Politics cause Nigerian violence
2010-03-09 19:00
Lagos - The latest bout of bloody violence between mainly Christian farmers and predominantly Muslim nomadic herders in Nigeria has more to do with political rivalry and conflict over land than religion.
The killing of more than 500 Christians in a three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday was blamed on cattle rearers from Nigeria's Fulani tribe.
Some survivors, rights activists and police suggest the attacks were in reprisals for the January clashes which left more than 300 mainly Muslims dead in and around the city of Jos, capital of Plateau state.
The state is in Nigeria's restive central region that straddles the mainly Muslim north and majority Christian south and has for the past decade been a hotbed of ethnic and religious clashes.
Beroms are one of the largest tribal groups of Plateau state but over the years the migratory Fulani-Hausa tribesmen have moved there in search of grazing land.
Settlers
The past decade has seen long-running ethnic friction over land take a violent turn.
"It's an indigene-settler conflict having a religious colouration, (but) people have been mobilised along religious lines," Tajudeen Akanji, director of the centre for peace and conflict resolution at Nigeria's University of Ibadan said.
The battle for political dominance has also played a key role with politicians stoking violence by whipping up the ethnic and religious sentiments to feather their political nests, analysts say.
"It's ethnic and political, nothing to do with religion," said Washington-based Sulaiman Nyang, a specialist on African and Islamic studies at Howard University.
"It's a tragedy that this is all about politics. There are some people in Nigeria who don't want stability. They play all kinds of games."
Hausas always win
A Plateau lawmaker speaking on condition of anonymity blames "bad governance", brushing aside suggestions the conflict is religiously-motivated.
"Anytime there is an election, it is the Hausas that win. It is difficult for locals to win elections," he said, adding that out of the local government councils in the state, none is led by a Berom.
The natives argue that the Fulani-Hausa want to create an enclave in the state where they are considered as settlers.
"It's a feeling of unfair practices, domination of one group by another," said Akanji.
Survivors of the weekend massacres and some officials said fighting was over land.
Plateau state has over the past decade become notorious for deadly clashes sparked by seemingly petty disputes. More than 2 000 people have been killed in at least six major outbursts of violence between sides known to belong to one of the two main religions in Nigeria.
Religious divide
Africa's most populous nation is divided roughly evenly between Muslims and Christians.
"It is a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians," Catholic archbishop of the Nigerian capital Abuja, John Onaiyekan, said.
A senior Islamic clergy Lateef Adegbite said the weekend clashes were "more ethnic than religious. People are not fighting because of place, time or right of worship".
The UN's human rights chief Navi Pillay also insisted it was wrong to label the violence as purely ethnic or sectarian.
"What is most needed is a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of the repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious violence which Nigeria has witnessed in recent years, namely discrimination, poverty and disputes over land," she said in a statement released Geneva
The leading opposition Action Congress (AC) blames the central government for inaction over the years of unrest.
"Unless something urgent is done to stop the cycle of violence in the country, it may assume a more dangerous dimension if it triggers reprisal attacks which can set the nation on fire," AC warned.
"With the mass burial of the victims, the issue is buried until the violence flares up again."
Global watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the country of 150 million people "is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines". It estimates more than 13 500 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes since the end of military rule in 1999.