarily Borno State.  For more than twenty years, Chadian rebels have frequented some states, mostly comprising of what used to be the former North Eastern States.  Towards the end of their country’s civil war [Hissein Habre vs. Idris Deby] such rebels used to raid Nigerian villages and cart away cattle, sheep, grains, money and anything of value that they want and go back into their country.  You do not have to even be within the circles of the military or security intelligence to know their ways.  Their modus operandi was known to even the common man.  After the war ended hordes of them came back to settle in a country they found fertile, resource rich, and peaceful.  Remember that Chad, their country of origin, is not only war prone at that time, it was almost 100% desert and uncultivable.  

As they troop into the country, they brought with them their left over foreign manufactured arms.  They also imported along with it, the un-rehabilitated rebel violence.  Like the U S’s issue of the influx of Spanish speaking people from the South American sub-continent, Nigeria often attracts its poor neighbors in droves.  And in the case of Nigeria they troop from all sides, North, East, and West, as the Southern part is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.  Chad is actually at its North Eastern Tip, while the [direct] North brings in people from the arid Niger Republic.  With every drought, crisis, or war, people from such countries literally troop into Nigeria’s often porous borders.

Many analysts opined that the recruitment and radicalization of elements of that group was first worked outside the country.  It first started as a ploy to instigate Nigeria to get involved in a war with its neighbor, just as was worked out with Cameroun over the oil rich Bakassi Peninsula issue.  And remember once again that Maitatsine is from the Cameroun.  It is noteworthy also that both countries and their issues against the interest of Nigeria have French influence behind them.  But Nigerian authorities refused to take the Oil-rich Bakassi bait with Cameroun, opting instead for resolution through dialogue.  

So Chad issue after the war was not new either.  It started similarly with the much publicized discovery of oil in commercial quantities at Lake Chad Basin area, a lake whose borders and waters are shared between Nigeria and Chad.  Soon came another oil issue that is tied to radical rebellious groups.  Not long after that possibility surfaced within Nigerian intelligence, some selfish and self-centered Nigerians, it now appears, this time around coveted the idea. 

After the emergence of that armed Chadian group turned robbers, which soon became a menace to security in the North Eastern Region years ago, state and federal authorities were known to have done nothing against them.  Now it appears, with the coming of a civilian type of government over the years, some members of the Nigerian nation of antagonistic stance to Muslim and regional interest of the Northern residents of the country have decided to use [or else incite] such people, playing them as political chips to the detriment of the whole nation.

In the year 2001, Sheik Ja’afar Adam in his Ramadan sermon cautioned the Borno authorities against what he referred to as “yan tatsine” to whom he ascribed atrocities.  ‘Yan tatsine as we all know, after the Kano incident, come to be a term referring to foreign [immigrant] radicalized and often half educated and or cultish style groups. They do not appear to be Muslims.  If they pray, he added, they are known not to pray behind the ahl-al-Sunna.  They are an armed group who conduct no business with the local residents of Borno except commerce, and they do not bury their dead in the local cemetery.  According to the Sheik, they also hold military style exercises.  No one knows why they were not taken up then, and why they were allowed to stay while posing security threat.  The theory points to another plant by enemies of the region and the nation.  The irony however is that local residents of Borno say intermarriages have occurred since then between them and the well to do, including the nobles within the local monarchy.

But others say they also see the hands of other foreign governments in the saga.  They draw examples from other oil rich nations of the world that they opined as having been destabilized to allow for the exploitation of its oil resources.  In trying to convince people, they point to today’s world of “massive anti-Islam propaganda” and “forceful indoctrination” driven by “western media.” While there is no much substance behind the Western nations’ claims for invasion and exploitation, that does not prevent them from manufacturing the reasons.   Many populations of different countries of the world have suffered greatly in economic, political and social terms in such campaigns, armed or otherwise, they opined.  Why should Nigeria be any different?

Conclusion 

Based on all of the above facts, arguments, and opinions expressed by various stakeholders, the most sensible and workable approach to the issue of insecurity in Nigeria has to be an honest one.  The people in general, who mostly are both the victims and accused, when it comes to the authorities, should actively work towards unearthing, exposing and actively acting against any scheme by anyone to throw the nation into perpetual chaos for selfish motives.   The nation and its people are facing real threats of unimaginable proportions, which put their parents, children, and community at stake and on the road to continuous violence and possible disintegration.  Research and investigations towards the elimination of that threat should be thorough and sincere.  No one has the luxury of sitting on the sidelines now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(c) The Optimist Voice. Al rights reserved

 

NIGERIA NEWS

 

Backgrounder: Nigerian Violence

Hadiza Wada, DBA …December 31, 2011

Introduction

 

The extreme and violent expression of dissent by whatever group i.e. bombing targets, and for whatever reason [true or perceived] is quite new to Nigeria.  It started barely one year ago.  Before the Independence bombing of October 1, 2010 political or religious differences used to be expressed with lesser form of defiance ranging from communiques or group meetings at the most peaceful end, to street demonstrations by people on the other.   When things go out of hand in the most extreme cases such as election years, such demonstrations may lead to destruction of property, but hardly lives.

In between the earlier times and today came the Obasanjo administration 1999-2007.  And this by the way is not just picking on that administration for picking sake.  We cannot objectively ignore the role that era played in making insecurity of lives and property a non-issue.  The most obvious reason for that brand of crisis may not be unconnected with the nature of that President’s ethnic politics.  A rotational presidency that is based on where one came from could not be divorced from why the radical Yoruba groups took advantage of that time to immediately throw the nation into tribal violence.  It began as soon as one of theirs became the President.  President Obasanjo was sworn in May and by October Shagamu flared with the mass massacre of the Hausa Muslim community.

For three days the crisis was ignored, and it was not until the third day that the President sent his vice Atiku Abubakar to Lagos to give him an eye witness report.  That, in my opinion, marks the beginning of tribal hate mongering and the insecurity it breeds.  Days later, bus and truck loads of Hausa community living in Lagos, the legal capital of the nation for every Nigerian, were forcefully expelled and dumped in the North, a region most have never ever stepped into on their own free will.  That was because generations of them have been born and raised in Shagamu where their fathers, grand and great grand parents have settled before.  Months and years later, such crisis later on took the religious angle as well.   By the end of the Obasanjo Administration that ran parallel with that of the Plateau State governor Joshua Chibi Dariye, for example, the rampant killings and the policy of forceful but illegal and unconstitutional expulsion of Hausa and Muslims in the name of tribal affiliation and religion has become so common as to mark their administration forever.

Today, it appears, the incumbent President from South-South Goodluck Ebele Jonathan may also go down in history as the one under whose watch the nation graduated from a lesser to a grand form of extreme violence never to have been experienced in the history of the nation until his time.    

Perfecting Insecurity

There appears today, a deliberate and carefully worked out strategy that is wicked, inhumane and evil to the core, to forcefully import violence and human blood letting that is heinous into the Northern part of the country.  If we can learn from lessons of history elsewhere, these are grand designs usually used to usurp power, forcing onto Northern Nigerians illegitimate overloads from other parts of the country.  Many tyrannical administrations have used violence to declare state of emergencies that usually give the government unlimited power by allowing the suspension of important and relevant laws made to ensure fairness and justice. They then perpetuate themselves in power. This appears to be the goal for the Nigerian democratic dispensation, since 1999.  We have not forgotten the third term agenda yet. 

A well respected academician, the Late Professor Ibrahim Tahir, who held onto his noble principle of equity and justice for all [leaving him almost penniless] till he breathed his last, in an interview with this writer conducted in the year 2002, barely three years into the Obasanjo Administration, told her that the Administration was at that time implementing, a step-by-step blue print of an Obafemi Awolowo Plan for working against national and most especially Northern Interests and usurping power to use exclusively for his tribal benefits alone.  He asserted that it is very surprising how close and in detail the Obasanjo Administration has meticulously followed the Awolowo plan.  He added “I wish you are here in person [it was a phone interview], I would have given you a copy. I still have it.”

That same administration, having set the country up with another Southern President, has ensured the continuation of the same trend.  Nigeria has known no peace since 1999, and the trend is only getting worse.  What is most unjust is the forceful incrimination of Northerners in the political, religious, social and economic crimes perpetrated against them and their interests.

The Charade

While a radical group do exist, whose modus operandi, ideals, and other details have been defined to us mainly by the press, not much is known by the general public about who they are, how they come into being, who is behind their establishment, including whether they even gave themselves that title “Boko Haram.”  We do know that the bombings are real and lives are lost indiscriminately through such bomb explosions attributed to them.  And since such bombings and other attacks started, this writer knows no one who has not condemned indiscriminate killings of people.  No one in his right mind will accept as right or justified any attack that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians.  But is that the modus operandi of the group “Boko Haram” even as described by those who would like to use it as a political scorecard? Let us examine the facts even while using their own words.

The first case of bombing up North was perpetrated by Niger Delta groups on Independence Day, 2010.  That bombing is typical of the indiscriminate killing, maiming and other methods employed by such Southern groups in the Niger Delta, irrespective of the innocent lives lost.  Niger Delta groups are not known to target the authorities, their leadership, both local and federal, because of course the facts have consistently shown that they are actually in cahoots with their local leadership and share in the booty [proceeds] from their perpetuation of terror and the loss of lives.  For decades the Niger Delta agitators kidnap and assassinate local and foreign workers.  By the way this writer is not saying that they do not have issues they sought to express, for which they chose a violent means of doing so.  In this particular argument we are concentrating on the method.  And it is not only kidnappings and assassinations that they are known for.  Bunkering, economic sabotage, robberies and most especially causing explosions as an issue under discussion, was a method they also employ.

What is most serious is, the executive arm of the Nigerian government should never, in the writer’s opinion, make any statement that shows insensitivity, especially where it portrays that it is willing to use those incidents as a political game scoring issue.  What obtains in other countries where the Muslims are a small minority cannot work in another where the Muslims are a significant majority.  But the Presidency clearly deflected blame away from the Niger Delta group that took responsibility for the first bombing in October of 2010, even as the group itself continues to insist they bombed the Eagle Square premises during the nation’s 50th independence anniversary.  The blame was shifted to some Northern Muslim opposition candidates vying for the Presidential ticket.  Then came 2011 Independence Day, where once again the Niger Delta insurgents threatened to bomb the parade.  Not only did the group once again issue press releases as to their intentions, reports even emerged in the dailies about a fire exchange between elements of the group and security forces outside the nation’s capital when their vehicle was stopped and arms and devices discovered.  But the nation’s governmental media in announcing the Independence Day parades issue blamed the cancellation on a threat from “Boko Haram.”

The group identified by the media and governmental authorities as Boko Haram, first came into notoriety in 2009, having been formed much earlier about the year 2002.  Their issue as we come to understand through the press then was against the authorities, especially law enforcement whom they held responsible for the extra judicious killings of their leaders Muhammed Yusuf that same year, and his in-law Fugu; and the apprehension and jailing without trial of their members held in secret prisons across the nation.  Their activities since then were against the authorities, and were mainly confined to Borno and its neighboring states of the North Eastern region until they were lured into the federal Capital by the utterance of the Inspector general of Police Hafiz Ringim a few months ago, who threatened to crush them without any reference to addressing their issues.  Thereafter they bombed the Police Headquarters in Abuja.  What about other bombings attributed to them across the country after that for which much of the public have expressed doubts about the authenticity of the claim that it was Boko Haram? 

In so much as the Nigerian Authorities will like to force religion as a variable, the religious aspect of the Boko Haram violence lacks credibility.  For the last thirteen years [since 1999], Muslims by a wide margin except for some skirmishes rooted in revenge, have been at the receiving end of a campaign of tribal and religious hate all across the country.  From Shagamu in the south, to Zangon Kataf and Yelwan Shendam in the North such hate crimes against people of the Islamic faith were recorded.  For more than a decade of persecution, genocide, and extrajudicial killings in Plateau State most especially, the group Boko Haram never retaliated with a revenge attack.  Any group willing to sacrifice their lives for religious reasons, and most especially for Islamic ideals such as the establishment of Shari’a attributed to the group, will definitely take issue with the way their Muslim brothers and sisters are the target of hate crimes and genocide elsewhere in the nation.

Another brazen manipulation of the religious angle is being exposed for what it is daily, by the Lord of Justice and equity Himself.   Though cover ups by the press and the authorities are common, evidences continue to surface, incriminating the real agents of violence. 

On Saturday 10th of September in Bauchi, for example, a lady by the name of Lydia Joseph was caught with combustible material and fuel trying to set a Catholic Church on fire [arson].  When apprehended, she was found to be a non-Hausa speaker who is actually a Christian from Benue State.  There is no doubt whatsoever that had she not been caught, the Muslims would have been blamed.  It might have even instigated further crisis of revenge against Muslims. Then there was a recent bank robbery that occurred 8th July, 2011 where millions of Naira was carted away from a local bank in Alkaleri, a town within the same Bauchi State not far from the state capital.  A police station and the bank were simultaneously attacked using bombs and explosive devices.  The robbers were described as armed gun men, suspected to be Boko Haram.  The same day after the operation was carried out, a few of the robbers were caught with the arms used and also some of the money.  They were unveiled and found to be Christian.  None of them could speak Hausa, while the same source says they are Igbo speaking people from Southern Nigeria. 

One of the unveiled robbers actually served earlier as a National Youth Service Corp worker at the bank. The group, all Christians had earlier on during the robbery been dressed in the Muslim male attire [long gowns with head wraps] and were shouting “Allahu Akbar.”   These are some of the cases from a state well known to the writer, about how desperate those involved in the scheme to give Muslims a bad name, while causing massive havoc.  What about other incidents around the country?  Are we supposed to think that the authorities, under whose command the Nigerian intelligence agency is, do not really know what is happening and who are truly behind what incidents? 

The Facts

Nigerians who know their history will never buy into the charade spread by the media and actively supported by government statements directly and indirectly that Northern Muslims are the cause and/or source of the widespread insecurity and violence plaguing the nation.  For centuries, the only region of the country [community] that knows and lives peacefully with each other are the Northern Nigerian residents.  They have under their sleeves centuries-old political kingdoms, which were in the early 1800s replaced by political units [emirates] under the general