A few days ago, Nigeria Armed forces clashed for the umpteenth time with members of the Shiites in Abuja leading to a number of deaths and destruction, not to mention the traffic holdup along Zuba road and other public inconveniences.
While I appreciate the Army’s explanation for its action, I think that the Federal Government approach to the Islamic Brotherhood, as they call themselves, may be mistaken ipso facto. The banning, arrests without speedy trial of its leaders and the violent suppression of the members are not only erroneous but also precarious as these actions now threaten to create another terrorist group in the country.
I have no illusion about the Shiites or their leader, Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky. They are highly radicalised and disruptive but that is all they are now. They only need a small push to descend the sloppy road to violent extremism or full-blown terrorism. This is what the Government in Nigeria is unwittingly doing by this violent suppression. The war against radicalism does not involve bullets or arbitrary arrests but in subtle and refined ways involving intelligence gathering, law enforcement, disruption of financing, recruitment and propaganda, persuasion and education. The objective of countering violent extremism (CVE) should be the discouragement of violent behavior not the abandonment of one’s faith per se. In other words, Shiites are entitled to their beliefs and dogma but should realise that these must be pursued in a peaceful and orderly manner and in accordance to the Constitution of Nigeria.
But if truth be told, it is not only the Shiites that should be de-radicalised. Many years ago, our friend and radical scholar from ABU, Zaria, Sanusi Abubakar, wrote:
“The Khadiriyya sect was responsible for the Sokoto jihad, the Tijjaniyyah came later, the [Wahhabi] Izala said these two were not Islamic enough; indeed they rejected sects all together. In the end they themselves became a sect or sects actually as division between Kaduna, and other branches solidified. Other tendencies and sects, mostly more militant, came to challenge all of them. Now the divisions are even more confusing; some of them really extremist…in our blanket support (for violence against “enemies of Islam”- my addition), we ignore Allah’s injunction against shedding the blood of people who are not waging war against us, those who are not combatants.”
Indeed, these developments, tolerated by the Federal Government, increasingly eroded state legitimacy as militant Muslim groups and sects incessantly reject secular laws in preference for the Sharia legal system. They openly express absolute disdain for state authorities and adopt belligerent attitude to state agents and national symbols. Rather than exert its authority, the Government preferred to handle their unlawful activities with pusillanimous indifference.
That was how the Shiites felt embolden to block a military convoy on the highway in Zaria, a town they have been allowed to take under their wing for so long. Long before the concept of “state capture” became popular, Zaria, had been euphemistically, captured by Sheikh El Zakzaky.
While at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, his name was Ibrahim Yakub but he later changed it to Ibraheem Ya’qoub. After establishing that his Malian migrant family whose patriarch (his grandfather), Tajudeen, was an Islamic cleric sent by Sheikh Usman dan Fodio to the palace of the Emir of Zaria, Musa, as an Islamic adviser, Ibraeem adopted the title of Sheikh, and began to call himself, Sheikh Ibraheem El-zakzaky, a name that has become popular with Shiites worldwide and prison officials in Nigeria on account of his frequent clashes with state authorities.
In January 2009, to underscore his control of the city, El-zakzaky and his Brotherhood made headlines, after a group of Shiites blocked the Emir of Zaria, who was on his way to a Security meeting in Kaduna along the Zaria-Kaduna highway and assaulted his convoy. In February of the same year, the Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Tambari Yabo Mohammed, sent a startling security report to his superiors in Abuja, titled,” Intelligence Report on Activities of Shiite Sect in Zaria Local Government of Kaduna State” detailing acts of illegality committed by the organisation. But like Governor Abubakar Rimi, of blessed memory, did with the security report on Matatsine in Kano State in 1980, Kaduna State Governor Namadi Sambo, took no action.
Closer home, I see a similar situation evolving in Jos Local Government Area. I once likened the area to “Gaza strip” in Israel. This area has always operated as a “state within a state”; lawless, non-cooperating and generally belligerent to authority. When Governor Simon Lalong spoke on national television about making peace through giving political appointments to Hausa Fulani from there, I was one of those who commended him for “reconciling the feuding elites of the beleaguered Jos North community within the mainstream of Plateau politics.” I went on to express the hope that Lalong would leverage on this to “rebuild the foundation of a truly peaceful and democratic society in the state.” Apparently I spoke too soon.
The lawlessness and impunity in this community has remained. For example, residents have illegally taken over vast land belonging to the University of Jos and the Government, respectively, and nobody seems to have the muscle to stop them.
Last week, in a press conference held by the University of Jos branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the university community catalogued the grave atrocities this community has perpetuated over the years, in terms of killings and harm to members and students alike, as well as the destruction of their property. It was indeed heart-rending but the tragedy is that this was not the first time these complaints were being aired. They always fall on deaf ears.
I daresay that unless the State and Federal Government expeditiously address the threat posed by this “Gaza Strip,” peace and progress will continue to elude the university community, in particular, and Jos city in general. The key to security governance is to narrow the scope of ungoverned spaces, whether in rural or urban areas. Failing to do this, they will grow to become havens for terrorists.
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