Lagos — The spectacle of mass burial witnessed in Dogo-Na-Hawa, a village in Plateau state, two days ago was reminiscent of gory pictures that television networks had beamed from places devastated by earthquakes. In Haiti and Chile so many lives were lost in recent months such that the bodies had to be buried in mass graves. All the various published figures of bodies buried in Plateau State are in hundreds. The greater tragedy is that whereas the dead in Haiti and Chile were victims of natural disasters the same cannot be said of the Nigerian situation. What we have here is a man-made disaster. Hence, while Haiti just drew the sympathy of the outside world, the bloodletting in Plateau State has provoked global outrage.

If victims of earthquake, especially in poor countries, are said to be helpless before the forces of nature, can we say the same thing of the victims of premeditated murders? No, we cannot blame ravages of nature in this situation. A grave human failure is at the heart of the problem. It is a tragic consequence of the cumulative failures of leadership and institutions that have simply refused to work. The cycle of violence is also symptomatic of the lack of a workable conflict resolution mechanism. Amid the grief of the moment, the government should critically review the handling of this and previous eruptions of violence in the state so as to devise enduring solutions to the problems.

Jos, the capital of Plateau State, is often said to have lost its innocence in 2001 as a city where people of different ethnic origins and religions lived in harmony. A riot broke out that year and over 1,000 lives were lost. This was to be followed by similar eruptions of violence in 2004 and 2008 when hundreds of persons were reportedly killed. The killings that begun at early hours on Sunday in Jos South Local Government have been described as a "reprisal" that followed the killings that took place in January.

So one massacre follows another in various episodes. The conflict has been given ethnic and religious interpretations depending on who is telling the story. There are those who dismiss the religious factor and insist it is squarely a question of land and respect for the cultural and ancestral claims. Some other interpreters of the unfolding calamity have also insisted that ethnicity and religion are merely used as smokescreen by those who are fighting for political space and control. In the process, the once upon a time serene atmosphere of Jos has been turned into a blood-soaked turf to play politics.

The common feature of all these incidents is that the poor members of the community are in the main the ones killed or socially dislocated regardless of the direction of the attack. The protagonists in this conflict may, of course, be quick to dismiss as speculative the conflicting explanations of the crisis. And this is perfectly understandable since they are aggrieved for different reasons. Yet, the root of the Jos debacle should have gone beyond speculation by now. After all, commissions of enquiry had been set to locate "the immediate and remote" causes of previous killings and destruction of property. Reports of those commissions and the subsequent government's white papers on them ought to be useful in putting an end to this cycle of mass murders. As a matter of fact, the federal and state governments set up different committees to probe the carnage that took place in Jos North in 2008.

However, what is not debatable is that the cycle of violence is unacceptable. The various institutions responsible for security in the area should accept responsibility for failure to prevent the latest massacre. The profile of the January killings made the Sunday one fairly predictable. Despite the fact that troops were already deployed in the area to keep peace, it was still possible for the killers to unleash mayhem for many hours before help came. Apart from the usual probe of the "immediate and remote causes", to tackle the latest eruption it would be helpful in the situation to examine the egregious failure of security that permitted killings on such a massive scale. It should be possible to have prevented it with good intelligence work. If the prevention of the crime was not possible the troops on ground and the police ought to have moved swiftly to contain the carnage. Whatever happened to the security institutions in Jos? That riddle should be resolved immediately while tackling the larger question of restoring the city to its erstwhile status of a haven of peace for all its inhabitants regardless of their backgrounds.

The other immediate issue is the apprehension of the perpetrators of the killings for prosecution. If mass murder is not to become the norm under the pretext of settling some ethnic, political or whatever score, the killers must be punished according to the law. The sociology of these periodic massacres has shown that the lack of sanction for the perpetrators has become a spur for subsequent killings. The killers in the last two incidents in Jos should not be walking the streets while waiting for another opportunity to wreak havoc on hapless members of the society. Security agencies should also be after the sponsors of the killer gangs. It speaks volumes for the social order that human lives could be routinely wasted without the killers being held to account for their crimes.

Doubtless, there are issues of conflict in various communities across the country, but nothing can justify the killings of innocent members of the society in the last few years. That is why the security challenge in this matter is an urgent one.

Beyond the force of law and urgent security issues, of course, is how to dig into the root of the problem to fashion an enduring solution. The recurrence of the violence with greater bitterness is a test of efficacy of conflict resolution mechanism, if at all it exists. As in other flashpoints in the country, the Jos conflict will have to be resolved ultimately in political terms. In this respect, the federal and state government should face the challenge of leadership in this matter. The Sunday massacre is more than enough wake-up call for the respective governments to ensure the security of ALL in Jos.

Acting President Goodluck Jonathan should engage Governor David Jonah Jang in a most constructive way in halting the bloody cycle and solving the problem definitively. The findings of the various panels looking at the cause of the crisis should be helpful in this regard. The conflict in Jos is certainly not beyond political solution given the sincerity of purpose on the part of the leaders. The politicians should realise that no smooth politics can be played in a blood-stained terrain.

When last Wednesday we discussed in this column the vexed question of "indigenes" and "settlers" little did we realise that another episodic violence was just four days away. Incidentally, from the eminent responses of leaders in the Jos community to the issues raised, it was clear that all sides are desirous of justice and peace in the resolution of the conflict. They all admit the inevitability of the people of different ethnic groups in Jos living together peacefully while respecting the socio-political and cultural sensibilities of one another. They all expressed aversion to violence. Jonathan and Jang should build on these areas of consensus to resolve the Jos Question.