20 Apr 2011 |
I have read Salisu Suleiman's piece that purports to contextualize the mob violence in the North. Here is why Salisu's effort to rebrand this senseless carnage will not fly: 1. To endorse any mob action in volatile Northern Nigeria for whatever reason is insensitive and irresponsible. We know from history that there has never been and cannot be riots in Northern Nigeria were the careful distinctions in Salisu's fantasy are made--between Muslim Northern elites (or other internal targets) on the one hand and the usual targets, Christians and Southerners, on the other. It has never happened. During the Maitatsine riots, even though this was supposedly an anti-establishment, intra-Islamic riot, did the killers discriminate between their "primary" targets and Christians/Southerners? What about Boko Haram? Was it not analyzed as a Muslim extremist populist revolt against the embrace of modernism and corruption by the elite and was it not an intra-Islamic crisis? Have churches not been routinely targeted and have hundreds if not thousands of Christian and Southern residents of Borno and Bauchi states not been targeted? The list goes on. This is the supreme context that guides our understanding of the current carnage. It should have cautioned Salisu against lending his important and informed voice to this madness, even if his endorsement is heavily qualified. Unless Salisu does not mind Christians and Southerners and Muslim Middle Belters routinely becoming collateral damage in this anti-elite "revolution" (as he has falsely rebranded it), which is the predictable outcome of these uprisings in the North, he should never have endorsed what is going on. Mob action by its very nature never discriminates, especially one that occurs in the context of a troubled history of ethnic and religious killings in the North. To endorse mob action is to endorse all of its outcomes. It is barbaric, medieval, and counterproductive. 2. I will repeat that to endorse mob action, murder, and arson in Northern Nigeria is to endorse all of its fallout. We're talking about a region of unspeakable ignorance, illiteracy, and insularity, a region in which: a) Christians and Southerners were killed in Maiduguri a few years back because there was an eclipse of the sun and some Islamic preachers convinced their ignorant coreligionists that Christians and Southerners and their sins were to blame! b) In Kano, Christians and Southerners were massacred and their properties destroyed in response to the US attack on Afghanistan in 2001! c) Christians and Southerners were decimated by Muslim mobs--the same as those killing, maiming and destroying innocent Christians and Southerners today--in response to the Danish cartoon controversy! The list goes on. This is the region we're talking about, where Salisu is fantasizing about the surgical, sophisticated revolution of ignorant, ill-bred, indoctrinated, and angry mobs. If these senseless incidents of Northern Muslim mobs targeting Christians, Southerners, and moderates in their own society are a regular occurrence, how can you ever expect that these murderous mobs will discriminate between elite oppressors and others? 3. The riots were clearly to express anger at the loss of Buhari and the victory of Jonathan. Politicians suspected of supporting Jonathan were targeted, and that proves the point. But even more revealing is the targeting of people from the states and regions where Jonathan won. It is indiscriminate anger at anyone perceived to have pro-Jonathan sympathies or anti-Buhari sensibilities. Here is a direct quote from a story on the riots: "They said are you Christian or Muslim? I lied and said I was Muslim but they didn't believe me and they beat me and cut me ... I heard them ask people PDP or CPC? If they saw a PDP poster they burned the building," he said." If this was about punishing their Northern oppressors for depriving them of patronage, benefits, and services as Salisu claims, why target people based on religion and on the basis of their political affiliation? And while we are on this, why is "Sai Buhari" (Only Buhari) the slogan of this "revolution"? Why are Buhari's campaign posters the choice symbol of the mobs? Why not something more generically reflective of the rioters' purported non-partisan anger at the oppressive Northern elite? More poignantly, if these killings were about sending a message to their oppressors as Salisu wants us to believe, why were the homes and businesses of CPC politicians--many of whom are as guilty as the PDP politicians for the neglect of the Northern youths--spared. Many of the CPC politicians (El-Rufai, Masari, Lado, Abacha, etc) are even bigger culprits and bigger oppressors, having crossed over from the PDP and having held important government offices and/or controlled enormous government resources that they failed to use to better the lot of their region. ANPP politicians, especially in Kano, where the party has been a monumental disappointment, were also spared. Why? Are they not also oppressors who are guilty of the crimes outlined by Salisu? Salisu's logic doesn't wash at all. They were spared simply because they supported Buhari's ambition. It did not matter to the monstrous killers that some of these corrupt and failed politicians supported Buhari opportunistically. 4. If this was an anti-elite revolution as Salisu claims, why did they not riot last week during the national assembly election, when the presidency was not at stake and when they still believed, against all evidence, that Buhari was going to win? 5. What about when the PDP's Yar'Adua defeated Buhari in 2007 in an election that was the worst in Nigerian history? Why did they not riot if they hated the PDP and its oppressors so much? Much as they fanatically supported Buhari, they were happy that a Northern Muslim like them would be president. It is primordial political intolerance at its worst and be called by its proper name. These killings and orgy of destruction stem solely from anger at seeing their hero and god, Buhari, defeated and at seeing Jonathan, a Christian Southerner, emerge the winner. To call it something else is to dignify mass murder. I know that Salisu, like most educated Northerners, are embarrassed by what is going on, but to try to dignify this murderous mob action with the moniker of revolution? That's flat out unacceptable. Tunisia was a revolution. Egypt was a revolution. The young people there targeted their real oppressors and did not target their fellow countrymen who are also victims of the oppression. They did not demonize or murder Christians or people from Mubarak and ben Ali's region, all of whom may have supported these dictators and the repugnant status quo. More importantly, they did not use violence, insisting on non-violent change. To try to describe the latest barbarism being perpetrated by ignorant, murderous mobs against their usual Others in Northern Nigeria as revolution is an insult to actual revolutions. Finally, I strongly condemn the logic that the mob violence would be justifiable if the murderous rioters only targeted their oppressors. As it turns out, they are only targeting their oppressors in the PDP, not those in other parties, which speaks volumes. The PDP politicians that were targeted with some of them losing family members and workers and property--do/did they not have a right under democracy to support whomever they want for whatever reason? Why should the exercise of that basic democratic right incur mob violence? Is violence against them on account of their political choice justified as Salisu seems to be suggesting? Do you not endorse fascism and medieval attitudes to dissent if you endorse mob violence on those who did not support the dominant political tendency in the Northwest/Northeast in this election cycle? However you slice it, Salisu's piece is disappointing and shocking. I don't agree with its premise and I certainly disagree with the sly attempt to rehabilitate the Northern youths' murderous reaction to an election outcome that they don't like. Let's call a spade a spade and stop engaging in denialism and escapism. The murderous mob action of Northern youths did not begin today and will never end unless enlightened Northerners start condemning them without justifying what they do under any narrow circumstances. It is not enough to condemn these things in private scripts, incestuous conversations, and among Southern interlocutors. Ultimately, violence is self-consuming and even the enlightened, educated Northerners who are cheering their murderous youths on today as populist heroes may find themselves branded too "modern" and too unIslamic for the type of Islamo-populist society that the mobs envision for their region.
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Once again, the truth is the first and enduring casualty of another crises in Nigeria.
I am saddened by the cases made below to explain and justify wanton destruction of life, property and Christian places of worship in Nigeria following the April 16th presidential election. How on earth is this level of mindless violence justifiable? Do two wrongs make a right? There may have been rigging in the elections. Who is to say that all parties were not guilty of this crime? Rigging does not happened because politicians, their supporters, and commentators have a fertile imagination. Everyone know that parties' imagination can run riot in a poisoned environment. Until rigging is proven preferably in court in the elections, the benefit of doubt should be given to Jega and his INEC one would think. After all the violence, what is the point of the declared losers of the election challenging the election result in court.
What is also not mentioned below is that both Buhari and his running mate urged their supporters before the election, to take the law into their own hands if they suspected rigging. This, from candidates seeking to be democratically elected president and vice president is roundly disgraceful and criminal. Some supporters on the authority and inducement of Buhari and his running mate took the law into their own hands as they were directed to do. There is now confirmation that Buhari is a believer in do-or die politics. Many innocent Nigerians consequently, lost their lives , their property, and their places of worship. Buhari and his running mate sowed the wind, Nigeria has reaped the whirlwind.
Then again if Buhari had rigged his way to victory, will the Northern youths (more appropriately thugs) have sought to selectively kill and maim some of their fellow citizens and destroy parts of their communities? Where by the way is conclusive evidence that Buhari and his party did not try or indeed rig the election as much as they could. Buhari had more votes in Kano than Shekarau (a Kano native). Is that a necessary or sufficient reason to believe that Buhari and his party rigged the elections in Kano?
What about some sympathy in the postings below for the innocent victims of the rampage? It is shocking that anyone living in or writing from the the United States will attempt to explain or justice violence that results in the loss of innocent lives and ordinary people's property and their places of worship as election grief. If Nigeria is to ever be a democratic state, Nigerians must condemn violence in all its manifestations and always uphold the primacy of the law and the recourse to it by all that are aggrieved. Nnamdi Azikiwe (ZIK) was declared a loser in the 1979 presidential elections in Nigeria. He could have but rightly chose not overtly or covertly urge his supporters to reject the results and resort to violence. He challenged the result in court. Obafemi Awolowo did the same. Why not Buhari?
It is argued below that the south has dominated Nigeria's presidential office since 1999. Why this arbitrary cut-off point? What about the period before 1999? Who have dominated national leadership since political independence? If indeed the PDP's zoning policy as is stated below, violates Nigeria's constitution, why should anyone make a case based on it? One would expect that Jonathan should be commended for helping to end the illegality.
Is it not about time the case made for good government by whoever rather than bad government by my own man. The point must also be made that Jonathan did not elect himself the PDP's presidential candidate. A majority of the PDP did in the full knowledge that Atiku was a contestant and an alternative candidate. Nigeria in my opinion, is more important than its parts and the short-term frustrations of partisans. There will be future elections. Those who support violence today as an understandably and justifiable response to unacceptable election results must be prepared to accept violence if the tables are turned around in the future.
oa
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of toyin adepoju
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2011 4:48 PM
To: usaafricadialogue; AfroCentrikWorld@yahoogroups.com; naijapolitics@yahoogroups.com; naijaobserver@yahoogroups.com; nai; naijaelections
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: [Mwananchi] Nigeria's Political Turbulence: Two Voices (an important read) [NORTHERN NIGERIA VIOLENCE: EVIDENCE OF A CULTURE OF VIOLENCE OR OF DESIRE FOR ECONOMIC RIGHTS?]
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <peacethrujustice@aol.com>
Date: 25 April 2011 20:55
Subject: [Mwananchi] Nigeria's Political Turbulence: Two Voices (an important read)
THE PEACE Thru JUSTICE FOUNDATION
11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298
Silver Spring, MD. 20902
JUMADA 1 1432 A.H.
(April 25, 2011)
Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):
Africa south of the Sahara rarely receives the level of international media attention that it should. Far too often, when international attention is forthcoming on some major event involving political turbulence, the reporting is skewed beyond fact-based recognition.
Below are two commentaries on the recent presidential election (and its tragic aftermath) in one of Africa's most strategically important states - Nigeria.
El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
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http://www.theoptimistvoice.com/archives/nigerianews04232011.html
Nigeria And The Global Media Manipulations
Hadiza Wada, DBA ... April 23, 2011
Most analysts of the election outcome, especially the violence that followed seem to assume that Nigerians have short memory and/or are foolish. They, out of self-serving reasons mostly, attribute the violence that engulfed the nation to the loss of Muhammadu Buhari. They therefore limit their analysis on the fact that regardless of clear manipulations, the youth tirade was solely as a result of the loss of Muhammadu Buhari.
Yes, clear manipulations of the Presidential votes might have caused concern to members of opposition political parties, such as (a) the withholding of the results from areas that the incumbent President was favored by more than 24 hours, until figures from the ruling party's rival state were in; (b) The clear inflation of the figures in most South-South and South Eastern States where again the incumbent was favored, with claimed voter turnout that runs upwards of 80%; and several other ways which demonstrated that despite INEC's strategy, the institution was indeed infiltrated and its arrangement circumvented. Even foreign observers have spoken against it. All these were brazen actions that everyone watched as they unfold, which created doubts as to the outcome of the election. But that could not be the only reason.
A great majority of the local as well as international media, which of course today are not on the side of most of the values those youths hold dear, grabbed the ball and ran away with it, dancing to the tunes of the destructive sentiments that have inhibited the nation's growth. By that we mean the manipulation of ethnic and religious differences in Nigerian politics. They clearly failed to see that the youths are reacting to the possibility that their yearnings and interest will once again be shelved for the next four to eight years by a leadership that holds no interest in them. They have literally been abandoned by most of their regional leaders and doubly abandoned persecuted and killed at will by politicians who profess other religions, who target them based on religion and ethnicity.
These are all clear from what properties and which personalities they targeted. They did not just target religious properties of others as is commonly reported by the press; they also targeted their regional leaders as well because they feel they are part of the problem. Hence they were reported to have burnt down personal houses of local politicians that share the same ethnicity and religion with them. They even went as far as, for the first time, targeting their traditional rulers' properties. Remember, these are centuries old regional institutions they have for all these years respected. And not only that they even targeted their topmost Muslim ceremonial figure, the Sultan, forcing him to leave his centuries old family residence for safety. So please, do not deceive us and the world, by forcing everyone into the traps of the politicians who manipulate sentiments to bury real serious issues.
Yes, the issue those youths rose up against digs much deeper than the loss of Buhari. The youth have, and by extension their families and people they love felt abandoned. They feel abandoned when their regional leaders failed to stand up for them, allowing incumbent Jonathan to manipulate as well as violate an ingrained policy of the ruling party PDP, an arrangement which today gave the Southern Majority Christian politicians nine out of eleven years of presidency and still counting. Not to talk of the illegality of the rotation of leadership between the North and the South in itself, a clear violation of the Nigerian Constitution including any democratic principle anywhere, for the North is by far the majority in both area and population.
See physical area representation of what the North constitutes, and what constitutes the South. "The south" is literally less than one third of the Northern area. Error! Filename not specified.
So such rioting youths not only have a fight against their local leadership, they are expressing their frustrations against the national leadership as well for they feel doubly abandoned by those who should also uphold the Judicial supremacy of the nation's institutions, as ingrained in the separation of power, so as to bring in sanity to Nigerian politics of manipulation that keeps the majority of the people out of the mainstream of political power, their interests violated and their participation marginalized.
Winning a manipulated and illegitimate term by anyone should not be brushed under the carpet. Most of these news sources have conveniently forgotten the fact that Goodluck Johnathan's legitimacy ends on May 28, 2011. By May 29, 2011 in accordance with the PDP Policy the baton was supposed to be passed on to some other Northern PDP President to complete the regional term. The history is there, and the oppressed majority are still an issue to reckon with, in one way or another. A proverb goes "uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." Though that usually relates to machinations within the corridors of power itself i.e. at the peak, sometimes the rebellion comes from an oppressed citizenry down below and in this case the oppressed are in the majority.
The situation shows nothing personal against the person of Goodluck Jonathan, and I think even he knows that. Politicians and the enemies of national development both within and without, love to sensationalize situations and confuse the issues by force. Northern Nigeria has never had any historical antagonism in the political arena with the local population of the Niger Delta, and the records are there.
But the issue is, is Jonathan's insistence on bulldozing his way, a blessing for the nation or a curse. Has he exhibited or portend to possess the best credentials in terms of leadership qualities more than any other; which most importantly include the ability to check and fight corruption, embezzlement and the broad day light looting of the treasury that has rendered the nation's infrastructure useless. If we are to judge him by his tenure so far, he may turn out to be one of the worst the nation has ever seen. The figures are there, read our editorial from last week titled "Fiscal Responsibility a Must."
Any nation that cares less about accountability is doomed. No one seemed to care about turning around the fast deteriorating quality of the nation's education as the schools rot away. Billions in our foreign exchange is enriching foreign nations that our children ran out to instead, while those not able to afford are left in a hopeless situation. Healthcare facilities have broken down, where the ruling class, and now even the middle class have to run out of the country for simple ailments curable in simple dispensaries of other nations. Yet for sentiments, people are ready to continue along that line rather than fight to bring back into the mainstream credible people with the credentials to fight towards putting things back into shape.
For those who concentrate on Buhari, what about Nuhu Ribadu. This is a man who has proven his mettle by resisting millions and millions of dollars in bribes and potential bribery in order to fight for the nation and its effective use of resources. Who gave him a chance? Even in the South West where he was born and bred and was held up as the Presidential candidate for their most influential party, when it came to Presidential election they betrayed him. They chose their own people for local representation (from ACN) but turned around and went for a "Southerner" if I may use that term, from their opposition party PDP, when it comes to the Presidential election. What a shame!
Not only the rampaging youths, many whose interest have always been for the general good of the nation and not on personalities, want better and the most credible leadership that will turn around Nigeria's clear journey into destruction around. That hope surely does not lie with PDP's present leadership, and its destructive political machine.
It surely is not as simple as "the Northern Youth" were angry at Jonathan's victory because of his ethnicity and religion as reported by ethnically biased local as well as other international news sources including the Al Jazeera's local correspondent.
Local and International Media surely missed the point. We are not denying entirely that Buhari loss is one of the factors, because that is how the chess board of Nigerian politics has been set to manipulate people and their sentiments, but that is only a fraction of the point.
---------------------------------
Contextualizing protests in the North
By: Salisu Suleiman
It is easy to construe the violent protests that broke out in several northern states following the April 16th presidential elections as signs of intolerance or do or die politics. The mathematical miracles reflected in the results make a categorical endorsement of the elections as free and fair difficult, but even before the results of the elections had been declared, protests had broken out in many parts of the region. If any church or Christian was targeted, it is condemnable and completely uncalled for. It is totally indefensible and can only be explained, but not justified as the result of mindless, directionless mob action.
In reality, the targets of the uprising are the so-called leaders in the North – the political, military and business elite as well the traditional institutions that have held the region back and truncated any attempt to educate the people and free them from the yolk of illiteracy and poverty. In the same manner that sit tight rulers in North Africa and the Middle East are being toppled by popular movements in the Arab Spring uprisings, the protests in northern Nigeria can be viewed as rebellion against a backward and anachronistic feudal system. Karshen Zalunci (End of Oppression) might be an apt description.
As far back as 1955, the Western Region introduced free education as a policy. Today, the products of that forward thinking strategy and their offspring dominate education, the civil service, business, financial services, medicine, law and a host of other professions in Nigeria and beyond. Even now, which of the north's 19 states has a free education policy? So the region has millions of uneducated and unskilled young men and women with little opportunities today and worse prospects still, for tomorrow.
It is this disillusionment that is fueling the anger and resentment. It is an extraordinary development that mobs are approaching the palaces of Emirs not with reverence, but with intent to attack and destroy them and their occupants; the masses finally understand that when their leaders say 'north', it is not the north as a viable, coherent geo-political entity, but one where a few individuals usurp power and resources to the exclusion of the majority who wallow in poverty and illiteracy.
To illustrate the level of decay and neglect, a few examples are vital: today, a single state in the South has more school enrolments than an entire geo-political zone in the north. A primary school in Rafin-Pa in the outskirts of Zaria has 300 pupils who share two classes. A chalk line on the floor serves as demarcation for the different classes. It has two teachers, including the headmaster; there are more private universities in a state in the South than all federal, state and private universities in a northern zone. There is only one state owned university of science and technology in the entire north. A single university in the south graduates more students than several in the north.
Healthcare is not any better. Most states in the south have more doctors than any zone in the north. Recently, a volunteer group organized a medical caravan to assist a small village with basic medical services, only to be confronted with many patients requiring surgery and other more serious medical attention from surrounding settlements. Government healthcare has never reached majority of people, so they die from preventable, treatable diseases that should have been long eradicated. Cholera, dysentery, meningitis, polio and other preventable diseases are prevalent in the region which has stalled the elimination of polio from Africa. The region's elite would rather keep their stolen wealth in Switzerland, Dubai, Hong Kong and South Africa.
Agriculture, the region's great area of comparative advantage and mainstay of its economy remains subsistence and dependent on the vagaries of weather. This is in spite of the many dams and huge tracts of fertile land the region possesses. The Sahara desert is inching downwards every year. Entire settlements have been engulfed. Water sources are drying up rapidly; deforestation is exposing millions of people to the elements and making the region vulnerable to drought, flooding and other environmental catastrophes. Rapid population expansion further puts pressure on existing resources, while armies of unemployed youth troop to towns and cities in search of non-existing opportunities. Northern elite would rather compete about who lives in a more expensive part of London, the French Riviera or Dubai.
Of course, many Northerners have worked and succeeded in many fields, but the region's political elite only use public offices to divert funds for personal use. Corruption is central to the region's poverty and maladministration. The stolen funds are used to buy homes in Europe, America and the Middle-East. It is warped thought process: grab as much money as possible; open foreign bank accounts; buy estates in Europe and America, with a stopover in Dubai. And never forget to visit Mecca every year to feign religiosity.
For those seeking to understand the outbreaks of violence, there is another north. There is a north that has nothing to do with the usurpation of political and economic opportunities to the exclusion of other Nigerians. There is a north that is poor, hungry, illiterate and devoid of hope. There is a north that is as much a victim as the south of the corruption and arrogance of these narrow clique of northerners that is often presented as representing the entire region.
For this north, the various administrations headed by northerners have not resulted in better lives, education or improved opportunities. This north does not send its children to school in the US, UK and other locations while local schools are systematically ruined. This north does not fly to Europe or America every fortnight for medical checkups or shopping sprees in Dubai. This north does not own foreign bank accounts in London, New York, Dubai, South Africa, Jordan, Beijing and Hong Kong; they own no bank accounts at all. This north that does not allocate all the best positions in the country to its children, qualified or not. This north simply wants change.
This is the north that is coming out to fight for its survival. As long as they stick to the objective of forcing out the corrupt and visionless elite, they need our support and understanding, not the usual 'almajiri' taunts. Perhaps, a better Nigeria might yet emerge.
END OF ARTICLE
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