Bauchi, Nigeria - 'Some were killed, others got maimed; now we are seeing hell in camp'
IT was a black Saturday for residents of Railway and Makama extension of Federal Low Cost Housing in Bauchi metropolis where last weekend's religious crisis that lasted three days started. The crisis which left many people dead and churches, mosques, houses, cars and properties worth millions of naira destroyed later spread to some other parts of the state with residents of the state running to military barracks to take refuge while other left the town for fear of being attack.
It was gathered that trouble started in Railway area penultimate Friday when one of the two factions of an Islamic sect known as Izala broke the arrangement that was made between them.
It was said that the two groups had agreed that one group will be having its Jumat prayer at Fantami Mosque in Railway between 12.00 and 1.00 p.m. every Friday while the second group will have their prayer between 1.00 and 2.00 p.m following the complaint by COCIN opposite the mosque that they used to block the entrance of the church.
But, contrary to this arrangement, one of the groups allegedly decided to have its prayers from 12-2.00 p.m, thereby depriving the other group the chance to observe their prayers. The other group then came to the premises of the mosque and because of the inadequacy of space they parked in front of COCIN. A protest by the church members led to attack of innocent citizens on that Friday evening but the situation was put under control by security men.
But by 2.00 a.m. the Fantami mosque was set ablaze by unidentified persons following which Muslims in the town claimed it was the Christians that burnt the mosque a development which led to killing, burning of churches, mosques and properties.
According to one of the persons displaced by the disturbance at Shadawanka Army Barracks, Lami Dogari, who said her father was the first victim of crisis as he was macheted while trying to preach peace while she and the other members of the family narrowly escaped death but lamented that all that belonged to them was burnt. Lami, a teacher and the first born of a family of seven, said her father was a retired civil servant and her mum a business woman. "We lost everything we had to the crisis. As I am speaking to you, this dress I am wearing was given to me by a good Samaritan and the truth of the matter is that the crisis was planned by Muslims in order to retaliate the incident that happened in Jos."
According to her "on that Friday,my neighbour and I were outside the house fetching water and they were calling us pagan but we did not answer but packed our things and left, and when they finished their prayer, they came to our area in Railway with knives, cutlass, saying this place is not Israel, this place is not Jos, so Christians must leave Bauchi, and they were shouting Alahakubar. In the evening, some security personnel were deployed to our area which calmed the situation.
But around 2.00 a.m. on Saturday, i.e the following day, we were sleeping when our neighbours woke us up that they had put fire in their mosque. But because that mosque was in a slum, no Christian will have, confidence to go there not to talk of setting it ablaze. It was then that I called a journalist that attends our church, that these people that put fire in their mosque and now they will say it was the Christians that did it.
Then some of us went to church for refuge while some remained at home. So when the Muslims came back from mosque at about 6.00 a.m. that Saturday, they started stoning us, destroying things, killing and shooting.
"For the past three years since the crisis that occurred in February 2006, our parents and the Ganuwa parents who are our Muslim neighbours have always organised a forum for reconciliation. If there was any problem they would call us and reconcile us. So when this incident started that morning, my father went to the leader of the Ganuwa for reconciliation. However, before we could know what was happening they had put fire in one of the houses in our neighbourhood, we were trying to quench the fire when they started shooting, then we started hearing gun shot, before my father that went for reconciliation could run to the house, they had macheted him.
So we had to rush my father to the army camp for safety and from there he was taken to hospital. Even while in the army camp, the Muslims came for us. Before we knew what was happening, they had surrounded us. In previous crisis, we escaped through the rail but this time around there was no way of escape because they blocked everywhere. The mobile police were trying to calm the situation but the soldiers did not make any effort, because when they came to attack and we wanted to defend ourselves the soldier will chase us away with koboko but when they go to the Muslims they will be rubbing their chest and we didn't know what they were communicating to them but immediately the soldiers turned their back the muslims will attack us."
Asked how life was at the camp, she said: "It has been rough Since the crisis started, around 6.00 a.m, up to twelve hours later, the government did not intervene to stop the crisis which means it was planned and since Saturday they did not give us anything. We have been feeding with our money and sleeping on bare floor.
The question we are asking the government now is, are we not citizens? We want to know if we are not one Nigeria, the government should tell us because from their statement, they said here is not Israel and not Jos so they want to chase us away. We want to know. Let the government come out and tell us that we don't belong here and not citizens of Nigeria". On her father's health, she said: "My father is in hospital, receiving treatment; I am here with my siblings because my mother is in the hospital looking after my father."
Speaking on measures she thinks government should take in order to avert future occurrences of religious crisis in Bauchi, she stated: "Honestly, I am confused, you know in a situation like this, when something happens to you, you will not know what to say but all I will say is that government should bring to book all the people involved in this crisis and punish them so that it would not be like previous crises that after the arrest they released them, and they go went to their evil work."
The victim regretted that the fact that the family is from Bauchi State did not spare them the ordeal. "We are indigenes of Bauchi state from Bogoro Local Government area. We have been living in Railway for over 25 years, even during the 1991 crisis, we were there. All these crises have never affected us because of the reconciliation committee that we had but this time around it was a different story as we lost everything we had to the crisis, my father was the first casualty who they wanted to kill."
Another victim, Mary Nwagwu, a nurse, who was crying with two of her little children when the staff of the state Emergency Relief Agency brought relief materials to victims at the camp on Tuesday said: "We don't want the food, we will not take it because we have been rejected by Yuguda's administration, they burnt my house in Railway. Right now, I don't have anything, me and my husband are here, they nearly killed us, we narrowly escaped death. We have been rejected by this administration.
Since we got here on Saturday due to the crisis, nobody has visited us and today, Tuesday, they are bringing food when my children are already dying of hunger, the most painful thing was that, yesterday, they told us to go back to our houses, that everywhere was calm, and one of our brothers that went home was killed.
"So food is not our problem, we want to see the governor, he has refused to visit us neither did he send any delegation, I have six children, and we are all here with my husband, a business man. They destroyed everything we have; even my parents house was burnt down. My parents stayed in Railway too and now they are telling people they did not destroy anything, that we burnt their mosque whereas they were the one that put fire in their mosque and they are attributing the burning of our houses to electrical fault which is a lie."
Narrating his experience, Chikezi Onwunka, a staff of STERY, an auto company in Railway area of Bauchi, stated: "Our problem is that we don't have security in this country. Isa Yuguda is not ready to entertain visitors. I left my house over four days ago to take refuge here with my family and we have been living from hand to mouth without any attention from the authorities." According to him "on Saturday, at about 1.30 p.m., they nearly killed me in my house. It was my landlord who saved me with my children.
I am not telling you a story. If you want to see for yourself, follow me to my house. I have three children, it is better you follow me to my house so that you can believe me. They did not burn the house because it belongs to a Muslim but they brought out everything belonging to me in the house and set on fire. Even police men could not save the situation because they told us that they were told not to shoot; policemen and soldiers were there and they were destroying peoples properties" he lamented.
For Samuel Uzo, a staff of railway station in Bauchi and one of the displaced persons at Shadanwanka Barracks, his wife is nine months pregnant and was worried about her condition, lamenting that she would put to bed any moment and didn't know how to manage the situation in this kind of environment. According to him "I have lost everything to the crisis. I am here with my there children and my wife who is pregnant and whenever I remember the situation of my wife, I feel bitter because I don't know how we can cope with new a born baby in this displaced persons camp."
Samuel narrated how he and the children with his nine months pregnant wife escaped death when the rioters invaded their house: "This thing happened on Saturday morning and immediately we heard they had killed some people, we jumped the fence including my wife who is pregnant. I did not even know how she managed to jump the fence because of her pregnancy but I believe it is the Lord's doing but she sustained injuries on her leg. All my properties were burnt. Initially they wanted to burn the house but people told them that the house does not belong to us, but government; then they burnt our properties and my problem is how to take care of my pregnant wife.
Speaking to the camp leader of Shadanwanka Army Barracks, Ogala Joel, a staff of railway, he lamented the destruction recorded during the crisis adding that he and his family were victims as all their properties including his car were burnt down. Commenting on how the displaced persons had been coping, Ogala said it had been terrible saying "since last Saturday when we came here, the people had been feeding based on the food brought to them by church members and other good Samaritans. It was on Tuesday that the state government brought relief materials which were rejected by our people. But right now, we are pleading with our women to accept the relief for the sake of our children so that we will not lose them to hunger."
On why the relief materials were rejected, Ogala said it was due to anger because the governor had not visited them and they only brought them food four days after the incident but assured the relief materials would be accepted by the people. He urged the state government to compensate the victims as well as put measures in place to avert future occurrence of such crisis.
The special assistant to Governor Yuguda on media, Hammed Yerima, condemned the crisis which he said was politically motivated."The present administration is facing opposition and the opponent want to use the crises to destabilize the present administration "but with the support of the various religious group, they would not succeed in their mission", he told Sunday Vanguard.
CAN got it wrong, says Bauchi govt: Meanwhile, Bauchi State Government has challenged the leadership of the Northern Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and that of Jama'atul Nasrul Islam to put heads together to find a lasting solution to the religious crisis in the state, even as it denied recent media reports quoting CAN as saying that the state government did not do enough to check the crisis. The state government, in a statement, said it was deeply shocked to read the statement credited to the leadership of CAN, Northern States on the Bauchi riot, saying "Northern CAN leadership should learn from the exemplary conduct of the Christian leadership in the south west axis of the country, which has been living at peace with its Moslem counterparts."
According to the statement, "we view such reaction as regretful from a leadership that should ordinarily join hands with the administration to ensure the return to normalcy in Bauchi. We were, therefore, highly disturbed with the comment by Northern leadership of CAN, which did not reflect the true position of what happened in Bauchi. CAN is one organisation that has full presence in Bauchi State and since the eruption of the crisis, its leadership has been fully involved in discussions aimed at restoring peace to the affected areas. As a matter of fact the state chairman of CAN, Bishop Musa Tula personally represented the association in all the peace processes.
In fact, it was during one of the meetings, the leaders from both sides told Governor Isa Yuguda, that the remote cause of the crisis was the barricade of routes for those attending Friday prayers, while the immediate cause, according to them, was when a mosque was burnt early Saturday morning which eventually snowballed into a fracas.
As the crisis broke out on Saturday morning, contrary to the allegations being peddled, Governor Yuguda took swift and serious measures to contain the situation. These measures include immediate deployment of mobile police, military and other security operatives, while at the same time, initiating dialogue with Muslim and Christian leaders.
"These leaders are, by the offices they hold, expected to be unbiased umpires to adherents of both faiths as people bound by common destiny by being equitable and just whenever incidence of this nature occurs. We believe such leaders need to resort to factual presentation whenever fracas of this nature occurs to avoid misleading the people, because the government and people of Northern Nigeria have suffered enough.
It is necessary that a lasting solution must be found to these recurring conflicts, be they tribal, political, religious or otherwise due to the untold hardship caused the society. We in the North must learn from the experience of South West geopolitical zone which harbours a similar composition of Moslem and Christian faithfuls but not a single incidence of conflict of religious colouration that would dislocate the social system has ever happened.
It is therefore, compulsive to bequeath a peaceful, united and socially tolerant Northern Nigeria, to our children and the children yet unborn as done by our fore fathers who worked selflessly for the good of all people.
"We challenge the leadership of the Northern CAN and that of Jama'atul Nasrul Islam to put their heads together to find a lasting solution to this recurring problem that has thrown people into hopelessness. They should sit down and give our people hope that Northern Nigeria returns to its glorious past were Moslems and Christians were their brothers' keepers with praying mats for Moslems to pray in Christian houses whenever the time for prayer was up since Moslems pray five times a day".