WASHINGTON (Islam Online) – According to Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, a top Nigerian Islamic scholar and leader, the social ills of the country were the reason for the eruption of violence that claimed the lives of at least 300 and at most 1,000 in Kaduna riots flared by Christians protesting against the Muslim majority’s demands for Islamic Shari’a law.
“There is ignorance, unemployment, and people seems to be at loggerheads even with themselves. Otherwise how do you explain somebody picking up arms to kill other people and destroy property? People are frustrated with life as a whole. That is why sometimes, even without provocation, people exhibit violent tendencies. It is part of the societal ills, and the solution lies in addressing such ills,” said El-Zakzaky.
Nigeria's first civilian president in more than 15 years, Olusegun Obasanjo, who took office in May 1999, pledged to end political strife, tackle industrial-scale corruption, and ease crippling poverty. Now he faces a heap of unresolved economic and political problems.
Speaking to reporters after the Kaduna uproar, Obasanjo said he had been shocked and saddened by the unrest he called the "worst bloodletting ... since the civil war" 30 years ago.
Many Nigerians are as frustrated with life under a civilian president as under its military predecessors, and much of the reason is economics. People are suffering economically, and the recent Kaduna episode illustrated that.
On the economic front, little has changed for the ordinary Nigerian. Unemployment is rampant, public services poor, and infrastructure weak. Electricity, telecommunications and businesses in the country, to some extent, remain stagnant.
Power supplies are as episodic as ever and an attempt to end Nigeria's crippling lack of telecommunications (500,000 phone lines in a country of 120 million people) plunged into farce last month with the cancellation of a bidding process, and the arrest of the communications agency chief for "financial misconduct.”
However, according to presidential sources, the drive by the government to tackle the country's economic problems has been put on hold by the failure to date of the parliament to pass the 2000 budget, submitted by Obasanjo in November last year.
Parliament has so far refused to approve government spending plans, despite a growing chorus of concern from business leaders that the delay is crippling business confidence. And the government's own privatization program appeared to stall, with no dates announced for any major privatization thus far.
