Isa Muhammad Inuwa
24 October 2001
analysis
The recent fracas banged on the door of the peace-loving people of Kano city on the fateful Saturday, October 13th 2001, the city's residents and of course all Nigerians were once again caught 'pants-down'. Like a spell of doom that abruptly came calling, when the recent riot struck, everyone of us was just helpless and speechless as the incident seemed to have come from nowhere.
However, we should not forget the fact that every single episode is being engendered by particular undertones or genesis that tend to cause them to happen. Of course the catalogue of public unrests and disturbances in Kano over the years have made it a phenomenon worthy of consideration.
In 1991 a Muslim-led procession to the emir's palace to lodge complaint about a planned coming of a foreign Christian evangelist degenerated into an uncontrollable conflagration. That particular instance was similar to the recent case where an initially well-intentioned demonstration by a group of Muslim youths was later hijacked by a certain ill-mannered group only to result in pandemonium. The main under-pin of the 1991 ominous event was identified as a provocative ploy by some zealots among followers of a religion who facilitated an invitation of the so-called wonder man, knowing quite well what that meant for the predominantly Muslim community of Kano.
Similarly, this very case of rampage that befell the city of Kano was believed to be the result of provocative utterances by Nigeria's Foreign Minister Sule Lamido that contained an alleged incursion of a so-called "terrorist" into Kano city on a fake visa in addition to his self-acclaimed declaration and applauding Nigeria's support for the U.S.-led coalition attack on Afghanistan were believed to have triggered off tension which paved way to the recent riot.
Again, a phenomenon that looks religious has been capitalised upon to generate the public upheaval with terribly miserable consequences of loss of lives and property worth millions of Naira, even in the ugly face of our current economic recession.
Eyewitnesses during the recent riot in Kano had it that upon seeing the gravity of their loss of wealth through vandalisation and arson, some traders wept openly in front of their razed shops and market stalls.
Undoubtedly, both sides of the two different religious followers resident in Kano tend to suffer the fangs and share the loss being caused by any act of riot, yet somehow and unless in very rare cases, such public disturbances can not be free of being masterminded by certain remote forces.
At the Kano Emir's palace during his visit to commiserate with Kano people on the recent happening, President Olusegun Obasanjo expressed surprise as to why Kano's famous tradition of hospitality and cosmopolitan accommodation is gradually giving way to frequent dissention and rancour among the inhabitants. However, the bottom line seems to be that while in those days inhabitants of Kano were able to tolerate each other by respecting each others' cultures and ways of life without any ill-feeling or attempt to exceed one's limits, nowadays, the Kano inhabitants are different. So long a particular group in a society hold their norms, values and ideals as sacrosanct, any attempt to temper with these ideals by another group is likely to be protested or even lead to violence. This is just to understand the high premium being placed on the act of profanity in almost all human societies.
In their own mischievous ways the natural rabble-rousers know very well which particular button in the society to press to hatch their evil machinations. Such elements hence resort to making ploys that would remarkably and consequently put two different groups at loggerheads.
Whenever such a question arises, some people keep guessing that those forces blamed for fermenting troubles silently could be among some power brokers in the society.
Others use to guess that they could be within the circle of political antagonists, and the guessing goes on and on. However the hard fact is that these acts of open chicanery are clandestine handiwork of certain forces who do not wish Kano well and are willing to besmear the good name of Kano so that the hitherto amiable city would eventual be viewed by outsiders as a no go zone. Like the dreaded monster, this kind of sabotage against Kano, has already been rearing its ugly head at various fronts and sectors, clearly indicating an ulterior motive by a clique of saboteurs busy hatching their sheepish and dirty machinations.
In those years before the Sabon Gari Market was rebuilt during the regime of late governor Muhammad Abdullahi Wase, the rich market had had the experience of series of fire incidents that strengthened the belief that saboteurs were working towards ruining the commercial fortune of Kano.
Superficially however, the findings of the various investigation panels into the incidents used to attribute the causes of torching the market stalls to the activities of unidentified hoodlums, period. However, these panels ought to be able to also competently unearth the fact that even the so-called hoodlums themselves could be hirelings contracted to disguise under slightest chances of any kind of public gathering or protest and go their ways to strangulate Kano, the commercial nerve centre of the entire northern states of the federation, including other neighbouring African nations. In a manner that speaks of the proverbial "killing two birds with one stone", apart from undermining Kano's economic base through their acts, these hired elements also tend to blackmail well-spirited and well-intentioned religious groups in the city who, from time to time organize peaceful gatherings and processions in support or against any issues they feel strongly about. It is a welcome development this time around even the authorities in Kano are able to understand that the acts of looting, vandalism and maiming that trailed the earlier peaceful demonstration on Friday against America's attack on Afghanistan were absolutely different things and the actors in the separate incidents are entirely different people. Likewise, an eminent CAN official in Kaduna in the person of Sa'idu Dogo was objective enough while responding in a BBC radio interview to deny that the recent Kano riot on October 13th is not a religious crisis. This new viewpoint on the incident suggests that even some past incidents that were tagged religious were only wrongly perceived or misinterpreted, probably for the simple fact that the perpetrators of those incidents used to mix-up with religious demonstrators and latter go their ways.
In addition to activities of saboteurs in Kano's series of riots other remote causes that further accelerate these activities include the current laxity in the security system in the whole nation. Of course, with the rampant cases of armed robbery and tribal strife bedevilling all nooks and crannies of the country and almost all states of the federation, Kano State can never be isolated.
Another major factor that could help worsen the activities of saboteurs in connection with Kano riots is indeed the current wave of unemployment, which like a deadly tide, had swept across the nation, thereby rendering our youths idle and unproductive. They say, "the devil finds work for idle hands".
At this juncture also, the President in his speech during his visit to Kano on the recent incident spoke of this fact of youth's unemployment. This leads to the question of the impact of the various poverty eradication programmes. Conclusively, while the outer and superficial causes of Kano's riots in most cases appear to be religious, yet other hidden and even more fundamental causes may actually be responsible.
Isa, a correspondent of Deutsche Welle Radio, wrote in from P. O. Box 4534, Kano
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