A series of bombings in central Nigeria ahead of April elections has added a frightening new dimension to an already deadly power struggle in the region opposing Christian and Muslim ethnic groups.
While repeated clashes have occurred in and around the city of Jos in recent years, the Christmas Eve bombings that killed at least 32 people and sparked reprisals were the first time explosives were used to such a degree.
Authorities have not said who they believe was behind the attacks, but police and local officials attribute it to politics — a signal that it is the next stage in a violent struggle for political and economic gain.
Non-governmental organisations have previously pointed out that the conflict in the region has seen increasingly more sophisticated weapons and tactics, noting an apparent influx of small arms in a report earlier this year.
“It’s just an escalation of the same crisis,” Chidi Odinkalu, director of the Africa programme for the Open Society Justice Initiative, said of the bombs.
“The infiltration of weaponry into the conflict is much deeper, much more extensive than anybody would have hoped.”
Rights activists had earlier petitioned the International Criminal Court over the crisis, arguing that the government is either incapable or unwilling to prosecute those responsible.
The court’s prosecutor confirmed in November he was looking into an issue in Nigeria, but has not specified what. Local rights activists say they have been informed it involves Jos.
“The Nigerian state has been incapable of bringing the perpetrators of violence in Jos to justice, either for political reasons or otherwise,” said Femi Falana, who petitioned the ICC on behalf of local rights group SERAP.
Observers say the reasons for the violence involve a complex mix of ethnicity, religion, politics and money. The legacy of British colonialism has also played a role due to the artificial national boundaries left behind.
Jos is the capital of Nigeria’s Plateau state and lies in the so-called middle-belt between the predominately Muslim north and mainly Christian south of Africa’s most populous nation.
Beroms and other mainly Christian ethnic groups are viewed as the indigenes in the Jos region, while Hausa-Fulani Muslims are seen as the more recent “settlers” despite the fact that many have been there for decades.
Hausas were drawn to the area in part by the tin industry more than a century ago. Fulani nomads have come in search of grazing land for their animals.
Those two groups have inter-married, and a struggle for economic and political power has taken place with the Beroms.
Policies that favour indigenous groups when it comes to such issues as patronage and jobs have created animosity.
In turn, Beroms fear that Hausas — a much larger ethnic group throughout Nigeria as a whole — will eventually be allowed to dominate an area they see as their own.
Many observers say politicians have exploited the situation and helped instigate violence. Poverty and unemployment have ensured that a restless population of youths remains at their disposal.
Separately in the countryside, clashes over land have occurred between Berom farmers and Fulani herdsmen.
As if that were not complicated enough, some say elements of the indigenous population are also unhappy with the current governor, whom they accuse of favouring his own Beroms.
The spiralling crisis has begun to include religious elements since mosques and churches have become places to recruit youths for violent ends, said Odinkalu.
Solomon Dalung, a law lecturer at the University of Jos, called the bombings “the work of politicians trying to prevent or distort the political process.”