BBC: Nigeria election violence 'left more than 500 dead (4/24/2011)

Rioting broke out when it emerged that Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian - had defeated a Muslim candidate from the mostly Islamic north, Muhammadu Buhari.

Thousands have been killed in religious violence across Nigeria in the past decade. In Kaduna alone, more than 2,000 died as the government moved to enact Islamic Shariah law in 2000. In 2002, rioting over Isioma Daniel's newspaper article suggesting the Prophet Muhammad would have married a Miss World pageant contestant killed dozens here.

Yanshiy Handan:

I get disenchanted and grieved whenever riots take place in the north and the media which is dominated by the south report that only Christians from the South are the victims. Honestly, it is wickedness to blink our eyes and block our brains to the obvious fact that most victims of Muslim incessant violence in the North over the years are the indigenous Christians and non-Hausa tribes.

Muslims armed to the teeth invaded Kafanchan in Kaduna State midnight Sunday, 17th April and gunned down everyone in their path - fighting with reckless savagery and insane fury. The town is left in ruins reminiscent of a full scale war situation. The exact figure of casualities is yet to be made public. The victims are the indigenous tribes - the Bajjus, Katafs, Moroas, etc., and not Ibos or Yorubas. This serial massacre was replicated in Zaria, Birnin Gwari all in Kaduna State. The same pattern is repeated in other states like Bauchi, Borno, Plateau and Niger states

Truly, whenever the Hausa/Fulani Muslims go berserk in the north, the indigenous populace is the principal target of elimination and extinction. This is the Islamic agenda put in place by the late Sardauna of Sokoto. Today, the Muslims are only playing his script. The northern non-Hausas and Christians do and always record greater human loss than the southerners. The southerners, of course, suffer far greater economic losses. This can be crosschecked from the records of the Christian Association of Nigeria in any of its branch offices in the North.

This skewed reporting from the southern press put the Christians from the northern extraction resident in the South at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, people in the South view everybody from the North as Hausa. And to them, everyone from the North is a Muslim. In fact, in the South, the words 'Hausa' and 'Muslim' are synonyms. So whenever reprisal attacks occur in the South, they are non-selective. They do not distinguish the northern Christians and non-Hausa tribes from the Hausas and Muslims living in their midst. This is most unfortunate. We non-Hausa minorities and Christians from the north are at loss. In the North, the Muslims see us as perpetual enemies who must be eliminated at all cost. On the other hand, southerners see us as Hausas and Muslims and who should not be spared in the event of reprisal attacks. What is our fate in Nigeria?

Southerners should please see the northern minority tribes and Christians as brothers and offer them protection. Nigerians can all see the pattern of voting during the presidential election. Jonathan had majority of the votes in the North in predominantly Christian areas. May God give Jonathan the political will and muscle to nib Buhari and his cohorts before the post-election violence gets out hand. I believe that in a civilized setting, Buhari should by now be languishing behind the bar. Is this country not bigger than Buhari? Is this country not bigger than Hausa/Fulani Muslims? The South-West has a large number of Muslims population. The million Naira question is: why don’t they have the same culture of violence, killing and maiming like their northern counterparts? Does a set people believe that to rule this country is their birthright? Let me borrow the words of Professor Jega: “They are living in the past”.

Source: This Day, Nigeria, 4/24/2011

Naomi Lucas and Somi Obozuwa:

Nigeria is broken into six geo-political zones: North-Central, North-Eastern, North-Western, South-Eastern, South-South, and South-Western. The North therefore is all the states within the North-Central, North-Eastern, North-Western parts of the country. These three geo-political zones have a total of nineteen out of Nigeria’s thirty six states between them. In all, there are one hundred and nine major ethnic groups in these states; out of all nineteen, the Hausa-Fulani constitute a majority in only five of them. As an example, forty seven percent of the entire population in Adamawa which is considered a Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri stronghold are Christians, belong to ethnic groups different from the three I mentioned above and speak their own language. You’ll find the same mix in fourteen of the nineteen states in the North with some states having as many as twenty major ethnic groups apart from Hausa and Fulani.

Source: http://www.burningpot.com/frontpage/2399-who-is-north-of-nigeria, 4/22/2011