Death by installment
Joe Anuga writes that the beautiful and once peaceful city of Jos is the victim of gradual erasure by a bankrupt self-seeking political class
The
eruption of violence in parts of the North Central Nigeria city of
Jos in the wake of Local Government Council elections late in
November 2008 exposed once again the fragility of the social fabric
with which the community is knit. This was not the first time since
the start of the fourth Republic in Nigeria in 1999 that violent
conflicts along ethno-religious lines have been triggered by
political contests in Jos. In September 2001, the polarization of
views regarding the nature of a political appointment into the
poverty alleviation scheme of the Federal Government, NAPEP,
triggered violent responses that were largely exposed along
ethno-religious lines across not only the whole city of Jos but
subsequently across much of the entire state.
In 2001 as in 2008, the combatants were mobilized along
ethno-religious lines and this has led many people to conclude that
the primary reasons for these crises is to be found in the nature of
built up hostility between certain ethnic identities. Proponents of
this perspective, depending on the side of the divide that they may
stand on, believe the recurrent crises happened as a result of
ethno-religious differences. On one side, the violence is explained
as being tied to the expansionist agenda on the part of the ethnic
Hausa community In Northern Nigeria whose real intention is the
Islamisation of the entire area. Resistance to this agenda by
non-Hausa and non- Muslim communities therefore becomes the reason
why the Hausa Muslims unleash violence on their non-cooperating
neighbours.
From the other side of the fence, operating within the same
perspective, the causes of the conflict can be found in the envy of
the material success of the Hausa ethnic community in the locality
and in the anti- Islamic agenda inserted into Christianity by the
early European Missionaries in Nigeria. As a result of these, those
ethnic categories that have largely become Christian particularly in
the Northern part of the country have an ingrained hostility to any
thing Islamic and therefore target with violence innocent Muslim or
Hausa communities, whenever they can.
These views, and their variant forms- for they vary a lot depending
on the point those expounding them wish to emphasize, are enjoying
wide spread credibility. When people who are affected by these
unfortunate contests view the burnt out landscape that forms the
outcome of these struggles, the prominent remains of Churches and
Mosques stand out. Residences are targeted according to the
religious beliefs and/or the ethnic identities of those who own or
inhabit them. The memories of the dead are coloured by the fact that
people perceived to be Christian or coming from predominantly
Christian ethnic groups are usually known to have been killed in
predominantly Muslim areas and those identified as Muslims or coming
from predominantly Muslim ethnic groups are known to have been
killed in predominantly Christian areas. The feelings that such
tragedies evoke are very strong and considering their grounding in
religious forms of articulation, they easily become the basis for
mobilizing support from co religionist elsewhere in the country and
beyond.
The same thing goes with regard to the purely ethnic dimension.
Since the Hausa ethnic category is spread across the country and the
sub region, support and sympathy for a beleaguered community is
mobilized from far and wide. The ethnic groups largely confined to
the Plateau in terms of spread, confronted with the prospects of
such support for the Hausa community, are themselves forced to renew
their commitment to each other and greatly increase their suspicion
of anything or anyone coming from the local Hausa community. Thus,
the circle of mistrust widens and the population to mobilize support
for sustaining conflict on the Plateau increases on all sides.
In spite of how plausible as the primary cause of the recurrent
violent conflicts on the Plateau that this interpretation may hold,
it remains one of convenience for those people whose agenda requires
that a population pool should always exist from which foot soldiers
can be drawn and used to carry out acts of violence if these acts
can somehow further their interests. Conveniently forgotten in all
this, is the political framework in which all the perpetrators of
these violent acts and their victims live in. This dimension is also
conveniently ignored or forgotten as the trigger for all these
violent contests. In 2001, it was about an appointment that was
politically determined. In 2008, it was about a political contest.
Understanding how these political activities act as triggers is very
important if we wish to put these violent contests in perspective or
if we wish to live out our lives as a contribution to finding a
lasting solution to the problem
Frictions between ethnic communities is to be expected, just as the
development of a mature framework to deal with such frictions in
such a way that cooperation between ethnic groups who are neighbours,
is to be expected. Religious differences in themselves do not lead
to violence and required intervening variables, which usually are
not themselves religious to explain why violence starts in an
otherwise peaceful and multi-religious community. The very fact that
the crises in Jos have been triggered by political differences,
point to the fact that it is from this angle that the true nature of
what leads to the breakdown of law and order can be better
understood. The ethnic groups autochthonous to the Plateau and the
vast diversity of those who now live here but are not autochthonous
to the area have a very long history of cooperation. The framework
that has led to the unraveling of their ability to cooperate is what
we shall focus on now.
The political framework that all the perpetrators and the victims of
the violence in Jos live in is Nigeria; a post- colonial African
State organized as a Federation. Its constitution therefore
recognizes the layered pattern of government authority over its
territory and the people who live in it. There are three levels of
government in Nigeria. The Central governmental authority is the
Federal Government whose reach spans the entire territory and
affects the lives of all citizens in one degree or the other. Its
activities coordinate those of the other levels of government. Then
come the State Governments. This level of governmental authority
operates through a framework of 36 territorially divided States,
which have equal authority with each other but differ in population,
territorial size and material resources. Then finally, there is the
Local Government Authority, which operates through a framework of
776 Local Government Councils. Like the states, each Local
Government embodies equal authority with the next and like the
states; they differ in territorial size, population and resources.
These levels of governmental authority function together and impact
the lives of Nigerian citizens simultaneously. Now, when the
obligation to and benefits from the federal government extend to all
Nigerian citizens equally, obligations to, and benefits from the
state and local government are territorially determined and affect
those citizen who belong to specific states or local governments. As
far as the Nigerian constitution is concerned, a person may not
belong to more than one state or local government at a time. To be
voted for in a political contest at the local government or state
level, one has to first formally belong to that level of government
authority.
A person is however free to join any state or local government that
he wants and accept it as the formal government authority over his
life. If one accepts any local government authority, it goes without
saying that by implication, the state in which territory that local
government is found in becomes de facto authority over his life as
far as that level of government authority is concerned.
The constitution specifically holds that the right of a citizen to
reside anywhere in the country must be backed up by the obligation
of all governmental authority to guarantee to such a person,
protection from discriminatory practices of any sort. Such a person
is to be accorded the same treatment as is accorded to those already
resident in the area. Thus the constitution does not recognize any
gradation in the levels of citizens in Nigeria. There are to be no
first class or second-class citizens. All individual citizens as far
as the constitution of Nigeria is concerned are equal.
The statements of the constitution and the realities of existence in
Nigeria need to be contextualized for certain gaps between them to
be better appreciated. The Nigerian constitution, like the Nigerian
state is a product (for want of a better term) of the western
experience. In constructing the arrangements upon which self
conscious representative governments should be built, theoreticians
in the West tried to develop principles whose appeal would be
evident to all civilized people. One needs to bear this in mind, in
the course of the following discussion. When speaking about, or to
her citizens, the Nigerian constitution recognizes them as
individuals. This level of atomization of the citizen body was
arrived at in the West across centuries as modern societies emerged
from the deliberate filtering of political forms from the classical
societies of Graeco-Roman civilization through the Middle Ages in
Europe.
Since the emergence of the modern nation-state in Europe, the nature
of the relations between the citizen and his government has
increasingly been one of the governments recognition of the citizen
as a person with right that are inalienable. If one were to ask an
early Medieval person from England about the political unit he
belonged to, he would probably answer that he was Jewish, a Saxon or
that he was Danish. He would most probably have used his ethnic
identity to define his political affiliation. A person from England
today if asked the same question, is likely to answer that he is
British. This possession of the status of ‘British citizen’ is
likely to even define how his ethnic identity is expressed
While this tendency towards atomization has been at the heart of the
political framework in Western society since the emergence of the
modern nation-state, its form is alien to the historical political
experiences of most Nigerian societies. The political experiences of
most Nigerian political systems does not take the Graeco- Roman
Classical history into account and practically none of them were in
any form of regular contact with the societies of Medieval Europe.
The processes that have made the atomization of the political
landscape such that the individual and his government dialogue with
each other in the context of a person’s equality with every other
citizen is therefore not part of the historical political experience
of societies here in Nigeria. This does not mean that such a concept
cannot thrive in Nigeria. the principles of respect for life,
fairness and justice and the creation of appropriate channels for
political participation and so on, from which the fact of political
atomization is distilled permeated virtually all civilized
communities in Nigeria historical times. The route through which the
recognition of the importance of such an arrangement as the
atomization of the citizen became the universal form across the West
is what is alien to Nigeria’s experience.
Thus, while the Nigerian constitution speaks its language, the
reality on the ground in Nigeria is that of a population organized
into ethno- linguistic groups, tied to territories, which they claim
as autochthons. Trying to determine the true nature of a typical
Nigerians relation to governmental authorities at the state or local
government level is usually made easier once one has knowledge of
such a person’s ethno-linguistic group. In itself, this is not a bad
thing and political commentators regularly highlight its positive
potentials. For instance, it provides another avenue for cohesion
among citizens and improves their chances of achieving collective
goals.
What is problematic in the context of our discussion is the nature
of the Nigerian economy since the discovery and exploitation of oil
on a commercial scale. The national economy is heavily dependent on
oil revenues. The precious resource sustains virtually all levels of
government. Crude oil revenue account for about 90% of Nigeria’s
foreign exchange earnings
Now, the constitution provides for how the resources accruing to the
Federation are to be appropriated by the various levels of
government through the Revenue Sharing Formular. The Federal
government receives 55% of the revenue while the State and Local
Governments receive 35% and 10% respectively. The constitution also
vests the level of government with the authority to disburse the
revenue that accrues to them. This coincidence then, of
territoriality in government authorities as single source for much
of the country’s foreign exchange earnings and the fact that the
primary form of socio-political organization is connected to ethno-
linguistic identity, predisposes areas inhabited by multi-ethnic
categories to the exploitation of their differences in such a way
that can lead to violence.
When one adds to these, the coincidence of ethnic identities
constructed in such a way that they accommodate specific religious
affiliations, as these exist in Jos, then, the potential to project
violence into the mix increases greatly. Add to this is the
existence of a political class that does not feel the need to
organize its constituency in such a manner that the constituency
becomes the basis of the governing class access to resources,
(rather, such a political class simply lives off the handouts that
come for the allocation to the level of government that it controls)
and thus the stage is set to make that locality in the case of Jos,
a tinder box.
A governing political class from which people who run the offices of
government are drawn, whose bankruptcy, with regards to identifying
and expanding options for economic growth outside regular handouts
from the primary foreign exchange earner that oil has become is more
likely to politicize primordial identities rather than concentrate
on issues connected to production and development as they seek to
hold on to power.
Therefore, political parties are constructed and support for them
mobilized using ethno-religious jingles, even when those projecting
these primordial forms of identity may not have any personal
conviction about the development of the ethnic groups or genuine
devotion to the tenets of the religion that they mobilize followers
upon. Lacking vision, and approaching political office as feudal
fiefs to be farmed without the responsibility of the feudal lords to
ensure the productivity of his fief, such people do not shy at
unleashing their poorly paid foot soldiers in the very territory and
upon the population that they proclaim that they seek to govern.
They are largely the same group of people but some of those among
them who belong to non- Hausa and largely Christian ethnic groups in
Jos mobilize their supporters as if the Hausa-Muslim populations are
not fellow Nigerian citizens and citizens of Jos. Some of those who
are Hausa and Muslim keep their reserve of followers as if the non-
Hausa and non- Muslim population of Jos are not just as Nigerian as
they are.
Since they collectively lack the vision to inspire the city’s
inhabitants with a project for the development of the area, and, in
their greed, control of offices to perpetuate their indolent
lifestyle is all they can aspire to, it becomes imperative that they
mobilized support for a vision that will not allow for consensus as
they seek their narrow interest. And each time a political consensus
cannot be achieved among them, innocent men, women and children and
their property are sacrificed and a cycle of violence and mistrust
unleashed on the city. The mistrust that these generate, further
increase the pool from which foot soldiers can be recruited in the
event that they remain unable to arrive at consensus among
themselves.
One needs to appreciate then, that the recurrent crises in Jos in
recent times are to be found in these arrangements and process and
not in any antagonisms between Christianity and Islam: however real
that may appear to be; nor is the recurrent crises steeped in any
inherent animosity between the Hausa as an ethnic group and any
number of ethnic groups autonomous to the Plateau
The non- Hausa and largely Christian ethnic groups in Jos mobilize
their supporters as if the Hausa-Muslim population are not fellow
Nigerian citizens and citizens of Jos. Some of those who are Hausa
and Muslim keep their reserve of followers as if the non- Hausa and
non- Muslim population of Jos are not just as Nigerian as they are.
Since they collectively lack the vision to inspire the city’s
inhabitants with a project for the development of the area, and, in
their greed, control of offices to perpetuate their indolent
lifestyle is all they can aspire to, it becomes imperative that they
mobilized support for a vision that will not allow for consensus
And each time a political consensus cannot be achieved among them,
innocent men, women and children and their property are sacrificed
and a cycle of violence and mistrust unleashed on the city. The
mistrust that these generate, further increase the pool from which
foot soldiers can be recruited in the event that they remain unable
to arrive at consensus among themselves.
Joe Anuga is a lecturer of Political Science at the University of Jos. Anuga has a BSc in Political Science from the University of Jos and Master Degree in International Relations from the University of Maiduguri. He is currently researching his doctoral thesis in International Political Economy.
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