Date Published: 01/21/10

Jos: From peace home to killing fields by Sunday Dare

I no longer have sweet memories about Jos. No feeling of nostalgia. My excitement about my birth place has fizzled out over the years. Infact, these days I dread any visits to Jos to see my siblings and childhood friends. The places I loved so much to visit in Jos no longer hold any attraction for me. From thousands of miles away in my place in America, I smell death each time I hear about Jos. I feel pained because the knives of the killers have struck home twice now and I have seen many, too many loved ones and innocent lives lost on the platter of religious fanaticism. The present religious crisis which began on Sunday has finally put paid to my romance with Jos and to a large extent led me to write off the Nigerian government as failed and criminal in many respects. A government unable to guaranty the safety of lives and property does not deserve to rule over us. Simplicita, it is an illegitimate government.

In the crisis that began on Sunday morning in Jos, my family home in the Nasarawa area where I grew up with all my siblings and where we all lived for nearly three decades was razed down by irate Hausa youths. My only elder brother who had just returned from church moments ago while trying to escape from a burning house was hacked down with knives and machete and left to burn with the house. Even as I write, his charred body lies on the ground around the house because it is impossible to recover his body due to a breakdown of security. I know of several family friends whose homes were equally burnt and relatives missing. I know of thousands of Jos residents hunkered down in hide outs and safe heavens in different parts of Jos unable to venture out. Just about a year ago, precisely November 2008, my immediate junior sister’s husband was burnt down in his house while trying to escape after helping his family to safety. The 10-bedroom family duplex of my in-laws was razed to the ground. Two of my childhood friends were knifed to death in the open streets. The three days of reporting for Voice of America that  I spent in Jos after the November 2008 riots were scary. I saw a war zone with survivors walking around like zombies. On that visit, I interviewed the governor, Jonah Jang in his office. I saw a man unhappy and on edge. He spoke slowly and painfully. He chose his words very carefully. He was sad that there were more people interested in the politics of the Jos crisis than the resolution of the problem. I knew he was dealing with a problem bigger than his petit frame but with scant help.

 When violence strikes and tragedy and mayhem descend no one is spared. Not the Hausa, or the Yoruba, or Igbo, or Biroms, Angas, Tivs or any tribe for that matter. Not the animists, the atheists, the Christians or Muslims are spared. Yet, each time there is a religious or political disagreement between the two religious groups in Jos the descent into chaos is sudden and brutal. And then what happens, the government fumbles, the culprits go scot free and the victims are left to try to heal their wounds. But with each religious riot in Jos, deep un-healable scares are left and each group waits for a new opportunity for revenge.

For Jos Plateau State things have come full circle. And in a very sad way. The descent from peace to anarchy is in its closing chapter. While Jos burned, the government and security forces fiddled. The harvest of deaths arising from religious cum tribal conflicts in the last 8 years has left over six thousand dead and thousands more maimed and homeless. The actual descent began in  2001 just about the same period the September 11 terrorist attacks on the America occurred. In Jos, Christians and Muslims have attacked each other, though the Christians have suffered the greatest casualties yet both sides suffered irreparable loses. What happened in 2001 was a signpost of things to come.  Those that read the sign and had the powers to do something about it sat on their hands and played politics with the lives of millions. I knew Jos was in the throes of death.

But Jos never used to be like this. Not the killing fields that it has now become. Jos, Plateau was much beloved and blessed with rolling hills and plateaus. Its temperate weather is complimented with luscious vegetation and the production of exotic crops not found anywhere else in the country. It’s exciting terrain, sedate nature, peaceful atmosphere lured many to its foothills and mountain tops.  Its mantra-Home of Peace and Tourism- was most befitting. The attraction for Jos stretched beyond the shores of the country. America and European missionaries and experts, religious leaders and investors from Jeddah and other parts of the Arab world, and thousands from around the world were easily drawn to Jos.

My primary and secondary school days were bright and simple. I had friends, many of them and their religion was never an issue. My friends and I, though of different religions and tribe bonded like brothers and shared almost everything. It was a relationship that involved our families. We were never far away from home that is Jos. Wherever we travelled to, we always made it back to Jos to hook up with friends, family and the places we love to hold those picnics.

That was then. This is now. Now in full adulthood, our friendships still remain though pushed into the realm of uneasiness because we all have suffered loss from the several conflicts that have engulfed the State. We have all failed to find an explanation, nay justification for what is happening. When, why and how did Jos lose it? What changed that turned friendly neighbors into bitter enemies and near savages? The answers do not come easy, yet the government is in the best position to provide answers. In Jos, peace has been murdered. The peace of Jos is now soaked in the blood of thousands of innocent lives slaughtered in fits of rage and religious fanaticism.

The most recent outbreak of violence is a wound too deep and from which Jos may never recover. When the November 2008 riots occurred it blew open the depth of distrust and the desperate level certain groups were willing to go to settle scores. The fact that it was a religious war laced with tribal hatred was established for all times. But our leaders could not agree on something as commonsensical as fishing out the culprits and enforcing punishment. Our leaders failed to seize the opportunity to deal with the root cause and fashion out a strategy to nip in the bud such conflicts. Rather than do the reasonable, Abuja chose to take sides. The government in Jos took matter in its own hands and what followed was for the first a serious direct conflict between the federal power and that of the State. The Federal and State government each set up their own panel to investigate the same religious crisis. The people elected to manage our lives were themselves mired in crisis. The rest is now history because to date no one has faced the wrath of the law for the senseless killings of November 2008.

The people continue to wait patiently for justice. But rather than get justice and protection, they are again visited by the same killing and maiming demons. Let the government listen good and hear this: it must fish out the culprits and bring them to book speedily. The people need answers to who the individuals in fake military and police uniforms who pour in once there is a miss-understanding are. They need answers to how they got their very sophisticated weapons unchallenged and who their sponsors are. Nigerians, nay the international community want to know exactly what the government has done or is doing to check the spreading religious conflicts from Bauchi, to Jos, Maiduguri, Ilorin and Kaduna. Jos needs to be told the truth about what hidden agenda exist and who the architects are.

 Jos is like a melting point with Nigerians from every village, hamlet, city and town well represented there. Followers of different religions are also there. Through the several conflicts that have taken place, the people there do not need the government to tell them who their enemies or attackers are. What they need the government to do is act.

I am no prophet of doom, but I have seen enough, heard enough, and know enough to say boldly that if the government at both the State and national levels fail to act decisively from this time hence, then the road to Kigali stares us in the face.

-Sunday Dare, fmr. Head of the Hausa Service of the Voice of Ameria is the founder/editor in chief of Newsbreaksnow.com, an online news website and Publisher of News Digest International Magazine.