Post-Election Violence in Northern Nigeria

RE: POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN NIGERIA: HIDING THE TRUTH BY VILIFYING SOUTHERN KADUNA AND PATRICK YAKOWA

Starting in 1980 with Kasuwan Magani in Kajuru LGA, whenever there is conflict and violence in Kaduna State, the Northern based news media, being part of the ideological infrastructure, and indeed, the second most potent weapon in the arsenal of the powerful Northern Oligarchy that stands determined to obliterate Northern Minorities, swings into action to blame the victims of the violence, the poor people of Southern Kaduna, and concocts all manner of falsehoods to blame them for the crisis. This determination to distort the truth became more apparent over the crisis at Yarkasuwa, then in Lere District in 1986, when the Kurama were blamed for the crisis caused by the power mongers there. The practice of attacking Southern Kaduna people and churches in an orgy of violent killings and arson across the whole of Northern towns and cities began in 1987 when the Muslim Students Society attacked students of the College of Education at Kafanchan. In each case the press goes into alliance with religious groups, accuse prominent leaders of Southern Kaduna, with the intent to have them arrested, tried, or killed for their supposed “roles” in such conflicts or crises. Their campaigns succeeded in getting Chief Bala Dauke, Pa Ayok Badau, General Zamani Lekwot, ACP J. B. Ayok, Major Tagang Kude and many others illegally and unjustly jailed by their shameless hireling, Justice Okadigbo, in 1992. The blame game continued when pro-Sharia groups unleashed violence on Kaduna and Zaria in 1999, 2000, and 2002, using the cover of religion to chase Southern Kaduna and non-Muslim Middle Belters and Southerners from Kaduna North and Kaduna South LGAs north of the Kaduna River. This deadly game of blaming Southern Kaduna victims of deliberate acts of violence and arson is at fever pitch once again, this time over what the architects of the violence have christened “the...