My identity as a member of a small ethnic group (Atyap) in Kaduna, northern Nigeria was a source of crisis for me, especially when its existence and experience is denied, misrepresented or dismissed as I often experience. I often find myself in situations outside Nigeria, but even more
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so within Nigeria, where I must explain the existence of my ethnic group to people who would nonetheless insist on homogenizing northern Nigeria. Because I was born and brought up in Maiduguri, Zamfara and later Kaduna (all in northern Nigeria), most of my life was not spent with people of my own ethnic grouping, nor in the Southern Kaduna area where my parents come from. Much of my upbringing was in places where Islam was the dominant religion, and Hausa the dominant language. Thus, outside my immediate family, most of my daily interactions were with Hausa-Fulani Muslims. My first arrival at Kaduna was in the midst of a violent conflict. In the years that followed, I witnessed several of such violent conflicts in Kaduna, where I lived, and in Jos, where I had my first University education. Following the change in settlement patterns that followed the conflicts in the 2000s my family, like hundreds of others, moved to areas populated mostly by members of their own religion and ethnic groups.
Nevertheless, I have lived mostly in multi-ethnic and multi-religious parts of the states, where much of my daily interaction was with members of religion or ethnicity other than mine.
From hiding my religious identity or claiming another’s in order to survive during conflicts, to continuously explaining my ethnic identity and the ethnic and religious configuration of northern Nigeria to non-northerners who persist in imposing a Hausa-Fulani (Muslim) identity on everyone from northern Nigeria, my identity either constituted potential danger or a source of disagreement. This was worsened by my awareness of how the Nigerian media misrepresented issues related to minorities in the country. For example, as a young cadet, I joined my colleagues to take accounts of violent conflicts in Nigeria, and would be surprised that death tolls reported by the media were far lower than what we counted, and only selected places appeared in media reporting. Also, the way narratives about such conflicts sometimes shifted and were presented as a part of longstanding political struggle between Nigeria’s major ethnicities, especially the largely Christian Igbo versus largely Hausa-Fulani Muslims, brought a lot of questions to my mind.
Thus, for much of my time in Nigeria, I understood religious ‘belonging’ and ethnicity to be no more than sources and/or catalysts for social and personal conflict. This was very confusing.
There seemed to be a contradiction between, on the one hand, the values I learned from Christianity, the popular use of the slogan ‘religion of peace’ for Islam; and on the other hand, the violent conflicts between members of the two religions. My Kaduna and Jos environments
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were very volatile, relations among people were tense, and no matter how freely and happily people seemed to relate, there was always a consciousness, suspicion, and fear of each other.
Thus, even the most trivial incidences between individuals of different religions easily sparked conflicts.
My internal conflict and confusion about my ethnic and religious identities were heightened by 1.) the fact that I had friends, relations, mentors and people I greatly admired who were Muslims and/or Hausa-Fulani, 2.) my growing realization that many people from outside northern Nigeria stereotypically consider everyone from northern Nigeria to be Hausa-Fulani (Muslim), thus, the stereotypes and attitudes they directed to Hausas and Muslims were sometimes also directed at me even though I had acquired an understanding of my religious and ethnic group as one that had been in conflict with Hausa Muslims for a long time. At the same time, I was also a recipient of Hausa-Fulani Muslim prejudices against Nigerian Christians generally and against non-Hausa, non-Muslim groups of the north. This was also coupled with my own acquired prejudices against these groups. 3.) I was often uncomfortable among some of my Nigerian peers and groups because conversations and jokes too frequently were competitive and revolved around ethnicities, perpetuating stereotypes and misrepresentations that I believed were responsible for lack of tolerance among groups in Nigeria. 4.) My initial encounters and interactions with a few older people in Kaduna made me aware of narratives that surprised me, given my understanding of colonialism. I met people who praised and felt grateful to ”white people”, especially white missionaries for supposedly helping Southern Kaduna groups free themselves from Hausa-Fulani enslavement and Islamization. I heard stories of slave raids, unfair tax regimes, and of Hausa native authorities burning down entire harvests of Southern Kaduna people after taking their tributes to Zaria emirate. I was also surprised to learn that the violent conflicts in 1992, 32 years after independence, were partly because of Southern Kaduna groups’ struggle for independence from Zaria emirates to which they were annexed during colonialism and for establishment of independent chiefdoms for them. It was shocking that decades after independence such a structure still existed in northern Nigeria and minorities did not seem to have really experienced the independence the rest of the country enjoyed.
Shaped by these experiences, I developed a very strong desire to understand religion in the public realm, the prejudices people use against each other, and how these relate to conflicts, as
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well as how I can contribute to peacebuilding in Nigeria. This motivated my pursuit of religious studies and choices of academic institutions. I have also participated in, and initiated, a number of peacebuilding and dialogue initiatives in some communities in Nigeria.
I believe that religion in Nigeria is a phenomenon that requires constant and thorough investigation. However, I do not believe that Nigerians antagonize and/or are violent towards each other simply on the basis of religious difference. I believe that the histories, social and personal narratives, as well as painful experiences of individuals and groups contribute immensely to how they view each other and to their readiness for conflict. Some of these factors may be religious or involve religion, and could be ‘real’ or imagined, but do not necessarily justify conflict. I am also aware that in Kaduna generally, good and mutually enriching interactions also exist among Christians and Muslims. I am sometimes surprised by how soon both Christians and Muslims return to their activities and interactions in public places such as markets and offices, and the return of life in Kaduna after violent conflicts. But I am often more surprised by how easily and swiftly seemingly good interactions and peace become conflictual.
I also believe that minority-majority issues in Nigeria require very close examination. Despite the changes in Nigeria, minorities are often only visible in the public sphere under the sponsorship, or as part of a majority. While media representation of minorities, from my observation, often silence minorities and absorb their concerns into those of the majorities, or imagine them as strange, odd, unknown groups, minorities seem to receive more attention only when violence is involved, such as the violent rebellion of minorities in the oil-producing Niger- Delta area or the Tiv-Jukun and Zango-Kataf conflicts in northern Nigeria. I am aware that individuals from minority groups hold important positions and may be vocal in Nigeria, but these appear to be often treated only as individuals or as a part of the broader regional imagery. Thus, part of my personal and academic interest and commitment is to support the visibility of such groups, their agencies and agitations. To contribute to enabling their voices find expression in relevant public platforms. My goal is not to make value judgements on these voices and concerns, but to enable them to surface and share the same space with dominant voices so as to be equally examined, critiqued, appreciated and to offer variation and critique of dominant discourses and social patterns.
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For this reason, I experienced a little personal conflict at the beginning of my study between my activism against Islamophobia, my familiarity with global popular and academic discourses around Christian-Muslim relations as well as ‘West’ vs Arab/the ‘rest’ representations and interactions; and on the other hand, local Nigerian ethno-religious contestation, and how both global and more local realms draw on and interact with each other. Thus, while I was aware of the strong anti-Muslim sentiments in my data, I could not simply ‘dismiss’ them as merely another expression of Islamophobia, nor explain them away as merely being the historical rumblings of an aggrieved minority. Doing so would have been a display of the very attitude I sought to critique. I believe this context enables a better understanding of the phenomenon. I also believe that close examination and criticism rather than dismissal is a better way to address issues. To be sure, my goal in this study was to theorize about online representation and religion, and abstract theories that are not necessarily tied to any specific group. Yet, I needed to resolve my conflicts through conversations with scholars conversant with both the Nigerian and global environment, as well as personal reflection and journaling to re-examine my own prejudices and ways they could mar my scholarship. I did not have any intention of pursuing any Southern Kaduna agenda in this research. I also did not seek to knowingly promote anyone’s interest, and in line with the intent of my research paradigm and theoretical framework, I hope that my study become useful for social transformation.