Kaduna state has witnessed worse Christian-Muslim riots than any other state in the country including even Kano state that is known for its notoriety. Apart from reprisal attacks and other minor skirmishes, the major ones have been the 1987 Kafanchan riot, the 1992 Zangon-Kataf riot, the 2000 Shar`a riot and the Miss World Pageant riot in 2002.
It is very difficult to find a consensus account of the 1987 Kafanchan riot as well as other riots whether in popular or scholarly works. The more one reads the more one finds traces of subjectivity along Christian and Muslim divides. While the Christian narrations36 leave one with the impression that the riot was started by the Muslims, the Muslim accounts37 portray the exact opposite. Both however agree that the riot began on the campus of the
34 Two Christian members of the committee set up to investigate the incidence issued their own minority report which was never implemented.
35 M. H. Kukah, Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria…, p. 159.
36 Some of the most respected accounts are those by M. H. Kukah, Ibid, pp.158-60; M. H. Kukah and T.
Falola, Religious Militancy and Self-Assertion:…, p. 145; J. Ibrahim, “The Politics of Religion in Nigeria:…”, p. 66; J. Walsh, Religious Riots in Nigeria…, pp. 6-8 etc.
37 Eg, B. Isyaku, “The Kafanchan Carnage”, in ThisDay, 1991, n.p.
College of Education, Kafanchan but differ in their details. From the Christian sources, the riot was said to have started over the alleged misquotation of the Qur’n and the blasphemy of the prophet Muhammad by a Christian preacher, one Rev. Abubakar Bako, a convert from Islam, who happened to be the guest speaker at the annual Christian revival weekend program organized by the Fellowship of Christian Students (FCS) of the College. Having known that Bako, famous for his quoting from the Qur’n, was to be the preacher coupled with the Christian students’ aggressive evangelism38 the Muslim students attended the gathering fully prepared to attack the preacher. Not long into his preaching, one Hajiya Ai’sha Umaru, a Muslim female student described as a “trouble lover” accosted him by seizing the microphone, slapped him39 and beckoned on the Muslim boys to help her defend Islam or she would mobilize the girls to do it. The school administration unable to calm down the situation due to the determination of the Muslim students to cause trouble, the fight became a free for all and within a matter of hours spilled over to Kafanchan town and later to Kaduna city, Kankia, Funtua, Zaria, and even as far as Kano and Katsina.40 Some Christian sources further point to deliberate provocation by the Muslim students of their Christian counterparts during the annual
“Dan Fodio Week” held the previous week. Other provocative events were the circulation of documents published by the Muslims entitled “Jesus is not the son of God”, and “The Holy Bible is not the word of God”. The inflammatory and provocative videos of Ahmed Deedat which dwelt on similar anti-Christian themes were also said to be distributed with some finding their way to the Kafanchan campus even falling in the hands of Christian students.41
The Muslim sources, represented by Bashir Isyaku’s work, accuse the Christian students of starting the riot. Isyaku opined that the Christian students in collaboration with some Christian lecturers began their evil machination during the “Dan Fodio Week” by trying to neutralize the event. Unsuccessful in their bid to prevent the Muslim programme, the
38 Eg, as part of publicising the program, the Christians students had hung up banner at the entrance of the College reading “Welcome to Jesus’ Campus.” The Muslim students interpreted that to mean undermining Islam in the campus. The banner was removed due to protest from the Muslim students.
39 Newswatch, 23.3.87, p. 20.
40 New Nigerian 11.3,1987, p. 1.
41 CAN, 1987.
Christian students were said to have further provoked the Muslim students by the offensive banner captioned “Welcome to Jesus’ Campus.” When Rev. Bako finally came for the programme, he was said to have maintained that only Christians follow the right path by quoting from Qur’n surah 1: 6-7 and 55-57 to justify his claim.42 When Ai’sha protested his interpretation of the Qur’n, the Christians students began to attack the Muslim students who were in the minority. When the Muslim students fled the compound, the Christian students were said to have gone on a rampage to the College’s mosque, including those of the neighbouring Teacher’s College, and burnt praying mats and copies of the Qur’n and other Islamic literature.43 These were said to be the triggers of the riot that quickly spread beyond its immediate vicinity.
Whichever version one holds, the riot was so intense that the governor, Lt. Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, was forced to confess that he was tired of ruling the state.44 The rapid spread of the riot to other cities was not unconnected with the role played by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Kaduna and what Christians saw as a calculated provocation of their religious sensitivity. It is alleged that soon after the incident in Kaduna, the station fanned the situation by reporting hourly that Muslims were being killed in Kafanchan by Christians thereby causing their fleeing into hiding. It was also reported that two mosques had been burnt down, including copies of the Qur’n publicly.
It further reported its own brand of the immediate cause of the riot that one itinerant Christian preacher at the College of Education, Kafanchan, inflamed the Christians to attack the Muslims when he started “misquoting the Holy Qur’n and blaspheming the holy name of Prophet Muhammad”.45 Zaria was most hit.46 After a week or so before the situation was put under control, the damage to life and property was monumental.47
42 Bako denied this when testifying before the panel of inquiry that he never misquoted or misinterpreted any Qur’n verse rather than simply illustrating the similarities that existed in the Qur’n and the Bible. See
“Kaduna Religious Riot: A Catalogue of Events” (CAN [Kaduna] Publicity Committee): p. 26.
43 B. Isyaku, The Kafanchan Carnage, pp. 22-28.
44 He later denied this, New Nigerian 14.3.1988.
45 S. P. I. Agi, The Political History of Religious Violence in Nigeria…, p. 76.
46 Newswatch, March 30, 1987, pp. 13-14; See also J. H. Boer, Nigeria’s Decades of Blood:…, pp. 53-5; S.
P. I. Agi, Ibid, p. 76.
47 Ibid, p. 73ff.
The riot’s first anniversary was marked by another religious riot that was nipped in the bud in March 1988 beginning on the campus of Kaduna Polytechnic. Differences between Christian and Muslim groups in the Polytechnic coupled with the bitterness as a result of the incarceration of some Muslims jailed by the Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte tribunal which had investigated the previous year’s disturbance, peaked on March 8 when the Christian inter-denominational chapel under construction was pulled down, ostensibly by some Muslim staff and students.48
Kaduna was struck again in 1992 over a dispute between Hausa and Kataf people on the relocation of a market in Zangon-Kataf, a predominantly Christian town with Muslim minority. Even though the crisis was sparked off by land or economic including ethnic or citizenship concerns, its religious cause was what became more pronounced. According to Agi, the majority Kataf people had long resented the monopoly of the minority Hausa population over the market as it was located among them. When one of them became the Local Government Chairman following an election victory in 1991, he decided to end their alleged monopoly by directing that the market be relocated to a predominantly Kataf area, a move that was resented by the Hausa-Fulani who were mainly Muslims and the majority in the old market site.49 In the process of actualizing the relocation around February with bulldozers ordered to the site irrespective of court injunction obtained by the Muslim population restraining the local council from going on with its plan, a clash ensued between the protesting Muslim population and the Kataf people leaving many dead and property worth millions of Naira destroyed. The shabby handling of this initial crisis by the government was to be the springboard for a more disastrous one in May that went beyond Zangon Kataf to the state capital, Zaria and as far as to Bauchi state.
Because Christians were in the majority, Muslims had the most casualties not only in property but also in human lost. Instead of burying the death in a mass grave as it had been the case in some instances, the Muslims carried their death to the state capital to whip up sentiments. On seeing the dead and the injured, the government allegedly inflated the casualty figures and urged Muslims to go out on a revenge mission. As if
48 The African Guardian, 28.3.1988, p. 9.
49 S. P. I. Agi, The Political History of Religious Violence in Nigeria…, p. 85.
planned, Muslim youth simultaneously filled the streets “indiscriminately burning anything that symbolized Christianity, and killing or maiming anybody suspected to be a Christian.”50 Christians too responded and the final death toll was approximated to be between 4,000 and 4,500. Muhammed Haruna described it in 1992 as the most violent of all riots so far.51 The use of youngsters as spies led to the murder of many prominent Christians. Corpses were dumped in wells, eyes of some victims plucked and tongues slashed with jubilation.52 The local government was dissolved and a number of Kataf civil servants sacked as a result.53 General Zamani Lekwot was sentenced to death for his alleged role in the crisis but later released in December 1995.54
If the 1992 riot was considered the worst of all riots so far, the worse was yet to come.
Barely eight years on when people were still trying to leave the past behind them, old wounds were suddenly opened. The reintroduction of shar`a law in Zamfara state in 1999, months after the country returned to civilian rule after sixteen years of brutal, corrupt and unaccountable military dictatorship, by Governor Ahmed Yarima Sani was to claim its worst casualties in Kaduna state. Reuben Abati called it the “second jihâd” or in other words “the re-invention of the Othman Dan Fodio jihâd” due to the perceived similarities he noticed in terms of ideology, purpose and method. 55 The cheap popularity Governor Sani gained both locally and internationally coupled with pressure from irate and despondent Muslims who were lured into believing that shar`a was the only solution to Nigeria’s endemic socio-economic and political problems, led eleven other core Northern states to follow suit. While it was reintroduced in other states without any event, Kaduna’s became a bloodletting scenario.56 President Obasanjo considered it one of the worse bloodletting exercises in Nigeria since the civil war.57 Poised to please his co-religionists for his political life, the governor set up a committee to explore modalities
50 S. P. I. Agi, The Political History of Religious Violence in Nigeria…, p. 86.
51 Citizen, 15 June, 1992, n.p.
52 Sunday New Nigerian 31.10.1982, p. 1.
53 M. H. Kukah and T. Falola, Religious Militancy and Self-Assertion…, p. 218.
54 T. Falola, Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies (Rochester:
University of Rochester Press, 1998): p. 221.
55 R. Abati, “The Second Jihâd” in The Guardian, 25.02.2000, pp 53ff.
56 Kaduna is different from the other states because while the Muslims control the political power, the Christians form the majority in the state.
57 New Nigerian, 2 March, 2001, n.p.
for its adoption. Despite resentment and peaceful anti-shar`a Christian demonstrations following pro-shar`a marches by the Muslims earlier, the governor went ahead with his preparation to inaugurate the shar`a system in the state. When the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) decided to embark on the largest anti-shar`a demonstration on the 21st February, 2000, where some 50,000 Christians marched to the state’s House of Assembly, and later to the Government House to protest against the planned adoption, they had not the slightest premonition that the peaceful march would end up in utter devastation. Before they had seen the governor, reports reached them that their Muslims counterparts had begun to attack Christians in the city.58 On getting the report that one Christian was already killed, the gathering dispatched, fighting their ways through to get home or to go and defend their churches or businesses or to take refuge in police or army barracks. During the ensuing battle, corpses littered the streets, looting became the order of the day and buildings, cars, petrol stations, businesses etc were on fire such that when President Obasanjo flew in to see things for himself, the city was “in ruin.” Apart from the many churches burnt including some few mosques, some residential areas almost became extinct as residents fled the areas, leaving behind burnt houses. Children, the aged and women, who were unable to escape from these areas, were consumed in the fire, while others slaughtered like chickens.59 If the president saw the relative and uneasy calmness punctuated by isolated burnings and destruction of churches, including killing of Christians in some places, as an end to the crisis because of his intervention, he was mistaken as the crisis soon engulfed the whole city again following rumours that Muslims were relocating their wives and children to Barmawa, a Muslim section of the city, to fight it out again with the Christians.60 Having been trained in the use of guns and other fighting tactics in the interim coupled with the one-sided reporting of the Radio Kaduna as usual, both Christian and Muslim youths especially in the high density areas of the town like Rigasa, Tudun Wada, Kawo, Sabon Tasha, Television, Kaduna, Kakuri, Barmawa, Narayi, Hayin Banki, Badarawa, Angwar Dosa, Abakpa, etc went on a killing rampage that it took the military and armoured tanks to quell with immeasurable loses on
58 ThisDay, 25.02.2000, p. 11ff, 40ff; J. H. Boer, Nigeria’s decades of Blood:…, p. 65.
59 Examples of such areas are Rigassa, Bakin Ruwa, Tudun Wada etc. see The Guardian 25.02.2000, p.
19ff.
60 J. H. Boer, Nigeria’s decades of Blood:…, p. 67.
both sides.61 The mayhem shook the whole country and spread not only to other parts of the state, particularly Zaria, Kachia and Kafanchan, but went as far as to the Southeast as the Igbos went on reprisal attacks on the Muslim population in Aba, Umuahia, Onitsha and Owerri to avenge for their loved ones killed in Kaduna.62 Kano city, Niger, Taraba, plateau states and Abuja, to mention but a few, narrowly escaped Kaduna’s fate by a miracle. Despite the casualty figures, displacement, huge economic losses and the deep-seated mistrust sowed, including the resolution taken by the National Council of State to revert to status quo following the crises, the governor went ahead to enact the shar`a law under the pretext that Christians would not be affected since their cases would not be treated under the shar`a legal system but under the customary courts. The governor as well as other northern governors who defied the National Council of State’s directive did not act in a vacuum as both Shehu Shagari and Muhammadu Buhari, both members of the council and former heads of state denied that such decision was taken and maintained that Muslims were not ready to compromise on the shar`a .63 Their stance led to new tensions in Sokoto and Borno states which further led to the exodus of many non-Muslims from the Muslim dominated parts of the North.
The fourth most destructive Christian-Muslim riot took place during the Miss World beauty contest that Nigeria had the privilege of hosting in November, 2002. Even though the contest in its entire history has had nothing to do with religion, religion became the sole reason for its transfer midway to another country. What should have been seen as a journalistic error or mere ignorance on the part of Isioma Daniel was interpreted as an attack or insult on the holy prophet, Muhammad and the entire Muslim population in Nigeria by Nigerian Christians. Isioma Daniel, a woman journalist, had in a fashion article in the November 16 edition of ThisDay, a Lagos based paper, passionately and enthusiastically written about the Miss World contest, which was scheduled for the last week of Ramadan (the fasting month when Muslims reflect on how they have lived their lives) in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, that all Nigerians should embrace the opportunity as she argued that even prophet Muhammad wouldn’t have had any objection to the show
61 J. H. Boer, Nigeria’s decades of Blood:…, p. 76.
62 New Nigerian, 2.03.2000, pp 1-2; ThisDay, 2.03.2000, p. 5; The Guardian, 29.02.2000, pp. 1-2.
63 L. Abdullahi, “Shagari Disagrees with Council of State” in The Comet, 3.03.2000, p. 1-2.
were he in Nigeria at the time. She was not the only one celebrating the opportunity Nigeria had to host the event but the government as well. Having won the title the previous year by Miss Nigeria, which gave Nigeria the chance to run the show, the Nigerian Government hoped the event would add to the country's tourist appeal. It was in this mood that Isioma Daniel rhetorically asked:
What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from one of them. The irony is that Algeria, an Islamic country, is one of the countries participating in the event.64
Having just returned to Nigeria and being an innocent young female reporter for ThisDay, little did she know that her statement would almost cost her her life65 were it not for her relocation to the United States of America. However, hundreds of lives and property worth millions of Naira were lost.As a Christian from the south, having spent some time in England as a reporter after years of studies at Lancaster in England, she had little understanding of Nigerian Muslim dynamics. Despite several apologies printed on the front page of the paper for four consecutive days including her own resignation, her statement quickly threw Kaduna once again into another violent riot that left more than 200 dead, perhaps 1,000 were wounded, and five hundred were hospitalized. Three hundred and fifty were arrested. The army shot many of them, not to mention the destruction of numerous churches, mosques and hotels.66 Some sources attest that over the next three days, 8 mosques and 22 churches were destroyed.67 Muslim rioters trashed the newspaper's office in Kaduna. The fighting spread from Muslim districts to Christian districts. In each case, the majority religious group attacked the minority. This is even when most rioters knew nothing about Miss World, as noted by some observers. Abuja, where the event was being held, was spared the level of destruction witnessed in Kaduna.
64 A. Henry, Off Our Backs, Mar/Apr 2003.
65 The Deputy Governor of Zamfara state issued a fatwa calling for her death for insulting Mohammed. Her life would still have been in danger till today even though she lives in the USA, had the fatwa not been overturned. When a writer in ThisDay noted in one of their subsequent editions that only religious leaders can issue fatwas, and that the Deputy Governor was only an elected official, not a legitimate voice of
65 The Deputy Governor of Zamfara state issued a fatwa calling for her death for insulting Mohammed. Her life would still have been in danger till today even though she lives in the USA, had the fatwa not been overturned. When a writer in ThisDay noted in one of their subsequent editions that only religious leaders can issue fatwas, and that the Deputy Governor was only an elected official, not a legitimate voice of