Media coverage of the Jos carnage is short on facts

by Fran Hawley - 3rd February 2010

Reports on the recent spate of killings in Jos have highlighted the confusion over the causes of such events in divided Nigeria.

Much of the media puts the clashes in Plateau State down to sectarian conflict quickening under threat of a political vacuum due to the absence of the President, Umara Musa Yar’adua.

The alternating arrangement of Christian and Muslim premieres has sought to allay fears of sectarian dominance at the national political level, but does not explain adequately the causes of localised violence.

What is clear is that both Muslim and Christian communities have suffered great losses, not least the estimated 17,000 displaced people in Plateau State, according to the Red Cross.  However, the cause of such tensions has not been allowed sufficient explanation.

Christian shops in ashes at Bukuru Central MarketWhilst some, including The Independent, allude to poverty and corruption as decisive factors, others particularly The Times and The Telegraph put the continued conflicts down to ‘sectarianism’.  The Guardian makes no reference to the conflict, an interesting lack of coverage.  The BBC in its handling of events has cited various figures of the Christian and Muslim dead, according to the prominence of sources used on the ground.

The details of the recent conflict are disputed.  According to the Church Mission Society (CMS) website, ‘reports from the Anglican Diocese of Jos said Christians were going to or coming from their various church services on Sunday morning when about 200 Muslim youths who had been working on a building site began molesting Christians near St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Nasarawa, Jos’.

Christian houses burnt down by MuslimsA spokeswoman for Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) told Lapido Media that ‘local sources’ reported Muslim youths gathering to renovate a house next to St Michael’s Catholic Church owned by a Muslim man who had allegedly murdered three Christians during violence in Jos North in November 2008.

She added that instead of renovating the house, the youths are reported to have launched an unprovoked assault on a female passer-by before attacking St Michael’s Church, killing and injuring several members.  After the violence had subsided, the police commissioner of Plateau State later confirmed an unprovoked attack on the church.

ECWA church - Bishara 1 Bukuru being burnt down by attackers‘They also set fire to a score of local houses, businesses and churches, including a Christ Apostolic Church and an ECWA Church (Evangelical Church of West Africa) in Dutse Uku, and another ECWA Church in Rikkos.  Angered by the violence, Christian youths gathered to launch a counter attack, and the violence soon spread to other areas of Jos North,’ added the spokeswoman.

CSW’s Chief Executive, Mervyn Thomas, writes on the website that ‘this incident is the latest in a series of attacks on the Christian community of Jos that began in 2001.

‘Unfortunately, since perpetrators of religious violence are rarely brought to justice, many in northern and central states no longer trust the authorities to guarantee their safety. This must be addressed by state and federal authorities if we are to see an end to the tragic cycle of religious violence in Northern and central Nigeria,’ Mr Thomas added.

The pastor of an ECWA Church, Jos Jarawa, stands in front of the destroyed buildingReverend Yunusa Nmadu, CEO of CSW Nigeria also writes, ‘If the people arrested in connection with the November 2008 violence and reportedly transferred to Abuja for trial had indeed been prosecuted, this would have been a deterrent, and perhaps the current violence may not have occurred.’

Gideon Para-Mallam is the Regional Secretary for English and Portuguese-speaking Africa with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) based in the Jos area.  Having returned under security escort he came back greatly dismayed at what he saw: ‘Rows of shops of Christian traders burnt down, in their section of the town, not to mention churches burnt all over Jos.  A number of different churches are yet to count their deaths as, sadly, some are still lying out there on the streets.’

A surviving church member stands with his pastorHis calls to action and prayer for peace echo those of other Christian leaders working in the area. Once again, these accounts are not being sufficiently represented in the media.

‘Fake soldiers’ – vigilantes posing as legitimate military forces - have been apprehended in nearby Hwolshe and were seen close to Anglican Archbishop Ben Kwashi’s home, according to CSW.  ‘They have routinely carried out murders in people’s homes during curfew hours’ says their spokeswoman.

These scandalous so-called ‘secret killings’ are not being reported properly. Questions of how military uniforms were obtained and what measures are being taken to prevent such dire abuses of military status are not being asked in the media.

Of all the current reportage, the Financial Times appears to have the most in-depth historical analysis behind the situation but with scant reference to fake soldiers and a woefully unbalanced perspective as to the Christian view on the ground.

Written up on the wall of a church after the building was burnt downSpeaking to Lapido Media, Archbishop Kwashi confirmed the recent situation on the ground. ‘At the moment we are trying to resettle some of the wounded persons and provide assistance as much as we can.  I have been taking reports from the churches and some agencies are beginning to render help for the sufferings of the people.

‘It seems that in most parts of the city the police and army have things under control.  Shops and businesses have reopened and the curfew has been reduced to operating between 6pm and 6am.  This is very encouraging but people are saying that other issues are at hand.

‘Most Christians were in the church when the attacks happened - this is key to understanding what took place here in Jos.’

When the violence spread, the majority of people were attacked in their homes, he added. ‘This overwhelmingly suggests total invasion.’

To make the distinction between spontaneous rioting on the street and a more premeditated set of targeted killings of residents in their own homes is absolutely fundamental in the reporting of such violence.

A church member’s motorbike used as a burning bomb to destroy a churchOf the media coverage of the attacks, he continued, ‘My plea to the Western media is not to take a one-sided story in a religious context and enflame our situation here in Nigeria.  It should be possible for everyone in Plateau State to live and eat together in peace, and the sooner we begin to sit down and deal with the issues at hand the better.

‘If it is a political issue we must find a political means of dealing with it.  If it is a commerce issue we need to sit down and deal with it using the appropriate means.  The aggressive stance adopted by biased media reporting prevents us from treating the root of the problem.’

However the triggers for the recent attacks are interpreted, there are certainly preventative measures that need to be taken by bringing to trial those committing previous violent acts in the region.  This is largely going unreported in the mainstream press.  The message coming from the NGO Human Rights Watch is clear: ‘Use restraint in curbing Jos violence; investigate killings and end discriminatory policies’.

Human Rights Watch refers to the problem of ‘indigeneship’ – systemic inequality - as lying behind the on-going unrest.  Although sometimes understood as affecting primarily Hausa Muslim Nigerians, the preferential treatment of indigenous tribes is inscribed in the Nigerian constitution and affects every member of a non-indigenous tribe in every one of Nigeria’s 36 states, be they long term settlers or otherwise.

Cars burnt out by MuslimsBut CSW says the issue of indigeneship is one of national, not just regional, concern.  ‘This is a red herring and an attempt to divorce the violence in Jos from violence committed in other northern or central states,’ according to their spokeswoman.

Such an underlying issue cuts across the sectarianism being reported and points rather to the causal factor of enshrinement and enforcement of rights under the law.  Religion should not take the blame for the failure of politico-legal mechanisms to address poverty and inequality of opportunity, though it is integral to ethnic identity and can become a rallying point when deeper issues of justice are at stake.

The media is picking up on superficial religious tension without going deeper into the failure of the political system.  Without better facts, and a more nuanced grasp of the religious dimension of ethnic and political realities on the ground, coverage of complex foreign affairs will leave us little the wiser.

Stresses on the coverage of world affairs where there is a religious dimension are illustrated by the tussle CSW is currently having with the BBC’s online coverage over its factual reporting.  Approaches have been formally made to the Media Ombudsman. Christian Solidarity Worldwide’s press office 020 8329 0045. The UK Representative for the Anglican Diocese of Jos is Ben Enwuchola, who can be contacted on benwuchola@yahoo.co.uk

Will the Real Reprisals Please Stand Up?
By Stephen Lonewolf Makama
lonewolfmak@yahoo.com

in reprisal for… en represalia por
Translation dictionaries © 2000 C. Langenscheidt KG Berlin and Munich.

Kuru Janta killers were outsiders-survivor
From Mohammed Lalo, Jos

So runs the headline of the ‘very important story’ reported by Daily Trust (Nigeria) page 8, Friday, February 19, 2010. I say ‘very important story’ because had Daily Trust newspaper carried this story as it should have , had Daily Trust given this story the prominence it deserved then the events of Sunday 7, march 2010 would not have happened.

“A survivor of the killings at Kuru Janta village in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, Mallam Adamu Muhammed , said yesterday that those who attacked and killed Fulanis in the village were not residents but outsiders brought in vehicles.
He said the attackers came with assorted weapons in various Hilux vans whose plate numbers were removed and descended on the villagers, killing men, women and children…”

This is part of an account of murders that took place in a Muslim settlement in the heart of Plateau State which was said to be responsible for the satanic proceedings called ‘reprisals’ on 3 Christian communities on Sunday 7, March 2010.

Here is an account that had it been logically followed up on by any responsible media organization or any investigative journalist worth his salt, by any human with feelings would have prevented the so called ‘reprisals’.

Here is an account that was conveniently hidden in among other articles and news reports that only for the truly observant eye one would miss the key evidence which would have saved countless lives. Here is an account which would have forcibly brought about a thawing in the tense and overheated situation brewed (as in deliberately and with intent).
Here is an account which had it been given the necessary exposure would have convinced the men , the human being who set lout intentionally , maliciously and for all intent purposes to attack specifically women , the old and children as they slept towards the early part of the morning- the hours which sleep is at its sweetest… this account would have probably convinced these men who may have been family men too with wives and children and old parents, these men would been convinced to otherwise seek redress and sheath the knives and daggers and pick axes they had continuously sharpened and oiled since January as they erroneously believed reports carried and disseminated by the same media organ which had the truth embedded in its folds.
These men had their ‘trust’- total, complete unalloyed ‘trust’ that what they were about to do was just, believing the same was meted out to them. The religiously believed this conviction, they embarked on the unholy sacrament with the blessings of high standing , moral, responsible men (and women) of society and media, people with normal everyday lives who unbeknownst to them possess the temporal power of life and death and display this power they did heedless ( or fully aware, yet unperturbed) of the consequences…

I quake the thought that these people can still go to sleep normally at night, sit down and have conversation with their families and go back to that same medium and say “enough of this tit for tat…” With little apology I repeat what I posted on a social networking site in respect of the Sunday morning killings in Jos…” anybody who can look at the photograph of a disemboweled dead pregnant woman with her terminal stage unborn baby still wrapped in placenta…both of them burnt to crisp and not be affected is an ANIMAL!”

A popular saying goes that “those who fail to remember history are bound to be condemned by it…”

In 1994 the year of the Rwandan genocide the nominally independent radio television Libre Mes Millee Collines’(RTLM) incited the Hutu population against Tutsis, the resulting intended effect and actions we all know too well today. Since 2008 daily trust Nigeria has been synonymous with ‘anti plateau sentiments’ as far as many of the masses on the plateau surmise. Many would tell you “I do not read Daily Trust because of their bias”. For many educated ones however they know it is just a process of the thought process of an ignoramus and as demonstrated in the endless tirade by the daily Trust Editorial board and its malevolent columnists-depravity, as one writer put “how can you have the power of incumbency and refuse to use it for good…?”

On Monday 8 march 2010 the UN secretary general, Ban Ki Moon on BBC World Service decried the so called reprisals killings in Jos while in the same bulletin one Richard Hamilton of the BBC Africa service was almost ‘justifying’ the gruesome murders as ‘reprisals’, another BBC reporter Caroline Duffield would almost by rote give the same ‘justification’ arguing that Christians committed same in January while all the time the evidence was there, ensconced conveniently in the famed Daily Trust, that the particular bloody incidence said to have been responsible for the Sunday, 7, March, 2010 attacks was not committed by the kin of those slaughtered.
This is in no way belittling the fact that Fulani were affected in what is erroneously pictured as a conflict between ‘settlers’ and ‘natives’ as gloriously tabulated by many ignorant and malicious western reporting. ‘Natives’ in almost any western vocabulary connotes savages, uncouth , unlettered , primitive savage people…settlers on the hand connoted rosy pictures of the Mayflower and its attendant historical entrapments and unfortunately that is the story the world is believing.

True these noble cattle rearers- not herders ,as also derogatively portrayed, are always affected whether in an all out civil conflict or as a result of seasonal altercations between them and farmers but the exploitation of the situation especially on the Plateau bears serious investigation and scrutiny

It would be pertinent to note that the BBC ,especially the Hausa Service has been questioned by many quarters not the least the Christian community on the Plateau as to their fairness , neutrality , impartiality and objective reporting as concerns the long standing issues on the Plateau- as one cleric put it “ there is an unholy relationship between a northern media interest and the BBC that if and when a situation for correlating a story arises the latter hardly think twice about fairness or balance in getting the story out, they just pick up the phone and call their northern Nigeria contact and the information garnered is ‘gospel’ truth…”

Surely the role of Daily Trust in and its columnists- foreign news media organizations in manipulating and muddying the facts cannot be overemphasized and it will be pertinent to note that when the UN Commission on Human Rights does sit and begin proceeding s on persons, individuals and organizations culpable and complicit in the whole sordid mess on the Plateau these people will feature prominently and justice long delayed will not be denied.

Anonymous - 12 March 2010 - 4:09pm

When I was growing up journalism was a daring profession, the domain of honest men and women of proven integrity for whom trustworthiness and reliability through verification and cross referencing of information with all relevant parties to an issue was crucial before for anything could qualify as a broadcastable news item. These were non-negotiable components of genuine journalistic professionalism. Through their reports we developed a strong liking and longing for news hours and the pages of the newspapers. Their reportage was educative, informative, and inspiring. We didn’t need to probe any further. We were served nothing but the truth. However this kind of journalism and journalist seems to have fizzled into oblivion and they are remembered only with a groan of the good turned bad, sometimes even worse.

Nowhere have I come to realise that credible, objectively verifiable journalism may be on the verge of extinction, than with the international coverage of the various Jos crises. During the 2008 crisis the BCC, Voice of America (VOA), France 24, Deutsche Welle, and, of course, Al Jazeera blamed everything on the indigenous Christians of Jos, just as they had also done in 2001. False and one- sided information on Jos and other religious crises in Nigeria now seems to have become the trademark of these media outfits, and what is particularly remarkable is their professionalism in the discharge of their unprofessional journalism.

From Nazism to the Rwandan genocide, false reporting has always had dire consequences. I am therefore baffled that these journalists either know nothing about the history of bad journalism, or know but ignore its lessons. I grant that they do not know, for how else can I explain their flagrant disregard for the injunctions of such great minds as George Santayana or Cicero who said, 'he who will not learn from history is condemned to repeat it,' and 'not to know what happened before we were born is to remain perpetually a child'? The rush to go to the press by this new breed of journalists is revealing of how they are either bent on repeating the mistakes of history, or have ignorantly chosen to remain perpetually childish.

Going by its track record of misreporting religious issues in Nigeria, the BBC appears to have become a 'Senior Professional' in this field, followed by some of the latecomers like the VOA, France 24, DW, or even Al Jazeera. Unfortunately they are often joined by reputable dailies. In the wake of the recent Jos crisis the New York Times reporting from Dakar, Senegal, quoted a Mohammed Ishaq as claiming to have counted 70 corpses in the central mosque. As one Christian leader in Jos rightly observed, corpses are either buried or kept in a mortuary, not in the mosques. Moreover, the experience from the 2008 crisis, when the corpses of non-Muslim Igbos were transported into the mosque for the purpose of international media propaganda is still fresh in my mind. How do you verify such information by phone? Does this not amount to changing the rules of journalism in mid-stream? These western media outfits have over time left me with more questions than answers.

A major source of information for these western media outfits, is the NGO Human Rights Watch, which appears to 'watch' the 'rights' of everyone except the non-Muslims of Plateau State, and which spreads false information indicating that the police and army cadres who were brought in to quell the Jos crisis of 2008 went about shooting Muslims in their homes — an allegation the organisation could not substantiate when asked at the Ajibola Panel of Investigation into the 2008 violence. The result of such misreporting by Human Rights Watch, the BBC et al is seen in the present sacking of the traditional law enforcement agency and maintainers of law and order in Jos plateau State, the police, and the introduction of grim faced military men who give the impression they are on a mission of vengeance. A State of Emergency has not been officially declared on the Plateau, but when you have a military commandant who takes orders not from the Governor but from the Chief of Army Staff in Abuja, how best can you describe the situation than that of a state of emergency? Where is Human Rights Watch when intentionally selected and largely Muslim military men follow Christian youths into an ECWA Church in Nassarawa Gwong and whisk them to an unknown destination? Why have they not said anything when these uniformed military men are going about shooting Christian youths in their homes in Nassarawa Gwong, Congo Russia, Gada Biyu, Gyel, Mai Adiko Rayfield, and Tudun Wada? Where is Human Rights Watch when these soldiers block Christian youths while allowing Muslim youths set the homes of Christians ablaze? And while Human Rights Watch detailed the killings in Kuru Karama (with its usual exaggerations) where Muslims were the hardest hit, why has it sheepishly ignored Nassarawa Gwong, Chwelnyap, Jos Jarawa, Bukuru, and other places where part, most or even entire Christians communities were sacked by heavily armed Muslims?

As I listen to the Hausa services of the western media, I wonder if the newscasters enjoy absolute discretional liberty to determine their own news content. Is the selective interviewing of aggrieved Muslims and the neglect of hurting non-Muslims each time a crisis erupts in Jos or any city in northern and central Nigeria an oversight, a strategy, or both? As I write I am beginning to query if those facilitating these Hausa services know enough Hausa to decipher what is to be aired and what eventually gets aired. I have always thought liberty and irresponsibility mean two different things. Maybe I am wrong. After all I speak English only as a third language. But when the journalist's freedom of expression strips me of access to justice I think the journalist’s freedom becomes an irresponsible one. That the Hausa services of giant western media outfits enjoy the liberty to say what they want, to select to interview only one contending party, and to still air this as accurate news shows the desperation some of these newscasters have reached to earn a living by all means.

This deliberate distortion of the facts by local and especially western media outfits only fans the embers of hostility and mutual suspicion. They have given the crisis a wider reach, as people listened to their transmissions. What gets aired is that Plateau State is ungovernable. But how much more 'ungovernable' is Plateau than Kano, Bauchi, Gombe with their track record of repeated religious crises? One accusation I have heard is that Plateau State does not practice assimilation and integration. How informed is the average western journalist about the fact that the reason Kano can allow somebody from Niger to be their Governor is not because they have perfected the art of integration and assimilation but because in Islam they find a common bonding, yet, in the same state there is not a single Christian who is a commissioner or Local Government Chairman, even from a tribe indigenous to Kano? Is it within the remit of these western media outfits and human rights groups to speak up for these marginalized citizens also, or are they limited to Jos? Does western journalism pay attention to the deep-seated ideological, religious, political, and economic reasons underlying the incessant crisis in many parts of Northern Nigeria, or is it just satisfied with surface scratching?

Unless the journalistic profession is rescued from the current bunch of practitioners, I am afraid we might soon be conducting a funeral service for the once beloved profession, I say this sincerely, as a realist who sees things the way they are and says it the way it is. For the few lone voices of irreproachable, responsible, and just journalism, please keep on, as there might be some young person out there who will live to celebrate you as I do the journalists and journalism of my childhood. Until then, we will just have to remember that truth will always triumph over falsehood.

Anonymous - 9 February 2010 - 11:43am

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