Fighting Over The Plateau

Before the suit was filed on Monday last week, the state had filed a suit against Yar’Adua at the Supreme Court, challenging his power to raise the Abisoye panel to look into the crisis. Porajok, in a letter to the Reps speaker, Dimeji Bankole said probing the Jos crisis was “outside the power of the National Assembly.”

Indeed, the Jos crisis has worsened the relationship between Yar’Adua and Jang and exacerbated the tension on ground. The president, speaking through Segun Adeniyi, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity said the action of Jang (who dragged the president to the Supreme Court over the matter) was unfortunate. Adeniyi argued that the president’s interest in the whole matter was to unravel the root cause of the crisis in order to prevent a recurrence in the state and other parts of Nigeria.

Yar’Adua, as Adeniyi put it, was disappointed that in the face of some developments in the world stage (like the emergence of Barack Obama as US President, there “are still leaders in the country speaking in selfish tone, using the ‘we versus them’ language when everyone is subjected to their authority and should be protected”

The president, Adeniyi argued, is mindful of the federal structure, but would not shirk his responsibility in maintaining peace and security in the land. Not only that, he said the president made wide consultations before he set up the panel. Adeniyi explained that it is only a panel that has federal muscle that could properly investigate the matter. “I can assure you that it is very deliberate that the panel is not headed by a retired or serving judge because it is not a judicial panel of inquiry but rather a fact-finding panel whose report can help navigate the current crisis while guiding against future occurrence,” he said.

He described Jang’s stance as unfortunate. Jang’s supporters, however, asserted that Yar’Adua was hasty in setting up the Abisoye Panel to investigate the crisis. Plateau State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Mr. Nuhu Gagara told this medium that the president has not helped matters since the outbreak of the crisis he maintained was caused by the Hausa-Fulani settlers after the November election. While Gagara saw it as a way of undermining the constitutional powers of the state governor, other government functionaries regarded it as underground support for the settlers.

Naturally, those rooting for the Abisoye panel believed that Yar’Adua has done well in constituting the panel. Barrister Muhammed Mudi, former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Jos North Local Government insisted that the Hausa-Fulani cannot get justice from Jang’s Ajibola panel of inquiry. Mudi said the Hausa community is in support of Yar’Adua on the issue not because he is a Hausa-Fulani or muslim but because he is a good leader.

This notwithstanding, not many indigenes of Plateau were afraid that they might not get justice under the Abisoye panel. They argued that it was the same Abisoye who headed the military investigative panel that recommended officers for trial, after the 1976 Dimka coup, ”some of whom lost their lives from Plateau and other parts of the Middle Belt.” Other members of the panel that time were Mallam Adamu Suleiman, Navy Captain Olufemi Olumide, Lt. Col. Joshua Dogonyaro, Col. Mamman Vatsa and Lt. Col. Muletah Mohammed.

The findings and recommendations of the Abisoye panel that time were forwarded to the Military tribunal (headed by Major General John Obada) which tried and sentenced the coup plotters to death. Plateau State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Edward Pwajok, disagreeing, argued that Jang has the constitutional right to decide on how to resolve the matter, especially when it borders on setting up of either a judicial or an administrative panel. Explaining that the powers contained in the Exclusive list have their responsibilities as well as limitations, Pwajok said that states should have autonomy over residual functions that make them party to the tripartite equation of federal, state and local government administrations.

Berom Elders Council viewed the president’s decision to set up a panel of enquiry to investigate the crisis as a blunt negation of the principles of federalism, and separation of powers and by extension, an onslaught on the Rule of Law Yar’Adua has always touted. They observed that anything that fell short of this would amount to usurpation of power. They, therefore, insisted that the Abisoye panel should be dissolved by the President and give way to a legitimately constituted state panel headed by a legal luminary, preferably in the mould of Ajibola.

The arguments going back and forth among the native Berom and the Hausa-Fulani settlers over who should set up a panel of Inquiry clearly indicate a clear division along ethnic and religious lines, that could lead to a fresh violent combustion. The Berom believe the Hausa in Jos are violent, power-hungry and keen on lording it over their hosts. The Berom Elders Council’s statement blamed the Hausa for “always attacking first”, as they allegedly did in 2001 and 2004. “The recent crisis was carefully crafted to attack the Berom and Governor Jang who happens to be of Berom stock. We have failed to understand why what should have been a political matter now turned out to be a smokescreen to wreak bitterness, hatred and havoc on innocent lives,” the Council said. It described the crisis as an open display of religious bigotry and destruction of mosques, churches, schools, shops, and homes.”

The Hausa-Fulani, meanwhile, have declared they have an equal stake in the ownership of Jos. Mudi held that Jos belongs to early settlers, who on sojourn from other states finally settled there. He asked: “Why is it that all the streets are named after the so-called settlers and the Berom people?”  A victim of the crisis, Mohammed Ibrahim, who was recently discharged from Jos University Teaching Hospital, JUTH, with an amputated leg due to injuries he sustained from multiple gunshots during the crisis, feared this might not be the end of disturbances between the settler Hausa-Fulani community and indigenes of Jos. He wept as he lamented: “They have rendered me one-legged. I can’t believe I will walk on crutches for the rest of life.”

Kabir Suleiman Dankabira who alleged that his house was burnt twice, during the 2004 crisis and again last November, also believed that many days of war are ahead except true reconciliation is made and necessary attention is given to aggrieved parties. A pastor, who requested anonymity for reason that he does not want to be seen as taking sides, said what people saw as a fresh crisis had actually been there for a long time but there was no medium to express it. “These people,” he said, referring to the Hausa, “are our headache in Jos.”

Mark Dashe, a Berom student of the University of Jos, boasted that had it not been for the prompt intervention of the Army, the Hausa settlers would have been sent out of Jos. “We know these people are preparing underground to come out against us with full force, but we are battle-ready,” he declared. On the threat that the Hausa would be sent packing from Jos, president of the Jasawa Community Development, an umbrella body of Hausa associations in Jos, Alhaji Shehu Ibrahim Masalla, said though the Hausa community lost over 600 people, both old and young, it is not out to take vengeance, “since vengeance belongs to God.” He advised those making statements “capable of inciting one tribe against another or adherents of one religion against another to stop in the interest of peace and unity.”

TheNEWS learnt that the view the Berom and Hausa had about each other was basically why when the 27 November local government election came up, it became an avenue for the two sides to explode into a bloody fight, even when the results of polls were yet to be released. As it is, weeks after the crisis, the icy relationship between the two tribes is yet to thaw, an indication that Jos may erupt again at the slightest provocation. The state is currently under tight security, with major roads leading into and out of Jos under 24-hour surveillance by Army and mobile police personnel. The dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed on Jos is also still in force.

The state government is not unaware of the tension mounting in the state. The Special Adviser to Plateau State Governor on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Daniel Manjang, gave assurance that Jos will not witness any crisis again, only if the state governor is allowed to resolve the matter within the state. Manjang flayed Adeniyi’s statement concerning the president’s feeling about Jang on the crisis, saying it was capable of undermining the peace process.

Some top state government functionaries that spoke to this medium expressed displeasure at what they described as “Yar’Adua siding with the Hausa-Fulani on the crisis.” Out of five interviewed, three concluded that the president took sides with the Hausa because he is Hausa too. Pointing out Yar’Adua’s inadequacies on the crisis, they accused him of refusing to see Governor Jang when he (Jang) visited him in Abuja to brief him on the matter. This, they pointed out, showed that Yar’Adua had already taken a position on the matter even before being briefed.

Second, they alleged, Yar’Adua is yet to visit Jos after the crisis. Worse still, top government functionaries like Hassan Lawal, then Minister of Labour and Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ibrahim Dambazzau, that came to Jos immediately after the crisis visited only the Central Mosque and such places that were muslim communities without a courtesy call on the Chief Security Officer of the state, governor Jang or the traditional ruler of Jos, the Gbong Gwong Jos, Victor Dung Pam.

They pointed out that even the delegation of Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, the president’s wife to Jos to visit and condole families of those affected by the crisis did not bother to a pay courtesy call on the governor or the affected Christian communities. For instance, arguing that Plateau people deserve a better deal, Plateau State Information Commissioner, Nuhu Gagara claimed that when Yar’Adua was rejected by his kinsmen–the Hausa community–during his presidential campaign visit to Jos in 2007, who teamed up with another party and candidate, it was Jang who mobilised the indigenous Plateau people to give him overwhelming votes from the state.

The commissioner lamented a situation whereby all the federal officials coming to visit the state because of the crisis neither informed the governor nor any state official. “There were several states that experienced crisis before and after Jos. Why the sudden federal government interest in Jos?” He wondered. The acrimony has degenerated so much it has extended to creating disaffection within the PDP of which both Yar’Adua and Jang are members. Last Monday, governors elected on the platform of the party gathered at the Kwara State Government House, in Asokoro, Abuja. The gathering, TheNEWS learnt, was to convince Jang to withdraw the case he filed on the matter. But the governors were said to be sharply divided. The argument was whether Jang should be forced, using other party instrumentalities, to withdraw his suit. The other option was to involve him fully in the peace process.

This magazine understood that while some governors argued that the confrontation between the federal government and the Plateau State government is normal in a democracy and adheres to the Rule of Law, some of their colleagues viewed Jang’s action as an affront on the president. Governors in attendance at the meeting included those of Oyo, Kaduna, Nassarawa, Rivers, Ogun, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Zamfara, Taraba and Osun states. Another meeting has been scheduled for 26 January.