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Nigeria: What Does Jang Want?

Kunle Akogun

5 January 2009

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opinion

Lagos — After more than 300 innocent lives had been lost in the recent Jos crisis, an unfortunate drama is again playing out on the plateau.

The script, plot and setting of the drama tend towards a denouement of anarchy. Anarchy, in the sense that at the end of the day all efforts to get to the roots of the mayhem and prevent a reoccurrence will come to nought.

The Plateau State government, which, since the November 28 outbreak of the riot in which hundreds of people were killed, billions of naira of property destroyed and countless number of people displaced, did not feel bothered to raise an inquiry panel on the crisis, is now set to stall the federal government's efforts to get to the roots of the matter. Last Monday, the state government not only dragged the federal government to the Supreme Court to challenge its power to set up a panel of inquiry into the crisis but also followed this up last Tuesday with the setting up of a parallel probe panel.

In the suit, the Plateau state government is asking the apex court for what it calls the clarification on the power of President Umaru Yar'Adua to institute a probe into the causes of the Jos riots.

But curiously, after filing the suit, the state government also wrote a letter to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to intervene by advising the President to "tread the path of the rule of law and direct the chairman and members of the administrative panel not to sit or function". To me, this is curious because Governor Jonah Jang could not wait for the outcome of his own suit but would rather want the federal government to disband the panel under contention on its own volition. So, if the Plateau state government knows that ordinary correspondence between it and the federal attorney-general could resolve the constitutional issue at stake why going to the court in the first place? Or does this show a lack of confidence in the court processes?

But that is a little digression. Our main concern here is the fact that what we will be witnessing in Plateau state in few days is anarchy in the real sense of the word. For, the state government, having indicated its lack of confidence in the Emmanuel Abisoye Panel of Inquiry instituted by the federal government, will most likely not allow state officials to appear before it and volunteer useful and necessary information, while federal government officials in the state who may have useful information may also shun the Bola Ajibola Panel set up by the state government. At the end of the day, there will, at best, be paucity of information for the respective panels to work with and the problem of Jos North will remain with the possibility of its erupting again into violence. So, where are we going? Are we interested in getting to the roots of this perennial Jos crisis? Indeed, is the state government really interested in the wellbeing of its people?

Agreed, the federal government constitutionally has no power, under the prevailing federal arrangement, to establish a panel to probe matters that borders on a federating state's internal affairs. But it has a duty to protect lives and property of Nigerians any where they reside in the country, especially where the government of the state in question does not appear to show sufficient interest or demonstrate enough will to protect the lives and property of its endangered citizens.

Since the Plateau state government has failed in its duties to rise up to the occasion and prevent the last Jos riot, having known the peculiar volatility and susceptibility of Jos North to post-election violence, and even after the riot had taken place, refused to show any interest in addressing its aftermath and made no visible move to prevent a reoccurrence, it behoves the federal government to carry out its constitutional mandate of ensuring the continued safety of lives and property of Nigerian citizens and other residents of Jos. That, to me, is why the federal government seized the initiative, in the face of the Jang government's prevarication, by setting up the inquiry panel. And to that extent, that action is defensible.

Is it not taking federalism too far to have suggested that the federal government should sit bye and watch innocent Nigerians being killed and maimed while the state authority refuses to do anything for whatever reason? Why did the Plateau state government not raise any eye brow when the same federal government mobilised troops to quell the uprising?

The setting up of a parallel panel of inquiry by the Plateau State governor is, to me, an after thought and face saving device by Governor Jang who, like the proverbial Nehro, fiddled away while Jos burnt and Josites perished in their hundreds. When are we going to stop playing raw politics with the lives and wellbeing of our people?

A new and unfortunate dimension was added to the whole episode by the Plateau state Commissioner for Information, Nuhu Gagara when he expressed misgivings over the appointment of General Emmanuel Abisoye by the Federal Government to head its panel of inquiry. Gagara said Plateau people do not have confidence in Abisoye because of the perceived role he played as the Chairman of the military tribunal that tried the 1976 coup plotters, many of whom were Plateau indigenes. Is it right to bring back this old memory and at this point in time? What has a purely military assignment over three decades ago got to do with a politically motivated civil unrest in 2008? So, is the Plateau state government on a vengeance mission with the setting up of a panel made up of mostly people from a section of the state? As the names of the members of that panel suggest, not a single member is Hausa-Fulani and, apart from its chairman, Prince Bola Ajibola, the other members are Christians. And that is a panel that is supposed to probe an ethno-religious conflict!

While it is desirable to observe the rule of law and due process in whatever action we take in this country, I think we should be wary of taking these concepts too far. Pragmatism should at times rule our world. After all, rules are made for men and not the other way round. Apart from taking it upon itself to set up an inquiry panel, the federal government is also constitutionally empowered to take even more drastic actions to contain what is gradually becoming an anarchic situation in Plateau State with the recurring wave of ethnic insurgence. To be sure, heaven would not fall if President Yar'Adua had declared a state of emergency in the state following the November 28 mayhem, like his predecessor, Obasanjo did in 2004. So, what the heck about a mere administrative panel of inquiry?

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