The Killings in The North, The Facts And The Slippery Slope  By Femi Fani-Kayode     Newsdiaryonline Sat April 30,2011

As regards the unfortunate and sad events that took place in the core north  immediately after the just concluded presidential elections, during the course  of my research and consultations with various groups and stakeholders in the  last few days, I have established the following facts which I would humbly like  to share with you:

a) That General Muhammadu Buhari, the CPC flagbearer was deeply pained and  actually wept as the massacres were going on and he tried his best to stop them. b) That even a convoy of his own vehicles was attacked during the riots. c) That even though the rioters, murderers and arsonists were championing his cause,  carrying his posters and calling his name, once the barbarism and pogroms  actually started he had absolutely no control over it or any way of stopping it.  d) That by the time the spirit of genocide and mass murder had been invoked and  the genie was let out of the bottle, it could not be appeased or put back in by  anyone until much blood had been shed and many lives had been lost. e) That the  end result was that, according to the BBC (and we all know that the actual  figure was far higher than this) well over 500 people were hacked to pieces and  slaughtered within 24 hours after the pogroms started.  

(f) That this level and speed of carnage and barbarity is unprecedented in our  history and that every right-thinking person, whether northerner or southerner  or whether Christian or Muslim, should wholeheartedly condemn it. g) That  President Ibrahim Babangida, former Vice-President Abubakar Atiku, General Aliyu  Gusau and Alhaji Adamu Ciroma had absolutely nothing to do with the killings and  neither did they at any time call for it or encourage it. h) That as a matter of  fact they did everything in their power to stop the carnage once it started and  that this was particularly so in the case of Babangida who worked extremely hard  behind the scenes to establish the peace, to calm frayed nerves and to call  people to order.

(i) That these killings were spontaneous and uncoordinated and the primary  target of the perpetrators were the core Northern elites and traditional rulers  who the masses and almajaris (rightly or wrongly) honestly believed had rigged  the election and had ''sold out'' to the PDP. j) That the perception amongst  most southerners (and I was as guilty of this as anyone else) that only  Christians, middle-belters and southerners were targeted for death during those  riots is completely wrong. k) That many northern Muslims who were accused of  being collaborators, traitors and blacklegs for supporting President Goodluck  Jonathan were also targeted by the mob, were also killed and also had their   homes and palaces burnt. l) That many Hausa-Fulani Muslims were also slaughtered  in southern Zaria, Kafanchan, Kagoro and other parts of southern Kaduna by  members of the northern Christian minority groups that reside there who are mainly PDP supporters and that that same group of northern Christians even  targetted and killed many igbo traders and burnt down the market in Kafanchan  simply because they believed that such traders were CPC sympathisers. m) That what is happening in the core muslim north is essentially a class war and most  of those that support Buhari are working class muslim northerners who have lost  faith in their own local northern leaders and elites.

(n.) That sadly the southerners and northern christians that were killed,  including the heroic youth corpers, were innocent victims of a rabid mob who had  lost all sense of reason and who were prepared to inflict collateral damage  against anything and anyone that appeared to be different to them or that did  not share their faith, their ethnicity or their political views. Consequently  every non-Muslim and every southerner became a supposedly ''legitimate'' target for these deranged and satanised individuals.  o) That  no-one was in a position to halt the rioting and killing once it started because  there was no co-ordinated chain of command. It was essentially mob action and  the beginning and first pangs of a northern revolution. p) That there are forces  and armed militia groups in the Niger-Delta area who are preparing to eliminate  and destroy the leaders of any ethnic group that they perceive as being hostile

or opposed to the Jonathan's government and who have a deep-seated hatred for

northern Muslims.

(q) That the ethnic militias in the south-west are now more active and restive  than ever, have cultivated an alliance of sorts with the Niger-Delta militias  and are being stirred up and prepared for a possible war with the north. r) That  the Nigerian people are more polarised along ethnic, regional and religious  lines than ever before. s) That the core Muslim north, for the first time in our  history, is feeling isolated, alienated, cornered and absolutely terrified about  its future and role in the newly emerging Nigeria and that they are falling back

on their Islamic religion and faith as a rallying point for their own quest for  self-preservation, national identity and self-defence. t) That any conflict that  may emerge in this scenario will be seen by the working class core northern  Muslims as a war against Islam and they will fight it to the end. u) That more  and more working class core northern Muslims are openly speaking of a break-up  of Nigeria and that they cannot be expected to continue to stay in a country in  which they appear to be hated by everyone else. v) That the wisest, best and

smartest thing to do in this ugly and unfolding scenario is to pray very hard  and to ensure that we reach out to one another and build bridges across religious lines and the ethnic divide. w) That we are sitting on a keg of  gunpowder and the onus lies on the President to hold this country together, to  be magnamonious in victory and to stamp out and crush those that openly advocate  ethnic or religious cleansing on both sides of the divide. x) That it would be a  great danger to our national cohesion if the people of the core north perceive  and honestly believe that the Niger-Delta militants are being  tolerated, encouraged or even sponsored by the Federal Government.

(y) That once that happens they will have no choice but to begin to organise to  protect themselves and their own people and that will be the beginning of an  ugly descent on a slippery slope to all out war and ethnic, religious and  fratricidal butchery. z) That perhaps the greatest danger of all to our  continued unity as a nation is if the ugly events that occurred in the core  north after the Presidential elections should, for any reason whatsoever, ever  happen  again in this country.  z1) That if such a thing were to ever happen  again that the likelihood is that there would be terrible consequences because some parts of the south would unleash a terrible wave of reprisal mass killings  on innocent northerners that reside there. This must be avoided at all costs. z2) That in the interest of justice and lasting peace there must be a formal and  thorough investigation into the terrible events that took place in the north  after the Presidential elections and that all those that are found culpable of  having had a hand in the killings should be brought to justice. These are my  findings. May God bless and protect Nigeria.

Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was the spokesperson to President Olusegun Obasanjo; he subsequently became Minister of Tourism & Culture & later served as Aviation Minister for Federal Republic of Nigeria.

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