RELIGION AND KINSHIP STILL CUT DEEPLY IN
AFRICA By CLIFFORD D. MAY Published: May 27, 1984
Last month, in the Guinean capital of Conakry, an old woman leaned across a restaurant table and whispered: ''A storm is brewing, I tell you. The Susu and the Fula are plotting against the Malinke.'' Within eight hours, a coup d'etat had overthrown a political structure that had endured for the past quarter century. In the Nigerian capital of Lagos a few weeks later, a
critic of the civilian Government overthrown by the military New Year's Eve confided: ''The Yorubas and the Ibos are beginning to say that maybe the problem is not whether soldiers or civilians are in charge, but the fact that either way it's the Fulanis who hold all the power.''
And a few days ago in Yaounde, where several
hundred Moslem northerners are facing trial on charges of participating in an attempt last month to overthrow President Paul Biya, who is a Christian from the south, a university student was asked to name the issue that threatened his country most. ''Conflict between tribes, religions and regions,'' he said without hesitation. ''That's the biggest problem
by far.'' Of the many forces that buffet the people of Africa, the frictions between people of the same citizenship but different cultural, linguistic or religious backgrounds appear to be playing a significant role in virtually every African country where there is turmoil. Traditional forms of identification and allegiance appear to be on the rise. ''When you have a contracting economic pie, as you do in Africa, there's going to be increased competition,'' William Foltz, a Yale University political scientist, noted. ''And that competition is likely to break out along the lines of the relevant social units, which in this part of the world largely means along tribal or ethnic lines.'' The social and political communities that rose and fell over the centuries ranged from tiny villages of related clans in the isolation of central Africa's rain forests to the elaborate kingdoms and empires of ancient west Africa. If there has been one common denominator, it is allegiance based far more on kinship than on geography. The modern boundaries of Africa are mainly derived from the colonial partitions imposed by European powers in the latter part of the 19th century. Such partitions were declared to be national borders beginning in the late 1950's despite the fact that, with few exceptions, the peoples gathered within them had neither a language nor a culture in common aside from those
inherited from the colonial power. A generation later, tribal or ethnic allegiance is still a thorny question for Africa's leaders. To give it attention, many believe, risks encouraging further sectarian conflicts. The differences between peoples can be as vast as, for example, in Sudan, where the recent imposition of Islamic law by rulers from the Islamic north has set off a rebellion among
the southern tribes, who hold Christian and
traditional faiths. In many cases, however, the
differences may be more subtle. Sometimes the
issue boils down to which people - or tribe or
religious group - is to hold power. Under President Ahmed Sekou Toure, who ruled
Guinea from independence in 1958 until his death two months ago, almost all the key government posts had been held by members of the Malinke tribe, to the resentment of the Susu and Fula populations.
In Nigeria, too, where a war was fought in the late
1960's to prevent the Ibos from seceding and
forming a nation called Biafra, the new military
leadership has exhibited considerable sensitivity
on the subject of ethnicity. Several Nigerian
journalists have lost their jobs for questioning whether there was an example of tribal
discrimination in the fact that former President
Shehu Shagari - a Housa-Fulani like the new head of state, Gen. Mohammed Buhari - had been placed under house arrest while former Vice President Alex Ekueme, an Ibo, had been detained in a maximum security prison.
But even the strictest taboos on discussing ethnicity
and its ramifications are unlikely to make the issue
go away, any more than Africa's nation-states will
step aside in favor of the traditional bonds. A more
probable scenario is that over time, such
identifications may simply become overlayed or clouded by other allegiances. For example, about 20 percent of Cameroon's population come from an area that was colonized
by Britain rather than France and most of them, no matter what their tribe, now identify themselves as English speaking regardless of how well they learn to speak French. ''We Anglophones have been oppressed by the Francophones here,'' a Cameroonian professor charged. ''And oppression anywhere in the world only makes a people cling even more fiercely to their identifications.'' But a
sense of allegiance to country may be developing.
''When Cameroon won the Africa cup in soccer this year,'' the professsor said, ''I cheered and cheered.
I won't deny it
www.nytimes.com/1984/05/27/weekinreview/religion-and-kinship-still-cut-deeply-in-africa.html

Nigerians be very careful. A look through New York times archive of articles around the period Buhari was in power shows how people were clamouring for change before he came, how there was joy on the streets when he took over, how joy began to give way for despair within months of Buhari's reign, how despair gave way for anguish and pain and how Nigerians began to clamour for the good old days less than one year into Buhari's regime.
Let us not make the same mistake again.
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/buhari/since1851/allresults/1/allauthors/oldest/

he fought corruption while shagari popped bottles

@OP: it's quite unfortunate that GEJ and his team have become so desperate that they have stopped touting his achievements in office and have rather resorted to attacking Buhari's person.

Anyway, thanks but no thanks. Your garbage is DOA (Dead on arrival).

WisdomFlakes:
@OP: it's quite unfortunate that GEJ and his team have become so desperate that they have stopped touting his achievements in office and have rather resorted to attacking Buhari's person.

Anyway, thanks but no thanks. Your garbage is DOA (Dead on arrival).

New York times article in far back 1984, nobody new who GEJ was then.
Attack the contents of the article or shut up.
Typical illiterate Buhari supporter.

WisdomFlakes:
@OP: it's quite unfortunate that GEJ and his team have become so desperate that they have stopped touting his achievements in office and have rather resorted to attacking Buhari's person.

Anyway, thanks but no thanks. Your garbage is DOA (Dead on arrival).

do you read it?.Since you close your eyes when they attach gej person is nt for our good. people raise false corruption cases just to discredit gej.what do you talk about sweeping after gej visit.

Matters arising... everyone should be careful .. What he or she believes and the direction being faced