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Africa: Subsaharan

Nigerian governor fingers al-Qaeda in recent violence

2004-05-13

REVIEWING the crisis in Plateau State, Gov. Joshua Dariye said yesterday that there is an "Al-Qaeda agenda" designed to bring down his administration and the Federal Government. He restated that his government's concern is the restoration of peace to Yelwa-Shendam. Also, President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday vowed to find a solution to the communal crisis.

More shariah. That oughta fix things...

The lingering violence in the state got mired in fresh controversy as the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the state rejected Emir of Zaria, Alhaji Shehu Idris, as chairman of the Presidential Peace Initiative Committee. Governor Dariye in a telephone interview with State House correspondents, expressed deep sadness at the crisis, saying "this is a grand design, it's an Al-Qaeda agenda to bring down Plateau State and bring down Nigeria. Men of goodwill must resist this attempt."

Couldn't possibly be the local nutbags...

The governor further disowned the Council of Ulama, who visited President Obasanjo at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday over the crisis. He said the group was not representing the voice of moslems in the state. The group, he said, was not the JNI which he said was the true umbrella body for northern moslems. Aside, he alleged that the group was declared as the brain behind the Maitasine riot in 1978 and subsequently sent out of Kaduna, querying that "if they were so good, why were they sent out of Kaduna. They came to form their headquarters in Jos. Is it because we tolerate them? Now they want to turn it into an agenda. We would not accept that agenda." He explained that both Christians and Muslims had been living peacefully over the years, even as he said Yelwa-Shendam has more indigenous moslems than even Hausa Fulani. The latter, he noted, was less than 10 per cent. Governor Dariye urged the media and President Obasanjo to see happenings in the state and Tuesday's crisis in Kano as very serious issues. "Because they know that Plateau is a miniature Nigeria, they couldn't capture Plateau by Jihad. So, let us use political uprising, let us use religion," he stated.

Receiving the report of the Peace Initiative Committee submitted by the committee chairman and Emir of Zazzau, Alhaji Idris, Plateau Obasanjo pledged to "find a solution that works" to the crisis. "We can't have a situation where a part of the country has become a sore, a source of instability and insecurity," regretting that efforts to restore peace to the area had not yielded much.

Thanking the committee for a job well done, he said government would "study the report and act on it." Earlier, Alhaji Idris had revealed that factors such as indigeneship, land administration, chieftaincy matters, mutual suspicion and other disagreements arising from social interaction between the communities were the remote causes of the conflict.

They usually are. The opposing gangs of thugs usually line up along religious lines, though...

Members of the committee who accompanied Alhaji Idris, include the Gbong Gwon Jos, Da Victor Pam, Phonzi Tarok, Edward Zyattau, Emir of Wase, Alhaji Haliru Abdullahi, Rehna of Bashar and Alhaji Adamu Idris. The rest were president, Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN), Rev. Alexandar Lar, state secretary, Miyetti Allah Association, Alhaji Salisu Musa Umar, Sheikh Khalid Aliyu Abubakar of JNI, Alhaji Alhassan Shuaibu, a commissioner in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Nde John Gobak served as the secretary. The CAN, in rejecting the Emir, said the Sarkin Zazzau is an interested party, but Plateau State-born christian and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Jonah Wuyep defers. He believes that the Emir was a proper and fit national personality to head the committee. In the wave of renewed communal skirmishes in Shendam local government area of the state where some 67 people died last week, President Olusegun Obasanjo had dispatched 600 policemen to the area and the constitution of a peace committee. Obasanjo named Emir of Zaria, Mai Martaba Shehu Idris to head the committee which the Christian Association now says is misplaced judgement. The President was expected in Jos today (Thursday) to assess progress of the various measures put in place for the return of peace, but the state CAN says that the Emir is a mentor of the Emir of Wase whom the christians accuse of incubating the crisis.

The state chairman and president of CAN, Revds. Yakubu Pam and Bako Wuyep, respectively, say that Emir Idris's leadership of the peace committee "is totally unacceptable. "The Christian Association of Nigeria is not only opposed to the appointment but we also call on President Obasanjo to have him changed." Their joint position was recorded in a document on "The Recent Religious Crisis in Plateau State," ahead of President Obasanjo's visit. CAN, which traced religious crisis in the state over the past 100 years, allege that muslims were desperate to take over the state (especially the capital, Jos), which they say is the capital of the "minority north" and the Middle Belt. "Since the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century to the 20th century, the struggle to capture Jos, the capital of Plateau State and the Middle Belt, has always been on the muslim far-north.

But, both the Council of Ulama and the Elders of the Jamatu'l Nasirl Islam (JNI), parallel central Islamic groups in the state, have debunked all the charges. And Marshal Wuyep told the Daily Champion in Jos that Emir Idris was a proper and fit national personality to head the peace committee. He said he had worked with the distinguished monarch of Zaria on other peace panels and that HRH Alhaji Idris proved very effective and able. Nevertheless, Gov. Dariye has said the core of efforts on the matter is to return peace to the area quickly. He pledged to raise a high-powered judicial enquiry to unravel the roots of the sectarian violence.

Posted by:Dan Darling

#1 Nigerian governor fingers al-Qaeda in recent violence

Anybody got any pictures of this? Might be nice if someone else has to put up with this international condemnation bullshit for awhile.

Posted by: tu3031 2004-05-13 4:37:12 PM

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