The explosion of deadly unrest after Nigeria’s presidential election saw clashes between Christians and Muslims, but had more to do with poverty in the country’s north than religion, analysts said Sunday.
Observers have hailed the April 16 vote won by President Goodluck Jonathan as a major step forward for Africa’s most populous nation, which has been trying to break from a series of deeply flawed ballots.
But that did not stop the rioting that began sporadically last weekend before spreading rapidly across the mainly Muslim north, with mobs taking to the streets, burning houses and shops, and hacking victims with machetes.
Authorities have declined to provide a death toll out of fear of provoking reprisals, though hundreds are believed to have been killed.
Curfews and military patrols have largely restored calm, but there are concerns over governorship polls set for Tuesday in most of Nigeria’s 36 states.
The election exposed deep divisions in the country, whose 150 million population is roughly divided between Christians and Muslims. The north is mainly Muslim, while the south is predominately Christian.
There are some 250 ethnic groups, but three main ones: Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and Igbo.
Jonathan, a Christian from the south, defeated his main rival, ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a northern Muslim, by a score of 57% to 31%.
The unrest saw churches burnt and Muslims targeted in reprisal attacks, and Jonathan went as far as to say the violence was a reminder of the events before the country’s 1967-1970 civil war, which killed more than a million people.
Concerns have been raised over the potential for militant Islam to take hold in the north considering the poverty there.
In one of the diplomatic cables recently released by WikiLeaks, a top US diplomat expresses fears over the potential for radicalism in the north, saying Nigeria could be a “future Pakistan.”But to call the recent violence the result of religious extremism would be to misunderstand it, analysts say. A range of factors are believed to have ignited the rioting — none of which strictly involve religion.
“I think the bigger issue is poverty, and there is poverty in ways that are even more pronounced in the north than in the south,” said Clement Nwankwo, head of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre.
“So some of this is really the desperation and the frustration of people who can’t find hopes on the horizon. It’s gotten to the point where they feel that their leaders are part of the problem.”One fact that analysts point to: northern Muslim leaders were among those targeted by the rioters since they are seen as in bed with the corrupt. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer, but has long been held back by deeply rooted graft.
The burning of churches and mosques should not be taken as the work of religious extremists, but as mobs unleashing their fury and attacking symbols of the other side, analysts say.
Nigeria’s north has long been economically marginalised when compared to the oil-rich south, feeding animosity.
The problem was exacerbated when Jonathan took over as president in May 2010 following the death of Umaru Yar’Adua, a northern Muslim, causing further bitterness in the region over its loss of power.
Nigeria’s north also has a high number of unemployed youths, analysts point out.
“This is a spectacularly young community, and no effort is being made … to lift people out of these depths of desperation,” said Chidi Odinkalu of the Open Society Justice Initiative.
Many in the region turned their hopes to Buhari, though some say he offered no real programme to change their situation.
How the unrest began is a matter of dispute. Initial reports indicated the first targets of the riots were ruling party members in the north suspected of rigging.
There have also been claims that some of the early attacks involved ruling party supporters themselves targeting more senior members because they had not been paid what they were promised for election duties.
Whatever the reason, it quickly fed on itself and Buhari supporters took to the streets.
The unrest took on a sectarian slant since those who consider themselves the indigenes of certain areas went after those seen as the more recent arrivals — despite the fact that many have been there for generations.
That led to reprisals and a repeat of a violent cycle — often stoked by politicians in the struggle for local power — that has plagued parts of Nigeria for years.
Jibrin Ibrahim, head of the Centre for Democracy and Development, said Jonathan must find a way to include the north in his plans so the country can heal.
He said the president was right to point out similarities between the run up to Nigeria’s civil war and the unrest.
“Those things are easy to start, but sometimes they’re difficult to stop,” said Ibrahim. “There’s a possibility that they could just go on, and before you know it the whole country could be in flames.”
Apr262011