Jos

By Muhammad Sabiu

Fresh violence has reportedly erupted in Yelwan Zangam community, Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State.

A report by the Daily Trust and other sources has indicated that about thirty people have been killed.

Meanwhile, security personnel have been deployed in the affected area.

Recall that a few days ago, suspected Igwere youths butchered about 30 Muslim travellers who were on a religious visit from Bauchi to Ondo State.

As of the time of filing this report, no comment from the Police or any official of the Plateau State government has reached The Daily Reality.

Details shortly…

By Misbahu el-Hamza

What is the major setback for peace efforts in Jos? Is it negligence from the governments? Or the ineffective or unsustainable strategies of the security forces on the ground? Could it be that God has forsaken the city for the crime of spilling innocent blood for decades? What have we done wrong, and how can we make amends?

I think the worst thing that ever happened to Jos from September 2001 to date is the systematic and deliberate disappearance of the once cherished plural community settings into a more homogeneous cultural make-up. Even though this is a product of various influences over the historical line, the major one, inarguably, is the episodes of collective violence for two-decade now in the city.

If you’ve ever been there, the communities in the city of “Home of Peace and Tourism” are now separated based on ethno-religious identity. When a particular group began to dominate another in a place, the minority will sell or evacuate and abandon their houses to move further away to avoid being surprised during crises. Everyone now has their schools. There are few to no Muslim students in the famous schools of St. Murumba College Jos and Demonstration School Jos. There are no longer Christian students in GSS Gangare Jos (save those who come to register and sit for WAEC). Some government secondary schools, which used to house students from different cultural and religious backgrounds, are now left to no use or serve their neighbouring communities. The state authorities have (in)directly invigorated this problem: it has for long forsaken the structures;  allegedly, a Christian staff is only sent to a Muslim community as ‘punishment’ and vice versa.

The most frightening thing about this systematic separation of communities is anyone who deliberately, or by mistake, finds themselves in a neighbourhood other than theirs in times of unrest might likely not make it alive. This is happening in almost all the communities in Jos. I, for instance, escaped death in 2010 when I took a passenger from Terminus Market in the heart of Jos to Satellite Market in Rukuba Road. There wasn’t any crisis going on at the time; it was the ‘usual’ ambush on anyone who enters the ‘other’ territory. Okada/Achaba men like me and travellers who do not know the city well are the usual victims of such ambushes.

Ours isn’t like the Kaduna-Abuja highway disappearance where, if you don’t hear from your relative again, you will be praying and expecting a call from his abductees. No, in Jos, as a Muslim or Christian, you spray mats and begin to welcome people as you mourn the lost person in absentia. It’s this terrible.

The actors in all this? Mostly the youth. The youths who we always sing to be the “leaders” of tomorrow. The tomorrow that’s yet to come in Nigeria. Could one be right to ask how Jos could ever find peace if this is the path it has chosen for itself?

Despite all this sad reality, we all meet up in the marketplaces (basically the ones at the borderlines, which are easy to escape should the devil blow the horn) during the day. We enter the same busses to and from Bukuru. We meet and interact in the banks. Surprisingly, our boys and girls meet up during the weekends to party. In some instances, boys take girls home for further profligacy after partying. Somehow, we all agree to live like this. We only disagree with sleeping with our eyes closed as neighbours, devoid of any quarrel.

Posing the question of whether we truly need one another in Jos, earlier this morning, a school principal, Abubakar Nasiru, made the following point on his Facebook page:

“The mai ruwa, mai nama, mai gwanjo, etc., are hawking in areas like Gada Biyu, the Jentas, Rukuba Road, Apata, Busabuji, rendering their services to those communities every day – non-Hausa, non-Muslim communities. [On the other hand] The mai doya, mai atile, mai masara, mai tumatur, etc., carry out their petty businesses in places like Bauchi Road, Dilimi, Gangare. Rikkos, Nassarawa, and Anguwar Rogo – Muslim communities.” These people spend the whole day in those communities and cannot hesitate, if guaranteed safety, to spend their nights there.

In 2006 when I was in SS3, my community leaders recruited able youths, including myself, as Ƴan Sintiri (watchmen), to serve under the Banga (a mispronunciation of “Vanguard”) group, which has its history from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Our task then was to defend our four borders against any intruder during the night and to prevent the harassment of non-community members during the day. So we worked in batches to substitute other groups. This significantly helped, and in no time, other communities adopted the strategy. This gave birth to today’s form VGN in most districts of Jos. (VGN has been a registered semi-official citizen policing organisation with Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission since 1999, though.)

But does the VGN give us the peace and courage to live under the same roof or as neighbours? Certainly no. The separation of communities based on ethno-religious identity will continue to hinder any peacebuilding effort in the tin city.

We cannot have peace until we tolerate each other. We cannot tolerate one another until we accept to live as neighbours. We need to respect our identities and use our diversity as strength just as we used to be 3 – 4 decades ago, to sleep with our eyes closed without an iota of fear that my neighbour will set my house on fire.

For years now, we’ve been deceiving ourselves with so-called programmes for peace, only to gather, quench our thirst for partying and separate back into the borderlines. This, too, must stop.

Plateau state government must be sincere in its dealings. It must engage honest stakeholders from all communities to drive its mission of restoring peace on the Plateau. Schools must be treated equally, so much as every perpetrator must face the consequences of their actions without consideration whatsoever. There must be sincere and rigorous campaigns to rebuild Jos to its past glories; Jos people must co-exist as neighbours irrespective of ethnicity or religion. Otherwise, Plateau is, in general, no doubt a failed state!

Misbahu el-Hamza is a freelance journalist based in Kano and can be reached via misbahulhamza@gmail.com.

By Misbahu El-Hamza

When I was listening to the Annual Muhammadu Sanusi II Colloquium online at around noon on Saturday, a call from a Jos-based friend interrupted my network. His heart was panting as he told me about an attack on travellers in Jos. However, he said he had no additional information; he only added that corpses, drenched in blood, had been brought to the Jos Central Mosque.

I immediately began to make calls, hoping I could speak directly with some survivors if there were any. But, unfortunately, I could not get any until the early hours of Sunday when I received an SMS from my source in Jos with the phone number of one survivor named Haruna Muhammad.

Haruna, 36, was the only man from Ogun state who joined other 53 Ondo and Kogi states based Muslims to travel to Shaikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi, a renowned Islamic scholar of the Tijjaniya Sufi Order in his home in Bauchi state. The 54 Muslim faithful travelled in a convoy of 5 hummer busses from Ondo state through Jos and arrived at Bauchi in the early hours of Friday “for a Friday litany with the Shaikh,” said Haruna.

“We left Bauchi for Ondo at around 7 am through Jos.” The journey was peaceful until around 10 am when “we arrived at a place blocked by some youths searching every car passing by. And when it came to our turn, we were asked to all step down of the cars.”

The youths began asking the drivers questions about where the convoy was coming from and where they were heading. “It was obvious they didn’t trust us,” Haruna said, but above all, the youths were angry. Before Haruna or any of his brothers speaks, the youth began shouting, hitting them with sticks, and suddenly, all the convoy dispersed into the nooks of Rukuba for their lives. “None of us has any idea where he’s running to, but we had to try and save our lives,” Haruna recounted.

While in hiding, Haruna watched in dread how the youth used sticks and stones to massacre some of his co-travellers. A viral video shared online by an unknown perpetrator shows how they used to smash and shatter the victims’ heads on the road. Haruna also heard a gunshot but could not identify who was shot at the moment. Twenty-five people were butchered at the spot before the military came to rescue those in hiding, like Haruna and 25 others. One other sustained severe injuries and died later at Plateau Hospital, according to Haruna.

The State Director, Fityanul Islam of Nigeria, Mallam Adam Hamza, who supervised the preparation and burial of the deceased, confirmed that they buried 26 bodies at Dadin Kowa Cemetery of Jos South. The graveyard is a 19-minute drive from the Jos North Central Mosque. The other injured victims are still at the hospital receiving treatment.

I asked Haruna why they chose to follow Rukuba Road since that wasn’t the road they followed to Bauchi. “One of us proposed that Rukuba Road would be better,” he said, “and then one of the drivers said he too knows the road. So, he led the convoy.” None of the five drivers, however, sustained an injury. All 5 were non-Muslim Yorubas from Ondo state. Before the military arrived at the scene, Haruna confirmed that one of the cars was set on fire, and another driver luckily drove off his car to safety. As of this morning, that driver set off for Ondo. Haruna and other survivors are still in Plateau State, kept at a hotel under the protection of the state government. He assured me they are well taken care of under the supervision of Fityanul Islam of Nigeria.

All this appeared to come to the authorities with shock, according to Mallam Adam. Some government officials who attended the burial include Secretary to the state government, who was said to have represented the state governor, Simon Bako Lalong. Others include the state police commissioner, CP Edward Egbuka, and General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Jos 3-Division, General Ibrahim Ali. The CP and GOC also visited the scene of the massacre on Saturday.

All efforts to speak with one of the government officials were not successful. However, in a press statement, the Plateau State Government, in response to the massacre and avoidance of counter-reprisal, imposed dusk-to-dawn (6 pm – 6 am) curfew in Bassa, Jos South and Jos North local governments at 3 am on Sunday. But unconfirmed reports coming from Jos North this morning indicate that the atmosphere is intense.

It’s no wonder that through its Director of Press, Dr Makut Simon Machan, the state government released another statement at exactly 11:02 am today that imposing a 24-hour curfew in Jos North “to contain further security threats”.

It could be recalled that on Wednesday, August 4, 2021, an attack on travellers was recorded where a truck full of animals was set ablaze at Gada Biyu, a trekking distance from Rukuba Road. That attack was said to be a reprisal as Fulanis were said to have attacked Irigwe houses and destroyed farms in other state villages.

Yesterday’s attack could also be a continuation of the previous reprisal. Survivors and locals call on the Plateau state government to look into the root cause of these killings as a matter of urgency and ensure justice is served. Any delay could return Jos North to its dark days when people get killed sporadically if they (mistakenly) entered territory belonging to another ethnicity or religion other than theirs.

Haruna Muhammad further urged the Federal and State government to ensure the arrest of all who were responsible for the merciless killings of his innocent brothers on August 14 2021. He said whatever misunderstanding is going on between the tribes in Plateau state, his brothers know nothing about it, and their killings shouldn’t be unchecked. The massacre yesterday left 26 people dead and 33 survivors, including the drivers.

By Muhammad Sabiu

The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) on Sunday “unequivocally condemns” the attack and killing of over 22 Muslim travellers by a suspected Christian militia in Plateau State.

On Saturday, the Daily Reality newspaper reported the killing of the travellers who were returning from Bauchi to Ondo after attending a religious event.

In a statement, the NSCIA said, “The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) under the leadership of its President-General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, unequivocally condemns the massacre of a group of innocent Muslims who were returning from Bauchi to Akure. Ondo State, on Saturday.”

The Muslim body appeals for calm and warns against reprisals, saying, “…the Council appeals to all Muslims to be calm and nobody should take laws into his or her hands. The Council re-emphasises that no human life deserves to be wasted on any ground, be it religious or ethnic.”

The Presidency also condemned the killing in a statement signed by the presidential spokesperson, Malam Garba Shehu.

Again, social media users took to their accounts to protest the killing by sharing photo and video content of the victims’ bodies and their funerals.

By Muhammadu Sabiu

The presidency has “strongly condemned” the attack on about ninety Muslim travellers, among whom over twenty-two were killed on Saturday Gada Biyu and Rukuba Road along the Jos-Zaria road in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State.

The condemnation is contained in a statement released Saturday by a presidential spokesperson, Malam Garba Shehu, via his Facebook account.

“The Presidency condemns the attack earlier Saturday on travellers from a religious event in Bauchi, passing through Jos, the Plateau State Capital and regrets the reported deaths of at least twenty-two persons with several others injured in that ambush on their travelling party.

“It is widely known that Plateau State has been one of the states affected by herder-farmer clashes, which have, in a significant way, been curtailed following the intense peace-building efforts of the administration of Governor Simon Lalong,” Garba Shehu said.

President Buhari has ordered security agencies to fish out the perpetrators of the attack.

Giving the order, Buhari was quoted as saying, “Make no mistake about it: in line with my commitment to protect all Nigerians, I have ordered our security agencies to fish out the perpetrators of this gruesome massacre of innocent travellers and bring them to justice.”

Recall that The Daily Reality newspaper has reported that police have confirmed the killing of at least twenty-two Muslim travellers.

However, reports coming from Plateau State afterwards have indicated that the death toll had risen from twenty-two to thirty as more corpses were recovered.

By Muhammad Sabiu

At least twenty two Muslim travellers have been confirmed dead after an attack on a convoy of their buses on Saturday in Rukuba Road along the Jos-Zaria road in Jos North Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Confirming the attack, Plateau State police spokesman, Ubah Ogaba, said, “At about 0928hrs (08:28 GMT) the Plateau State Police Command received a distress call that a group of attackers suspected to be Irigwe youths (predominantly Christian)… attacked a convoy of five buses with Muslim faithful.”

“Twenty-two persons were killed and 14 injured in the attack,” he added

However, according to Channels TV, “a local government representative said the toll was higher.”

“Twenty-five people are now confirmed killed,” said the state government representative Danladi Atu, who visited a hospital where victims have been admitted.

In a statement released by Governor Lalong’s spokesperson, Makut Simon Macham, the governor condemned the attack and said, “security has been beefed up around the area.”

Plateau State is known for ethno-religious violence, which leaves people in large numbers dead and injured.

By Muhammad Sabiu

No fewer than 17 people have been killed and 85 buildings torched in the recent violence that erupted in two local government areas of Plateau State: Bassa and Riyom.

After an emergency security meeting, the Plateau State Commissioner of Police, Edward Egbuka, confirmed this to journalists at Government House, Jos.

“There were attacks specifically at Jebbu Miango on Saturday night, July 31, in which five people were killed and about 85 buildings burnt.

“The next morning, the attacks continued at Tambora in Riyom LGA where 12 people were killed and some houses destroyed,” Mr Egbuka said.

He also stated that some security personnel were killed in the violence, adding that Governor Lalong has ordered security agents to ensure normalcy in the affected areas and make sure that the perpetrators face the full wrath of the law.

He said, “His Excellency (the governor) has read a riot act to us that we should move out and within two weeks bring to book all those that have perpetrated the attacks. This would be done.”

This didn’t come as a surprise since Plateau State is known for ethno-religious violence in the past.