There are signs hidden in the infrastructure. In the Nigerian city of Jos, the unpredictable availability of power, fuel, water, etc. becomes a vehicle of meaning. In many settings across the globe, infrastructure is often made invisible, and the centre stage that it takes in everyday life remains unrecognized. In Jos, however, as in many African cities, the constant need to predict its flows contradicts the prefix infra (below); rather than being hidden beneath the realm of experience it is brought to the surface as a puzzle to be figured out. These explorations in turn come to reveal matters beyond the infrastructure itself. Just as diviners infer the state of the world from the stones they have thrown, reading significance out of the seeming randomness of matter, the infrastructure turns intricate questions into tangible clues. It becomes a suprastructure -a divination tool giving clues about the past, present and future of the Nigerian nation. KeywordsAfrican urbanity, anthropology, infrastructure, materiality, NigeriaThere are signs hidden in the infrastructure. When the power goes out in the Nigerian city of Jos, it tells a story. When it comes back, it tells another. Likewise, the unpredictable availability of fuel, the enigmas of intermittent water supply or glitches in the telecommunication networks become vehicles of meaning. Just as diviners infer the state of the world from the stones they have thrown, reading significance out of the seeming randomness of matter, the infrastructure turns intricate questions into tangible clues. Out of its vague rhythms and tenuous patterns, hidden meaning is uncovered. Taking Jos as a
In the Nigerian city of Jos, everyday life is shaped by interlacing rhythms of disconnection and reconnection. Petrol, electricity, water, etc., come and go, and in order to gain access inhabitants constantly try to discern the logics behind these fluctuations. However, the unpredictable infrastructure also becomes a system of signs through which residents try to understand issues beyond those immediately at hand. Signals, pipes, wires and roads link individuals to larger wholes, and the character of these connections informs and transforms experiences of the social world. Not only an object, but also a means of divination, infrastructure is a harbinger of truths about elusive and mutable social entities-neighbourhoods, cities, nations and beyond. Through the materiality of infrastructure, its flows and glitches carefully read by the inhabitants, an increasingly disjointed city emerges. Through new experiences of differentiated modes of connectedness-of no longer sharing the same roads, pipes, electricity lines, etc.-narratives are formed around lost common trajectories. By focusing on how wires, pipes and roads are turned into a divination systemhow the inhabitants of Jos try to divine the city's infrastructure and possible ways forward, as well as how they try, through the infrastructure, to predict a city, a nation and a world beyond-this paper strives to find ways to grasp a thickness of urban becomings-a cityness on the move according to its own unique logic.
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