It is gradually becoming a river of blood. In the 80s and early 90s, over 500 people were reportedly killed in various attacks in Southern Kaduna, leading to the conviction of Major General Zamani Lekwot and others,
To show that the crisis is still far from over, just within the week alone, not less than 11 persons including a village head were killed in Zango Kataf, Kajuru and Kachia local government areas of the state. According to the Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU), the attacks left many houses burnt and several persons seriously injured as the rampaging Fulani militias sack and kill innocent villagers.
SOKAPU said: “The armed militia invaded Unguwan Gankon village in Gora ward, Zangon Kataf Local Government Area and killed two persons and burnt seven houses. “Neighbors, however, came to the rescue and the murderers fled. The victims are Kefas Malachy Bobai, a 30-year-old farmer and father of three and Miss Takama Paul, 16, a student.
“The previous day, August, 17, 2020, Mr. Bulus Joseph, 48, father of nine was murdered on his farm at Sabon Gida Idon along Kaduna – Kachia road, in Kajuru Local Government Area, by armed Fulani militia.
“He stood up to the killers so that his wife and three children could escape, which they did. But he paid the price with his life as he was butchered by the cold blooded murderers.
The picture of his corpse is too horrid to be made public. “On August 16, Pastor Adalchi Usman, 39, and father of two was murdered. Pastor Usman, who was pastor of ECWA Church, Unguwan /Madaki, Maro ward, in Kajuru LGA in Southern part of Kaduna State, was ambushed while in a commercial vehicle he had boarded with three others.
“The killers came from the bush and just started shooting at the car. Also killed were: Mariah Na’Allah of Unguwan Madaki; Shekari from Unguwa Ali – a native of Anchuna village, Zangon Kataf LGA and Ezekiel Maikasa a native of Gadanaji in Kajuru LGA.
“The driver of the vehicle, Danlami Dariya was abducted and at the time of releasing this statement his whereabouts was still unknown. Then on the same night, August 16, 2020, Bugai village near Banikanwa in Kachia LGA was attacked by armed Fulani militia.
The village Head, Dan’azumi Musa, 67 was killed. His siblings, Aniya Musa, 60 including his very aged mother, Kande Musa, 97 and junior sister Angelina Irmiya, 45 were killed. Four members of a family wiped out! “Six others sustained grievous injuries.
They are John Dan’azumi, Danbuzu Anita, and Blessing Soja. The rest are Patricia Anita, Precious Friday and Mercy Yohanna. Part of the villages was burnt after the attackers looted the village. “This is to further show that the siege on Southern Kaduna Communities is still ongoing. The genocide is still on,” spokesman of SOKAPU Luka Binniyat said.
Various commissions of enquiry have investigated the crises over the years. However, in the recent past, efforts had been on by the various stakeholders to bring an end to the massacre not only in southern Kaduna but across the state, notably the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), that met with the Kaduna State government to bring an end to the killings.At the meeting, the President of CAN, Reverend Samson Ayokunke submitted that the crisis in southern Kaduna predates the emergence of the administration of Governor El-Rufai.
However, he was quick to point out that the fundamental reason for the meeting was for El-Rufai’s government not to allow the crisis to linger. It is on record that other administrations achieved some level of peaceful coexistence among the various ethnic and religious groups in the state.
Hence, in finding a solution to the ongoing crisis, CAN believes some lessons could be learned from the past in order to draw a roadmap for the future.”
He also said: “The main responsibilities of leadership is problem-solving as it is not about the benefits or the paraphernalia of office alone.”
The CAN President also charge the governor that it was because the state had problems and majority of the people believed that, “you are the right peg in the right hole and you were elected.”
CAN therefore said the outcry against the crisis and insecurity generally, “is because we are tired of seeing human beings being slaughtered like animals. It is because, not only our heart is bleeding, but that of God our Creator and Maker as well. Whenever you see us complain to your government or the federal government, it is because we have no other person to cry or look up to but you and the security agents.
“We equally cry because of the economic downturn this perennial crisis is bringing to the state. We cry out against the killings because of the negative image the continuous crisis is bringing to the state and our nation in the international community.
If people say that it is religious or ethnic, we do not have the right to say they are foolish or should shut up because the continuing crisis has given them room to say whatever they are saying as long as the killings continue.
So, the government is the one who has our trust and resources to secure our communities and we have the legitimate right to challenge the government to empirically convince us that it is doing that.” He also said it was the “duty of those governing us to make sure that the “unknown gunmen” are ‘known’ and brought to book and justice!
When bandits, herdsmen, Boko Haram, religious fundamentalists or even, cattle rustlers strike, the people would have had the rest of mind and firm belief in the government and security agents if they had pursued them to wherever they came from and made sure that they were brought to book. “If such people had been brought to book before, the proportion was a far cry from the frequency of attacks and killings.
The people causing trouble are not spirits, so, it should not be too difficult to apprehend them and bring them to book. If there are people sponsoring them, a thorough investigation should be able to fish them out and cause them to face the wrath of the law.
“Your Excellency, if we continue to watch people do reprisal attacks without making both sides responsible for taking laws into their hands, we would be guilty of legitimizing criminality. Whoever attacks first and whoever is doing reprisal are both criminals that must be made to face the wrath of the law,” he said.
The CAN leadership promised to partner with the state government and requests the governor and other stakeholders in the state to “stop the accusations and counter-accusations between the government and other stakeholders over the killings in Southern Kaduna but rather a round table solution should be the way forward.
He said every provocative statement over the matter should be avoided. “Everybody is looking at the governor as a father of the state and this is the understanding with which he should handle every accusing finger pointed at him.
“No bandit, gunman or cattle rustler should be allowed to strike and disappear into thin air any longer without being pursued to his or her base for apprehension and prosecution.
The guns in the hands of criminals should be recovered. Bushes should be combed through surveillance to do this. Technology should be deployed extensively by the security agents to apprehend the criminals in their hideouts, including the mercenaries that may be coming from outside the state.
“All sources of ammunition the bandits and killers are using should be investigated and blocked Community healing, forgiveness and reconciliatory meetings should be held, bringing different ethnic groups in communities together to chart the way forward for peace and a commission for the development and rebuilding of Southern Kaduna should be set up which would cater for many orphans, widows and widowers whose future had been put in jeopardy as a result of the killings of their breadwinners.”
El-Rufai, on his part, insisted that those claiming genocide and land grabbing in Southern Kaduna should present evidence of such atrocities, stressing that the crisis was nothing more than “totally unnecessary frenzy of communal attacks, reprisals and revenge,” triggered by dispute over a piece of land. He said: “Part of the false narrative of the history of violent conflict in Southern Kaduna is the loose use of terms like land-grabbing and genocide.
They are being used in this current cycle of conflict, just as they were in the 2016/17 and the 2011/2015 cycles. “We have requested and encouraged anybody to present evidence of any inch of land within Kaduna State that has been forcibly or illegally occupied.
Were such a clear, physical and actual transgression to occur, it will constitute not only an injustice against the community displaced, but a challenge to the authority of the state within its territory that cannot be allowed to stand.
“We challenge anyone to characterise or differentiate the communal clashes, attacks and killings in parts of Northern and Central Kaduna State, as well as in Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Niger s,.,tates from those in Southern Kaduna. Is it because in all the other cases, the victims are lesser humans or lacking in voice and media hype? What happened to our com-mon humanity?”
The governor also briefed the CAN delegation of the efforts the government has made since 2015 to stop the violent conflict, address its causes and create a path for the diverse communities to live in peace and security.
He said that some of the efforts included the setting up of a committee chaired by Gen. Martin Luther Agwai (rtd) to study and proffer ways to stamp out attacks in southern Kaduna which had intensified since the violent aftermath of the 2011 elections.“The army established a base in Kafanchan while the Kaduna State government bought an estate to accommodate a mobile police squadron.
The Federal Government also extended the mandate of Operation Safe Haven, based in neighbouring Plateau State, to southern Kaduna and appointed a commander of the rank of colonel to lead the sector covering parts of the area.”He added that the state also collaborated with other states in the Northwest and Niger State to undertake joint military and police action in the Kamuku-Kuyambana forest which served as hideout to bandits, cattle rustlers and armed robbers in the Birnin-Gwari axis.
“In September 2017, we established the Kaduna State Peace Commission to help encourage communities in our state to adopt peaceful means of resolving their differences.
The commission is chaired by Most Revd. Dr. Josiah Idowu-Fearon, former Anglican Archbishop of Kaduna and current Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion. “The Executive Vice-Chairman, who runs the Peace Commission on a daily basis, is Priscilla Ankut, a lawyer who is well-known in the peace and conflict sector,”El-Rufai said.
However one of the issues compounding the southern Kaduna crisis is the controversies generated by the different stakeholders. For example, the Supreme Council for Shari’ah in Nigeria (SCSN) recently said that the death sentence passed on prominent sons of Southern Kaduna during in 1992 Zango-Kataf crisis should be revisited.
Their secretary, AbdurRahman Hassan specifically said that those sentenced to death but pardoned by the military administration of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) and General Sani Abacha respectively, should be executed in the current dispensation to allow peace reign. He said: “We want those pardoned in 1992 during Zango-Kataf crises, after being condemned to death to be executed now, because that is the only way peace will return to the area.”
Recall that the 1992 incident occurred during the General Ibrahim Babangida regime, which set up a tribunal, headed by the late Justice Pius Okadigbo to try Maj-Gen. Zamani Lekwot (rtd), the late Major James Atomic Kude (rtd) and other Kataf indigenes on allegation of culpable homicide. Justice Okadigbo later sentenced Lekwot, Kude, Yohanna Karau Kibori, Marcus Mamman, Yahaya Duniya and Julius Sarki Zamman Dabo to death by hanging over complicity in the crisis. But they were granted state pardon by Gen. Abacha.
Responding, Retired Major General Zamani Lekwo, told the council that his life is in the hand of God and not detractors wishing him dead. Lekwo, who spoke shortly after an interdenominational service and indoor protest organized by the state chapter of CAN last weekend, said only God could determine the end of his life and not those craving for violence under the current democratic dispensation.
Lekwot said that all genuine religious leaders were supposed to preach peace and love, wondering why the Council was preaching hate and division in the country. “What Nigeria needs at this moment is genuine tolerance regardless of ethnic or religious affinities and not hatred. “My life like everybody’s life is in the hand of God, not the detractors.
The detractors and evil forces that are preaching hate, trying to throw spanner in the works, will fail. May God expose them in all ramifications” Asked if he was afraid of the threat to his life, the former Commandant of the Nigerian Defence Academy said: “Afraid?
I am a trained professional soldier and a trained commander. What the country needs is peace. We need all Nigerians to live together in peace and unity. “All genuine religious leaders are supposed to preach peace and love. Why are there people preaching hate and division? “The Zango-Kataf they are talking about.
Yes. The killings were unfortunate but the dispute was the relocation of the market. Some people didn’t want it. At the end of the day, Commission of Inquiry was set up; recommendations were made and the Mua’azu Committee’s recommendations had been implemented
“Those that are reverting to it are clever by half. What we need in our country is genuine tolerance and love and peace. We have lived together for a very long time. Now, by what they are saying, they are now telling the reason some armed foreign bandits are imported to destroy the country.
“How does that (revisiting his case) address the issue (of killings in southern Kaduna)?
So, what is happening in Kaduna and by extension to other parts of the country are bad omen to our unity and stability.” Commenting on remarks by the Commander of the Operation Safe Haven’s that the killings in Southern Kaduna was carried out by criminal elements from both side of the divide, Lekwot, said, as professionals, military officers (commanders) were supposed to be neutral at all settings. “This would earn them the confidence of the people.
That was a very unfortunate statement from a military Commander. As professionals, security people are supposed to be neutral in every setting so as to inculcate the confidence of everybody. In other words, when that happens, the corporation of all sides will emerge.
“But in this setting the military people need intelligence; credible intelligence which they will use for the operation. What he said was the utterance of the government which boils down to describing what happen,” he said.
On the White Paper committee set up by El-Rufai to revisit the Zango-Kataf riot, the former military governor said, government at this point ought to be preoccupied itself on how to proffer solutions to the killings in southern Kaduna.
However, as stipulated by the CAN Chairman, the onus now rests with the government to be genuinely interested in peace and rally all stakeholders together for peace to reign and stop the killings
News Telegraph