When I commented on the atrocious massacre of children and women in Dogo Nahawa Village of Plateau State last week, news of the mayhem was just breaking. Eyewitness accounts were still scanty. What was known then was that some hoodlums stole into the community, in the dead of the night, and murdered almost 500 people in cold blood.

Since then, more facts have emerged. Survivors have told their blood-curdling stories. Stories that are spine-chilling and hair-raising. Not even wild animals could be that vicious. It was the height of savagery. What happened in that rustic village penultimate Sunday beggars belief. The damage done to our reputation internationally will take ages to repair, if ever.

But the most worrisome dimension, in my opinion, is the allegation that the Nigerian military, the army in particular, took sides in the crisis.

The person who made the allegation is the Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, himself. Speaking in Abuja last Tuesday, Jang pointedly accused the Army of complicity, insisting the bloodbath could have been averted if they had acted on the early intelligence report he provided. Claiming that some villagers had reported to him at about 9 p.m. on Saturday night that they saw some people around the villages with arms, Jang said he immediately called the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 3rd Armoured Division, Jos, Major General Saleh Maina, who promised "he was going to move some troops there."

According to the Governor, "Because it is near where I live, I even saw an Army tank pass through my house and I thought it was going towards that area. Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they had started burning the villages and people were being hacked to death. I tried to locate the Army Commanders but couldn't get any of them on the telephone."

Jang minced no words when he said that the carnage "could have been avoided if the soldiers had acted on my report."

Many of the survivors have corroborated his allegation. Narrating his ordeal in The Nation on Saturday, one Sambo Shut, 55 years, recalled that, "While the killings and burning of houses were going on unhindered, military patrol vehicles were going about without making any attempt to intervene. It was as if they were supervising the Fulani invasion of the villages."

It must be noted that Jang, though a civilian governor, is not the typical "bloody civilian." He retired as an Air Force Commodore. So, he knows the terrain well.

Expectedly, the Army fired back, denying complicity in the mayhem. In a statement issued a day after Jang's grave allegation, the Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR), Brigadier-General Chris Olukolade, said the Governor "demonstrated an embarrassing naivety in interpreting the dynamics of land operations." Instructively, General Olukolade neither denied Jang's claim of calling Maina nor said what the Army did to quell the massacre.

On Thursday, it was Maina's turn to defend himself. Addressing journalists in his office, he denied receiving any telephone call from any Plateau State government official "prior to the mayhem at Dogon-Nahawa and the surrounding villages." But he admitted receiving some text messages from some of his officers intimating him of suspicious movements in certain communities. Simply put, he was forewarned. It didn't matter much who blew the whistle.

Some Generals have said the military should not be blamed because they are not directly responsible for internal security. They insist that is the responsibility of the police. That is true but not exactly so in the Plateau case. After the January crisis, the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, drafted the military to take over internal security in the state. The Army in turn publicly warned the Police to keep off, saying they had taken full charge. As at the time of the latest attacks, a curfew was still in place and the soldiers were still in charge, manning the checkpoints. That explains why Jang called the GOC and not the Police Commissioner when he got the intelligence report.

But beyond all these issues is the bigger question - has the Nigerian military also become a victim of the twin cancers afflicting the health of the Nigerian state - tribalism and religion?

The military is one of the few remaining pan-Nigeria institutions. The saddest day in Nigeria's history will be that day when officers and men of the Nigerian military will stop owing their absolute loyalty to the Nigerian State but to ethnic and religious bigots.

Regrettably, that day seems to have come already, or so General Domkat Bali (retd), former Chief of Defence Staff, thinks. In a report carried in Thisday newspaper last Friday, Bali, who hails from Plateau State, was quoted as expressing fear that the military is beginning to divide along religious line, a development he described as dangerous for our national unity. "Major General Saleh Maina has lost the trust of the people, he is believed to play along religious line, and that is too bad not only for Plateau State but for the nation as whole."

Maina, himself, appreciates this. "Military is the last line of defence," he told his audience on Thursday, adding, "But so much damage has been done to the image of the military and that is not good."

If the day has come, as Bali seems to suggest, when Christians in Plateau State and indeed any other part of the country will only feel safe when security men that profess the Christian faith are put in-charge of their security or Moslems will feel safe only when one of their own superintends, then, we may well begin to kiss goodbye to the Nigerian project. If we have arrived at this scary crossroads, then it will be a question of time, a matter of when, not if.

Last week, I emphasised that it should be a cause for worry that debilitating ethno-religious crisis has become a permanent feature of the Northern political landscape. Some people have accused me of being biased. While admitting that what happened in Dogon-Nahawa was willful murder, a reprisal attack by the Hauwa-Fulani Moslems against their Berom neighbours who are predominantly Christians, they accused me of not condemning the January killings where they claim Moslems took the hit.

Of course, that is not true. I have written against all manner of precipitate violence in this country. I abhor the shedding of blood in whatever guise. In the late 1990s when members of the Odua People's Congress (OPC) were orchestrating mayhem in the South West, I condemned them. When the militants in the Niger Delta lost focus and were involved in wanton destruction of human lives, I condemned them.

Having said that, let me also quickly add that it is in the interest of the Moslem North that there is a quick end to the incessant upheavals that rock that part of the country. It is not enough for the Northern political and religious elite to remind us each time there is sectarian crisis there that Islam is a religion of peace. Of course, that is a statement of fact that bears no restatement.

But the fact also remains that many people - Christians and Moslems - are committing so many atrocities in the name of religion. So, it behoves us to ensure that those who commit crime against humanity while taking shelter under the umbrella of religion are checkmated.

Besides, it is in the interest of the average Northerner that these debilitating crises do not continue to convulse the region.

Why?

In a recent chat with Dr. Magnus Kpakol, National Coordinator of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), he disclosed that there is a remarkable difference in the poverty level between the Northern and Southern parts of the country. While poverty level hovers around 25 per cent in the South East, it is, he said over 70 per cent in the north. In some Northern states, it is as high as 90 per cent.

So, why poverty remains endemic in the country, it is more acute in some parts. The difference, he said, lies in the entrepreneurial spirit of the people.

The fact remains that each time Kaduna boils, each time Kano boils, each time Bauchi boils, each time Borno boils, each time Jos boils, businesses are destroyed, human capital is either wasted or diminished and the people are set back in a very fundamental ways.