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Settlement dynamics are critical to the well being of its occupants. Toft (2003:2) has argued that it
―binds the capability and legitimacy of an ethnic group‘s mobilisation‖ for conflict. Toft viewed actor capability as the ability or capacity to organise. Capability here refers to the capacity to wage or organise successful violent conflicts. In this sense, exclusive settlement enables groups to legitimize their struggle and gives them the capacity to defend and attack the opposition group.
Discussions with respondents corroborates Toft‘s proposition. These separate settlements have formed the identities of the groups and have kept different groups together in a geographical space from where different networks for violent attacks are established. A respondent had raised the connection between settlement dynamics and group capability:
These neighbourhoods…keep them together. They then establish networks as other sister settlements both in this town or other local government and even states and beyond this country. Such networks established, make arms accessible, finance available, interest maintained and secret kept. This segregationist pattern of settlement has provided high capabilities for violent conflicts.
Sometimes people on both sides receive personnel from outside and these neighbourhoods helped them to plan for it, smuggle the people in and keep them till the mission is accomplished. Yet the other group will know nothing about it. They will only see themselves attacked and killed (Field interview, 2014).
Every group needs its members‘ cooperation, support and participation in collective actions during violent conflicts. The above position of a respondent adumbrates the fact that the support and participation of group members in conflict as well as generating material resources for executing the fight are best articulated around separate settlement. Scholars of asymmetric conflict have argued that exclusive settlement of groups have better political, economic and social networks that they can use to successfully start and sustain fighting (Toft, 2003; Weidmann, 2009a, 2009b). This is because spatial proximity has proved advantageous for mobilising the population for conflict and establishing different levels of networks that will serve the purpose of servicing and keeping the neighbourhood. While this has been applied at the national level in terms of fight against the sovereign state, it is not different in symmetric conflicts where groups have constantly sought to protect their ethnic and religious identity by protecting their residential settlement. Geographic concentration of a group has fostered the coordination of a group‘s activities and perfected the implementation of group‘s plans. Kohn‘s (2008) study of segregated Catholic/Protestant neighbourhoods in Northern Ireland has shown that social space has a way of structuring the interaction of individuals for a collective action. In this sense, group grievance can
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be easily structured within an exclusive neighbourhood and link with other members elsewhere who share the same grievance and thereafter launch attack on those they consider enemies or aggressors. This has been the case where different groups in Plateau State have combined forces to fight using the advantage provided by the separate settlement.
This has created different conflict networks and the groups have established their exclusive neighbourhoods as a base for negotiating attacks as in a conventional war. The point to underscore is that group geographic concentration whether at international, regional, national or local level, provides such groups the capability to fight another group considered as the enemy group. This has been a constant experience in Plateau State. For instance, in Barkin-Ladi, the shift in settlement has encouraged and provided a link for people of Foron and Fan to come together and send/chase out a particular people (the Fulani) in those areas. A respondent pointed out that it has happened where people in these two communities (Foron and Fan) have come together to fight the Fulani. It is interesting to note that both communities are very large districts in Barkin-Ladi LGA and they are exclusively Christian with no single Muslim. Foron and Fan Districts have a boundary which becomes the linking point of the two communities. This is not peculiar to Barkin-Ladi it has occurred in Jos North and Jos South where people from Delimi, Yan Taya have linked with Muslim community in Yan Shanu to fight the Christian community in Jos Jarawa;
while those from Zawan and Du have aligned with the Christian community in Angwan Doki (Rwang Pam) to fight the Muslim community in Angwan Doki (Kasali) respectively.
Lichbach (1995 cited in Weidmann, 2009a) demonstrated that geographic proximity is an important factor that facilitates and fosters the coordination of groups for conflict. Conflict facilitating effect of exclusive settlement has been attributed to three salient factors by Lichbach.
One, he contended that spatial proximity of individuals facilitates constant interaction and leads to the formation of ―cognitive proximity‖ within the group. According to Weidmann, this ―cognitive proximity‖ is important since it fosters the establishment of collective action among a group‘s population. Two, group‘s exclusive residential pattern aids to coordinate collective action by reducing organisational cost. Three, it helps the group to monitor the activities of the group‘s population. These three factors have made separate settlement a formidable force for violent conflicts. This is because it has allowed people of same believe or interest to interact closely and easily and most times react to issues within their environment. In Plateau State, what we have from such experience is revenge and since every group has lost something as well as people,
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when different group‘s try to revenge it becomes chaotic. This is the experience in the four local government areas.
The argument here is that separate settlement has provided the conflict actors the capability to fight in Plateau State. The reference therefore has been on economic, ‗military‘, social, political and cultural capabilities. This follows the trend of strong networks that abound in those neighbourhoods. For this reason, the issue of mercenaries is common. Toft (2003:23) contended that urban residents have the highest capabilities for conflict. This is because they have access to money and media as well as dense networks (especially economic ones). Mixed neighbourhoods in urban centres may not have such capabilities as do the separate neighbourhoods given the fact that separate settlement does not only facilitate the mobilisation of more fighting men in times of conflict, it also gives access to resources and the possibility of acquiring the services of mercenaries. Ross‘ (2005) study of Touba Senegal presents a glaringly and vivid picture of how exclusive settlement could link larger networks and provide the capability for conflict. Ross revealed how Touba‘s urban space is determined by African, Islamic and global religious forces.
He affirmed that rather than colonial and post-colonial administrations, it is the Islamic brotherhoods that have controlled the planning and development of Touba. The author contended that occasional conflicts between members of different brotherhoods led to divisions of urban social and physical space and, in some cases, entirely new neighbourhoods. It is important to point out that Touba, is not only independent of the control of the national government, the city is also aligned to a larger network of Muslim towns throughout Senegal and the international circles.
This form of interaction could have grave effects on a country‘s national security as separate settlement provided by religion links different individuals of like mind together.
This raises the issue of how foreign fighters are engaged in smaller conflicts like the Plateau State case. Foreign fighters‘ engagement has characterised the history of wars but became a frequent feature of the Muslim world since the 1980s (Hegghammer, 2010). Reports emerged after the 2001 Jos conflict that mobs who were suspected to be civilian mercenaries appeared on army uniform and killed several people on Wednesday September, 12 around the Dilimi area (Human Right Watch, 2001:18-19). The ―fake soldiers‖ theory was a constant allegation on both sides who claimed that foreign elements were brought in to unleash violence on unsuspecting citizens.
The fighters were said to be majorly from Niger Republic and Chad because of religious affinity.
The phenomenon of foreign fighters is applied here to represent mobilised fighters from outside
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Plateau State and Nigeria. Long-distance foreign fighter mobilisation was a rare phenomenon until the 1980s. This is inspite of the clash of civilization thesis (Huntington, 1996) which can be traced beyond the encounter between Muslim merchants and Europeans at the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean in the 16th and 17th centuries to the Christian crusades of the 12th and 13th centuries (McNeil, 1967). This is also inspite of modern Islamism which rose highly in the 19th century when Islamist groups have used violence since the 1940s and armed conflicts existed between Muslims and non-Muslims throughout the 20th century (Hegghammer, 2010; Comolli, 2015). In the case of Plateau State, the mechanism aiding the prevalence of foreign fighters which adds to the capability of groups in armed conflict is the separate settlement. Attention was drawn to this regard when a discussant contended that:
Muslims in northern Plateau State constantly link with Muslims outside here to provide them with security and also to serve as fighters during attack. Sometimes they need the support of people from other places to achieve their goals and likewise the Christians too. Both sides have strong networks provided by exclusive neighbourhoods. You bring your contacts in and keep them without anybody knowing about it except you. That is why people can come from other places and move into a neighbourhood and kill people and go free because they have been provided all logistics including escape routes (FGD, 2014).
In Jos North as well as in the other three local government areas, there have been allegations and counter allegations of mercenaries fighting for both Muslims and Christians. Best (2007) reiterated that before the 2001 crisis several people of Niger Republic origin had found their way to Jos and this raised tension among the residents of the city. Few respondents had argued that over 60 percent of the residents of Rikkos (an exclusive Muslim neighbourhood) are of Niger Republic origin. This has significant implications. One of such is that, like Touba, there will be a constant link between that neighbourhood and other networks beyond the country. This implies that groups will fight at any length given the kinds of networks available to them to protect their neighbourhoods. As earlier stated, groups feel they have a legitimate cause to protect their neighbourhood as it has provided them the base for attack and defence. It will be recalled that on March 7, 2010, Dogo Na Hauwa, an exclusively Christian neighbourhood was attacked with several people killed. At another occasion, Muslims were attacked during Eid Prayers with a bomb on August 29, 2011. The perpetrators of both attacks were successful given the opportunity provided by separate living. Opportunity in this sense means that while geography has aided the mobilisation of single group which lives within it, it has also helped them to maintain secrecy of
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attacks targeted against an opposition group. What really initiates group capability and legitimacy for violence is the meaning constructed around separate settlement. Such meanings as ―our territory‖, ―our space‖, ―our homeland‖ ―we are indigenes‖ and so on and so forth have continued to reinforce the desire to engage in ethno-religious violence against others. Conflict entrepreneurs play salient roles in these attacks as respondents claim that insiders who benefit from the conflict provide details of people‘s movements. Thus, separate settlement reinforces strong networks and capabilities for conflict. It makes for easy estimation of a particular population and how violence can be unleashed.
4.3.3 Segregated Settlements as Resistance to Exclusion and Quest for Inclusion in Plateau