Open Letter on the Southern Kaduna Violence to Kaduna State Governor in 2011

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Coalition of Muslim Victims of 2011 Ethno-Religious Cleansing In Southern
Kaduna
No.86 B Katuru Road U/Sarki Kaduna, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Gsm 08023308622, 08023213723
21ST February, 2012
His Excellency,
Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa,
The Executive Governor of Kaduna State,
Sir Kashim Ibrahim House Kaduna.
Open Letter on
Peace and Reconciliation Committee on April 2011 Post-Election Ethno-Religious Cleansing In
Southern Kaduna
We find it very necessary to write you this open letter on the subject of the 2011 ethno-religious cleansing
(genocide) in Southern Kaduna. We resorted to go public after noticing that our two previous letters to you,
dated 18th July and 16th September 2011 respectively, on the same issue were neither acknowledged, replied
nor acted upon with empathy.
You are aware, perhaps more than others, that the April 2011 Post Election Violence which took the
typology of ethno-religious cleansing (genocide) in some parts of Southern Kaduna had led to the death of
over one thousand Muslims, the forceful displacement of over fifteen thousand families from 38 sedentary
and nomadic settlements and the complete destruction of their dwellings, places of worship, farmlands,
livestock and other means of livelihoods. These facts were attested to by the Human Right Watch in its 2011
Annual Reports.
You are also aware that this unimaginable tragedy had yielded multiple humanitarian challenges such as the
preponderance of Internally Displaced Persons living in sub-human conditions at Mando Hajj, Igabi LGA,
Ladduga Cattle Grazing Reserve and Kachia, in Kachia LGA, Kafanchan Jema’a LGA, Kagarko and Jere in
Kagarko LGA, Pambegua, Kubau LGA, U/Bawa, Lazuru, Saminaka and Lere in Lere LGA among other
locations all in Kaduna State. Other Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who originated from other parts of
the country have fled to their States of origin after waiting for your compassionate action that seems not
forthcoming.
Our profound shock and despair were temporarily relieved when you constituted a Judicial Commission of
Enquiry to investigate the genocide. We cooperated with the Commission up to the time we discovered that
the objectives, proceedings and activities of the Commission were not geared towards establishing the truth
to aid the cause of justice for parties (victims and culprits) in the crises that degenerated into genocide; we
then withdrew our participation and wrote you to give our reasons accordingly. You however decided to

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ignore our sincere observations, allowed the Commission to conclude its assignment using our earlier
memoranda against our expressed wishes and presented its Report to you formally. You are therefore, no
longer at liberty to hide or wish the Report away because of whatever reason.
After that, you subsequently told the world in an interview with the Sunday Trust Newspaper of 16th October
2011 on pages 4 and 5 that “as far as you are concerned actually the government has already started
implementing the recommendations of the Judicial Commission of Enquiry which you established”. On
the other hand, Mr. Yohanna Allahmagani, your Principal Private Secretary, who is the clearing house of all
your correspondence, also told the world that “the Kaduna State Government has spent about Ten Billion
Naira on the security of lives and property of the ‘people’ following the Post Election crises that erupted in
April, 2011, a statement that was refuted only as an afterthought.
While we were waiting for publication of the report and Government White Paper based on the Custom and
practice of Judicial Commission of Enquiry you rather somersaulted and set up an over-bloated and weird
70-man Peace and Reconciliation Committee purportedly because the Recommendations of the Judicial
Commission were un-implementable and impracticable, whatever you mean by that. Adding to the
confusion, Alhaji Lawal Sama’ila, the Secretary to the State Government and your two Special Advisers on
Religious Affairs severally said that the government has finished with the issue of the Internally Displaced
Persons and by implication the entire issues of the 2011 genocide in Southern Kaduna.
As victims of this tragedy, we strongly believe that your cardinal statutory duty as the Executive Governor
and Chief Security Officer of Kaduna State is the protection of lives and properties of all the people under
your jurisdiction. Above all, we also believe if you had acted proactively on the several distress phone calls
and text messages sent to you in the formative stage of the crises these colossal loss of lives and properties
which were executed about twelve hours after you had been intimated could have been averted.
After the worst have happened by way of commission or omission, we expected that your administration
would swiftly take steps to identify and prosecute the perpetrators of the genocide and rehabilitate the
victims irrespective of their ethnic or religious backgrounds. Instead we were shocked with the alacrity with
which the State government contracted for the evacuation of substantial evidence of the genocide at Gonin
Gora Abuja Road, Kaduna, Zonkwa and Mastirga Zangon Kataf Local Government Area without extending
the same zeal in the treatment of the wounded, resettlement of the unfortunate persons displaced thereby
paving way for restoration of normalcy.
Having claimed to have resolved the issues relating to the genocide, we are demanding as Nigerians and
victims of the genocide, based on the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, African Charter on
Human and Peoples’ Rights and Transparency as an element of Good Governance enshrined in the

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Instrument of the African Peer Review Mechanism of the African Union to respond to us, members of the
public and by extension to posterity by answering the following questions publically:-
1. Why did your government refused to make public the Report of the Judicial Commission of Enquiry,
issue a White Paper and act appropriately on the same as is the tradition of government. Is it because
of the speculation going round that you or some people close to you were indicted for dereliction of
duty, incompetence and open partisanship in the Genocide?
2. What informed the opinion of Kaduna State government that the report of the Commission of
Enquiry is ‘un-implementable and non-practicable’? Is it based on the cause of Justice or
determination to save sacred cows from prosecution at all cost?
3. What have the Kaduna State government done to the perpetrators of the genocide who premeditated
and accomplished the extermination of over one thousand Muslims and complete destruction of their
properties on 18th and 19th April, 2011 for the period of ten months since the tragedy?
4. Why did your government surprisingly without consultation thereby denying particular parties in the
conflict the right to nominate their representatives in the so-called Peace and Reconciliation
Committee? But rather went ahead deliberately to nominate members who cannot give them effective
representation thereby allowing government to achieve a pre-determined agenda.
5. If you deemed it fit to appoint seasoned scholars, retired Generals, former senators, Ambassadors,
Lawyers and seasoned administrators for Southern Kaduna Christians and Northern Kaduna Muslims
why didn’t you extend the same to the Southern Kaduna Muslims who are the main victims of the
genocide?
6. Why were your handpicked delegates to the peace and reconciliation committee from Bajju, Atyab,
Ham, Adara and Gwong tribes exclusively Christians? Are you implying that there are no indigenous
Muslims among them who have stakes, rights and legitimate interests to contribute in peace and
reconciliation initiatives as bonafide citizens of Southern Kaduna? Perhaps that may be why they
were not spared by the head hunting militia.
7. How was the alleged Ten Billion Naira purportedly spent in the aftermath of the crises?, how much
was used in treating the wounded; providing food to the victims, rebuilding of destroyed houses, as
well as places of worship or places of occupations, how much was used to bribe government
informants spying on imaginary security threats?
8. Why has the government for the last ten months refused to rebuild houses of the victims and provide
adequate security in the area for them to return to their places of habitation and attempt to resume
normal life? Or are you determined to make their displacement permanent and irreversible?
9. Is the government reasonable in thinking that the paltry sum of N15,000.00, N20,000.00 and
N25,000.00 offered are enough reliefs to victims who not only lost their loved ones but also their

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entire dwellings, enterprises, crops and livestock, most of whom escaped the genocide with only the
clothes they had on them.
10. Why is your government trying to claim credit of the relief provided to victims by the Dangote
Foundation, a Corporate Social Responsibility outfit of the Dangote Group of Companies duly
incorporated several years ago as if it is an Agency of Kaduna State Government? We challenged the
State Government to publish the letter of solicitation sent to the Foundation to prove that it is not a
cheap opportunist.
11. Why, in spite of the above, is the State Government threatening to eject the Internally
Displaced Persons from Mando Hajj Camp if it is sincerely committed to genuine peace and
reconciliation without giving them alternative accommodation?
12. If the Kaduna State government is unscrupulously unhappy with HRH, Dr. Alh. Abdulmuminu Kabir
Usman CFR, the Emir of Katsina for bringing a Ten Million Naira worth of relief materials to victims
what have the State government done to the retired General who mounted and manned an illegal road
block at Fadan Kagoma to disarmed security officers officially assigned to escort injured persons
from Kafanchan to Abuja for tertiary medical attention and forced back to Kafanchan as a result of
which they all died.
13. What action did your administration take against the Agwam Bajju who was in his Palace at Zonkwa
when over two hundred Muslims were mass-murdered on 19th April, 2011 without any attempt to
save their lives compared to the action of the State government against the Epum Numana who was
deposed on the account of the killings of 2nd November 2001 near his Palace at Gwantu.
In view of afore mentioned questions, we are further obliged to respectfully observe as victims that the so-
called Peace and Reconciliation Committee is constituted primarily to pervert the cause of justice, divert
public attention away from injustice, waste public resources and avoid the rehabilitation of the victims back
to their various places of abode prior to the crises and in dealing with the culprits of genocide accordingly.
And by denying the victims effective representations in the Committee you it made it to appear as if the
Committee was intended to arrive at a conclusion whose membership, agenda, procedure and outcome had
been predetermined.
For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to place it on record that we are not opposed to peace and reconciliation
in Kaduna State, Nigeria and the world in general, but we strongly and undoubtedly believe that justice,
empathy and fairness to all concerned irrespective of their ethnic or religious backgrounds are the cardinal
paths to achieving same.
In furtherance to this above we are demanding that:-

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1. The genocide should be comprehensively and objectively investigated to determine the whole
truth on the causes, scope, and perpetrators, its victims and the scope of their loss. And the
Report of the Judicial Commission of Enquiry and Government White Paper on 2011genocide
should be released to public forthwith.
2. There should be fair trial and prosecution of the culprits behind the genocide to serve as
deterrence.
3. There should also be adequate compensation and rehabilitation of the victims to alleviate their
sufferings; and
4. Permanent security formations should be stationed in the entire Southern Kaduna to
safeguard the lives and property of citizens from xenophobic ethnic militias brandishing the
banner of so-called indigenity.
5. The Senator and Honourable Members of the Federal House of Representatives variously
representing Southern Kaduna in the National Assembly should fair and patriotic enough to
table the issue of the April 2011 post-election genocide in the upper and lower houses of
Parliament for comprehensive, unbiased and objective investigation because of its significance
to overriding national interest.
Anything short of these would force us to disregard the so-called Peace and Reconciliation Committee since
it would further confirm our fears that the present Kaduna State Government under your leadership is
deliberately shielding the perpetrators of the genocide from justice thereby aborting peace and reconciliation
in the State.
On this note, we wish to place it on record, as you already know, that we are not unaffected-activists in this
matter championing some distant utopian creeds rather we are victims who lost many family members,
neighbors, friends and compatriots in addition to valuable properties and peace of mind in the tragedy. On
account of this we feel betrayed and utmost disgust by some reckless and conscienceless political appointees
of feeding fat on our misery and playing dirty propaganda with our perils in a democratic setting. If they
cannot improve our burdens they should please not compound it. The victims deserve justice, empathy and
rehabilitation from your administration instead of insults from some over exuberant political appointees who
are supposedly Public Servants.
Finally, we are appealing to the Federal Government, the National Assembly, national security institutions,
print and electronic Media Houses but local and international and other well meaning Nigerians to be rightly
concerned with these unacceptable crime against humanity in a just and non-partisan manner to help resolve
it to the near satisfaction of the parties concerned so that we can collectively prevent it from degenerating
into another national security challenge.
Thank You,
Sanusih A. S. Maikudi
Dan Iyan Jema’a.

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