The beauty queens had only been gone a few hours, forced to flee Nigeria by raging violence. But as the Rev Joseph Hayab raised his hands to preach in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, thoughts of Miss World were an eternity away.
"They will put you out of the churches; yeah, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think he offers God service," he began at the Rahama English Baptist church last Sunday.

Mr Hayab, the secretary of Nigeria's alliance of Protestant churches, chose his text well. During three days of rioting in Kaduna, ostensibly triggered by Muslim rage at Nigeria's hosting of Miss World, 58 churches were attacked and at least 215 people were killed.

Some of them were almost certainly from Mr Hayab's congregation. Instead of the usual 100 worshippers, only 18 people were there in the rubble.

The chaos last week was only the latest in a series of violent clashes between Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria, and by no means the worst.

Two years ago more than 2,000 people died in a month of religious rioting in Kaduna over the new state government's imposition of sharia (Islamic) law on the sizeable Christian minority.

This time there was someone less powerful to blame - the spark was said to have been an article in the national This Day newspaper making light of Muslim objections to the contest. Its author, Isioma Daniel, a 22-year-old Christian fashion journalist, suggested that Mohammed would probably have wanted to marry one of the contestants.

Everyone fulminated against Daniel - Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, Miss World's British organisers, Nigeria's fundamentalist leaders - forcing her to flee to America. On Tuesday, another northern state, Zamfara, issued a fatwa calling for her death.

But as this city of 5 million struggles with a strict curfew and still-smoking ruins, a different story is emerging.

Almost no one in Kaduna - Muslim or Christian - seems to have read Daniel's piece. Few have any knowledge of or opinion on Miss World. It was not until four days after the publication of the article that Kaduna's furious Muslim mobs organised themselves.

When they did, the state governor's residence, businesses and a campaign office set up for a bitterly contested forthcoming election were primary targets. Motorists displaying the governor's bumper stickers were torched.

"This [violence] had nothing to do with religion, these were purely political events," said Kaduna's governor, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi. "The article was repulsive to Muslims, and there are people here who saw that as an opportunity. They were shouting the slogans of election aspirants, circulating their posters. No, it was not about religion."

Nor was Mr Makarfi's response. He admits that many casualties were shot by soldiers trying to quash what amounted to a revolt. A spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross said it was "strange" that so many casualties had died of gunshot wounds in a popular riot.

In the Baraub Dikki hospital, the wounded say the soldiers fired at random. Mohammed Shuiabu, 20, blood still seeping from a bullet wound in his belly, said: "Soldiers shouted at me to run away but then they shot me when I did." He had never heard of Miss World.

After visiting the hospital on Thursday, Mr Obasanjo was uncharacteristically confrontational. "This situation has to be confronted," he declared. "A few people must be responsible. Who are these people?"

So far, more than 350 of the rioters have been detained and Mr Makarfi is promising more arrests. But it will take more than a few arrests to clean up Nigeria's violent politics, as his own career might suggest. He is currently being sued over his plan to move Kaduna's main medical polytechnic to his home town, Makarfi. It has been alleged that his family would benefit.

Kaduna's miserable slums, where most of the killing took place, make it achingly clear why Nigerians might kill to win political patronage. Sewage streams down streets where children play barefoot. This is despite Nigeria's annual oil revenues of £15bn and oil reserves which may prove larger than Iraq's.

Godwin Eze, 35, lost all his possessions when armed strangers, carrying cans of petrol, singled out his street in a largely Christian quarter. "Look at it!" he said, walking over the rubble. "My beds, my chairs, my gifts from when I got wedded. All gone. Now I'm trying to get out of Kaduna."

No one knows why the attacks began, though according to witnesses, it was a full day before the riots became overtly sectarian, when a Muslim mob burned the offices of This Day. Next, Mr Markarfi's supporters were attacked and, as if to disguise this, a few churches torched.

Finally, and for two long days, a religious war raged unchecked through Kaduna's poorest slums. "We have always been living together so you should never say there is religious hatred here," said Jummia Fagbay, a nurse at Gwamma Awan maternity hospital, which dealt with the wounded. "But the injuries ... they put a tyre round a man's neck. They set it on fire."

James Usman, a Christian, said: "I don't know ... why this has to happen, but they are not my brothers now."

With religious differences inflamed by politics, even the most rational religious leaders, who signed a peace pact in Kaduna only three months ago, sound like firebrands. Mr Hayab, said: "This is the work of powerful people who want to get at the government by stirring up jobless people with religion." Then he added: "Ours is a God of mercy, theirs is a God of violence."

Abdulkadir Orire, the secretary general of Nigeria's organisation of Islamic groups, which yesterday ordered that the fatwa on Daniel be lifted, said: "True religion never touches thuggery, killing, vandalism. But where you have 70% of youths unemployed ... a devil can find work for idle hands."

But he is less moderate when it comes to the rights of Nigeria's Muslims to enforce sharia law.

"If democracy doesn't do what we are wanting, we have to do it the other way round. As Muslims, we have no choice."

Events leading up to the riots: the Miss World contest and ThisDay article

The decision to hold the 2002 Miss World contest in Nigeria (an option that arose because the winner of the previous contest was a Nigerian) was always likely to be controversial and to attract disapproval from conservative sectors of society, particularly in the Muslim-dominated north of the country. Initially scheduled to take place at the end of November, it was eventually postponed to December 7, to avoid coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In the weeks preceding the violence in Kaduna, there had been a number of low-level protests in various parts of Nigeria, especially in the north, and negative public comments, mostly by conservative Muslims who opposed the beauty contest on moral grounds and objected to it taking place in Nigeria. Although there was much debate in the media and other fora, these protests generally passed off without violence.

On Saturday, November 16, an article was published in ThisDay, one of the main daily newspapers in Nigeria, which is based in Lagos, but has correspondents and regional offices in a number of other states, including Kaduna. The article, by journalist Isioma Daniel, suggested that the Prophet Mohammed would have approved of the Miss World contest. It stated: "What would Muhammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them."

The article provoked a storm of outrage from Muslims in different parts of the country. It was reported that Muslims across Nigeria were alerted to the article within a short time, particularly through text-messages on their mobile phones. However, Kaduna was the only place where the protest took a violent form, even though neither the newspaper nor the writer had any particular link to that state. On Wednesday, November 20, demonstrators took to the streets in Kaduna town. According to several witnesses, an initially peaceful public protest against the content of the article was hijacked by a group of people who were apparently intent on causing trouble, and the demonstration quickly turned to violence. A group of protesters composed primarily of young Muslim men, believed to include students from Kaduna Polytechnic, arrived at the Kaduna office of ThisDay in three buses; others used motorcycles. They attacked and burned the newspaper's regional office on Attahiru Road Malali, ransacked the newspaper depot and distribution centre and made bonfires out of piles of newspapers. There were no casualties, as the newspaper staff were not on the premises at the time. At no point did the police intervene to stop the violence by the protesters or make any arrests, despite the fact that the office of ThisDay was attacked in broad daylight and in full view of many residents and passers-by.

A group of protesters also marched to the office of the Kaduna State Governor. They demanded to meet him, and some protestors were further angered by his refusal to do so. There were conflicting testimonies as to whether the protestors who went to the governor's office were demonstrating in a peaceful or a threatening manner.

ISLAM IS A VIOLENT MOVEMENT



NO OFFENCE INTENDED BUT THERE IS NO OTHER WAY OF SAYING THE TRUTH


I WISH THEY ARE LIKE CHRISTIANS

Three days of killing and destruction

The following day, on Thursday, November 21, organized groups of Muslim youths in different areas of Kaduna town took up arms and began attacking Christians. They advanced in large groups, armed with a variety of weapons, including machetes, knives, sticks, iron bars, and firearms. They sought out Christian homes, particularly in mixed Christian-Muslim neighborhoods, and specifically targeted people on the basis of their religion. Many Christians were killed and many were injured; others fled for their lives, leaving their homes and belongings behind, which were then looted by the rampaging youths. The attackers also destroyed or burned houses and other buildings, including a large number of churches, schools, hotels and other properties.

All the people interviewed by Human Rights Watch, whether Muslim or Christian, agreed that this first wave of violence was initiated by Muslim groups, that it was unprovoked, and that it appeared to have been planned in advance. However, within a short time, Christian groups started retaliating. Most of the attacks by Christians took place on the second day, on Friday, November 22. Their tactics mirrored those of their opponents: similarly armed with traditional weapons as well as firearms, they specifically targeted Muslims, setting up roadblocks and interrogating those who passed by to ascertain their religion, then singling out the Muslims and attacking them. They also attacked several mosques and many houses and other buildings in Muslim areas.

On the afternoon of Friday, November 22, the violence spread to the federal capital, Abuja (about 185 kilometres south of Kaduna town), where Muslim youths began smashing vehicles and lighting fires in the center of town. The police intervened fairly promptly, and nobody was killed in Abuja; however, this was seen as an alarming development as it was the first time that the capital was directly experiencing the effects of inter-communal or inter-religious violence more commonly associated with other parts of Nigeria. According to an Abuja-based human rights activist, the outbreak of violence in Kaduna had led to an internal dispute at the Abuja central mosque. Youths there reportedly asked the imam how they should respond to the situation in Kaduna; when the imam replied that they should remain calm, the youths were not satisfied. They reportedly threatened him, then went on the rampage in town.

On Friday, November 22, ThisDay published an extensive and unreserved apology by its editor for any offense caused by the original article; retractions and apologies had already been published in two earlier editions, on November 18 and 19. However, these apologies, barely noticed by the rioters, made no impact on the spread of violence, which was already beyond control.

The fighting in Kaduna continued into Saturday, November 23. By this time, the violence had taken on a life of its own. Some of the rioters did not even know what had sparked off the fighting but were nevertheless systematically hunting down members of the other faith and destroying their property; others seemed more interested in looting than in killing. People reported seeing many bodies lying in the streets as they fled in panic, but often did not know whether the victims were Muslim or Christian or who had killed whom. A young man who had fled from the Nasarawa area (a mixed Muslim/Christian area) described the pervasive violence, chaos and confusion, in which people from all different ethnic groups and religions found themselves trapped:

"It started on Thursday, at about 1 p.m. People tried to calm us down. Muslim youths were putting fire to people's houses […] On Thursday, they grabbed a person and cut him on the head with a knife. He was an Idoma man [an ethnic group from central Nigeria] aged about thirty-five. More than ten of them surrounded him. He died immediately. On Friday, a Christian man called Suleiman, in his forties, was shot in the head with a gun, in Dokaji Street.
When we ran away, they put fire to our house. My house was destroyed. My shop was also burnt to ashes. I ran to my brother's place. I saw some dead bodies on the way. They had been burnt. I saw five bodies in Dokaji, Market Road, Fulani Street. They were cut with knives. Three were burnt. I don't know their identity or whether they were Christians or Muslims. A Hausa businessman, a mature man who has children, was shot with a gun. I don't know who killed him. I saw his body. He was shot in the head, in his house.[22]
In several localities, Christian and Muslim community and religious leaders made desperate attempts to rein in the youths and contain the violence. For example, a Christian leader in Nasarawa gathered Christians and Muslims in his area on the first day of the violence: "Tires were burning around Flourmill. I went there. I called Muslims and Christians. The Christians told me Muslims were killing Christians at Kabala and they had to retaliate. I asked them: 'Have you seen it?' They said no. I said: 'We made an agreement not to fight in Kaduna.' Then they left, both the Christians and the Muslims."[23] In some instances, communities succeeded in setting up joint patrols of Christian and Muslim civilians, which managed to limit or prevent killings by keeping people out of certain neighborhoods; however, overall, the impact of their efforts was limited.

Around 250 people were killed in Kaduna between November 21 and 23,[24] most of them men and boys, and between 20,000 and 30,000 people were displaced.[25] The attacks were carried out by groups of teenagers and young men, operating in groups of around ten to more than fifty people, and in some cases around one hundred. Most of these groups did not appear to have identifiable leaders, although their actions were, in some cases, well-coordinated. Some of the attackers were known to their victims, as they were neighbors or residents from nearby communities; in other cases, the victims did not recognize their attackers and believed they had been mobilized to come in from outlying areas. Some attackers wore paint or charcoal on their faces to conceal their identity. Some of the worst fighting was concentrated in mixed Muslim-Christian areas, such as Nasarawa, and at the borders between predominantly Muslim and predominantly Christian areas, which turned into frontlines.

The use of small arms was widespread. While many of the youths used machetes, clubs, sticks, bottles and whatever other weapons they could find, many also used firearms. Staff of several hospitals interviewed by Human Rights Watch, by local human rights activists or by journalists reported that a significant proportion of the patients they treated had gunshot wounds.[26] Some of these injuries had been inflicted by Christian or Muslim youths, others by members of the security forces, while some of the victims had been caught in the cross-fire.

The state government imposed a curfew soon after the fighting began, but this seemed to have little impact, beyond giving the security forces licence to shoot people caught outside after hours (see below). The police were finally deployed on the evening of Thursday, November 21, although according to some sources, they were only fully deployed on the following day. As the police were unable to contain the violence, the military were eventually also deployed on November 22. Joint police and military patrols were set up, but did not immediately succeed in quelling the violence; killings and rioting continued, sometimes before their eyes, sometimes behind their backs. In addition to those killed in the fighting between Christians and Muslims, scores of people were shot dead by the security forces. It was only on Sunday, November 24 that calm gradually returned to Kaduna.

A religion of peace that is practice by mouth but their actions prove it other wise. Brainwashed goons remote by lunatic scholars for the sake of "WINE" and "WOMAN WAIST".

Attacks by Muslims

Most of the attacks by Muslim groups took place on the first day of the violence, on Thursday, November 21. The attacks seemed well-planned and targeted several different areas. They specifically sought out Christian households, with the intention of killing Christians or destroying and looting their homes and belongings. Churches and other buildings were also destroyed. Many residents reported that when the Muslim youths attacked, they were shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and asking local residents to show them the houses of arna (infidels).

In Abattoir Close, a largely Muslim area within the predominantly Christian area of Kabala West, many Muslim residents managed to save their Christian neighbors by hiding them, or pretending that the houses inhabited by Christians belonged to them. It was largely thanks to their efforts that no one was killed in Abattoir Close. However, in other cases, Muslim residents pointed out Christian houses to the attackers. About three quarters of the Christian houses in this area were looted, as well as two churches, which were also burnt. A twenty-two-year-old Christian student and his sister living in Abattoir Close described how Muslim youths began targeting Christian houses there:

On Thursday 21 November, at about 8.30 a.m. or 9 a.m., we were sitting in the room without knowing anything. My elder sister came in shouting that the Hausa were demonstrating outside about the article on Prophet Mohammed in ThisDay. The protest started against ThisDay then became a religious crisis.
Here it started at Kabala Junction. The Muslims said that they would beat us if we didn't put leaves on our cars to show our support for them [a symbol used to denote solidarity].
This is a Muslim area. There are only a few Christian houses. The Muslims surrounded the area. They said: "Where are the Christians? Where are the Christians?" We heard them from inside the house. Some of our Muslim neighbors hid us in their houses. I heard the Muslims say they wanted to burn our house because it belonged to a Christian. Some Muslim neighbors pretended that the house belonged to their father, in order to protect us.
About fifty Muslims surrounded the area, first one group, then another group. They looted and they burned two churches on Thursday: CST (Cherubim and Seraphim Temple) and the United Church of Christ. We saw them putting fire to the United Church of Christ: they poured petrol then lit it. They had machetes, local guns, and gariyu (curved knives) […].
The youths were up to twenty-six years old, all boys. Some were as young as twelve, carrying knives. When they were looting, their leaders would ask them: "Did you kill before you carry it?" Some said yes.
The attackers came from other areas. We didn't recognize them. They were not from our neighborhood. They had their faces covered with black charcoal except their eyes. There were all in civilian clothes, mostly kaftan. They were shouting: "Allahu Akbar!" They were saying anyone who insults the Prophet Mohammed must die. They said any Hausa who is hiding a Christian should bring them out to be killed, but the Hausa refused.
We heard the attackers say they would come back after the fasting had ended. The Hausa who protected us also asked us to leave before the end of the fasting.[28]
A businesswoman from the same area, who lost everything when her shop was looted, gave a similar account of how the attack began in Abattoir Close on the morning of November 21:

At about 8 a.m., we heard people running. It was total chaos. I saw a group with guns and knives, chasing people […] They were aged between sixteen and twenty-six. They had guns, knives, cutlasses, butchers' knives. They were saying: "We're going to kill these Christians! We're going to do away with these useless people!" They wore tattered clothes and had painted faces. I couldn't recognize them. They wanted to set my house on fire. People were pointing out Christian houses to them […] My neighbor stopped them from burning my house. He said it was his.[29]
Another resident from the same area, a twenty-five-year-old student, witnessed further violence as he fled from Abattoir Close:

At about 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., when the situation was calmer, we came out. I left with my mother and brothers […] On Nasarawa bridge, we saw a gathering of Hausa. There were more than fifty of them. Some had long double-barrel guns and locally-made gariyu. They also had short knives and cutlasses. They put up a roadblock and were stopping cars and breaking windscreens. We stopped. They pursued us so we reversed. We created a distance between us. One man was with them on the bridge, acting like a leader […] If you're unlucky and they blockade you, they ask if you're a Christian. If you're a Muslim, they let you pass. If you're a Christian, they kill you.
I saw some injured men, some dead. There was the dead body of a Christian at Abattoir/Kabala junction. He was killed with knives. He was pursued from Amigo junction going towards Abattoir.
We saw a car and a vespa [motor scooter] burning. Two people had been killed, burnt in the car. We saw their bodies in the vehicle. The victims must have been Christians as the area was under the control of Muslims.[30]
Human Rights Watch also visited Nariya, a predominantly Christian village on the edge of Kaduna town. Nariya had already been attacked during the 2000 crisis and a number of people had been killed; at that time, the population consisted of both Muslims and Christians, the latter mostly from the Gwari ethnic group. Since then, many Muslims had moved out, but a few remained-mostly Yoruba, rather than Hausa.[31]

At least three residents of Nariya were killed - two by Muslim youths and one by soldiers; at least fifteen houses, two churches and several other buildings were destroyed. The local primary school, which normally teaches about 250 children, was completely destroyed. Residents saw several large groups of Muslim youths arriving in the morning, at about 8 a.m., armed with guns, machetes and sticks; some were teenagers. They were not from Nariya; residents believed they came from the neighborhood of Rigasa. One resident said that some of the youths were holding a red flag, that they were shouting: "We must finish Nariya!" and saying they would celebrate the end of Ramadan in Nariya.

One of the victims was Sylvester Agada, a married man in his forties, who was killed in the afternoon of November 21. A resident of Nariya who helped bury him said that the attackers had shot him, then used a machete to amputate one of his hands, one of his legs and his genitals and cut out his eyes; they then burned his body.[32]

Another victim was Boni Lakut, a father of six, aged about sixty years old, who worked as a cleaner with the state radio. He was killed not in Nariya, but at Kabala West junction on his way home from work, on November 21. Eyewitnesses told his family that Muslim youths stopped Boni Lakut as he was riding home on his bicycle, dragged him and beat him with machetes, then hit him hard on the head. He fell down. They then put a tire on him and set it on fire. Witnesses said he was calling for help. The attackers put his bicycle on top of him and he was burnt alive with his bicycle. His relatives, who saw his body from a distance with the bicycle on top, wanted to remove his body straightaway, but claimed that government officials prevented them from doing so and insisted on removing it themselves to bury it with others in a mass grave.[33]

According to a local human rights organization, two Muslim students - a university graduate and a polytechnic student - were killed by Muslims on Zango Road, in the Muslim area of Tudun Wada, on November 22. A mob surrounded them, presuming they were Christians because they were wearing jeans and T-shirts, rather than traditional Muslim dress. Despite the students' protestations that they were Muslim, they hit them on their heads with gariyu, then slaughtered them. The attackers only realized they were Muslims after they were dead, when they found their identity cards as they searched their pockets for money.[34]

EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS AND OTHER ABUSES BY THE SECURITY FORCES

Human Rights Watch uncovered detailed information on extrajudicial killings of civilians by both the police and the military during the three days of rioting in Kaduna. Instead of restoring law and order, in several instances members of the security forces turned against the very people they were supposed to protect. In some cases, the victims were boys or young men who were shot because they were caught breaking the curfew; in other cases, people were killed or injured when the police or military fired to deter rioting; other people were hit by stray bullets. In a number of instances, the police or military, taking advantage of the general chaos, targeted particular individuals with the specific intention of killing them. Overall, however, it was difficult to ascertain the exact reasons why members of the security forces shot particular individuals or groups of individuals. Despite several efforts, Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the level at which orders were given for the police and the military to use lethal force. However, these cases form part of a well-documented pattern of extrajudicial killings by the security forces in the context of attempts to restore law and order in Nigeria.[40]

Some of the people interviewed in Kaduna by Human Rights Watch referred to the presence of "fake soldiers" during the days of rioting; when asked how they could distinguish fake soldiers from real soldiers, they said that the fake soldiers did not have full military uniform, and wore canvas shoes or sandals instead of boots. Some of them claimed to have recognized these individuals as civilians. Some also said that the fake soldiers were not behaving like real soldiers, and that a number of them were subsequently arrested by real soldiers, or by the police. Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm the presence of fake soldiers, although it is likely that some civilians did obtain military uniforms and wore these to disguise themselves during the riots. As a result of this confusion, this report does not include many of the cases where people were killed by alleged fake soldiers. The cases described below, with one exception (where a perpetrator was identified as a traditional leader), are those where witnesses confirmed that the perpetrators were indeed members of the Nigerian army, the police force, or of a civil defence group.

For those with sense let them read!

If I say what's on my mind eh!

PPAngel:
For those with sense let them read!

Madam, I've seen worst since 2001 till date, how me and my family members escape is still a mystery, Boko Haram is a plan gone wrong, I have Christian friends from Maiduguri that can give you more details on the genesis of bh, the only hope they had was GEJ now his no more

I experienced this riot along with others as a young boy the memories are still fresh and tormenting till this very day.

A solution to this is to let this country split along religious lines. Let people except the yoruba's leave their ancestorial lands and relocate to either the south for christians or north for muslims.
The impossibility of this happening is a sure sign we may have to live with this forever.

illmatic101:



Madam, I've seen worst since 2001 till date, how me and my family members escape is still a mystery, Boko Haram is a plan gone wrong, I have Christian friends from Maiduguri that can give you more details on the genesis of bh, the only hope they had was GEJ now his no more

What additional details can you give on the Genesis of this deadly sect?

Is it safe for you to divulge information?

I actually feel sorry for the indigenous Northern Christians the most.

At least the Southern Christians residing in the North can relocate to their home base.

illmatic101:



Madam, I've seen worst since 2001 till date, how me and my family members escape is still a mystery, Boko Haram is a plan gone wrong, I have Christian friends from Maiduguri that can give you more details on the genesis of bh, the only hope they had was GEJ now his no more

oga have you forgotten so soon?
during gej's tenure things were worse than they are now
I remember reading news headlines like

-bokoharam captures mubi town
-bokoharam takes over gwoza
-bokoharam attacks army barracks, carts away arms and ammunition. etc

but I still give it to gej because he made sure every captured town was recovered before leaving office.

President Buhari needs to sit up and act fast. as I am not in for supporting any inactive government.

God bless Nigeria

Buhari's core constituency and voting bloc

Akoja360:
I experienced this riot along with others as a young boy the memories are still fresh and tormenting till this very day.

Samehere, I got to realise that the people even affected don't know cause of it as it then.