thisday0518

THISDAY • MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015
POLITICS/ THE MONDAY DISCOURSE
21
PLATEAU’S PEACE OF THE GRAVEYARD
Residents fleeeing a Jos community in aftermath of incessant attacks
Much of the violence on
the state has resulted
largely from ignorance
and illiteracy. The fact
is that a substantial
population of Nigerians
are still illiterate, which
makes them easy vessels
of manipulation by
unpatriotic elites. This is
very much the case in Jos
tificates and therefore decide the indigene
status of anyone. This arrangement opened
the floodgates for the politics of labelling and
the selective reciting of historical accounts that
foster group boundaries to secure political
control over local government areas.
In a socio-political environment characterised
by strong patronage networks, exclusion
of one fraction of the political elite is widely
felt as socio-economic decline among its
constituency. The urban conflicts dynamics
interlink with tensions in rural areas. The
increasing scarcity of land and access to
riverbanks has resulted in contested claims
over land use between indigene farmers
and Fulani herders.
Religion reinforces the boundaries between
the mostly Christian indigenes and the
Muslim Hausa and Fulani in both urban
and rural conflicts.
In principle, these root causes of the
conflicts are well understood. Nigeria has
elaborated severally on the problem of
indigene rights at several fora and even at
the National Assembly. Yet there has been
a poor political will to address the problem.
The escalation of large-scale urban and rural
violence over the past decade contributed
to the protracted conflicts.
Compounding the tragedy of the Jos crisis,
violent clashes are no longer sparked only by
deliberate political instigation during election
times. In fact, Plateau State remained calm
during the April 2011 and 2015 national and
gubernatorial elections.
But small-scale reprisal and revenge killings
have continued to explode since 2010, even
in the villages. The situation is so tense that
residents fear that any minor incident could
set the town ablaze again. It gives credence
Jang...did his best
to the belief that their some external forces
on standby waiting to unleash terror at the
slightest provocation.
What is obtainable in Jos can therefore
not be described as peace yet. A long-term
solution to the Jos and wider Plateau State
crisis will need to tackle the indigene-settler
divide. However, given that the conflict over
indigene rights is endemic all over Nigeria,
Plateau State will hardly arrive at a durable
solution on its own.
Christian indigenes need only point to the
discrimination against fellow Christians in
northern, predominantly Muslim states to
justify exclusion of the Hausa-Fulani in Jos.
The latter, however, constitutes Nigeria’s most
populous ethnic nationality. Thus, Plateau
indigenes feel threatened with marginalisation
and are not willing to be the first to step
down from exclusive indigene privileges.
Religious leaders will have to take responsibility
for invalidating the perceptions of the
threat to religious identity that have become
entrenched in the daily lives of the people
in the state.
Top-level religious leaders have preached
peace and tolerance, but the message has
neither yielded nor reached those meant for.
While grassroots initiatives echo their tenor,
mid-level religious leaders feel the pressure
to protect their communities. People tend
to be suspicious of inter-religious dialogue,
making it difficult to rebuild trust among
communities.
Several dialogue and peace meetings have
been held to reconcile the various divides,
but most of them only ended up in empty
agreements and promises to sheathe swords;
they soon resume violence at the slightest
provocation.
The outgoing administration of Governor
Jonah Jang has particularly done much in this
regard. Special Adviser to the Governor on
Peace Building, Mr. Timothy Parlong, had on
several occasions collaborated with groups
to bring back peace in the state.
The Governor had also strengthened
Plateau Peace Conference, which was aimed
at bringing all the people together with a view
to addressing their grievances and charting a
common course. But it never really worked.
Jang also appointed Special Advisers from
the various tribes in the state, including the
Hausa-Fulani, thinking that their inclusion
in government could render useful ideas
towards finding a lasting solution. It also
failed.
He also established a state-sponsored
security outfit, the Operation Rainbow, a
neighbourhood watchdog to cub the incessant
killings – still to no avail.
The Senator Representing Plateau North
zone in the National Assembly, Gyang Pwajok,
also exerted a lot of energy trying to reconcile
the people. He has to his credit as a major
player in the much that has been achieved
in reconciling the Hausa community in Jos
with the indigenes. He had on several occasions
visited the Jos Central Mosque and
the Churches to dialogue with the religious
leaders.
At his instance, peace meetings have
severally been held among traditional
leaders. Football match competitions have
been organised at his instance on different
occasions, and empowerment. But in spite
of these laudable efforts, political watchers
have emphatically said both the state and
federal governments have no political will
to end the crisis.
They posited that if they really do, they
would not have been reluctant to implementing
the White Papers of the various
recommendations by the different commissions
of inquiries that indicted several ‘sacred
cows’. They added that as long as these
heavy recommendations of the commissions
of inquiry and the Presidential Advisory
Committee on the crisis, including various
white papers are forced under the carpet,
the resolution of the crisis would remain
a mirage.
Indeed, there have been several commissions
and strategies set up to study the causes of
violent identity conflicts in Jos and proffer
workable solutions. Unfortunately, until the
present moment, government’s responses
to the conflicts are widely “perceived as
ineffective”
At least, 16 public commissions have been
launched to examine the conflict and identify
solutions and many other studies have been
conducted by independent groups. There is
little political will to act on these findings.
Federal and State governments have
regularly worked at cross-purposes, sharply
disagreeing on the measures to mitigate
conflict in Jos, while the involvement of
civil society groups has more or less had
a polarising effect in most cases.
In the aftermath of the 1994 crisis, a sevenmember
judicial commission of enquiring
headed by Justice Aribiton Fiberesime
(Rtd) was constituted by the then military
administrator of the state, to look into the
causes as well as possible solutions to the
crisis. However, the report of that commission
CONT’D ON NEXT PAGE