How did the Inter-Faith Mediation Centre come into existence?
The birth of the centre has been a phenomenon that grew out of the need and the challenge of moving our nation forward from politicisation of religion and the religionalisation of the political process in this country. This organisation came as a child of necessity. Going back to the basics, one Muslim and one Christian child were looking for a way out of a stalemate and searching for answers on why the maiming and killing by a young Pastor and a young Imam. The organisation came about as a consequence of their actions as very strong militia leaders in their communities. They both lived in what can be regarded as slums in the Nigerian context.
One from Kakuri Gwari, which is an area of abandoned industrial giants of those days where he was born, while the other was born in Tudun Wada, which is the labourers and low income earners quarters. The river separates them. After the Zangon Kataf crisis, the community became sharply divided, even before the coming of the sharia crisis. The two young men have been part of searching for the best way to bring about peace. The Imam took the initiative to go to the Pastor and that initiative in search of peace is what gave birth to the centre. It was initially in search of vengeance and revenge that later turned into the search for peace, which gave birth to the Inter-Faith Mediation Centre on May 11, 1995.
There is quite some distance between Kakuri Gwari and Tudun Wada. So, how did you met Pastor James Movel?
From the Kafanchan crisis of 1987, people started migrating gradually for fear of what would happen and whenever internally displaced people came, they would come with tales of woes and poison the mind of the people in what is happening on the other side. There were crises in Kafanchan, Kasua Magani, Zangon Kataf and other places and Muslims in the southern part of the state started migrating into Kaduna and the safe places for them were Tudun Wada and Sabon Gari. Many of the Christians migrating from Tudun Wada ended up in Kakuri and other places with the bridge as the dividing line. You would say that between Tudun Wada and Kakuri, there is a Nasarawa. Kakuri Gwari became the dominant Christian settlement and Kakuri Hausa, which was the Hausa settlement were pushed out and they moved into Tudun Wada with their pains and the Muslims started gathering; and because of the pains, their desire for vengeance started growing.
In-between these two communities stands Nasarawa which serves as a buffer zone and a home for workers of companies such as the Flour Mills, textiles factories and the breweries. So, when anything happened, there would be a heavy movement of Christian militia men from Kakuri and Nasarawa down to Tudun Wada to block the bridge that goes into Angwan Muazu and the Muslim youths from Tudun Wada who have no other Christian to touch also would move trying to go to Kakuri and so, that made the distance so close.
Initially, James (Pastor Wuye) was living in Tudun Wada where he grew up before moving to Kakuri Gwari. There were so many Christians who were living in Tudun Wada and Rigassa before and migrated from these areas into the other side of the city. When they did that, the consequence is what you see happening today. So, at that time, we knew each other’s groups very well. James’s militant group, we knew what they did in 1992 when they murdered my spiritual teacher at Angwan Romi, destroyed his mosque and killed two of my cousins. So, I was looking for that particular person whose group championed the killing of my spiritual teacher. So, we got close to killing him but as fate would have it, we only chopped off his hand and not his head.
That is to tell you the mindset of the syndicate youth groups who would move from one community to the other to go and fight. We saw the youths in the Barnawa area then as women because they could not fight with their neigbours. This was the type of community from where we grew up. However, the first meeting point was in 1995 while I was nursing the desire to eliminate him (Pastor Wuye); when we met inside the Government House during the administration of Lawal Ja’afaru Isa, his wife invited us for a discussion on immunization, which is a controversial issue all over the Muslim world. Stakeholders, including religious leaders, were invited to the meeting. I was the Secretary General of the National Council of Muslim Youth Organisations, Kaduna State chapter, and James was the Assistant Secretary of the Christians Association of Nigeria and the Vice President of the Youth Christians Association of Nigeria.
So, both of us were sent to represent our various organisations. During tea break, one journalist, who was also invited and knew me very well, held James’ hand, came to where I was standing and tapped me on the shoulder. He joined our hands together and said: ‘The two of you can keep Kaduna together if you want. So, please talk.’ And he walked away. My heart was bitter and in my mind, I was saying: ‘How can I talk peace with this guy who led a group that killed my spiritual teacher?’ I was smiling, but deep inside of me, I was crying with the burning desire for revenge and vengeance. But we were inside the Government House and so, we had to behave well. I was shaking his hand, but deep inside me, my teeth were cracking with the desire to eliminate him. I asked for his contact details so that we can meet to discuss. I told him we should meet to discuss peace, but deep inside me, it was to discuss war. The mouth was talking peace, but the heart was beating the drums of war and that is the situation many of us find ourselves.
How did you overcome that bitterness that came up with the Inter-Faith Mediation Centre?
As I was planning and looking for ways to eliminate Pastor James Movel Wuye, I went to the mosque for Friday prayers. The Imam of the mosque preached on the power of forgiveness and turning the enemy into a friend. I was just shaking where I sat and asking myself: “How can my enemy be my friend?” And James came to my mind again. The Imam said again: “You cannot be a true Muslim and an act true to the teaching of Islam if you don’t have a forgiving spirit; if you want to be a true ambassador of Islam, you have to forgive those who hurt you and not just forgive them, you must find a way of turning them into your best friends. That was what Mohammed did in Mecca. Those who persecute him, who sent him out of the city of Mecca, he extended the olive branch of forgiveness to them when victory came to his side”.
The preacher continued: “The same thing happened when Mohammed went to a city called Tahif outside Mecca and Medina; he went there for asylum from people who prosecuted him and to preach the gospel of Islam, but they sent youths to throw him away. They started stonning him until one of his teeth broke and blood started rushing onto his body and God sent the angel to do what the Prophet wanted and when the angel came to the Prophet to request what he wanted, Mohammed said: ‘Oh God, forgive my own people because of their ignorance’. He did not revenge”.
And the Imam added: “Look for the person who has hurt you most and give him undeserved forgiveness and see how the rehama of Allah will descend upon him”. I cried.
Before then, I had told my friends that I already had his contacts and we were planning how to go to his house one night and eliminate him. After the message, I came back and told my friends again that he had to be protected because I needed to show him that I am a true Muslim and a true ambassador of Islam and so must extend the hand of forgiveness. That was the turning point for me and from that day, I started looking for ways for both of us to get together and be instruments of peace because where there is vengeance, we become instrument of forgiveness, where there is injury, we become instrument of healing and where there is poverty, we become instrument of development.
What have been your major challenges trying to achieve peace this past 19 years?
The number one major challenge we are faced with is the lack of political will on the part of the government. Most of the political actors see these youths as foot soldiers for them to get into office. Most of our political leaders don’t see the treasure in the youths of this country, that when you help the youths to conquer his ego, you help him to be independent economically and that when they are both educationally and economically independent, it is only then that you are secured.
But as long as you misuse and abuse him, you yourself, your children and family are not safe. Sometimes, after we succeed in motivating the youths and do a lot of trauma healing as well as de-radicalisation, what will be left is reintegration, which involves rehabilitation. A large chunk of money we spend on security in this country, if you divert it to rehabilitating these youths, it will be worthwhile. A lot of the youths in America are not working in the civil service but in multi-national companies and organisations.
The second challenge is the high level of ignorance and the balkanisation of our educational system. Today, you have a pool of youths who are uneducated and uneducatable; unemployed and unemployable because there is no educational system that will give them the direct skills; so that when they grow up, they will be able to acquire the skills that will make life worth living and actualise their potentials. There is no system in place because most of the systems are dead. Multinational and corporate bodies are not interested in investing in the future of our youths. They are only interested in investing in the search for idols and we know that an idol cannot become an icon. Icons are those who live beyond their life on earth. But we are searching for idols and when you don’t care for them any more, they become useless to themselves. Why not invest the money you are investing on idols on something else, especially on the future of our youths and nation?
The third challenge has to do with our religious leaders who are incapable and mischievous, who are wrongly spoon-feeding our youths with hate. Religion has nothing to do with hate. In fact, religion is anti-hate, anti-corruption and anti-social vices of society. But when you use religion to promote hate, then you use and abuse religion and the consequences I was worse and greater. So, we need to check our religious leaders for use and misuse of religion. We need to check our political leaders who politicise our religious values and we need to bring back the political will. Look at the smaller nations. Rwanda committed genocide and just 20 years ago, they were at ground zero. But today, it is one of the economically viable nations in Africa and the elders are giving way for the youths to take over.
Kagami has made it possible for the elders to give way for the youths to take over in Rwanda. They are able to change from being French to say they are now English and economically, they are still moving. If Rwanda could come out of their traumatic experience and focus their energy within their youths, why not Nigeria with all the resources we have? Today, Bosnia, Hazegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and other countries in the Balkan traumatised in 1992, the same time we had our Zangon Kataf crisis are economically viable today. Why don’t we learn from that? Today, Malaysia is doing very well. The government gives you money to go to school and learn some vocational skills.
When you are out of school and doing some business, the government will borrow you money to do the business and you must pay back or go to jail. So, you have a system in place where you can put your hand. So, the challenge we have in our nation is that people are not prepared to invest in peace. They are more interested in investing in war and that is a bigger challenge for the government and the people. I feel the pain that it is international donors that are investing in peace in Nigeria. I don’t see Nigerian organisations doing so. The American Democratic Party and the Republican Party have institutions where they are training youths, giving them scholarship. They have the Democratic Institute and the Republican Institute where they have funding to monitor ideal democratic values, taking youths away from thuggery and others.
What are our political parties doing in Nigeria? How much have they invested on the youths so that they have an ideological political process? These are our pains and we want to move the youths from these forces pulling them apart.
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