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Friday Discourse (103) intolerance pervades, it could lead to
By Dr. Aliyu Tilde
Peace on the Plateau
The zeal of a governor, the foresight
of a senator and the outburst of a
journalist have collectively persuaded
me to revisit the crisis in Jos. I have
chosen to call my response Peace on the
Plateau, hoping that its content will
contribute to the ongoing search for a
lasting peace in a state that describes
itself as ‘home of peace and tourism.’
1 warrant such barricades near the
In his effort to consolidate the peace
achieved in the aftermath of the crisis,
the Governor of Plateau State, Chief
Joshua Dariye, has come out with a
number of measures intended to curb
what the Honourable Speaker of the
State House of Assembly called
“excesses in places of worship.” The
new measures include a ban on use of
loudspeakers in the conduct of worship
in the majority of mosques and churches;
a ban on blockade of traffic during
worship hours; a ban on the use of public
roads for the purpose of worship; and so
on.
The decision of government was
perhaps informed by the fact that the
mayhem last month started with an
incident in which a Christian woman
attempted to force her way through a
Friday congregation of Muslims, an
episode we earlier narrated two weeks
ago. The issue of Friday congregation
has for sometime bothered the Christian
clergy in Jos, because the gatherings are
massive and the mosques are many, such
that once it is the hour of prayer, at least
for 45 minutes, the major roads in
Muslim dominated areas of the town
remain blocked. This, undoubtedly, will
cause a lot of inconvenience and, where
dissatisfaction and protests.
But before going further, let us
quickly add that Christians too share the
habit of blocking roads that lead to their
churches. For example, a segment of
Ahmadu Bello Way is barricaded by a
church almost throughout the day on
Sunday, beginning as early as 9.00am;
the same with another at Dilimi Street
which is closed to traffic between
9.00am and 2.00pm on the same day.
The annoying thing is that there is no
crowd or even enough vehicles to
churches. One is therefore forced to
wonder why they should exist and
whether the government is not correct in
banning such practices.
I will also add that the practice of
barricading roads during prayer hours is
practiced even in villages along
highways in many places in the country.
At Pambegua for example, the Jos -
Kaduna Road is blocked between
1:30pm and 2.00pm. Not only for the
purposes of worship, township roads in
Nigeria could even be blocked for
personal ceremonies, especially
marriage. It appears that we do not give
roads their significance of convenience
or urgency.
I do not mind, therefore, if
government attempts to wisely step in to
make them open to traffic: wisely
because wisdom demands that decisions
and orders of government be made
practicable and fair on the people it will
affect; it also demands that, in crisis
situations, such orders are calculated to
encourage peace rather than aggravate
the situation.
I welcome the effort of government to
curb the proliferation of places of
worship that would attract thousands of
people at a time. Wherever they will be

sited, regard must be given to the
convenience of other citizens, road users
and those living in their neighbourhood
including businesses. Government
regulation is necessary to achieve this.
This is the standard practice in Islam
and, in fact, a precondition for the
validity of Friday congregational prayer
in such mosques. Today, three factors
have led to the proliferation of such
places of worship: democracy that
enshrines freedom of worship, the lack
of unified Muslim leadership in the town
and the commercialisation of churches.
The wealthy are therefore at liberty to
build mosques and churches for their
convenience and interests, rather than
public interest. Why should a Friday
mosque, for example, be constructed in
the neighbourhood of alcohol and
women of free virtue?
For sometime also, loudspeakers have
played a destructive role in religion,
except on few occasions when they are
necessary, like calling the faithful to
prayer and the conduct of the prayer
itself. But beyond this, they are grossly
misapplied, again contrary to the
teachings of Islam, and that is the source
of dissatisfaction, from Muslims and
non-Muslims alike. I wonder why
someone would play a cassette of the
recitation of the Quran on a loudspeaker
any time of the day or night, especially
on Fridays. This is irresponsible because
he has turned the sacred book into a
public nuisance. If he plays it at 4.00am,
he is certain to disturb sleep, which is a
natural right of every one living in the
neighbourhood of the mosque. This is
tyrannical. If he plays it during the
daytime, hardly would anyone listen to it
because people are busy conducting their
businesses. The Quran is meant to be
listened to attentively whenever it is
heard, leaving anything else including
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chat, business, eating, walking and so
on. It is therefore not in the interest of
Islam, but something too demanding on
Muslims, for anyone to play it through a
loudspeakers.
To relay a preaching, live or
recorded, beyond the vicinity of the
mosque or church is not only tyrannical
but also invitation to trouble. That is
because speeches are suitable in most
cases only to occasions they were first
made. Words on a loudspeaker are most
likely to be carried by waves to
undesired ears that will misinterpret
them and cause disaffection. This is
particularly true of playing recorded
preaching in places other than their
original venues. Something could have
been said, suitable to the audience in the
original venue where a cultural
homogeneity exists, but harmful to
peaceful coexistence when played
publicly amidst people of different
faiths.
Islam, has suffered from the tyranny
of electronics in this country more than
any other religion. They have facilitated
the spread of dissenting messages and
opinions in the misunderstanding
between Muslim sects for the last
twenty-five years. The public airing of a
preaching on shariah in an ECWA
church by a reverend from Katsina
nearly caused a misunderstanding in my
village earlier this year.
I will therefore call on religious
leaders and governments to jointly come
up with means that will check the
proliferation of mosques and churches
and regulate the use of public address
systems in them. I do not know about the
conditions for setting up a church, but I
know there are many in Islam that need
to be met before a mosque will be
permitted to hold a valid Friday
congregation. What government needs to

do, in the absence of an Emir in Jos, is to
request Muslims to form a council of
scholars that will attend to such matters
whenever the need arises. And how
often does it!
The need for consultation with such a
council is evident from other
components, which constitutes a
blunder, of the governor’s
announcement. In his zeal to consolidate
peace in the state, His Excellency
banned praying on roads at the time of
Friday congregations as well as usage of
loudspeakers for adhan (call to prayer).
This is wrong and redundant. Of all his
orders, these ones were, for good reason
though, the most resented. People vowed
to disobey the order and pray on the
roads. As for me, there was no need for
any vow because it is practically
impossible for any law enforcement
agent to execute the order of the
governor. This is the result of unilateral
decision. If he had consulted the Muslim
community that will be directly affected
by his decree, the governor would have
saved himself the embarrassment of
shooting his foot.
I am against the barricading of roads
for hours or for the whole day by some
churches on Sunday, and for an hour or
less by some mosques on Friday
afternoon in the metropolis. However,
where there is an inevitable outflow of
the congregation, like what happens all
over the world at Friday congregations,
it dwarfs the reasoning of any authority
and portrays its ignorance of the
differences in the cultures of its people,
or its intolerance of them, to forbid them
just the twenty minutes required to
execute the most important divine ritual
of their week. The outflow is not
intentional, but a necessity engendered
by population growth, urbanization,
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centralization of the prayer and its
compulsory status in Islam.
The alternative, as some Christians
suggest, is for Muslims to find a large
area in the outskirts of the city for their
Friday congregation like what they do
during the Eid festivals. The suggestion
is unwise because it implies that every
Friday will bring untold hardship to the
entire population of Jos metropolis.
Apart from expenditure, it means that at
least for two hours all the major roads
will be suffocated by traffic as Muslims
drive to and from the ‘Friday ground’.
Their businesses, which they share with
non-Muslims either as buyers or sellers,
will also close for at least two hours.
This does not make any economic or
social sense. It is an extravagance in
time management which government
should not indulge in because it will
reduce the productivity of the state.
The only solution is for inhabitants of
the city and their government to tolerate,
as does the rest of the world, the brief
occupation of the affected main roads for
the moment of prayer. The Muslims on
their part should not barricade roads for
a whole hour except for the time
intended for the sermon and the prayer.
At any rate, the government has seen
the impossibility of this measure last
Friday. It has no option but to bend over
backwards for the sake of peace.
But the state government will be
fooling itself if it thinks that banning
road barricades and limiting the number
of mosques in the town to please its
Christian population will solve the
intolerance and dissent that pushed it to
violence last month. The answer lies in
tackling the underlying economic and
political problems of which the
intolerance was only a symptom, as we
said two weeks ago.

First, the leadership of Plateau State,
like that of any other state in Nigeria,
must realize the enormous
responsibilities that rest on its shoulder.
There is a need for concrete ideas and
projects that will provide jobs for
hundreds of thousands of its
unemployed. This must be based on
farming, mining and trade. I have little
confidence in government programs;
experience shows that they end up as
conduits of looting by their inventors
and managers. Therefore, youths today
must be told that the era of white-collar
jobs for all in Nigeria is over. People,
like our ancestors, must learn to rely on
their initiative and engage in grassroots
jobs. However it is the responsibility
organisations, community leaders and
opinion shapers to articulate this position
and inculcate it into the brains of youths.
Self-employment is thus the primary
answer. Secondary to it is the effort of
government in attracting investors into
the state especially in mining and
processing of agricultural products. This
responsibility of government is made
more difficult now than ever with the
unfortunate crisis that took place last
month. The careful selection of
properties of the so-called settlers for
destruction has left an impression that
unless an investor belongs to a certain
class of ethnic groups or a certain
religion, his investments, no matter how
long they have been on the ground, will
just be converted to rubbles within a few
hours. His life too is not safe. We have
seen it happen to shops, to transport
vehicles, to buildings and to life. It will
take a lot of public relations for the
government to convince investors that
the problem is not entrenched.
Government must also be seen to play
its traditional role in building and
maintaining infrastructure and investor
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confidence throughout the state.
Beginning from Jos town itself, one is
dismayed to notice the complete absence
of dividends of democracy that are today
enjoyed in many states. Only a fool will
blame ‘settlers’ or any Hausa-Fulani for
this. Where were the resources of the
state since it was created 34 yrs ago?
People should learn to ask questions.
Whenever you jump into any of the
hundreds of potholes in the township
roads of Jos, blame the state or local
government, not the federal government
or someone that is equally suffering
from the same cruelty of a corrupt
officialdom. Ask what is happening to
the subvention that it receives monthly,
like any other state, from 1967 to date.
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A more daring task for the
government is on the political front.
There is an urgent need for a campaign
against the culture of using some people
as scapegoats to explain the evident
economic backwardness of the so-called
indigenes. People need to be told the
truth that effort is what earns wealth, not
the rights enjoyed exclusively by
indigenes; and to sustain wealth, a lot of
prudence in expenditure is required.
Indigenes therefore need to wake up and
understand that, throughout the state,
there is no Hausa-Fulani in any position
of authority capable of drawing them
back. Rather, they must examine their
habits.
There is also a need, for the purpose
of justice that will ensure peace and
order for a definition of who is an
indigene and what right should he enjoy
in exclusion of other Nigerian citizens
living in the state. As it is now, some
people have qualified themselves as
‘indigenes’, and branded others as
‘citizens’, or ‘settlers’ - to use a more

exclusionary term. And it appears that
there is a consistent effort by the state
bureaucracy to promote this taxonomy
and nomenclature, for political reasons.
This is why I welcome the effort of
Senator Ibrahim Mantu to get the
National Assembly to legislate on the
issue of indigeneship. Unless this is
done, some people will continue to
segregate against others on the basis of
genetics and religion.
Let us be told what event, if time is
the determinant, defines indigeneship in
this country: is it the Big Bang of the
scientist, the Descend of Adam; the
Flood of Noah, the conquest of Lugard
in 1903, the independence of Nigeria in
1960 or the creation of the state in 1967?
If migration is used as a yardstick, do we
also consider the Birom – the chief tribe
in Jos and its environs – citizens, and not
indigenes, since I once heard one of their
chiefs claiming that they migrated from
the Sokoto Rima valley and not from
heaven, unlike the Oduduwas? If race
and culture are the index, for a resident
of the Bauchi Plateau – as it is known in
geography – what colour of skin does he
wear, what language should he speak, or
what religion should he profess, to
qualify as an indigene of the state?
This definition, challenging as it is,
will be the greatest contribution to the
settlement of the political crisis facing
the state. In finding one, as we said two
weeks ago in Fire on the Plateau, the
state has a lot to learn from other states
of the federation, especially from its
immediate northern neighbour, Bauchi,
that shares a similar history of mining
and settlers. Mantu and the governor
should therefore put heads together.
3 ones, aroused the ire of the people and
Lastly, I must be frank to say that I
was grossly disappointed with the
writing of a regular contributor in the
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Daily Trust, Mr. Nick Dazang, when he
wrote his piece titled The Jos Crisis on
20th September 2001. The columnist
allowed ethnic sentiments to overshadow
his reason so much so that he took side
blatantly and promoted chauvinism
instead of reconciliation. I do not give a
hoot to whatever he claims about the
ancestry of his kinsmen – though
ancestry has become a convenient refuge
for many today – but the following
words quoted from his article stinks
before the judgement of every peace
loving person of the state.
“The import of the foregoing is that if
any section of the Jos community is
marginalized, it is the indigenous
community which is made up of the
Berom, Anagutas and Afizeres. These
are veritable owners of Jos town from
prehistory itself.”
One would ask whether anything like
Jos was known to Prehistory. Agreed it
is not a Hausa name, but how come that
out of the twelve rulers of Jos, ten have
been Hausa-Fulani? Why is the
chieftaincy of Jos, when given in the
1940s officially titled ‘Chief of Berom’,
not of Jos? Why are these tribes today
living only in the distant periphery of the
city? How come also, that most of its
mining villages are bearing Hausa
names? Anyway, it is worthless picking
on this point and others made by the Mr.
Dazang. Unfortunately this is the only
premise he could use to justify the
mayhem that took place, implicitly
started by his kinsmen:
“Which is why the appointment of
the co-ordinator of the Poverty
Eradication Programme from a
community other than the indigenous
is one of the fundamental causes of the
conflagration that took place last week.
Religion and the episode at the Mosque
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which could have been benignly ignored

was merely a thin and convenient veneer
and a weak hook on which to hand an
excuse to go on a killing spree.
Compounding this, the gentleman who
was appointed was a highly
controversial figure and a man of
doubtless pedigree. Previous attempts to
foist him by a military governor as the
sole administrator of a local government
in Jos did not only fail resoundingly, it
was fiercely resisted by the indigenous
people of Jos. The gentleman’s recent
appointment does not therefore only
smack of naivety and insensitivity, it is
an unmitigated insult on the people of
Jos. And those who inspired the
appointment are not only culpable in the
mayhem that followed, they are veritable
agents provocateur of this crisis.”
Space will not allow us to re-present
the remaining part of his article, but the
conclusion is worth noting: “The price
of all liberties and our proud ancestry
must be eternal vigilance… we must
stand up, collectively, to those who
attempt to try our will or confound our
resolve to live peacefully and to prosper
our state.”
Well, whatever that means, even His
Excellency, the Governor of Plateau
State, will agree with me that this
outburst is not the right stuff needed at
the moment in his state. He will prefer to
agree with us that only industriousness
in economy, love in relationship, equity
in justice, and tolerance in creed are the
baggage acceptable on the train that will
lead the state to peace and prosperity.
The propagation of laziness, hate,
prejudice and bigotry, one the other
hand, are recipes for backwardness,
poverty and instability. That is my
message to the all the peace loving
people of Plateau State today.