APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 30 30 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL name of agitating for a better deal for the region. For William Reno, who also recognizes the secondary role of social injustice in agitation, war, injustice, and social unrest are used merely as ideologies for joining predatory organizations.52 Collier’s theory would appear to apply to the conflict in Jos, but in an obverse sense. Can one find in the wanton wastage of life and property a tendency by one group to gain economic advantage against the other within the context of settlers versus indigenes? That is, are there violent entrepreneurs in the Jos conflict? Although a few conflict entrepreneurs may want a reign of violence in order to engage in predatory activities, the pattern of destruction of property, especially within the metropolis—for instance, the burning of the ultra-modern market built by the state government, the shops that define the commercial life of the city, and resultant lull in tourism due to a sense of insecurity—points to a conscious attempt by a group to hit at the economy of the state and by extension those who claim to own the land. In this context, the reprisal attack by the Fulanis in March 2010, in which many women and children were killed, should also be viewed as extending beyond merely inflicting pain and agony on the Berom men who might have carried out the January attack against them. Indeed, whether rightly or wrongly, Berom women are traditionally considered to be hard workers around the home.53 Therefore primarily targeting females as well as children, who represent the successor generation of the Berom, should be assessed within the economic context of dissipating the Beroms’ labor force, undermining their future productive capacity and economic well-being, perhaps because of their refusal to release the Fulanis’ cattle.54 CONCLUSION The ethno-religious and sectarian analyses of the perennial crisis in Jos obscure the fundamental issue at stake: the fear of the indigenous population of Plateau state of possible domination by the Hausa-Fulanis in the context of the minority status of the former. This fear, however, transcends the possibility of political power transferring to the hands of the settlers in the near future to underscore an anxiety about the economic consequences of such a reality. In a polity where control of state power means unfettered access to state resources and their allocation, should the settlers gain political power in Plateau state, the frontiers of accumulation for elites among the indigenes could be circumscribed, if not completely shut down. It should be noted that the masses of the indigenous population, most of whom are pawns on the chessboard of the political elite, are excluded from access to the booty obtained by the indigenous elite. 52. William Reno, ‘Shadow states and the political economy of civil wars’, in Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance, 51, cited in Ukiwo, ‘From “pirates” to “militants”’, 589. 53. Interview, Bekky Ndirang, Abuja, 16 March 2010. 54. For deaths classified by gender, see This Day, 11 March 2010, 6. The Plateau state police commissioner, Ikechukwu Aduba, put the number of those in a mass burial at 70: girls, 26; women, 16; boys, 12; and men, 16. The police had issued an overall body count of 109, but Gregory Yelong, the Plateau state commissioner for information and communications, claimed there were some 500 dead. Another source cites the dead as 28 children under five, 19 over five, 21 women, and 15 men. On this, see ‘Nigerian police revises Jos violence toll to 109 people’, Christian Telegraph, 11 March 2010, www.christiantelegraph .com/issue9019.html.