Existing studies tend to neglect the role of religious awakening in deepening exclusive neighbourhoods and how such settlements may provide easy access for group mobilization for violence. Literature of ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria and indeed, Plateau State have failed to recognize the link between religious awakening, group mobilisation and settlement dynamics.
Although a plethora of literature exists on the link between violence and religion, we know little on the interface between the two and settlement patterns. Plateau State has a critical religious configuration due to the significant presence of Christians and Muslims and the insignificant presence of the adherents of African Traditional Religion (ATR) within her borders. In Plateau State, as is typical of African societies, traditional beliefs and practices associated with groups and local communities referred to as ATR predate the spread of Islam and Christianity. Today, as indicated earlier, the proportion of people claiming their religion is ―traditional‖ has shrunk to 1 (one) percent (Forum, 2010 cited in Best and Rakodi, 2011:12). It is necessary to point out that indigenous religions have historical influence on both Christianity and Islam, but the attitudes of many Christians and Muslims as well as the colonial government towards it can only be described as hostile (Mbachirin, 2006 cited in Best and Rakodi, 2011). Although there are no census figures to back this, it is a truism that today most Nigerians are either Muslims or Christians.
Scholars have established that religion and religious civilisation would constitute the greatest threat to security in the 21st century following cultural differences or identity consciousness
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which has thrown up issues of global concern, and Islam has been penciled as the most belligerent of these religions (Huntington, 1996). These existing studies have failed to provide any empirical evidence on how group clusters can provide the environment for such security threat. In other words, how has reinvigorated religious consciousness facilitated group mobilization for violence?
Does group residential cluster play a role in such mobilisation? Extant studies on ethno-religious crisis in Plateau State have not been able to shed light on these issues.
Islam is the oldest of the foreign religions in Nigeria. As claimed by several scholars, Islam arrived to the present day Nigeria from the north, in association with trans-Saharan trade, during the 11th and 12th centuries, and became well established in the 15th century following the conversion of the Borno Empire and later the Hausa kings (Falola, 1998). Islam therefore took root among ethnic groups in today‘s northern Nigeria but also among the Yoruba of south west Nigeria as a result of trading links with Mali. The Islamic incursion was however resisted by ethnic groups in the Middle Belt and Plateau State particularly. Thus, Islamic expansion into the Middle Belt was halted between the 16th and early 19th centuries (Best and Rakodi, 2011).
However, the dawn of the 19th century witnessed the second phase of Islamic expansion which started as a revivalist revolution. The architect of the revival, a Fulani preacher, Shehu Usman dan Fodio, led a jihad initially aimed at purifying Islamic practices in northern region and ultimately at installing a new righteous leadership (ICG 2010). The expansion process registered a significant success within that period. Between 1804 and 1808, the despotic Hausa kings who were then ruling fourteen states, were replaced with Fulani emirs, and the overarching Sokoto Caliphate was established (Falola, 1998). The people of the northern region supported Dan Fodio because he preached against oppression and injustice and because of the social and economic improvement that resulted from the new wave of Islam (Best and Rakodi, 2011). Islam spread among groups where the Hausa and Fulani had made permanent conquests when they moved from their traditional settlement in the north-west. The Caliphate was responsible for the spread of Islam and the extension of Sharia law after a strong contest with the older Islamic empire of Borno. Warriors from the emirates constantly raided and looted peripheral regions regarded as heathen‘s territory to capture slaves who worked on the plantation labour for the prosperity of the Caliphate. Indeed, ―memories of that era still haunt relations, especially between the Fulani and the smaller groups the raiders plundered‖ (ICG 2010:4). In addition, the Hausa and Fulani jihad of the 19th century destroyed the old Oyo Empire and several other kingdoms in Yoruba land (Best
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and Rakodi, 2011). Thus, Islam was consolidated and the northern part of Yoruba land became emirate.
Northern Nigeria was declared a protectorate in 1900 by the British colonialists who persuaded the emirs to accept colonial rule and the existing political and legal systems provided the basis for indirect rule of the protectorate (Crowder, 1966 cited in Best and Rakodi, ibid). The Middle Belt became part of the then Northern Protectorate and this also provided the opportunity for the spread of Islam in that area. It has been argued that ―Muslims constituted only six (6) percent of the Middle Belt‘s population by 1931 and ten (10) percent by 1952 and the Muslims were concentrated in the towns and cities and were more scattered in the rural areas‖ (Clarke, 1982 cited in Best and Rakodi, 2011:14). The 1963 census however indicated that Muslims constituted 26.1 percent, Christians 23.2 percent and other 50.7 percent (Ostien 2012:8). It is necessary to point out that people of the Middle Belt and particularly those of Jos Plateau converted to Christianity in large numbers mainly in reaction to the perceived oppressive power of the emirate administration and also against the colonial government‘s policy of protecting Hausa and Fulani rulers and the Muslim identity (Egwu 2004; ICG 2010).
The discovery of tin in Plateau State encouraged an influx of Hausa and Fulani migrants to the area and most of them remained in the State at the collapse of tin economy. On the other hand,
―Nubian and Coptic Christians arrived in the Benin Kingdom around the 15th century‖
(Kenny,1979 cited in Best and Rakodi, 2011:14). It is on record that the Portuguese were the first European group to make contact with Nigerian groups. They monopolized trade along the coast line until the 1650 when Dutch, English and French traders broke their monopoly (Dzurga, 1991 cited in Best and Rakodi, ibid). The coming of the Portuguese introduced the Warri and Benin areas to Catholic faith around 15th and 16th centuries but Christianity did not take root in Nigeria until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when chaplains accompanied traders to evangelize and specifically convert the African people to Christianity. Mission stations were established at trading posts and it paved the way for trade expansion, Christianity and also entrenched colonial rule (op.cit). Three categories of Christian missionaries arrived in Nigeria at this period. They were Catholics, Protestants and Pentecostals. A majority of these missionaries were in the south but a few of them headed to the north. Although there were restrictions placed on missionary activities by the colonial government as a way of keeping the agreement made with northern emirates, the few missionaries that headed up north established control over the Middle Belt
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(Kukah,1993; ICG 2010). The largest protestant mission established in 1893 was the Sudan Interior Mission, which resulted in the establishment of the Association of Evangelical Churches of West Africa (ECWA). Apart from the missionary‘s primary purpose of spreading Christianity, its activities had wider social, economic and political implications (Mbachirin, 2006 cited in Best and Rakodi, 2011). To enable the newly converted Africans to read the Bible, develop technical abilities and improve their farming methods and run churches themselves, the missionaries gave education to Nigerians through the introduction of schools; although they were not allowed to build schools in the Muslim north (Coleman, 1958).
However, schools were built in the Middle Belt and this enabled the minority ethnic groups, who had resisted Islam and emirate rule, to accept Christianity and become trained in Western education in a wide variety of occupation. This had enormous influence on the peoples‘ way of life. While it enabled them to seek employment in the colonial administration, it also created self- awareness and consciousness that they sought political self-government (Kukah, 1993; Akinteye, Wuye and Ashafa, 1999; Best and Rakodi, 2011). Although Islamic education in northern Nigeria had produced the officials that ran the Caliphate and emirates, it did not provide the required knowledge and skills for employment into the colonial government. With this, the colonialists turned to the Christian missionaries to educate the Muslims, but fear of Christians‘ conversion agenda deterred Muslims from attending mission schools and the northern rulers and religious establishment resisted this approach. This led to the establishment of secular schools and later Muslim schools like the Ansar-ud-deen schools but the educational inequalities between Christians and Muslims in northern Nigeria resulted in high unemployment, particularly among young (male) Muslims (Best and Rakodi, 2011).
Since the late 20th century, resurgence of religions around the world has intensified religious consciousness and the rise of fundamentalist movements. Such intensification of religious consciousness has reinforced religious differences leading to severe fault line conflicts. The war in old Yugoslavia is a good example of deep-seated religious crisis between the Orthodox, Muslims and Christians. It must be added that this growing consciousness has not necessarily involved significant shift in the proportions of the world‘s populations adhering to different religions (Huntington 1996). However, fundamentalist religious consciousness emerged in Nigeria in the 1980s following the global resurgence of religion which began with the Iranian revolution of 1979. This triggered a significant shift in the global status quo. There began from
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then a revival of religions, especially Islam, and several parts of the world, including the Middle East, North Africa, even Indonesia and then West Africa, witnessed a revival of an extreme form of religious fundamentalism (Rupesinghe and Anderlini, 1998). This religious fundamentalism was partly in reaction to the popular belief of western cultural domination and the West‘s support of often corrupt regimes. This led to the rejection of any form of secularism and the call for a return to basic Koranic tradition.
This position has reinvigorated a new consciousness for religious identity in much of the world.
For instance, in Bosnia, the emergence of extremist Islamic groups is, in part, a consequence of the Muslim population‘s anger at what they perceived as western indifference to their plight. On the other hand the promotion of Islam in Chechens as part of a new national identity is a means of distancing themselves from their former Russian rulers (Rupesinghe and Anderlini, 1998). It has been observed, that, a common religion knits people together and the lack of it pulls them apart (Horowitz, 1985). Inasmuch as this is true, it is not fixed, given the dynamic nature of identity formation. The case in Rwanda is a point at hand where people of one religion (Christianity), who profess the same Roman Catholic faith killed themselves in 1994 (Weidmann, 2009). However, a single or official religion has ethnic cohesion building capacity and this variable can link elite and mass concern (Horowitz, 1985). Religious revitalisation throughout the world is not restricted to Islam; the manifestation of fundamentalist Christianity since the 1980s has deepened religious identity consciousness as each group attempts to reassert itself.
Among Muslims, Islam became a source of identity, meaning, stability, legitimacy, development, power, and hope, epitomized in the slogan ―Islam is the solution‖. It is entirely a revival of Islamic ideas and this Islamic fundamentalism is commonly referred to as ―political Islam‖. A useful analogy for this form of Islam is the Protestant Reformation. Like fundamentalist Islam, Protestant Reformation is a reaction to the stagnation and corruption of existing institutions and a strong call for a return to a purer and more demanding form of religion (Huntington, 1996). The fundamentalists advocate their belief as the best way to structure society. In Nigeria, while the Christians profess their ―born again‖ theology, Muslims call for the application of stringent Sharia legal system (Albert 1999b; 2011).
Thus, the critical configurations of religious identities in a plural Nigeria have generated militarized intra and inter-religious relationships, beginning with the religious fundamentalism of
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the 1980s. As indicated above, Plateau State and Jos particularly have become for both Christians and Muslims a centre for proselytisation in northern Nigeria and the area has proved to be a fertile ground for the establishment of new religious movements and ideas (Higazi, 2011). Northern Nigeria, especially the far north, has historical antecedents of several Islamic scholars from North, West, and Central Africa who introduced the region to fundamentalist Islam and this culminated into conflicts beginning with the Maitatsine riot of December 1980 (Albert, 1999b).
Jos Plateau is, however, a relatively new city that is barely one hundred years old and without the long established traditions and religious orthodoxies in old northern cities like Kano and Zaria (Last, 2007:607). Jos Plateau was for this reason attracted to the Muslim reformers, who saw the necessity and possibility of establishing themselves in the area. Jos therefore became the take-off ground and the headquarters of Izala in 1978. Izala is the largest Islamic reform movement in Nigeria, with a presence in the territory of Nigeria‘s neighbours. The group-Jama’atu Izalat al-Bid’a wa Iqamat al-sunna (the Association for Suppressing Innovations and Restoring the Sunna) is considered Salafist, who emphasizes the Sunna in its call for a more orthodox, scriptural Islam and denouncing the supposedly heterodox practices of the Sufis (Loimeire, 1997). Jos is also the headquarters of several Christian bodies in Nigeria and the city has come to be known as the unofficial Christian capital of northern Nigeria (Je‘adayibe and Kudu, 2011). The area has provided an enabling environment for evangelizing the Middle Belt since the colonial days.
Mazrui (1988) traced the origins of religious conflicts in Africa to what he called Triple Heritage of politicised religion which is the interplay between indigenous Africanity, Islam and Christianity in the experience of post-colonial Africa. This raises the issue of competitiveness between the proselytizing foreign religions of Islam and Christianity against the non-proselytizing indigenous African religions. Thus, revivalism and expansion have been the mark of Islam and Christianity in Africa and Nigeria in particular where the two religions have constantly engaged each other in violent conflicts resulting from quest to spread. According Mazrui (1988:499), Islamic expansion and revivalism have been the two central issues to religious speculation in independent Africa. It was on this ground that Mazrui distinguished between expansion and revivalism. For him, expansion points to the spread of religion and its scale of new conversions while revivalism refers to the rebirth of faith among those who are already converted. To this end, religious expansion focuses on geography and populations. This is usually attempts by a religious group or religious groups to search for new worlds or lands to conquer. On the other hand,
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religious revivalism draws attention to matters of history and nostalgia which tends to search for ancient worlds to re-enact. Both expansionist and revivalist tendencies have played significant roles in the increasing religious conflicts in Northern Nigeria. However, Ayoade (2014:159) argued that it is rather poverty, lack of religious literacy and high rate of youth unemployment that has made the manipulation of faith a plausible option which has in turn facilitated several violent conflicts. Thus, he maintained that the religious crisis in northern Nigeria and Plateau state to be precise is not an issue of religious expansion rather a desire to expand and preserve the political space (Ayoade, 2014:174). While the political expansion analysis is valid for the Plateau case and the larger Middle Belt region as raised by Kukah (1993), religious expansion as demonstrated by the Dan Fodio movement of 1804 cannot be ruled out.
The Hausa homeland and its environs in what is today Northern Nigeria were unified politically as well as religiously under Sokoto Caliphate after 1804. The Fulani as well as the Hausa had spread carrying with them commerce and Islamic religion towards the Benue valley. These movements had great influence on the Middle Belt region both positively and negatively. The mercantilist Hausa were therefore responsible for the emergence of several markets in that region (Adamu, 1978; Abubakar, 1980). Yet, it created tensions between the intruding Fulani and Hausa Islamic faithful and autochthonous African religious adherents given the Islamic religious proselytisation for expansion. Thus, the theme of religious expansion has been overtly expressed in the history of Northern Nigeria. Adamu‘s (1978) study highlighted this when he emphasised the role of Hausa influence in West Africa on the spread of trade, Islam and Hausa culture. The author‘s view indicated that the economic basis for Hausa commercial expansion was the remarkable range of Hausa manufactures. The institutional basis for the manufacturing industry and commercial activities was the freedom of commerce from state control, which permitted emigration of the commoners from whom merchants and mallams were drawn (Manning, 1980:690). Adamu‘s study, therefore, shows the skill of Hausa emigrants in developing markets for their goods, setting up commercial networks, and establishing close ties with political authorities wherever they went. He emphasizes that Hausa emigrants brought new goods and opportunities for the non-Hausa they served and, at the same time, raised the prestige of the Hausa ethnic group and the Islamic religion (Adamu, 1978). This gives credence to both Mazrui‘s (1988) position on the role of religious expansion and Ayoade‘s (2014) argument on expanding the political space in facilitating identity conflicts.
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Mazrui (1988) claimed that colonialism provided the atmosphere for the spread of Christianity against the expansion of Islam. This could be connected to the manner colonialism in Nigeria halted the spread of Islam towards the south at the dawn of the 20th century (Falola, 1998; Best and Rakodi, 2011); and the activities of the second set of colonial administrators after the second World War to propagate Christian religion in the Middle Belt against the wider Northern Nigeria that was Islam dominated. However, post-colonial Africa and Nigeria in particular favoured the spread of Islam. According to Mazrui, this is facilitated by several factors including the decline of the prestige of Western civilisation in Africa and the decline of Nigeria‘s fascinating with it; and the decline of the influence of Christian missionaries in Nigeria but especially the reduced role of mission schools in Nigeria‘s education. Other factors are the post-colonial change on focus of missionary work in Africa as a whole. The change records a shift from the mission of saving souls to the mission of saving lives, from commitment to salvation in the hereafter to the commitment to service in the here and now. Mazrui added that the growing proselytisation and spread of Islam in Nigeria follows the huge resources thrown into it by the post-colonial prosperity of oil-rich Arab countries. This according to him, the oil prosperity ―has given Islam resources for missionary work in Africa which are unprecedented in modern Islamic history‖ (Mazrui, 1988:505). Thus, Islam began to be economically competitive with Christianity in the rivalry for capturing different locations but particularly in the Middle Belt region.
Kukah (1993) maintained that before now, the relationship that existed between the Muslim core north and the so called ‗pagan‘ Middle Belt was that of social symbiosis; the Muslims did not convert the hill peoples and they lived side by side with one another. Jos became the base for evangelizing Plateau people who until the 1930s were unconverted to both universal religions (Christianity and Islam), and with the presence of southern Nigerians in the area and in protest to Hausa and Fulani domination, Plateau became more oriented towards Christianity (Higazi, 2011;Best and Rakodi 2011). Muslim presence in northern Plateau dates back to the dawn of the 20th century (Plotnicov, 1967) but they had existed in the southern Plateau since the 19th century, especially in Yelwa, Wase and Kanam (Best, 2007). However, strong competition between her and Christianity became manifest in the 1980s. Kukah (1993) emphasizes strongly the instrumentality of religion in downplaying and segregating other groups in Nigeria, particularly in the northern region. Religious identity more than ethnic identity is indeed more critical in
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northern Nigeria. As observed, traditional religious identity and conflict are insignificant as far as northern Nigeria is concerned, although we have had masquerade activities associated with traditional religion as major sources of conflict in some parts of Kogi, Kwara and Nassarawa States all in north central (Middle Belt) Nigeria (Osaghae and Suberu, 2005). It has been argued that the old northern region owed its formation to ethno-religious identity where religion was the most common factor for social mobility. Just as Muslims forged identity as a political weapon, the Christians as well forged identity for the same purpose. The clash of these two religious identities is the crisis in northern Nigeria today. However, Lugard had claimed as far back as 1913 that the problem in Northern Nigeria is majorly the issue of struggle for land (Lugard, 1970:340).
Kukah (1993) contends that the Islamic religion was a linking factor in northern Nigeria between the elite and other Muslim faithful. Religion was thus the basis for inter-ethnic relation in the region. As in Northern Ireland where religion is a tool for ethnicity between Catholicism and Protestantism (Doherty and Poole, 1997), in northern Nigeria, Christianity and Islam are the tools for ethnicity. The multiplicity of movements among both Christians and Muslims in Plateau State have had to formulate their own responses to the rising insecurity and conflict in the region which has led to the decentralisation of mobilisation processes and the readiness for future conflicts.
However, severe violent conflicts that were prevalent in other northern states were hitherto unknown to Plateau State until the introduction of Sharia legal system in twelve northern states in the early 2000s. This introduction marked a point of departure in the Plateau conflict as the state witnessed an influx of people fleeing from violence in the Sharia states (Best, 2007). Some Plateau indigenes, so to speak, saw this as a total takeover of their land and this further heated the already heated polity and the explosion happened soon after.
Since 2001, Plateau State, which was hitherto known as the ―Home of Peace and Tourism‖, has become a home of pieces and terror (Best, 2007). People were killed in the name of religion and sometimes these conflicts generated reprisal attacks elsewhere. For instance the February and May 2004 killings in Yelwa led to attack on Christians in Kano city on May 11 and 12 (Human Rights Watch, 2005).
Huntington (1996) argues that in coping with identity crisis what counts for people are blood and belief, faith and family. Thus with fluid group boundaries, people are seeking identity and security and they are frequently looking for roots and connections to defend themselves against the unknown. Hence they rally to those with similar ancestry, religion, language, values and
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institutions and distance themselves from those with different ones. Huntington (1996) contends that conflicts between clusters of civilization have their boundaries largely following religious lines. To this end, revitalization of religion is reinforcing cultural differences because religion, as argued by Huntington (1996) is the principal defining characteristic of civilizations. His position that conflicts may occur in a location at the fault line between different civilizations gives credence to the Christian/Muslim clash in Plateau State. An example of this scenario is in the former Yugoslavia where Orthodox, Muslim and Western civilizations (Christianity) clashed.
With these bloody conflicts in Plateau State, the variables of level of income, class, status symbol and/or decent environment no longer inform the decision to change residency; rather it is informed by ―safety‖. Safety, according to Gandu (2011), is now defined in terms of taking residency where a person‘s ethno-religious group is in the majority. The implication of this is that people affiliated to a particular ethno-religious orientation take up residency in one clustered colony (Gandu, 2011). This trend, though applied as a security measure, is dangerous for national integration as well as a threat to human security. For instance, Jos had areas associated with particular ethnic groups: Gangare, Angwan Rogo for Hausa and Fualni; Jenta Apata, Busa Buji and parts of Ali Kazaure for Igbo and Urhobo; Nassarawa Gwom for the Yoruba; Hwolshe for the Berom; Naraguta for the Anaguta; and Rikkos for the Afizere (Egwu, 2004). However, the persistent conflicts have deepened the existing prejudice not only in Jos but in most parts of Plateau State. Although these settlements were not exclusive for the above groups but they were the dominant groups, and the persistent conflicts have compelled them to move, emphasizing more the variable of religion to the point that if you are a Christian you cannot go to Gangare, Angwan Rogo, Rikkos and vice versa (Tell, March 2011:52).
Nevertheless, the quest to understand increasing rise of militant religions and the suppression of traditional syncretistic Islam in Islamic studies literature necessitated studies like John Paden (2005). Paden provided a careful analysis of the role of Islam in Nigeria‘s politics since independence. His analysis is situated in the context of traditional Islamic culture in northern Nigeria and emphasized the conflict carrying capacity of Islam as he indicated the ability of Muslims to negotiate their differences. He made this known through what he termed the gateway (kofa in Hausa). The gateway is a form of an intermediary through whom the public might negotiate or manage a conflict before it could reach crisis stage. This is however rooted in traditional Hausa culture and not necessarily Islamic. His claim that Muslim ideals are rooted in
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preventive diplomacy or conflict management mechanism is rather bogus as what he termed compromise could be seen as an avoidance rather than problem solving. The shortcoming is that Paden attempted to understand Islam from a political perspective. As crucial as Paden‘s (2005) work is to this study in understanding how Islam could mitigate group mobilisation for violence in the face of vigorous proselytisation, he consigned the issues of competitive proselytisation using separate settlements to insignificance.
Therefore, existing literature on ethno-religious conflicts in Nigeria and indeed, Plateau State tend to consign to insignificance the nexus between religious awakening, group mobilization and settlement dynamics. However, some questions need to be asked: How has separate settlements facilitated group mobilization for violence in Plateau State? Does exclusive neighbourhood promote vigorous religious proselytisation? How has religious awakening and exclusive settlement mobilized groups in Plateau State for a protest against discrimination and grievances?
These questions are rarely asked and thus scarcely discussed in the literature on ethno-religious conflicts. A lot is still missing on the interface between religion, mobilisation for violence and settlement dynamics.
2.3.4 Recurrent Conflict and Infrastructural Development in the Emerging Settlement in