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JOSIAH IDOWU-FEARON, the Kaduna-based Archbishop of the Anglican Church (Communion) of Nigeria is also the national president of Bridge Builders Association of Nigeria, an NGO committed to the cause of peace in the north. He spoke to AMOS TAUNA recently in Kaduna. Excerpts:

NNS: What is the motive of Bridge Builders?
This organization, I will say, is a child of circumstance. Alhaji Shehu Mahdi and I had been running programmes on television. We met only to discover that we had a common interest. What is our interest as people from the northern part of this country? Both of us are convinced that this part of the country belongs to Nigerians who are Christians and Muslims and both religions are missionary-oriented. In Islam there is Da’awa which is preaching Islam to people, helping them. In Christianity we have what we call evangelism and mission. There is no amount of evangelism and mission that will make all people of the northern part of the country to become Christians, there is no amount of Da’awa that will make all of us become Muslims. Therefore, there is a need for understanding. That was how the concept of Bridge Builders Association came up. We are building bridges of understanding between Christians and Muslims in the north for them to know that religion is a gift of God; to create harmony, to promote peaceful co-existence so that there can be development and we will enjoy what God has given to us. We are building bridges of understanding between the far north and the middle belt; we believe we can use our God-given gift, talent and creativity that is in abundance in the northern part to build peace rather than using these things against each other. When you bring yours and I bring mine, the sum total is more than the individual and we can do better. We also want to build bridges between the leaders and those being led, our politicians, traditional rulers and religious leaders. In Kano we made the governor to realize that, yes, he is a Muslim and the governor of the state but you are not governor of Muslims alone but you are governor of all residents of the state irrespective of their religious or political affiliation. You must see the non-Muslim constituency as part of your constituency. We thank God he bought the idea; we ran a workshop for him and he sent to us a Christian and a Muslim from each of the 44 local governments of the state. It was a three-day capacity building workshop to make people to realize that there is a need to understand who the non-muslim is and who the muslim is. I can say as a result of our relationship with the governor, he has three special advisers who liaise between his government and their people – one from the middle belt, east and west. These are the types of things we intend doing for our governors because we are tired of the fighting in the north. It is not the only place where we have a good number of Muslims; you have a good number of Muslims in the south-west but they don’t fight. That is the whole idea, we want the north to progress, we want the north to develop but without peace, there can be no development and there can be no peace until there is understanding between the two religions. That is what bridge builders is all about.
Your programmes seem to be capital-intensive. How do you source funds to finance your projects?
Well, as you can see our major partners in this job are the British High Commission staff. Two years ago they gave us about seven million Naira after we presented our programmes and each programme, we will tell them how much it will cost and when we finished, we sent all the papers to them and after two years, I think we had about 700,000 Naira. They have been impressed by our integrity, openness, accountability and fairness. This they demonstrated by giving us a part of the budget this year which is 12 million Naira. They give us money and in addition to that Alhaji Shehu Mahdi and I solicit funds from our friends. We don’t live on the money given for this project. Shehu has his business and I have my job as a church person. We don’t take money from it. We registered the organization with our money; over a million Naira was spent doing that. We have not been able to get our money back, but we are committed to the north being peaceful because when there is peace, even if we don’t get our money back, the effect of peace in the north is more than the money we have invested.
What are the challenges you face?
One big problem is that of rivalry. We have discovered that there are a lot of NGOs that are duplicating what others are doing. We have tried to help them in this area, that is, how to write their proposals, told them the need for them to come together but getting the NGOs to work together is a big problem. The second problem is time. Shehu is a businessman, going from one place to another for his business while on my part I am also busy. There are lots of things we would want to do but we are constrained by lack of time. However, we thank God things are getting better now.
The third problem is people’s lack of understanding and unwillingness to change. There are those we have come to realize who feed on the crisis situation in the north. People like that see Bridge Builders as a threat but we are making progress. More and more of the governors are recognizing us; we were in Bauchi and very soon we will be in Maiduguri. Kano and Kaduna are second homes for us, same as Katsina state. We are getting more and more known and governors are beginning to appreciate what we are doing.
With those problems how do you hope to achieve your ultimate goal – peace in the north?
People say ‘seeing is believing.’ A good number of the NGOs in the northern states are beginning to realize that we are not out to compete with them. Rather we are out to make the various sections of the north to feel a part of the north. It is a question of understanding. They know we are honest, they know we are gaining ground and they know we are not trying to take their jobs but rather we want to make them a bit more effective with the very little resources we have.
The youths have been canon fodder in the much of the civil strife that has occurred in the north in recent times. Do you have a programme targeted at them?
Well, our target audience, as I said, are leaders, governors, politicians and young people. We are aware as a result of our feasibility study that our secondary schools and universities and other higher institutions are the breeding grounds for religious intolerance. So we have started targeting universities. But we have not been to secondary schools yet. Here in Kaduna, we ran a programme sometime last year for young people, undergraduates. We learnt a lot. We’re working on the feedback we received. In Kano, we also ran a three-day workshop for young people from universities and polytechnics in Kano and that was sponsored by the British High Commission, using the money they gave to us. The governor of Kano State contributed towards the success of the programme. We are already beginning to target higher institutions and that was one of the reasons we went to Bauchi. Bauchi has become a disgrace to all of us in the north, especially its secondary schools. We had a chat with the governor and he is giving us a blank cheque as it were to run a workshop for his cabinet whenever we are ready.
Crisis in other countries in the past had often spilled over to Nigeria. What are your plans to sensitise Nigerians on such issues?
Well, I called that (I think I was quoted all over the world) deglobalisation of crisis. We actually did that very well during former Governor Makarfi’s administration. I insisted we prevent the spill-over effect of crises elsewhere on us. Because of the importance of Kaduna in the political thinking of the north if anything is happening in any state and Kaduna does not support, you notice that it doesn’t take off. Makarfi did a good job and his successor, Namadi Sambo, is following in his footsteps. What we are trying to do is to let Nigerian Muslims and Christians know that, yes, Islam is one, Christianity is one but we are first and foremost Nigerians. We are trying to help the young people to cultivate the spirit of nationhood. The nation is very important, we can’t be global Christians or global muslims. You have your roots and if there is a crisis that affects either Christians or muslims in any part of the country, you can express your disapproval of the way our people are being treated by peaceful demonstration to the embassy but there is no point destroying people’s property which will affect our development negatively and those on whose behalf we are demonstrating are enjoying their lives. We made mistakes in the past but we thank God we are beginning to settle down in the north. People must know that this is our land and do everything to keep this nation together. It is a question of education and, so, to me, the key thing Bridge Builders holds unto is the power of education. By educating and informing the people they will begin to think right.
With Bridge Builders spreading its tentacles all over the north, how do you see the future?
Well, I don’t see Bridge Builders taking over the whole of the northern states. Our job is to give assistance and enablement to other NGOs that are similarly minded. In fact, we will want more NGOs to invest in this business of peace and peaceful co-existence. I agree with the view of a young man who said he was grateful to the British government for making peace their cardinal point in their programmes for the northern part of the country. You know malaria and typhoid kill but not one of this kills like crisis situations because within one or two days thousands of people are lost. So it is better to make peace, and when there is peace all these diseases can be taken care of because you will educate people. What am I living for if there is no peace? I am hoping that more and more NGOs will get up and engage in the business of peace.