APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 27 Beyond the Ethno-Religious Theory of the Jos Conflict 27 common perspective among the minority ethnic groups in the north of Nigeria that attributes to the Hausa-Fulanis an obsessive love of power; she asserts that once a Hausa-Fulani occupies any political position in the LGA, he would not likely yield it to a member of any other ethnic group. In a veiled reference to the acrimonious relations between the indigene and settler populations and fear of domination, Jonah Jang, the governor of Ndirang’s Plateau state (since 2007), stated the following after a meeting at the State House in Abuja on 30 March 2010 between the acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, and the governors of eight states in the north: Like I have said, the northern governors in their last meeting agreed that they will visit me in Jos and we will sit down and look at the problems affecting the northern states and Plateau to ensure that we get to the roots of these crises. It’s Plateau today, it could be somewhere else again. I don’t pray so. But it’s good that we sit down. Until we have peace in the north, it will be difficult for investors to come and do business. Nobody will like to come and set up a business and tomorrow, it will be set on fire. I believe that if we are sincere, the leadership of this nation is on our shoulders and we owe it a duty to future generations to ensure that there is harmony; there is religious tolerance, there is understanding. Every Nigerian is a citizen of this country and is free to settle anywhere in this country. And we must live as brothers and sisters.39 In the broad perspective, for the Jos indigenes to allow a Hausa into a position of leadership in the Jos North LGA would be tantamount to kick-starting a process of the latter’s eventual takeover of the entire state. To Ndirang, the Jos North LGA is the ‘heart’ of Jos and the political and economic lifeline of the state.40 In its political role, the Jos area hosts the House of Assembly and Government House and some federal institutions, including the Rukuba Army Barracks and the University of Jos, and the state government Secretariat building. When, the Beroms in the Jos South LGA—the other half of the old Jos LGA created after Jos North was carved out of it—attacked the Fulanis in January 2010, it was not so much a reprisal for the Beroms’ human and material loses in November 2008 as it was a pre-emptive strike to forestall the Fulanis in the area from nursing ambitions similar to those of the Hausas in the Jos North LGA—a clear manifestation of political anxiety. IDENTITY CRISIS The settler-indigene question in Nigeria is one aspect of an identity and citizenship crises in a polity with more than 350 ethnic groups (which is not an uncommon issue in Africa). The literature provides some useful insight in making the point that most of the discourse in Nigeria on ethnicity and citizenship has been dominated by considerations of the majority-minority dichotomy and power differences between such groups.41 O. Otite views ‘ethnic majoritarian rule’ in political terms, whereby majority ethnic groups in Nigeria singularly or (usually) in alliance block the will and civil 39. Several national newspapers reported his comments in their 31 March editions, including the Vanguard, Guardian, Daily Sun, Daily Independent, Daily Trust, and Leadership. 40. Interview, Bekky Ndirang, 16 March 2010, Abuja. 41. See E. E. Osaghae, R. Suberu, and E. Onwudire (eds.), The Nigerian Civil War and Its Aftermath (Ibadan, John Archers, 2002), 52–73; Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria, 218.