2010 Jos riots
Encyclopedia
The 2010 Jos riots were clashes between Muslim
Islam in Nigeria
Fifty percent of the population of Nigeria adheres to Islam, compared to Christianity which represents 40% of the population. Islam came to Northern Nigeria as early as the 9th century CE, and was well established in the Kanem-Bornu Empire during the reign of Humme Jilmi...

 and Christian
Christianity in Nigeria
Christianity is a major religion in Nigeria accounting for about 50% of the population. Based on a 2003Nigerian Religious and Demographic survey, Christians comprised 48.2% of the Nigerian population. Christians are dominant in the southern and central region in Nigeria...

 ethnic groups in central Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 near the city of Jos
Jos
Jos is a city in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.The city has a population of about 1.5 million residents. Popularly called "J-town" or "Jesus Our Saviour" by the residents, it is the administrative capital of Plateau State....

. The area has been plagued by violence for the past twenty years motivated by multiple factors. The clashes have been characterized as "religious violence" by many news sources, although others cite ethnic and economic differences as the root of the violence. The Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Benjamin A. Kwashi stated, "What seems to be a recurring decimal is that over time, those who have in the past used violence to settle political issues, economic issues, social matters, intertribal disagreements, or any issue for that matter, now continue to use that same path of violence and cover it up with religion."

The first spate of violence of 2010 started on 17 January and lasted at least four days. Houses, churches, mosques and vehicles were set ablaze during the fighting. At least 200 people were killed.

Hundreds of people died in fresh clashes in March 2010. According to the New York Times, the slaughtered villagers were Yoruba
Yoruba people
The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

, mostly Christians, slain by machete
Machete
The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...

 attacks from the Hausa-Fulani
Hausa-Fulani
Hausa-Fulani is a term used to refer collectively to the Hausa and Fulani people of West Africa. The two are grouped together because since the Fulani War their histories have been largely intertwined...

, a group of Muslim herdsmen. Hundreds more left the scene of the attack in case the perpetrators returned.

January

Jos
Jos
Jos is a city in the Middle Belt of Nigeria.The city has a population of about 1.5 million residents. Popularly called "J-town" or "Jesus Our Saviour" by the residents, it is the administrative capital of Plateau State....

 is the capital of Plateau State
Plateau State
Plateau State is the twelfth largest state of Nigeria, and is roughly located in the center of the country. It is geographically unique in Nigeria because its boundaries totally surround the Jos Plateau, having the Jos Plateau totally in its central and northern part...

, in the middle of the divide between the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria and the predominately Christian south. More than 5,000 people have been displaced in the violence. Reports on the catalyst vary. According to the state police commissioner, skirmishes began after Muslim youths set a Catholic church, filled with worshippers, on fire. Other community leaders say it began with an argument over the rebuilding of a Muslim home in a predominantly Christian neighborhood that had been destroyed in the November 2008 riots. A 24-hour curfew was imposed on the city on 17 January 2010, and Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan
Goodluck Jonathan
Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, GCFR, BNER, GCON is the 14th Head of State and current President of Nigeria.He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the...

 ordered troops to Jos to restore order. Vice-President Jonathan currently holds executive authority, as President
President of Nigeria
The President of Nigeria is the Head of State and head of the national executive. Officially styled President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The current President of Nigeria is Goodluck Jonathan.-History:On October 1, 1960, Nigeria gained...

 Umaru Yar'Adua was in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 receiving medical treatment from November 2009 until his return on 24 February 2010 with current medical and governmental status as yet unclear. By 19 January 2010, at least 50 people had been arrested.

On 20 January 2010, the BBC reported the fighting had spread to Pankshin
Pankshin
Pankshin is a Local Government Area in Plateau State, Nigeria. Its headquarters are in the town of Pankshin.It has an area of 1,524 km² and a population of 191,685 at the 2006 census.The postal code of the area is 933....

, 100 km from Jos. These reports have been denied by the Army.
Figures provided by medical and aid officials, religious and community leaders as well as global rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) put the death toll in the clashes at 492. HRW, quoting figures it got from Muslim officials, said that 364 of those killed were Muslims. The state police command said that there were 326 deaths and 313 arrests.

This is the third major incident of rioting in Jos in the last ten years. One thousand people were killed in riots in 2001
2001 Jos riots
The 2001 Jos riots were riots involving Christians and Muslims in Jos, Nigeria over the appointment of a Muslim politician, Alhaji Muktar Mohammed, as local coordinator of the federal poverty alleviation program. The clashes started on September 7 and lasted nearly two weeks, ending on September 17...

, and 300 died in subsequent violence in 2008
2008 Jos riots
The 2008 Jos riots were riots involving Christians and Muslims over the result of a local election on November 28 and 29, 2008 in Jos, a community in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. Two days of rioting left over 400 injured and 381 killed...

.

March

Before dawn on 7 March 2010, more than one hundred Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 villagers were killed by Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

 Hausa-Fulani
Hausa-Fulani
Hausa-Fulani is a term used to refer collectively to the Hausa and Fulani people of West Africa. The two are grouped together because since the Fulani War their histories have been largely intertwined...

 herders in Dogo-Nahawa village near Jos. The attacks went on for four hours, and nearby villages were also targeted. Guns were fired by the perpetrators to cause panic and led to villagers running towards them to be chopped up by machete
Machete
The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...

s. The villagers were mainly Berom
Berom
The Berom people are the indigenous ethnic group of the Jos Plateau in Nigeria. Within Plateau State, they are concentrated mostly in the local government areas of, Jos South, Jos North, Barkin Ladi, and Riyom...

 Christians. Buildings were also set alight. Most of the dead were women and children. One of the dead was an infant less than three months of age. Corpses were dumped in the streets. Goodluck Jonathan
Goodluck Jonathan
Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, GCFR, BNER, GCON is the 14th Head of State and current President of Nigeria.He was Governor of Bayelsa State from 9 December 2005 to 28 May 2007, and was sworn in as Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 29 May 2007. Jonathan is a member of the...

 urged that the killers be caught. The death toll was later updated to more than 300 and later 500. Hundreds more left the village in case the attackers returned.

Causes

Both Muslim and Christian youth have been blamed for starting the violence, with various reasons given. According to a local paper, attackers yelled "Allahu Akhbar
Takbir
The Takbīr or Tekbir is the Arabic term for the phrase ' . It is usually translated "God is [the] Greatest," or "God is Great". It is a common Islamic Arabic expression...

" before burning down churches and homes. The Vatican has expressed outrage and sadness. The Plateau State Christian Elders Consultative Forum said that the attack was "yet another jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...

 and provocation".

The significance of religious differences has been questioned with the roles of social, economic, and tribal differences also considered. An ethnic rivalry between the Hausa
Hausa people
The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. They are a Sahelian people chiefly located in northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger, but having significant numbers living in regions of Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Chad and Sudan...

 and Berom
Berom
The Berom people are the indigenous ethnic group of the Jos Plateau in Nigeria. Within Plateau State, they are concentrated mostly in the local government areas of, Jos South, Jos North, Barkin Ladi, and Riyom...

 peoples may be a factor in the violence. However, this simplistic assertion is challenged because most ethnic groups in Plateau, who are predominantly Christian share the same sentiments with the Berom, and collectively see an Islamic threat in their own lands. The archbishop of the capital Abuja said that it was "a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians." Professor Kabiru Mato of the University of Abuja
University of Abuja
The University of Abuja in the Nigerian capital Abuja was established on January 1, 1988 as a dual-mode university with the mandate to run conventional and distance learning programmes...

 also played down the role of religion in the riots: "I don't see anything religious. Wherein religion could be the difference between the two warring factions, fundamentally it's a manifestation of economic alienation. So social apathy, political frustration, economic deprivation and so many factors are responsible." But this view has also been challenged by the fact places of worship like Churches have always been the targets of these riots for whatever root reason. So religion is a galvanizing force in the crisis no matter what the initial cause of conflict. "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 predminantly 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."

There is also the issue of discrimination against the mainly Muslim "settlers" of Jos, even if they have been living in the city for decades. This further accentuates divisions in the city. While the mainly Christian indigenous population are classified as "indigenes," the mainly Muslim immigrants to Jos are classified as "settlers" and find it difficult to stand for election- among other things.

Response

: Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...

 said this was "atrocious" and "Violence does not resolve conflicts but only increases the tragic consequences".

The "Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project" wrote to the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...

, asking them to investigate the riots for potential crimes against humanity. The prosecutor replied in November 2010 saying the situation is being analysed by the prosecutor to see if a case should be opened.

See also

  • History of Nigeria
    History of Nigeria
    -Early history:Archaeological research, pioneered by Thurstan Shaw and Steve Daniels, has shown that people were already living in southwestern Nigeria as early as 9000 BC and perhaps earlier at Ugwuelle-Uturu in southeastern Nigeria, where microliths were used...

  • Religious violence
    Religious violence
    Religious violence is a term that covers all phenomena where religion, in any of its forms, is either the subject or object of violent behaviour. Religious violence is, specifically, violence that is motivated by or in reaction to religious precepts, texts or doctrines...

  • 2011 Alexandria bombing
    2011 Alexandria bombing
    The 2011 Alexandria bombing was an attack on Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, on Saturday, 1 January 2011. Twenty three people died as a result of the attack, all of them Coptic Christians. Some 97 more people were injured...

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