SALLAH IN JOS: BOTH EYES WIDE OPEN

          An entry has been made in the nation’s chronicle of communal and religious crises against the last Sallah in Jos during which violence broke out with heavy losses when Muslims were at Eid praying ground. Apparently some christians had resolved to avenge the bombing of the last Christmas in Jos, and sections of the Muslim community walked into sea of hostility and violence when they chose to pray on the Monday, rather than the Tuesday which was decreed by the Sultan. The State government said then that it had made adequate plans to protect the Muslim community on Tuesday, but that not Monday. In any case, as has become routine in Jos, it was just another occasion to kill, burn and destroy. The communities buried their dead, counted their losses, and then retreated waiting for the next occasion to fight again.

   Between the last Eid and this one, little has been done to address the basic issues which triggered the last mayhem. Fundamental rights of movement and freedom of worship were at the heart of the last round of violence. Everyone knew that another Sallah will come, and the Jos community which has become residentially balkanized by faith, and which has more flashpoints than perhaps any community in the world today, has lived with the fear over what will happen this Sallah. The police command in Plateau State, however, is attempting to deal with the problem in possibly the best way it can. It says that major routes to the two mosques on Polo field and the

Rukuba Road

, which the State Security Committee had earlier banned as grounds for the Eid-El-Kabir prayers will be blocked. It has also identified routes that will circumvent possible flashpoints, in the hope that Muslims and christians will not meet and fight during this Sallah as well.

          On the face of it, it could be said that the State government and the police are being pro-active in heading off another round of blood-letting in Jos. But the measures involving banning people from praying in certain parts of the city, or taking long routes around enemy territory will only highlight the tragedy that the city of Jos has become. There will be Muslims who will see the restriction of their praying venues as a victory and concession to christians in a State where the government is widely perceived as being hostile to Muslims. There will also be some christians who may see this as a victory, and this will embolden them in this unending fight over territory and power. The reality however, is that the measures will, at best, achieve a bloodless Sallah, but will compound the security gridlock in which the State finds itself. Jos is a reminder of the failures of leadership and the systematic decay which pervades all aspects of our national life.

          There are many places like Jos which have become permanent reminders of the failure of leaders and communities to deal with conflict. Jos happens to be an extreme example of such places; a city where routes to praying grounds have to be heavily policed just to ensure that new battles do not break out.  In Kaduna, muslims and christians have largely segregated places of abode, and live behind security barriers and checkpoints. In Borno, bombs are liable to go off at any moment, and soldiers and civilians are shot at almost on a daily basis. In the Niger Delta, kidnappings have become so routine, that even hawkers on the street can be abducted for ransom. A trip around southern Kaduna State will create the impression of being in a war zone, and many victims of the April 2011 election violence still live as refugees, with no hope of returning to their places of original settlement.

The nation will pray that the people of Jos will have a bloodless Sallah. But the people themselves will need to pray and work harder for lasting place. Those who believe in power of prayers will hope that divine hands will touch the heart of the authorities to move beyond building barriers around and between communities; to finding genuine and lasting peace among them. The people of Jos cannot continue to live with their current levels of bitterness tension and frustrations. The Hausa community will not leave Jos, and will continue to resist attempts to make them strangers and parasites in a land where they have every right to be treated as equals with respect and dignity. Those who claim that it is their right to treat them in this manner are every inch as inconvenient and insecure as the Hausa community, because they curtail their freedom and security to the extent that the Hausa community is not free from insecurity and undeserved discrimination. 

Everyone in and around Jos is therefore a prisoner of pettiness, destructive parochialism and irresponsible leadership. It should be obvious by now that a strategy that leaves this problem to the government and people of Plateau State to solve will not work. A large section of the population has no trust or faith in Governor Jang’s capacity to be fair. Another section has locked itself up around self-defeating primordial sentiments, and are incapable of yielding ground. Then you have a government which has no intention of rising above distrust and pettiness to work towards the achievement of far-reaching reconciliation. Every solution it suggests is a problem to another party, and it is fast running out of solutions. Committee after committee have proffered solutions, but once they involve the Plateau State or Federal Government, they become problems. Indeed, the sheer volume of committee recommendations around the Plateau conundrum is itself a major source of the problem.

Still, Plateau State represents a national problem that must find a solution. On its own, it challenges the Nigerians Sate to address fundamental questions relating to the responsibility of leaders and the rights and privileges of citizens.  In relation to other security concerns, it feeds other flashpoints around it in very dangerous ways. In its capacity to test the ability of the Jonathan administration to deal with major national security problems, it may expose it as either supremely incompetent or indifferent. The people of Jos and Plateau State themselves must come out of the prisons and barriers they have built for themselves and find the means of living with each other in peace. It should be obvious to them by now that relying on the Plateau State and Federal Governments lone to find them peace will not work.