[sacw] [ACT] Nigeria reports / parallels to S. Asia

[Harsh Kapoor]

[it is interesting to see parallels to south asia.]

NY Times March 15, 2000

New Strife Tests Nigeria's Fragile Democracy

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

KADUNA, Nigeria -- With soldiers and armored trucks blocking the
street, thousands of Muslims gathered for Friday prayers recently under
the burned-out roof of the central mosque, a result of religious violence
that has gripped the city for weeks. After prayers, the faithful spilled out
of the mosque and the soldiers reopened the street.

On the following Sunday the scene was repeated next door at St.
Joseph's Catholic Cathedral, which is separated only by a narrow alley
from the mosque. Christians walked past the charred remains of cars in
front of the church's blackened main entrance, under the soldiers'
watch.

The proximity of the mosque and church was once a bright symbol of
Kaduna, the country's military capital and the north's political center, a
cosmopolitan meeting place for all Nigerians and one of the best hopes
for a unified Nigeria.

Today Kaduna has become the epicenter of a national battle that on the
surface is over states' right to adopt Islamic law, but which is really
about raw political power in Africa's most populous country.

The future of Nigeria, the most fragile of democracies, might be decided
in this battle. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has surprised many
by the breadth and aggressiveness of his democratic reforms, is facing
the most serious threat to his 10-month presidency.

Some members of the northern Muslim elite -- which ruled Nigeria for
most of its history but has found its power greatly diminished under Mr.
Obasanjo, a Christian -- seem to have seized on religion to galvanize
their forces and challenge the federal government.

After Muslims marched here last month calling for the adoption of the
Shariah, the Islamic social and penal code, a counterdemonstration by
Christians led to riots. At least 400 people were killed. A history of
religious coexistence quickly gave way to extremism. "Shariah must be
done; Shariah is law," rioters scrawled on the houses of destroyed
neighborhoods. Christians invaded the statehouse and wrote at the main
gate: "Shariah is dead. Shariah is not Y2K compliant."

"Our Kaduna, the tolerant, pluralistic Kaduna we were so proud of, is
gone," said Festus Okoye, a Christian lawyer who has practiced here
for 15 years and is the founder of a human rights organization. "The
fabric of intercommunal relations is completely broken. What took place
here had nothing to do with religion. Religion was the mask, as always.
What took place here was the struggle for power in Nigeria.

"Kaduna will never be the same again," he added. "Never."

Whether Nigeria will ever be the same again is a question many people
are asking. As the killings in Kaduna have led to hundreds of more
deaths in the Christian east and then in Sokoto in the north, the home
of Islam, many are asking how many further blows Nigerian unity can
withstand.

President Obasanjo described the violence as "one of the worst
incidents of bloodletting that this country has witnessed since the civil
war" in which the secession of Biafra nearly broke up Nigeria three
decades ago.

Nigeria, like another newly democratic giant, Indonesia, has seen a
surge in ethnic, religious and social violence since its longtime military
rulers gave up power last year.

Thousands have been killed in a bewildering number of conflicts across
the country: ethnic groups fighting one another in the oil-producing Niger
Delta; ethnic minorities fighting against the emirate system in the town
of Kafanchan; members belonging to subgroups of the same ethnic
group fighting each other for land.

Lagos, the steamy commercial capital that teeters toward chaos on its
best days, has recently suffered deadly riots almost weekly. Incidents
like a truck driver accidentally hitting a crowd of pedestrians are enough
to set off killings with religious and ethnic overtones.

The conflicts have all had in common a particular group's quest for
power in a country where such quests were brutally and swiftly quelled
for years by the military rulers.

President Obasanjo, whose handling of the Shariah issue has been
criticized as weak from all corners, has even said that the crisis is an
orchestrated campaign by those trying to destroy his government.

Doyin Okupe, Mr. Obasanjo's spokesman, said in a statement: "The
enemies of this administration who hide under the cloak of religious
piety to try to destabilize it will fail collectively, as it is not in the
manifest destiny of this country that it should disintegrate."

The events that culminated in Kaduna began in October when the
governor of the neighboring state of Zamfara announced his intention to
enact the Shariah as state law.

Soon schools were segregated into single-sex institutions, hotels and
bars stopped serving alcohol and taxis only for women began appearing
on the streets of the state capital, Gusau. Last month a man who was
caught drinking alcohol in public received 80 lashes with a cane.

Nigeria's northern states, which are predominantly Muslim, have always
incorporated the Shariah into their legal system, applying it to issues
like marriage, inheritance and divorce. The predominantly Christian
south has simply relied on English common law.

Critics of Zamfara's governor, Ahmed Sani, said he was merely trying to
increase his flagging popularity by taking the Shariah to a new level, one
that might eventually cover criminal matters and, in theory, include such
punishments as amputation of hands. His administration said that it
was motivated by religious piety and that the adoption of the Shariah
was a reaction to widespread corruption in Nigeria.

Whatever the governor's true motives, he found himself transformed
overnight into one of the most famous politicians in Nigeria. Leaders in
other northern states announced that they also planned to introduce the
Shariah. Besides Zamfara, the states of Sokoto and Kebbi have adopted
Islamic law, ignoring the Obasanjo government's appeal that they put
their decisions on hold.

"If you didn't implement Shariah your faith became questionable," said
Umaru Dikko, a Muslim northerner who served as transportation
minister in the early 1980's. "There are some politicians who used
Shariah to make themselves popular. But religion is a very serious
business in Nigeria. So after Shariah came, the extremists jumped at
it."

In Kaduna the march and counterdemonstration resulted in 400 deaths,
according to the official tally, though many people believe that the real
figure reached the thousands. Countless churches and mosques were
set afire in the city's center and poorest neighborhoods.

In the slum of Narahi, a predominantly Christian neighborhood, row after
row of Muslim-owned houses were devastated. The strong smell of
smoke lingered in the air. A chicken and her chicks, their feathers
blackened, wandered around a street where a gutted mosque stood.
Nearby, some pigs searched for food among the ruins, their pink snouts
black from the ashes.

During the weekend in Sokoto, Christians continued to leave the state.
At the main bus station, Peter Ekeson, 37, an Ibo from the southeast,
was looking to buy tickets for his wife and child.

"I've lived here for 20 years," Mr. Ekeson said. "Most of us are sending
our wives and children back home. And many of the men have left. They
have sold their goods at moderate prices or are shipping them."

Behind Mr. Ekeson two large trucks waited to leave for the southeast,
piled high with refrigerators, televisions, mattresses, drums and other
belongings. A passenger bus also waited; the lettering above its
windshield announced, "All over."

Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, 43, the governor of Kaduna State, said the
conflict could have been over in a different way.

"This could have been avoided if the right thing had been done at the
right time," said Mr. Makarfi, who belongs to the same party as Mr.
Obasanjo, the People's Democratic Party. "The federal government
should have been decisive and sent the issue to the Supreme Court.
The court would issue a decision on Shariah and the executive would
enforce it. And it's over."

It is a suggestion that many in Nigeria, including members of the
national legislature, have made. But so far President Obasanjo has
steadfastly resisted it, arguing "that a legal solution may carry in its
wake chaos, pandemonium and further communal hostilities, which is
undesirable," said his spokesman, Mr. Okupe.

But many people say Mr. Obasanjo has acted cautiously because of
his own place in Nigerian history and his increasingly delicate
relationship with the northern Muslim elite.

Shortly after the death of the military dictator Sani Abacha in June 1998,
Moshood K. O. Abiola, a Yoruba businessman who was denied victory
in the 1993 presidential election by the military, also died suddenly.

Many Yoruba -- who make up one of Nigeria's three main ethnic groups,
the others being the Hausa-Fulani and the Ibo -- talked of breaking away
from Nigeria. To pacify the Yoruba, the northern Muslim elite agreed on
a "power shift": they would yield the presidency to a southerner, though
not just any southerner.

Their candidate was Mr. Obasanjo, who served as president for the first
time from 1976 to 1979. During that tenure Mr. Obasanjo was seen to
have preserved the status quo, earning the north's enduring trust and his
own people's mistrust.

One result was that in the election last year Mr. Obasanjo won with
votes from the north and the southeast. His own people, the Yoruba,
rejected him almost unanimously.

But immediately after taking office he embarked on aggressive
campaigns to clean up the military, re-examine past abuses and flush
out corruption. Describing himself as a "detribalized" politician, he made
appointments by choosing people from all over the country. The moves
angered many northerners.

"Obasanjo has tried to reach out to everyone," said Aliko Mohammed,
65, a prominent northern businessman who once served as president of
Nigeria's stock exchange. "The north is surprised that Obasanjo is not
acting like a typical Nigerian politician -- winner take all. Having got the
support of the north, he is now rewarding his own people, who did not
even vote for him."

Despite his own independence, Mr. Obasanjo is now faced with trying to
hold together a nation that since gaining independence from Britain in
1960 has been a country of competing forces. The military rulers
concentrated power in a small number of hands, even as centrifugal
forces created more and more divisions.

>From three regions in 1960, the number of states has climbed gradually
to its current number of 36. Three decades ago a million people were
killed in the Biafran civil war, when the Ibo tried to secede.

"Between 1967 when Biafra started and now, we have not solved the
fundamental problem that threatens the existence of Nigeria," said Dr.
Abayomi Ferreira, a physician who served in the war and who is involved
in politics. "The history of Nigeria has been the recurrent struggle of one
group after another fighting for self-determination."

That is why Dr. Ferreira and many others are calling for a restructuring
of the country. Many, including the governors of all five Ibo states, are
proposing that Nigeria become a country of a few large autonomous
regions with a relatively weak federal government.

President Obasanjo has rejected the proposal, saying its proponents
were exploiting the current situation with "unfounded claims of
marginalization."

But those claims have gotten louder. Separatist groups have
mushroomed. Ralph Uwazuruike, 41, an Ibo lawyer, founded his
organization, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State
of Biafra, a few months ago. The Ibo supported Mr. Obasanjo in the
election but did not benefit enough in his administration, Mr. Uwazuruike
said, voicing a common complaint of his ethnic group.

So he wants out of Nigeria.

"Everybody to his tent," he said. "Things fall apart if the center cannot
hold."

Whatever structural changes the politicians might adopt for Nigeria, the
people have already started going into their tents.

In Kaduna the two biggest slums, Rigasa and Narahi, suffered the
greatest devastation during the upheaval last month.

Since the riots, Christians living in the northern slum of Rigasa have
moved to Narahi in the predominantly Christian southern part of the city;
Muslims have migrated in the opposite direction.

One Friday, a truck laden with furniture rumbled along the main road
here, heading toward southern Kaduna. Half a dozen Christians sat atop
the heap, above a sign in the back that proclaimed in bold, green
letters: "One Nigeria."

December 8, 1999

A Nigerian State Turns to the Koran for Law

By NORIMITSU ONISHI

GUSAU, Nigeria -- Zamfara, the North Dakota of Nigeria, has suddenly
become this West African nation's most famous state. This dusty part
of northwestern Nigeria, a roadside blur of tiny villages where farmers
peddle yams to passing motorists, now stands as the biggest challenge
to Nigeria's fragile national unity.

In October, the state government announced it would introduce Shariah,
the Islamic social and penal code, raising near-hysteria in a country
already divided nearly evenly -- and uneasily -- between a Muslim north
and a Christian south.

In Gusau, the state capital, boys have already been segregated in one
of the two secondary schools and girls in the other; hotels and bars
have stopped selling alcohol, and green-and-yellow taxis have profiles of
a woman with a covered head painted on their doors, signifying that only
women can ride inside. The state has placed ads in national
newspapers requesting candidates to become Islamic judges once
Shariah is formally put into force Jan. 27.

"God's law is supreme," read posters that Zamfara's ministry of
information has placed all over Gusau. "To be a good Muslim is to stay
within the limits of the Shariah. The Shariah does not discriminate
against non-Muslims. Support the Shariah today and always!"

Outside the state, Zamfara's actions have caused a kind of panic. Will
people be arrested for carrying beer across the state border into
Zamfara? Will the authorities cut off thieves' hands? Will adulterers be
stoned to death? Was the move a conspiracy by northerners displeased
that they had lost power and influence in the new civilian government?
These were among the questions raised by newspapers in Lagos, the
commercial capital (and former national capital) in the south.

As other states in the heavily Muslim north declared their intentions to
follow suit, Nigeria's young civilian government faced a fresh,
unexpected challenge to this old question: How do you keep the 110
million people in Nigeria -- an artificial creation of British colonialists in
1914, an impossible patchwork of religions, languages and 400 ethnic
groups -- together in a democracy?

For most of Nigeria's history, the British colonialists and post-
independence military rulers welded the country through sheer force. A
few years after independence in 1960, the eastern Ibo tried to secede in
the Biafran civil war, which killed 1 million people. The reconciliation
policy that followed came to be considered a model one: "No victor, no
vanquished."

Over the years, generals seized power in coups, contending that only
the military could keep the country unified, a refrain heard elsewhere in
Africa where territorial boundaries were also drawn arbitrarily.

Deputy Gov. Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi said Zamfara's actions should have
no national repercussions, and that none had been intended.

"Shariah is not going to cause havoc to the country," he said from his
official residence, where a mosque is being built in the courtyard. "It will
bring peace and unity here. It is entirely a local affair.

"Shariah is fundamental human rights," he added. "Now we are in a
democracy. Whatever we want, we have the right to."

Politicians outside Zamfara, especially those from the predominantly
Christian south, do not see it his way. To many of them, Zamfara's
introduction of Shariah is the stirring of a militant Islam in the north that,
if unchecked, will lead to a north unified politically and religiously
against the south.

"Shariah law, if implemented, is the beginning of the disintegration of
Nigeria," said Young Harry Adokiye, a southern, Christian member of
the national legislature in Abuja. "Is the police force which is funded
from our common purse now going to enforce Shariah? What does
Zamfara produce? They are being sustained with oil from the south. How
can they sustain Shariah law with resources from the Christian south?
We appeal to them to stop it because nobody survives a religious war."

Between these extremes, Haruna Salihi, a professor of politics and
Islam at Bayero University in Kano, said that Zamfara would lead to a
rethinking of Nigeria's federal structure. Power, which had been
centralized in the hands of a few generals, will have to be shared under
civilian rule, he said.

"If we had had democracy in the past," Salihi said, "we would have
already reappraised the limits of the federal government and recognized
the authority of the states."

Zamfara contends that the Nigerian constitution, which guarantees
freedom of religion, allows it to choose Shariah. The state will retain the
penal code found elsewhere in the country, but Shariah will govern daily
life here, and Islamic judges are to be trained to settle civil and criminal
matters for Muslims, said Shinkafi, the deputy governor. Non-Muslims,
who make up about 10 percent of the state's two million people, will not
be affected by Shariah, he added, though others disagree.

Zamfara's critics say the changes amount to turning it into an Islamic
state, a point that Shinkafi rejects.

So far, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba Christian whose
sweeping investigation of the past has taken aim at and angered many
of the Muslim military and political elites of the north, has reacted
cautiously. During a visit to the United States, he called Zamfara's
introduction of Shariah unconstitutional; since his return to Nigeria, he
has remained quiet.

Since taking power May 29, Obasanjo has faced a series of ethnic
clashes and revolts that have strained Nigeria's unity. Militants in the
Niger Delta, the southern region that produces the country's two million
barrels of oil a day but has derived almost no material benefit from it,
have grown so violent that soldiers were deployed there recently.

In November, in the third significant conflict since July between the
Yoruba and the Hausa, dozens of people were killed in Lagos in a
dispute over space in a market. The Yoruba involved were part of the
Yoruba Oodua People's Congress, which advocates secession for the
ethnic group.

In a clear signal that he would not favor his own ethnicity, Obasanjo, a
former general who ruled the country in the 1970s, said on national
television, "Anyone who calls himself OPC should be arrested, and if he
doesn't agree, he will be shot on sight."

In Zamfara, the deputy governor said that the implementation of the
Shariah was a reaction to the corrupt, crime-ridden country that Nigeria
had become. In recent weeks, he said, prostitutes had been run out of
the state, gambling houses padlocked, and highway robberies had
declined.

To Shinkafi and others, the state was merely recalling the rightful place
that Islam and Shariah occupied in northern Nigeria before the British
arrived. Under the Sokoto caliphate, which extended across present-day
northern Nigeria, Shariah was law. To this day, personal issues like
marriage and inheritance are often settled informally according to
Shariah.

If Zamfara is allowed to enact Shariah on Jan. 27 -- short of some
national government action to prevent it -- it is unclear what role
government police officers will play and how strictly Shariah will be
interpreted.

But the prospect of Shariah law has already infringed on the rights of
non-Muslims, said people attending Mass one recent Sunday morning
at Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in Gusau. Christian
women said they were refused entry into the green-and-yellow taxis
because their heads were not covered. Others who rode on the back of
motorcycle taxis reported being harassed.

"Shariah is a time bomb," said the Rev. Linus-Mary Awuhe, a priest at
the parish. "It will embolden the Muslims, and eventually the Christians
will have to react. So there will be conflict."

But among Muslims -- even among those who said they were not fully
aware of the implications of a society governed by Shariah -- the
Zamfara government's action appeared to win support.

In Gusau's main market, a collection of stalls dotting a field of sand and
parched grass, cries of "God is great!" could be heard on a Sunday
afternoon. Muslim merchants left their stalls and prayed in unison in an
open area.

Before the Shariah announcement, there had been a lot of "biri-biri," or
cheating, in the market, said Murtalla Musa, 21, who was selling ginger.
"But now it is reduced," he said.

Ensconced on a big bag of rice, Sani Maishinkafa, 40, a civil servant
and rice trader, said he doubted that the state government had thought
of Shariah for only religious and moral reasons. "If you are a politician,"
he said, "you capitalize on many issues."

"But as a Muslim, you will not dispute Shariah," Maishinkafa said. "So
naturally, I support it. If you are saying no to Shariah, you are saying no
to your religion."