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Theophilus Ejorh
This year marks 27 years since the Rwandan conflict occurred. Unlike most modern wars, that conflict was short-lived, lasting for about one hundred days, 7 April – 15 July 1994. Over six hundred lives had perished at the end of the debacle in the most savage and horrific of ways. About 70 percent Tutsis, 30 percent indigenous Twa pygmies, and many moderate Hutus were slaughtered. However, at the center of the conflict were the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi ethnic groups, both locked against each other in bitter political rivalry.
The conflict bore a distant colonial resonance, similar to the case of Nigeria during the 1967-1970 civil war and various related internal hostilities. After the Berlin Conference of 1884 that enabled the scramble and partition of African societies by western powers, Rwanda and neighboring Burundi were allotted to the Germans, who preferred to engage with the Tutsis, whom they considered more enlightened because of their presumed Cushitic (Ethiopian) ancestry and civilization and thus racially superior to the rival and less literate Hutu group. Later, the Belgians took over the colonial administration of Rwanda and sustained the racialist structures put in place by the Germans such that in 1935 they introduced the national identity card that marked the citizens as Tutsi, Hutu, Twa, or naturalized.
The polarisation of Rwanda along ethnic faultlines resonated deeply in politics and every sphere of national life. Subsequently, the division translated into bitter hatred, mutual ethnic antagonism, nepotism, and structural exclusions, as has been the situation in Nigeria since the 1914 amalgamation. Rwandans watched their country steadily imploding. After the Second World War, there was heightened Hutu resentment of the social order. The Hutus began a campaign of resistance that ultimately culminated in their control of political power, with the support of the Catholic Church, a key player in the genocide.
However, Hutu ascendancy was met with sustained Tutsi resistance, resulting in regular outbreaks of tribal violence and the flight of many Tutsis to Congo DRC, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, and Tanzania for sanctuary. In exile, those refugees would later mobilize a formidable army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and confront the Rwandan forces in a civil war from 1990 to 1993. In 1993, negotiations between the RPF and Rwandan government produced a treaty signed in Arusha, Tanzania, leading to the cessation of hostilities.
Nevertheless, the immediate cause of the genocide was on 6 April 1994, when a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana (a Hutu man) and Burundi, Cyprian Ntaryamira, was shot down, killing both leaders. The Hutu-led government blamed the RPF for the attack. The RPF, in turn, blamed Hutu extremists in the government, claiming it was a ploy to launch an attack against the Tutsis. The treaty collapsed, and the next day the killings started. The genocide had been cooking for a long time. It only needed a rational basis to be unleashed, and when it did, it was irrepressible.
Foreign countries and institutions turned a blind eye as Rwanda burned. State-sponsored media compelled their Hutu ethnics to go all out and purge the country of Tutsi “cockroaches” and “snakes.” Neighbors murdered neighbors. Hutus killed their Tutsi spouses to escape brutal ethnic repercussions for harboring and living with the enemies. Even in churches, Hutu nuns murdered Tutsis who had sought refuge in the parishes. It was a horrific season of bloodbath, rape, and arson. Rwandan streets glowed with gore. The trauma from that experience has left a deep and permanent scar in the people’s collective memory.
In her book, The Banality of Evil, American Jewish journalist and thinker Hannah Arendt considered the demonization of the enemy as a primary basis for destroying them. When you demonize your enemy, you can then destroy them and not feel bad about it. In Germany under Hitler, the ruling Nazi Party first demonized Jews as vermin responsible for the country’s economic woes and the miseries of the German population. It was a play on populist imagination aimed to curry national support. As pests, the Jews must be purged in the Final Solution. However, Arendt blamed the Jews for their acquiescence in the face of persecution like sheep led silently to the slaughter. Had they resisted, she contended, for example, through armed struggles, the outcomes would have been far different.
This is why the current anomie in Nigeria is ominous. The country sits perilously on a tinderbox, waiting to explode with the lightest touch. There are daily reports of kidnappings, organized banditry, armed Fulani herders’ terrorism, steady incursions into Northern Nigeria and forced conversion of non-Muslims to Islam by Boko Haram insurgents, attack and occupation of Middle Belt and Southern Nigerian communities by armed Fulani terrorists, guerrilla attacks by unknown gunmen in Eastern Nigeria, and threats posed by separatist agitators. Endless streams of conquered villagers now seek refuge in neighboring countries or take sanctuary in makeshift internally displaced persons (IDPs) centers that burgeon in various parts of the country.
As Muhammadu Buhari’s government seems to have run out of options for tackling the current security morass, the country sits an inch close to the edge of the precipice and anytime can topple over into the gaping chasm. Like the Rwandan case, there are clear indications that the international powers are not interested in meddling in the self-generated mess. Neither America nor Britain is willing to send an intervention force to Nigeria. They do now want to expose their nationals to needless risk. However, the West continues to monitor the situation waiting for it to degenerate and threaten its economic or political interests. That is when it will afford any form of intervention. That is how international politics works, and one wonders if those running the country’s affairs understand this basic fact. For the foreign powers, Nigerian should solve their security problem. Like the saying back home, they are not interested in “drinking Panadol for other people’s headache.” They have enough headaches to cure themselves.
Currently, arms are proliferating in Nigeria. As the state loses its legitimate monopoly of violence, criminals, bandits, terrorist groups, and militias enjoy unhindered access to weapons of war, subverting that privilege previously enjoyed by the state. The country epitomizes the properties of a failed state: a collapsed or weakening political and economic system, loss of government control, the inability to perform fundamental functions of sovereignty, the growth of armed opposition groups, insurgency, increasing crime rate, corruption, and judicial incompetence. Others are poverty, civil violence, weak socio-political apparatuses and structures, dysfunctional institutions, insecurity of life and property, ethnic division, social fragmentation, uneven economic development due to ethnic identities and political cleavages, and loss of public trust.
Some questions are on the lips of many Nigerians: Why are the educated elite and civil society unbelievably quiet while terror and chaos consume the country? Do they think they would be safe in the event of an armed catastrophe? Do the rulers think they would be immune to the lashings of the storm if it comes? I have seen on social media platforms threats of severe reprisals by Nigerians at home and in the diaspora against politicians who might flee the country to foreign lands if the current insecurity culminates in war. The common thinking is that they should face the music they made or the consequences of their inaction.
Chinua Achebe once wrote that the problem with Nigeria is squarely one of leadership. However, this problem is deeply rooted in the intricate interplay of ethnicity and religion, which has historically been appropriated to benefit certain groups over others. Ethnic supremacy and religious bigotry are why an individual with all sorts of inadequacies can be president of Nigeria because he comes from a specific region or belongs to a particular faith. Yet, a more qualified and well-tested candidate from another region cannot. Everyone in Nigeria knows this. Put ethnicity and religion aside, and the country would bask in glory again. The political class knows the right thing to do to avert a potential national catastrophe. They should learn a lesson from Rwanda.
Theophilus Ejorh is a writer based in Dublin, Ireland.