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Nigeria

The Muslims and Christians of Jos
Dec 4th 2008 | JOS
From The Economist print edition

The government of Africa’s most populous country is slow to stem violence
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MUSTASH wrote:
December 16, 2008 0:38
A point of correction please. Nigeria's political parties are not divided along religious lines. Both parties (PDP and ANPP)you mentioned are headed by Christians and both have Muslims as presidential candidates. The candidates of the PDP fielded in the Jos North local Council elections were both Christians, while the ANPP fielded a Muslim and with a Christian running mate. Please note this in your future stories so you don't mislead a researcher.

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Namzeria wrote:
December 12, 2008 20:53
It is so sad that aritificial division such as North vs.South, Muslims vs. Christians is still being used in Nigeria. When will Africans understand that nobody was born Muslim or Christian, it is socially constructed. In the case of Africa, it is called " imported religions". It is high time that we understand the implications of social cohesion. Too much corruption in Nigeria, and that's too bad for Africa. Despie all its resources, Nigeria is still a poor country, why? Selfishness. STOP STOP, WAKE UP.

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Daniel Kutchin wrote:
December 10, 2008 0:55
"It's the economy, stupid".

When I saw the pictures in the news, I couldn't recognise the city and the State where I was born, barely 15 years of departing.

Sadly, Jos and Plateau State's better times exist in the past. Tin mining, the economic power which helped build the prosperous and peaceful multi-cultural community - before and after the Civil War 4 decades ago - doesn't exist anymore. Splitting the State from the then Northern Region, and then from Benue State and more recently from Nassarawa State, hasn't helped either. The result is, a highly indebted State and a nervous folk who are seeing their fortunes diminishing.

Stop the burning, stop the killings, !

, and concentrate on what will move you forward together instead. Nigerian Governments shouldn't drag their feet on modernising the citizenship law. It should now read, "if you were born there, or you live there, and you pay tax there, then you belong there".

Next, the Government should take the security of its citizens seriously. Years ago, when I counselled a Governor regarding this, he angrily responded, wondering if I knew how much it costs per day to send soldiers and extra police to the streets. My answer then and now is the same, running a peaceful state and ensuring that things remain that way, is the cheapest way of ruling.

Further, open up or encourage regional trade among the so-called middlebelt states. Use your existing well-connected road, rail and air links to your advantage. As well as your proximity to the federal capital, Abuja.

Develop tourism, or rather, proceed where you stopped.

Finally, focus your energies on a common big project, like the-much-talked-about-but-nothing-done Business District close to the Heipang Airpot, ala "Silicon Valley". Approach more wealthy states, like Delta State, or rally support from international investors.

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OKIRIKA GEORGE wrote:
December 9, 2008 18:44
The recent crisis in jos, Plateau state has completely cleared the doubts about Jos regaining its earlier lost tranquility, the fact that no lesson was learnt from the previous crisis is even more of a hurtful issue, as the town was reknowned for peace & tourism , and I say this literarilly!
It is however worthy to note that this crises, & other upheavals in our country, in the north & southern areas, is just a metaphor for what we have become!
May God bless & save Nigeria.

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Jakusko wrote:
December 7, 2008 0:05
Well frequent reference to the level of poverty in the North for all the riots, may have been informed yb ignorance and perhaps bias.All formal indices always showed that the Northern Muslim states are economically backward, likewise educationally.But the people of Northern Nigeria have an informal economy that cannot be covered by the statistics.Many still keep their money at home in traditional ways, and if savings in Banks are the means of determining economic progress, then Northern Nigeria will indeed remain backward.If we can compare the number of people who own the property they reside in in Enugu or Ibadan and Kano or Sokoto, its likely to find out that mass majority in Enugu or Ibadan live in rented abodes owned by landlords who are exactly the equivalent of the Northern elites.A Hausa civil servant culturally has to be of assistance to his immediate and extended family, but his Igbo or Yoruba equivalent knows nothing like that and will therefore always save more money in his bank account.
The issue of settler or indigene in Jos is not about economy or religion, but religion is the instrument being used to discriminate against Hausa Muslim settlers.Aborignes of Jos kill or discriminate against only on religious basis.The are so many Hausa Christians not of Jos origin, but they are considered as indigenes because their religious subscription.
Every time there was an insult on any symbol of Islam in Nigeria or abroad, the reaction in Nigeria always leads to bloodshed, because those who decide to make insulting Islamic symbol a hobby were doing it intentionally, fully aware of the consequences.No muslim in Nigeria ever dare blaspheme anything Christian, the dont care what the Bible says about anything or even what it is talking about.So they will definitely be enraged when the respect they give to christian symbols is paid back in the form of insult to Islamic symbols.
We should have asked who really started all this culture of killings for religious and hatred reasons in Nigeria.In 1966 some Igbo young military officers, after bouts of drinking alcohol staged a coup, that selected and eiliminated all the top muslim polticians and top military officers.The first Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa was taken to a bush by Igbo coupists and asked, at gun point by tipsy Igbo officers, to take alcohol, and his refusal earned him the must bizare murder.Since then Nigeria has never been the same.That singular incident spurred the ethnic mistrust and religous bigotry we are seeing in the form of frequent violent clashes.
In the case of Plateau, the governor David Jonah Jang is only one of so many Northern christian minorities who when overwhelmed by self imposed inferiority complex they resort to hatred.This is a man who secretly made a state policy, not to sale any land any longer to Hausa-Muslims.This his own simplistic way of venting frustration over economic progress made Hausa-Muslim settlers in Jos city.It is only in the ill-fated local elections that, for the first time elections were held on a Thursday.The successful plan of Jang, the hero of Birom-Christian bigorty, was that he will rig the election which as usual will be won by a Hausa-Muslim, and Muslims may react a day after the election, which was Friday, a day of muslim worship.Of course muslims reacted like any other people will have done, Jangs fake armed police and military men unleashed the terror that lead to the death of over 500 people.Left to me i would have advised Hausa muslims to leave Jos forever.Then peace will reign,Birom, Langtang, Angas and the remaining tribes will share among themselves what comes from federal government every month.Because they are all christians, they will never fight and Jos or Plateau will indeed become the home of peace it claims to be.

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Chimaoge1 wrote:
December 6, 2008 21:15
Economist wrote:
"Local officials wield enormous power all over Nigeria, often determining who can get college graduation diplomas, business forms and, most contentiously, papers indicating who is an “indigenous citizen” in a particular area, "

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As a Nigerian, I can say that the assertion above made by the Economist is patently false. Local officials do wield considerable power, but they do not have any power to determine who has college diplomas or university degrees. This is the job of universities, colleges or other academic institutions. Local officials also cannot decree who is indigenous to an area or who is not. It is far more complex than The Economist can ever care to investigate. Every part of Nigeria has an aboriginal ethnic nationality who had lived in that area for centuries before other ethnic groups migrated and settled there. In the case of Jos City, ethnic Biroms, Angas and other Plateau minorities are the aborigines and are mainly christians. The christian Igbos, the religiously diverse Yorubas and muslim Hausa-Fulani ethnic nationalities are known as "the settlers" since they or their ancestors migrated to the place. This is not in dispute. The issue is whether Nigerians living in areas outside their ethno-linguistic homeland have right to seek political power in their area of residence. The answer-of course- is "Yes" since Nigeria's constitution supports that. Unfortunately, Nigeria is still plagued by ethnic distrust and it will take years for Nigerians to transcend this retrogressive "indigenous people-settler" mentality to elect the right people to office. Like most riots in Nigeria, the Jos conflict is mainly ethnic even if has religious undertones. The ruling PDP is not a christian party at all, rather it is an amalgam of corrupt politicians of all ethnic and religious groups in Nigeria, united in their quest for power by electoral fraud. ANPP is similarly mixed, but its main power base is in the ethnic Hausa muslim-dominated Northwest Nigeria. The conflict in Jos revolves round the profile of local council candidates in the disputed elections rather than the political parties. The PDP candidate, Timothy Buba is ethnic Birom and a christian like most of his ethnic Brethen. The opposing candidate, Alhaji Baba is from the ethnic Hausa muslim immigrant community . Rumours of rigging, sent the Hausa muslims to the streets to protest. Hausa protests always degenerate into violence. In the far North where the Hausas are indigenous, thousands of ethnic Igbo christians have had their businesses destroyed and even hacked to death by Hausas protesting issues involving the Danish cartoons about prophet Mohammed, US invasion of Afghanistan, rumours about someone somewhere descrating the koran, etc. In the case of the North Central city of Jos, the Hausas launched an attack against their traditional enemies- the indigenous ethnic Biroms and Angas. But the Hausas did not stop there, they expanded the scope of their attacks to include southern bystanders (who like their Hausa attackers are of immigrant origin) because they share the Christian religion of ethnic Biroms. It is this "guilty by religious association" that has often given Hausas an excuse to massacre Southern Igbo Christians in the far North whenever "christians" thousands of miles away like US Army troops or Danish newspaper cartoonists do anything that is perceived as an insult against Islam. Despite Nigeria being ruled by Northerners for three decades, the Far North remains the poorest part of the country.Unlike the South and parts of the North Central region(a.k.a "Middle Belt", there is virtually no middle-class in the Far North. It is just the priviledged feudal emirs of the ancient Sokoto Caliphate,the Northern Army Generals and their progeny versus the ignorant illiterate common Hausa people who are usually used to carry out the riots on behalf of their feudal overlords. It is therefore no surprise that 70% of Nigeria's poverty, illiteracy and children suffering from polio are from that area. Until, the Northern political elite come round to closing the shameful 50-year education gap between the South and the Far North, there will be no end to this sort of violence.

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Reigal wrote:
December 6, 2008 14:49
The saddest thing about all this is that Black Africans are probably the religiously most tolerant people in the world. It is not uncommon to see one household containing Christians, muslims, pagans and animists apparently with no friction whatsoever. Black african Msulims enjoy their millet beers and palm wines as much as their Christain neibghbours.

And it is only in Africa where you find a Christian President leading a Muslim country. The late Sedar Senghor and Nyrere were good examples of this.

The intolerant, often violent Asian and Western Gods imported to Africa along with slavery and TB simply failed to ignite the African man's tribal soul. Few things made me happier as Black African than watching the shock and horror of white Catholic Priests as they failed to convince the African priests whom they thought thoroughly domesticated and christianised indulge in distinctly uncatholic activities like polygamy, voodoo and other unspeakably African dark arts.

Nigeria has always been an exception to this general easygoing African attitudes to all things Gody. The reason is simple: Religion in Nigeria unfortunaletly dovetails with something that does excite the Black man: tribe. Hausas and Fulanis and half Yoruba are Muslim while Igbos, Ibibios, Biroms etc are Christians. The combination of God and tribe proved highly combustible. Even more disturbingly Nigerai has recently beein attracting particularly virulent strains of both Islamism and christianity.

The solution is to divide Nigeria. UK, USSR, USA have African blood on their hands by siding with Federal Nigeria against Biafra in 1960s. I see no other solution. The alternative is ethnic genocides that will make Rwanda look like a little local difficulty.

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bitter-truth wrote:
December 6, 2008 11:33
These problems many exist in Asia and Africa and they will continue to exist. It is not religions that are behind it. It is lack of just about everything in poor countries. There is so much shortage (of food, education) that most valuable thing becomes religion.

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john schwartz wrote:
December 5, 2008 14:48
That businessman mentioned at the end is a man after my own heart. He's right too - when people are armed they're more likely to respect one another, and less likely to be abused by their government. That would go a long way towards preventing these orgies of violence.

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Pork Chops wrote:
December 5, 2008 6:47
Aficionado: Sure, Muslims don't start ALL religious riots, it's just that there are so many things that seem to offend them , like cartoons and teddy bears, that they appear to be always rioting.Fortunately they have not been offended enough by the Mumbai terror attacks to riot though.

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EconomistAficionado wrote:
December 5, 2008 5:52
@Pork Chops,I'm a Nigerian Christian from the South and I know that these religious riots are not always started by Muslims. Christians have started them too. So it's unfair to paint Muslims as the sole perpetrators of such incidents. My fellow Christians are guilty as well. Both sides are at fault. I don't think guns is the solution to the crisis. Education and raising people's wealth are the keys. The rich and the educated stay away from fighting.

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Pork Chops wrote:
December 5, 2008 4:13
If only the Muslims had won the elections, then all this violence wouldn't have occurred, Remember, It's a religion of peace.

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indica wrote:
December 5, 2008 1:56
"Terz"Your analysis could apply to some parts of Asia where Islamists are very influential. They like to keep their followers uneducated and feeling that they are "besieged" by "enemies of Islam". Easy to understand the violence that follows.

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Jakusko wrote:
December 4, 2008 22:28
The recent senseless killings in Jos were a result of the heartless attempts by the incumbent governor, Jang to display his hatred for Hausa-Muslims.The muslims who are mostly Hausa's have alwasy been sen as strangers or settlers in Jos who must be driven away from the only place they call home.While the indigenes who are Christians wer busy driking themselves to ill-health and subsistance farming, the Hausa's were able to develop businesses.The indigenes were over time in the habit of selling their land to the Hausa-Muslims whenever they need money for finance their mindless drinking of alcohol.Now they seemed to be regetting and want to take back their land by planning and excuting such genecide.The council elections that lead to the crisis have been impossible for over ten years because, whenever its held, Jos North council chairmanship is won by Hausa-Muslims, and the indigenes who hold power will never let it be.But this time Jang, a Birom who is well known for his hatred of Islam decides to hold the elections and rig it for Jos North in favour of his fellow Birom man, who is not even the genuine candidate of his own party.The governor carefully planned the mass murder and that was why he went ahead to hold the elections despite security reports pointing out the likelyhood of eruption of violence.Northern christian minorities out of imperiority complex have always been nursing hatred against Hausa-Muslims.Apart from their notorious poverty and mindless consumption of alcohol, they have nothing to show.At every opportunity like in the Jos crisis, they kill muslims and burn mosques.If at all Hausa-Muslims will leave Jos for the indigenes, within a week they will starve, and kill one another in competition for the allocation that comes from the federal government.And who will buy the potatoes they grow, ?

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Terz wrote:
December 4, 2008 21:37
Its a show of shame for a nation who about a month ago went extremes celebrating Obama's victory in far away US to prove themselves incapable of managing what could pass for an ordinary local council elections. Truth is, the ruling class in the muslim north of Nigeria have denied their people access to western education for the sole purpose of perpetuating their hold on power. The pervasive illiteracy of the ordinary muslims in this part of the country has kept this people under their firm grip and enable them to manipulate them for their selfish political agenda. At each turn of any unfavourable election, they introduce religion into their failed political ambition and push the less advantaged into the frays of violence. It is the less privileged who get killed, their properties destroyed while the children of the ruling muslim class only get to know of the unfolding crisis from foreign media channels like CNN, BBC, etc. The unfortunate thing is that the underprivileged, deprived and uneducated muslims that end up being used as pawns in purely political battles of the ruling class in the name of religion do so without understanding the game plan.They wont build schools nor give scholarship for this would empower the underprivileged. They consider ruler-ship as their birthright, and have contributed little to the development of the Northern Nigeria. Their specialism is plundering of public treasury or running down any private enterprise they have be entrusted to manage.

fulani culture tough oo hmmm

The persons in the video are not Hausa they are Fulani.

i guess so but i bet their culture is almost the same

this Ikeymann- is he Nigerian at all?

I think some people are here masquerading as Nigerians when they're not even black talkless west African.

and tipia how do u know that?

Sorry o, I am ignorant of this. Please what is the different between Hausa and Fulanis?

well i think they got similar culture but they are both 2 diferent tribe

IKEYMAN!!!:

and tipia how do u know that?

because you they are?

duh.