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Will Governor Dariye Ever Learn?

Daily Trust (Abuja)
EDITORIAL
January 19, 2005
Posted to the web January 19, 2005

This is no doubt a question that will come to the minds of many who have read
the newspaper report that German preacher, Reinhard Bonnke will start a four-
day crusade in Jos today.
It is exactly two months now since Chief Joshua Dariye was reinstated as
governor of Plateau State, following six months of emergency rule. The state of
emergency became necessary when incessant ethno-religious strife caused the
death of thousands in different parts of the state, with the latest being the
carnage in Yelwan-Shendam town.
Reasons such as nonchalant attitude to the plight of the state's citizens,
unguarded utterances and general incompetence in his manner of handling the
crisis, caused President Obasanjo to suspend Joshua Dariye's government and to
replace it with an emergency rule headed by Major General Chris Alli.
That the Plateau crisis was ethno-religious in nature was very obvious. This is
why it baffles this paper to see the government allowing an event, with all the
potential for plunging the state into another round of bloodshed, to hold.
It isn't just the fact that a crusade of the type Reinhard Bonnke is known for,
is capable of raising tension in a multi-religious and particularly volatile
state like Plateau, but it is also the timing of the event, which is scheduled
to hold concurrently with the annual Eid-il-Fitr celebration by Muslims.
What are the organisers trying to say? Yet even if the organisers of this
crusade are insensitive to the cause of peace in Plateau, can Joshua Dariye
afford to be? How can a state chief executive who had seen his state go up in
flames several times between the years 2001 and 2004, still grant permission
for an event as potentially dangerous as the Bonnke crusade?
After the May incident one would have expected Chief Dariye to borrow a leaf
from his Kano counterpart, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, who banned all religious and
political processions and gatherings in the aftermath of the May reprisal riots
in Kano State.
So willing was Governor Shekarau to enforce the ban that when the Qadiriyya
Muslim sect was bent on undertaking their annual procession during the period,
he flatly refused to grant them permission for it.
No one could say, for sure, that the Qadiriyya procession could degenerate into
a crisis, but due to his concern and sensitivity to the feelings of the
Christian community in Kano, which had expressed apprehension at the upcoming
event, the governor made sure the Qadiriyya celebration did not hold.
It is therefore not enough for Dariye to grant permission for this crusade and
then urge Christian and Muslim leaders to give assurances that there will be no
trouble, what the Daily Trust expects is for him to withdraw permission for
this event, at this material time, if indeed he is committed to the cause of
peace.
That peace is not on the agenda of the organisers of this crusade is obvious in
even their choice of venue. The Race Course field where the Bonnke event is
scheduled to hold also happens to be the Eid-prayer ground for the entire
Yoruba community in Jos, according to reports.
In addition Daily Trust wonders how the controversial Reinhard Bonnke whose
planned crusade in Kano in October 1991, led to the death of hundreds when it
sparked a religious crisis there, should find it so easy to sneak into Nigeria
anytime he wishes.
Given his antecedents, it is high-time the federal government declares Reverend
Reinhard Bonnke an unwelcome visitor in Nigeria, just as the General Babangida
administration once banned South African Muslim preacher Ahmed Deedat in 1989,
on the grounds that he was a security threat.
As for Joshua Dariye, it is our belief that the earlier he withdraws the
permission he has given for this crusade to start this afternoon, the better.
This is the only way he could prove to Nigerians and the federal government
that he has learnt some lessons from the past communal clashes and his six-
month long suspension.

   

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