APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 25 Beyond the Ethno-Religious Theory of the Jos Conflict 25 whatever root reason’ and that ‘religion is a galvanizing force in the crisis no matter what the initial cause of conflict’,32 the following observation remains crucial in the attempt to understand the situation: The Beroms have been accused of resenting the economic progress of other settler groups: yet, this is another simplistic assertion. Most Plateau natives collectively feel they do not have the Federal connections or patronage other major ethnic groups have. And most Nigerian wealth has been driven by oil money. The Beroms and other Plateau natives are predominantly farmers and have had to experience their lands taken away and degraded by tin mining. Now, they have to contend with migrant groups who use Federal influence and wealth to displace them from their own lands. The massive structure of the Federal Government is fueled primarily by oil money. The Beroms, as well as other Plateau natives, feel they should have a measure of autonomy in their core lands just the way Native Americans in their homesteads are treated as a Sovereign nation, elevated to the status of a protected minority. Nigeria’s constitution has no place for respecting the rights of minorities, whether it is Jos, or the Niger Delta.33 UNDERSTANDING THE CRISIS Catholic archbishop of Abuja John Onaiyekan succinctly summed up the problem in Jos as ‘a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians’.34 The IPCR traced the Jos crisis to the struggle for control between the Hausa-Fulani (the settlers) and the Beroms, Anagutas, and Afizeres (the indigenes) over the Jos North LGA. The population of the new administrative area was numerically skewed in favour of the so-called settlers, turning the so-called indigenes into a minority. As noted, the simmering animosity generated by the struggle for control of the Jos North LGA only needed the attempted appointment in 1994 of a Hausa candidate as the chairman before it exploded into violent conflict. Again in 2001, violence erupted after a Hausa candidate was proposed as the Jos North LGA coordinator of the National Poverty Eradication Programme. The IPCR explains this trend as follows: Conflicts in Plateau State are closely related to the minority status of its people (‘indigenes’) in the wider framework of the North. The citizenship conflict sometimes also called the indigeneship conflict in the state occurs in the relationship between the Hausa/Fulani and the ‘indigenous’ populations of Jos North LGA. This is not to say that conflicts of this nature are peculiar to Plateau State. The indigeneship question is an aspect of the wider Nigerian national question and is faced by nearly all the states in the Nigeria federation. The functionalisation of the situation in Jos North LGA is attributable to the minority status of the ‘indigenes’ and the claims made by the Hausa/Fulani ‘settlers’ in the city, with a counter threat perception of domination and long term take over and eventual exclusion suspected to come from the Hausa/Fulani.35 32. James Butty, ‘Nigerian professor says latest Jos violence a result of many factors’, VOANews.com, www1.voanews.com/english/news/africa/butty-nigeria-violence-analysis-20jan10-82131892.html. 33. ‘Another massacre in Nigeria: An unending cycle’, Economist, 11 March 2010. 34. Aminu Abubakr, ‘Appeals for calm after Nigerian sectarian slaughter’, Agence France-Presse, 8 March 2010. 35. Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, ‘Strategic conflict assessment of Nigeria’, 67.