By Lucky Okoedion
We would have hoped that deploying more heavily armed police and army men to Southern Kaduna would be able to end the endless killings. But doing so would imply that we are assuming that weapons of war can be used to forcefully erase decades of hate and injustice being felt by the “warring” factions who are fighting because they fear that their ownership and rights to the tribal lands is being threatened.
Unfortunately, such hope would be founded on reckless naivety as there is no historical precedence that can be used to prove that a people so culturally and religiously divided can be forced to live together in peace. For example, the use or threat of military action by a mediating third party has not proved effective in the case of Israel and Palestine. 
We have seen how that brutal Israel-Palestine war over land rights has continued for centuries from the biblical times when the then “children of Israel” forcefully conquered Palestinian Lands and claimed that God gave the land to them as their “promised land flowing with milk and honey”. The Bible records how they entered the Palestinian lands (Canaan Land) through great massacre, killing mothers, fathers, children, young and old – in the same way Alqaeda, BokoHaram and other terrorists are butchering – beheading, maiming, and plundering communities today in the name of God.
Make no mistake. There is no difference between what all the “Islamist” terrorist groups in the world are doing today and what the then biblical “Children of Israel” did when they forcefully displaced the Palestinians from their lands, claiming that it was the will of God to do so. Some scholars argue that the current people who we accept as Israelis today are not the original biological Israelis but Europeans whose ancestors also practiced Judaism, and thus earned Israeli nationality by religious association. They argue that the initial “Israelites versus Canaanites” land-grabbing wars were actually fought between the biological descendants of Jacob who could not have been Europeans but Palestinians and other Palestinians, in what could be described as nothing but a regional land-grabbing expansionist conflict.
Regardless, the fact remains that between the Palestinian “Isrealites” that warred with their fellow Palestinians for the “Canaan Land’ of old and the European Israelis who are fighting for the land today, nothing has changed – any battle for tribal lands by a people with conflicting religious beliefs, history and political interests is always protracted, deep and fierce. It will thus be foolish to hope for a different outcome for the Southern Kaduna crisis because human nature is the same. Land grabbing conflicts between a people of unequal religious faith, ancestry and political interests will always take on a cancerous religious and political complication. No amount of army or police deployment and use of force can end it. The earlier the government of Kaduna and the Federal Government of Nigeria accepts this truth the better for everyone.
Conflict over tribal lands by a people so different is worse than conflicts that are purely religion-motivated or tribalism-motivated because it very soon becomes a mixture of all the others. This is the case because people tie their very existence to their lands. They consider any threat to their lands as an extra-ordinary threat. It is not considered as threat on “mere land”. To them it is more sacred than that. It is a threat to the ownership of the land on which they farm, on which their ancestors raised several generations of their people, lands on which their idols are erected, lands from which they considered some rivers and animals as gods, lands on which they built their traditional institutions, lands on which they built their churches and on which they built their mosques, – such a threat – is easily considered as a threat to their very way of life. It is considered as a threat to their religion. It is for this reason that the war and killings for the sake of land soon becomes justified as “Holy killings” in the name of their God to protect their religion. And since the threat to their ownership of the land is considered as a threat to their traditional institutions and cultural heritage, the killings soon become referred to by biased and clueless politicians as mere “reprisals” in a battle for survival. And the value of the dead is reduced to mere statistics by these dubious politicians.
For these reasons, I recommend that only the indigenous people of Kaduna – the village heads, the tribal leaders; the very thousands who crowd mosques where land-grabbing jihadist messages are allegedly preached, and the thousands who crowd churches where Islamization conspiracy theories are allegedly preached can end the killings in Southern Kaduna. The decision and moves that will end the bloodbath permanently can only be made by them. And the only role the State Government, the Federal Government or any other third party can play in the process of bringing lasting peace to Southern Kaduna is to sponsor and empower the indiginous people to broker this peace BY THEMSELVES.
Yes. The only things the State Government and the Federal Government can do is to facilitate these peace talks for peaceful coexistence – an arrangement in which both parties would decide the terms for the sharing of the lands. And the terms for their peaceful co-existence. They have to own the lands together. But the current leaders – religious, tribal and political who may already have blood on their hands cannot lead these negotiations. We have to tactically initiate leadership ‘overhaul’ or transition in all aspects of those communities – tribal, religious and political. The aim should be to raise, empower, popularize and make way for new leaders who can negotiate for compromise at both sides and for peaceful co-existence. Instead of the current crop of tribal leaders who allegedly preach “fight to death instead of losing the lands”, current crop of Islamic leaders who allegedly preach “land-grabbing expansionist jihad”, current crop of Christian leaders who allegedly preach “Islamization conspiracy theories”, and current crop of political leaders who have failed to remain neutral. A careful (Not forceful) leadership overhauling is currently needed to replace those “cross-hearted” and battle-hardened leaders with those who can negotiate for compromises for the sake of peace. And this leadership overhauling has to be sponsored by the state and federal government. It shouldn’t be abrupt. It is okay if it takes another five years to complete.
To achieve this, the State and Federal government can begin by investing in a sensitization campaign aimed at preaching peaceful co-existence, with an intensity that is enough to “out-preach” those who are busy amplifying the religious dimensions of the conflict – such as the Islamic preachers of ‘land-grabbing’ jihad and the Christian preachers of “Islamization” conspiracy theories.
The wisdom behind this proposal is the history-validated fact that the only sustainable solution to “hate speech” is a “louder PEACE speech”. We have seen time and again that more punishment for hate speech does not bring peace – no one has ever succeeded at forcing people to love each other. This is more so as history has taught us that no amount of punishment can stop a religion-motivated or ideology-motivated hate. There is no historical precedence for punishment being a solution to stop people who are driven by ideology. Rather, punishment emboldens them as they consider themselves at worst as martyrs. And their persecution emboldens others to aspire to continue in the hate in order to also enter their “hall of fame” as persecuted heroes.
No army in history has ever succeeded in compelling people to love each other and coexist in peace. Hence the government does not need to buy more guns or recruit more soldiers to enforce peace in Southern Kaduna. Rather, it needs to invest in and recruit more preachers of peace whose voices would be louder than the preachers of hate. A huge budget should be drawn and funds provided so that preachers of peace can be recruited amongst the traditional leaders to counter the preachers of hate amongst the tribes. Preachers of peace should be recruited amongst the Imams to counter the preachers of hate in the mosques. And preachers of Peace Amongst the Pastors need to be recruited to counter preachers of hate or Islamization conspiracy theories in the churches. The purpose of the Soldiers and Police deployment should be to protect these preachers of peace from their colleagues who are promoting the violence. Not to attempt to force the people to live in peace.
Lucky Okoedion is a believer of a new Nigeria where true democracy and effective governance is practiced. He writes from Benin City. And can be reached on +2347038820118 .
