RELIGION, CLASS AND ETHNIC POLITICS IN NIGERIA

IBRAHIM GAMBARI

It was about fifteen years ago when John N. Pa den wrote his celebrated book on Religion and Political Culture in Kano¹ The substance of the book is still very relevant to a discussion of "Religion, Class and Ethnicity in Nigeria"; hence, my review of the book will be used as background to an up-date of the situation not only in the key Northern city of Kano, but in Nigeria as a whole.

The title of Paden's book is misleading in two ways. In a positive sense, the subject matter is not limited to an analysis of culture, society and the relationship between religion and political culture. The author did a very impressive job of examining the socio-economic factors of urbanization, ethnicity and connectivity in Kano. He also dealt with the orientation of the Hausa and Fulani, the major indigenous ethnic groups in Kano, towards authority and religion.

It will be recalled that Ka no is a modern city in the Northern part of Nigeria, but one with ancient roots. For centuries, Kano was the gateway to North Africa and the Middle East and an international commercial center. The opportunities for greater personal wealth and status which the city of Kano presented over the years were real magnets attracting different ethnic groups and classes of people. The attempts to transform the collectivities of People into a "melting pot" were neither fully successful nor abandoned.

Paden was, however, not very successful in his attempts to make distinctions between the political culture of Kano and its general culture and also to differentiate religion from political culture in that ancient city. Perhaps such differentiations could be made only in a purely intellectual or analytical sense. Some western scholars such as Talcot P arson would argue--wrongly, in my view--that failure to draw such differentiations for an organizational entity indicates the existence of a primitive society. Although Paden did not go as far as Parson, his delineation of the political from the religious culture tends to contradict his own major theories and evidence. He argued, for instance, that changes in religious culture have produced changes in the culture of Kano--thus illustrating the inevitable linkage. Moreover, Paden pointed out the fact that the community dimension in Kano's political culture has historically rested on the notion that "the primary boundaries of communal loyalties are religious."

This is not to reject Paden's point that there were indeed in Kano those who have explicitly religious, and those who have explicitly political roles. Even then, however, there were times when both roles merged. One of Paden's own conclusions in this book is that community crises, especially inter-ethnic tensions, can best be resolved by authority figures with fused religious and political roles.

Paden also failed to demonstrate in detail the role of the colonial power in most of the subjects discussed in this book, except for a brief mention of the link between colonial policy and inter-ethnic tension in Kano. Admittedly, this is not a book about colonial policy in Kano, but the author could have shed more light on the relationship between each of the religious groups and the colonial administration. Surely the British colonial government had tremendous impact on the power of the Emir of Kano and the limitation on dissent and reform there.

Nonetheless, the major significance and success of this study is the way in which Paden presents and analyses Kano as a microcosm of the political reformism and social change in Northern Nigeria. He also shows how the Kano urban area reflects many of the problems facing the federation of Nigeria as a whole. The establishment of broadly acceptable authority, the handling of succession and deposition and the balancing of ethnic, urban, regional and national loyalties are carefully and competently examined in this book.

Kano was historically a major center of Islamic learning and reformism in Nigeria at the time when that religion was also the basis of the trans-ethnic political communities in Northern Nigeria ("jama'ar Arewa"). As the pace of urbanization grew and light industries were established therein, Kano became a powerful magnet for migrations from other parts of the Northern region as well as of Southern Nigeria. Nonetheless, there was no integration of the districts where the migrants settled in the Kano urban area into a single, political, administrative or judicial entity. This lack of central authority during the colonial regime, and even after independence, meant that there was no conflict resolution machinery in Kano and this was largely responsible for the disasters and tragedy in 1953 and 1966 when several people died or were injured in inter-ethnic clashes.

However, the central concern of this book is not interethnic conflict in Nigeria but the legitimization of authority, the process of decision-making and conflict resolution and the boundaries of communities in Kano from the fifteenth century to recent times. An in-depth examination of the pre-eminence and evolution of the Islamic brotherhoods of Traditional as well as Reformed OuadiriyYa and TijaniYya is given in relation to their influence on legitimation of authority in Kano. Islam was always the most important point of reference for the defenders of the status quo (the Fulani and Arabs who have dominated Kano society for the past one hundred and sixty years) and the Islamic brotherhoods which articulated dissent and organized to realize their demands. These brotherhoods also facilitated rural to urban and inter-urban, trans-ethnic connections.

Of course, political culture and religion, as well as legal reform, in Kano have never been static. The dynamic changes expanded the boundaries of the political community (from the Emirate to the Northern region as a whole) and left changes in the structure of political authority. Kano nationalism (the result of religious claims of the regional government under the Northern Premier, Alhaji Ahmadu Bell o, the century old conflict between Kano and Sokoto and other political grievances) and the new Kano State creation in 1967 contracted the boundary again, but within a new awareness of larger national consciousness.

The authorities of the new state under military governor Audu B ako curtailed the former Emirate's powers. Specifically, the judicial functions of the previous Alkali Court and those of the Emir's Court based, at least until 1959, on Sharia (muslim law derived from the holy Quran) were abolished. It is only through the skillful use of his personality and influence that the present Emir of Kano, Ado Ba yero, former Ambassador of Nigeria to Senegal, succeeded in salvaging and symbolizing his vision of the reformed basis of that once all-powerful office. The Emir may no longer be "Sarkin Yanka" (Emir with the power to order capital punishment), but by working for Muslim unity in Kano, Nigeria as a whole and external areas, Ado Bayero remains a force to be reckoned with. The future role of the institution could not be fully seen, however, until the present military regime gave way to a civilian government based on a new constitution.

When the transition from military to civilian rule did take place in October 1979, conflict was almost inevitable between the Emir, Ado Bayero, who represented traditional, conservative authority and the newly elected Governor, Abubakar Rimi, who represented a radical Political following in Kano State. Throughout the almost four years of civilian administration in Kano State (Oct. 1979 to September 1983), there were great tensions between the "democratic" institutions represented by the governing party, the Peoples' Redemption Party (an off-shoot of the defunct Party of the Talakawa-Common People-Northern Elements progressive Union) and the authority of the traditional rulers of which the Emir of Kano was the most influential figure. This tension resulted in open violence between the supporters of the "status quo" and those demanding change in the direction charted by the ruling party. It appeared as if the traditional authorities won the first round of the contest. However, the intra-party schism in PRP eventually weakened the authority, and led to the electoral defeat of the "progressive" Governor Rimi and the ascending to power of another elected Governor, Barkin Zu wo, from a rival faction of the same Party. Governor Zuwo was prepared to collaborate with the traditional authority in the state capital, Kano City, and thus somewhat restore the status quo ante. His administration lasted only until December 1983 when soldiers once again took over the running of the whole country.

Despite the demise of the Second Republic and the return of military administration, or because of these events, the state bureaucracy tried to accomplish the objective of differentiating the religious and political roles in Kano notwithstanding Paden's observation that the embodiment of political and religions authorities in some actors of the charismatic variety facilitates resolution of community crisis. However, the question still remains as to whether or not such attempts to differentiate the religions from political roles at the local level in Kano were doomed to failure.

Paden has obviously written a comprehensive book on the various aspects of Kano culture which will not easily be surpassed. Nonetheless, his perspective in this book needs to be broadened and updated. C.S. Whit aker's book, The Politics of Tradition: Continuity and Change in Northern Nigeria would add a wider perspective. It covered the entire Northern region of Nigeria which now contains eleven of the total twenty one states of Nigeria (1987) and, by all estimates, more than half of the entire population of Nigeria, currently put at about one hundred million.

Kano shares with the rest of Northern region the twin characteristics of Hausa-Ful ani and Muslim majorities. Like almost all traditional Northern cities, Kano has an inner "city" composed of are indigenous population and an outer "new city" populated by strangers and other relatively newer immigrations from other parts of the North and South of Nigeria.

However, not all the cities in the Northern part of Nigeria are as cosmopolitan as Kano or as dominated by Hausa-Fulani and Muslim populations. Kaduna, a relatively new city created to serve as the administrative capital of the former Norther region; Jos the present capital of Plateau state, and MaiduGuri the capital of Borno State, the ancient home of the Kanuris, were in many ways quite different from Kano. The more Southern areas of the North contains towns and cities such as Makurdi (Benue State) and Ilorin (Kwara State). These towns have rather different histories and organizations closer to their counterparts in Southern Nigeria while retaining political and administrative ties to the Northern region.

In terms of an up-date towards more recent political developments in the country in relation to the issues of religion, class and ethnicity, the following points can be made for further discussion.

The competition for political power in Nigeria has largely taken place within the framework of ethnic and regional divisions. This was surely the case from the period of the country's independence to the Civil War (1960-1970). The almost thirteen years of centralized and hierarchical military rule after the demise of the First Republic, nine years of which followed the end of the Civil War itself, put a lid on ethnic antagonisms. With the return to civilian, constitutional rule in 1979, a serious attempt was made to re-orient competition for political power towards a more national, rather than ethnic, perspective. The constitutional provisions for the organization of political parties and the conduct of the presidential elections as well as the "victory" of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the federal elections pointed to a direction which could have down-played if not transcended the ethnic dominance of the country's politics. Unfortunately, the politicians of the Second Republic did not try hard enough and did not remain in office long enough to sustain the hopes for a new political order in Nigeria.

The down-turn in Nigeria's economy and the hard-ships caused by the implementation of IMF-type for structural adjustments had serious social and political consequences. Class consciousness was raised and antagonisms between the "haves" and the "have nots" have increased. The wave of armed robberies throughout the country was a manifestation of the conflict. Since the return of military rule in January 1983 also meant the suppression of open political activities, the discontent and frustrations of the populace with the prevailing socio-economic conditions were channeled elsewhere.

However, religion did not replace ethnicity as the driving force of Nigerian politics; it merely reinforced the prevalent ethnic antagonisms in the country. There are three main aspects of the role of religion as a factor reinforcing ethnic conflicts which threatens the peace, stability and unity of Nigeria:

First, the danger of a North-South dichotomy in Nigerian

politics arising from three principle factors. First, the relatively uneven socio-economic development in the Northern and Southern regions of Nigeria. Of the two regions, the South came into earlier and more sustained contact with Europeans. The resulting Westernization brought with it education, literacy and access to the expanding public sector during the colonial era. Even after independence there was a certain lop-sidedness in the levels of economic development and educational attainment prevailing in the North and South. This situation may have aroused the leaders of the Northern region to demand a slower pace in the decolonization process in order to have more breathing space to close the gap. The closest manifestation of the "fear of Southern domination" in the North was the adoption of the "Northernization policy" whereby local talents were given preferential treatments in recruitment for the regional civil service. In more recent times, the Northern leaders also demanded that the distribution of federal jobs and even the location of federally owned industries should be done in such ways as to reflect the "federal character" of Nigeria. This reflection of "federal character" in public appointments was in fact enshrined in the constitution which ushered in the Second Republic.

Secondly, there is a religious division in Nigeria whereby the North is predominantly Muslim and the South is dominated by adherents of the Christian faith. This is, of course, not a neat division because there are significant Christian populations in the North while in the South-west of Nigeria Islam is, in fact, the religion of almost fifty per cent of the population. Nonetheless, the demand by some Muslims that "Sharia" laws and Islamic legal and Customary Court systems be extended from the North (where they presently are operating for civil cases) to the South (where they are currently not) has led to sharp differences of opinion between some of the leadership of the Northern and Southern parts of Nigeria.

Third, the facts of demography in Nigeria also contribute to the North-South divide in the country. All the population censuses conducted to date show that the North has more people than the Southern part of Nigeria. Translated into political power terms, there is fear on the part of some Southern peoples that the largely Muslim majority in the North would use their demographic weight to rule over the largely Christian South, perhaps forever. Such a situation was considered unacceptable by many Southern, Christian leaders.

(ii) There is rising unemployment in Nigeria and growing social tensions stemming from deteriorating economic conditions. Whereas the impact of these conditions have been in the areas of drug use and trafficking, armed robberies, etc., in other parts of Nigeria, in the North they have resulted largely in the expansion of the pool from which young religious fanatics have been drawn. It should be pointed out that the most destructive religious riots and even class-based social and religious antagonisms have occurred in the Northern region. They also have taken place largely in the cities and urban centers in the North. Of course, prior to colonial rule and throughout its duration, there was a social class of the talakawa (commoners) in the process of formation and consolidation among the Hausa people of Northern Nigeria. What Islam did was to graft on to this indigenous social class formation a new sense of solidarity and integration of workers from divergent ethnic and rural backgrounds in the new urban environments in which they found themselves.

This factor of unemployment and resulting social tensions resulting from the worsening economic conditions culminated in this religious riots which broke out repeatedly in Northern cities in the early to mid 1980s has been emphasized by sociologists and Government Tribunals and Commission of Inquiry established to look into the root causes of those unrests. The fact that these violent uprisings of a religious nature continue to occur shows that not much has been done by the authorities to come to grip with the underlying socio-economic causes of the riots.

It is, of course, true that industrial workers and urban wage earners in the major metropolises of the North did not participate in the violent, spontaneous forms of class conflicts reminiscent of the Yan Tatsine insurrections of the early 1980s. This was largely due to the energies of those workers and wage earners in the cities being channelled towards partisan political activities (many belonged to the radical Peoples Redemption Party led by Aminu Kano); the growing sense of class maturity and the strengthening of the trade union organizations.²

This development is hardly comforting to the Nigerian State. The larger reality is that the power, awareness and tactical sophistication of the urban working class has increased significantly since the decade of the 1970s. This new or sharpened capability to wage a sustained class struggle in the factories and other working places could be used in either direction. When open party political activities were permitted in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they provided an outlet for the energies of the working peoples which remained in the secular sphere. In periods of military rule and the ban on open political activities and poor economic conditions, such energies may well go in the other direction of Islamic nationalism. As Lubeck reminds us in his excellent study of Islam and Urban Labor in Northern Nigeria, "radical Islamic populist ideology exists and appear attractive to the impoverished urban masses of Muslim Northern Nigeria."³ And when it comes to direct action to challenge the country's "establishment" or the socio-economic status-quo, the enlarging pool of unemployed urban youths is clearly a fertile place for recruitment.

(iii) The rise of religious fundamentalism, largely of the Islamic faith but also including some of the Christian sects, constitutes real threats to the delicate balance of forces on the issue of the secular nature of the Nigerian state. Islamic fundamentalists, perhaps emboldened by the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iran by the cleric Ayatollah Khomeini, intensified their rejection of the idea that religion and politics are separable. Some of their leaders also believe that under the pretext of maintaining the secularism of the Nigerian state, Judeo-Christian values were gaining the upper-hand in Nigeria. It was perhaps in this context that the demands for the extension of Sharia laws and legal system to cover all areas of Nigeria where Muslims live gained prominence. In any case, the issue of "Sharia" seriously undermined the proceedings of two Constituent Assemblies (1978 and 1988/89) established to produce the Constitutions for the Second and Third Republics of Nigeria respectively. Both times the Federal Military Government had to step in to arrange compromises which essentially allowed the status quo to continue.

The news leaked by some Nigerian papers in 1986 that Nigeria had joined the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) as a full member, instead of its previous observer status, so poisoned the relationship between Muslim and Christian leaders that the political stability of the nation seemed to be in question. Each side threatened to destroy the corporate existence of Nigeria as one nation should the country respectively remain or quit her new status as a full member of the OIC. The potential or real benefits that may accrue to the Nigerian state in the international organization which deals with issues affecting Muslims throughout the world, were not seriously examined. Finally, a compromise was arrived at by the government whereby a Religious Affairs Council (composed of equal numbers of Muslims and Christians) was established to look into the benefits or otherwise of Nigeria's membership in the OIC. The Council has had difficulties in meeting this and other mandates of theirs including the promotion of peaceful interaction among the followers of the Islamic and Christian faiths in Nigeria and to advise the government on such matters. Nonetheless, the OIC issue has been diffused, at least for the time being.

However, the poisonous atmosphere surrounding the debate on Nigeria's membership of OIC may have been a key factor in the (March, 1987) religious riots in the Kaduna State of Nigeria. The immediate cause of the riots was the stiff challenge by some Muslim students in the audience to what they saw as disparaging remarks about the Holy Qur'an by a Christian preacher (who was a convert from Islam) at a Teacher's College in Kafanchan town of that state. Kafanchan is a largely Christian town in a predominantly Muslim Kaduna State. In the initial melee that followed the preacher's incident, several Muslims and their mosques were alleged to have been attacked and a number of deaths reported. When news of this development reached other parts of the state, several churches and properties belonging to Christians were destroyed in apparent retaliations. It took a few days before security forces were able to restore order following this very serious inter-faith disturbances. The country was indeed fortunate that the riots did not spread to other states of the Federation of Nigeria.

In conclusion, it is clear that the growing linkage of political radicalism in the North under the escalating fervor of Islamic Fundamentalism poses serious challenges to the secular nature of the Nigerian state. Yet, without a secular state, how could constitutional government and equality before the law be established and sustained in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country such as Nigeria? Obviously, the search for a new political order in Nigeria which would transcend ethnic antagonisms, North-South dichotomy and intra as well as interreligious schisms of the past, present and future, will be difficult. However, one thing is clear: religion as a political tool tends to re-enforce and not replace ethnicity in Nigeria. The greatest danger yet may well be the appeal of religious fundamentalism (of either world religion) to the dispossessed and down-trodden class and the threat this poses not only for social harmony, but to the secular nature of the state in Nigeria.

Finally, within the Nigerian state, it is in the cities and metropolitan areas that the ethnic, religious, regional and class antagonisms often are fully played out. In particular, it has been in the Northern cities where such conflicts often assume the most dangerous dimensions and levels of violence capable of destroying the fragile socio-political fabric of Nigeria.

School of Advanced International Studies

The Johns Hopkins University

Washington, D.C.

1 John Paden, Religion and Political culture in Kano (Berkeley: University of California Press, I973).

2 Paul M. Lubeck, Islam and Urban Labor in Northern Nigeria: The Making of a Muslim Working Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1986), p. 308

3 Ibid., p. 309.