Focus on tension between communities in Kaduna State

Reputed for decades to be the melting pot of Nigeria's cultures, the northern state of Kaduna has witnessed some of the most violent confrontations between different ethnic and religious groups since President Olusegun Obasanjo was elected in 1999. Obasanjo's election was seen by Nigerians as an opportunity to end more than 15 years of military misrule. It would also mark the start of a national project to re-create a modern nation state - which was first initiated by British colonialists in the 19th century, and bequeathed to Nigerians at independence in 1960. Re-creating the modern nation state however has run into difficult waters and states like Kaduna found themselves in the epicenter of violence. Trouble started brewing in 1999 when a number of overwhelmingly Muslim northern states,including Kaduna, constitutionally adopted the controversial Islamic legal code or Sharia. Under Sharia law, drinking of alcohol is punishable by flogging, stealing attracts amputation of limbs, while adulterers can be stoned to death. As Sharia rapidly caught on, it was obvious it would create trouble in Kaduna whose population, like Nigeria’s, is almost half muslim and half non-Muslim. Each of the groups would seek to assert perceived rights or lay claim to demands long suppressed by military repression. In a number of ways Kaduna is a miniature of Nigeria, a federation of 36 states. Not only is it made up of a multiplicity of ethnic groups, it also has a culturally distinct north that is predominantly Muslim and a south that is mainly Christian. As a result the northern state has grappled with its cultural contradictions much in the same way Africa’s most populous country of 120 million people and 250 ethnic nationalities, struggles to stay as one country. While Muslims in Kaduna embraced the religious code, counter-protests by Christians soon resulted in ethnic and religious violence, which first engulfed the state capital of Kaduna with its two million people. When the first two bouts cleared - the first in February and the second in May 2000, more than 2,000 people had been killed. Scores of houses and other property had also been destroyed. Worse still, the ripples of the violence in Kaduna were felt in other states. Reprisal killings were soon mounted against northern Muslims in parts of the mainly Christian south of Nigeria. “Sharia served as a catalyst to alert the non-Muslim ethnic minorities of the need to resist and fight perceived domination by Hausa-Fulani Muslims,” Samson Bako, a Kaduna-based human rights activist, told IRIN. Bako, a Christian from an ethnic minority, however believes that for many communities in Nigeria the roots of the problems go back to the British colonial era and the early 19th century. Islam reached the Kanuri of Borno in northeast Nigeria by the 8th century and the Hausa city of Kano not long after. But it was not until the 19th century that the religion made its deepest penetration of the area. In 1804, Fulani nomads, who had migrated from the Fouta Djalon area of Guinea and had become late converts to Islam, decided to launch a 'jihad' or Islamic war to expand the religion among the Hausa states. Led by an Islamic scholar, Usman dan Fodio, the victorious fighters soon established themselves over large areas of northern Nigeria, later pushing towards the southwest. Having defeated the Hausa, the Fulani learnt their language and intermarried with their ruling classes. Soon the two groups fused to become virtually one indistinct ethnic group under the rule of the Sokoto caliphate. However, in much of the region south of Hausa-land, various ethnic minority groups stoutly defended their territory against the caliphate, and successfully resisted Islam. But when the British arrived to colonise Nigeria, they forged an alliance with the Sokoto caliphate in pursuit of the indirect rule system. The emirate system used in the caliphate was cost-effective for administering the huge territory of the protectorate of northern Nigeria and the British delegated powers to it. It was then that the caliphate extended influence over even non-Muslim areas, to the chagrin of the ethnic minorities of northern Nigeria. “Even with the attainment of independence, most of them have not been able to throw off the yoke of caliphate domination bequeathed by the colonialists,” Chike Ezemo, of the social sciences faculty, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, told IRIN. “This has been a constant source of tension and suspicion between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities in much of northern Nigeria.” For instance, he said, the Zaria Emirate Council, which owes allegiance to the caliphate, until recently exerted control over Kaduna State and parts of neighbouring Plateau State, by appointing chiefdoms and district heads. Under this structure, chiefdoms reported to district heads, who in turn reported to the Emir of Zaria. The other source of conflict in Kaduna is growing pressure on land as a result of migration. The Hausa-Fulani, who are mainly migrant traders, have established sizable communities among the ethnic minority groups in the state. And in recent decades the rate of southward migration has been accelerated by the advance of the Sahara Desert. Many Hausa-Fulani farmers are therefore seeking land for agriculture. According to Bako, the Hausa-Fulani - being richer and having a more advanced system of social organisation with links to the emirate system- are often appointed to head chiefdoms or districts among the people where they have settled. "Attempts to exercise this power often leads to confrontation as resentful local people resist them," he said. This situation was at play in the town of Gwantu, in southern Kaduna, early in November where violence broke out between Muslim Hausa-speakers and local people. For years the local government headquarters had been located within the Hausa quarters, near the palace of the traditional ruler. An attempt by Frank Bala Baba, elected chairman of the local government to relocate the headquarters to an area populated mainly by Christians of his ethnic group, was resisted by the Hausa-speakers, resulting in violence. In 1992 similar violence erupted on a larger scale in Zangon-Kataf, also in southern Kaduna, between Hausa-speaking settlers and the local Kataf ethnic group. The cause of the fighting had been an attempt by a local government headed by a Kataf to move the main market away from the Hausa quarters to a predominantly Kataf area. Hundreds of people died in fighting which lasted several days. Since the 2000 riots, Kaduna State governor, Ahmed Makarfi, has initiated reforms to reduce ethnic and religious tensions, including introduction of a modified version of Sharia, to try and accommodate feelings of both religious communities. Under the system which became operational on 2 November, the Muslim legal code will only apply in predominantly Muslim areas while canon or customary law will rule in areas inhabited by Christians and non-Muslims. Makarfi has also created new chiefdoms and districts for the non-Muslim ethnic minorities of the state. He also changed the line of authority, making the chiefs answerable not to the Zaria Emirate Council, but to the state government. On 20 November, inhabitants of the state were required to vote in a referendum to approve or disapprove the creation of new local government areas. The aim is to devolve authority and give greater self-determination to the many distinct minority groups. “Though a Muslim from northern Kaduna, Makarfi has done what several people before him failed to do,” Lai Godia of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, told IRIN. “The measures he has adopted, if implemented well, will give many of our minority groups a sense of belonging, ending many decades of oppression suffered under the emirate system.”