Our attention has been drawn to a document being widely circulated in the social media, by a group called JASAWA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (JCDA), dated August 10, 2024, in which an aitenary(sic) of a visitation to ulama and Community leaders in Jos North, Jos South and Barkin Ladi LGAs, is made public. Ordinarily there is nothing unusual in members of a settler community embarking on social interactions with its kith and kin. This is understandably so, to foster harmony and unity in members, being away from home.
BECO is however shocked, horrified and visibly devastated, at the deliberate attempt at generating communal disharmony in the use of non-existent traditional titles and stools, by the authors of the mischievous document. We notice with utter disbelieve the arrogant and provocative listing of venues for the congregation of the visits such as palaces of Sarkin Barkin Ladi, Sarkin Bukuru, Sarkin Mai Adiko, Ward Head of Dadin Kowa, etc. Our being miffed and surprised stems from the fact that these traditional stools are imaginary and non-existent. The conflict entrepreneurs engaging in this imbecile rascality are equally in the picture of this hard reality. It is sad, quite disheartening and, to say the very least, very unfortunate, that elders in these communities have openly encouraged these acts of glaring irresponsibility.
Sequel to the above therefore, BECO wishes to sound a note of serious caution to the Hausa-Fulani Community of Jos, to note that our land, culture and tradition is not for sale, neither is our resolve to protect and preserve it is negotiable. The battle of Naraguta of 1873 settled it in its finality, with the overwhelming defeat of the Usman Dan Fodio jihadists, the fore fathers of the present Jasawa settlers of Jos. There is no going back. There isn’t and can’t be a Sarkin Bukuru, under the Gwom Rwey Jos South, or Gyel. Even if today Bukuru attains the status of a traditional stool, the occupant will NEVER be a settler!
A stranger anywhere in Nigeria, can only acquire a traditional recognition over a a territory he or they conquered in a war. We have never been conquered. The second ground for acquiring traditional recognition is through indigeneship. The Conference of 2004, PLATEAU DISCUSS, laid that aspect of arrant agitation to rest, and so it remains. The claimants of Jasawa, of course, being an assortment of diverse backgrounds, most with questionable ethnicities, are unsurprisingly a confused lot. This is because most of their parents and grandparents were products of the booming prostitution industry a characteristic of the forced labourers (diban gwamna) of northern origin in the Jos tin mines. Trying to recreate a non-existent identity on false narratives by laying claims to imaginary traditional institutions, is certainly not the way out.
The so-called Jasawa are advised to follow the footsteps of peace-loving non-indigenous residents and citizens of Jos. They must domesticate in themselves the tenets and ideals of peaceful coexistence, respect for others’ rights, especially their hosts. We the host cannot continue to bend backwards to accommodate and tolerate this display of rascality and chilling insensitivity. We call on the Government to immediately proscribe the JASAWA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION. This is because its existence is a direct and lethal threat to peace in Jos and environs, nay the entire state. We also call on the law enforcement agemts to immediately arrest all those faking as in those false traditional stools and have them duly prosecuted.
Chollom D Gyang
Secretary General
10/08/2024