In commenting on issues surrounding the Shariah controversy in 1978 (an issue we discuss in detail later), Laitin (1982: 412) pointed out with a somewhat vi- sionary phrase that “the politics of religion, where there is no room for flexibility, can rock a political system to its very foundations”. The Shariah controversy, since Independence, not only exacerbated tensions between the north and south of Nigeria, but seemed to be the groundswell to which outbursts of violence over issues like the unholy use of the Muslim holy book by a non-Muslim or the hul- labaloo over a beauty pageant could be released. Although incomprehensible to Christians, it made perfect sense to quite a number of Muslims, who assume that the alleged abuse and decadence of non-Muslims in relation to Islamic symbols or the moral statutes of their religion goes to show the lacuna which their loss of Shariah from colonial times had caused within the context of Islamic theocracy. Additional perceptions, of greater socio-economic leverage of the South relative to the North, and the convenient stereotype of southern educated and professional elite relative to peasant northerners, further opened doors to grievances (whether appropriate or not) towards both government and the largely Christian South.
Central Nigeria, or what is commonly called the Middle Belt, introduced a fur- ther dimension to the circumstances. The groups in this area, which had in pre- colonial times and even during colonial times been of little political value, began to become more assertive towards the time when Independence came. Their as- sertiveness gradually developed into antagonism, owing to the growth of Christi- anity in these areas. During the events leading to Independence in 1960, Logams (1993: 11-20) describes a concerted effort by the Hausa- and Muslim-dominated Northern People’s Congress (NPC) to stifle any attempt at a growing opposition in the North, which was largely composed of ethnic minorities who were mainly either animists or Christians. A phrase he coined was ‘internal colonialism’. Are-
as like the Tiv Division, which comprised the present Benue and Kogi states, saw a series of politically motivated acts of violence in the 1960s, among mainly Tiv groups. Their primary anger was what they saw as an attempt by the Hau- sa/Muslim-dominated NPC – using a few rogue elements from within the Tiv Division – to hijack the political structure of the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC), then led by a Tiv Christian, Joseph Tarka (Logams 1993: 644).
In the Plateau area, on the other hand, the politics was more subtle. First of all, from the late 1950s, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto (a Muslim), be- gan a proselytisation drive in the central region. His main aim then was to con- vert the traditional heads, who would subsequently encourage the conversion of their subjects. A particular case in point is made by Joseph Garba, a prominent military officer from Plateau, whose father, a traditional ruler and animist, was caught in a dilemma as to whether or not he should convert to Islam after being entreated to by emissaries of the Sardauna, preceding a visit by the latter to Gar- ba’s domain. Mallam Garba felt he needed his son’s advice, his son being edu- cated and working as a top military officer (Garba 1982: 55-58).
From elder statesmen to local politicians, and from radical Christian clerics to youth leaders and even academics, there have been calls within the Middle Belt groups to fight these attempts at internal colonialism; and even though the area has been highly heterogeneous, their largely Christian identity has been a source of homogeneity.
In Plateau State most especially, the attempt at deconstructing Islam and its politics, and the problem of ethnic and religious conflict in the state, have be- come arduous. To make matters worse, the rhetoric and incursions of Boko Ha- ram in recent times have only further bolted the hinges in the doors of Christian historical memory of a large concerted Islamic agenda. Since 2011, the perspec- tive has been that the Muslim North in Nigeria has been uncomfortable with the politics of Plateau State. It is a fact that apart from Benue and Plateau states in the political northern Nigeria arena, in every other state either both the governor and his deputy are Muslim, or, in most cases, there is a compromise of one or the other being shared between Christians and Muslims (Imo 2001: 109). The case of Plateau is even more complicated by the sequence of changes in political dimen- sions and determinations. In earlier work (Mang 2012) I tried to highlight these dynamics in relation to changes in geopolitical space in Plateau State. Between 1967 and 1994, Plateau State was broken down into smaller states, and in all cas- es, most especially in the latter two, ethnic and religious instrumentations laced the geopolitics of the state, leading to a wave of gerrymandering (Mang 2012: 275-279).
The loudest chord was struck in 2011 in the contentious politics of Plateau State; and since then, the causes and dimensions of the violence have continually
changed, and with them, the rhetoric. By 2008, the diameter of the violent arena had increased from the cities into villages, and also, the frequency of occurrences increased. The rhetoric, which had been political, between the autochthonous ethnic groups – the Afizere, Anaguta and Berom and the Hausa – transited into one of Christians versus Muslims. Allegations on both sides described harrowing experiences of violence and other human rights abuses, dividing Jos and Bukuru, the main metropolitan areas, into pockets of religious identity communities. Fur- thermore, the violence in the villages between the Berom and Fulani was alleged to have escalated owing to the appearance of foreign mercenaries. Events led to the death of serving senator Gyang Dantong and member of the state house of assembly Gyang Fulani after trying to bury the dead from an alleged Fulani inva- sion, which took place on Saturday 7 July 2012 leading to the death of over sixty people. Both men were of Berom extraction and prominent within the Plateau Christian community. This occurrence inflamed passions and further intensified the rhetoric of a grand Muslim design to overwhelm Plateau State as a whole through a concerted ‘terrorist incursion’ (Olagunju 2011; Online Nigeria 2013). With this, and over four incidents of bomb blasts in the state, for which Boko Haram itself claimed responsibility, Christians in Plateau State fed better on the narratives of a concerted Muslim agenda (The Messenger Voice 2012). This and the growing Boko Haram threat encouraged a new wave, in which random vio- lent attacks on any Islamic symbol or persons with such symbols became ac- ceptable within the Christian community. The rationale to deconstruct the reli- gion from its fundamentalism was lost, since as one pastor put it: “You can not distinguish Islam from its politics, so how can you distinguish it from its vio- lence?”3