Dr. Musa Asake is the General Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and also a native of Southern Kaduna. He insisted in this interview that the Federal and State governments have abandoned the people of Southern Kaduna to the killer gangs and also enumerated the minimal conditions for peace in the area. TAIWO ADISA presents the excerpts:
CAN issued a statement on the Southern Kaduna crisis and somehow, the statement is being construed with religious undertone. Is it that you didn’t take to cognisance of all the issues involved before you issued that statement and why is this so?
Is the issue not having religious undertone? Is it not religious?
Some people don’t understand it to be a religious crisis…
To me, it is religious. But if you think it is not religious, you give it a name and let me hear.
Well, we are out to get the issues defined; we are trying to read the situation to get at the roots…
When you have a Christian and you have a Muslim; we all know them, we know their belief, and we know where they are going to. Then when someone breaks into your house, let’s take it now that you are a Muslim and someone breaks into your house and start shouting praise the lord, praise the lord, I rebuke this in Jesus name. I cast and bind. Will you have to consult someone to give an identification to that individual? No. why? You already witnessed it. So as a Christian, somebody breaks into your home, kills you and said Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar, and he is doing those things. And those are the terms that Muslims use. You cannot find a Muslim saying praise the Lord; praise the Lord, because he is not a Christian. So, these people that are doing the killings, they said they are Muslims, so if I said I am this and you are trying to change it; why are you trying to change it? This is what I said, so, to me, it is not a point of argument, they are Muslims and then they go after Christians. No compromise on that one. When you go to the affected areas, you see a village, there are Muslims there, there are Christians there, but when you walk out of my office now and go there, the Muslims’ houses are standing, the Muslims are there going about their normal life, but the Christians houses are not standing, they’ve been burnt and the owners killed. It is a religious cleansing.
So what could be responsible for that? After all the people have lived in the community for long, the Muslims and the Christians have co-habited for long, so what could have generated this discord?
They want to take our ancestral land; they are after land, the Fulani herdsmen as they called themselves or was it you journalists that have given them that name. Sometimes you say un-identified, unknown gunmen, please journalists, be honest, they are not unknown. Recently, the governor of Kaduna State [Nasir el-Rufai] said he had a meeting with them and even paid them money. So why have you people continued to say that they are unknown? They are driving us from our ancestral lands; they want to occupy the land, so they don’t want to see any church, they don’t want to see any Christian. It is strictly religious. It is not a clash about land.They don’t have a land; the Fulanis don’t have a land. The natives there gave them land and they stayed. The irony of the whole thing is that the government is calling the attention of people to go back to the farm. We should first take a trip to that area, see the damaged crops, the farms that the natives cultivated have been destroyed and given to cows. And when a cow destroys your crop, you dare not say a word, if you say a word, they pull out an AK47 and kill you and if they kill you, your friends and relations that are still alive dare not talk, when they talk; they say they are spreading hate speech.
Is CAN still standing by the figure of 800 casualties despite the Inspector General of Police disagreeing with that figure, saying it was exaggerated?
The IGP visited the area; did he go to where the hotspots are? He stayed in Kafanchan, did he get to count the graves? Did he bring the families of those people that lost their loved ones? He was wearing his fancy uniform, well-protected by his bodyguards, people with guns protecting him; then he sat down there knowing that nothing will happen to him. Why must he challenge the figures? Did he go to count? You see, it is very unfortunate, he took side. Now this is making me wonder, do they have a number they wanted killed, and the number has not been reached? I don’t understand. Why will he just stand there and challenge the figures? The figures presented can be defended, day and night.
If the IGP did not visit the interior, what of NEMA, SEMA and other agencies?
NEMA is working for the government.
What if they went there to count?
Where did they go? Let NEMA bring out their data. Look, excuse me, you journalists should ask them, let NEMA bring out the source of their information. We have the source of our information. Look there are some areas, there is a particular family: nine of them were burnt to ashes. Now did NEMA count that one? They didn’t get there I don’t know why some people, because you think you have the privilege of being in that position today, forget that all those positions are temporary and they start playing with lives. Who do you want to please? We are talking about lives here and some people, because they are in government today; they are trying to downplay the number of people, who are you trying to please? Those people that were killed, they are known by the community, they used to be there. You go there and they are no longer there, the mass graves are there. If it gets to a certain level, let’s go and dig the mass graves.
What is the situation now that soldiers are deployed; what are the feelers you are getting from that area now?
Well, the police are there as usual, soldiers are there as usual; the curfew is still on. But we’ve not heard of any major attack on any community now and we are not going to go to sleep thinking that things are okay. No
But are you sure life is returning to the area?
Within Kafanchan, things are coming back within the day time now. But you see the problem now, there is fear among the people. When you run your errands by the day time, in the night you go to sleep, you can’t sleep very well because you don’t know what will happen.
In every war situation, there must be avenue for peace. Both must open a window for peace, what are those options in this situation?
Well, I’ve been told that they’ve been promising a panel of investigation. I was reading today that is it the Federal Government. I’ve not officially heard it, they are setting up a panel headed by the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. But whatever the panel that is set, whoever is going to go there to broker peace, the number one thing he should do is; let the natives go back to their villages. They should not attempt to do anything on peace when these people are in IDP’s camps. No. let them go back home, that is number one. Number two; there is a big bush in the area that all these Fulanis are camping. They should make sure they disarm them from there before they go for peace. Those are things that this panel whether from the Senate, Federal Government or anywhere must ensure. If our people do not go back to occupy their ancestral land and they are making peace outside, they will not make peace. You can’t make peace and leave me outside. So, does it mean that because you are making peace, I should surrender my house, my land to a foreigner and begin to look for where I will go? The government should make it a point that with tight security, they should return these natives back to where they belong and then flush these killers out of the bushes. If they ask the natives, they will tell them where they are coming out from in the bush with their guns, why are the soldiers leaving them there? So, if we do that, we can sit down and talk.