On December 24, 2023, another human tragedy had befallen Plateau state as gunmen or suspected Fulani attacked 20 villages resulting in the death of about 150 innocent people.
As usual, there were strong condemnations of the brutal assaults by prominent Nigerians hoping that it would be the last. Again, it was another heinous episode of how Plateau state was plunged into horrifying bloodletting for more than two decades. Except for the suspected murderers of General Idris Alkali, all the killers of those mad killings have not been apprehended.
Beyond the customary lamentations, there were repeated suggestions as to the lasting solution to the recurrent mayhem. But often, we forget that behind this persistent human catastrophe lies its undisputed genesis, which is mostly and deliberately ignored but must be acknowledged to serve a great lesson. Some political elite wearing the garment of ethnicity are the architects of this bolstering insecurity. They are, therefore, directly responsible for the pool of blood, destructions of property, despair, pains, hatred, disunity that have continued to engulf the state.
Plateau state was hitherto wearing a beautiful face but was later re-designed to an ugly face. Jos in particular which used to be socially dynamic to the extent that it hosted the legendary singer Jimmy Cliff from Jamaica is now a ghost town as many of its inhabitants have since deserted it. Though there are rising conflicts between farmers and herdsmen in some parts of the country, the lingering violence in Plateau state has to do more with the very day peace was murdered in Jos town. How did they bring this embarrassing mess to the state?
It was a long time and well orchestrated ethnic agenda which could not be executed under the military regime because of the fear of the barrel of the gun but was let loose at the onset of democracy. Its primary objective was to make Jos in particular too ‘indigenous’ in terms of habitations and inhabitable to the so called ‘settlers’. Two major reasons for the evil machination were politics and economy. If the politics of ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’ were to be played in all parts of the country, universal democracy would have since vanished into the thin air. Perhaps, we could have remained with the indigenous democracy of the Berom, the indigenous democracy of the Tarok, Angas, Rukuba, Mushere and the rest and there would have been anarchy everywhere. The moment democracy lost its universal meaning in Plateau state, that was the beginning of prolonged trouble in the state.
If we agree on not calling a spade a knife, former governors Joshua Chibi Dariye and Jonah David Jang are the seeming pioneers of the current state of insecurity in the state in their frantic efforts to holistically indigenise Plateau state. While the September 2001 first collapse of security was attributed to the alleged inflammatory and unguided utterances of Dariye corroborating with the ethnic vendetta of the mischief makers, Jang allegedly consolidated on Dariye’s self-indulgence to make Plateau state more troublesome. Unknown to them, they had set a goal for self-destruction for which the innocent ‘indigenes’ are the greatest victims.
In an interview with the Daily Champion newspaper, Dariye made the infamous and disgusting declaration that the Hausa/Fulani were like tenants in Jos while the ‘indigenous’ people were like landlords and the former could be served a quit notice by the latter. The quit notice option was deploying state power. In the end, Jos and its environs went up in flames and Dariye was helpless. When former governor Saminu Turaki of Jigawa state was banking on technology, propelling Jigawa forward to create wealth and reduce poverty, Dariye was pre-occupied with ethnic revolution which succeeded only in creating the prevailing misery for the people of Plateau state.
As Jonah Jang took over the mantle of leadership, little did we know that the battered Plateau state would be exposed to more danger zones of ethnicised democracy to foment more political upheavals. In November 2007, he conducted the dirtiest local government election in which he imposed his tribal man a Berom from Jos South to contest and win the Jos North local government election. Many heads rolled. To aggravate the escalation of the political turmoil, the Radio Plateau was manipulated to serve as a propaganda machine in which the music of Sunny Okosun’s ‘who owns the land’ and Bob Marley’s ‘stand up for your right’ boosted the morale of the fighting ‘indigenes’.
Gradually, the indigene-settler troubles snowballed to other parts of the state with devastating consequences and subsequently re-occurred during the period of Simong Lalong, albeit he comparatively proved to be a troubleshooter. Gradually, the religious factor came into active play to wreak more havocs. In January 2010, it was reported that about 150 Muslims (settlers) residing in Kuru Karama were murdered by Christians (indigenes) who dominated the area. Then in March 2010, Fulani herders massacred more than 200 Christians in Dogo-Nahawa village near Jos. Residents of the village were mainly Beroms. The attack was said to be a retaliation for the killings of some Fulani herdsmen by the people of the community.
In August 2021, 23 people of Bauchi origin passing via Jos while returning from a Muslim festival in Ondo were ambushed and killed. The attack was also said to be a reprisal of another one targeted at the indigenous people of Bassa local government area. What is obvious is that it will be difficult to disassociate all the killings in the state from reprisal attacks. For how long will this enmity last?
As I write this, Jos town is dangerously polarised along religious line. Unguwan Rogo area is populated by 100% Muslims. Jenta Adamu is 100% dominated by Christians. A symbiotic character of the protracted crisis is that most of the ‘settlers’ are Muslims while most of the ‘indigenes’ are Christians. In the past, Muslims and Christians used to live in the same compound. Jos used to be a home of religious tolerance. I remember the late Mrs Hannatu Chollom, a Berom Christian, who sponsored some Muslims to go on a pilgrimage. Jos was a practical replica of a mini Nigeria where multidimensional tribes lived in peace and harmony.
Ex-governors Dariye, Jang, their co- travellers and the rest of us are living witnesses how Plateau is falling apart. We have seen how one of the best markets in Africa, the ultra modern Terminus market in the Tin City, was mischievously and completely destroyed with billions of naira property lost. The ultimate objective was to completely destroy the economic power of the ‘settlers’ because the ‘indigenes’ had a weak economic base. The economy of the state is dwindling at an alarming rate. Many people have migrated to other states for greener pastures. Younger states such as Bauchi, Nasarawa, Gombe, Akwa Ibom, Osun and Jigawa are more prosperous than Plateau.
The ravaging fire of ethnicity ignited by the political elite is now consuming the ordinary citizens who are battling for survival. While the architects of this protracted human disaster cannot show their gains, the majority of the affected citizens have been counting their huge losses. All these are the bad scriptures of the prophets of doom.
Indeed, the real enemies of Plateau are those tribal lords who started a war that no one knows its end. By now, we are all sure that the home of peace is somewhere else and not Plateau again!
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Abdullahi writes from
Ringim,
Jigawa state via
07036207998
