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From MISNAMarch 8, 2010
An unspecified number of civilians, according to various sources
several hundreds including many women and children, were killed yesterday,
despite a curfew in force for two months, in three villages of the area of Jos
(Plateau State, in central-northern Nigeria), Dogo-Na-Hawa, Ratsat and Jeji, in
the Foron district.
According to local sources, fulani-hausa militants, one of three main Nigerian
ethnic groups, came down from the surrounding hills and committed the killings.
At least 70 homes were torched in the new wave of violence in Jos, for years
theatre to economic and political violence, involving feuds between local
influential figures, often wrongly described by the media and some observers as
“religious” violence.
Following analogous violence that last January left over 300 dead, Jos
Archbishop Ayau Kaigama called on religious leaders to impede religion from
being wrongly attributed responsibility in tensions among communities: “We must
intervene immediately to restore peace, avoiding using any language that incites
anger, instead preaching peace and reconciliation”, said the prelate.
There are no precise details on the circumstances of yesterday’s violence,
though some newspapers suggest an act of revenge after an attack on the Fulani
community in Kuru. Many sources report that there was no intervention by
security forces in protection of the villages, evidently also failing to ensure
respect of a curfew in force since January.
Interim President Jonathan Goodluck called on the people to remain calm and not
respond to violence with violence, announcing a “red alert” for Plateau and
nearby states to impede the violence from spreading.
“The situation in Jos and the surrounding area is under control, army units gave
been sent to patrol the streets, but the atmosphere remains very, very tense,”
said Robin Waudo from the Red Cross (ICRC), in permanent contact with the
Nigerian red Cross and Red Crescent, to MISNA.
The cause of the violence near Jos, as already in the past in northern Nigerian towns, is not so much religious in nature as it is social, political and economic
“Hospitals are under strain as they still continue to accept the wounded,” said
Waudo, who did not confirm any of the death tolls that have been published so
far according to which there are hundreds of killed from the past weekend’s
violence. The Nigerian press, this morning, offered an interpretation of the
events that was confirmed by sources from the Episcopal Conference in Abuja, who
speak of “groups of Fulani ethnic nomads involved in the violence”.
The state of Plateau, in the centre-north area of the country, has often
witnessed violence and tensions of an economic or political nature, or of feuds
among influential local persons, which are sometimes too quickly described as
religious by the press and observers, even though, clearly, the past weekend’s
violence involved Muslims armed with machetes killing – and by hacking them to
death, meaning pure and unadulterated hatred was involved - Christians.
Some fear that as many as 500 people, many of them children, have been killed.
Thousands have been killed in this kind of inter-ethnic violence over the past
decade in the Jos area and central Nigeria. Last January, following an analogous
episode that left over 300 dead, monsignor Ignatius Ayau Kaigama, archbishop of
Jos had asked religious leaders, when community tensions build up, to “prevent
religion from being exploited”.
The clashes near Jos are happening at a delicate time for the country, as
vice-president Jonathan Goodluck has been nominated to serve as interim
president to fill in after a long absence by the head of state Umaru Yar’adua,
who is still recovering from medical treatment, for a heart condition, he
received in a Saudi clinic.
“The cause of the violence near Jos, as already in the past in northern Nigerian
towns, is not so much religious in nature as it is social, political and
economic”, such is the opinion proffered by father Gabriel Gowok, the secretary
of the Jos archdioceses who spoke to MISNA, trying to explain the violence that
left 500 people, mostly children, hacked to death. He suggested: “in the
northern regions, the rivalry for control of the territory is higher than
elsewhere in the country”.
Father Gowok noted that today there was a “summit between Christian and Muslim
representatives, who were analyzing the events of the past hours and which
features the exceptional participation of the very archbishop of Jos, Ignatius
Ayau Kaigama”.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross and local NGO’s are providing aid to hundreds of
families of those displaced by the vicious violence; slowly, some have started
to return to their homes. “Tensions are high but the army has restored calm
starting last night” says the source, adding that he believes the clashes to
have been provoked by “the easily available weapons in the absence of controls
and penalties”.
In an interview given to Vatican Radio, the archbishop of Abuja , monsignor John
Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, said that what we are seeing “is the most classic of the
conflicts among shepherds and farmers, but seeing as the Fulani are Muslims and
the farmers Christian, the media tends to say that Christians and Muslims are
killing each other (sic)”.
The archbishop added that the Church “continues to work to promote collaboration
and peaceful cohabitation between the Muslim and Christian communities”, trying
at the same time to “confront concrete problems, especially the political and
economic ones” behind the violence. Of course many religious activist movements
have their roots in socio-economic issues (Hezbollah in Lebanon for instance).
“We are very saddened – finally concludes the bishop – that the government,
which should have had the duty to ensure the security of all citizens and it
appears to lack the ability to do this, not by lack of will but because it is
very weak.”
