A Regional Uprising: Next Stop Nigeria- Palace Without Guards
AWGBU, Nigeria - Intensifying conflicts and rivalries among Nigeria’s Muslim North and Christian South are bringing the country dangerously to the breaking point, say people who fear the process as well as those who favor it. The recent regime changes and anarchy in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan and the Middle East have added to fears the violence will spread to Nigeria, one of Africa’s most fractious democracies, currently in the throngs of allegedly fraudulent gubernatorial elections.
Nerves are fraying throughout the country. Travel plans are being cancelled and text messages relate information on the most recent bloodletting at a village near Jos where heavily-armed attackers killed five and wounded eight, while burning houses. The latest attack is one of several in communities where Muslims and Christians live in close proximity. In the Plateau state, the government has deployed its Special Task Force that have arrested 27 men accused of killing dozens of villagers.
Highway travel is never safe in Nigeria, but with gangs of machine gun toting civilians blocking the roads in enclaves where they are numerically strong, many Nigerians are afraid to leave their homes. In the Anambra region, ethnic Igbo Christians speak openly of armed uprisings. Travel from state to state lessens, and the inventory of conflict grows as reports of religion-related voter registration fraud surface from within the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
An international effort may be needed to head off a Tunisian-style conflagration in Southern Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, “the zone is too important to be left in the hands of rascals,” Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan said this week.
A dream of the 20th-century Biafran Civil War victors (in which the eastern Igbo lost the fight for cessation and control of the oil in their ancestral territories), Nigeria is now an ever in disaccord, crumbling, ethnic and religious mosaic of 36 united configured states. Tribal Beliefs, Roman Catholicism, Muslim traditions and a marginal number of Protestant Faiths live side by side and struggle for political and social economy.
Consequently, violent conflicts are no stranger to the region, leaving an open door to crime and corruption such as the recently seized shipments of illegal Iranian arms and persistent court rulings over bribery involving multi-national corporations such as Halliburton, Tri-Star, M.W. Kellogg and Royal Dutch Shell. Nigeria is a palace with no guards and a welcoming mat to those seeking to pillage her wealth, as well as the following militant rogue groups that plague her: the Taliban, pirates, oil misfits and armed vigilantes. No secret that corrupt leaders hoard and redistribute as they see fit Nigeria’s oil wealth, Nigerian expatriate Chris Adayemi says, “morale is low and tempers high, many are angry and feel the coming elections are rigged – it’s all about the payoff”.
According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, complete destabilization a matter isn’t a matter of “if”, but “when”.
With its oil industry and impoverished Muslim population, Western diplomats have long feared Nigeria a ripe target for al-Qaeda. Though conflicts and vendettas laced the region for years, for most of the postwar period national unity was advanced by burgeoning prosperity and the religiously tolerant environment which muffled the quarrels. With Islam growing, religious intolerance seems to be growing, pointing to the idea that poverty may be playing a role in the unrest.
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explains, “increasing radicalization [because of] extreme poverty [means] there has to be a recognition that, in the last 10 years, a lot of the indicators about quality of life in Nigeria have gone the wrong direction.” Mrs.Clinton says, the problem “needs to be addressed, and not just by military means.”
Chris Adayemi left Nigeria because it offered “no financial hope.” Nevertheless, he is in not favor of intervention from the West. He states, “Like many Africans, I think the West intends to occupy for spoils. Nigeria’s pregnant, change is in her belly and through constructive violence, Nigerians can birth that change. Nigerians have one thing in common that truly unites all- destitution.”
Much like the corruption of central power and the rise of nationalistic emotions in Egypt, a breakdown of Federal Republic of Nigeria-imposed unity and the emergence of (corruption free) democracy-induced unity have released long suppressed national aspirations, envies and antagonisms. According to Adayemi, the violence in Jos and Plateau are just the beginning.