Lest We Forget … Whither Jos Murderers?

It is gradually assuming the pedigree of a  norm in Nigeria, to loudly condemn mass murders, politically motivated killing, especially of journalists and senseless bloodletting; assure the usually believing Nigerians that culprits will be brought to book and pronto, its business as usual.

Let me not bore readers with the long chronicle of such unresolved murders, which include Chief Aminasoari Kala-Dikibo, until his untimely murder, National Vice Chariman, South-South of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Marshal Harry, Dikibo’s counterpart in the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Chief Bola Ige, then Attorney-General and Minister for Justice among many others. Need I mention the novelty of a parcel bomb which cut-short the eventful life of the founding Editor-In-Chief of Newswatch Magazine in 1986, Mr. Dele Giwa?

Long after these, no fewer than five journalists have been murdered in cold blood and like the rest before them, earned merely the familiar national rose on their graves- assurances that no effort would be spared to fish out their killers and make such criminals face the full weight of the law.

But my worry today, is not so much about these isolated deaths grounded on the mindlessness of hired assassins, and common criminals, not so much because society ought to feel such losses any less but the Jos debacle has become urgent because of the fear of greater mayhem should the nation’s loud silence continue and as usual let inaction become a norm.

So recurrent and with a high degree of human losses, unless the lingering ethno-religious intolerance that has  for years now, resulted in mass murder of defenceless men, women and children, is addressed and in a timely and decisive manner, there’s no telling when, Nigeria’s once most peaceful city will boil again.

This is because, after all the hue and cry, following the March 8, 2010 massacre of more than 350 people, mostly Christians, Nigerians were told of some arrests and likely trial. Never lacking in fresh agenda, the controversy over Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s health and the need for a Goodluck Jonathan Acting Presidency, soon took centre stage and since then, very little of nothing is today being heard of the Jos killer squad and the need for justice.

On the said Sunday, a supposed sacred day of worship for all Christians, including, of course inhabitants of Jos, Plateau State, Hausa-Fulani fighters, believed to be Moslem fundamentalists had attacked Dogo Na-Hawa, Ratsat and Jeji villages, all in Foron District of Jos South Local Government Area of the state, leaving behind some 350 dead, most of them women and children.

That senseless massacre had taken place at a time when a dusk-to-dawn curfew was in place, thus creating the suspicion and rightly so, that the invaders enjoyed some form of patronage from the vigilant Joint Military Task Force assembled to check the growing unrest in the city.

Of course that aspect of the blame game took more urgent preference over the human casualties and the need to find the murderers and lay a solid foundation for lasting peace and harmonious co-existence, which only truth and reconciliation, many believe, can guarantee.

At that time, even then Vice President Jonathan ordered various military establishments to take over the security of the state, with assurance that the federal government would do everything within its power, to not merely fish out the killers but address, in a lasting manner, the issues responsible for the near frequent recurrence of large scale unrest that have rubbished, in unimaginable degrees the ambrosia of Jos city.

Expectedly, all Nigerians seemed united behind the Federal Government, in hope that the March 8, 2010 episode would be the last. I did not and still don’t believe so, because of the apparent silence that has now replaced the enthusiasm and drive that followed the killings, as is usually the case.

On Monday, March 22, this year, this column had warned against the traditional choice of sweeping under the carpet, the events of that dark Sunday. Titled, In This Place of Horror: Tears For The Warning Ambrosia Of Jos, that work attempted a chronicle of earlier killings which attracted little or no action, and which apparently served as a potent incentive for the senseless killings and desecration of a Christian’s day of worship.

For instance, between September 7, and 17, 2007, when the first ethno-religious riot occurred in Jos, in which more than 1,000 persons were killed not a single soul has, to date been punished for such inhumanity to fellow humans.

Naturally, because none was punished for the crime, barely three years later in 2004, the Plateau boiled again. That time, after clashes, in Yelwa, more than 500 were again killed, but the best then President Olusegun Obasanjo could do was to declare a state of emergency, the type which was in place before the March 8, 2010 debacle took place, that claimed 350 lives.

Again, since 500 lives were not worth quarrelling over, hiding under laughable council election disputes, same traditional master-minds of the near recurrent Jos mayhem struck less than a year after claiming more 700 lives. Expectedly, nothing tangible was done except the familiar rhetorics and near pretentious condemnations.

As if begging for more blood, years later in January, this year a minor dispute over a plot of land reportedly claimed another 350 lives although that state government was economical with the true figure of human casualties.

Regrettably, those expected to act did nothing even after the Ajibola Commission had, in fact, investigated the matter and submitted its report, in which very influential politicians and members of the Obasanjo Presidency, were indicted.

It was killings of the nature and government’s seeming helplessness in checking the frequent ethno-religious disturbances in the North, that might have pushed former Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi to suggest the break-up of Nigeria along religious lines, as was the case between India and Pakistan.

As would be expected, all especially, those who Nigerians had depended upon to act, but who didn’t, quickly decided to feast on the Libyan in apparent display of love for and faith in our phoney unity, no matter how fragile it seemed.

Of course, that controversy at once took precedence over the deaths which were begging for vengeance and the truth of their circumstance, which only justice cold have easily guaranteed.

What is the position of the police investigation, arrests and eventual prosecution? Are we to expect justice or accept the familiar, pick and charge to court, the wrong suspects, build a weak case around them and leave a dutiful judge with no other option than to discharge and acquit the accused persons for lack of evidence?

Now is the time for both the state, and the police to convince Nigerians that human life is still sacred and that like all reasonable governments, ours also value lives of her citizens. Silence will not do, neither would the focus on other political issues.

The security of lives and property of the citizenry should be paramount to any good government, and the Jos example should be used as a launching pad towards proving the desired change of attitude.

My Agony is that now, it is already business as usual in Jos, with a kind of peace that is more dangerous than war. It is the peace of the graveyard.

Soye Wilson Jamabo