Nigeria Content Online

The recurring crises in Jos, heartland of the Middle Belt, call
for prayers, vigilance, atonement and repentance. Too much blood has been shed;
too many dreams aborted in the evil and misguided belief that something good
can come out of violence.

In the last decade thousands of lives have been wasted. In the
first quarter of this year, close to 1000 people were killed in a mindless orgy
of violence. Since then combatants on the different sides of the divide have
perfected the stealthy act of smoking out their victims in the dead of the
night before hacking them to death.

It is an unconventional warfare, conceived by hatred, nurtured
by bigotry, and executed with cruelty. The latest harvest of deaths came
Saturday, July 17 in Mazzah village where another eight lives were snuffed out;
four alone from a clergyman’s household comprising of his wife, two children
and a grandson.

Regrettably, this wanton destruction of God’s children is a
manifestation of lingering ethno-religious-socio-economic problems, which have
not been addressed with the honesty of purpose they require.

The economic basis of the crises is rooted in the clash between
pastoral and agrarian communities in their search for land to pursue their
livelihoods.

Because the parties involved are broadly split into two dominant
ethnic groups, expressing two religious faiths, the conflict also wears an
ethnic and religious toga.

It is economic because largely itinerant Hausa-Fulani herdsmen,
in search of pastures to graze their cattle, periodically clash with Berom
farmers, who see the incursion of the pastoralists as an unfriendly invasion of
their farmlands.

Because the Berom are largely Christians and the Hausa-Fulani
predominantly Muslims, each party also sees the contest as a religious contest
for supremacy.

This explains why religious houses are easily targeted; churches
and mosques are burnt to shake adherents’ faith, confuse and disorient them.

The failure of governance over the years to manage this tension
between the two faiths has deepened distrust so much that access to government
patronage through employment, provision of social amenities, and business
contracts is seen through Christian-Muslim prisms. This cocktail of economic
injustice, religious persecution, communal frustration, ethnic subjugation, and
social discontent, has stunted efforts to build trust upon which progress,
peace and development are hinged.

The result is the easy recourse to violence to redress these
feelings of injustice.

Because past perpetrators of violence are seldom punished, the
state has sustained a culture of impunity, which encourages reprisal attacks,
in the unending cycle of each party wanting to prove to the other it does not
have a monopoly on violence.

The skewed federalism that we practice has also contributed to
this pervading insecurity.

A state governor, in theory, is described as the chief security
officer. In practice, internal security is in the hands of the police, a
federal institution. A state commissioner of police takes his directives from a
federally appointed Inspector General of Police. Intelligence passed to the
police at the communal or state level is subject to federal approval.

When the army is involved, presumably to help the police bolster
security, the pattern of uneven handedness also prevails. A perceived policy of
religious favoritism in the security network especially in the last three
decades lends credence to the growing charges that such centrally controlled
security machinery is inadequate and should give way for a more compact,
trust-engendering, community-based security arrangement that can respond faster
to states’ security needs.

Nigeria must make up her mind on the political philosophy of
development she wants to embrace. Our professed liberal democracy guarantees
religious freedom, which expects that no one should be molested while
exercising his/her constitutional rights. It has no room for burning of places
of worship, or vengeful killings while the security officials appear helpless.

Conflict resolution does not have a quick fix approach. It
requires a judicious blend of short and long-term measures that will deliver an
enduring outcome. In the short term, internal security should be reappraised.
Since the Jos metropolis is as important as its outskirts these dawn assaults
on poor citizens in the villages must be contained by expanding the frontiers
of protection. The state must partner with relevant citizen-groups to create
confidence-building measures that will engage the populace in the business of
reconstruction and drum in the message that nothing good comes out of destruction.
Lopsided appointments in the top echelons of our security outfits should be
avoided.

An equitable arrangement must also be fashioned to protect
economic rights of farmers while developing buffer zones for pastoral grazing
in the short term; ultimately the transition to modern ways of cattle husbandry
will bridge the gap between the past and future.

The time is now for all people of good conscience to partner
with the state in this search for peace, knowing that we are all God’s children
tied together to understand ourselves, appreciate our differences, but
acknowledge our common ancestry as creations of a truly awesome God.