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Piety and Politics Sunder a Riot-Torn Nigerian City


Michael Kamber for The New York Times
The remains of houses that were burned in Kaduna, Nigeria, during rioting that
was touched off by ethnic and religious divisions.

By SOMINI SENGUPTA


ADUNA, Nigeria - When the mob came for Tajudeen A. Tijjani, they came in the
name of the Lord, setting his house on fire, destroying all his earthly
possessions.

Across town, when the mob came for Elizabeth Agbu, they came in the name of
 Allah, ransacking her house, killing her brother before her eyes.

Mr. Tijjani, 55, a Muslim and chief of his neighborhood security council, had
lived among Christians most of his life. When he and his children ran for their
lives, it was a Christian neighbor who pulled them inside to safety.

Likewise, it was a Muslim neighbor who saved Ms. Agbu, 20, a Christian who was
born and raised in a Muslim quarter.

But in the temporary sanctuary of a neighbor's house last November during the
latest riots to disembowel this city, both Mr. Tijjani and Ms. Agbu made what to
them both was an awful choice: to stop living among people who call God by
another name. They crossed the Kaduna River, each heading in opposite directions
- she going south to live among fellow Christians, he north to the Muslim
quarter.

Once a lively urban m=E9lange of faiths and tribes, this today is a partitioned
city, the Kaduna River cutting a line through its heart.

Muslims crowd into the neighborhoods bizarrely renamed Kandahar and Jalalabad.
Christians pack a new settlement of unpaved red dust roads, where pigs roam free
and churches multiply: they call it New Jerusalem. "We have no Muslims here,"
one of Ms. Agbu's neighbors offered by way of explanation.

Kaduna, with a best-guess population of two million, is not only the crucible of
trouble in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, where riots touched off by
ethnic and religious divisions have killed nearly 10,000 in the last four years.
It is also an object lesson on what happens to the geography and soul of a city
when fear and distrust are allowed to spiral out of control in the contest for
political power.

Kaduna today is abuzz with religious piety, with Koranic schools sprouting on
one side and crowded Christian prayer meetings on the other. Even local
entrepreneurs display their religious stripes: "God's Will Depot" promises
Coca-Cola and 7-Up at affordable prices.

But Kaduna is also a snapshot of the most twisted sort of piety. "Jesus is the
king of the world," reads the graffiti in the courtyard of a gutted mosque in a
Christian part of town. A Catholic church in a largely Muslim enclave has been
set on fire, its roof has collapsed, its priest has been hacked to death.

Once, people of all tribes and faiths flocked to the textile mills of Kaduna.
Even now most families are made up of those who believe in Jesus and those who
follow Muhammad - not to mention all those who worship the trees and rocks like
generations of animists before them. Christians recall being invited to Muslim
weddings. A devout Muslim recalls kneeling down and praying with his Christian
cousins.

"The way we attack each other, you'd think Muhammad and Jesus were both
Nigerians," one bewildered man here whispered to a stranger.

Mr. Tijjani, a journalist by profession, lives now is a spartan room in the
guesthouse of the Kaduna Press Center. "This is not the Kaduna I knew," he said.
"We used to climb up for the same mangos, play in the same fields, chase after
the same girls."

His one and only sister has been married to a Christian for 25 years. "It would
be foolhardy," he added, "for anyone to think religion is actually the cause of
the crisis we are having."

The November riots, the third in as many years, killed 200 people and were set
off by a Nigerian newspaper column, offensive to some Muslims, that suggested
that the prophet Muhammad would have chosen a wife from among the contestants of
a Miss World beauty pageant scheduled to be held in Nigeria.

But at the root of the eruptions were grievances that run deeper: who gets jobs,
who gets police protection, who is elected to political office. Some blame
religious leaders who had no control of their flocks. Others blame the failure
of law enforcement authorities to protect people and property.

There are Muslims who point an angry finger at the Nigerian president, Olusegun
Obasanjo, a Christian. There are Christians who accuse the Hausa Muslims who
dominate the north of being indifferent to their needs.

It is unclear if any lessons have been learned, or whether this town can simply
look forward to more of the same as national elections approach in April. One
thing is plain. Playing the religion card has been vital to scoring political
points here.

Today, traders and schoolteachers and all those who work on the other side of
the river cross back before the sun goes down. People jump at the sound of a
blown tire or a backfiring car. If a tardy schoolchild starts running down the
street, everyone starts running.

Kadunians in both communities talk about how the disturbances have strengthened
their faith. Churches are packed. Children are learning the Koran. But everyone
prays in his own quarter, weary, distrustful, scared.

Ms. Agbu, a university student, sought protection when she and her father moved
to the Christian enclave, but at what a price. Nearly all her friends are in the
old neighborhood. She visits from time to time. But everything has changed. "I
don't joke with them like before," she said. "I just say `hi hi' and just go."

Across town, Mr. Tijjani, the Muslim, says his old neighbors have offered to
take up a collection to rebuild his house. Some of the area boys, all
Christians, have offered to exact revenge on those who razed his home. But he
wanted no violence in his name, he said. "It's God that gives, it's him that
takes," he said.

Behind him, a Christian man listening in on the conversation piped in,
recognizing the teaching. "The Lord give. The Lord take."