Nigeria can learn from Kenya’s healing

In more respects than one, Nigeria shares a common bond with many African states, including Kenya. It is also some sort of elder sibling being Africa’s top oil producer, member of the Commonwealth of Nations, soccer giant and the continent’s largest democracy.

Nigerian society embraces English common law, Islamic Sharia law (in 12 northern states), and traditional law and has a bi-cameral parliament consisting of the Senate (109 seats) and a House of Representatives (360 members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms).

And late last year, even as the billionth African was born, it turns out that with a population of about 200 million, one in every five Africans is Nigerian. This makes Nigeria Africa’s most populous country and is home to more than 250 ethnic groups.

Unfortunately, its chequered history has saddled it with refugees and thousands of internally displaced persons whenever elections take place, largely as a result of communal violence between Christians and Muslims.

This is the most worrying especially, after reports over the past fortnight saw the unfortunate slaughter of scores of people in the city of Jos. Witnesses recount unprecedented savagery and bloodthirstiness on a scale Kenyans are all-too-familiar with following the disputed presidential election tally of 2007.

As in the Kenya case, lynch mobs, guns and machetes were the weapons of choice. Criminal gangs in uniforms similar to those of security agents roamed the streets and alleys of Jos and slew unarmed civilians. Homes were burnt to ashes and property looted and desecrated.

Marauding attackers

Thousands have been left crammed in classrooms at local primary schools, while other displaced people herd and huddle together as a deterrent against rapists and marauding attackers. Witnesses recount tales of attackers being a motley bunch of known and unknown faces. The worst part is that those who were known, were days earlier their friends and neighbours.

True, the city of Jos sits on a tense dividing line between Nigeria’s mostly Hausa-speaking Muslim North, and the South, but survivors deny the mayhem resulted from sectarian violence. It was never about religious differences. They mumble about politicians inciting their hordes now that there is an election round the corner. They routinely orchestrate violence to rig elections and intimidate rivals.

Nationally, it does not help matters that there is a power vacuum at the presidency as an ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua recovers in a Saudi Arabia hospital since November. Even though the Vice-President is holding fort, four cases have been filed in court to clarify who rules while President Yar’Adua is away.

Religious leaders who are the conscience of the nation are united in grief and preaching peace and co-existence. Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama’s words ring true. Sample this: "Our diversity is meant to create harmony, not disharmony.... Your gifts as a Christian should be put to good use so the Muslim can benefit. Your gifts as a Muslim should be put to good use so the Christian can benefit. Imagine the values in the Koran. Imagine the values in the Bible. If we bring all of these together, imagine the fantastic world we will have."

These are the very words Kenyan ethnic groups were to hear in 2008 from mediators and the international community.

Such mindless slaughter of neighbour by neighbour is what Kenyans are still grappling with through various retreats. The country has remembered its diversity should be a melting pot serving stew acceptable to the wider majority. Narrow ethnic, religious, and racial or gender interests should not override the national good.

Smoking ruins

It has been a humbling one year as Kenyans picked up the pieces of their shattered existence, nurtured broken dreams and aspirations, rebuilt houses that were once homes and tried to move as far away as possible from the brink of the precipice.

The smoking ruins of Kosovo, Somalia, Rwanda, wastelands of Darfur and xenophobia in South Africa, have served as edifying lessons on how a normal day can rapidly turn nightmarish.

Nigeria could perhaps listen to the counsel of its little brothers for a change. Elections and politicians come and go. Not so a nation’s nakedness.