Discusión

At independence, the Nigerian constitution encouraged ethnic competition not only at the grassroots but also between the parties that dominated the country’s three (later four) administrative regions. The increasing scale of this competition eventually led to the breakdown of political order in the Southwest and, in response to the Southeast’s secession, the Civil War (1967-70). Confronted with the escalation of violence, then Head of State Gen Yakubu Gowon (1966-75) and his successor General Obasanjo (1976-79) reformed the state’s political structure by introducing a centralised Federal system where most income went to the central state and was then disbursed to originally 12 (now 36) Federal states (and, today, a Federal Capital Territory). The introduction of a centralised Federal system contributed to a decline in inter-regional

12 One of WIN’s objectives is to end the oppression and exploitation of women. See Adekunle, (2012).

competition. At the same time, it encouraged new forms of struggle directed at the centre.

As in other Federalist nations such as India, Switzerland and Canada, Federalism in Nigeria was developed in order to accommodate the cultural and religious diversity within the country. Giving access to the local state to a larger number of local elites, it broke up the three ethno-regional monolithic blocs associated with the Regions.

Offering greater inclusion, Federalism was meant to foster national unity by allowing new state-based elites to control their own administrations (Suberu, 2001; Eliagwu, 2005). Thus Federalism protected important ethnic minorities from the direct hegemony of the bigger ethnic groups and ensured a more equitable spread of resources.

However, as long as the responsibility for controlling and channelling central resources to the federating constituencies lay with the centre (Suberu, 2001: 7), the logic of group mobilisation in order to gain access to the local state remained valid. As Nigeria’s centrally managed oil income intensified the quest for the allocation of centrally held resources, ‘the centre became an increasingly big prize to win’ (Eliagwu, 2005: 15).

‘Ethno-distributive pressures’ (Suberu, 2006:68) continued to shape the politics of the centre, with a growing number of states and similarly ethnic groups involved in an unending struggle to gain administrative recognition (Suberu, 2001; Eliagwu, 2005).

Referring to this distributive logic, Bayart (2009: xxii) described Nigeria’s Federal income as the “national cake.” The desire to share in this scene set the centre stage for members of Nigeria’s different groups to invoke ethnic [and religious] differences in

other to gain their own administrative territory, whether at state or local government level, and by implication to gain access to the state’s resources (Bayart, 2009: 218).

In the process of group differentiation and competition over access to the state, religious difference has played an important role. Often closely linked to ethnic and other forms of difference, religious boundaries have continued to be mobilised in the struggle over access to state and administrative power. As a result, religious and ethnic competition has increased as the units of the Federal system have become smaller under military rule. Further, the continuous agitation for State and Local Government creation suggests the possible gains to be derived from the emphasis on difference.

But while state creation has come to a halt with the return to civilian rule in 1999, the liberalisation of political competition has nonetheless contributed to an increasing mobilisation of ethnic and religious difference in the attempt to capture state power.

Bayart (2009: xxii) has shown how the “democratic transition [return to civilian rule]

was widely experienced as a new form of access to what has been referred to as the national cake in Nigeria.” Reflecting on the assertion of politics of the belly (Bayart, 2009) and the ongoing process of the division and factionalisation of local and regional elites focused on the control of community, local government, state and Federal politics, Nigeria continues to mobilise along ethnic and religious lines (cf. Kukah, 1994;

Falola, 1998) as a broader strategy of control and exclusion.

Since Federalism was introduced in Nigeria, and since the advent of democracy in 1999, religious and communal crises have been on the increase. Religious and ethnic sentiments are deliberately mobilised to fuel these crises, not only in Jos and the Middle Belt, but Nigeria as a whole (Best, 2004; Gwamna, 2010; Boer, 2004). It has been argued that these crises are often the result of a deliberate manoeuvring of the

polity by the political class and its religious zealots (Usman, 1987; Boer, 2004;

Gwamna, 2010; Kaigama, 2012).

Thus, ethnic and religious loyalties and differences are responsible for most of the contentious issues in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. Further, Ter Haar (2005) is of the opinion that the real issue in conflicts is the pressure to share resources with others which most groupings are unwilling to do. She also notes that the politics of domination has come to influence relationships between various groups (Ter Haar, 2005: 4). In such situations, political violence becomes legitimised through ethnic and religious ideologies.

It is important to note that the Middle Belt region has been recognised as accommodating the largest number of Nigeria’s ethnic minorities. These ethnic groups have different images of their histories, cultural identities, ancestral heroism, and a sense of originality and indigeneity over areas of land occupied by them creating strong tribal loyalty. This loyalty is fundamental to most residents of Jos, but this alliance is somewhat cross-cut by political and religious differences (Plotnicov, 1967). In this context, ethnic communities that believe they have been the first to settle in a place see all others that arrive after them within the same territorial space as settlers or

“indigenes versus migrants or non-indigenes” (Best, 2004: 8). Arguing self-defence, Northern Christians, usually settlers, have begun to justify violence as a way of protecting their lives and faith against non-indigenes.

Emphasis on the size of groups also shapes public debate. Thus the predominantly Christian Beroms and Tivs claim they are the majority in Plateau State and Benue State respectively. In contrast, the Muslim Fulani, Hausa and Kanuri claim to constitute

the majority in Nasarawa State. These numerical issues have bred terror and insecurity among ethnic communities especially during political contestations, because they are linked to the ability to mobilise violent groups. In the Middle Belt, ethnic and religious competition has led to the creation of many ethnic militias, for example in the Ombatse in Nasarawa and the Akwat Atap in Southern Kaduna. The emergence of such militias, has deepened the divisions between the various ethnic and religious groups due to feared and experienced violence (Salawu, 2010: 345; Higazi, 2007).

The contestation of numbers is also linked to religious competition. For instance, during the appointment of Ibrahim Dasuki as the Sultan of Sokoto in 2014, both the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Voice of America (VOA), reported that the Sultan was the spiritual head of the Muslims in Nigeria, a group which comprises 40 percent of the population. Within a week, letters about official condemnation of such a low percentage followed. Depending on the source of the responses, it was then stated that 70 percent and 80 percent of the population were supposed to be Muslims. In 1986, Abubakar Gumi¹³ said that the Nigerian population comprised 80 percent Muslims, five percent Christians and 15 percent others. When he received the King Faisal prize in 1987, he claimed a Muslim population of 70 percent for the country (Gumi, 1992).

Similar claims were made during the 1999 and 2003 elections in Jos. The Muslims, claiming that they constituted 80 percent of the population of Jos North Local Government, automatically expected to win elections as the chair of the Local Government at all times. Similar events have taken place in Kaduna, Benue and some

13 Sheik Abubakar Gumi was an outspoken Islamic scholar and Grand Khadi of the Northern Region of Nigeria from 1962 to 1967.

parts of Nasarawa State, where widely held beliefs about local majorities did not lead to electoral success. These expectations illustrate the potential for conflict in Nigeria as groups lay claim to the control of access to Federal resources based on the politics of number (see Suberu, 2001).

Summing up the post-colonial politics which characterise the Middle Belt of Nigeria, Chabal and Daloz (1999) explain how post-colonial experiences have contributed to the sedimentation of a political disorder. As the state is informal and deeply involved in the manufacturing of differences, it offers little alternative to the powers of local leaders and cliques who claim superiority. Given the ubiquity of violence and the absence of an institutionally autonomous and relatively impartial state affording protection for its citizens, it is imperative for ordinary people to maintain links with those who have power. This need confirms the apparent importance of primordial solidarity, on which people draw in order to establish themselves as clients of powerful leaders.

By both benefiting from, and confirming, the importance of ethno-national difference, political disorder has become a resource for clientelist politics (Chabal & Daloz, 1999:

20 & 162).

But while Chabal and Daloz offer a convincing model, they do not explore how the historical and cultural processes associated with conflict and disorder operate at the grassroots level. As a result, the gendered nature of disorder remains irrelevant to their, and others, analysis.