The immediate origins of killings in Southern Kaduna especially in the 2010s and early 2020s can be traced to the events that brought in Goodluck Jonathan into power in 2010 as the President of Nigeria, and escalated after the presidential election in 2011, which he won.
Background It could be recounted that during the 2011 Nigerian presidential election campaign aired on the national television, the NTA, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari while addressing a crowd in another northern state of Kano in the Hausa language, called for mass violence as the crowd cheered. In his exact words as captured by TheCable, The subtitles captured in the video had the following words: Even though Buhari's supporters tried to give another meaning to this statement, the reality was seen after the election was lost to Jonathan.
The violence that erupted after Jonathan's victory in 2011 spread across the northern states of Nigeria with over 65,000 said to be displaced as a result. Although Kaduna State had had crises in the past, they seem to have escalated during this period in time.
In the 2011 Kaduna State gubernatorial election, Patrick Yakowa emerged as the first Christian and Southern Kaduna indigene to be elected as governor of Kaduna State. He had earlier served as governor after the sitting governor, Namadi Sambo was picked by Goodluck Jonathan to become the Vice President of Nigeria following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua in 2010. Muslim leaders in the state were not happy and threatened to resist the elevation of a Christian as governor of Kaduna State.
Yakowa's tenure did not last long as he died in 2012. His deputy, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero took over as governor of Kaduna State after he was killed in a helicopter crash in Bayelsa State alongside former National Security Adviser, Owoye Andrew Azazi. Yakowa's death was later discovered to have been plotted by an Islamic cleric, Isa Pantami (who would later 2019–2023 serve as a minister in the Buhari government), and some Northern Muslim leaders in 2010, who saw having Yakowa, a Christian, as governor of Kaduna State as "an insult to Islam in the country". The Taraba State governor, Danbaba Suntai also faced same attack but narrowly escaped.
On July 15, 2012, former FCT minister, Nasir el-Rufai, tweeted,
Yero's tenure was marred with attacks by "unknown gunmen" (later discovered to be Fulani herdsmen) in the Southern Kaduna area, causing him to be unpopular among the people. This is in addition to his unpopular choice of Nuhu Bajoga as deputy governor. Southern Kaduna vowed to vote out governor Yero and president Jonathan in the 2015 gubernatorial and presidential elections, due to their insensitivity to the killings by the Fulani gunmen in the region.
In the 2015 Kaduna State gubernatorial election, Nasir el-Rufai of the APC defeated Mukhtar Ramalan Yero of the PDP.
El-Rufai picked Barnabas Bala Bantex as running mate. In spite of the rumors about the two not getting along, el-Rufai denied that their relationship was cordial. Bantex resigned in 2019 to contest for the senate of Kaduna South senatorial district under APC which he lost to the sitting senator, Danjuma Laah, of the PDP. In the 2019 Kaduna State gubernatorial election, el-Rufai selected a Muslim woman, Hadiza Balarabe from Southern Kaduna, as running mate under the APC. This would be the first time a Muslim-Muslim ticket would be experimented in Kaduna State since the return of democracy 1999. He, however, defended his choice saying the government house is neither a mosque nor a church.
Payments to Fulani terrorists
In December 2016, in an open interview the Kaduna State governor, Nasir Ahmed Musa el-Rufai confessed to paying some Fulanis across the Sahel countries like Niger, Mali, Chad, Senegal and Cameroon, to stop killing Southern Kaduna indigenes due to the grievances erupting from the killing of their cattles in the 2011 post election crisis in the state. During that period, the governor said 204 people lost their lives while the Catholic Church in Kaduna State said 808 people were killed by the armed bandits.
In response to the above, the sitting senator representing Kaduna South Senatorial District, Danjuma Laah, said there was never a time in 2011 that Fulanis in those Sahel countries mentioned by the governor such as Niger, Mali, Chad and others were killed with their cattle in the Southern Kaduna as the area is not a converging point for those countries and called el-Rufai's claim a lie. According to him, Southern Kaduna was reported by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) to have been attacked 41 times between 2009 and May 1, 2016, with hundreds left dead and thousands of properties destroyed.
In April 2021, el-Rufai made a turn-around and said anyone caught negotiating with bandits would be severely dealt with.
Grazing reserves in Southern Kaduna
The governor, el-Rufai, proposed to create cattle grazing reserves for the Fulanis in 16 separate locations in the state on 180,000 hectares of land and Southern Kaduna was to provide 130,000 hectares in six locations viewed as being strategic. The Southern Kaduna People's Union (SOKAPU) points on this plan as a cause for the immediate crises, but the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) denied this claim.
According to the SOKAPU President, Dr. Musa Kaptain Solomon:
In June 2016, Southern Kaduna in its entirety through the SOKAPU kicked against this plan as it was viewed with suspicious motives which would allocate an additional 5,000 hectares to the Federal Government for the same grazing reserve for the Fulanis making 17 in all. The SOKAPU also claims that between 2011 and 2016, over 4,000 people lost their lives in 54 documented attacks.
The SOKAPU President, Musa, in November 2016, in an interview said, "Grazing reserve is like robbing Peter to pay Paul".
Arrest of journalists
On 27 April 2016, a Kaduna-based journalist, Jacob Onjewu Dickson, a reporter for Authentic News Daily, a news website, was arrested. He reportedly wrote a report stating that the Kaduna State governor, el-Rufai, was pelted with rocks by youths on a peace-brokering mission.
On 26 October 2016, a public commentator and former Kaduna State University lecturer, John Danfulani, was arrested for his Facebook post criticizing Nasir el-Rufai's government and detained for 13 days.
In July 2017, Luka Binniyat, the SOKAPU spokesman was also arrested and detained by the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, for criticizing his approach to handling the attacks in Southern Kaduna. He spent over 100 days in detention and was released in October 2017.
On 8 May 2019, another journalist, Stephen Kefas, was arrested by the police in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and later transferred to Kaduna based on "orders from above" for reposting a post on Facebook by Sahara Reporters on the kidnap and murder of the Agom Adara, Maiwada Galadima. He was remanded in the Kaduna prison. There groups held a protest for his release, with some protesters labeling the act tyrannical.
On 4 November 2021, Luka Binniyat was again arrested in his office in the SOKAPU secretariat in Kaduna, after his report of 28 October 2021, on the far-right US website, The Epoch Times, again on the Kaduna State government's way of tackling the killings in Southern Kaduna. The Committee to Protect Journalists also urged the Nigerian government to "immediately and unconditionally" release Luka Binniyat and drop all charges against him on November 15, 2021. He was released on 3 February 2022.
Other human rights abuses by el-Rufai were listed by the human rights campaigner and lawyer, Chidi Odinkalu.
Changes to local leadership and violence against traditional rulers
In March 2017, the B'gwam Akurmi, HH Ishaku S. Damina, was arrested by the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai. The reason for his arrest as narrated by the Southern Kaduna People's Union (SOKAPU) spokesman, Luka Binniyat, was that he handed over a Fulani man suspected of being a notorious kidnapper in the area to the Nigerian Army, in whose custody he died. The Akurmi youths took to the media to demand for the release of their ruler.
In October 2017, Daily Trust reported the plans to restructure 32 chiefdoms and emirates in Kaduna State, out of which 13 chiefdoms and emirates in the central and southern senatorial districts of the state would be renamed. Earlier in June of that year, 313 districts and 4,453 village heads were reportedly sacked by the el-Rufai administration with the excuse of lessening the financial burden posed by the local government councils. This reform led to the reverting to the pre-2001 77 districts and 1,429 village units at the time of the deregulation of the traditional institution by the then-governor, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi. The affected institutions, however, challenged this decision in court.
In the early hours of January 1, 2018, the Etum Numana, HH Gambo Makama, and his pregnant wife were attacked and killed in their home in Arak village, Sanga LGA. The chief's 45-year-old son sustained injuries.
On 3 January 2018, the Agom Akulu, HH Yohanna Sidi Kukah, chief of the Akulu Chiefdom, was also kidnapped by some unknown gunmen. The chief is a younger brother of the Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah. He was, however, released a few days later.
In June 2018, a former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, and the founder of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Frederick Fasehun, tackled el-Rufai, on the decision to convert some chiefdoms to emirates in the state. This resulted from the letter titled "Review of Nomenclature of chiefdoms in Kaduna State" addressed to the Chief of Kauru, written on May 30, 2018, in which the governor directed the chief, HH Alhaji Ja'afaru Abubakar, to refer to himself as an emir. The letter states, The motive behind this was questioned and termed unconstitutional. The OPC leader also commended the joint resolution by the Nigerian National Assembly to sanction President Muhammadu Buhari over his attitude towards the ongoing killings in parts of that country.
In October 2018, the Agom Adara, HH Dr. Raphael Maiwada Galadima, was kidnapped alongside his wife and driver at Maikyali village along the Kaduna-Kachia road on his way back to his palace in Kachia after accompanying el-Rufai to Kasuwan Magani to an attack site. The wife and driver of the chief were later released while the chief remained in the kidnappers' den. Sahara Reporters reported that the kidnappers of the chief said before he was murdered, His murder was said to be the result of his refusal of the governor's plan to balkanize the Adara Chiefdom to accommodate a Kajuru Emirate, which was created shortly after his death.
In July 2021, the Kpop Ham, HH Jonathan Gyet Maude, was also kidnapped.
Other name changes included the Atyap Chiefdom being renamed Zangon Kataf Chiefdom and its ruler, the Agwatyap, HH Sir Dominic Yahaya, demoted to a second class status. This change affected other chiefdoms as well. Some other chiefdoms were split to make way for newer chiefdoms and emirates in contradiction to the governor's excuse of cost reduction earlier given for the reduction of the numbers of districts and village wards per traditional council.
SOKAPU added that the conversion of chiefdoms to emirates have also heightened the situation.
Demand for "Hausa-Fulani" chiefdoms