FLASHBACK: In 2017, NBA indicted politicians over killings in southern Kaduna

The crisis in Kaduna predates the current political dispensation, but as recently as 2017, politicians were accused of being part of those fanning the embers of violence, especially in the southern part of the state. 

From January 16 to 17, 2017, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), led by Abubakar Mahmoud, its president at the time, embarked on a fact-finding mission to the embattled communities. 

NBA’s concern was that the Kaduna crisis was being transformed into a national one and the association needed to take part in the responsibility of restoring peace to the area.

The objective, the NBA said, was to go beyond the political actors that might be inflaming the narratives and get the communities themselves to talk and work out an enduring settlement. 

After a series of meetings with stakeholders, the NBA in its report released February 2017, pointed at politicians as enablers of the crisis. 

“There is a strong dimension of partisan politics in the Southern Kaduna crisis. Traditionally, since the emergence of the Northern Nigerian Non-Christian League and subsequently the United Middle Belt Congress in the 1950s (See Jibrin Ibrahim, 1989), Southern Kaduna has consistently found itself in a political party in opposition to the party supported by the northern zone,” the report, seen by TheCable, read. 

“Currently, the Southern Kaduna zone has a strong presence of the PDP while the North is in the control of APC. In the 2011 post election violence, Southern Kaduna witnessed the highest level of atrocities as revealed by the Sheikh Lemu Commission of Inquiry, which revealed that over 800 people were killed. It appears that the current violence is in part a carryover of reprisal killings linked to the 2011 events.

“One key word that emerged during the NBA delegation mission discussions was politics and the activities of violence entrepreneurs. It thus appears that some politicians have a stake in fanning violence in the area. The other keyword is reprisal or revenge. Killings occur and the next round is revenge killing so the process becomes self-perpetuating.” 

APPLYING THE RULE OF LAW

The lawyers concluded that part of the solution would be the application of the rule of law and accountability by investigating and prosecuting those who attack, maim, kill and destroy property. 

The NBA’s conclusion aligned with the position of Nasir el-Rufai, governor of the state, who had told the NBA that the root cause of the persistence of cyclical violence has been the absence of accountability, that no one ever gets punished for killing and harming others. 

The governor’s handling of the crisis, however, would later become a subject of criticism in the circle of the NBA members.

Already billed to speak at the NBA’s 2020 annual meeting, some lawyers immediately kicked, saying he “represents the very antithesis of what we profess to defend”.

NBA decided to withdraw its invitation from the governor, a decision that is threatening to lead the association’s break-up.