Feb 19, 2006
Riots in Maidugari (Nigeria)
The recent riots in Maidugari, Nigeria, which have left over a dozen dead, have been getting a fair bit of coverage. Sadly, clashes of this sort have hardly been rare in Nigeria over the fifteen years. Indeed, such violence has been becoming increasingly common since the early 1990s.
During my fieldwork in Northern Nigeria, I had a knack for missing such ugliness, leaving just before outbreaks or returning after things had returned to a degree of normality (I've been less successful in dodging riots in the south). With every year, however, the cities where I lived and worked (particularly Kano and Kaduana) seemed to build up an ever-increasing store of tension. I remember Kadunda in 1995 simply seething with a sense of mutual distrust.
Such conflicts in Nigeria, though often reported simply as"religious conflicts," also have deep roots in ethnicity, colonial divisions, and economic power. Further, there can be no doubt that contemporary global politics are playing out amongst Nigerian communities. In a way, I'm struck by the comparison to the Cold War, wherein the US and Soviet Union often fought via proxies in Africa (or elsewhere). However, rather unlike the Cold War, which tended to be a sort of top-down phenomenon with governments and rebel groups choosing sides, this conflict is playing out more at the individual and community level, which makes it all the more nasty.
Perhaps the best insight into the dynamic of violence in Northern Nigeria is Douglas Anthony's Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity, Power, and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986. Doug didn't have my luck in missing out on the violence of the early 1990's, and his research does a better job than anyone elses that I know in offering an understanding of how the tensions built up over time.
During my fieldwork in Northern Nigeria, I had a knack for missing such ugliness, leaving just before outbreaks or returning after things had returned to a degree of normality (I've been less successful in dodging riots in the south). With every year, however, the cities where I lived and worked (particularly Kano and Kaduana) seemed to build up an ever-increasing store of tension. I remember Kadunda in 1995 simply seething with a sense of mutual distrust.
Such conflicts in Nigeria, though often reported simply as"religious conflicts," also have deep roots in ethnicity, colonial divisions, and economic power. Further, there can be no doubt that contemporary global politics are playing out amongst Nigerian communities. In a way, I'm struck by the comparison to the Cold War, wherein the US and Soviet Union often fought via proxies in Africa (or elsewhere). However, rather unlike the Cold War, which tended to be a sort of top-down phenomenon with governments and rebel groups choosing sides, this conflict is playing out more at the individual and community level, which makes it all the more nasty.
Perhaps the best insight into the dynamic of violence in Northern Nigeria is Douglas Anthony's Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity, Power, and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986. Doug didn't have my luck in missing out on the violence of the early 1990's, and his research does a better job than anyone elses that I know in offering an understanding of how the tensions built up over time.