POLITICS-NIGERIA: Ethnic Conflict Fuels Fears of another Unrest

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Feb 5 2002 (IPS) - Nigeria, which is recovering from decades of military dictatorship, appears to be heading for another disaster, following ethnic conflict which has rocked Lagos since Saturday.

The conflict between Yoruba and Hausa people – Nigeria’s dominant ethnic groups – erupted in Lagos, the country’s largest city, at the weekend. And, by Monday, at least 55 people were reported dead.

The Yoruba hail from the south, where Lagos is situated, while the Hausa come from the north.

“I believe the violence which has been taking place since the beginning of the year aims at destabilising the country to pave way for military incursion again. This, I think, is being sponsored by some northern leaders bent on removing President (Olusegun) Obasanjo because he is not towing their line as they would have wanted him to,” says Gabriel Akindele, a political analyst in Lagos.

Obasanjo, a Yoruba, won the political support of the north in the 1999 presidential elections.

“The northerners don’t want Obasanjo to get a second term and they are bent on doing everything possible through military take- over to achieve their goal. They want to make the country ungovernable,” claims Akindele.

Since May 1999, when the new civilian administration came into office, more than 15 politicians have been assassinated. Several others were lucky to have escaped attempts on their lives.

Party meetings and electoral campaigns have witnessed rancour and violence.

Political analysts have warned that violence and anarchy would mar the 2003 general elections, if the situation continues.

In 1966, political violence and mob killings led to the first military coup and a three-year civil war. Up to one million people died in the fighting between secessionists, seeking an independent state, Biafra and the Nigerian government.

Abubakar Rimi, former Governor of the northern state of Kano, was last week quoted by the “Tell Magazine” as praying to God to “remove Obasanjo by any means possible, including death or through a coup for betraying the north that voted him to power”.

Since 1999, politicians who have been murdered include Odunayo Olagbaju of the Osun State House of Assembly, Olayiwola Lawrence of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Eze Okonkwo of the Anambra State and Monday Ndor of the Rivers State House of Assembly.

The most prominent among them was Bola Ige, Nigeria’s Minister of Justice, who was assassinated in his home in Ibadan, capital of the Western State of Oyo, on Dec 23 last year.

The prime suspect in the assassination, who gave himself up, has implicated some top politicians in the assassination of Ige, a Yoruba and member of the pan-Yoruba group “Afenifere”.

Political thugs also have been used indiscriminately in a number of cases to settle political scores especially in eastern Nigeria. For example, hired thugs stormed the venue of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, on Jan 24, fighting, shooting and molesting people.

The hooligans reportedly stripped some women – who wore vests that bear the picture of a rival leader – naked.

Worried by the eruption of violence, President Obasanjo announced plans to convene a retreat on “Violence and Electoral Process for all Political Office Holders” to be held later this month.

He said those who “use violence as instrument to destabilise Nigeria and cause its break-up are enemies of God”.

“God in his infinite wisdom has put us to live together, first in the unit of our families, then as members of our communities and finally as citizens of our nation. That is an act of God and anybody who fights against that, fights God and he cannot succeed,” the Nigerian president said.

The frequency of the clashes and violence, said Obasanjo, has made many to wonder the extent of Nigerians’ appreciation of their hard-won democracy in 1999, after decades of military rule.

“Progress, development, democracy and maturity, all lie in not allowing such friction to threaten peaceful coexistence. As rational creatures, we are capable and we should keep faith with mutual respect, upon which we can establish norms for managing our differences, so that we do not degenerate into violence,” he said.

Obasanjo described as “unacceptable and intolerable” a situation where communities, which have coexisted for centuries, suddenly unleash violence on each other.

“Our people have more than enough problems with poverty and disease. And they certainly can be spared the additional burden of playing foot soldiers to the designs and machinations of cynical power-seekers. It is evil, to say the least for anyone to take advantage of the restiveness of the youths in situation of gross employment,” he said.

Some Nigerians have warned the army to forget about coming back to the seat of power.

“There may be violence during the 2003 election campaigns, but I am sure democracy will continue in this country. If soldiers think they can overthrow a democratically elected government because of the violence, they must be joking. They will have the Nigerian citizens to contend with,” says Segun Aribike.

Aribike, a senior civil servant, says reactions to the recent bomb blasts in Lagos – blamed on the army – which claimed more than 1,000 lives, have shown that Nigerians will not tolerate any action that will truncate their hard-won nascent democracy.

“They have now seen that the worst civil government is better than the best military regime,” he says.

Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, addressing journalists last week, said military take-overs had become “a thing of the past”.

“No right thinking military officer will venture into seizing the rein of power from democratically elected civilian government,” he said.