Musa Makaniki :discharged and aquitted by Tim Mathias

This morning, I woke up to the truth that Malam Musa Makaniki,
the alleged mastermind of the 1984 Maitatsine riots in Yola, has
been discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal, Jos. My mind
immediately went to an article I wrote for this paper in August
2009, ever before my column began. This is the take, at the time.
As I write this note, the alleged mastermind of the 1984 Maitatsine
Riots in Yola, Adamawa state sits in Yola Prison. His prosecution for
more than 10 years appears to have run into a cul-de-sac. It is said
that all evidence remains circumstantial and prosecution is unable to
pin down witnesses to hang a sentence on the man. In effect, the
man believed and suspected for the Maitatsine disturbances of 1984
in Yola, could walk out of Yola prison and into society, a victorious
and free man. Case closed. This is an event, over which Justice
Mohammed Uwais our former Chief Justice of the Federation sat as
Chairman of the Judicial Panel of Enquiry, examined evidence and
interviewed known witnesses, made findings and recommendations
known to government. The result has not been made public till date.
Yola itself has been “cured” of the psychological trauma of the
tragedy. It was one of those sad times when the Nation’s army
turned its weapons on its citizens. The feud took more than 800
lives, destabilized the communities and destroyed thousands of
homes, places of worship, including the yet-to-be fully replaced
Jimeta Main Market. My nephew, Peter Tawhegola Mathias, was lost;
his body has not been seen nor has he been heard from these past
24 years. Life has continued.
The communes of Yola namely, Nassarawo, Doubeli, Rumde, Shinko
and Vinikilang, have all risen from the ashes of the strife. The
people have painstakingly rebuilt their lives. Displaced persons
hurriedly relocated to cleared lands of Wuro Kuturu have
successfully settled to life anew in the suburb. With time has arisen,
a new generation of city dwellers who have little or no knowledge of
the events of 1984. Even their leaders have just faint memories of
the pogrom and even more, questions of restoration, reparation or
compensation are not political issues in the new dispensation.
There are perfect similarities between Yola 1984 and Maiduguri
2009. Were lessons learnt from the Yola events, the Maiduguri
pogrom would have been avoided, and destroyed life and property
saved. In Maiduguri, as in Yola, it was easy for a “spiritual” leader to
raise a large band of committed followers, initially seeking religious
knowledge and spiritual lifting. Both “Sheikhs” were young and
offered this inform of a “rebellious” alternative to the sermons of
existing Ulama and poached their Umma from establishment. In
both locations they became identifiable as “sects” and established
their places of worship and living in communes. Growth was easy
owing to three main factors. The socio-political system offered no
visible solution to the people’s mundane problems. The
“fundamentalists” filled the gap and provided hope in “spiritualism”.
Each city offered a sizable population of loitering urchins, almajirai
and idle rural migrants for easy recruitment. In both cases, the
leaders of the fundamentalists established an order of belief and
norms and successfully secluded their followers from interaction
and conformity with those of the larger society. Early trouble usually
began when parents and relatives reported loss of their children and
wards to the new “order”. From the enclave of the fundamentalists,
escaped adherents often reported abuses under the commune order
which police naturally looked into from the point of view of
infringement of basic fundamental rights and naturally declared this
to be unlawful. Clashes with authorities often began from
subsequent interaction with law enforcement personnel. The
fundamentalists vehemently resist investigation and enquiry. The
Maitatsine riots followed tensions which arose when police
attempted to intervene in reported abductions, seizure of property,
“illegal imprisonment” and even meted out “death” sentences on
followers.
In Borno, there was no love lost between Boko Haram adherents
and police, painted as agents of government oppression. The two
clashed on a day the Boko Haram were burying their dead.
Fundamentalists, in resistance to crowd control, were said to have
physically attacked the police, who in turn responded first with
teargas, and eventually with bullets. It was reported that there were
injuries and deaths. Just as they did in Yola in 1984, fundamentalists
in Borno openly promised revenge and all intelligence pointed to
massive acquisition of illegally imported sophisticated weapons and
skilful training of gun men and women. Clear danger signals are
apparently ignored. In Borno as in Yola police were outnumbered,
outmanoeuvred and outgunned, and hence the recourse to the use
of the army. It is absolutely important to scientifically examine all
the issues involved in the violent crisis that Nigeria, especially the
North is so persistently bedevilled by, and learn from the
intelligence. There is useful intelligence in the “pre-war” rhetoric of
these misguided fundamentalists that we tend to ignore. More
vigilance at the numerous check points could have helped arrest
their acquisition of military firepower. Alas, for N20, a camel can
pass through the eye of the needle.
What do fundamentalists like Musa Makaniki and Muhammad Yusuf
want? How can their aspirations be accommodated within existing
framework as citizens of Nigeria? How can government influence
their psyche and bring about a rethink of their warped views? How
and why do spiritual fundamentalists suddenly change to political
and social revolutionaries? How come fundamentalists are so adept
at taxing themselves, and raising large funds? Who are the brains
behind the “global” financing? Is there a grand foreign design to
destabilize the North, or indeed Nigeria? These are some of the
questions intelligent debriefing would have provided answers to. It
is a shame that Muhammad Yusuf the identified leader of Boko
Haram was brutally killed in police custody. Nigeria and in deed the
world stood to learn a lot from him, in order to appreciate some of
their (valid) objections to the social disorder, address the issues and
thereby avoid reoccurrence. Evidence that could have helped
provide answers to key questions has not only been tampered with,
but obliterated completely.
We are hence deprived of vital lessons of history and will certainly
repeat the same mistakes in the future with more deadly
consequences than we have seen. If theirs was a warped response
to present contradictions in Nigeria then there is no avoiding future
reoccurrence with more perilous outcomes. A political system that
rewards a school drop out with more honour and income than a
university professor in a whole life time is fit to breed Boko Haram.
We approach a time when virtually all affluent are described as
thieves, and in deed many are.

#CONSENSUS 2015