■ How unhealed political wounds aggravated crisis

From Noah Ebije, Kaduna

The dead have been buried and while the injured are still in pain, doubt and denials, even within the police authority, continue to trail the announcement by Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai last Tuesday that the masterminds of the recent attacks and killings in Southern Kaduna had been arrested.
El-Rufai had said on Tuesday during his visit to the Commissioner of Police, Agoyle Abeh, that some of the masterminds of the attacks and killings in Southern Kaduna had been arrested. But this did not elicit joy among the populace as many people expressed doubt over the claim, especially as police sources queried it.
Sunday Sun gathered that the police only paraded armed robbery suspects last Tuesday, but some media reports insinuated that the masterminds were also paraded along with the robbery suspects.
The police authority in the state appeared to have developed cold feet on the story of the arrest of the masterminds because when our correspondent probed further about the arrest, a police officer queried: “Who told you of such arrest?”
Reminded that the story was all over the social and traditional media, Sunday Sun was advised to direct its inquiry to whoever broke the news.
El-Rufai was said to have vowed that the government would ensure that all those involved in the attacks were fished out and prosecuted. Earlier, the Police Commissioner was said to have paraded some of the suspects before the governor.
Abeh was reported to have said that the suspects were arrested for various offences, ranging from involvement in Southern Kaduna violence to armed robbery and kidnapping.
He was said to have assured the Governor that the Command would not relent until criminals were chased out of the state and normalcy restored to all troubled areas.
But few days after the Governor’s announcement, neither him nor the police was ready to say anything again on the arrest and the fate of the suspects. This development made the cloud of doubt over the authenticity of the claims to darken.
Interestingly, when contacted to speak on the arrest of the masterminds, the Police Public Relations Officer, Kaduna State Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Aliyu Usman, said: “I think it is wise you direct your question to the Governor’s media aide, Samuel Aruwan, since you said it was the Governor that disclosed the arrest of the masterminds of the killings.”
But Aruwan did not pick calls made to him. He did not also reply to SMS message sent to him to comment on the arrest of the masterminds as announced by his principal.
Also, an official of Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU), who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Sunday Sun: “We are not aware of such arrest, what we heard was that the Governor visited the Commissioner of Police to thank him for the job well done in bringing calm to the crisis-torn area.”
A tale of the Southern Kaduna killing would be incomplete without mentioning Kafanchan, a cosmopolitan headquarters of Jema’a Local Government Area and traditional headquarters of Southern Kaduna people.
Kafanchan is over 250 kilometrers from Kaduna, the state capital. It had witnessed several killings and suffered reprisal attacks over the years. From the outbreak of the 1982 Kafanchan crisis, the number of deaths recorded in the area since that time up to the 2011 post-election violence and till date, is horrendous and alarming.
Fulani herdsmen have severally attacked communities in Kafanchan, killing many people, razing down villages and destroying property worth millions of naira. Equally saddening is the recent murder of people and burning of houses on the eve of December 2016 Christmas day in Gasko village, near Kafanchan town.
In a recent interview with a select group of journalists in the state capital, El-Rufai boasted that he knew those behind the killings in Southern Kaduna, and that at the appropriate time, the long arm of the law would catch up with them.
“There are people buying arms and encouraging this crisis and we know them. The fact that I look at you and shake your hands and smile doesn’t mean I don’t know that you are the one. I am just waiting for the time that enough evidence is accumulated to get you,” he said.

Fulani youths blame FG for the killings
National President of Fulani Youths in Nigeria under the aegis of Jonde Jam Fulani Youth Association of Nigeria (JAFUYAN), Alhaji Saidu Maikano, laid the blame for the incessant killings at the feet of the Nigerian government. Maikano told journalists at a press conference in Kaduna that if government had been prosecuting culprits of Southern Kaduna killings since 1992 when the bloody Zango-Kataf riots erupted, the recent ugly incidents wouldn’t have occurred.
Maikano also refuted claims by Southern Kaduna natives that they were original owners of the zone, saying that at the time Fulani people settled in the area, the natives were still dwelling in caves, coming out occasionally to take feed from the cattle rearers.
He said history had revealed that Fulani herdsmen founded all the present Southern Kaduna towns before the emergence of the natives. He added that the reason given by history confirmed why most towns in the area bear names of Fulani origin such as Zango, Kagoro, Jama’a, Jere, Kachia, Kagarko, Marwa, amongst others.
“The natives who were originally hidden in caves of mountains and hills emerged to join the Fulani nomads who were living and grazing their cattle in the savanna land within the zone and settled around the Fulani in order to utilise manure from the Fulani cattle coral to cultivate their arable crops for subsistence.
“The question that we are asking the natives of Southern Kaduna is, where are their towns and villages since the places they are now claiming belong to the Fulani,” Maikano stated.

How unhealed political wounds aggravated the crisis
Several years before El-Rufai came to power, the people of Southern Kaduna had been aggrieved by their perceived political marginalisation and dominance by the Hausa/Fulani.
Their great desire, according to political analysts, was to have their own kinsman as the governor, adding that when their own eventually became governor in the person of Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, they never saw him as their true representative because his governorship was accidental. Yakowa had replaced Namadi Sambo, the then governor of the state, who was elevated to the position of the Vice President on the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as the president. So the people felt that Yakowa was only doing Sambo’s bidding.
Political observers said it all began in 2007 when the then Governor Ahmed Mohammed Markafi reneged on his promise to have a Southern Kaduna person succeed him, and suddenly brought his friend, Architect Namadi Sambo from the north axis of the state, less than three weeks to the primaries and forced him on Southern Kaduna people.
“We actually rooted for our own son from Southern Kaduna in the person of Isaiah Balat, now late, who went into a re-run with Sambo at the primaries, but he lost to Sambo because of the support of powers-that-be. Sambo, an indigene of Zaria from the Northern Zone was imposed on us. We accepted because we could not allow our state to be taken over by the then extremist party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
“We did that because of our dignity, our loyalty and our belief in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Markafi had not fared badly to an extent; the people of Southern and Central Kaduna benefited fairly from his government. He remains one of the best things that happened to us in Kaduna,” some stakeholders from Southern Kaduna said.
It was also gathered that another political bitterness that Southern Kaduna people have been nursing over the years was the alleged imposition of ex-governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero by the then Vice President, Namadi Sambo, as the sole candidate of PDP during the 2015 gubernatorial election.
An observers said: “The people of Southern Kaduna had not been badly treated in the history of Kaduna like they were in the ill-gotten administration of Yero. Not even his brothers had it fairly under the most insulting, corrupt and insensitive government of Mukhtar Yero.
“Yet his godfather, Namadi Sambo insisted that this politically irrelevant brother of his be presented as the PDP’s choice to extend the woes of Kaduna State. All they were interested in was retaining power in the north even at the detriment of the party.
“Were these people interested in retaining power in the party? This is one of the many questions begging to be answered. Because if the party was important to them, why would they want to mortgage the party for regional sentiments? It was not news that presenting Alhaji Mukhtar Ramalan Yero as a governorship flagbearer of the PDP was tantamount to giving the All Progressives Congress (APC) a smooth sail in the state. Is the party aware of the population of Kaduna State? Is the PDP aware that it has lost all the populous states of the federation to the APC? Kano and Lagos have all been taken over by the APC because of this politics of insensitivity.
“Kaduna being the most populous PDP state was mortgaged as an easy sale to the APC because of the tribal sentiments that beclouded the state. A governor that did not have control of his local ward was tantamount to a figure head in the wielding of power across the state.”
Another political observer, who is of Southern Kaduna extraction, said in order to stop APC from winning the 2015 gubernatorial election in the state and thereby avoid being  confined to the back seat of governance, they had presented their sons, Senator Haruna Zego Aziz from Jaba Local government, Air Commodore John Ajeye (Retd) from Zangon-Kataf Local government and Hon Hassan Hyat from Kachia Local government all in the southern Kaduna Senatorial District also known as Zone 3.
He added: “Why must the people of Southern Kaduna be subjected to this level of intimidation. It is time to get it right, it is time to speak with one voice, it is time to say, with our number, we can do it; it is time for concerned Nigerians in the North, South, East and West to come to our rescue.”
Little wonder, Ninzom youths in Sanga Local Government Area of Southern Kaduna had in September 2014 under the administration of former governor Yero defended their women for protesting nude before the state governor over killings in the area.
They said their women protested nude to show the level of their anger over the government’s negligence to provide security for their communities.
However, returning to his office in Kaduna after unsuccessful attempts to ensure peace in Southern Kaduna by taking weekly security meetings to Kafanchan, El-Rufai was said to have rather gone on the offensive and allegedly became blunt in his comments about killings in the zone.
He had laboured, perhaps, with all sincerity of purpose to tell the people and the entire state the efforts his administration has made to ensure lasting peace in the area.
In between his remarks, some stakeholders indicated that he had slipped up and thereby gave people more opportunity to tongue-lash him for what was seen as his “insensitivity” to their plight.
The latest political bitterness still being nursed by the people is that El-Rufai refused to carry them along soon after he became governor. Stakeholders in Southern Kaduna said El-Rufai somehow believes that the people of Southern Kaduna did not vote for him during the 2015 polls, and apparently does not know that they made him win the primary election.
The Governor’s utterance that he paid compensation to Fulani herdsmen in order to stop them from carrying out further attacks generated a lot of controversy.
Apparently worried about the Governor’s statement, some stakeholders in Southern Kaduna urged him to mention the name of the people he paid the compensation or face legal battle by SOKAPU.