The protracted confrontation between the Nigerian post-military state and members of the Shiite Islamic sect poses a grave security challenge for the nation both in its medium and long term prospects. Upper week, the streets of Abuja foamed once again with blood of the members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria as they engaged the security forces in set-piece battles for three consecutive days.
About the same time, the military authorities were laying to rest the remains of a retired general who had been killed by an irate mob in obvious retaliation for an earlier bloody infraction by a security contingent. To get to the dismembered remains of the late general, security forces had to drain a pond that had collected in an abandoned mining crater.
Needless to add that the pond yielded other grisly secrets. It is a tribute to the sterling professionalism of the military personnel deployed that they went about their duty with calm forbearance, refusing to be provoked by the local distemper and not so subtle threats of occult retribution.
But as if this was not enough cause for anxiety, a traditional ruler in Kaduna State and his security details were recently murdered in cold blood while returning from a state engagement. This was after a ransom of ten million naira was pocketed by the scoundrels .
Taken together, these atrocious and outrageous killings are a disturbing reminder of the explosive synergy between inter-community strife and religious mayhem that is fuelling national instability in the country at the moment. There is a poisoned pond on the plateau. The lush plains of Taraba are seething with ethnic and religious tension. So is the fertile valley of the lower Benue. The indigene-settler problematic has never assumed a more desperate volatility in the history of the nation. The falconer has disappeared and the falcons seem to be on their own.
So as the nation turns and tumbles in the ever widening gyre of anarchy, we will be deceiving ourselves if we imagine for one second that these are little local difficulties without much impact on national politics or without a multiplier effect on the endemic twin-crisis of the postcolonial state and nationhood that has hobbled the polity since independence. The truth is that this horrific bloodletting is driving the nation towards perdition and sure electoral disaster come next year.
It is understandable, then, if the president says that he is depressed by the spate of killing in the nation. His implacable opponents will retort that there is no art to know a man’s true feelings from the construction of his face. However that may be, being depressed is not nearly enough for a nation embroiled in an epochal crisis of survival. What is important is to roll up the sleeves to find a solution to the national conundrum.
Unfortunately rather than finding an enduring solution to the nation’s fundamental problems, the entire political class are focused on the next election. Despite warnings about the evils of electoralism by this column, they have succeeded in conning the entire nation, distracting everybody and diverting precious national attention to the ephemerality of who will prevail in next year’s election. The usual posse of political pundits have promptly arrived on the scene obviously being paid per positive prediction and proactive political prophesy. There is even an international flavouring to the offerings and the offal as the back and forth proceeds.
Yet despite the contrived catharsis, despite the illusionist fantasia and political extravaganza rolling every minute from the Fordist factory of national deception, it should be obvious to any discerning observer that a political fog is gradually settling in on the country. It is a fog of great confusion that makes it impossible for many to see beyond their nose.
Visibility is drastically reduced, if not completely eliminated. Unlike four years ago when there was a dominant national hurricane bent on ousting the incumbent government, the situation this time around is so evenly poised as to suggest the radically novel but radically destabilising possibility of a “hung” presidency.
It may well be that the Ghana model beckons, a situation in which a country is neatly split and perfectly polarized between two opposing political tendencies which results in back and forth alternating governments. But this requires a patriotic political class and a sober populace to manage. Needless to add that it is an ideological polarization which dates back to the old Nkrumah/ Danquah fault lines and Ghana is not as demographically unwieldy and as volatile as Nigeria.
General Buhari has lost so much moral capital, so much authority, so much ethical gravitas and has made so many unnecessary enemies that going forward to the election, the power of incumbency means little. Yet he retains his principal constituency and his messianic hold on large swathes of the sullen, combat-primed northern masses that are wont to view any thought of his fundamental failure in governance as nothing but deranged dogoturenchi.
Yet there are equally large swathes of the country, particularly in the South South, South East, the bitterly divided South West and among the vast northern minorities who are likely to demur, viewing the uncritical and worshipping adulation of Buhari’s core supporters as a symptom of anti-democratic populism. The nation is split down the middle and has never been this cruelly polarized along ethnic, religious and regional fault lines.
In the event, the contending forces are so evenly matched, so precariously poised that we may be heading for a badly and bitterly disputed electoral outcome. Given the numerous flashpoints that we have enumerated at the beginning of this piece, the adamant and implacable opposition of significant power-brokers to the possibility of General Buhari’s return and the malevolent rancour emanating from various party primaries, the country may be walking blindfolded to a political nightmare of unprecedented magnitude.
Given their obvious lack of a sustaining ideology or a coherent set of beliefs and ideals, the major parties are nothing but political rallies; organized conspiracies to capture and retain power. They have served the nation badly. But there is opportunity in every crisis. Self-purgation is not necessarily self-medication and the polity will continue to witness rowdy realignments and emotional self-expulsions until there is nothing to align or expel.
Given the current fluidity of party affiliations in the nation, President Buhari ought to exploit the vacuum to find the moral will and the reserves of patriotic energy to rise above the national melee so as to address the fundamental problems facing the country and rein in the centrifugal forces threatening the polity with an apocalyptic meltdown.
Chief among this is the Shiite imbroglio. The Shiite conundrum reminds one very much of a local saying that he who is ready to die has met the one that is willing to kill. It is a perfect recipe for continuous mindless slaughter of fellow citizens, however ideologically irascible and politically obdurate they may seem. If the slaughter continues on the scale that we have witnessed, it is likely to attract severe reprisals from the international Shiite community or an attempt by its more ferocious military storm troopers to destabilize the nation.
With the Maghreb already an open corridor after state-collapse in Libya, it is to be hoped that this is not the case. It is unfortunate that the Federal authorities lost an early attempt to dialogue with the sect and to seek a reapproachment with its leadership. Whatever the provocation, Nigeria remains a secular state catering for all its citizens irrespective of religious creed and no matter the loony sectarianism of a few misguided members of the Shiite caste.
The impression must not be given that the Nigerian state is a principal belligerent in the perpetual proxy war between the Sunni and Shiite faiths. A prolonged confrontation with the Shiite is a very dangerous proposition for a politically fragile nation like Nigeria. El-Zak-Zaky is welcome to his grand delusions that he can replicate an Iranian-type revolution on Nigerian soil. Unlike Nigeria, Iran—the old Persia— is an ethnically, culturally and religiously homogenous country with a continuous civilization that dates back to Antiquity.
Yet vexatious ants do cause problems inside the trousers. Unlike the Sunnis who as denizens of arid deserts tend to favour rural hostilities and pastoral commotion, the Shiites are past masters of urban warfare and metropolitan mayhem. When armed with sophisticated weapons, their fanaticism and zealotry induces a reckless daring and impulsive bravery which fear no foe and is ready to take suicidal risks.
It is useful to note that while a Nigerian military spokesperson spoke with chilling finality that the army does not use rubber bullets, a Shiite member was known to have retorted that if the group were to be properly armed, the army would be no match for them. This is stoking the embers of war beyond national capacity.
With the military already involved in internal security operations all over the nation, an armed confrontation with the Shiite’s well-known appetite for urban insurgency and street to street fighting cannot be an option for a nation already hobbled by internal rifts and division. This is not the time for the nation to start what it cannot finish. The Boko Haram war has been on for almost ten years, bleeding the nation to death.
In order to avoid further needless bloodshed, President Buhari, in the greater interest of the nation, needs to shelve his reflex hostility and implacable animosity to the sect by assuming the toga of an elevated statesman dealing with recalcitrant citizens. He should make use of respected ulamahs, Islamic scholars and notable emirs to engage the Shiite leader in order to persuade him to see the futility of his infantile delusions. Thereafter, a negotiated settlement involving graduated release should be worked out.
Faith-based delusions of grandeur are not amenable to rational discourse. But we must start somewhere and somehow. The alternative is too grim to contemplate. El-Zak-Zaky may well be courting deliberate martyrdom in the hands of the Nigerian state in order to stoke up the fire of future armed insurgencies against the nation. A wise visionary state must deny him the pleasure.
