ABSTRACT
One of the most complex features of the Nigerian nation is its ethnic composition. Like very other African nation Nigeria labour under triple cultural heritage; euro-Christian tradition, arabico-islamic culture and the indigenous Nigeria thought system.
These polarities have each made a contribution to the development of human capital though, the aggressive attitudes of Islam and Christianity in particular has collapsed the capacity of the ethnic nationalities to overcome exclusion and strengthen inclusion. In the north, it is either the Muslims against the Christians, Hausa/Fulani against the Siyawa or the non-state and anti-state contraptions like the Maitatsine religious riots in the 80’s and or Boko Haram disturbances in 2009. In the Middle-Belt, the settler-indigene dichotomy has torn the once peaceful green zone of Nigeria into shreds.
The southeast, the south-south and the southwest are similarly guilty of the same sectarian acrimony and everyone else is fighting everyone else. Given the impact of modernization the growth of the democratic culture, the new range of economic, social and political horizons of Nigerians, the only hope of genuine peace and harmonious inter-group relation lies in the acceptance of some form of accommodation of each other and some compromise that is engendered by a seeking together with responsibility, lucidity and tact.
Our paper focuses on the variegated population of the Middle-Benue valley and argues that, if its citizens should be a United Nation, the different ethnic nationalities should be welded together and made to place loyalty to the nation. We argue on this score that pluralism is a process of integration in which different ethnic group with their geographically conditioned values retain certain autonomy even as they become part of the totality of the Nigerian project. This process of integration becomes more meaningful if and only if it takes cognizance of the religio-cultural milieu of the people. We shall conclude on an existential note, that what the Nigerian social system need is an interactive relationship that enhances the entire human person and the whole society.
INTRODUCTION
If ever there is unarguable legacy bequeathed to the Nigerian nation by its “Leaders”, it is that of distrust, with its population polarized on ethnic and religious divide. Today, the reality is that every other ethnic and or political group in Nigeria, is fighting every other group.
In the Middle Benue valley for instance, the ethnic nationalities have moved in the animal fashion of Ardreys theory of territorial imperative, to defend its title to space and food, prestige and identity. Experts have argued that, unlike the past, present day conflicts results from a well orchestrated structural injustice and the preponderant ignorance of patrimonial and prebendal exercise of state power. Such, it has been argued accounts for the many flash points in the region; in Taraba state where the Tiv-Jukun, the Jukun-Kuteb, the Jukun-Hausa, the Jukun-Fulani, Jukun-Mumuye and the Mumuye-Fulani are fighting each other.
In Plateau state, we have the Hausa against the Ankwai, Hausa/Fulani against Taroh and the Hausa against the Birom, while in Nasarawa state we have Alago against the Tiv, the Fulani against the Alago among others. This paper focuses on the variegated population of the Middle Benue valley and argues that the Plural character of the region with its attendant culture of distrust and conflicts could be welded together and made to co-exist for sustainable development through dialogue.
The paper argues on this score that pluralism is a process of integration in which different ethnic groups with their geographically conditioned values retain certain autonomy even as they become part of the totality of the development agenda of Middle Benue valley region.
THE TIV STORY
The Myths, The Realities Land, traditional rulership, Political authority and differences and fears of domination and marginalization serve as architectonics of communal conflicts in the Middle Belt region. It is argued here that, such factors are fanned more by the neo-culture of hatred and rage.
Both the Jukun in Taraba State, and the Alago and Kamberi in Nasarawa state join issues against the Tiv using the settler theory. The Jukun who developed this theory and sold it to other groups it claimed, as members of the old Kwararafa kingdom are wont to argue further they own the land in Taraba (Wukari to be particular), gave portions of the lands to desperate Tiv immigrant farmers when they first arrived “as settlers”. Thus, any claim to indigeneship and hence ownership of land is said to be expansionist attitude. A second perspective borders on traditional rulership and political authority.
The argued position of the Jukun of Taraba state for instance is that, limitation should be placed on what the “true” born will act, out from what a “slave” will act out in the achievement of the vision of the State. “The Jukun” says Best et al (1999:87), “viewed with suspicion the ambitious orientation of the Tiv expressed by their desire to lead Wukari politically on the one hand (by daring to be interested in the chairmanship of the Local Government Council especially) and to get involved in its traditional affairs on the other”.
In what appears to be the direct translation of the biblical phrase of “giving to God what belongs to God and to Caesar what belongs to Caesar”, the Jukun are wont to argue that Taraba state is for Jukun no less than Benue state and Nasarawa is for the Tiv and Alago/Kamberi respectively. Politically and Spiritually, the Jukun claim that “Wakaris the headquarters of the Jukun, and the land therein belongs to them and they will fight with the last ounce of their blood to protect. Perhaps, the most potent cause of conflict in this region is fear of domination and marginalization.
The intimidating numerical superiority of the Tiv, added up to their industry of the use of land, and intellectual and professional ability stand tall above their neighbour. Hassan (1979), Avav and Myegba (1992) all agree that by 1820, the Tiv in the present Wukari were a major linguistic group in the Muri Emirate. The 1926, 1946 and 1952 census of the Middle Belt attest to this fact, with the Tiv making 100% of the Tiv Division, 49. 2% of Lafia Division (present day Nasarawa) and 38. 8% of Wukari Division (present day Taraba state).
The intimidating credentials of the Tiv rather than be converted for the advancement of the cause of human capita, has become a resented characteristic in the manner of a proverbial leper who must be avoided. Thus argued, fear of political domination by the Tiv, according to the Jukun manifested in 1958 when Hon. Charles Tangue Gaza, a Tiv, defeated Usman Sangari, the Jukun candidate to represent Wukari Federation in the Federal House of Representatives. Suspicion and hatred, and the fears of the Jukun of political domination by the Tiv came to a deadening height with the appointment of Hon.
Simon Iortyer Musa (a Tiv) as Council chairman of Wukari Local Government Council by the Barde administration in 1982. Again in 1987, Jukun fears of political domination were formed when the Tiv allied with the Hausa to defeat the Jukun at the Local Government Council election. It became clear to the Jukun that under a democratic set-up, elections in Wukari was a non-win-game for them without the tacit support of the Tiv. As Ter-Rumun Avav avers, “In order to avert this political predicament, the Jukun initiated moves to destabilize the Tiv population in the area.
The Tiv were attacked by the Jukun prior to all subsequent elections. In 1990, they were attacked and they fled and so could not participate in the LGA elections. Again in 1991, a more vicious attack was launched against the Tiv in all part of Wukari LGA to pave way for Jukun victory at the polls” (1993:38). Thus, the Tiv neighbours in Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba have continually short-changed them, whether it is farm lands, location and or equipment of schools and other social amenities, traditional rulership, political participation or employment etc, the Tiv were discriminated against.
The Tiv perspective of the conflict in the Middle Belt differs measurably. They debunk the settler theory as blackmail, a distortion and an attempt to rewrite history in the age of enlightenment. They lavish demographic records to support their claim to indigeneship in the areas in crisis. Wukari, they say, was a corrupted form of a Tiv word called waka, the name of the first Tiv man who founded settlement. It soon became for the Tiv a centre of ritual and traditional religious practice called Aseta.
Then, the Jukun were still at a location of the ancient Kwararafa kingdom, some eighty-three kolemetres north of waka present day Wukari. This suggestion further posits that both the white man and the Jukun met the Tiv at wukar on the invitation of the Tiv. It was share colonial hatred for the Tiv, and their inability to associate themselves with the Tiv traditional religious practice of Aseta that instigated the change of the name waka to wukari.
The Tiv position is that, the Jukun are ingrates who ave turned the hospitality and accommodating posture of the Tiv to a wholesome claim of Wukari to the exclusion of the Tiv. Similarly, historical records in Nasarawa state place the Tiv in the area as one of the early arrivals. Ter-Rumun Avav (ibid, 36), chronicles this fact thus, “As early as C 1760-1787, the Tiv were fighting for Azegya Adi, King of Alago Kingdom in Keana. From then onwards, the Tiv became a significant factor in Keana’s politics of survival… The Ihyarev (of Tiv clan) allied with the Alago to defeat the Hausa who fled Tungun kasa to Audu, Kanje and Baure”.
The Tiv then, it is lunatic for anyone or group to claim indigeneship of these areas to the exclusion of the Tiv. It thus follow that, denial of political authority and participation, appointment and recognition of traditional rulership, and equitable distribution of social amenities is a deliberate act intended to provoke the Tiv. The absence or inadequacy of social amenities according to the Tiv is responsible for fanning the embers of disunity and conflict between them and their neighbours who as it were are accused of discrimination and, or marginalization.
The facts on ground are that the Tiv in Nasarawa are constantly subjected to all sorts of deliberate discriminations and deprivations in the areas of land use, education, political representation and employment in public service of the state and at local government levels. This is aside from the fact that they have had their traditional institutions, which flourished until the 1970s phased out. Today none of the Tiv traditional institutions which were previously recognized by the Lafia Native Authority are in existence, not withstanding their numerical strength in the state.
Similarly, Tiv are disenfranchised through the process of registration of voters and the Tiv language which is widely spoken in the state has no pride of place in the state radio station programmes. It must be noted here that the theories paraded are half truths informed on ignorance of historical facts and or deliberate attempt to rewrite history and so engineer violence. The Nobel Address of Alexander Solzhenitsyn speaks in this line thus: let us not forget that violence does not exist by itself and cannot do so, it is necessarily interwoven with lies. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its own support in violence.
Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle. The assault on the Tiv and other ethnic minorities in Nasarawa and Taraba by the Alago/Kamberi and Jukun respectively is supported by falsehood and the erroneous argument that the Tiv in these states are settlers. Buried in this falsehood and error is evidence of active Tiv presence in these state indicating settlement going back to centuries. Historical records have it for example that modern Wukari, the Jukun headquarter was founded in the 1840s long after the Tiv had settled in the area as a major ethnic nationality.
The Jukun have a long history of conquest and are said to have formed the Kwararafa Empire of old fame though, its active presence in the Middle Belt is non-existence. It makes more meaning to posit that the small Jukun population in the Middle Belt was no more than a pretentious band of fishermen who must have migrated to their present position in Wukari in present day Taraba state after the fall of the Kwararafa Empire. This proposition, according to Myegba (2000:5), is grounded on the premise that there is nothing in Wukari that bears resemblance to that empire.
Such is why some parts of the Tiv speaking districts of Gaambe-Tiev, Gambe-Ya, Turan, Ucha, Mbaterem, Toruv and Ugondo were bought under the control of Wukari Division and organized along the lines of Jukun “laws and custom”. Studies have since shown that, this myth is a distortion of African history and those who subscribe to it were not only fraudulent, but mischief-makers whose sole interest was to divide and rule in the service of the colonial racist enterprise.
As Dr. Zacharys Anger Gundu (2001:8) was to comment much later. “If Palmer were a more open minded and responsible person, he would have discovered that his ‘noble civilizing caste’ were no more than a pretentious band of fishermen who had little or no capacity in discharging the role he had so mischievously programmed for them”. This explains why the Tiv who knew the Jukun as such, resisted their neglect and forceful conscription into the Jukun sphere of influence to date.
To argue as the Jukun always does, that “they settled in Wukari since the 13th century, four centuries before the Tiv came in search of rich farm lands” is to falsify history, to rewrite “history according to Jukun”. History books have it that by the time the imperialist voyages came to the lower Middle Belt, the Jukun had settled in the Northern Bank of the Benue River. Avav and Myegba (1992:3) recall that: Ziken Angyu Tsokwa who became king in 1820 at Use was the last king to rule on the northern bank of the Benue River during the rule of Yakubu Bauchi (1805-43).
He (Ziken Angyu Tsokwa) crossed the Benue at Chinkai to Akwana. The Jukun were believed to cross the Benue at two places: in the upper and lower Benue regions. Historical facts indicate that the Jukun group that crossed at Chinkai later moved to found modern Wukari in the 1840s long after the Tiv had settled in the area. When therefore the Jukun seek strenuously to convince anyone who cares to listen that they pre-existed the Tiv in the Wukari region having settled in the area since the 13th century, one begins to suspect their intention.
Historical records have it that the Jukun attacked Kano in 1600 and 1671. Were they attacking Kano from Wukari which was founded in 1840 by the Abakwariga? Or was the Kano attack carried out by a splinter group of the Kwararafa family? If the first answer suffices, then one wonders why the long history of the Jukun in the area still put them at both political and numerical disadvantage, and who since then had to wait for the colonial racists to impose them on the dominant group in the area.
If on the other hand, the second suggestion holds sway, it diminishes the Jukun claim and pride in war sophistry. In any case both cannot be true, and indeed, none is true. Certainly, the Jukun were not in the Middle Belt by the 13th century, and no group was. A reservoir of historical records abound to show when and how the Tiv and their neighbours, including the Jukun settled in their present locations. Avav and Myegba (1992:3) chronicles some authoritative sources in this regard thus: The Tiv were already settled on the southern bank of the Benue river.
By 1920 the Tiv in Wukari were a major linguistic group in the Muri Emirate. This explains why in 1901 the Tiv in Wukari and Katsina-Ala Districts, along with the Jukun and other linguistic groups, were transferred from the lower Benue Province to the newly created Muri Province with headquarters at Muri… Meek (1931) in his book A Sudanese Kingdom, established the fact that modern Wukari was founded in 1840s long after Tiv had settled in the area. The list of Jukun kings who ruled from Wukari that the reign of the Aku Ukas started in 1855 with Ziken Angyu Tsokwa (1855-1961).
The present king Kuvyo Shekarau Angyu Massaibi II who was enthroned in 1976 is the 13th Aku to rule at Wukari. Thus the theory which seeks to sustain the thesis that the Jukun settlement in the lower Middle Belt predates the Tiv is fundamentally fallacious if not mischievous. Richmund Palmer’s Jukun variant of the Hamatic myth which portray the tiv in the eye of the world as standing stripped of any intellectual or artistic ability, and of any ability at all which would allow them, now, or in the future to be maters of their lives and community is today proved to be racist in conception and practice.
It may be understood at best as founded on the theories of de Gobineau, and adaptations of the Darwinian revolution which were echoed in all western nations, culminating finally in the ideology of Nazi Germany. Even though originators of this dubious thesis have since abandoned it, it has stubbornly refused to give way in the mindset of the Jukun, it was, and still is, and would b well-nigh impossible to point to an individual and recognize in him a Hamite according to racial linguistic and cultural characteristics to fit the image that has been presented to us for so long.
Such an individual does not exist, and even if he does, the Jukun do not fit the description. For how can we reconcile their Hamatic duty of the ‘higher’ races consigned to them to civilize the ‘lower’ ones but who have suddenly lost the leadership of these ‘lower’ ethnic groups including those (Tiv) that were forcefully placed under them by the British colonial racists. The Jukun (may have been) great warriors though, they were and still are bad administrators. In the words of Myegba (2000:7) “they ran a vary tight and close traditional administration that excludes any other tradition.
They want to assimilate without getting the people involved, preferring to rule perpetually. As a western author once put it, the Jukun are “a handful of people, all that is left of a mighty race originating in Arabia which settled in the Lake Chad district and overran almost the entire northern territory, including Zaria and Kano in their days” (in the C 1600) have since remained degenerate HH and a spent force in 1700 (Ibid). In Nasarawa too, evidence abound in colonial demographic records indicative of the fact that the Tiv were over 50% of what was then known as Lafia Division.
In 1902, when Lord Lugard occupied Lafia, he had sufficient tact to involve the Tiv in the administration of the Division. Ature Gbaji was appointed as Chief over Audu, Agon Gbev over Agwatashi, Ugber Igbul over Assaikyo and Mon Begha over Obi. Denied adequate representation on account of their scattered pattern of settlement and absence of a centralized system of governance, the Tiv have continued to be active in the politics of the Lafia Native Authorities in the general areas as allowed by the limits imposed on them.
By 1978, the Tiv who had fought hard to earn their political asset got 15 Tiv people as elected councilors in the councils of Lafia, Awe and Shendam. In the second republic, one Athanasius Ityo, a Tiv, was elected to represent Awe Federal Constituency on the platform of the NPP. Another Tiv man Hon. Orshiqusa was returned under NPN in 1983 to represent the same Federal constituency. Present day resurgence of hatred is at best a recoil to the evil days of colonial misadventure in the lower Middle Belt.
It smacks the resurgimentation of the moribund empire and feudal structure, reminiscent of a society in which rationality and humanity has been taken over by inhumanity and irrationality. On arrival in the Middle Belt in 1854, W. B. Bakie was to be told by the Alago, Jukun Igbira and Idoma, that the Tiv are “fierce, warlike and aggressive people”, all in an effort to maintain their middleman monopoly. As it were, Bakie soon discovered that the prejudices against the Tiv by this group were borne out of greed, jealousy land inferiority complex.
As Ter-Rumun Avav (1993:35) reports “when Bakie and his team traded directly with the Tiv, they discovered that the peopled (Tiv) were suspicious of strangers, not because they hated them, but because the Fulani continued to raid them for slaves and therefore they became very cautious about receiving strangers. Their direct dealings with the Tiv made them to describe the Tiv as a very intelligent, frank, friendly and hospitable people. The point to be made here is that, all Tiv neighbours share one quality that is pathology of hatred borne out of fear of domination, greed and jealousy.
Whether it is the Alago or Kamberi of Nasarawa, the Angas or Kwalla of Plateau, the Jukun or Fulani of Taraba, or the Idoma or Etulo (utur) in Benue State, they are either afraid or jealous of the independence and dynamism of the Tiv, which qualities of magnanimity and good neighbourliness they immensely benefited. It must be made clear that the present pathology of hatred designed by the Jukun and sold to the Kwararafa lineage is architectonic to the present day organized mass armed attack on the Tiv nation.
The structures of thought upon which this project is constructed and sold are not only a distortion of reality, but a dubious attempt to subvert the foundations of the Nigerian nation. The 1999 Nigerian Constitution provides generously for the protection of all citizens including their right to settle and pursue legitimate living in any part of the country though, citizens are daily haunted and maimed in some parts of the country on account of the fallacy of not being indigenous to some states of the federation must be rejected.
To the extent that no group in either Nasarawa, Plateau or Taraba was “created” and “planted” where they are today, there is a limit to which one can claim a patch of land in these states at the exclusion of the Tiv in the name of history. Every single group in these areas ‘came’ from somewhere, and historical record favour the Tiv as the earliest arrivals in these areas.
Former Deputy Senate President, 1999-2003, Senator Haruna Abubakar of Lafia South Senatorial District, a strong supporter of the settler theory against the Tiv is not only a great beneficiary of the abundant natural resource in Tiv land, he cannot trace his roots in the District beyond 1945. the former Deputy Governor of Taraba State (1999-2003) Alhaji Saleh Usman Danboyi, wo hails from Ibi, is not only schooled in politics by the Tiv, he was moulded by the Tiv-Hausa political alliance in the area.
This is aside from the fact that he is an indigene of Kano whose sojourn in Taraba is little less than 40 years. The Governor of Plateau state Chief Joshua Dariye did not only school in the Tiv city of Makurdi, he also made his management career at Benue Cement Company Plc. Gboko. If these states can concede these positions to them without minding their roots, it speaks volumes of the Tiv travails here when there is evidence of their settlement in these states going back to centuries.
KWARARAFACISM, OBASANJO AND THE TIV MASSACRE
Like the British colonial lords, President Olusegun Obasanjo by the above quip has acted a script long instigated in 1918 by J. M. Fremantle whose policy of non-interference in the Jukun sphere sought a rebirth of the Kwararafa Empire. It is no wonder then that when in the wake of the mass attack and killings of the Tiv stock everywhere and in every town and village in Nigeria, the entire security outfit and network in Nigeria watched helplessly as the hapless Tiv women and children, husbands and father were killed and harassed, and dispossessed out of the “Jukun sphere”.
It was a celebration of Jukun victory, a resurgence of the Kwararafa Empire, supervised by the Nigerian security agents, even as the 1999 constitution grants every citizen the rights to settle and pursue legitimate business in any part of Nigeria. But this ‘great’ empire, history books tell us, fell apart, and great was its fall, that no engineer of political and social hatred can weave its broken parts together. As Professor Iorwuese Hagher put it, “the present attempts at resuscitation are merely a kawararafascian that shall die and leave a record of unsurpassed odium in modern society”.
The act of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” in the manner of President Obasanjo’s demonic agenda, supported by the Jukun irredentists and the Kwararafa lineage in Nasarawa State has inflicted greater horrors against the Tiv all over Nigeria. This, as it were was meant to water the killing fields of Nasarawa Taraba and Benue with more gallons of blood so as to spiritually energize the dead Kwararafa Empire, to rise and engage in further conquest! Although once powerful, the Kwararafa empire submitted to the more superior power of the Fulani onslaught.
By the 19th century which period the defeated and deflected Jukun found their way to the Middle Belt to meet the Tiv who had long settled in the area, they were forced by a situation of circumstance to learn the art of fishing to survive the bitter lessons of unlimited ambition. However, the advent of the British imperialist administration introduced a policy of divide and rule, and anti-Tiv policy through the obdurate Lord Lugard, and carved out the Tiv and shared them out to be ruled by the Wukari, Ogoja and Lafia chiefdoms.
Such show of arrogance and ignorance was intended to subject the Tiv in Wukari and Lafia chiefdoms under the Jukun feudal structure and to resuscitate the dead Kwararafa Empire. In practice however the attempts by the British to resuscitate the dead Kwararafa Empire died with its initiators, and in a disappointing tune, one of the protegee Captain Gordon says, “there is little chance of the Jukun kingdom being a much use in the administration of the Tiv… it might be possible if the ‘Sarkin Wukari’ were supported by force to persuade the Tiv to obey him, but it could be a long work and would have many setbacks” (Makar, 1990:4).
Indeed attempts to subject the Tiv under Jukun control suffered a catastrophic setback, and it became clear that the Jukun cannot be groomed to assume the sole of ruling over a more dynamic and progressive group like the Tiv. Having lost hope in the theory of The Dream to Conquer other tribes for the Jukun, the British agents submitted through Freemantle and Col. Foulkes that the Jukun were “a degenerate, decadent and dying race” through which effort at the revival of the dead Kwararafa kingdom amounts to pumping a punctured tyre.
It must be restated that the arrival of the British in the Middle Belt messed up the symbiotic relationship in the area, pitching the Jukun Minority against the more dynamic and progressive Tive, Kuteb and Chamba majority groups. The resultant effect being that, there has gradually developed an Kwararafascism, accompanying with it the fury of hate and rage which culminated in the 2001 government sponsored Operation Thunder, a planned and executed act of war against the innocent armless civilians that elected it to power, so as to resurrect the dead Kwararafa Empire.
This pathology of hatred with a designer’s accuracy is what has come down as state terrorism, organized massacre of the Tiv ethnic nationality in Nasarawa and Taraba states. Most significantly, this stage of war and state violence against the Tiv people is the stage in Nigeria, when rationality and humanity is taken over by inhumanity and irrationality. Professor Hagher (p. 10) recall the words of Vaclav Havel, the President of Czech Republic in the most descriptive manner of the situation:
I have noticed that all haters accuse their neighbours, and through them the whole world of being evil. The motive force behind the wrath is the feeling that these evil people and the evil world are denying them what is naturally theirs… haters project their own anger onto others here too, they are like spoiled children. They don’t see that they must sometimes show themselves worthy of something and that if they don’t automatically have everything they think they should this is not because somebody is being nasty to them.
It is this error of judgement that one can situate the conflicts in the Middle Belt region. When therefore the Obasanjo-Atiku ticket was confirmed on the Nigerian society as the touch bearers of democracy, a plan was perfected to put to practice Freemantle’s theory of The Dream to Conquer. Rather than tell the truth and administer justice, these apostle of Kwararafa resurgemento found refuge in likes and became abusive and violent. In Tiv, and with the Tiv, “it requires greater courage to negotiate with them (Tiv) than to open fire on him” (Ikime, 1977:177).
But this is not to be for the Jukun in Taraba state, and the Alago and Kamberi in Nasarawa state, for whom, ies and violence are nourished by hate and arrogance which are in great supply. These groups alongside Idoma, Geoemai, Igala and Igbira are all deceived into believing that they are Jukun, who must fight to reawaken their Kwararafa empire. Jibrin Amfani et al (Vanguard 20. 10. 2005) acknowledges this fact thus, “it was for the reasons of the Tiv expansionist policy, which threatened the Jukuns that Jukun supporters consisting of Col.
Foulkes and Boyd led by J. M. Freemantle, decided to adopt a policy that would preserve Jukun. They therefore initiated the resuscitation of the Jukun Empire in which it was possible for the whole of Jukun speaking areas and the other ethnic groups to be included”. Mr. W. P Hewby, the C. M. G. Resident of Borno Province reports this customary character of the colonialists in express details how the indigenous peoples of the Middle Belt were forcefully displaced to make way for Jukun occupation.
In his Notes on the Tiv Tribe, Hewby reports that, in 1895 and 1896, the Royal Nigeria Company forces attacked Kachella of the family of Takun chiefs who established himself in the Tiv Bush west of Takun at the present site of Kashimbilla. He was killed and the settlement destroyed. On this site has emerged Kashimbilla, a Jukun settlement in Tiv Country. Similarly, the Royal Niger Company forces attacked the Chamba of Jibu in 1885, 1888 and 1891.
They burnt the settlement to ashes which was later inhabited by the Jukun. Jibu was founded in 1840 by the Chamba. Wuro in Gassol District of Bali L. G. A. which was under the Fulani hegemony was similarly destroyed by the Royal Niger Company in 1899 for occupation by groups with affinity to the Jukun (Myegba, 2000). The Method of achieving this dream in the 21st century remains the same the use of state power and governmental structures. In both Nassarawa and Taraba, the Tiv were killed and maimed, women and children.
Like the massacre in May of 1999, of several villagers Odi community in Bayelsa state, the same administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in the year 2001, without lawful authority ordered the deployment of military troops to Tiv towns and villages in Nasarawa, Benue and Taraba states to kill and destroy lives and properties. This act runs contrary to section 217(2)(c) of the 1999 constitution which requires firstly for some conditions to be prescribed by an act of the National Assembly for the use of the military in that regard.
It is clear from the president utterances and action or inaction that he intended to preserve the “governing Jukun caste” in resuscitation of the Kwararafa empire. To Dan Anacha, a Tiv settlement and the biggest Yam market in Taraba state, the Tiv escaping from burnt houses were hunted and killed by the Jukun militia while the government security agents in the area watched and laughed. The town itself has been renamed Kwararafa, confirming the spirit behind the ethnic war: the resuscitation of Kwararafa Empire.
Similar armed raids were carried out in other Tiv towns like Ibi, Dooshima, Tornenger, Yamini, Gazor, Gissiri, Tevga and Ikyegh among other with little or no government intervention. In Nassarawa state, similar unwholesome killings were carried out in Assaikyo, Lafia, Awe, Agwatashi, Doma and many other towns where innocent Tiv civilians were killed. This situation instigated killings and large scale destruction of property with the resultant problem of refugees which had numbered well over 1,000,000 in well over 10 camps in Benue State.
In Benue state itself, the Nigerian Army in a reprisal attack invaded the Benue towns of Gbeji Chembe, Ifer, Jootar, Vaase, Zaki-Biam, Kyado, Tse-Adoo, Anyim etc where unbelievable destructions and havoc was recorded. Had the international media not brought the holocaust to world attention, the Federal Government would have cleverly covered this lup with denials, deliberate lies, misinformation and stereotyping of Tiv as “soldier killers” trying to wage war against the nation and therefore deserving no pity and attention. Even then, the President and the Chief of Army Staff issued frantic blanket denials of responsibility.
President Olusegun Obasanjo justified this pogrom thus, “I approved of the action of the army to douse tension in the barracks”. He added sarcastically though that “it serves them (Tiv) right, you cannot kill soldiers and go scout free, the Tiv massacre should serve as a lesson to anybody or community contemplating similar actions against government officials”. But the same leadership stood idly, watching helplessly, how hapless, armless and innocent civilians were hunted, killed and or dispossessed of their belongings in these same government security officials.
Government inaction in responding positively in the protection of the fundamental rights of Tiv on the one hand, and its swift reaction in “punishing” the Tiv for daring to challenge the agents of Kwararafascism on the other hand is understandably in the spirit of the resuscitation of Kwararafa empire which the leadership of the present administration harbours as it cherished agenda. In Taraba state, were similarly/annihilate by the army-backed Jukun militia since 1990 to date code named operation Parswen (claim back your land), all in the spirit of the Kwararafa risorgimento. The Kuteb case was before the Oputa Panel recently.
Perhaps the advice of Confucius to men of letters and opinion moulders in his days may serve some useful purpose for today’s Nigerian leaders. Says he: “Be reasonably conscious of your utterances and behaviour as society looks up to you for guidance and direction, lest, society follow your footstep and accept abnormality for normalcy, because society believe you can’t be wrong in your ways”. It may serve a useful purpose to remind society’s representatives and people who command the respect of others to play it safe. Most, if not all the problems we have on our hands are traceable to irresponsible utterances of some of our leaders.
The elites and opinion moulders in this region are most guilty of this diseased condition of the mind. The unguarded comments of Chief D. D. Dodo, a former member of the National Constituent and Secretary of defunct Kwararafa state movement that the Tiv and the Jukun will fight even in heaven least indicate a culture of peaceful coexistence. A Catholic Knight and apologist of the church though, Chief D. D. Dodo jettisoned all indices of catholic religious faith and practice to advance narrow tribal chores to the utter contradiction of Christian moral teachings.
Rage, hatred and tribalism, are for him business as usual in heaven. General T. Y. Danjuma’s comments are no less embarrassing as they are instigating, asked to account for his role in the unending crisis in the Middle Belt, he regurgitated the prejudices of his kinsmen (the Jukun) thus: “You probably know that my own mother was married to a Tiv man… the root cause of the problem is land. The Tiv people used to be migrating farmers. When I was a child, Tiv people would come and set up their farms in Jukun land … after two or three years when the land become less arable, the Tiv would move to the next site.
But over the recent years with the advent of fertilizers, the Tiv became permanent settlers and the result of this is that the Jukun discovered that they are becoming a minority in their own land. The other problem is that wherever a Tiv man settles, that settlement becomes a Tivland … we have cases of Tiv settlers refusing to pay tax to the local authority and they would prefer to pay tax to where they came from – Benue State … just when people are about to harvest their yams and guinea corn and beans then the fighting will start.
People are driven away by armed robbers really masquerading as inter-tribal fighters. These have been confirmed by the Police of the Tiv people masquerading as Jukun people attacking people and stealing or attacking farms or market, scattering everybody in order to steal lorry loads of yams …” (The News,2001:56) Needless to say that the army General is an untutored ignoramus in the history of his own very people.
It is however curious to understand that even in the area of security and peace studies which the General would have displayed excellent intelligence, he is still roundly, lacking in every material detail; for how can one explain the open show of hatred to a tribe wherein the General’s mother was first and foremost initiated in every function of motherland which qualities the retired General benefited while growing up, and is still benefiting as the current chancellor of the Benue State University, which University the General was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate degree of law.
But more embarrassing is the public display of lies and untruth for sale in an attempt to rewrite confirmed historical records, which records were chronicled by apologists of Kwararafa empire. Unknown to General T. Y. Danjuma, the so called Jukun land was founded in the 1840 long after the Tiv had settled in the Wukari area, then known to them as WAKA. The Ugondo Udema, a Tiv Stock in Donga Local government area in Taraba State was the first settled humans in the area. The Chamba who cohabit with the Tiv in this area do not contest this historical fact.
Intelligence report by Mr. K. Dewar, 1935-37 p. 53 in par read “… the Tiv arrived at about the same time as the Chamba in the Donga region; and that the Ugondo were actually the first to take possession of the territory which part of their descendants now occupy in Donga District” (SNP/17/5/244781). To argue as the General does, that the Tiv are migrating farmers who have not only suddenly become permanent settlers in “Jukun land”, but have degenerated to common criminals masquerading as Jukun people attacking and stealing for survival, is Schizophrenic to say the least.
It speaks volumes of such a person, before and now. When those who know choose not to say of what is as it is, and of what is not, as it is not, but rather say of what is, as it is not and of what is not, as is, then those with answers decline to offer them. When the high and the low ride in the same caravan of deceit, then the ordinary masses become confused and the stage is set for crisis. For T. Y.
Danjuma, the Tiv-Jukun conflict is anchored on indigeneship and ownership of land. But this again opens up the General’s poverty of intellect. Rightly understood, the General and his Jukun kinsmen are suffering from a complex of poor collective imaging in want of a greater Kwararafa risorgimento. Such is perhaps which spirit that drives the General’s fury of hate and rage, to instigate the government against its citizens via the misuse of his office.
The duo of Olusegun Obasanjo and Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma who in 1976 engineered the Tiv-Jukun culture of rage and hatred through irregular halkanisation of Tivland in the name of state creation are today at the helm of the criminal structure in Nigeria, and are still convinced and determined as ever, to bring to practical reality Freemantle’s Dream to Conquer the Tiv and other ethnic groups in the Middle Belt, to subject them to the judgment of the Jukun “governing caste” through the use of the Nigerian Army.
It thus appears though that the Nigerian leadership under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and its security agents are most uncharitable to ordinary citizens. Their arrogant posture on matters of national security, and their ignorance on commonsensical but important issues of national unity is most criminal to say the least. It is perhaps most reasonable to conclude as most nationalists have done, that our “leaders” have learnt nothing, and forgotten everything.
Perhaps too, one finds every reason to believe that he utterances of our leaders day by day, action by action prove that, not only are they criminal ignoramuses, they should honourably relieve common criminals and take their rightful spaces at Kirikiri, Bama and Makurdi prisons, Leader of Alliance For Democracy (AD) in the Federal House of Representative, Hon Oladapo Olaitan confirmed this reasonable conclusion when he says President Olusegun Obasanjo “should return to prison where he rightly belongs” (The Comet 30. 08. 2002:3) Hon. Olaitan then, was contributing on the floor of the house when the impeachment motion was being debated.
The motion in question was carried by the majority in what came to be referred to as the seventeen sins of President Olusegun Obasanjo, Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) most ably and authoritatively asserts the presidents adulate ignorance and arrogance that, “he is insensitive to people’s complaints, arrogant and he wears a disposition of know all and he knows nothing. When you take Obasanjo’s regime in every respect, one, by one, there is nowhere he has scored above 20 percent. Nowhere”. (The Comet 30. 08. 2002:1).
It should be noted that, the Jukun like the Tiv, Kuteb, Chamba, and Alago, Kamberi in Taraba and Nasarawa states respectively have a land they can variously claim as indigenous to them all. It is however fallacious to proceed therefrom to conclude that spheres in the Middle Belt were created based on ethnic boundaries.
The idea of a tribe as an isolated and closed group is certainly a myth in this region where in there is interlocking and overlapping of diverse ethnic groups which roll over others like the waves f a sea. Any attempt, now or in the future to carve out spheres of authority or domination for the Jukun or any other ethnic group over and above the other ethnic communities in the Middle Belt region will rather lead to further spilling of blood. For those who still have faith in the resurrection of the dead Kwararafa empire, the wise submission of Col, Foulkes, one of the grandfathers of Kwararafacism will suffice, that there is no use making any further attempt to bolster the Jukun up or keep the Dream to Conquer alive with artificial respiration, the Kwararafa empire is dead, buried and cannot be resurrected.
A CIVILIZATION OF PEACE AND TOLERANCE
Our informed history teaches society that “man abandoned to himself cannot truly be man”. This in itself approximates the conclusion that, nothing can be better for anyone of us individually, unless it is better for us all together. Denial of the right of indigeneship and ownership and use of land, and traditional rulership and policies authority of the Tiv majority in either Nasarawa or Taraba is not, and cannot achieve peace for either the Alago and Kamberi in Nasarawa state or the Jukun minority in Taraba.
That which is dear to us all can only be protected if there is full respect and recognition of human dignity and basic rights of all the ethnic nationalities in the Middle Belt. Our responsibility for others is the measure of our humanity. We are thus enjoined to judge our own well being by the needs of others, by uniting ourselves with them to a higher truth. The apostles of Kwararafa risorgimento may be playing out the script of some agent provocateur, or they may be truly acting out their nature.
Whichever way their direction may be the are unfortunately undoing the Nigerian system, and when the entire system is undone, they, like their assumed enemies will be losers. As it is, they are travelling on a rather dangerous road from which they need to be rescued from themselves and the nation. The choice words of F. W. Deklerk, South African Transitional President are here informing: You cannot ensure a safe and secure future by a denial of the right of a permanent and irremovable majority of the population. Then which is dear to you can only be protected if there is a full recognition of human dignity and basic rights of all
The Tiv, the Jukun, and the Alago/Kamberi are essential to each other and need not be divisive. They need to cultivate a spirit of tolerance, a philosophy of compromise which need neither relinquish principles not suffocate initiative. They need not be either opportunistic or irresponsible. They need neither force, confrontation nor divisiveness. Force, confrontation and divisiveness will play less a role provided a sufficiently large number of people at appropriate levels are prepared to resolve divisive issues while giving them the roots of their unity.
Refusal to subject differences to reasoned debates and possible amicable resolution smacks of barbarism, which work is to undermine rational standards of judgment, to corrupt the inherited intuitive wisdom by which the people have always and bewilderment in which clarity about the larger aims of life is denied and the self-confidence of the people destroyed. The culture of rage and hatred, killings and mass destruction of properties via the use of state power as it were against the Tiv and Kuteb by the army backed Jukun militia promotes nobody any good except the irrational and inhuman mindset of the perpetrators and their sponsors.
In the long run however, it destroys that which is dear to us all, i. e. a civilization of peace and self-development. Thus argued, since the battles of the barracks are ultimately routed in the conflicts of Minds, let us be ever prepared, while an issue remain unresolved, even after we have exhausted our last argument, to begin again if necessary, informed, frank and civilized discussion, and eschew the dialogue of the deaf. The implied suggestion here is that effective communication and an open meaningful relationship are governed by the art of listening to others and sharing the richness of the other’s tradition.
Human nature as it were is essentially not in isolation, we can never encounter only ourselves in the world, and any conception of our own environment that perceives only ourselves and our disposition is necessarily flawed from the point of view of essential human nature. The need of the moment is a civilization of peace and tolerance, a unity of the global commons. Tiv, Jukun, Alago, Idoma, Igbira, Kamberi/Kuteb, Kwalia, Chamba, Hausa and Fulani among other ethnic nationalities in the Middle Belt.
Perhaps the crusade for peace and peaceful co-existence, and inter-ethnic accommodation mounted by Governor Abdulahi Adamu of Nasarawa state is the gateway to our envisioned civilization of peace and tolerance. “We all need each other”, he sys, “and we must accommodate one another to be able to maintain the needed peace and solidarity without which it is impossible to achieve development and progress in a multi-ethnic state like ours. Hatred of neighbour will be the beginning of our downfall as a state … there is no viable alternative in tolerance and good neighbourliness.
We must seek to be our neighbours’ keeper. This is a precondition for our progress as a states” (Adamu, 2001:10). This is an invitation to search from within our resources as stakeholders in conflict situations, both from the motive and the principles that would constitute the social foundations of the new society in the making. Such a society presupposes a certain range of understanding and expectation, the necessary intellectual infrastructure so that people of different outlooks may communicate and collaborate in building a society in which the human dimension is protected and enhanced.
This principle resolves controversial issues, unites and harmonies people much more faster and truly than daggers, bombs and bullets. Humanity in acting out its freedom must also acknowledge the accompanying burden of responsibility to others as well. CONCLUSION One reflection on human behaviour in our times in the lower Middle Belt has revealed certain constants of political truths. These truths found expression as endorsed by the global commons in such documents as the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In our nation, the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 replicates the provisions of the African charter on Human and peoples rights which inter alia guarantees individual rights and prohibits discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and linguistic affiliations. While these provisions command obedience by all citizens, ethnic cleavages which as it were should wear the garb of specialty norms and limit its efficacy to those who subscribe to it, are rather made to take precedence over and above universal norms i. e. constitutional provisions.
Such misnormer application of specialty norms as if they were universal norms is architectonic to mass ethnic conflicts in Middle Belt. As argued in its detailed roots, such conflicts are essentially founded on rage and hatred of other ethnic groups, and sustained by lies, arrogance and state power. But as we argued, hatred is a formation of irrationality and inhumanity, which ends result, destroys and annihilates humanity. The ethnic cleansing agenda long initiated by Lugard, which has found perfect implementation by the Obasanjo administration very readily comes in mind as an example.
Our argued conclusion is that, rage, hatred and killings, burning, rape and looting will neither ensure a safe and secure future for our children and future generations, nor will it protect that which is dear to us the living. Neither will the many communal conflicts, in Benue, Nasarawa, Plataeu or Taraba with its attendant loss of lives, destruction of farms and sometimes dislodgement of the indigenous populations, nor the wholesale use of state power will prevent the indigenous population from returning to their proper spheres, perhaps more determined than ever to fight on.
Hence our submission is that it is useless to preserve a governing cast unless it has something to govern. Obviously, peace in the Middle Belt does not depend on intimidation, blackmail and coercive force of state power. The way forward can only be found in a civilization of peace and tolerance, not in a climate of violence and mutual suspicion, and the pursuit of narrow self-interest. We must refuse to sacrifice the culture of peace and unity on the altar of the gods of intolerance and ethnic aggrandizement. More violence will not resolve problems.
It will only lead to a vicious cycle of vengeance and more violence, which end, no one can predict. Community leaders in Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau and Taraba states should assert authoritatively as governor Abdulahi Adamu of Nasarawa State, that, “all the tribes in the state are bound together with the accord of common destiny. No tribe can be uprooted from here. The Kanuris cannot. The Fulanis cannot. The Eggons cannot. And the Tivs cannot. The sooner we all realize this, the better for all of us. We are all indigenes of this state, not settlers” (2001:5).
This open-minded assertion of our diversity although limiting, is not and should not be the boundary line of our aspirations but a launching pad from which the indigenous population in the Middle Belt have access to an expanding and indefinite world of possibilities and varying horizons. Thus argued, a civilization of peace and tolerance in the Middle Belt entails an attitude of acceptance of each of the ethnic nationalities though, rooted in the truth, not as a formula of agreement to be eventually reached, but as a centre of unity that is always accessible but never fully appropriated.
This for us means an active commitment to cooperate for the sake of the truth that extends beyond individual to collective perceptions. Baring the ethnically, politically and religiously diversified character of the Middle Belt, there still exist within and among these plurality of cultures, a relationship and the consequent demand to share a unity as members of the same political community. This is far of unity is neither imposed from outside not dictated from ‘above’, but is sourced from ‘within’.
This suggests a philosophy of human integration, which implies both a genuine self-acceptance and an acceptance of others. What defines people is neither their ethnic grouping nor religious or cultural affiliation, but that, as human beings they are sharers in the human family from which they receive their individuality. The ethnic nationalities in the Middle Belt must be alive to the possibilities of their own being by accepting and integrating their being into the finality that they are as human beings.
This is the only gateway to the humanity of others and a truly human existence. Rage, hatred and killing of Tiv, Jukun, Alago, Kamberi, Kuteb, and Chamba inter se, and the lack of respect for life is inauthentic human existence that leads humanity to total destruction. Overzealous ambition, lust for power, selfishness, voluptuousness, pride, anger and revenge are passions that should not instigate the agenda of any leadership and any people for that matter. Dialogue, it must be said, should be allowed to prevail over and above the language of arms.
