Analysis: Nigeria, a country at war with itself

– Nigeria’s diversity rather than being a blessing has been a source of conflict

– Ethno-religious crisis is a major feature of Nigeria’s national life

– It has pushed the country to the brink, culminating in a major war

A few days ago, I was at a public function when as always, I chanced on a discussion about our country. As one would expect, opinions were sharply divided about the present situation in the country. At the informal debate, I had argued that Nigeria has always been a nation in crisis.

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A historical journey into the nation’s independence history will reveal that our country has always danced on the brink. Nigeria has been a country at war with itself.

I had also argued that the solution to our country challenges is not as complex as we are made to believe by the political elites who stand benefit from instigating these crises for political and personal ends. I shall come to that later in my discussion.

Since Independence, Nigeria’s socio-political life has been suffused in violent crises that has plunged the country into chaos and bloodshed.

Nigerians who have a sense of history will remember how the political crisis of the old South West which pitched politicians and their supporters in violent clashes led to the first coup championed by Major Kaduna Nzeogwu.

The bloody counter-coup of the July 1966 and the macabre events that followed culminated in a Civil War that claimed more than one million lives of Nigerians of Igbo extraction.

The bloody Nzeogwu coup and the counter-coup by military officers of Northern extraction bred a deep and widespread mistrusts among Nigeria’s disparate ethnic groups that have lasted till the present day.

For example, the pogrom of 1966, which targeted Igbo living in northern Nigeria in which thirty to fifty thousand of them were massacred throughout the north, signaled a bloody prologue to the Civil war and other violence that was to break out in later years.

The pogrom itself was the result of Nzeogwu coup which northerners claimed targeted their politicians while Igbo officers and politicians were alleged to have been spared.

The pogrom also elicited a blood reaction from the Easter part when Northern Nigerians, were also targeted in the Igbo dominated Eastern Nigeria. Thousands of Hausas, Tiv and other Northern Tribes were massacred by Igbo mobs, forcing a mass exodus of Northerners from the Eastern Regiion.

The coup and counter coup of 1966 were the precursor of the violence that later defined relationships among Nigeria’s warring ethnic groups.

As we have seen in later years, our ever present fault lines have always triggered more violence that has claimed lives.

The country emerged from the ruins and devastation of the civil war to a national reconciliation of ‘no victor, no vanquished’ mantra that sought to build trust of a one, united Nigeria.

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But it was not long before deep seated distrust emerged into the open again. Post-independence Nigeria, especially the early 1980s witnessed another spike in violence occasioned by religious intolerance.

In the north, radical Islamic preaching such as the one promoted by Maitatsine which preached strict adherence to Islam instigated his followers to attack the non-Muslim population in various parts of the north.

Maitatsine riots which resulted in killing which began in 1979 dominated the early part of the eighties, There have been other killings since then.

These killings were maingly caused by religious intolerance in the volatile north. In 1995, Gideo Akaluka was beheaded for allegedly desecrating the Quran. In 2007, Nigerian Christian teacher Christianah Oluwatoyin Oluwasesin was stabbed to death after allegations that she had desecrated a Qu’ran.

Ethno-religious conflicts have long made Nigeria a turbulent country. The manifestation of conflicts has been the source of deadly violence between different religious groups and communities.

Such conflicts have manifested themselves after general elections, during religious clashes in other parts of the world and also after the killing of Christians in the north with attendant reprisal attacks in some south-eastern states.

Over the years the ghost of ethnic cleansing haunts Nigeria. It has already signalled its approach. This takes form in ever-increasing acts of violence between diverse ethnic groups.

In Jos, at the turn of the century, ongoing ethnic clashes among the Fulani and the predominantly Christian population has been compared to the Rwanda genocide.

In recent years, violence has multiplied in various states and communities. In 1997, the ancient oil town of Warri exploded in violence between hitherto co-existing communities that makeup Warri – the Ijaws and Urhobos on one hand and the Itsekiris on the other.

The scale and ferocity of the destruction are quite alarming-with hundreds of lives and properties lost.

In Ondo State in the late 1990s, the Ilaje and Ijaws in riverine Ondo State who had long co-existed for centuries suddenly went for each other’s throat. In Aguleri and Umuleri in Anambra State conflict over land is not new.

It happened in 1933, 1964 and 1995. But, in 1999 the violence attained dangerous proportions with thousands of lives and properties destroyed.

In recent years, all across Nigeria there is an ever increasing threat of ethnic violence: Those who have a sense of history will remember the Ife/Modakeke, Ogoni and Andonis, Sagamu, Kano, Zango-Kataf, Jukuns/Tivs, etc.

As the country faces the demons of ethno-relgious crises, the Fulani herdsmen violence has added another layer of violence to an already dangerous situation.

In every parts of the country, Fulani herdsmen are constant clash with host communities or in areas along the path of their nomadic journey of cattle grazing.

The recent and ongoing violent clashes are the one involving the herdsmen with the Agatus in Benue state. There have been daily reports about clashes with communities in Enugu state.

Then just a few days ago, an accident involving a commercial motorcyclist of northern extraction and a Yoruba woman snowballed into violent clash. The Hausa rider was to have knocked down the woman who later died.

The aftermath clashes have turned two ethnic groups against the other. These are not isolated events but are interconnected. Powerful social and economic factors gave rise to these clashes.

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As our country continues to dance on the brink of ethnic war, I have argued that leadership is key to ending the mistrusts that throw up these violent clashes.

The political class must rise above primordial sentiments that fuel such clashes. It is only when our leaders close ranks and shun all divisive rhetoric that Nigeria may truly be on the path to greatness.

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