From neighbours to deadly enemies: excavating landscapes of territoriality and ethnic violence in Jos, Nigeria

Abstract

Jos, a central Nigerian city engulfed by deadly violence in September 2001, offers a unique case study for exploring what happens when a modern metropolis lacks the institutional capacity to regulate its competing groups, and latent rivalries ignite into widespread, systematic brutality. Emerging from combined political and cultural dynamics radically different from those of better-known examples, such as Jerusalem and Belfast, Jos provides fresh insights into the roles of group concentration and conflict framing in engendering territoriality and violence in the city. As this paper shows, Jos' colonial history in tin mining, waves of migration, and an urban policy of sociospatial differentiation have shaped and intersected with the contemporary politics of ethnicity to foster explosive relations between Christians and Muslims. Building on literature and primary data from interviews and discussions with surviving residents, the paper explicates how group geography and conflict became so entangled, leading to the so-called 'Jos crisis'. Some of the boys were my neighbours. They set the house on fire but I remained hidden inside and watched as they used big sticks and machetes on four people. Three of the people they killed were my family.1 This is just one among many stories of neighbours preying on neighbours during the violent conflict that engulfed a central Nigerian city in September 2001. A decade later, when this resident of Jos was telling me how his three siblings were murdered and his home set ablaze by people he knew well, burn scars from the incident were still visible on his face and arms. Overnight, it seemed, neighbourhoods that were once scenes of convivial coexistence became fierce battlegrounds of ethnic cleansing between Christians and Muslims. The crux of the conflict is the dispute over indigeneity. On one side are three ethnolinguistic groups indigenous to Jos -Afizere, Anaguta and Berom -who are consequently considered indigenes; on the other are the Hausa, who are more recent arrivals to the Jos Plateau than the indigenes but who established themselves in urban Jos before other groups.2 Although the conflict is about indigeneity and ownership of the

Frontiers of Ethnic Brutality in an African City: Explaining the Spread and Recurrence of Violent Conflict in Jos, Nigeria

“…An altercation then ensued between the labourers, who were Muslim, and the area's Christian residents on their way to church that Sunday morn-ing. As in previous violent episodes, before long the altercation spiralled into mass killings, replicated in neighbourhoods across the city (Madueke 2018a).…”

“…The Hausa proclaim they qualify as indigenes because they have been around for an extensive period and contributed to the growth of the city since its formal establishment a century ago (see Best 2007). What is more, being a Nigerian citizen does not guarantee the privileges that indigene status does, so who qualifies as an indigene has become a pervasive issue and constitutes a prominent underlying causality in ethnic violence in Jos (Madueke 2018a).…”

Routing ethnic violence in a divided city: walking in the footsteps of armed mobs in Jos, Nigeria

“…Individuals are maimed and killed, not because they are indigenes or Hausa, but because they are Christian or Muslim. As a result, members of other ethnic nationalities not directly involved in the indigeneity dispute have also become entangled in the riots (Madueke 2017: 87–8). This literature has extensively described the social and political issues that translated into tremendous violence (see Higazi 2011; Krause 2011; Ostien 2009; Best 2007).…”

The Emergence and Development of Ethnic Strongholds and Frontiers of Collective Violence in Jos, Nigeria

“…Experts have analyzed the structural factors that led to the Jos crises (Danfulani & Fwatshak 2002; Egwu 2004; Best 2007; Higazi 2007; Ostien 2009), highlighting contestations over indigene rights, political representation, and city ownership. Beyond structural causations, Jos scholars have recently sought to explain the factors shaping the spatial distribution of violence in the different outbreaks (Krause 2011, 2017; Bunte & Vinson 2016; Madueke 2018a, 2018b). This interest follows research trends for other violent cities including Belfast (Cunningham 2013; Mesev et al 2009), Jerusalem (Bhavnani et al 2014), Beirut (Bou Akar 2012), and Osh (Kutmanaliev 2015), while considerable work in this vein has been devoted to cities in India (Varshney 2001; Brass 2004; Wilkinson 2006; Berenschot 2011).…”

“…This article is part of a bigger project and builds on an earlier piece that foregrounded the historical dimension of the conflict. The previous publication brought to light how Jos’s colonial antecedents contributed to setting in motion rivalries that have remained salient in present day politics of identity and contestations (Madueke 2018a). Advancing the discourse, the key objective of this article is to zoom in how the neighborhoods of the city were transformed into militarized spaces.…”