APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 22 22 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL The plateau area of northern Nigeria is semi-savannah with some rocky hills and mountains. Although it does not feature the thick vegetation of the east, its topography nonetheless provided some natural barriers against the invading Hausa-Fulani jihadists. The ‘indigenous’ Jos people inhabited this area. They embraced Christianity, and there exists a strong belief among them that the Hausa-Fulanis remain bent on completely Islamizing the area and continuing their southward march until they ‘dip the Koran into the sea.’15 The Jos people are determined to halt that march. It is possible that the Nok cultural heritage and the group pride it continues to generate could spur resistance against another group, in this case, the Hausa-Fulanis. It was apparently within the larger context of fear of ethnic and religious domination that Bitrus Kaze, representing the Jos South and Jos East constituency of Plateau state in the National Assembly, made a reference to outsiders being responsible for various crises in Jos: ‘It is very clear to any discerning mind that what happened in Plateau is not as a result of the interest of people within Plateau State. Actually, the crisis just manifested itself in Jos but the interest transcends Jos and Plateau State. People outside the Plateau have interest in Jos crises and I can tell you investigations in the past have shown that people outside Jos are culpable’.16 While ethnicity and religion are generally important variables in the daily equation of Nigerian life, their functionality perhaps appears to be more pronounced for two reasons in the Middle Belt region, of which Plateau state is a part. First, the Middle Belt is physically located within the country’s northern half, which is predominantly populated by the largely Muslim Hausa-Fulanis. Second, the Middle Belt is also inhabited by a host of mostly Christian minority ethnic groups. The presence of indigenous religions pre-dating Christianity and Islam has made no difference to either of these two sides. In fact, according to Matthew Kukah, the earliest propagators of Islam and Christianity in Nigeria, fired by zeal, sought to destroy or at most cut down to size the traditional religious beliefs and political systems they encountered. Kukah details how Islam was used as an instrument for enthroning Hausa-Fulani hegemony in the north.17 Elsewhere he has argued that the attitudes of propagators of Islam and Christianity sowed the seeds for their religions’ subsequent politicization in Nigeria, more so when their quest for converts and subsequent expansion created problems for communities where relationships had been largely non-confrontational.18 H. Gunn asserts, ‘In the Middle Belt areas, Muslims were noted to have lived with pagans in a condition of social symbiosis, that no attempt was made to convert the hill peoples, and that, in fact, indigenous life was little influenced by Islam until after the area was administered [under Islamic colonialism and imperialism]’.19 15. The statement is credited to Sir Ahmadu Bello, a former premier of the now-defunct Northern administrative region. See Tam David-West, ‘Northern domination: Disinformation, intellectual laziness’, Sunday Sun, 7 November 2010, 54–55. 16. See the interview with Kaze in This Day, 11 March 2010, 15. Also see various federal government reports on the Jos crises indicting the Hausa community. They include the Justice Aribiton Fibresema Report (1994); Justice Nikki Tobi Report (2001); and Justice Bola Ajibola Report (2008). 17. Matthew Hassan Kukah, Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria (Ibadan, Spectrum Books, 1993), ix, 10. 18. Matthew Hassan Kukah, Democracy and Civil Society in Nigeria (Ibadan, Spectrum Books, 2003), 97. 19. H. Gunn, Pagan Peoples of the Central Area of Nigeria (London, International African Institute, 1956), 48, as cited in Kukah, Religion, Politics and Power in Northern Nigeria, 1.