Ethnicity_Reflection Memo

The most beautiful city in Nigeria is a city called Jos. It is located on a Plateau about 1000m above sea level. This gives it a scenic landscape, beautiful weather, amazing food. Before 2015 when I started my masters program in Glasgow, Scotland, I had spent 12 years in this city, I was almost a locale. Sadly though, it is not for this reasons that Jos makes the news. The city has been at the epicentre of ethnic and sectarian violence since 2001. Scores of lives have been lost, property destroyed, families torn apart, scars that may never heal. As I reflect on the topic of ethnicity and identity politics in Africa, I cast a sober reflection to this lovely city that has been ruined by ethnicity and identity politics. It immediately becomes obvious the attending implications for development and security on the continent. For the purpose of this paper, I intend to use my experience and knowledge of this city as a case study to highlight some of the issues raised in the class. I immediately acknowledge that it may not have the trappings of a high sounding academic paper especially on the issues of objectivity and empirical research, however, I am sure that one way or the other the study of African security can benefit from it. Why else are we studying the course? Much said, I intend to keep it academic by focusing on two major issues; the first is a pending question that was asked in class i.e. why did migration in Africa produce different results? Secondly, I will cast a reflection on the instrumentality of ethnic affiliations during the decolonisation process. Now back to the beautiful city of Jos.

Origins of Violence

For the average Nigerian, like me, Jos is as close as you get to temperate weather and its features. Jos is originally occupied by a variety of ethnic groups including the Berom, Mwaghavul, Ngas, Bassa just to mention a few and Its location on a mountain range gives it access to some natural resources like Tin and columbite, hydrological projects, lush greenery, a gentle mix of temperate and sub-Saharan foods. Little wonder when the British discovered its existence, it became an instant melting pot of economic, religious and social activities, something close to an Eldorado. One of the first problems the British had was how to convince the locals of this area to be employed in the tin mines¹. To get them off their farms, the British used force (or the threat) in ensuring migration to the tin mines. They made sure that social and economic amenities were tailored to discourage farming, thus encouraging migration towards the mines. Not satisfied, the British made trade deals with the northern neighbours (Hausas in particular) to migrate south and get ‘gainfully’ employed². As a result of the religious diversities, the people of Jos saw this as an attempt to ‘gently’ colonise them where war had failed and were determined not to allow their contacts with the Hausas to rob them of their culture and heritage, especially their Christian beliefs. As such, they constantly frustrated attempts to be directly involved in the ‘activities of the heathens’. Over time, the Hausas soon built a socio-economic base and were able to buy lands and soon called it home. When the British left they were in control of the main economic stay of the city i.e. the mines and a lot of lands. Violence in this city has thus been a constant action and reaction by the indigenous people of Jos to exert their authority over the well consolidated Hausas. Also, as part of the decolonisation process the city of Jos was put under the control of the muslim north.

From this brief history of the city of Jos we can see that unlike in the western part of the world where migration was sometimes voluntary, in the city of Jos it was involuntary and vehemently opposed by the indigenes. Alien settlements have always been opposed by this city, so much that as a visitor you are told by your friends the places you can and CANNOT go because you don’t belong to a certain ethnic or religious divide³. This pattern of forced involuntary migration and settlement bears semblance to other parts of the continent  such as Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, areas that are well known for their incendiary tendencies. While I do not conclude that this is the one answer to the question posed initially, this form of migration induced violence between ‘indigenes’ and ‘settlers’ has come to define cities like Jos across the continent. Most time the distinction is very blurry and is open to interpretation. For example, I knew people from a different part of the country but whose parents were born in Jos (and so were they) but their birth certificates are not from Jos and cannot benefit from certain rights such as contesting in an election in Jos.

This last point links to the decolonisation arithmetic that was employed in the societal building of the city of Jos. I agree with the Teacher when she said the decolonisation processes adopted by African nationalist leaders created a parallel struggle by ethnic groups on several levels. On one level you had the struggle for political power between the political elite and the colonialist and at the local level between the nationalists and their electoral base of nation building.  Responses from some students in the class attributed this arithmetic to the continents colonial past. As much as I don’t negate these constructs, I am of the opinion that the colonialist simply exploited the inherent, already existing animosities between the various ethnic groups to achieve their economic and political ends. The sad thing is, this is the same mentality that the nationalist employed in the closing phases of colonial rule and also to this day. I will highlight two examples to explain this point. The first is the constitutional quagmire of the indigene/settler dichotomy and the second is the pattern of urbanisation.

In a nutshell it stipulates that a person is only an indigene if your grandfather and perhaps 3 or 4 generations before you settled down there. This implies that you can live for years in a certain area and never be an indigene of the said place, you can be born in a place and not be an indigene. As such, ‘settlers’ tend to hold on to their ethnic identity because they are aliens even within their own country. In this regard, ethnic conflicts becomes self-fulfilling. This mentality was initiated by the colonialist but sustained by the Nigerian founding fathers, desperate to preserve their political base for the next election. Secondly, the pattern of urbanisation is reminiscent of colonial times. In the city of Jos, most of the mines are located in the south and colonial residences were located in the north of the city (close to the Hausa quarters). When they left, urbanisation spread north from south but left most of the British quarters in the hands of the Hausas. Subsequently, most federal projects such as the University of Jos (where I did my Bachelor’s degree), the city centre and markets are all in the north. Whenever there was an ethnic conflict, the school was immediately shut down because students usually lost their lives (I lost 2 very good friends, whose death inspired me to study a masters in international security) in such conflicts because we were usually caught in the cross fire. Also, the market (arguably the largest in West Africa) was the worst place to be in the outbreak of a conflict for obvious reasons. This system of preferential treatment in political participation as enshrined in the constitution and lopsided urbanisation may have been passed on by the colonialist, but it has definitely been perfected by African leaders for nation building.

In conclusion, like the city of Jos, nation states are constantly immersed in schemes with forward and backward linkages on how to balance out its ethnic complexities, an effort that is periodically punctuated by violence. Industrialisation, migration patterns, local politics etc. are a nice starting point for explaining the role, origin and impact of ethnicity and identity politics on the continent. But it shouldn’t stop there. The argument has to be taken higher to reflect current realities. This reflection has attempted to show that involuntary migration is one of the man reasons why the results were different in Africa. Also, the emphasis should be on the decolonisation process of the African states.