I read Sani Ibn Salihu’s piece in the social media with deep and sincere sympathy for the writer’s shallow, constricted and horrific knowledge of the subject matter he undertook. In his futile attempt to deconstruct and re-write the history of the Jos Plateau region, the writer ended up assembling conflicting colonial records with contradicting themes and, ended up displaying a comprehensive inability in the interpretation of the records to back up his argument. Thus, in the long run his conclusion supported the very fact he set out to dismantle, by strengthening the saying that, when you have nothing to say, don’t say it.
According to Sani Ibn Salihu’s limited and faulty conclusion, the history of Jos began with tin mining and the migration of his great grandparents into the mines region. And, perhaps there was nothing preceding the tin mining era. For him, the space called Jos Plateau may have never existed at all. The arrival of Engr. Henry W Laws, the first European on the Jos Plateau, was perhaps the beginning, just as Mungo Park ‘founded’ the River Niger. Salihu is extremely enthused in the euphoria of Jos having taken off with the coming of the forced labour conscriptions into the Jos mines field. His illusion therefore, is that as the forerunners inthe chain supply of cheap labor to the mines, his fore fathers may have been the founders of the city of Jos. What a travesty of logic and history.
Interestingly, Sani Salihu’s background knowledge of the subject matter, what the bits of folklore he gathered along the line, during his sojourn with the NTA Jos, in the mid 70s to the mid 80s.Tagged with his brother Auwalu Salihu, the duo began a riotous career in mischief and falsification, in a Hausa program called, MazanJiya. In it, they assembled imbecilic and senile octogenarians of Hausa-Fulani extraction, with weak and misleading memory, who they guided into manufacturing a doctored history of the Jos Plateau sub region, by claiming they founded most of the then existing Berom and other villages, of the Jos mines fields. Years after Sani Ibn Salihu is still wrapped in the cult of this misleading assumption and false perceptions.
Most times Hausa-Fulani settlers of Jos deliberately avoid the facts in their biased narratives,just as they display total allergy to truthfulness in honor of falsehood. Their frontline commentators, analysts, preachers, traditional rulers as well as other coteries of story tellers are united in the upholding of hearsays and make-belief.The underlying philosophy here, is to continuously re-enforce falsehood so that in the longrun, it translates into truth. The social media space is abashed with a cacophony of such voices of liars, laying untenable claims to the indigeneity of Jos, in particular and Plateau state in general.
We intend tobriefly point out a few instances of the history of Jos that easily put to lie and shame, the futility of the Hausa- Fulani settler community of Jos, in their false claims of indigeneity of the state. It is surprising seeing Salihu reverting to the already degraded and rejected ethnic hybrid of Hausa-Fulani, as one community. I have attended many meetings recently, where Fulani hardos vehemently resisted against Hausa community leaders speak for and on their behalf. They insisted the two are not one and the same. It appears the Fulani employ the term at their pleasure and for advantage, when it suits their manipulative agenda, unfortunately against the Hausas.
Immediately Henry Laws, later addressed as Col. Laws, arrived Jos in 1902, he began a brutal process of colonial conquest, against the indigenous tribes of the Jos Plateau, to pave way for tin mining. The very people he fought against and defeated, were the Berom, Irigwe, Bache, Buji, Amo, Jarawa, Jere, and all the indigenous ethnic nationalities of the then Jos Division, now separated into Bassa, Jos North Jos East, Jos South, Riyom and Gwol (BarkinLadi) LGAs. These were the indigenes, fighting to protect their ancestral lands and heritage. This is the basis and core issues in defining indigeneship. The forced labourers and many other sub sequential migrants into the Jos mines fields, do not qualify for the indigeneship of the region.
This is because prior to their arrival, the issue of the indigeneship of the Jos Plateau was settled and permanently too. In any case, the first set of non-indigenous immigrants into the Jos Plateau were the Yoruba, Urhobo, Ishekiri and other nationalities of the Niger Delta, not the Hausaa-Fulani. Col. Laws came along with a detachment of Yoruba soldiers of the West African Frontier Force and domestic staff, made up of the Niger Delta natives. The tin mines labourers from the emirates came much later, after the Berom displayed an overwhelming rejection of wage laboring in the mines. This left the colonial state with no option than to resort to the northern Fulani Emirs for cheap labour. This led to the forced labour conscription, (diban gwamna), of the early 1930s.
The issue of indigeneity is tied to ancestry, history, land and conquest. None of these historically links the Hausa-Fulani with Jos. Of recent, three Judicial Commissions of Inquiry into urban conflicts in Jos (Justices Fibersima 1994, Niki Tobi 2001, Bola Ajibola 2008) have convincingly laid this matter to rest. According to their weighty and authoritative assertions and conclusions, indigeneship is neither a product of, nor compensation for the loss of memory of ancestral migratory history or ignorance of source regions. That one is not sure of his/her ancestral background or has lived in another man’s land for a length of time, is no condition or guarantee for indigeneship.
History of Jos is incomplete without a mention of the roles played by northern prostitutes in the peopling of the town and sub-region, as well as the making of the proletarian labor force in the mining camps. It also led to the subsequent creation of a unique social milieu in the mining camps. This category of service-providers produced a new category of individuals derogatorily referred to as yayan karuwai (children of prostitutes). It is worth noting that this category does not form part of the mentioned autochthonous groups and, hence it is not and cannot be referred to as indigenes.
There is also, the issue of the manipulation or fake loss of parental background. Among the Hausa-Fulani settlers of Jos this is done to heighten the noise for indigeneship. The late Alh Sale Hassan, for example, played a very key role in the 70s and 80s in mobilizing Hausa-Fulani youths to demand for their land and indigeneship of Jos. He was an advocate of Jos as their homeland and, nowhere else to go to. But when he wanted to contest for the senatorial election in the 1979 polls, he didn’t do so in Jos. He traveled all the way to Bauchi North senatorial district (Now Gombe state), being Terah by tribe. While in Jos he was Hausa, back home he was Terah.
It is curious to note that Jos-based Fulani activists have always deliberately evaded the mention of an important event that shaped and defined the indigeneship structure of Jos. This is the historic battle of Naraguta of 1873. This epic event foreclosed any attempt, real or imaginary, either wittingly or unwittingly that brings the Hausa-Fulani into the hub of indigenes of Jos. The matter of who is or not an indigene of Jos, is completely a closed chapter. The historic fighters of the Jos Plateau against the invading Fulani jihadists, in the battle of Naraguta, did so in defence of their land. This is because they were an autochthonous people. How can a terrorist group of 1873 turned out to claim indigeneship of the same region it waged war against? If per adventure, they were indigenes, how come they fought against their own land?
Let me help Salihu out of his self-imposed delusion of indigeneship of Jos. All the gazetteers he enthusiastically assembled amounted to nothing substantially, but a mere academic exercise. Like the lawyers would put it, you can’t build something on nothing. The gazetteers only proved that Hausa were in Jos at a point in time. No one contests that fact. They were counted in the series of censuses of mining labour force and tax payers. There is nowhere the documents conferred indigeneship on them. Besides, the censuses in question, equally acknowledged the existence of other Nigerian ethnic nationalities in the Jos mining camps too.
In conclusion, we note that there is no portion of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended), where it is amply stated that living in a place for 100 years automatically confers indigeneship, as falsely claimed by Hausa-Fulani settlers of Jos. All citizens and residents of Jos enjoy their fundamental rights as guaranteed for all citizens of Nigeria, under the Nigerian Constitution. This is without undermining the exclusive privileges of indigenes, which also is applicable to all autochthonous nationalities of the country, in their ancestral lands.

Chollom Gyang Logwong
gyangcho2008@gmail.com
9/6/2026