Ino longer have sweet memories of Jos; no feelings of nostalgia. My excitement about my birthplace has evaporated over the years. These days, I dread visiting 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 to religious fanaticism. The present religious crisis, which began on Sunday 17 January, has ended 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 guarantee the safety of life and property does not deserve to rule over us.
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 by irate Hausa youths. My only elder brother, who had just returned from church, was hacked down while trying to escape from the burning house. He was then 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 many family friends whose homes were equally burnt and relatives are missing. I know of thousands of Jos residents hunkered down in hide-outs and in different parts of the city, unable to venture out. In November 2008, my immediate younger 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. Two of my childhood friends were knifed to death on the 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 fretting and unhappy man. He speech, rendered slowly, betrayed his pain. 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–and with scant help.
When violence strikes and tragedy and mayhem descend, no one is spared. Not the Hausa or the Yoruba or Igbo. Not the Birom, Angas, Tiv or any tribe for that matter. Not the animist, atheist, 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. The victims are left to deal with their pains and grief. But with each religious riot in Jos, deep scars are left and each group waits for a new opportunity for revenge.
For Jos, 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 eight years has left over 6000 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 greater casualties yet both sides suffered irreparable losses. 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 was much beloved and blessed with rolling hills and plateaux. Its temperate weather is complemented with luscious vegetation and the production of exotic crops not found anywhere else in the country. Its exciting terrain, sedate nature, peaceful atmosphere lured many to its foothills and mountain tops. Its sobriquet–Home of Peace and Tourism–was apt. Very apt. Jos attracted from inside and within the country. American 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. Religion was never an issue. 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 matters into its own hands and what followed was for the first time, a serious direct conflict between the federal power and that of the state. The federal and state governments set up their different panels to investigate the same religious crisis. To date, no one has faced the wrath of the law for the senseless killings of November 2008.
The people continue to wait for justice. But rather than get justice and protection, they are again visited by the same killing and maiming demons. Let the government listen: 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 misunderstanding, are. They need answers to how they got their very sophisticated weapons and who their sponsors are. Nigerians and the international community want to know exactly what the government has done or is doing to check the spread of religious conflicts from Bauchi to Jos, Maiduguri, Ilorin and Kaduna.
Jos needs to be told the truth about what hidden agenda exists and who the architects are.
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, the road to Kigali stares us in the face.
Sunday Dare, former 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.
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