NIGERIA: POTENTIAL FOR VIOLENCE IN KANO RISING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 001366

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/14/2006
TAGS: PINS PGOV PHUM NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: POTENTIAL FOR VIOLENCE IN KANO RISING

REF: A) ABUJA B) ABUJA 0762 C) ABUJA 1644 D) ABUJA
1635 E) LAGOS 1225


Classified by Ambassador Howard Jeter for reasons 1.5 (b) and
(d).



1. (U) Summary: In a series of meetings held in Kano May
10-12, Government officials, religious leaders, academics and
journalists repeatedly stressed to Poloff the "dangerous"
level of tension between Kano's Hausa-Fulani "indigenes" and
large "immigrant" Igbo and Yoruba population. Communal
relations there have deteriorated since the Ambassador's
visit in March, largely because of the continued perception
among Kano's Hausa majority that the Lagos State Government
is unwilling to prosecute OPC members responsible for the
killing of Hausas in the Ajegunle incident last October (Ref.
C). The activities of Shari'a vigilante groups have also
increased apprehension among
Southerners. Leaders on all sides are concerned, and are
warning of the potential for a bloody inter-ethnic conflict
in the city if something is not done to lessen the tension.
The Obasanjo Administration's reluctance to go beyond
immediate intervention in times of crisis has not helped to
alleviate those concerns. If the Lagos and Kano Governors do
not begin to coordinate their efforts, and take at least some
steps towards reconciliation, another round of violence may
be difficult to avoid. End Summary.


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Storm Clouds
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2. (C) The Chairman of the Kano chapter of the Christian
Association of Nigeria, Reverend G.A. Ojo, is pastor of the
First Baptist Church, the largest Yoruba church in Kano. Ojo
said that his church was being reduced to an all-male
membership, as the Yoruba in Kano were sending their families
back South. He said that tensions between Kano's Hausa
majority and its Southern population had risen
"significantly." Ojo praised the efforts of Governor
Kwankwaso, the Emir of Kano, the police and Muslim religious
leaders for preventing reprisals by Kano's Hausa against
their Yoruba neighbors following the Ajegunle incident last
October, in which an estimated one-hundred-fifty
Hausas--largely from Kano--were killed in a Lagos suburb.



3. (C) Ojo said that Kano's long-resident Southern minority,
which numbers in the range of half a million people, was very
aware of the historical ebb and flow of inter-ethnic violence
in Kano. That collective memory extends to the pogrom
against Igbos in Kano in 1966--itself a reaction to the coup
attempt in which mostly-Igbo officers killed Northern Premier
Sir Ahmadu Bello, Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and
other Nigerian leaders. By some estimates, up to 30,000
Southerners (mostly Igbo) were thought to have been killed in
that incident, which was a major precipitating factor in the
Biafran secession. Ojo commented that "everyone" was aware
that tensions were particularly high at the moment, and that
any of several eventual incidents--in Kano or Lagos--could
spark a major episode of inter-ethnic violence. Ojo added
that the Igbos in Sabon Gari were all armed, and implied that
the Yorubas were as well. He said that a direct attack
against Sabon Gari--a densely-populated, rectangular enclave
of mostly Southerners approximately 2.5 by 1
kilometers--would be unlikely because it is essentially an
"armed camp." Ojo predicted that the violence would probably
be focused on the substantial number of Igbo and Yoruba
living elsewhere in the city and its environs.



4. (C) Ojo asserted that while the Shari'a issue in Kano did
not help matters, Christian leaders had confidence in the
Government's intentions not to allow Shari'a to affect their
population unduly. Their primary concern, he said, was with
crime and mob violence. He added that an action by Shari'a
enforcers, for example, could provide an opportunity for
Kano's "Yandabas" (gangs of criminally inclined, unemployed
youth) to set off unrest in order to begin looting. Ojo said
that Kano's Hausas were "furious" over the failure of Lagos
State to prosecute Frederic Fashehun (leader of the OPC) and
other OPC members for their perceived involvement in the
Ajegunle incident. He complained bitterly about the actions
of the OPC in Lagos and Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu:
"Either they do not know that what they do puts us at risk,
or they do not care. But we have no control over them. We
can only sit and wait."


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The National Police
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5. (C) Deputy Commissioner of Police, Emmanuel Ezozue, an
Igbo, confirmed that Kano's security situation had become
"dangerous." He said that preventing reprisal violence after
Ajegunle was a significant accomplishment, but added that
anger in the Hausa community over that incident had not
dissipated in the intervening seven months. If anything, he
said, it was increasing because of a perceived lack of
justice in Lagos and the severely depressed economy in Kano.
Ezozue said, "My own brother left Kano for Abuja. It's just
too dangerous." Asked whether Kano's police would be able to
stop the unrest feared by many, the Deputy Commissioner said
flatly, "No. There are too many of them, and not enough
police."


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The Governor
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6. (C) Governor Kwankwaso discussed at length the recent
Hisbah enforcement action against hotels that continue to
serve alchohol in the State (Ref. A). He said that while he
had arrested those involved in the burning of the Igbo-owned
Henzina Hotel, he could not try them at this point because of
the potential reaction by Shari'a supporters. Kwankwaso said
that Kano's Hausa majority, independent of the Shari'a
question, continued to be outraged by the failure to
prosecute any of the organizers or perpetrators of the
violence in Ajegunle. He was especially critical of Lagos
Governor Bola Tinubu: "The man should have kept Fashehun
under house arrest in his hotel, a house, anywhere, for six
months so people up here would calm down. Letting him go
after one week did not help me manage the situation here."
(Comment: The Governor's statement is reflective of a broader
misperception in the North over Fasheun's role in the
violence. The investigation by National Police failed to
find adequate evidence of Fasheun's involvement to support a
murder charge, for which he was arrested. The fact that
Ganiyu Adams, who is thought to control the militant wing of
the OPC, is under house-arrest, does not seem to have
registered with Northern leaders, who appear inappropriately
fixated on Fasehun as the symbol of the militant OPC, and
Lagos' State's disregard for Hausa lives. End Comment.)



7. (C) Kwankwaso said that he had requested but not received
any help from the Obasanjo Administration on how to handle
the increasingly precarious security situation in Kano. In
the immediate aftermath of the Ajegunle violence, delegations
sent by the Federal Government fanned out across the
nation--including Kano--to preach peace and restraint.
Clearly frustrated with the lack of current support from
Abuja in addressing the causes of the violence, Kwankwaso
declaimed: "Kano is the most difficult city in Nigeria to
manage! It is the second largest in the country, and most of
its people are poor, even by our standards. Lagos has
bankers, lawyers--a middle class--in addition to its poor. I
have a few rich Alhajis--the rest are nail clippers and
people selling sugar-cane on the streets." Acknowledging the
economic roots of recurring unrest in Kano, Kwankwaso added,
"A hungry man is an angry man. And many people in Kano are
hungry." (Comment: Lagos was recently called "uninhabitable"
and a "jungle" by President Obasanjo. Incidents of violent
crime in Lagos occur more frequently, and with more lethal
results, than in Kano. Officers in Police Command in Kano
describe its street crime as typical of any large, poor city,
which they consider to be relatively manageable. While
Islam--and to a certain extent Shari'a law--may serve to
restrain individuals, those same people become very dangerous
when formed into a mob, which the poor on Kano's streets are
only too willing to join. End Comment.)



8. (C) Kwankwaso reiterated that many of Kano's poor Hausas
were focusing much of their anger about their current
economic circumstances on the perceived injustice against
their kinsmen in the Ajegunle incident and its aftermath. He
said that immediate revenge would have dissipated the
collective anger generated by that incident. Kwankwaso added
that he had been only half successful in preventing a
recurrence of violence: while immediate reprisals for
Ajegunle were averted, the anger it generated remains.
According to Kwankwaso, the desire for vengeance now appeared
to be growing.



9. (C) Consulate General Lagos reports that the commission
convened to study the causes of the Ajegunle riots is nearing
the completion of its report. It appears that the Commission
may adopt the conspiracy theory that the violence was
instigated by a prominent Northerner to de-stabilize the
country, and therefore conclude that the Hausas in the
Ajegunle market riot started the violence and essentially
provoked the conflict that led to their own deaths. The
incident may have been sparked by one in a series of
often-lethal market disputes. Whatever happened in Ajegunle,
as far as many Northerners are concerned, the bare facts of
the incident speak for themselves: Lagos' Yoruba majority
killed a large number of its Hausa minority, suggesting the
simpler explanation of long-standing inter-ethnic grievances
boiling over, with the minority ethnic group taking the
lion's share of the casualties. Not surprisingly, Hausas and
Yorubas have divergent perspectives on those events, and on
the Odu'a Peoples' Congress (OPC),that are not easily
reconciled. The OPC is viewed by many Yoruba as a
legitimate, civilian, cultural and law enforcement
organization. It is generally viewed in the North as an
criminal, para-military organization that targets other
ethnic groups, and enjoys the tacit support of Governor
Tinubu and his Attorney General, as well as GON Federal A.G.
Bola Ige. Most Northerners believe that the OPC took the
lead in the unrest that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of
Hausas.



10. (C) Amconsul Lagos reports that Governor Tinubu has
engaged in an extensive effort to forestall a repeat of the
violence that occurred last October. He has worked closely
with leaders of the Hausa community in Lagos to prevent a
take-over of an abbatoir by criminal elements, which would
likely have resulted in violence. Acting in the ad-hoc
manner of previous Heads of State, President Obasanjo has
been reluctant to address this situation beyond traditional
responses to immediate violence--police and army repression.
He risks alienating what Yoruba base he has if he
aggressively pursues the OPC, and is already viewed by much
of the Northern leadership as having "gone ethnic." In the
eyes of Northerners, neither Minister of Justice Bola Ige nor
Governor Tinubu appear interested in prosecuting criminal
acts by OPC members either. Although there are many
Northerners serving in the Obasanjo Administration, including
senior conservatives who remain loyal to his government, many
other Hausas believe that President Obasanjo is representing
Yoruba--rather than national--interests. Barring
intervention by the Executive, the problem is left to the
Governors, the police, and--if there is a truly serious
outbreak of inter-communal violence--the military to solve.



11. Comment: Truth can remain highly elusive in any
discussion across ethnic lines about occurrences of
inter-ethnic violence in Nigeria. Unfortunately, Hausas in
Kano are focusing their anger--largely derived from desparate
economic circumstances--on the Ajegunle incident and their
Yoruba brethren. There has been limited contact between
Governors Tinubu and Kwankwaso, while the Mission maintains
close ties with both. During a recent meeting with Governor
Tinubu in Lagos, Ambassador Jeter raised the idea of a
possible meeting between Tinubu and Kwankwaso. Tinubu said
that our report about the situation in Kano confirmed what he
had been hearing, and agreed to meet with Kwankwaso, most
probably in Kaduna, using Governor Makarfi as a facilitator.
(Note: As Makarfi is out of the country and Tinubu has not
had time to broach this subject with him, this proposal
should not be raised during Makarfi's upcoming visit to
Washington. End Note.)



12. (C) Makarfi has set the standard for fostering
co-operative relations among Governors across regional lines,
and may prove to be instrumental in improving relations
between Kwankwaso and Tinubu. It is encouraging that
Governor Tinubu is aware--and concerned--about the plight of
his kinsmen in Kano. Hopefully, these efforts will begin to
dissipate some of the mis-directed ethnic resentment in Kano
before another round of violence occurs. End Comment.
Jeter