When there is a clash between people of different tribes, the tendency is for commentators and even official interventionists to side with their own tribe or the tribe closely associated with theirs. In this ‘to-your-tents-oh-tribesmen’ stance, truth is usually the first casualty. (Our educated interlocutors  below deploy words; their uneducated tribesmen deploy guns and machetes and knives and charms and God knows what else.)

Akanmu: So, it is the turn of Ile-Ife to taste crisis now, ehn?

Dan-Azumi: And to think it started as a quarrel between two people. Did you hear the full story?

Akanmu: Perhaps I should hear your version.

Dan-Azumi: Not my version. The official report by the police.

Akanmu: Which police? The same sectional police that has taken sides in the conflict? Tell me. I’m listening.

Dan-Azumi: You see, the matter should never have degenerated to this level at all. One Yoruba woman named Kubura Saka had a disagreement with one Hausa boy, Abubakar Mohammed, for littering the front of her shop and she slapped him.

Akanmu: Who slapped who? I’m told it was Abubakar that assaulted the woman first.

Dan-Azumi: I’m telling you what the official report says. Kubura recruited her Yoruba kinsmen from a nearby motor park and they thoroughly beat up Abubakar Mohammed. That was the little spark that started the mayhem. Kubura is the wife of a member of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Akeem Eluwole, popularly known as Escort.

Akanmu: What I heard was that Abubakar beat up Kubura and Kubura’s husband stormed the area to retaliate. If your wife was assaulted, wouldn’t you defend her? You see, all this violence is getting too much now. Today it is Agatu, tomorrow it is Ebonyi, next tomorrow it is Zaki-Biam. I never used to know northerners to be like this. There is a wave of violent campaign gaining currency among northern communities whether they are herdsmen or territory hunters.

Dan-Azumi: You see, you’re comparing oranges and apples. This has nothing to do with herdsmen.

Akanmu: I know! But the pattern is troubling. Killings every time. My people say if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck.

Dan-Azumi: No. There is really no serious problem between the Arewa community in Ife and their Yoruba hosts. Kubura had earlier reported the food vendors to some elders in the Hausa community. They had promised to look into her complaint before the issue escalated. The Hausa community has been living peacefully with the Yorubas for almost 100 years. They are interwoven into the community. For example, do you know that Kubura’s first husband, the father of her first child before she married Akeem Eluwole, is a Hausa man from the same Sabo community in Ife? We shouldn’t just jump into the tribal wagon casting blame on the other side. There is only one side – the side of justice and peace and brotherhood.

Akanmu: How can you wax lyrical about the justice and peace when the police is so blatantly one-sided? Two communities fought. The police arrested people from only one community and whisked them to Abuja. A traditional ruler, Oba Ademiluyi, is among those herded to Abuja. This is worse than tribalism. And it will backfire against the Hausa community in the long run. You can’t talk of peace and brotherhood while intimidating and dehumanising my people.

Dan Azumi: I think the police wanted to calm nerves.

Akanmu: Ah, calm nerves? Will you accept a situation where the Yoruba community in the Sabo area of Kano fought the locals and then the police arrest only the Hausa locals and their District Head and take them to Lagos for trial while no Yoruba is arrested?

Dan_Azumi: Maybe not; but some elements in the media have been fanning embers of discord instead of dousing the flames.

Akanmu:  Are you blaming the media for faithfully reporting what happened? Credit to the Ooni who physically went to Sabo to condole with the Hausa community, Senator Omoworare who donated bags of rice and a cow to the Hausa community and Governor Aregbesola who virtually took the side of the Hausas in order to show them brotherhood.

Dan-Azumi: Yes. Senator Kwankwaso and some northern elders also played important roles in calming nerves. But you will agree that crime should not be excused under any circumstance. Arsonists and murderers should not be allowed to go free.

Akanmu: If you ask me, the greatest murderers so far are the Fulani herdsmen and nobody has paraded even one of them before TV cameras. Maybe OPC was right after all. We must defend ourselves since government can’t be trusted to defend us.

Dan-Azumi: But you heard the president directing the Inspector General of Police to find and prosecute those responsible for the recent killing in Zaki Biam.

Akanmu: Yes. I’m waiting to see them on TV.  The president did not need to direct the IG to go to Ife before the police took sides in the matter. We have to banish the god …

Dan-Azumi: No, we don’t need to banish God.

Akanmu: Let me finish. I am saying we have to banish the ‘god of violence’ from our communities.

Dan Azumi: Oh I see what you mean. I’m on the same page with you there.