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AfriWatch, Jos (2026)

05/07/2026

Watch and learn how Fulani Herdsmen attacks are helping to break and weaken the North

04/07/2026

THEY ARE STEALING PLATEAU'S FUTURE — AND WE ARE WATCHING

There is a silent war being waged on Plateau State. It does not announce itself with gunfire. It does not make headlines every morning. But its damage is just as devastating — and far more permanent.

It is called illegal mining. And it is eating our land alive.

THE SCALE OF THE DESTRUCTION

Illegal tin mining has mushroomed in Plateau State over the past five years, with thousands of abandoned pits sprouting across rural areas and urban centres.

Read that again. Thousands of abandoned pits. Scattered across the land that feeds Nigeria. The land that our ancestors farmed, defended, and bled for. Now riddled with holes like a battlefield — because foreign nationals and their local collaborators are extracting our wealth and leaving us with craters.

In March 2025, several Chinese nationals and local collaborators implicated in large-scale illegal mining were arrested at Jiasheng Nigeria Limited — a company without a mining licence. They were found with a truck loaded with bags of processed monazite, a tin ore by-product.

They came with tourist visas. They left with our minerals.

WHAT ILLEGAL MINING DOES TO OUR LAND

Large-scale mining of tin and associated minerals in Jos, Plateau has resulted in a high degree of degradation of arable land, vegetation and landscape, as well as other environmental problems.

The environmental effects of unlawful mining include loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, formation of sinkholes, soil contamination, and desecration of ground and surface water which could potentially cause health problems eventually leading to deaths.

Think about that. The same Plateau soil that produces over 90% of Nigeria's Irish potatoes, that grows the cabbages, carrots, strawberries, and vegetables that feed the nation — that soil is being stripped, poisoned, and abandoned by illegal miners who answer to no one and leave nothing behind.

In many host communities, illegal operations have turned farmlands, forests and riverbeds into unregulated extraction fields, causing environmental degradation, increasing social tension, and depriving the government of substantial revenue.

THE FOREIGN INVASION NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT

A report by Renevlyn Development Initiative titled "Silent Conquest: The Chinese Infiltration of Nigeria's Solid Minerals Sector" found that illegal operations have turned farmlands, forests and riverbeds into unregulated extraction fields, causing environmental degradation, increasing social tension, and depriving the government of substantial revenue. A lack of effective government enforcement has allowed foreign miners to operate with little regard for standards or community welfare.

While we debate politics and religion on social media, foreign nationals are quietly carting away the mineral wealth that should be funding schools, hospitals, and infrastructure for our children. Foreign players sponsor local middlemen to buy tin ore directly from mine sites rather than from tin sheds in Jos, where it costs more — buying tin ore at about US$8 per 0.45 kg and selling it for far more.

Our resources. Their profit. Our destruction. Their convenience.

THE PRICE NIGERIA IS PAYING

Illegal mining costs Nigeria about US$9 billion annually — an estimate of the undeclared and lost solid minerals and the taxes these minerals could have generated.

$9 billion. Every year. Gone. While Plateau State hospitals lack equipment. While Plateau roads crumble. While Plateau youths are unemployed. While Plateau farmers are being killed on the same land that illegal miners are destroying from below.

Illegal mining has entrenched itself as a parallel economy — one often controlled by armed groups, including bandits and criminal syndicates — exploiting weak regulatory enforcement, porous licensing systems, and local vulnerabilities to extract resources with impunity.

And here is the connection nobody wants to make plainly: illegal mining and insecurity are feeding each other. Armed groups use mining revenue to fund operations. Mining sites become flashpoints for violence. The holes they leave behind become hiding spots and operational bases.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

Businesses relocate. Thousands of families flee ancestral homes, while abandoned mining pits, polluted rivers and degraded farmlands leave lasting environmental damage. The economic losses are enormous, but the human cost is even greater.

A child born in Plateau today will inherit a land riddled with abandoned pits where farmlands once stood. They will drink from rivers contaminated by mining chemicals. They will grow up on soil that can no longer yield the harvests their grandparents knew. They will look at the hills their ancestors defended — and find them hollowed out.

That child did not choose this. That child did not sign any agreement with any mining company. That child simply had the misfortune of being born after the looters arrived.

We are mortgaging our children's inheritance. And we are doing it in real time.

WHAT MUST HAPPEN — NOW

Governor Caleb Mutfwang suspended all mining activities in Plateau State on February 21, 2025, linking illegal mining to insecurity, environmental degradation, and child labour. That suspension was a necessary first step. But suspension without enforcement is decoration.

What Plateau State needs is not a temporary ban. What Plateau needs is:

🔴 Permanent, funded environmental enforcement with real consequences for violators — local and foreign alike

🔴 Prosecution of every Chinese national and local collaborator arrested for illegal mining — not quiet releases and scant follow-up

🔴 Community land protection laws that give indigenous Plateau peoples legal standing to defend their ancestral territories from mining encroachment

🔴 Environmental remediation of already-damaged land — restoring what has been destroyed before another generation inherits craters

🔴 Revenue transparency — every legitimate mining licence in Plateau State must generate documented community benefits. Not just government revenue. Community benefits.

The rocks of Plateau State are 160 million years old. They survived ancient volcanoes, colonial conquest, and decades of political neglect. But they cannot survive this — the daily, systematic, criminal extraction of everything they contain — without consequences that will outlast every government currently in power.

Plateau's minerals belong to Plateau's children. Not to foreign syndicates. Not to local middlemen. Not to licensed looters.

Speak up. Share this. Demand accountability. Before there is nothing left to protect.

⛏️ The land remembers. Make sure the law does too.

04/07/2026

⚠️ HISBAH IN PLATEAU STATE? AFRIWATCH SAYS: NOT ON OUR WATCH.

A former House of Representatives aspirant for Bassa/Jos North, Khalifa Pasali, has publicly declared that he is actively lobbying for the establishment of Hisbah — an Islamic religious police — in Plateau State.

He claims that over three million Muslims in Plateau State justify the need for such an institution.

AfriWatch has investigated this claim. Here is what we found:

THE POPULATION CLAIM IS SUSPICIOUS

Plateau State's total population is estimated at approximately 4.7 million people. Claiming over three million of them are Muslim — in a state widely recognized as a heartland of Nigerian Christianity — is a figure AfriWatch cannot verify from any credible demographic source. It appears significantly inflated.

HISBAH IS CONSTITUTIONALLY IMPOSSIBLE IN PLATEAU

Hisbah exists in only twelve northern states that have formally adopted Sharia criminal law — Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto, and others. Plateau State has never adopted Sharia law. It has no Sharia Commission. No Sharia criminal court. The legal foundation that even partially justifies Hisbah elsewhere simply does not exist here.

Section 10 of Nigeria's 1999 Constitution is unambiguous: no government shall adopt any religion as state religion. Introducing Hisbah into Plateau without first imposing Sharia is constitutionally impossible. And imposing Sharia on Plateau's majority Christian population is constitutionally unacceptable.

HISBAH HAS A DOCUMENTED RECORD OF ABUSE

According to Human Rights Watch, Hisbah operatives are mostly locally-recruited young men with low levels of formal education, no background in law, and no training in law enforcement. They have destroyed property belonging to non-Muslims, raided bars and hotels, arrested people without due process, and harassed citizens over personal lifestyle choices.

In 2020 alone, Hisbah in Kano destroyed trucks carrying alcohol belonging to non-Muslims — people whose constitutional rights explicitly protect their freedom of choice.

A resident of Kano described Hisbah as "intimidation disguised as religious enforcement."

This is the institution being proposed for a Plateau State already bleeding from years of ethno-religious violence.

THE TIMING IS INFLAMMATORY

Communities in Bokkos, Mangu, Riyom, and Bassa are still burying their dead. Thousands are displaced. NIPSS has been attacked three times in three weeks. And a political figure is publicly lobbying to introduce a religious enforcement body with a documented record of targeting non-Muslims — into this same volatile environment.

This is not a development proposal. This is a provocation.

✅ WHAT PLATEAU STATE ACTUALLY NEEDS

Plateau needs more Nigeria Police Force personnel. More community policing. More investment in education, agriculture, and youth employment. More bridges between its indigenous communities and all residents. More accountability from security agencies.

Plateau does not need a religious police force that answers to Sharia law in a state that has never chosen Sharia.

Every Plateau citizen — Christian, Muslim, traditionalist, and every person of conscience — should take this proposal seriously and respond to it with the constitutional, legal, and civic force it deserves.

Your rights are not negotiable. Your state is not up for religious capture.

03/07/2026

AFRIWATCH CRITICAL ANALYSIS
NIPSS STATEMENT: "REFERENCE TO BEROM MILITIA IN TELEVISION INTERVIEW — SETTING THE RECORDS STRAIGHT.

WHAT THIS LETTER ACTUALLY IS

Before analyzing the fallacies, let us establish what this letter is — and what it is not.

This letter is not a genuine retraction. It is a damage control document — carefully worded by institutional lawyers to apologize for the reaction to the Director General's remarks, without actually withdrawing the substance of those remarks. That distinction is everything.

FALLACY 1: THE NO TRUE RETRACTION FALLACY
(Apologizing for the consequence, not the act)

The Director General says his remarks were "neither intended to validate any of those narratives nor to attribute responsibility."

But intention does not erase impact in journalism, law, or ethics. If you publicly label a people on national television during a security crisis, the damage is done — regardless of what you intended. The letter apologizes for how the remarks were received — not for making them.

A genuine retraction would say: "The remarks were wrong. There is no verified evidence of an organised Berom militia. We withdraw the statement entirely."

This letter says no such thing.

FALLACY 2: APPEAL TO AMBIGUITY
(Deliberately vague language used to avoid accountability)

The letter states the Director General "merely alluded to various reports, commentaries and speculations that were already in the public domain."

This is a classic appeal to ambiguity. By saying he was merely referencing what others were saying — rather than asserting it himself — he attempts to distance himself from the accusation while having made it on national television before millions of viewers.

This is the "I was just saying what people are saying" defence — one of the oldest and most dishonest rhetorical retreats in public life. A Director General of Nigeria's premier policy institute speaking on Arise Television is not a random citizen repeating rumours. His words carry institutional authority and national reach. He cannot hide behind "public domain speculation."

FALLACY 3: THE STRAW MAN FALLACY
(Reframing what was said to make it easier to defend)*

The letter states his remarks were "not intended to suggest the existence of any organised militia associated with the Berom Nation."

But that is precisely what the phrase "Berom militia" — spoken on national television by the head of NIPSS — communicates to a public audience. You cannot use a term, then claim you did not mean what the term means.

The straw man here is the letter's attempt to reframe the Director General's televised statement as a nuanced academic observation — when what the public heard was a direct ethnic attribution of armed militia activity to the Berom Nation.

FALLACY 4: AD HOMINEM IN REVERSE — APPEAL TO CHARACTER
(LUsing good deeds to cancel a wrong)

The letter dedicates an entire paragraph to listing NIPSS's community development programmes for the Berom — summer coaching, ICT training, mentorship, girl-child empowerment.

This is a classic appeal to prior good character — the logical fallacy of arguing that because someone has done good things, their harmful action should be excused or minimized.

Good deeds do not neutralize false and dangerous ethnic labeling. A person can invest in a community and still harm that community through irresponsible public statements. The two are not mutually exclusive — and listing past benefits does not constitute a logical defence of the remarks that were made.

FALLACY 5: WEASEL WORDS — "DEEPLY REGRETS"
(Expressing regret without admitting wrongdoing)

The letter says the Director General "deeply regrets this unintended outcome."

Note the careful phrasing. He regrets the outcome — not the action. He regrets that people were upset — not that he said something that was unverified, inflammatory, and potentially dangerous in an already tense security environment.

This is the institutional equivalent of saying "I am sorry you feel that way" — which is not an apology at all. It is a performance of apology designed to close a controversy without accepting moral or factual responsibility.

FALLACY 6: APPEAL TO AUTHORITY WITHOUT EVIDENCE
(Using institutional prestige as a substitute for proof)

Throughout the letter, NIPSS invokes its own credibility, its national mandate, its longstanding relationship with the Berom, and the Director General's personal record of respect — as though these institutional credentials somehow justify or contextualise an unverified ethnic attribution made during a live television interview.

Institutional prestige is not evidence. The Director General's position at NIPSS does not make his television remarks more accurate. If anything, it makes them more dangerous — because the public assigns greater credibility to his words precisely because of his office.

FALLACY 7: HALF APOLOGY — THE PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION FALLACY
(Language designed to minimize agency)

Throughout the letter, passive constructions are used to avoid direct ownership of the mistake:

- "His remarks have caused concern" — not "He caused concern."
- "Have been interpreted in a manner" — not "He made remarks that directly implied."
- "The remarks may have caused" — note the word *may* — not did cause.

Every passive construction is a deliberate distancing device. The author of this letter — almost certainly a lawyer or communications professional — chose every word to minimize the Director General's personal agency in what happened.

FALLACY 8: IGNORATIO ELENCHI — MISSING THE POINT ENTIRELY
(Addressing the wrong issue)

The central issue is not whether NIPSS has a good relationship with the Berom. The central issue is not whether the Director General respects the Berom Nation. The central issue is not even whether his remarks were intended to cause harm.

The central issue is this: Was there verified, forensic, officially confirmed evidence that the attackers of NIPSS were members of an organised Berom militia — before the Director General made that attribution on national television?

The letter never addresses this question. Not once. It does not provide any evidence that the attribution was accurate. It does not confirm or deny whether the military or police had officially identified the attackers as Berom militia. It simply sidesteps the entire evidentiary question and replaces it with apologies, community development records, and relationship history.

That evasion is the most damning fallacy of all.

AFRIWATCH VERDICT

This letter is a masterclass in institutional crisis management — not a genuine acknowledgment of journalistic or ethical wrongdoing. It is designed to:

- Calm the Berom Nation without fully withdrawing the accusation
- Protect the Director General from formal accountability
- Preserve NIPSS's relationship with its host communities
- Close the controversy without establishing what the verified facts actually were

What this letter should have said — and did not — is this:

"The Director General's use of the term 'Berom militia' on national television was not supported by officially verified forensic evidence at the time of broadcast. It was irresponsible. It has been fully withdrawn. The Berom Nation is absolved of any institutional attribution of organised militia activity by NIPSS."

Until NIPSS says those words — or words of equivalent clarity — this letter remains what it is: a sophisticated apology for getting caught, not a genuine reckoning with what was said.

AfriWatch — Verified. Factual. Fearless.

02/07/2026

NIPSS KURU REPELS THIRD ATTACK IN WEEKS — ONE KILLED, STOLEN MILITARY RIFLE RECOVERED

By AfriWatch Correspondent | Jos, Plateau State
July 2, 2026

The National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, in Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State, came under armed attack for the third time in recent weeks in the early hours of Thursday, July 2, 2026 — with troops of Operation Enduring Peace successfully repelling the assault and neutralising one of the attackers.

The incident, which occurred at approximately 12:10 a.m., marks a dangerous and escalating pattern of attacks against one of Nigeria's most strategically significant federal institutions — a facility that hosts the country's senior military officers, intelligence chiefs, permanent secretaries, diplomats, academics, judges, and leaders from both the public and private sectors.

WHAT HAPPENED

Suspected armed elements attempted to breach the security perimeter of NIPSS under the cover of darkness. Troops of Sector 6, Joint Task Force Operation Enduring Peace, deployed to guard the facility, responded swiftly and engaged the attackers in a fierce exchange of gunfire.

One of the attackers was neutralised during the encounter, while the remaining assailants retreated toward the rocky high grounds behind the institute. No casualties were recorded among the defending troops.

Following the encounter, troops conducted a search of the neutralised suspect and recovered an AK-pattern rifle bearing Registration Number CO-3175. Military authorities confirmed that the weapon belonged to a Nigerian Army soldier who was killed in action on April 11, 2026, during an attack at the Federal College of Land Resources Technology, Vom — also in Jos South Local Government Area. The rifle was loaded with 16 rounds of 7.62mm special ammunition and has since been taken into military custody.

The remains of the neutralised attacker were evacuated to Keystone Hospital, Vom, before being deposited at the mortuary.

The Head of Public Affairs at NIPSS, Dr. Osime Samuel, confirmed the attack in an official statement, saying security operatives engaged the assailants in a gun battle and forced them to retreat in what he described as a swift and coordinated response. He confirmed that the institute's perimeter remained uncompromised, and that all Senior Executive Course participants, academic staff, residents, and facilities were safe and unharmed.

A PATTERN OF ESCALATING ATTACKS

Thursday's incident is the third attempted assault on NIPSS within weeks — a pattern that security analysts say points to deliberate, coordinated targeting of a strategic national asset.

On June 15-16, 2026, heavily armed gunmen launched a deadly assault on security personnel guarding the Moderator's Quarters of NIPSS, killing Police Inspector Peter Joseph of the Force Headquarters Operations Department and two military personnel. The attackers escaped with the inspector's service pistol and two military rifles.

On June 29, 2026, troops and other security agencies foiled another attempted infiltration after detecting suspicious movements around the institute's perimeter. The suspects fled into nearby bushes before they could gain access to the facility.

The persistence and frequency of these attacks — three in under three weeks — has alarmed security authorities and prompted an emergency visit to the facility by Vice President Kashim Shettima, who issued a directive mandating an immediate and comprehensive overhaul of the security architecture protecting NIPSS and other critical national assets.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RECOVERED RIFLE

The recovery of rifle CO-3175 is the most forensically significant development in this story. The weapon connects Thursday's attack directly to the April 11, 2026 ambush at Vom — in which a Nigerian Army soldier was killed and his service rifle stolen.

Security sources noted that this recovery suggests the same criminal network has been active across multiple attack sites in the Kuru-Vom axis — linking the April ambush at Vom, the June attack on NIPSS, and Thursday's latest assault into what appears to be a coordinated pattern of operations against both military personnel and federal institutions in Jos South Local Government Area.

The recovered rifle and ammunition are now in military custody as part of ongoing investigations into possible links between recent attacks in the area.

WHAT AFRIWATCH OBSERVED — AN EDITORIAL NOTE

AfriWatch notes that while some security sources and reports have attributed the attacks to "Berom militia," the official statement from the Nigerian Army's Joint Task Force Operation Enduring Peace — issued by Media Information Officer Captain Chinonso Polycarp Oteh — refers to the attackers as "suspected terrorist elements" and "suspected armed criminal elements," without specifying the ethnic identity of the neutralised suspect or the other attackers.

Similarly, NIPSS management's official statement — signed by Dr. Osime Samuel — refers only to "unidentified armed assailants" and urged the public to disregard unverified reports capable of causing unnecessary panic.

AfriWatch therefore reports the ethnic identity of the attackers as unconfirmed pending official forensic identification and a formal military statement. Responsible journalism demands that we distinguish between what is operationally confirmed and what remains at the level of intelligence source attribution.

The facts that are confirmed are these: armed elements attacked a strategic national institution three times in under three weeks. Military personnel and a police officer have been killed. A stolen service rifle has been recovered. And the security situation in the Kuru-Vom axis of Jos South Local Government Area demands urgent, sustained, and transparent official response.

MILITARY RESPONSE

Operation Enduring Peace has intensified area domination patrols, clearance operations, and active pursuit activities around NIPSS Kuru and adjoining communities. The Joint Task Force reaffirmed its commitment to denying criminal elements freedom of operation in Plateau State and assured residents of sustained efforts to protect lives, property, and critical national assets.

Military authorities have also reinforced security architecture around NIPSS following the Vice President's directive, with surveillance operations ongoing to track down the fleeing attackers.

CONTEXT

The repeated targeting of NIPSS is not lost on security analysts. The institution is not simply a policy school. It is where national strategy is refined before it becomes policy, and where those entrusted with governing Nigeria are exposed to the country's most pressing challenges. An attack on NIPSS is therefore not an attack on a building — it is an attempted strike at the intellectual command centre of the Nigerian Republic.

The choice of such a target reflects planning, reconnaissance, and a clear understanding of strategic symbolism — suggesting actors operating not as scattered opportunistic criminals, but as networks capable of identifying strategic value, testing military response capacity, and sending deliberate messages through violence.

Plateau State has witnessed sustained insecurity across Jos South, Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Bokkos, Mangu, and Bassa Local Government Areas in recent months — with attacks involving multiple armed groups contributing to a cycle of violence that has claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands of families.

AfriWatch will continue to monitor and report on this developing situation.

AfriWatch is committed to evidence-based, editorially defensible journalism on African affairs. If you have information about this story, contact our editorial team through our whistleblower protection channel.

Sources: Nigerian Army Joint Task Force OPEP official statement, NIPSS Public Affairs Office statement (Dr. Osime Samuel), Daily Post Nigeria, Vanguard Newspapers, ThisDay Live, Tribune Online, Zagazola Makama Security Report

29/06/2026

THROWBACK: THE JOS TERMINUS MARKET — THE GREATEST MARKET WEST AFRICA EVER SAW 📸

Look at this photograph. Jos. The 1970s. A city alive, confident, and glorious.

That magnificent yellow building with its bold arches and open upper deck — that is the Jos Main Market, popularly known as Terminus Market. And if you have never heard of it, you need to understand what Nigeria lost the night it burned.

WHAT WAS THE TERMINUS MARKET?

Jos Main Market — also known as Jos Terminal Market — was an ultra-modern market located in the heart of Jos, the capital of Plateau State. It was widely recognized as the largest indoor market in West Africa.

Let that register. Not the largest in Nigeria. Not the largest in the North. The largest in the entire West African subregion.

Established under the first Military Governor of the old Benue-Plateau State, Joseph Gomwalk, the market became the commercial hub of the entire region — a beehive of trade in cosmetics, clothing, food, electronics, and virtually every commodity imaginable.

The market was one of two major reasons people visited Jos from across the country. The other was the city's legendary cool weather. Together — the weather and the market — they made Jos arguably the most beautiful and most visited city in Nigeria, if not in West Africa.

A MAN-MADE WONDER IN THE HEART OF AFRICA

When the market was constructed, nothing like it could be found anywhere else in Nigeria. Its architecture, scale, and organization were without equal. It was not just a place to buy and sell — it was a destination. A statement. Proof that the people of Plateau could build something the world would notice.

In the photograph above, you can see Jos in her prime — the wide roads, the vintage cars, the unhurried pedestrians, a plane overhead, blue skies above the Plateau hills. This was a city that worked. A city that inspired.

Jos North, which housed the Terminus Market, was already the commercial nerve centre of Plateau State — home to the state's Central Bank branch, headquarters of commercial banks, currency exchanges, and all essential services. The Terminus was the crown jewel of it all.

THE NIGHT THE GLORY DIED

Around midnight in February 2002, a devastating fire swept through the Terminus Market, reducing hundreds of shops to ashes and destroying goods worth billions of naira. The cause of the fire remains unknown to this day.

Former Governor Solomon Lar — who had played a significant role in completing the market — wept openly when he visited the ruins. The disaster threw thousands of traders out of business and thousands of workers out of employment, nearly crippling the state's tourism and economy overnight. Some traders, unable to bear the loss, took their own lives. A commission of inquiry was set up by the then Governor Joshua Dariye — but the cause of the inferno was never conclusively determined.

And then, as if the fire was not enough — a twin bomb blast struck the market area on May 20, 2014, dragging what remained into further ruin. Attempts by successive administrations to rebuild the market have all proved futile.

WHAT THIS PHOTOGRAPH MEANS

This image is not just nostalgia. It is evidence. Evidence that Plateau State was once a crown of Nigeria — economically, architecturally, culturally. Evidence that what exists in Jos today is the shadow of what once was.

And it raises a question every leader and every Nigerian should be forced to answer: How did the Home of Peace and Tourism fall this far — and who will rise to restore her?

The Terminus Market deserves to be rebuilt. Jos deserves to reclaim her glory. Plateau deserves leaders with the vision of Joseph Gomwalk and the courage of Solomon Lar.

Until then — we remember. We document. We refuse to forget.

Share this photo. Share this history. Jos was great. Jos can be great again.

29/06/2026

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: THE SARKIN JOS NARRATIVE IS A COLONIAL ADMINISTRATIVE TOOL — NOT PROOF OF INDIGENESHIP

A dangerous historical distortion is making the rounds again. Some are pointing to the early installation of the Sarkin Jos — a Hausa traditional title — as evidence that Hausa/Fulani people are indigenes of Jos, with equal or superior land claims to the Berom, Anaguta, and Afizere.

This argument is historically dishonest. Here is the full picture:

WHO INSTALLED THE SARKIN JOS — AND WHY?

From available colonial records, thirteen rulers bearing the title of Sarkin Jos were installed — beginning with Bunu and Barde, turbaned and sent to Naraguta by the Emir of Bauchi before 1902.

Note that carefully. The Sarkin Jos was not a title that emerged from the land of Jos itself. It was imported — installed by the Emir of Bauchi, a neighboring emirate, as an instrument of Hausa-Fulani political reach into Plateau territory.

When the British arrived and needed local administrative structures, they found these Hausa chiefs already in place and initially used them as convenient intermediaries. This was not recognition of Hausa indigeneship. It was colonial pragmatism — the British using whoever was already organized to manage their administrative affairs.

THE TRUTH THE COLONIAL RECORD REVEALS

The British colonial administration initially encouraged the formation of vassal Hausa heads to oversee the Jos Native Authority — an arrangement that proved deeply tumultuous with the Berom due to conflicting views and interests.

The indigenous peoples — the Berom, Anaguta, and Afizere — never accepted Hausa authority over their land. They resisted it. They petitioned against it. And eventually, history corrected the injustice.

Following sustained protest and resentment by the Hausa, the status of the Hausa Sarkin Jos was gradually reduced to Magajin Gari by 1948, and the area subsequently came to be known as Birom Native Authority — though this was later changed to Jos Native Authority in 1955.

The colonial administration itself acknowledged the error. The Sarkin Jos title was demoted — not because of politics, but because the historical and moral weight of the evidence favored the true indigenes.

THE GBONG GWOM JOS: THE THRONE THAT CANNOT BE ARGUED AWAY

While the Hausa were given an administrative convenience, the Berom were asserting their ancestral identity through organized, persistent, and documented resistance.

The Berom Tribal Council — the forerunner of today's Gbong Gwom institution — was formally created in 1935 by the British colonial administration, with the first chief Dachung Gyang of Riyom assuming leadership from 1935 to 1941.

The new political awakening of the Berom people through the activities of the Berom Progressive Union resulted in the eventual selection of Da Rwang Pam as Gbong Gwom Jos in 1947 — transforming what had been a tribal council into a full paramount chieftaincy institution rooted in Berom ancestral authority.

The position was formally gazetted and institutionalized as Sarkin Jos on August 28, 1947 — and the Berom people later translated the title into their own language, since "Gwom" means "Sarki" in Berom — giving the institution its enduring name: Gbong Gwom Jos. [Wikipedia]

Today, the Gbong Gwom Jos is not only the paramount ruler of the Berom Nation but also the Chairman of the Plateau State Council of Chiefs — the highest traditional authority in the state.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Sarkin Jos was a colonial administrative appointment — imposed from outside by the Emir of Bauchi and initially tolerated by the British for convenience. It was never a recognition of Hausa indigeneship in Jos. It was later demoted precisely because it lacked that foundation.

The Anaguta, Berom, and Afizere peoples maintain — with full historical backing — that Hausa/Fulani groups are settlers in Jos. Therefore, they have no ancestral portion of Jos to claim as theirs.

A title given by a colonial power does not manufacture ancestral roots. The Gbong Gwom Jos — born from Berom blood, resistance, and documented history — stands as the supreme symbol of who this land truly belongs to.

History is not negotiable. And the land remembers.

🔍 Share this before the distortion spreads further.

AfriWatch

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