Religious Violence in Jos

The Nigerian city Jos, capital of Nigeria's Middle Belt that spans across Muslim and Christian communities, has been a point of religious violence for countless years. Recently, deadly riots broke out being "the worst Nigeria has seen in at least four years." Over400 bodies were found dead, but many still remain in the churches and houses that were torched by outraged and armed Muslims and Christians.

This sudden clash was a result of elections in Jos. "Elections have not been held in Jos for years, in part because of fears that the political parties would split along religious lines, which is in fact what happened." Nigeria's Population of 140 million people is evenly divided between Northern Muslims and Southern Christians. Besides religious differences, violence is due to disagreements over land and political power. Riots have also been cause by what seems as insignificant but actually very serious matters. In 2002, an unintended insult towards Islam was made during a beauty pageant which left hundreds dead. In 2006, a Danish cartoon had controversies leading to almost 200 deaths.

Regardless of the long history of violence through this disputed capital, many officials believe Jos had come a long way in relieving religious tensions. However, this recent riot has brought progress to a stop. Mr. Salihu, a Muslim, said, "The violence threatened to undo years of careful bridge building between the communities. As someone who has been involved in a peace work between Christians and Muslims, this has set our work back 10 years. It will take us a very long time to rebuild the confidence."

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This article shows how changes in democracy and government elections have effects on society. The religious tensions were already dangerous already, but when elections came into the picture it disrupted the peace that was still in tact and led to deadly riots.

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Pirates in Nigeria Attack Again

In the report it is announced that The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) recently attacked a tanker carrying diesel right off the coast of Rivers state coast. This attack is unusually rare because most piracy attacks are typically on oil service boats and not large tankers like the recent incident occurred on. In addition to attacking the tanker, MEND has also kidnapped the Romanian crew that was on board at the time of the attack but promise that the men will be ‘released unharmed’.

The militant groups in Nigeria say they have resorted to piracy in order to achieve a fairer distribution of oil wealth in Nigeria and their efforts have actually cut oil production by a fifth in the past three years. But it is also known that many other armed groups make money out of oil theft under some powerful corrupt political figures in Nigeria.

This is not the first act of piracy form MEND (Nigeria's most public armed group), and the United Kingdom has decided to aid Nigeria and give the country military training in order to help the government stop the growing problem.

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The article contains first hand examples of the social cleavages between classes in Nigeria. The group, Mend, says their purpose is for equal distribution of oil wealth which illustrates that most of the wealth in the country probably goes to the rich and prominent leaders, and not the mass majority of citizens. Also, because of the pressures from below like armed organizations that undermine the rule of law and adopt piracy, oil production has been cut mostly because of the violence caused by those groups. The groups also can be seen as part of a civil society, making up a “third sector” that is fighting for equal treatment of all citizens that give a voice to people who also believe that distribution should be equal to all.

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