FOR Nigeria, these are, indeed, troubled times. It started in Maiduguri, Borno State and Katsina State when some religious fundamentalists last Saturday protested over the publication of offensive caricatures of Prophet Mohammed by some European newspapers. A newspaper in Denmark actually published the cartoon in September 2005.

But by the time the protests in Maiduguri were over, no less than 30 lives were said to have been lost, including that of a Catholic priest, Rev. Fr. Mathew Gajere. Many churches were also torched, forcing the Borno governor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff to impose a dusk to dawn curfew on the ancient city.

The worst hit areas were Babban Layi in Hausari area and Customs-Bama Road where many Igbo dwellers have their shops, most of which were damaged.

In the moment of anomie, it was everyone to himself. Or so Rev. Fr. Felix Usman, the parish priest of St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Maiduguri was to learn. His church was under threat from the rampaging protesters. He called the Gwanye Police Station for help. But the police complained that they did not have enough men to cope.

"We lost everything except the priory (priest's living quarters)," he lamented. "It was so bad but there was nothing we could do."

In similar fashion, the same sectarian riots in Katsina led to massive destructions, necessitating non-muslims to take to their heels.

Quite dramatically and unexpectedly, hell was let loose in Onitsha, Tuesday, when the corpses of those killed in Maiduguri were brought home. In reprisal attacks, the enraged Igbo headed to the Head Bridge populated by Northerners and pounced on the people. The crisis continued Wednesday, leading to the death of about 40 lives.

Like his Borno counterpart, Governor Chris Ngige imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on the commercial city as well as Awka and Nnewi where the protests had spread to.

And nowhere can the true pictures of the protests in the North and East be appreciated like the army and police barracks where the non-indigenes had taken refuge. In the case of Onitsha, the muslims had taken over every available space at the army barracks and have said that they are not in a haste to leave.

"Look at us," Malam Saidu Bichi told Saturday Vanguard. "We are all Nigerians. Why we go kill ourselves? It's not good. We (used to) live in peace here until that riot in Maiduguri. It's not good to kill ourselves.

"It's Allah that brought me here. Wallahi, I for die! We have to live as brothers. We have no problems with Igbo. It's not good. Both Hausa and Igbo are one. I have many Igbo friends. One of them (has) come to see me here. Imagine!"

That, indeed, has been the lamentation of many of the displaced persons who see no sense in the bloodshed over what happened in far-away Denmark. Unfortunately, those eho now suffer as a result of the riots in Borno and Katsina are mere victims of circumstances.

At both the army and the police barracks, there is communal life in practice. Because of the scarcity of essential facilities, most of the affected persons have been sharing things in common. But these things never go round.

It has been most traumatic for mothers who have been moving from one place to the other in search of food and water for their little kids. As the children wail, the mothers are moved to tears.

But such situation is not restricted to Onitsha. Saturday Vanguard visited some army and police barracks in Katsina, Wednesday and came face-to-face with some Igbo refugees who have sworn not to return to their homes in the city, no thanks to the tension in the entire state. It was such that the venue of the constitutional review was more like a war zone, with battle-ready soldiers wielding their guns menacingly. It did not surprise few of those who managed to come out that not even the state governor, Alhaji Yar'Adua attended the conference.

Chief Damian Ezenwa is a prominent Igbo in Katsina. According to him, "what happened here was unfortunate. What was the reason for killing and destroying things in Maiduguri and here (Katsina)? The cartoon was published in Denmark. Are Igbo traders from Denmark? Are the churches in Denmark?

"We're still taking head-count to know those who are missing. But I want to say that between the Northerners and Igbos, we have a lot in common. I don't know why we should be killing each other for no just cause."

Maiduguri appeared relatively calm, Thursday, but the tension too has been particularly overwhelming since the reprisal attacks in Onitsha. Except those who live in Sabongari, other Igbos have now moved in with their friends and relatives in the area while others spend their nights at the military barracks.

The hitherto quiet Onitsha Army Barracks is now overflowing with victims of the two-day Onitsha mayhem which displaced hundreds of residents. The Barracks currently houses hundreds of displaced victims. Similarly, life has been quite difficult in the barracks since many of them ran into the place with little or nothing.

In a show of solidarity, the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe visited the displaced persons at the barracks and urged them to be calm. Achebe told them that help would soon come their way. He described the incident as "very unfortunate" and expressed the readiness of Onitsha to continue to accommodate all peace-loving people no matter their origins.

The commander of 302 Artillery Regiment, Onitsha, Colonel Lukas Chollampan Logagwowa, assured the victims of their safety in the barracks. He assured that they are doing everything possible to sustain the victims.

Meanwhile, normalcy has returned to the commercial city. Commercial and social activities resumed, Thursday. Markets in Onitsha which were closed on Tuesday and Wednesday opened for business while commercial vehicles which were withdrawn from the roads at the peak of the mayhem resumed operations. However, schools in the city remained closed just as the dusk to dawn curfew imposed on the major cities of the state remained.

But the signs of the devastation were still seen all over the town. There were at least three burnt bodies on the Onitsha-Enugu expressway between the Zik's roundabout and the New Motor spare parts market. One of the charred bodies was said to be that of a mobile policeman. He was said to have been lynched and burnt by the miscreants after he allegedly shot at them. Though normalcy seems to be returning, battle-ready soldiers have been patrolling the city to ensure that there was no further breakdown of law and order.

We saw 'em burn down our church, says Rev. Fr. Livinus

Reverend Father Williams Livinus is the father in-charge of St. Theresa's Catholic Church, one of the churches burnt down during the recent religious riot in Maiduguri, Borno state. He spoke to us in the charred remains of his church where relics of the destruction still littered the ground.

Tell us your experience on the day your church was burnt down.

Before anything happened, we phoned the police to inform them that there was tension in town and we needed the protection of the police. We were told that they had no personnel. I locked the gate to the church premises and came into the compound. Few minutes later, we heard some people shouting and were banging on the gate for more than thirty minutes before they finally broke down the gate and came in.

I asked the seminarian standing with me to find refuge on the other side of the fence while I watched events from a distance. When they gained entrance into the premises, they set fire on the store and broke the louvers on the church windows. They went inside the church, set fire on the altar. They also set fire on all other things that we use in celebrating mass. After that, they came into the office, destroyed my computer and took away what they wanted to take.

Were there any indications there would be riots?

There was an announcement over the radio that there was going to be a peaceful demonstration in the state against the Danish cartoons. We had a feeling that something was going to happen but we did not know to what extent.

Did the security agencies do enough to stop the destruction?

There's no security in Borno state. We believe that there was not enough action taken by the authorities. Some people even saw policemen when the rioters were hitting at my gate. We did not get any support from any quarters.

Before this church was burnt down, for the past thirty years, no Christian has been given the certificate of occupancy to build any church. The religion is not even taught in schools here. Christianity has always been under attack. The only difference is that it has not been to the extent of burning churches.

We spoke with some Muslim leaders and they said what happened had no religious connotations but that unemployed youths took cover under religion to perpetrate crime.

If they are hoodlums, why should the attack be only on Christian churches and business premises?

Hoodlums caused the riot -- Abba Aji

Sheik Mohammed Abba Aji, a muslim leader spoke on the genesis of the crisis in Maiduguri.

How did the protest happen after these years of relative peace in Maiduguri?

The last time something like this happened was during the civil war, either in 1967 or 1968. Anybody who witnessed it would not like such a thing to repeat itself. What I find surprising is that if the cartoon in the Danish newspaper was the motive, people should know that we are in Africa while Denmark is in Europe. It is not the same government. Why would people manifest their anger against the newspapers through innocent people? I think they were propelled by the desire to steal.

The victims of the riots were not idle people. They were people who had one profession or handiwork or the other. You could see that most of the places attacked were business premises. The perpetrators of this were motivated by no other motive but to steal.

Who were these people that carried out these actions?

I am very sure that they are not indigenes of this state. There is no way you would find a Kanuri man doing that kind of thing. We are worried by the development. Each day, you find trailer load of people being brought into this town from other parts of the country. You will find one Mallam with over fifty pupils under his care. It is like that in every town in this state. Unfortunately, some of these mallams do not know the dictates of Islam. The children under them are made to suffer while the parents of these children are never told the true condition of their children.

It is better to take action against such practice or else it would be more disastrous in the future. Every idle person in this town should be interviewed and closely watched. Anyone that cannot discharge himself satisfactorily should be sent out of the town. No under-aged child should be taken from the custody of his parents and brought to this place in the name of studying under one mallam. When they bring them like that, they miss out in parental training and care. The end result is that they have no respect for anything or person. There is no gain.

Are you saying that anybody who professes to be a 'mallam' should be licensed so that they can be monitored?

Not exactly. As far as I am aware, no mallam took part in the riot. What the government should do is to set up a committee of the indigenes of this state to examine the people in the state. If the committee confirms that you are a genuine mallam, then you would be spared. If you are not genuine but hiding under the guise to bring in people of dubious characters to cause crisis in this state, then you should be forced to pack your things and leave with your pupils.

You find many Nigerians being deported from other parts of the world because they committed one crime or the other. We too should start deporting people who are not from this state but are causing trouble.

What in your opinion should the government do to the victims of the crisis?

Government should apologize to them and mitigate their loss because they have no fault in the whole crisis. Their only fault is that they refused to be idle. They are doing something to survive and they became targets. The perpetrators of these crimes have no human feelings.

Islam tells us to respect three things in every human being. The Koran says we should respect three things about any human being: the sacredness of his blood, his good behaviour and his heart. Any good Muslim would not do the things that the perpetrators of the riot did. Those who caused that destruction are not Muslims. They were motivated by the envy of the success of the traders.

Islam does not encourage the destruction of other people's places of worship. Islam says if you have respect for your religion, you must also respect another person's religion. Prophet Mohammed says you should not insult anything that somebody worships so that the person would not insult yours.

Those who did that are not Muslims, they were hoodlums.

My heart bleeds for the bereaved -- Bishop Obinna

The Catholic Archbishop of Owerri ecclesiastical province, Most Rev (Dr) Anthony Obinna insists that government has not done enough to reassure the citizenry of their safety.

I attribute this problem to the recklessness of the secular media of the West, particularly of Denmark. They should have realized the sensitivity of abusing, even in image form, major religious leaders of the world, no matter what the individual may think of the religious leaders. The media in Denmark really trivialized a very important religious factor for many people. Unfortunately, the issue was mishandled in Nigeria.

So, the government must recognize the urgent need to restrain the religious elite because I have not seen where Christians have insinuated and instigated any crisis, unless in a place I do not know in Nigeria. Generally, Christians have not instigated their members to attack anybody. As a religious leader, I have never instigated anybody, any group of Christians to attack fellow religious believers, even if from a different religious group.

What the attacks portend

The Igbo people have been in the forefront of building up this nation because they accepted the fact, right from the beginning, that we can all live as one people under God in this country. That is why the Igbos have migrated to different parts of the country and by their tradition and custom, we also welcome our guests an settlers. As long as there is element of peace, fruitful exchange, the Igbo man is very ready to live side by side with all ethnic groups in Nigeria and elsewhere, including Muslims.

Igbos themselves are asserting that we still belong to Nigeria, irrespective of the fact that we lost the civil war, that we would like to build up Nigeria and we would like to express our presence across Nigeria. In fact, the Igbos should be congratulated for seeking to make Nigeria one nation. That was what late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and others championed. So, not firmly protecting the lives of the Igbos continues to make a statement that well, these people are not particularly wanted. It also means that the rehabilitation, the reconstruction and the reconciliation trumped up at the end of the war by Gowon, have not been really taken seriously these days. Until this nation takes every citizen and every ethnic community seriously and we respect their lives, this kind of bizarre thing would continue to happen. This is, of course, making the Igbos to say that if the federal government cannot defend us, we will defend ourselves. That is not the normal reasoning of the Igbos becaus e they believe in live and let's live, abide and let us abide, room for the kite and room for the eagle.

However, when they see that there isn't that respect for their own lives, they are prone to react and take the law into their own hands, which is what exactly happened at Onitsha. As unfortunate as it is, it would not have happened if the Igbos, who are also generally Christians, were not attacked in Maiduguri or elsewhere.

Nigerian leaders are fiddling with the pursuit of power and money while the more serious issues of uniting the people, making everybody become a member of the Nigerian family is kept as secondary. What is more important to our leaders is their own quest for power, position and for money but the more important thing that makes for a nation is friendship, love and care that you can touch and feel wherever you go if there is a sense of seriousness in our country. So, I just believe that we are fiddling while Nigeria is burning. These people that are burning at the lower level are not part of the power and money establishment. They are just people going about their normal businesses, trying to meet their daily needs but unfortunately, the elitist absenteeism and manipulation of the poor people trigger these crises.

Now, you realize that people cannot travel as freely as they used to, and do their normal business. It is a challenge to the elite, even the religious elite on the one hand to direct their people aright, to restrain the brutal, wicked passion that is fuelled. It is the utmost blasphemy to say you are killing somebody in the name of God or for God, what God Himself has forbidden. On the other hand, the political and economic elite needs to look beyond politics and economics to find ways, more dialogical ways, of bringing peace just as now.

In the Niger Delta area, government is now forced to enter into more meaningful dialogue instead of using gunboat diplomacy to solve the problems in the Niger Delta Region. But prevention is better than cure. The sad thing is that Nigeria does not believe in prevention. It always waits for fallouts before taking action. And it is because of too much emphasis on the political and economic sphere in the narrow sense that the main issue of humanizing Nigerians and making them recognize and treat one another as dignified human beings has failed. That has been left as secondary. So, I do hope that this present blow-up would have to be taken care of. I almost thought that there should be a Bill in the National Assembly, against religious and ritual murder in this country. I say this because killing for the sake of God and killing to make money are outrageous. I hope I should find an opportunity to speak again on this matter so that people can be restrained from attempting to kill, to murder anybody either in the name of God or in the name of money. That is the bottom line.

Your final word to the bereaved families

Naturally, I am very much touched at the sadness, the sudden sadness that has prevailed in the various places in our land. Only yesterday (Wednesday) evening, I was worried because we have some of these our Hausa brothers working even for us (Owerri Catholic Archdiocese). We have thought about them and said well, we pray that they will not be exposed to the same kind of brutality around here (Owerri). Luckily, I have not heard anything happening in Owerri and indeed the whole of Imo State, because we know that to kill somebody's brother or sister causes a lot of heartache and heartbreak that could trigger these sorts of negative reactions.

I definitely extend my hand of compassion, my spirit of comfort to all those who have been bereaved by the mayhem that has taken place first in Maiduguri and then in a reactionary way, in Onitsha. We pray for the repose of the souls of all those who have been so brutally murdered. I just hope that enough should be enough and that government should help to restrain such things for the future, instead of coming back after each one and then we wait for another period and then the blowout and we begin to blame and apologize. This is the time to act.

	Copyright © 2006 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).