February 5, 2010
“On the surface, the recurrent violence is driven by the crisis of citizenship and the constitutional dichotomy between “indigenes” and “settlers”. But it is a dichotomy made real by the “politics of difference” deliberately fomented by elites on both sides of the divide….However, beyond the surface appearance, the recurrent violence in Jos, as in other parts of Nigeria, must be recognized as the consequence of the failure of development which, in the last four decades is driven by a neo-liberal agenda that placed faith of deprived majority in the “invisible hands” of the market and the retreat of the state from development. The endemic culture of corruption, the absence of statecraft and the absence of “safety nets” have created conditions under which ethnic and religious consciousness becomes the driving force in people’s behavior and the identification of the relevant ‘Others’” – NIGERIAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION (NPSA)
A few issues have made me return to the tragic killings in Jos, today. First was the story from survivors at Kuru Karama that a pastor attempted to stop the killings of Muslim villagers. He was tied to a tree by the mob and the killings proceeded. Then last week, Segun Odegbami, Nigeria’s ex-international footballer, wrote an emotional piece about Jos, recounting close-knit relationships between peoples of different ethnic and religious backgrounds when he was growing up there. It was no surprise that Jos gave Nigeria some of its most talented football players, starting with Sam Garba, arguably, the greatest footballer Nigeria ever produced! Jos was cosmopolitan and drawing people from all backgrounds, ensured that it was at the frontline of innovation and modernity, unequalled by any other city in Northern Nigeria. Which Northerner of my generation didn’t feel proud about the exploits of the Mighty Jets football club of Jos? I cried when they lost the challenge cup in 1972! Then there was an interview given to SUN newspaper last Friday, by veteran labour leader, Alhaji Ali Ciroma and last but not the least, the quotation at the head of this piece from the Nigerian Political Science Association.
In the past few years, I have tried to draw attention to the deepening crises occasioned by the choices made by the Nigerian ruling class. The emergence of neo-liberal policies can be traced to the Economic Stabilization Act of the Shagari period in 1981. Nigerians did not seem to perceive that we were undergoing fundamental philosophical re-orientation of development that will impact upon our lives into the future. But it was after Shagari, starting with the introduction of Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) in the mid-1980s that we entered the full rot; the eight years of Obasanjo supplied the nails for the coffin of the national public space in our country. The withdrawal of the state from the development space left the vast majority of the Nigerian people on the margins: jobs disappeared; social security became absent; schools, health care and other indices of development were decimated as the ruling elite “privatized” the state as fiefs of corrupt enrichment.
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When the state retreated, non-state actors took over and identity became the laagers people retreated into: mainly ethno-religious identities which seemed to find legitimacy only in the context of the profiling of the OTHER, as the NPSA noted in our quotation. When politics lost all sense of ideological direction and people are unable to see the dividends of the mandates given to or stolen by ruling elites, it made sense to a lot of people, when they are told it is because of the OTHER: that other in Nigeria is the other religion or the other ethnic group. These are very powerful emotional platforms of mobilization and it takes more than courage for people to rise above the guilt of their own side of these often vicious and violent divides! My side is right and the other is wrong, with people unable to find a median point of decent engagement. When this goes on regularly, the crisis can consume an entire country.
Unfortunately in Jos, the recurrence of killings over the past few years illustrates this tragic point forcefully. The bitterness has deepened on both sides of the divide and in the recent killings, it has spilled over, with the angry but unnecessary resolution from the Bauchi State House of Assembly further underscoring how dangerous the situation is. Yet, the political elite on the Plateau has failed singularly to develop the once beautiful state, especially in these years of civilian administration; a period which seems to have corresponded with the most tragic phases of killings. Jos is now lost in a time warp of underdevelopment and elites that failed the people miserably in the provision of development have mobilized frenzies of killings and destruction on the basis that some people are “indigenes” while others are “settlers”. So the poor and the victims of absence of governance and the outright theft of resources meant to provide basic decencies of life are then set against themselves in mob killings which reduce the humanity of all the sides to these gory killings!
But more poignantly, is the faulty leadership recruitment pattern that Nigeria has also suffered from all through our history, but which has reached tragic proportions in the past decade. With utmost respect, but why will a nation allow someone like Jonah Jang to become a governor, given his well-known hatred for a section of the people he leads? His speech early this week, when the Vice President inaugurated a 15member committee headed by Chief Solomon Lar, to find “a lasting solution to the recurrent crises in Jos”, did not have the necessary measure of restraint expected from a leader whose people have suffered so much death and destruction. There was far too much implicitly bellicose tone than fits the occasion. Identity is not what we can do anything about. The Muslim will remain a Muslim and the Christian will also hold on to his faith. Similarly, no one can choose the ethnic group he is born into. But we can build our country together on the basis of mutual acceptance of our diversities and the fact that we have to share the Nigerian space together.
There have always been strains and tensions in the building of human society. But if Jos was the source of beauty in the past, it is because there were factors of development which allowed peoples of all backgrounds to flower and the rich tapestry woven by the inclusiveness of people. That inclusiveness has been torn asunder by the narrow-minded chauvinism now reigning on the Plateau and the nature of political economy choices which Nigeria’s ruling class made. When the state gradually withdrew from the development process for “market forces” to take over, people retreated into ethno-religious laagers and our country is incrementally being killed by the chauvinism which the corrupt, prebendalist politics of the ruling class stokes, like veldt fire. Nigeria’s worst enemy is its ruling class; they make the Jos killings almost inevitable! “Every man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind”, said the Poet John Donne. “So ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.
[email protected]
0805. 9100368 [SMS TEXTS ONLY]
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A few issues have made me return to the tragic killings in Jos, today. First was the story from survivors at Kuru Karama that a pastor attempted to stop the killings of Muslim villagers. He was tied to a tree by the mob and the killings proceeded. Then last week, Segun Odegbami, Nigeria’s ex-international footballer, wrote an emotional piece about Jos, recounting close-knit relationships between peoples of different ethnic and religious backgrounds when he was growing up there. It was no surprise that Jos gave Nigeria some of its most talented football players, starting with Sam Garba, arguably, the greatest footballer Nigeria ever produced! Jos was cosmopolitan and drawing people from all backgrounds, ensured that it was at the frontline of innovation and modernity, unequalled by any other city in Northern Nigeria. Which Northerner of my generation didn’t feel proud about the exploits of the Mighty Jets football club of Jos? I cried when they lost the challenge cup in 1972! Then there was an interview given to SUN newspaper last Friday, by veteran labour leader, Alhaji Ali Ciroma and last but not the least, the quotation at the head of this piece from the Nigerian Political Science Association.
In the past few years, I have tried to draw attention to the deepening crises occasioned by the choices made by the Nigerian ruling class. The emergence of neo-liberal policies can be traced to the Economic Stabilization Act of the Shagari period in 1981. Nigerians did not seem to perceive that we were undergoing fundamental philosophical re-orientation of development that will impact upon our lives into the future. But it was after Shagari, starting with the introduction of Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP) in the mid-1980s that we entered the full rot; the eight years of Obasanjo supplied the nails for the coffin of the national public space in our country. The withdrawal of the state from the development space left the vast majority of the Nigerian people on the margins: jobs disappeared; social security became absent; schools, health care and other indices of development were decimated as the ruling elite “privatized” the state as fiefs of corrupt enrichment.
articleadslinks
When the state retreated, non-state actors took over and identity became the laagers people retreated into: mainly ethno-religious identities which seemed to find legitimacy only in the context of the profiling of the OTHER, as the NPSA noted in our quotation. When politics lost all sense of ideological direction and people are unable to see the dividends of the mandates given to or stolen by ruling elites, it made sense to a lot of people, when they are told it is because of the OTHER: that other in Nigeria is the other religion or the other ethnic group. These are very powerful emotional platforms of mobilization and it takes more than courage for people to rise above the guilt of their own side of these often vicious and violent divides! My side is right and the other is wrong, with people unable to find a median point of decent engagement. When this goes on regularly, the crisis can consume an entire country.
Unfortunately in Jos, the recurrence of killings over the past few years illustrates this tragic point forcefully. The bitterness has deepened on both sides of the divide and in the recent killings, it has spilled over, with the angry but unnecessary resolution from the Bauchi State House of Assembly further underscoring how dangerous the situation is. Yet, the political elite on the Plateau has failed singularly to develop the once beautiful state, especially in these years of civilian administration; a period which seems to have corresponded with the most tragic phases of killings. Jos is now lost in a time warp of underdevelopment and elites that failed the people miserably in the provision of development have mobilized frenzies of killings and destruction on the basis that some people are “indigenes” while others are “settlers”. So the poor and the victims of absence of governance and the outright theft of resources meant to provide basic decencies of life are then set against themselves in mob killings which reduce the humanity of all the sides to these gory killings!
But more poignantly, is the faulty leadership recruitment pattern that Nigeria has also suffered from all through our history, but which has reached tragic proportions in the past decade. With utmost respect, but why will a nation allow someone like Jonah Jang to become a governor, given his well-known hatred for a section of the people he leads? His speech early this week, when the Vice President inaugurated a 15member committee headed by Chief Solomon Lar, to find “a lasting solution to the recurrent crises in Jos”, did not have the necessary measure of restraint expected from a leader whose people have suffered so much death and destruction. There was far too much implicitly bellicose tone than fits the occasion. Identity is not what we can do anything about. The Muslim will remain a Muslim and the Christian will also hold on to his faith. Similarly, no one can choose the ethnic group he is born into. But we can build our country together on the basis of mutual acceptance of our diversities and the fact that we have to share the Nigerian space together.
There have always been strains and tensions in the building of human society. But if Jos was the source of beauty in the past, it is because there were factors of development which allowed peoples of all backgrounds to flower and the rich tapestry woven by the inclusiveness of people. That inclusiveness has been torn asunder by the narrow-minded chauvinism now reigning on the Plateau and the nature of political economy choices which Nigeria’s ruling class made. When the state gradually withdrew from the development process for “market forces” to take over, people retreated into ethno-religious laagers and our country is incrementally being killed by the chauvinism which the corrupt, prebendalist politics of the ruling class stokes, like veldt fire. Nigeria’s worst enemy is its ruling class; they make the Jos killings almost inevitable! “Every man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind”, said the Poet John Donne. “So ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”.
[email protected]
0805. 9100368 [SMS TEXTS ONLY]
articleadsbanner
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