Violence in a Religiously Divided City: Kaduna, Nigeria—From the Shari'a Riots of 2000 to the Post-election Clashes of 2011

Abstract

This paper examines why frictions developed in Kaduna between Muslims and Christians, how they turned violent, and the outcomes. The frictions were caused by a combination of the effects of colonial policies that established the north/south, Muslim/Christian divide, added to unequal treatment of ethnic groups within Nigerian state structures, and Nigeria's position as a rentier oil-producing state, making it a valuable property for elite capture, and structural adjustment that increased unemployment. Hostilities between Reform Islam and Pentecostal Christianity helped fuel conflict and the configuration of masculinities among unemployed youths facilitated participation in violence. The outcomes included death, destruction and mutual suspicion.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers for the journal for their most useful comments and Liam O'Dowd and Martina McKnight for their comments on several drafts of this paper and for inviting her to participate in this project. She would also like to thank the participants in the Religion, Violence and the City Symposium, Queens University, Belfast, May 2012, for their comments on her presentation.

Notes

1. As the city and the state are both called Kaduna, in this paper whenever Kaduna occurs on its own it refers to the city, while the state will always be called Kaduna State.

2. This was implemented in two phases – from 2007-2008 under the auspices of the DfID-funded Citizenship Development Research Centre run by the Institute of Development Studies and from 2008-2011 under those of the AHRC/ESRC-funded Religion and Society Programme run by the University of Lancaster.

3. I use gender not as a proxy for women but rather to delineate the set of norms, differentially configured for males and females, that men and women are expected to adhere to within their particular cultural grouping in order to be intelligible to and accepted by its members (see Harris, 2012a, 2012b).

4. At present, according to the state government website, a modern and luxurious Millennium Kaduna City is currently under construction to the east. The mock-ups on the website produce the impression that residence there will be limited to the wealthy, as in Abuja. (http://www.kadunastate.gov.ng/; accessed 7 July 2013).

5. See below.

6. Society for the Victory of Islam.

7. Although from the perspective of visible infrastructure, poor Muslim-majority areas seemed to be pretty much as badly neglected.

8. This had similar historic roots to the Hausa-Gwari conflicts in Kaduna city (Yusuf, 2007).

9. since according to the police they had given no notice of their intentions. This meant that not only did they not have a permit for the march, but also that nobody in the government was expecting them.

10. http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2012/02/boko_haram_aims_to_topple_nige.php; accessed 7 July 2013. See also, Anon (2012).

11. http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/06/kadunazaria-mayhem-the-tempestuous-response-from-christians-and-muslims/ and http://allafrica.com/stories/201210290162.html?viewall=1. Both accessed 7 July 2013.

12. Personal communication from a resident in the Muslim area.

13. I saw some of the text messages concerned and was present at discussions on what to do about them.

14. I prefer this formulation to the more common ‘socially constructed’ since power relations always play a role, not just between men and women, but just as important, between those in whose interest it is to encourage specific gendered configurations and the rest (see Harris, 2012c).

15. It was notable that nobody defined their own as Nigeria.

16. Although in other parts of Africa women and girls routinely participate in rebel forces.

17. See Harris (2014) for examples of these.

18. http://saharareporters.com/article/kadunas-not-so-disappointing-budget; accessed 7 July 2013.

19. http://cia-world-factbook.realclearworld.com/; accessed 7 July 2013.

20. The CIA World Factbook shows a steep increase in Nigerian unemployment rates over the last few years: http://cia-world-factbook.realclearworld.com/; accessed 7 July 2013. This situation is not limited to Nigeria, of course, but has become a global phenomenon. I suggest an on-the-ground analysis of the violence reported on the world news would show that gender, especially masculinities, plays a significant role in most, if not all of it.