The unabated ethno-religious crises in Jos has been a source of concern not only to the Nigerian government but the international community. Tunde Oyesina in this article, opines that the lack of political will by the government to expose and punish those behind such unpleasant act in the past encourages the recurrence of crisis in the state.

It had been said for the umpteenth time that Nigeria has good and perfect laws but very weak implementation. Events as they unfold in the country in recent time has no doubt lend credence to the above assertion, just as laws were being breached at will, with little or no efforts to implement the necessary punishment to serve as deterrent to others.

Events of sectarian killings which have constantly persisted in Jos for some time now, was a clear breach or departure from the provision of Chapter IV of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which provides for The Fundamental Rights of Nigerians.

Section 33(1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that:
“Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprive intentionally of his life, save in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria”
The import of the above provision is that every Nigerian irrespective of his culture or religion has a right to life and that nobody, no matter the condition or circumstances has the liberty to intentionally take or deprive another of his life save in the execution of court sentence.

Going down the memory lane, the first major ethno-religious riot in Jos happened between September 7 and 17, 2001 where over 1,000 persons were reported to have been killed; a similar occurrence took place in 2004 where over 500 persons were reportedly killed in clashes that took place in Yelwa, leading to the declaration of a state of emergency by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

In 2008, a dispute over council election in Jos North claimed about 700 lives, while earlier this year, precisely on January 17, 2010 over 350 persons were reportedly killed in a fresh outbreak of violence over a disputed plot of land.

As if that was not enough, another massacre erupted on March 8, 2010 in Jos which saw about 135 persons killed. The victims who included women and children were murdered in the early hours of that fateful day following renewed attacks on Dogo-Na-Hawa, Ratsat and Jeji villages in Foron district, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Without going too far, one of the major reasons why the rights of individuals living in Jos continued to be breached was the lack of political will by the government to expose and punish those behind such unpleasant act in the past. The government has been so reluctant to implement the recommendations of the various panels of inquiries set up in the past.

Such reports were that of Justice Niki Tobi Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the civil disturbances in Jos and its environs in September 2001. Also, Prince Bola Ajibola Commission of Inquiry was set up in November 2008 to look into the Jos crisis. It could also be recalled that in 1994, Hon Justice Aribiton Fiberesima (Rtd) Commission of Inquiry was set up to look into the cause of the riot of 12th April, 1994.

Recently, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole on his visit to Jos attributed the incessant ethno-religious crisis in Plateau State to the non implementation of the past reports of the Commission of inquiries set up to probe the crisis.

He said “it is surprising that with frequent crisis in the state and the wanton destruction of lives and properties coupled with many reports of Commission of inquiries, nobody has been punished to serve as deterrent to others.

Bankole further said that if reports of the Commission of inquiries were not implemented, such unfortunate incident would continue to occur adding that nobody outside the state could proffer solution to the problems on ground.

Asides all these, the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides in Section 14(2)(b) that “ the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. Despite this provision, it seems the government is patiently purposeless fulfilling this aspect of the constitution as far as Jos crisis is concerned.

It seemed that the government had circumvented the constitution and holds itself out as the biggest threat, taking and enjoying the powers enshrined therein but consistently disdain the purposes and responsibilities for which those powers were granted.

The government should know that these killings did not only bring unexplainable grief and sorrow to the survivors and relatives of the victims who would forever live to nurse the loss of their loved ones, it would also bring shame and ridicule to Nigeria as a whole.

Apart from the fact that the right to life was breached, the act of killing in such manner could be described as genocide. Many reports have reflected the deliberate manner in which attacks were launched on the villagers in a way that was intended to destroy the inhabitants of the targeted communities.

Such a deliberate attack targeted at a particular set of people based on its ethnic, national or religious group is unarguably a genocide.

Genocide as defined in Article 6 of the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court includes “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part a national ethnical, racial or religious group” as “killing members of the group” or “causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group”.

The above provision is binding on Nigeria because the nation has ratified the Rome Statute. In view of this, the Nigerian government has an obligation to prevent the occurrence of genocide under a number of treaties and legislation including the Genocide Convention and Rome Statute and its failure to take effective means to prevent the human carnage in Jos makes the government accountable.

The obligation to prevent genocide is a responsibility as decided in the case of BOSNIA V SERBIA by the International Court of Justice. A normative and compelling obligation was placed on the state to employ all means available to them in preventing the genocide as much as possible. This is referred to as obligation of conduct.

It was therefore a breach of this treaty by the government having failed to prevent the gruesome killing of several people particularly on March 7, 2010 in Jos South Local Government Area even when government and security officials admitted to have gotten the information of a likely genocide.

Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria creates a responsibility on the government to ensure the security and welfare of its citizen. The failure of the government to put in place an effective system to protect the residents of Jos in the face of repeated inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts go a long way to make the government complicit in the killings.

However, an average Nigerian looks forward to a day when our Constitution would be obeyed to the letter by all and sundry as nobody should be above the law.

To avert such occurrence in the near future, the government should address the root issues of the violence in a sincere and effective manner particularly in the face of repeated genocidal attacks in Plateau state.

It is of utmost important that everybody involved in the Jos killings since 2001 be found and brought to book to face the full wrath of the law without fear or favour.

Until our laws are fulfilled without any reservation, lawless persons would always be on the increase, but on the contrary if the government should see it as an important duty to implement all the laws, it would not only returned Jos to a tourist centre which it was known for rather it would also make our country to regain its giant status in the comity of nations.


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