Southern Kaduna crisis had been in existence since 1980 —el-Rufai

Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir el- Rufai, in this interview session with journalists in Lagos, speaks on the recent Southern Kaduna crisis and other issues of national interest, declaring that a cabal truly exists in government. BOLA BADMUS brings excerpts:

IN Southern Kaduna crisis, there has been a claim that 808 Christians were murdered, but the government has continued to deny that. Can you give us the exact figure of those killed?
Yes, look, I can give you a figure, but we are going to do better than that. If you are patient, in a week or two, okay, we are going to release a comprehensive history from 1980 to the present date of conflicts in Southern Kaduna that will identify the number killed and we will try to classify them across ethnic and religious divides for two reasons.

Many of you think this is an event, that is Southern Kaduna crisis, no. The Southern Kaduna came with history, it’s been going on since 1980 and many people don’t know this. We want to put things in perspective so that you can understand the current one, so you will have to understand what happened before. That is one, so you will have that comprehensively.

But the second reason is that there are people claiming genocide. Genocide is systematic elimination of a group based on ethnic, religious or other identity.

 

Some people are claiming there is genocide in Southern Kaduna, we want to interrogate that question and establish whether there is genocide and if there is, who are the victims, who are those engaging in genocide?

That is the only way to answer your question, I just hope that when you get it, you will take time to read it; it is going to be about 100 or 200 pages.

That will definitely summarise each incident, how it happened, how many people were killed, what properties were destroyed, which commissions of enquiry were set up and their recommendations and what actions were taken? And in each and every one, no action was taken, I can tell you that fact. But at the end of it, we are going to tabulate and show numbers and the numbers varied depending on agencies.

For instance, on 2011 election violence, the Security and Civil Defence Corps submitted one number, police submitted another number, SSS had another, Army had another number, but you will have a pretty clear picture, even if it is an average. In fact, we will publish it online because we want the whole world to read it and understand it.

But CAN issued a statement on this recent crisis establishing that figure?

It was not CAN that issued that statement, it was the Catholic Diocese, of Kafanchan that said 808 Christians were killed. It is false and the bishop would be interrogated and if he fails to explain, he would pay for it.

 

Wouldn’t people also begin to talk about religious persecution?

Let it happen, I am here, I am the governor, try it and see what I would do to him. A person that incites others, to kill and not accountable would not be under my watch. I am reporting that Bishop, I am waiting for him, if he doesn’t explain, I am personally going to write a letter to Pope so that he doesn’t make him Cardinal. The Catholic Church is one of the most organised global institutions and before you get to Bishop, you must have enough thought and knowledge equivalent to PhD. You must be deep and philosophical. It is irresponsible and a dent on Catholic Church worldwide for the bishop to issue such statement without fact and without checking and he must explain. This is the only way to stop this nonsense and it is totally, totally false.

On the 16th of January, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and our SEMA went to Southern Kaduna for three days to call all stakeholders to establish how many people were killed, they have issued a report, we would give it to you. Okay. That report did not just look at what happened now, they went as far back as 2013 and established a total of 221, so we are not talking about the current crisis, but even before we came. They covered local governments even outside Southern Kaduna, and they came out with a total number of 376.

This is from 2013 so I don’t want to give you a number, we have our own official figure, but we would do that with our report that we think the entire story is better seen in complete perspective.

Now when the National Peace Committee headed by General Abdulsalami Abubakar came, I said look, in that delegation was Cardinal Onaiyekan and Bishop Kukah, and I told them the story. I said the Bishop of Kafanchan issued a statement and I am shocked that a Catholic bishop would do that. The orthodox churches have a seminary, they train you, you train under someone and by the time you are called bishop of the Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, you must know something, not those who appoint themselves as bishops, you know what I mean. I am surprised that could come from their church and I am waiting for him to come back, he is not in the country. He was on medical treatment, yet he issued a statement on what he has not seen, so I am waiting for him to come back. But I want to tell cardinal and bishop that it is false, it is a lie and we are going to interrogate him to give us his facts.

Two days later, the number two man issued a correction of some sort which was also false. He said that the 808 were total number of lives lost from 2011 to date, it is false, we have the report on 2011. In 2011 only, more than 800 people were killed and not all of them were Christians and in fact, most of them were Muslims. Most of the victims were Muslims and relations of these Fulanis that now came back to revenge.

In fact, the reason I don’t like talking about number is because every life lost matters. You know as a Muslim, the day I took that Quran and swore to be the Governor of Kaduna State, the life of everyone in Kaduna is my business and I must stand before my Creator one day and explain what I did to prevent that life from being taken. So for me, every single life matters. Any day I receive a report that someone has been killed, whether it is through homicide, cattle rustling, kidnapping or religious crisis, for me it’s a sin, it’s a burden and the only way I can discharge that burden, I hope before God is to say I had given the police all I can, I have empowered everyone because I can’t do it only, I have to do it through people.

 What have you been doing to bring peace to the area now?

Ladies and gentlemen, since this crisis started, we spent N200 million a month to fund security agencies, money that we don’t have, but we must spend it because without security, nothing is impossible.

That would be my only defence when I stand before God and I am a religious man not by way of rituals. I would not stop briefing you because it is time for prayers and would go and pray because my religion is flexible. I am in Lagos, I am a traveler, I can go and pray at any time and indeed, what I am doing here is important than prayer in my religion because what I am doing can save lives. What you report and don’t report can save lives, so it is more important than prayers. There are some who would stand and say I want to go and pray because they want you to know their religion, that is not religion.

Religion is how you relate to people and how fair you are to next human being, not the rituals. So I want you to understand why we are reluctant to talk about number but we are trying to do a document that is factual, that is comprehensive that we will put out there that would challenge anyone that does not have any fact to show and by God’s grace, in two weeks’ time it would be ready. What has been delaying us was that the first crisis, the Kashuwa Magani report, we’ve not got it yet, but I have contacted two former governors of Kaduna State that were there during the crisis and they said they had a copy and they would fish it out from their archives. So as soon as we get that, we would put in Kashuwa Magani, if not, we would just describe it and put it out and publish it, but we know 19 people were killed and all the 19 were Muslims. But we wanted to see if persons were indicted and not prosecuted as well if we can only see the report.

 

In Kaduna since you came into office, you have stopped the traditional rulers from having access to sales of fertilizers, you also put a stop to sponsorship of Muslim and Christian pilgrimages, among others, don’t you see some of these policies bringing some form of crisis which your government is battling now?

We have done something that has made traditional power centres unhappy, okay. We have democratised distribution of fertilizers, no allocation matter. You go and buy like everyone else, no hajj sponsorship, no Christian sponsorship, we’ve done that. We made it clear even when we were campaigning that we were going to do that and we are only able to do some of the little things we are doing with limited resources because we’ve done some of that. Before we came, over N1 billion was spent on pilgrimages, why? So, is it part of what is causing the problem? Honestly, I don’t know. Honestly, I have no evidence, I don’t like to think about that, I know they are unhappy, but I think also their conscience is telling them that maybe we are doing the right thing and it is not personal.