Global Ethnic Conflicts: Kaduna Sharia riots of 2000

Introduction

The city of Kaduna is the Capital of Kaduna State and the largest in northern Nigeria. To some, it is the symbolic capital of the north. Over the decades, just like other states in Nigeria, Kaduna has experienced outbreaks of violence and infighting between the various ethnic and religious groups within the state (Osaghae & Suberu, 2005, p.19).

Three of the most serious outbreaks of violence in Kaduna State were in 1987, 1002, and 2000. This paper takes a case analysis of the Kaduna 2000 crisis by describing the different ethnic groups involved, the source of the tension that led to the violence, describe how the conflict-affected the country, and lastly, explain how the social construction of ethnic divisions can be seen in the conflict.

Ethnic groups involved

To understand ethnicity in the Kaduna Sharia Riots of 2000, it is first important to understand Kaduna state's population. The north of Nigeria is predominantly Muslim, but Kaduna has a significant population identifying as Christians, about thirty ethnic groups in the south of Kaduna State (Tertsakian, 2003).

One distinguishing feature about the ethnic groups in Kaduna State, especially in the City of Kaduna, is that they have always lived side by side each in the same areas for decades. The majority of the Muslims are of the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups. It is also to be noted that, because Kaduna is the well-developed city in the north, it has attracted ted a different mix of ethnic groups from other states, which include Christians from the southern states.

The 2000 sharia riots in Kaduna were mainly between Muslims who supported Sharia law's introduction in the state and Christians who objected to the same (Ullah, 2002). Even though this conflict was between Muslims and Christians, it is also important to note that the sides, just like every other conflict in Nigeria, kept distinct religious and ethnic identities. Therefore, it is difficult to classify this crisis as solely religious or ethnic easily (anc? & Odukoya, 2016). Therefore, it is interesting that members of the same ethnic group, e.g., Hausa, could be either Muslims or Christians, a feature that further complicates the ethnic divide.

Sources of the tensions

Sharia is an age-long practice for the Muslims in the state of Kaduna. What triggered the Kaduna Sharia riots of 2000 was the impression that Kaduna's state would be turned into a Muslim state. This was after the introduction of a proposal to adopt sharia law in the state in the state government. From 1999, several northern state governors have extended the application of sharia law to criminal...

Some Christians have also opposed the application of sharia law by principle, arguing that its practice is a way of effecting the historical north's muslin dominance.

With a specific focus on Kaduna city, the possibility...

…state of being marginalized by the state authorities. As a result, there has been a call for creating a Southern Kaduna State (Tertsakian, 2003). The assumption is that; the Christians would occupy the newly created state.

The social construction of ethnic divisions on Kaduna 2000 crisis

The social construction of ethnicity is commonplace among social scientists and argues that social identity is constructed as a basis for shared assumptions about reality. In the current case, the social constructs are Christians and Muslims. These constructs are based on the deity that an individual ascribes to for Christians Jesus Christ and Muslims Mohamed.

The instructions they each adhere to and follow for Christians the Bible and Muslims the Quran, from which comes forth Sharia Law. However, these constructs are considered long-standing, objective, and natural (Fearon & Laitin, 2000). Therefore, the agued in this paper that social constrictions of ethnicity in this case, Christians and Muslims, cannot be seen as the divisions that explain the Kaduna Sharia Riots of 2000.

For social construction of ethnic divisions to be the cause of ethnic violence, it is suggested that they have to for an exact source of conflict, e.g., in Rwanda, where Hutus and Tutsi were not mere ethnicities but had grown to be social constructs of class (Fearon & Laitin, 2000).

Moreover, will this might explain the source of the Rwandan Genocide, the social construction that is responsible for the violence is the stripping off of Tutsis' Humanity and branding than "Cockroaches." In the Kaduna crisis of 2000, their social construct of Christians and Muslims cannot be considered to be the ethnic division related to the violence; in…