SECTARIAN VIOLENCE AND CORRUPTION PLAGUES NIGERIA
by Elio J. Principe
Nigeria's ethnic and religious divisions and its history of corrupt military leaders have plagued the country ever since independence from England in 1960. The death of dictator Sani Abacha in June 1998 seemed to open the door to a new era. In 1999, nearly 30 million Nigerians cast ballots choosing Olusegun Obasanjo as their new president. However, with the return to civilian rule, religious tensions have erupted. Since, 1999, there have been thousands of deaths directly as a result of sectarian violence, pitting ethnic and religious factions against each other.
Despite the country’s large oil reserves and a rich culture, Nigerians are still struggling to eliminate widespread poverty and to suppress violence. It is imperative to demarcate who these groups are and how they affect each other and Nigeria's present and future:
Hausa-Fulani: These groups, particularly the Hausa, traditionally dominate the army and ultimately the country. The late dictator Sani Abacha, as well as the military leader who followed him, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, were both Muslim Hausa from the north. Muslims make up about 47 percent of Nigeria's population.
Ogoni: :The Ogoni, a minority people hailing from the oil rich Nile Delta region in the southeast, traditionally have found themselves on the fringe sectors of the power struggle. The struggle of the Ogoni to have some of the proceeds from locally extracted oil returned to their homeland reached its pinacle in 1995, when Ogoni activist and prominent writer Ken Saro Wiwa was executed by the Abacha regime with eight others for his dissent.
Igbo: The Igbo, concentrated in the southeast at the edge of the oil rich Niger Delta, are the only one of Nigeria's three dominant ethnic groups not represented by a candidate in the 1999 presidential vote. The Igbo continue to suffer from lingering memories of the 1967 Biafra civil war, when the mostly Igbo-led region tried to break free from Nigeria. The war, which killed hundreds of thousands, lasted until 1970.
Yoruba: The largely Christian Yoruba hail from the southwest near the country's commercial and former political capital, Lagos. Both leading presidential contenders in the 1999 elections were Christian Yorubas.
Nigeria regularly ranks as one of the most corrupt places globally for economic investment. It has warranted its notorious reputation of corruption and abuses of political and economic power International authorities believe Abacha, his regime and several previous military dictators siphoned billions of dollars away from the country's oil industry that still sit in Swiss and other offshore accounts.
Despite Nigeria's position as a leading oil producer, fuel shortages are common in the country. During the 1980s and early 1990s, most of the international corporations based in Lagos moved operations to neighboring Ivory Coast or nearby Ghana to escape the corruption.
Despite enormous reserves and a very strong trade relationship with the United States, Nigeria's endemic corruption has hurt its interests in global trade. Few countries wish to maintain business ties with Nigeria. With between 16 and 22 million barrels of reserves, the country can be a reliable supplier well into the next century. However, violence directed against oil companies like Shell, Texaco and Chevron make business there difficult. Shell, in particular, has become identified with the corrupt status quo that kept oil proceeds from flowing back from the politically powerful north to the south, where exploitation has hurt the environment.
Nigeria is host to 107 million persons, the most populous nation in Africa. Outside of its political power, Nigeria's military is one of Africa's largest. Through the regional Economic Conference of West African States, (ECOWAS), Nigeria has led interventions the helped quell civil unrest in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau. However, internally it has suffered corruption, violence and warring factions between ethnic and religious groups that leave thousands killed each year.
Church leaders have complained that no culprits had been apprehended after Nigeria’s worst sectarian bloodletting in Kaduna in 2000 over plans to introduce sharia law there. More than 3,000 people died in two bouts of Muslim-Christian fighting then that devastated the city of over four million people,
Kaduna residents said both Christians and Muslims carried out lin the November 2002 killings, but the head of the Christian Association of Nigeria said most of the dead were Christians. Makinde blamed the violence on the adoption of sharia law by 12 states in the predominantly Muslim north of the polarized country whose 120 million people are divided roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims.
It is unfortunate that with so much potential for economic development, Nigeria remains stagnant in terms of progress. Wrought with corruption, violence and sectarian wars, it has distanced the world from embracing it into the global market. In the meantime, millions suffer under its regime.
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