The Rocks Cry Out

The Rocks Cry
Out
The Rocks Cry
Out
Responses to the Jos Crisis of September 2001
Second Edition
Edited by
Deborah L. Klein
Kenana Taisir Najmudeen
Reginald Cole
Association of Nigerian Authors, Plateau State

NoCompromise Productions, Jos
2003
THE ROCKS CRY OUT.
Copyright © March 2003, October 2001
Association of Nigerian Authors, Plateau State Chapter
by arrangement with NOCOMPROMISE PRODUCTIONS
Illustrations Copyright © March 2003.

Cover Design: Deborah L. Klein

Cover Photography: Anayochukwu J. Ohama & Reginald Cole
Book Design: Henry Bature
All rights reserved. Printed in Nigeria.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews. For information address:
Secretary
ANA, Plateau State
P. O. Box 10687
Jos, Plateau State
Nigeria
Forward
For René Descartes, “Cogito ergo sum” (I think,

therefore I am). Adapting that idea, we posit that part
of what makes us human is our ability to think, though
we do not all think alike. There exist almost as many
explanations, suppositions, and assumptions about the
Jos Crisis of September 2001 (and the following violent
events which continue in Plateau State even as of this
writing) as there exist people who experienced the
events. And because, as the Bible says, “As a man
thinks in his heart, so is he”, our thinking shapes our
actions, and reactions.
Some have reacted dishonourably to the Crisis,
some have reacted honourably. We believe that art,
honest art, art that promotes the Good, is honourable,
and to produce such art in evil times is especially
honourable. Hence, in this book you now hold in your
hand, we give you art out of distress. The teardrops
spilt upon the rocks of Jos have here been distilled into
ink for our pens.
The trauma lingers, as even today, refugee camps
outside Langtang house dislocated villagers of Plateau
State. We still stiffen and prepare for flight at every
explosion which might be gunfire. The guests at a
wedding begin to shout, and nervous neighbours
prepare for the cry, “Suna zuwa! They are coming!”
What wonderful “prayer partners” we find in
today’s Jos, surely not what Francis of Assisi intended
when he asked that God make him “an instrument
of . . . peace”. Outside our religious meetings march
“security forces”, in perverted obedience to the
command, “Watch and pray”: those outside watch
with guns, while those inside pray. The too-often
deceptive media continue to warn residents against
the spreading of “falls rumours”, leading us to wonder
how we may discern what is true. Regular gatherings
of neighbourhood security groups construct high
cement-block fences with thick
6 The Rocks Cry Out
steel gates. Warning everyone to stay indoors after

dark, they encourage us to trust in these black “soot”-
painted gates rather than those in green camouflage
suits. Some experiences leave indelible marks in the
memory. Only by sharing our pain and fear with others
can we transmute suffering into healing. This new
edition of The Rocks Cry Out has enjoyed more careful
review and revision than the frantically rushed first
edition. The rough diamond of our initial printing has
undergone vigorous polishing, and so we believe its
little gems shine more with more brilliance. A few new
jewels have been added to the collection. If at times
the gleam of our words too much resembles the glint
of a sharpened machete, we plead that as writers we
must both reflect and refract. Nevertheless our overall
goal is to enlighten. May you find among our rocks and
stones a pearl of great price.
Reginald Cole
Deborah L. Klein
Forward to the 1st Edition
Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go
out to the field”. And while they were in the
field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed
him.
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your
brother Abel?”
“I don't know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s
keeper?”
The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen!
Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the
ground. Now you are under a curse, and driven
from the ground, which opened its mouth to
receive your brother’s blood from your hand.”
Genesis 4:8-11
Once upon a time, while ethnic and religious riots

erupted with irregular frequency throughout Nigeria,
the residents of Jos, Plateau State responded with
proud assurance, “That sort of barbarism doesn’t
happen here.” In those days displaced and terrified
victims of other crises fled to Jos, the city of refuge.
But now shocked, disbelieving, our complacency lies
shattered like the shards of broken bottles still piled at
the edges of the road.
Most of us still have no idea how it even started. A
few facts are agreed upon: 1) An unpopular man was
appointed to head the Poverty Alleviation Programmed
for Jos North Local Government. 2) Many objected and
demanded the man’s removal. 3) Immediately
following Juma’at Prayers at the Central Mosque, on
Friday, 7 September 2001, a group of protesters
moved from the mosque to the Jos North LGA
Headquarters to demonstrate their support for the
appointee. 4) At the LGA office, the protesters were
turned back. 5) In another part of town about this
same time, a quarrel broke out at a religious
roadblock. Some time after these encounters, chaos
took over, leaving no reliable accounts as to who first
attacked whom, when, where, or why. At first most
residents did not take the matter
8 The Rocks Cry Out
seriously, especially as accounts of the rioting got

mixed together with a previously circulating story of
unknown persons magically removing other people’s
private parts, a strangely persistent example of urban
myth.
As word of fighting and killing spread, so did
hysteria. Jos neighbourhoods are ethnically and
religiously mixed, even when one group predominates.
So no one particular area became subject to attack.
Rather, all over town, the majority group rose up
against the others in their area, and attacked and
murdered those people in the name of self-defence.
Only some neighbourhoods made up of educational
professionals (for example, the University Senior Staff
Quarters), or the very wealthy (like the section of
Rayfield, where the Governor lives) did not experience
internal massacres, and those neighbourhoods
became refugee sites for those who only wanted to
flee the violence, “safe zones” to be defended against
outside invasion. Jos had become a city “at war”.
Even after the first wave of violence had died
down, most residents feared to leave whatever place
of safety they had found, and so hunger quickly
threatened the city. Shops and market areas dared
not open. Families cautiously reunited in areas of their
“own people”, and the new arrivals brought with them
tales of horror and information on where to find the
often burnt and beheaded bodies of their dead. Now
the rage for revenge ignited a new wave of killings,
and Wednesday, 12 September 2001 saw more
mayhem, now more co-ordinated and unleashing the
dogs of war.
During all of this, a major complaint on all sides
was the seeming indifference of the government to
the plight of its citizens. Although the state
government had reasons to anticipate trouble, the
governor himself was not merely out of the state, but
outside the country. The chief of police appeared
unwilling to send adequately armed officers to defend
any venue except the Central
Forward to the 1st Edition 9
Mosque, and even when the federal government

finally mobilised army and air force units, the initial
security forces were too few and often too partisan.
Many impartial eye-witnesses have reported police or
soldiers standing by with folded arms while “their”
people slaughtered “those” people.
Jos is calm now. Calm, though still tense—and still
patrolled by armed men in olive fatigues, and still
under evening curfew. People have begun to bury the
evidence and rebuild their shops and their lives. What
has not yet returned is the former joyful confidence in
one’s fellow man. Ethnic and religious animosity
openly parade the streets and pervade the
conversations. We offer this anthology of poems and
essays as a counter-voice.
When Allen, who is Muslim, first came to assure
himself of the safety of Deborah and Anayo, who are
Christian, we all agreed, after rejoicing in one
another's well-being and the continuance of our
friendship, that we needed to produce this book. We
wanted to show that ANA, composed of many religious
viewpoints, will not be torn asunder by blind hatred
and finger-pointing paranoia. If the pen is mightier
than the sword, then let us use our art to promote
virtue over violence, compassion over partisanship,
and let us remind readers that we are an association
of Nigerian authors; we work together, as one people.
Due to the immediacy of the events, most of the
works included here have been composed, edited, and
assembled, sometimes quite literally on the run. Some
remain in the rough, insufficiently polished, and not
yet embellished with due filigree. Certainly we have
not enjoyed the Wordsworthian luxury of recollecting
“in tranquility”. Nevertheless, we thought it important
to collect these responses and partial accounts while
events remain fresh in the authors’ minds, before
memory reshapes the moment. This volume is both art
and history, a witness and a statement, significantly
unorchestrated in voice.
10 The Rocks Cry Out
The rocks that define Jos continue to weep, and

blood continues to flow, even as uniformed men and
armoured vehicles continue their patrols. We offer this
book not to incite, not to provoke more resentment
and fighting, but to melt the hearts of stone that
encourage such atrocities to take place. In a spirit of
love—for all human life—and with a stubborn hope. for
why write if our writing changes nothing?—we place
these poems and testimonies in your hands. Handle
them as precious stones, for some do sparkle, and all
crush easily. And may our voices help to water the
germ of peace in the blood-soaked soil of our nation.
Deborah L. Klein
Anayochukwu J. Ohama
Omale Allen Abdul-Jabbar
October 2001
11
Table of Contents
Forward 5
Forward to 1st Edition 7
Season of War - Nancin Namun Dadem 13
Insanity - Mmaasa Masai 14
Hope for the Rocks - Nkiruka Irene Molokwu
17
I Saw . . . - Reginald Cole 20
Landscape of Sorrow - Redzie D. Jugo 23
Seventh September -
Uwemedimo Enobong Iwoketok 24
I traverse my land . . . - Ayimo Amos Dauda
25
Apprehension - Angela F. Miri
26
Sunset on the Rocks - Chima Onwude 27
Day of the Marionettes - Kingsley Madueke 46
Euphemisms - Deborah L. Klein 48
Rumour Mongers - Anayochukwu J. Ohama 51
The Streets of Jos - Reginald Cole 52
Senben - Mmaasa Masai 54
The Storm - Redzie D. Jugo 56
Hey! Hey!! Hey!!! - Nanzing Tahiru Dangbut
57
Strange Friday – Ikemefuna S. Onwude 63
Ogun Bares His Arms - Mmaasa Masai 65
September Seven and Twelve - Za Pitman 68
They Are Coming - Anayochukwu J. Ohama 70
Carnage on the Plateau - Maryam Ali Ali 75
Raped Innocence –
Augustine Oritsewyinmi Oghanrandukun
77
Laughing in Sadness – Dul Johnson 78
Innocent Virgin – Aro Richard
94
Requiem Jos – Mmaasa Masai 96
Jos, I Weep – Anayochukwu J. Ohama 98
How Do You Feel? – Reginald Cole 100
Coroner’s Inquest – Deborah L. Klein
102
Happy Survival – Carmen McCain 103
Food Is Ready - Za Pitman
108
Glossary 110
Illustrations by Kenana Taisir Najmudeen

13
Season of War
Nancin Damun Dadem
Normal, as usual, it came,

dawn of a new day,
breaking the rule of the night.
Morning came.
Noon passed, afternoon arrived,

all bright as always, that day,
activity engaged, calm present,
just like any other Friday.
But about the fifteenth hour,

the cradle of peace quaked.
Uproar rang. From that hour
to the immediate tomorrow,
Heads rolled to eternity,

fire inherited property.
From porous security and negligence we
flee,
but to where? Another palava.
To tensed sister states? No.

America’s tumbling towers? Never.
The middle of eastern earth? Not at all.
Peace has evacuated the earth.
Insanity
Mmaasa Masai
Jos. 12 noon. Blazing sun. I stopped in the middle

of the day, in the middle of everything I was doing to
make ends meet, and walked back home, consumed
by my thoughts. Home. A shanty affair. The curse of
being a graduate in Nigeria. My books littered the floor
like tree-shed leaves after a bad wind. One chair
somewhat regal, loaned to me by Mr. Sylvester—until I
can get one of my own. A razz mattress on the floor
which I’m still paying for, on which I’ve plastered my
American flag, betraying my dreams . . .
I rushed to the kitchen in the BQ which I share with
four other folks. Nothing to eat. Like a sparkle of
thunder and lightning, momentarily, I spied a vista and
gleam of Tomorrow. Back in the room, I picked up the
dictionary and preceded for the umpteenth time to
look up the meaning of graduate. This word, what
does it mean? I’ve been a graduate for four years—I
know not what it means . . .
I boarded an okada and headed out again. Chasing
money. Chasing the wind. British-America junction. We
looked towards Jengre Road, towards Murtala
Mohammed and behold . . . madness. It's coming. It's
everywhere—suddenly . . .
Jos. Home of peace and tourism. The town where

birds never stop singing and wind caresses gently like
the touch of a mother . . . But look. Jos today . . . It’s a
town, like Umuofia in colonial days. Okonkwo has just
committed the abomination. He’s hanging on a tree,
dangling like the bag of potatoes so prevalent in Jos.
All the elders standing, arms folded or akimbo.
Running. Everywhere, running. Quickly, I get down
from the okada and become one of the elders, arms
folded across my chest. Watching, perplexed,
amazed . . . lost.
Insanity 15
Men, Women, boys, girls, dogs, chickens . . .

everyone, everything—running. They run like mad
towards me, where I’m standing. Madness spills from
up, simmers from downwards. It boils over from
Terminus area, Ahmadu Bello—uptown. It’s coming.
Surely it’s coming. Cars screech and u-turn in typical
Mafia or American gangster fashion. Gbamnmmm! A
collision. The front of a Hiace bus smashed. Glass
washes the coal tar, confused as me. The buses,
neither of them stop. Running. Everyone, everything
running.
A friend and I laugh at the runners, wondering
what in God’s blessed name is up?
A woman passes by footwear in hand, head-tie on
waist perspiring like there’s no tomorrow.
“Madam, what is the problem?”
She can’t even breathe. She’s out of it.
“My brother . . .”
She needs oxygen desperately. “We don’t even
know . . . as we see people running, that’s why we are
also running.”
A few of us band together in front of the VIO office,
immobilised by curiosity.
“Why are they running?” This question begged an
answer which no one seemed to have.
Running cars, buses. Everyone, everything—I
thought, it was, well, funny.
Another woman arrived our land. To the small
hamlet of the curious, fearless?
“Madam please what is it? What? Wetin de happen
for up dey?” Fine.
Finally, this one has a story. An explanation.
“Since early morning na im de trouble start-o! Me,
Ah carry my palm oil come market for terminus-NYSC
Secretariat for Jos North since morning. Dem say one
youth copa, na im one man carry im prik. As dem
catch de man, im come return am. When dem come
test am for JUTH, dem come see say e no return am
full. De copa no gree. Dem say dey mus' kill de
man . . . Small
time katakata burst reach Terminus—na im everybody

begin run.”
“What about your palm oil?”
“Which kin. palm oil? Ah beg make u leef me jare.
Ah de fin' way wey Ah go take reach my house for
Nassarawa—no road!”
She’s gone and we still stand there pondering.
Panic everywhere. The utmost fear: fear of the
unknown. It drives the entire populace into orgiastic
frenzy and helter-skelter is the music they dance.
An ache in my stomach, persistent hunger pangs,

reminds me that I only drank a cup of coffee today.
And now it’s 3 p.m. There’s madness in the city of Jos,
home of peace and tourism where the benevolent
breezes blow.
Why in God’s name would “carrying” an individual
penis throw the whole town into a frenzy? See how
everyone’s running. What do they really fear?
“Ah, thank God-o! I thought it’s a Moslem crisis,”
volunteered a fair-skinned, middle aged man near me.
Why could it not be a Christian crisis? I asked him.
He used his term very inappropriately. And among the
terribly dis-enlightened—could be in itself provocative.
Religion. Volatile water.
Well, I walked home. Everywhere, people stood
under eaves or in front of their shops, all securely
locked.
On the radio Michael Botmang imposed a 6 to 6
curfew on Jos. He asked everyone to remain calm, for
security agents to deal ruthlessly with anyone
identified as fomenting trouble or escalating same.
I went to bed still wondering what had really
happened or was happening.
17
Hope for the Rocks

Nkiruka Irene Molokwu
“These people are calm and peaceful,”

Okoro told me.
“This is a blessed land.”
Of course, I believed him,
Since he is my brother.
I went back to base,

Put my things together,
Returned to live in the Tin City.
But what a shock
When I arrived!
Thick smoke rising heavily,

All business fronts locked,
Human beings running in fear.
Many trekking, many standing.
What . . . . ?
“Tin City on fire,”

Said the middle-aged lady.
“Dare you not drive towards the station,”
She warned me,
“Else you would not come back alive.”
O-O-O! No!
God! are you not with me?
What do I do?
Should I go back to base?
No, not at all, said the Spirit.
I looked up and around

At the glorious rocks
Now radiating blood and smoke and fire,
Wailing and lamentation.
May God the Creator forgive these evils!
I heard a strange noise:

War songs chanted,
Hooting, yelling.
In this tense, uneasy departure of peace,
Human safety also fled.
Hei! Hei!! Hei!!!

Pam, Nandir, Nankwat,
Duncalun, Uram, Akat,
Shayen, Ajik, Rouku!
Why go you mad?
Why have you paints

All over your faces
What are you doing?
We are not mad.
We are not animals.
Neither are we barbarians.

We are sane. We are reasonable.
They have pushed us to the fence,
Abused our hospitality,
Grieved us to the marrow.
Do we look like animals?

Their offence was bestial.
We only defend ourselves.
Their offence was uncivilised.
I hear you, Pam, Uram, Rouku.
Hope for the Rocks 19
But now, let you and your brothers

Forgive and give peace a chance.
Let us pray for the peace of the rocks,
That their glory shall radiate again,
That they shall bleed no more.
May I open my eyes again

To see the rocks in their former beauty,
The people calm and peaceful,
The land a blessed place.
And so shall it be. Amen.
I Saw . . .
Reginald Cole
My child
Don’t ask me why
I can’t tell you
All I know
Is that I saw
Yes I did see
I saw men running
Running to . . .
I don’t know where
I saw women too
Carrying loads
Loads on their heads
Babies on their backs
Infants that can hardly walk
Were trying to lope
And the women wailed
The children screamed
But their scream
Was too loud
I could hardly hear
All I heard was
The-e- . . .
y-a
c . . . om . . . ing . . .
But I did run
I ran too
But why did I run?
I saw them
They ran
And still on my way
I saw
Down by the river side
I Saw . . . 21
Bodies were floating

Without legs
Down by the riverside
Swollen, like Christmas
Balloons
Yes, I remember
That song
To study the world no more
Students!
They died
Rogo massacre
Lecturers?
They died too
Who will teach my children?
Pastors died
Ha!
They’ve struck the shepherd
What about the sheep?
Like a lamb to the slaughter
The wind that carries the mortar
Will not spare the winnowing fan
The police stare
Ala -wak -barrr
Allelujah!!!
Turn the other cheek
We are more than conquerors
We know no defeat
Yet I saw
Men carrying clubs
Knives, cutlasses
Broken glasses
Everywhere clashes
I saw smoke
There must be fire
Run run run
There is fire on the plateau
Run run run
Go get me soldiers
Run run run
Where is the governor?
Ssh . . .
I say where is the gov.?
POW! POW !! POW !!!
And I heard
Everything is under . . .
Is under . . .
Is under . . .
And under six feet
There is curfew !
23
Landscape of Sorrow
Redzie D. Jugo
Blurred
my vision
tears wash
my eyes
endlessly
a gruesome painting
a pointing dagger
stabs repeatedly
my heart
I weep
indeed I weep for
my virgin city
Jos
raped brutally before
her wedding feast
with the bliss of
the future.
I weep
I stare
I see
brothers making
sandy streamside
of laughter
overflow with crimson
colour of needless valour.
oh God! listen to me now
I pray
my vision
blurred
for I weep
indeed I weep
for my city.
Seventh September
Uwemedimo Enobong Iwoketok
Jos, land of peace and tourism,

Is a song well known to all,
But Friday, seventh of September,
We heard a different song.
Kpukpukpu kpakpakpa kpukpukpu kpakpakpa
Went the strange refrain.
Corpses here, corpses there,
Houses set ablaze.
Carcasses of pleasure cars
Burnt beyond repair.
Jos, the land of peace,
Engulfed in wild frenzy:
Matcheting, clubbing, hacking, looting.
Hatred, malice, fear terror.
Who set the rocks ablaze?

Who cut the babies' throats?
Who tore the peace asunder?

That’s what the sages know.
But Friday, seventh September,
Jos, land of piece and thugrism,
Was what we discovered.

Is what she’ll always be.
Let the rocks be melted,
And smokes to heavens rise.
Let the gatherings gather,
And arms be multiplied.
Let years of incubation,
Roll and roll and roll—
Jos, land of peace, she always was
And she will always be
The Ages have known and will see.
25
I traverse my land . . .
Ayimo Amos Dauda
I traverse my land, my ancestral land,

to an alien region,
amid a multitude,
a multitude of beautiful black skins
like mine,
With smiling eyes, bright laughter,
hands outstretched, bosoms open.
I rest there, like a fisherman on the riverbank.
We toil, we feast, we sleep.

Each morning, we join hands in peace.
Suddenly! yes, suddenly,

Peace hides herself,
battered.
I look for days, for weeks, for months,
but Peace I cannot find.
Now I eat, I drink, I sleep no more.
I am bent, like a peasant farmer,
In search of Peace, my companion.
Apprehension
Angela F. Miri
Why stop and stare at me, neighbour?

Why glance from the corner of your eye?
I sense unease, fear, well known
only to those whose tongues have tasted
tremulous clouds dispensing salty dew drops at dawn.
I cannot trust the man next door.
And he seems aghast at my appearance,
because he, too, cannot trust me.
Confidence evaporates, suspicion hangs
Everywhere I turn, in the air.
Fear reigns supreme

amidst guided guards. surveillance.
What happens when the tree
of good and evil is stripped bare?
When steel disintegrates?
What happens when uniformed protectors withdraw?
Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing remains.
Then consciousness is as naked as a newborn.
Do not shudder;
We too must retreat early at dusk,
Not on prayer day alone,
For apprehension and fear prevail.
Sunset on the Rocks
Chima Onwude
Friday, 7th September 2001, 3 p.m. I did not know

what was going on, that the whole city was on fire.
Indeed it was a shock to me to hear that stars were
falling down from heaven and that sun and moon had
turned to blood.
If I had died that day like the hundreds of people
who were slaughtered like goats and rams, some
people would have said, “A-ah! He was destined to die
during Jos carnage.” But I wouldn’t say that those
whose blood was thoughtlessly poured on the streets
of Jos were fated to die that day. I wouldn’t say that
those whose bodies were roasted like grass-cutters
and new tubers of yam were sentenced to death by
God that gloomy day. I don’t believe that properties
reduced to ashes were all fruits of wickedness reaped
by their owners.
That morning I went to school for a class that did
not hold. Nothing unusual or ominous in that. The
previous day, I had visited a course-mate, who had
been ill that week. Finding him asleep, I had dropped a
note promising to come after Friday’s class and bring
him to our house for the weekend. When the class did
not hold, I first went home to get some poems to send
with a friend to Abuja. A colleague also had something
to send. About 3:15, as I picked my bag, ready to go
out, my niece ran in, breathless and terrified.
“They say that they are killing people at the main
road and removing their private parts. People are
running into the Quarters parking their cars.”
What a story! It had no meaning at all. It sounded
like a folktale. I ran outside the house. My step-sister,
who had gone out five minutes earlier to visit friends

at Katako Road, returned, saying there had been riot
in the town.
My elder brother, Andrew, seemed unsurprised.
Perhaps some Muslims had carried out their threat to
force their way into Jos North Local Government.
Something about a man whom the indigenes had
rejected as local Chairman of the Poverty Alleviation
Programme.
“If that happens, it could cause a riot,” he said.
We became very worried because my younger
sister was out at PSAMS, attending extra-mural
lessons for her GCE exams. My cousins were out to the
University. Andrew’s driver had gone to Terminus to
buy something. If there was a riot, were they secure?
Andrew and I decided to go to PSAMS and pick my
sister, and perhaps the fellows. Bauchi Road Motor
Park was already deserted. Everywhere silent as a
graveyard. We saw one group of Muslims coming out
from either inside their mosque or the Motor Park
itself. They resembled mourners leaving the cemetery
after the burial of a loved one. As we were about to
turn, those Muslim guys tried unsuccessfully to stop a
vehicle ahead of us. Fear gripped me. Thank God that
he helped us make it through the turn. We managed
to make it to PSAMS but found every building empty.
We could not reach the University.
By the time we got home my sister still had not
returned, but the driver had come back. He said that
several places in the town had been burnt down. A
young man entered the Quarters about then, claiming
he had narrowly escaped the Muslims at Dilimi bridge.
Whoever they caught, he said, they killed and threw
into the River.
Panic. We gathered in our parlour and prayed. We
had barely uttered our “Amen” when my sister came
in. She had left PSAMS to attend another class on
Bauchi Ring Road, only to meet the riot as she was
coming
Sunset on the Rocks 29
back. You can imagine how happy and relieved we

were at her safe return. We praised God. We also had
no doubt that God would bring my cousins back
unhurt.
Shortly, we saw a group of people, mostly women
and children, moving in single file like an army of
soldier ants, coming up from the southern side of our
wall. They said they came from the Lutheran mission
compound behind our Quarters. Someone had run into
their compound claiming that the Muslims were
coming to burn everything. So they had broken a hole
in the wall to escape. Some of them came into our
house and some, including a white lady, followed the
line of Dogon Dutse. Trying to glimpse what was going
on at Dogon Dutse Road, Andrew turned our rooftop
into an observatory.
These bizarre events terrified our children. As we
sat at the dining table trying to calm them down, the
two older boys burst out crying.
“Daddy, are they coming to kill us?” Zach sobbed.
“No. No one is coming to kill us.”
“Bu-but uncle will they burn our house?” asked
Effiong.
“God will not allow anybody do such thing to us.”
“But Daddy, why are people running?” Zach put in.
“It seems some people are fighting.”
“Why are they fighting?” Effiong asked.
Andrew’s wife, agitated, took me aside.
“I don’t think children should grow up with this
kind of memory. This is very bad. I don’t want them to
fear every Muslim they meet.”
I knew I had to word my answer in a way to calm
the boys. One thing was certain: they already knew
something was going on—unlike the baby, Ozioma,
who continued playing and running around the house.
Like the boys, I didn’t know the details. I did not want
to overemphasise the possible religious elements,
especially as I firmly believe that no one who truly
believes in God and Christ his Son will carry guns and
machetes and march along the streets of Jos looking

for people to kill. At last I said,
“Boys, God will protects us. Don’t be afraid.”
They become somewhat reassured and relaxed.
Andrew’s driver could not make it home through

Bauchi Road park, the road had been sealed up and
Muslims had begun burning cars and houses. He
brought rumour that the Juma'at Mosque had been
burned down. His car dented by his own attackers, he
parked in our compound and headed toward Gada Biu
on foot. Sam (a friend visiting from Lagos) and I
decided to climb up Dogon Dutse for a better view of
the city.
Atop the mountain we met those Lutheran people.
Refugees filled the streets in all directions. Smoke
climbed to the sky. We identified Nassarawa, Angwan
Rogo, Katako, all smoke darkened. A group of boys
identified one of places burning in Angwan Rogo as
their COCIN Church. We could see clearly the
unharmed minarets of Jos Central Mosque. For this
reason we falsely concluded that most of the smoke
we saw came from tyres burnt at roadblocks. After
about twenty minutes, we returned home, where
Andrew’s wife had begun recording stories on the
purported events of the day.
All the while we had been waiting to hear a
government press statement to clarify the situation. At
last the Deputy Governor announced that the
government was aware of the “small disturbance in
the city” and assured us that “all possible security
measures have been put in place to bring the situation
under control.” But we wondered why the Deputy
Governor addressed us instead of the Governor
himself. Before the end of that day, we learnt that the
Governor had traveled abroad for his annual leave.
After the broadcast, Sam and I decided to go out to
Bauchi Road to observe the atmosphere there. We
came out of our street and headed towards Total
Filling
Station to see things for ourselves. Sure enough we

did not miss the macabre, wanton killings and
damages. We saw a young man lying on the road.
What was he doing there when everyone was looking
for holes to hide in? Certainly he was not there for fun.
That place was no bed. But it might have become his
eternal bed. He turned his head like a woman in labour
pains, wriggling his legs like a dying snake. We
crossed over to where he lay.
“What!” I cried. Something we had not noticed all
this time. My blood rippled.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Cruelty! Barbarism! Madness! Look, look at his
entrails!”
“God have mercy on these people,” moaned Sam.
The young man managed to tell us he had been
coming back from Terminus area, thinking the
situation had died down, unaware of the snakes hiding
under the dried leaves. Someone had run out from
JAWAB Motors and cut his the stomach.
That was my first time of seeing someone’s
intestines in my life. A gory sight. We begged three
other people that were passing by to help us take him
to Plateau Private Clinic there on Bauchi Road. But
there was no doctor there to assist the young man. We
could have gone to JUTH, but there was no vehicle on
the road, no security agent, no Red Cross people. A
hopeless situation indeed. (He died early in the
morning the next day).
As we came out of the hospital, I suggested to Sam
that we move up to the University Senior Staff
Quarters junction to see how that area looked. The
main street was alive with clusters of people
discussing the situation. Bauchi Road from our street
to SSQ junction looked deceptively calm, and people I
thought would have been blocked by the riot moved in
different directions, mostly in groups.
As we walked we observed more smoke spiralling
up to the skies at Angwan Rogo and Katako areas.
Behind
Water Board/ PDP/ X&Y Motors, we saw some young

people looking toward the smoke. We passed on. But
about sixty metres from our goal, we observed that
whenever people got to the junction they either ran
into the SSQ road or turned back towards our
direction. I told Sam that it was not safe for us to go
further. So we retreated.
Opposite the Water Board we discovered the boys
we had noticed about four minutes earlier coming out
to Bauchi Road, towards us. To our dismay we saw
that each of them now carried either a long machete
or a club. We ran into J Close, a street before ours.
They chased us and ordered us to stop. When they
saw many people there they turned back. We followed
a track road that connects our street to J Close and
headed home.
We came into our street about fifty metres from
Bauchi Road and walked down to a group of young
women standing under a cashew tree beside the road.
Among them was a former classmate of mine, whose
younger brother had gone to the town shortly before
the riot began and had not yet come back. We tried to
reassure her and mentioned that two people from our
own compound had not returned from the University.
She reported finding a fellow student cut open by the
rioters.
“We took him to that Hospital—” She gestured. “—
but there was no doctor. I wonder if he will survive.”
War can really eat up people’s memory. She did
not even remember that we had been among those
who took the young man to the hospital.
As we listened, we saw my younger cousin coming
up the street. This gave us a moment of relief and
renewed our confidence that all our people would
eventually return safely. Before Uzo reached us we
overheard one woman telling how their pastor had
warned of a threatening letter telling the “Christians”
to get ready, so they would not complain of being
taken unawares. When someone suggested that
Muslims had burnt down a Roman Catholic Church
building, Our
Lady of Fatima, at Katako, the woman insisted that

“Christians” must certainly retaliate. How could any
true follower of Christ offer such a threat? Did Jesus
not teach, “turn the other cheek,” and “vengeance is
mine I will repay”? Most “Christians” never read the
Bible, it seems, or they read it upside-down.
When Uzo reached us, he reported a precarious
situation at the University campus. Yet he had
managed to come back through Angwan Rogo. While
he spoke, we saw two blood-bathed men brought to
the doctor-less hospital: one cut on the head, the
other on the neck. The hospital gate was barred. When
the escorts knocked furiously and got no response,
one of them climbed the fence. A few minutes later,
another man, also cut on the neck, was led in from the
other direction.
Suddenly, from Terminus area, we heard a Mobile
Police siren wailing. At first we thought the Deputy
Governor was coming. Before we knew it the vehicles
had zoomed across Bauchi Road to the University
area. And that was it. We had expected them to
rescue the students, lecturers, and other University
staffs that were blocked off since the riot started. But
instead, shouts of war continued from that end. (The
students who were then at Bauchi Road Campus later
reported that the Policemen did not stop when they
got to the University. Those in the hostels said that
when the convoy came to the hostels, they merely
asked if there were any casualties they could help to
carry to the hospital).
Fear and distress gripped me, and I turned pale.
“I can’t stand this,” I said to Sam. “Let’s go home.”
“No Chima. Not yet. Let’s stay here and watch the
situation.”
“Not me Sam. I can no longer stand this bloody
theatre.”
He laughed. “What will you do in the event of real
war, die before your enemy comes to you? Joe has not
come back. We need to see if we can hear any news

about him.”
“You say real war? What war are you talking
about? Because you have not been killed? Man, this is
war, don’t pray for a greater war than this. Anyway,
Uzo is back, and Joe will be back. He is safe wherever
he is, let’s go home.”
“I can see you are scared to death.” He laughed
again.
“Yes, I am not only scared but angry.”
“Why? Look, Chima, you have to be a man.”
“Maybe I am not man enough to go and fight.
Maybe I am not so brave as to feed on innocent blood.
Yes, I am not man enough to stay and watch innocent
people cut down like trees or their heads smashed like
snails. I can no longer stand to watch innocent people
wriggle in pain like earthworms. This is cruelty and
madness.”
“Sorry, let’s not quarrel about this, Chima. I did not
mean to hurt you. Jos has already been injured. Its soil
bleeds like your heart.”
I was indeed distressed. Pursued like a criminal by
mobs with clubs and machetes; innocent people
bathed with their own blood; men, women and
children roaming the streets like sheep without a
shepherd, some hiding under rocks like rabbits
running from hunters. What offences had they, had
their properties committed?
Did they deserve to be driven out of their houses
because some madmen and drunks believed they
were either serving God or defending His name? What
gave each victim the wrong face or identity? How did
the properties happen to be in the wrong places or
belong to the wrong people? When did so many Jos
residents suddenly become the wrong people to live in
Jos? Since when did their homes become the wrong
places for them?
As we passed along our own street, men and

women stood gazing like hopeless hens whose chicks
have been snatched by hawks. When would another
hawk come and who would it carry next? Some of our
neighbours stood with clubs and machetes, as though
waiting for snakes and rats. Would they really kill with
those weapon if they had the opportunity? Instantly, I
heard widows, children, relations crying for their
husbands, fathers, sons, brothers and uncles: crying
for their breadwinners for they are no more.
At home, the deputy Governor announced over the
radio, “There was some disturbance in the city of Jos
this afternoon. But the situation has been brought
under control. Normalcy has returned. Go into your
house and sleep. Our security men will deal with you
ruthlessly if they see you panicking. Congratulations!
Rest in peace in the bosom of the Lord. Remain
blessed.” Meanwhile, we continued to hear gunshots
from east, west, north and south of the Tin City, not
from security forces, but from great hunters of human
heads. The sun set and we sank into the night with our
eardrums blasted by unaccustomed whistles, calling
for vigilance.
That night sleep flew from our eyes, because the
thane of Cawdor had murdered sleep. That night only
the kids slept blissfully. That night, Andrew, Sam, and I
became sentries for our household. We shared
ourselves each to one of the three verandas. Dogs
barked nervously at every gun-shot and blast of
whistle. The only true companion and security for the
people of Jos that night was NEPA. In fact, throughout
the period of crisis, light never went off, especially at
night.
At 4:30 a.m. Saturday, September the 8th, I fell

into a brief spell. Even in my dreams I kept praying
that daybreak would come with a message of hope.
But as we would see, nothing had changed. Instead,
like his brother Friday, that Saturday brought more
sorrow,
more widows, more orphans, more weeping mothers.

More human and car carcasses. More fire and
brimstone on the city of Jos. The ruin was so great that
cocks could not crow.
Joe’s voice in the adjoining room woke me up at
6:30 am. I was temporarily relieved. “Thank God,” I
breathed. “Maybe this is a sign of a good day.” He was
telling how he and other students were rescued by
soldiers. According to him, both the Vice Chancellor
and the Students’ Union President had attempted to
contact the Police Commissioner, but whenever they
introduced themselves, the man hung up on them.
Some time close to midnight some soldiers’ wives had
contacted their husbands, and one senior military
officer, had sent a detachment of 12 soldiers. This
detachment had rescued not only the women, but also
anyone living nearby. That was how Joe came back
early that morning. The soldiers could not do more
than that because there was no official order for them
to go out and stop the crisis. So they went back to the
barracks.
For us residents of the Government Quarters,
Bauchi Road, only the mercy of God saved us from the
hand of the rioters. That neighbourhood was very
porous. There was no physical protection, except the
mountain. Even there, a track road from Dogon-Dutse
Road, one of the most dangerous areas that day,
came through the back of the Quarters. Bauchi Road,
in the front of the Quarters, was occupied territory. So
if God had allowed the Quarters to be attacked, it
could have come from both or either of the sides.
Saturday morning produced more frayed nerves
for the residents of the Government Quarters. Even
God knew that there was no shepherd for his people.
Women and children roamed in utter hopelessness,
many making their way to our house as a sort of
refuge. Sam and I went out to observe how things
were faring on Bauchi Road. Along Yusufu Musa’s main
street, old men, young men and a few young ladies, as
on the
previous night, held clubs, bottles, stones, pieces of

iron. A few people who could afford machetes had
armed themselves with them, waiting for any attack
from the “jihadists” across the road. From the
entrance of the Quarters on Bauchi Road, we could
see Muslim boys guarding JAWAB Motors and Total
and Mobil Filling Stations with their weapons, waiting
for any unwary creature who would dare cross from
there. Two times that morning they attempted to
attack the Quarters, but were chased back by the
“Christian soldiers.”
For me the problem was, if our neighbourhood
were attacked, were would we go? We had five ladies
and four children in the house. The adults could run,
but to where? How would we carry the children and
perhaps some food and our belongings?
Momentarily, my thoughts drifted away from the
problems of our household and got into other things,
ridiculous now that the crisis was wearing a religious
mask: “Christians” were fighting with Muslims but I, a
Christian, had Muslim friends, classmates with whom I
had earlier had religious discussions. I had never
heard them speak against me or any non-Muslim that I
knew. One had even taken me to a Restaurant, fed me
and expressed his genuine desire for us to be friends.
He had in fact been protected by a man of my tribe
during the Kaduna riot just passed. That Saturday
morning I kept thinking: Where are these my friends
now? Are they safe? Another thought, I now sadly
confess, came into my mind: Might they all be part of
this mess? Can I trust them again? I could not picture
any of them carrying guns or daggers or clubs,
hunting for “infidels”. Maybe I am unnecessarily
suspicious. And sure enough I was, as time would tell.
“Chima, with the present atmosphere do you think
these Quarters are safe for these women and
children?” Sam asked.
“My brother, this is a serious question, but where
do we take them to?”
“I understand that it is not an easy decision to
take, but something has to be done. It is better to find
a place and send them to avoid blame, if anything
should happen.”
“The only place I know we can send them is to my
aunt’s house in Jarawa village off Bauchi Ring Road or
to Lamingo, but we have no way of getting there. To
attempt Dogon Dutse or Angwan Rukuba would be
committing suicide. The only alternative is to take
them to the mountains.”
“I suggest that we take them to the mountain
instead of just waiting until the fight gets to our
doorpost,” he insisted. We agreed to try to get Andrew
to consent to this plan.
When we got home, we found Andrew sitting on a
mat in front of the garage. Chiamaka was sitting on
the step in front veranda with the children, surrounded
our dogs—four nervous dogs—who were rather
seeking protection from the human beings. The dogs
seemed to understand that all the people pouring into
our compound were looking for protection, thus,
thankfully, they did not bark at these strangers.
After giving Andrew the situation report, we

suggested that some physical security measures
should be taken. He did not object to any plan that
would move the women and children further away
from danger. He only questioned where we would take
them. When we mentioned the mountain, he agreed.
The women of the household, however, broke down in
tears
We went into the room for immediate preparation.
As my wife packed a few of our clothes, tears ran
down her cheeks. I took her hand, drew her to my
breast and kissed her. Her head gently resting on my
shoulder, I murmured a few words of consolation to
her. She made no response. I kissed her again and
wiped her tears. Silently, she withdrew and continued
to pack. I opened my drawer to pick things that I felt
would be most important even if the compound were
destroyed: my
credentials, bank passbook, Bible and computer. When

I got to my study, I did not know which books I should
take. “Oh well!” I exclaimed. “Books, if we come back
and meet you, I praise God. But if you get burnt up, I
will have lost everything.”
We intended to take these women and children to
the mountain and come back to stay around the
house. Not that we could do anything if the worst
came. I knew that Andrew and I had similar views on
what a Christian should do in the event that we were
attacked: run to the mountain. But if surrounded by
enemies, better to die than to cast a stone against
them. Sam also shared this belief, at least to a
reasonable extent. But as for Uzo and Joe, whether
they would be able to resist the temptation seemed a
very serious question, especially Uzo. Earlier that
morning, Joe had wrapped a machete with cement
papers trying to sneak out of the gate, but was
intercepted by Andrew, with a very sharp rebuke.
God works in a mysterious way. While some of the
women tried to fix food to take to the mountain, I went
to the gate see what more was going on. More people,
mostly women and children, came toward our end of
our street, fear, terror, and worry on their faces.
Indeed, these people had been made refugees in the
last eighteen hours.
“What is the situation out there now?” I asked one
of the women. She was carrying a baby on her back,
pulling two children with both hands and had a small
bag on her head.
“They said that those Muslim fighters are making
frantic effort to come into the Quarters,” she
answered.
“But you didn’t see them?”
“Er-mmm-er-m, I know they are coming,” she said.
“You want to wait until they come,” said another
woman. “Ok! Stay there until they come!”
They all like soldier ants trooped past me, enroute
to the mountains.
Moving down the street a little, I met a cluster of

men, some with sticks, some stones or whatever else
they could make a weapon out of. My neighbour Deji
came by, roughly dressed, a very long pipe in his
hand.
“Make u all run leef dese Quarters for dem?” asked
Deji. “Ah! Ah tink say u no know dis pipul-o.” He
laughed. “Oga—” Now he was talking to me. “—U de
wak wit empty han’. Today big man no dey-o.”
I laughed.
“U de laugh but u no know dis Muslim pipul,
human life no mean anytin’ for dem. So, make u carry
u own. We no go run from here, if dey come we go
fight 'am. Dem bodi, na water e go comot, no bi blood?
Dem de get two-two head, no bi one? So we no go run.
If dey wan die, we go die togedda.”
“We are not going to die with anyone,” I said, “God
will take care of us.”
“Ah gree say God go care for us, but no bi Bible
say heaven go help pipul wey help demself? We go
fight an' defen’ ourself. God no go punish us for
fighting dose wey wan kill us.”
I did not want to argue with the man at this point. I
knew that everyone was tensed up. Moreover I had
known Deji for more than one year now. I had never
known him as an aggressive person. But crises such as
the one we are discussing can turn even a lamb to a
ferocious wolf.
As we were still talking, we saw the women who
were running to the mountain coming back. One of the
men said: “Won’t it be better to gather these women
and children to one place instead of allowing them to
roam about?”
“That is a good idea, but where do we keep them?”
asked a second person.
The person who raised the idea pointed to our
compound. “That house has fence and gates. It looks
more secured than any other one around. Moreover, it
will take time for anyone to come this far inside. Even
if
we have nothing to fight with, it will be easier to

defend our wives and children if they are not scattered
all over.” Everyone agreed with this suggestion. So I
went and opened one of our gates and one of the
outer rooms to take in people.
When I told Andrew the latest development, he
agreed that it sounded reasonable. Our women were a
little relieved at the new arrangement. The main
stress they would have now was trying to prepare
more food out of nothing.
I came back out to find more refugees and that our
house had became a prayer house where everything
had been “soaked in the blood of Jesus.” We brought
out a television and VCR to distract people, especially
the children, a little from the events of the moment.
As we set things up, our dogs began barking furiously.
I went to see what was disturbing them.
At the gate a man with a very long stick told me
that he wanted to come in. When I told him to drop
the stick outside the gate, for that was the reason the
dogs were barking, he insisted on coming in with it
and that I should find my own: “If these people come,
we have to fight because they are trying to challenge
Jesus.”
“If they are challenging Jesus, do we have to
protect Jesus or do we allow Jesus to fight for himself?”
Now he dropped the stick and was let inside.
“Yes, Jesus will fight for himself, but we have to
play our own part,” he argued.
“What is our own part?”
“To fight with the name of Jesus and no weapon
against us will prosper.”
“Do you mean that fight with physical weapon is
the same thing as fighting with the name of Jesus?”
“Of course, anything we hold in our hand is the
symbol of the authority and power of Jesus. Even if it
is a broom stick, Jesus will give us power to destroy
our
enemies.”
“I don’t think that Jesus authorises us to engage in
physical battle..
He looked at me and I could read that he was
disappointed in me. It seemed as if he was saying,
“What a strange man. How can this man of little faith
commit such blasphemy.” He left me and went to
those who were sitting under a tree in the compound,
who possibly shared his views.
Initially, I thought that it is only men that are
thirsty of other people’s blood. After the rackety
morning, I settled down to have some moment to
myself and take my breakfast. My children sat around
me, hoping to steal some moment to do some
journalist investigation on the rat race of the last
nineteen hours. I bent down and took a piece of our
household cake popularly called pericake from a plate
beside me. I took a bite of the cake. I was about to sip
my tea when Zach tapped me: “Daddy look! Look,
Daddy. Look at that woman.”
I stayed action on the tea. “What’s that? Which
woman?”
Pointing toward the outer room where most of the
people were hiding in the house: “See that woman.”
Following the direction of his finger, I saw the woman
open her handbag and bring out a dagger, examine it
and put it back. I believe she was simply saying,
“What a man can do, a woman can do much more
better. Give me Doe, I will slit his throat.”
By mid-day the people in our house had split into

groups, each person in each of the groups told his or
her experiences: Places that had been burnt down,
people that had been killed, and how they escaped
from where they were when the fight began. Some still
said that Jos Central Mosque had been burnt down.
Andrew said if that were true, the fight would still
continue for several days because zealots would
certainly try to retaliate. But one woman argued that
the Muslims had already burned down Our Lady of
Fatima Roman Catholic Cathedral at Katako. To her,
the Muslims
deserved what they got because they started the fight

and first burnt down the Cathedral, which she thought
cost more than the Mosque.
At this point I could see some of the adults
cracking jokes and laughing. But not a minute passed
without someone saying bitter things against the
Muslims: how wicked they were, how they all deserved
to die. I felt particularly sad. My thoughts drifted. I do
not like to fight. I do not know who started this fight so
I cannot decide who should be killed. I do not like
anyone to be killed, no matter his ethnic nationality or
religion. Even if it is true that Muslims started the
fight, it is also true that the non-Muslims who
accepted it equally justify themselves before God.
Both killers are murderers. Which is holy before God?
Both gratify the desires of their hearts, and seek the
praise of their supporters. Maybe God will give a
contrary opinion.
Children played and ran about in the compound. At
intervals some of them cried, either accidentally hurt
by their playmates or beaten in an actual fight. The
next moment they had settled their differences and
continued to play together. I kept wishing that I was
like one of these children. I wouldn’t have to worry
whether I know those who have been killed or not. I
wouldn’t even have to worry if I die or not. During the
civil war, I was like them. I did not know that Nigeria
was fighting with Biafra or whether I was Biafran or
Nigerian. Though my people saw themselves as part
of Biafra, by the time I began to have any sense of
nationality, the cruel war had ended, Then I was a
Nigerian, as I was when I was born a few months
before the war started. But if I had been struck by a
bomb or shell, I wouldn’t have known why I died.
In the present war, I thought, children have been
roasted or dismembered, children who never knew
they were either Christians or Muslims, children who
did not know they were Afisiri or Berom or Hausa-
Fulani. Even if their parents told them, “This is who
you are”, they had
no sense of tribalism. If they had lived, they might

have had more sense of being Nigerian than those
who murdered them in cold blood. Now, see their
mates playing innocently in our compound. And I wept
inwardly. I wished that those who had started this
could have been like these little kids. See how they
fight and settle their differences in a matter of
minutes.
At 1 p.m. some of the adults who had obviously

kept vigil the previous night felt the need to snatch
some sleep. But we had not that many spare beds in
the house. Some of them threw their wrappers on the
floor, others made do with their chairs. There was a
very pregnant woman amongst the refugees. We
provided her with a bed. By this time the tempo of the
fight had gone down. We heard gunshots sparingly.
Cries for war from the mosques had reduced. But in
our Quarters, men still patrolled the streets, keeping
surveillance.
At 2 p.m. Jos saw the salvation of the Lord. The

weather was bright when it came, not a cloud in the
sky when it came. No one expected it when it came.
Rain at that hour? But it came. A heavy downpour. Just
when we thought that no one would survive, that
everyone would die, it came. When all the fighters had
lost their breath because no one came to separate
them. When each man waited for some other to say,
“It is enough for today. Go and rest.” The remaining
soldiers of the crush could have all died without being
shot by their enemies if God had not come at that
hour. And I went to sleep.
I woke up at four. Everywhere was silent: no

gunshots; no cries for war; no shouting; no running.
Everywhere was silent. The city had fallen asleep. The
only voice was the radio: “Normalcy has returned to
the city; there is absolute peace now; dusk to dawn
curfew. Go into your houses right away; security
forces are on
ground. Soldiers have been ordered to shoot any

disgruntled element who tries to disturb the silence in
the city. We share our heartfelt sympathy to all those
who lost family members and friends in this small
disturbance. We are taking every necessary step to
get the list of names of all the people who one way or
the other supported this awful event, so they can put
it in their drawer as a lesson for future generations.
Very soon all the immediate and remote causes will be
swept under the carpet.”
5 p.m. Two soldiers, combat-ready, marched around

our neighbourhood with two warning shots. Everyone
fled. Sam and I were standing by our gate when they
came. As we headed into the house for cover, the
soldiers called us back. “Don't run! Don't be afraid! We
are friends not enemies. We are posted to this
neighbourhood for security. If any of you want to go
out and look for food or anything, come and inform us,
we will help you.” For a fee, we later discovered.
Just before dark, Sam, Uzo, Joe and I strolled down
our street close to Bauchi Road: a few meters within
the entrance to the Quarters. We saw lots of displaced
people wandering along the road. Some of the
“Christians” standing with us did not spare any evil
word against those identified as Muslim families.
The city gradually sank into night. Another night of

fear . . .
Day of the Marionettes

Kingsley Madueke
To see the strings

One needs a third eye.
Even the puppeteers
Hide backstage.
Puppets! Puppets fighting
One on one.
Upper and lower limbs move swiftly
As directed,
Against the enemy.
I turn round in my seat

And find myself the only spectator,
Alone in the theatre.
A dream?
A nightmare: the wood bleeds!
Oh, I must be damned,
For no human eyes have seen this:
Puppets drawing blood.
HEY YOU!
A giant puppet shouts.
YOU MUST BE A COWARD.
COME OVER AND FIGHT!
FIGHT SIDE BY SIDE WITH YOUR DEAR BROTHERS
OR DO I NEED TO LEND YOU MY EARS AND EYES
FOR YOU TO KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING!
I want to shout back,
“I’m no brother to no doll.”
BOOM! like thunder.
Armed with guns
The puppets now shoot each other,
Indoctrinated to the heart
By puppeteers
Who jerk their strings at whim.
Day of the Marionettes 47
A unique one,
His limbs no longer directed by them,
Runs to me and shouts:
THEY ARE MAKING US KILL EACH OTHER!
In a lower tone, more grave, he continues:
THEY CLAIM WE FIGHT FOR A GODLY CAUSE.
IS GOD NOT STRONG ENOUGH
TO FIGHT FOR HIS OWN?
He shakes his head from side to side
And taps my left shoulder with his right hand,
And adds, more gravely still:
THEY USE US FOR THEIR OWN GAIN YOU SEE.
OUR BROTHERS STILL RESPOND TO THEIR STRINGS.
I WISH I COULD CUT THEM OFF.
MUST WE DANCE ON THIS STAGE OF THE WORLD,
PUPPETS UNTIL THE CURTAINS CLOSE?
I return my gaze to the warfront

Where the Properties Manager intervenes
With Aso authority:
ALL PROMINENT PERSONALITIES IN JOS
AND ENVIRONS,
DROP YOUR CRUTCHES NOW,
OR FACE THE WRATH OF THE GOVERNMENT
SECURITY AGENTS.
The puppets collapse in heaps.
Woe to those materially rich and influential,

who use their wealth
to manipulate the poor.
Woe also to those who base their security
on material wealth
and let it control them.
Euphemisms
Deborah L. Klein
I step out my front door

to secure the gates
because the dogs are barking so.
Ka-BLAM!
The shadow soldier beside the fence
fires his rifle at the stars,
and the household spills out onto the veranda.
The soldier laughs a little.
When he passes my front gate,
he greets me in a gruff voice.
The radio calls him a Security Agent.
Love is the answer, says the DJ, in silky seductive

tones.
We gotta love one another, my brothers and sisters.
Love is the answer, man.
And he pops in another Kenny G CD.
The mellow tones cannot muffle the chanting in the
streets.
POP-POP! POP-POP!
Dane-guns, says my husband.
In whose hands?
Smoke billows above the treetops.
Tires or houses?
Some say they’ve burnt the Central Mosque.
Some say a COCIN Church.
War! Unh!
Na-na na-na na-na-na.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothin’! Say it again.
Slot that in your player, Mister DJ, and spin it.
Euphemisms 49
Security Forces are on ground, announces the acting

governor.
On ground?
What? Sitting?
Lying? (In omoges' arms?)
Let them stand up and walk about. March. Patrol.
But let them not discharge their AKs to shake my
compound.
We do not break curfew.
And the governor—when did he read Theatre Arts?
It seems he travelled before the final dress rehearsal.
The situation is under control, reports the radio.

Everyone should go back to work.
All civil servants report to your posts immediately.
Some of my friends went back to work.
Jacob and Ubong never came home again.
Posts found them.
There has been a slight disturbance in the Dilimi area.

Logic question:
⊃the ∞ destruction of ∓ n shops × 2 sides of the road,
± n vehicles in front of, behind, or beside those shops,
For ≫ 3 city blocks
≣ a slight disturbance
∴ a major disturbance ?
Do not listen to or spread false rumours.

Some rumours, then, we should take as true?
Dem say the Kano Muslims want to seize the Middle
Belt.
Dem say the Fulani cattlemen attacked the villages.
Dem say the Plateau indigenes only want to defend
themselves.
So who burned all the Igbo shops?
Dem say: RUN!
Report all relevant information to the appropriate

quarters.
They call my area Government Quarters.
Down the road is University Senior Staff Quarters.
My colleague lives in Legislative Quarters.
What achaba can take me to Appropriate Quarters?
Abuja is sending a high-powered delegation to look

into the situation.
Ah-ah, why should Abuja delegates enjoy NEPA when
we residents don’t?
At most we get only half-power right now.
Would His Excellency, Chief Honourable the Governor,
receive a low-powered delegation from our
neighbourhood?
I would phone him if I had a phone,
But NITEL says: no lines.
We repeat: The situation is under control.

Everyone remain calm. There is no cause for alarm.
Maureen, calm in her bed,
watched a bullet sail in the window
and drop into her lap.
She carries it now in her purse,
a heavy, brass-coloured canine tooth,
barely one-inch long.
Normalcy has returned to Jos.

The dust to dust curfew remains in effect.
51
Rumour Mongers
Smoke! Smoke!! Smoke-uooo!!!

Smoke everywhere climbing to the sky
Ssshhhh! Stop that! Stop that rumour.
Listen! Do you hear that kpoo!

Kpo! Kpo!! Kpo-oo! Kpoo-oo-ow!!!
Ssshhh! Stop that! Stop that rumour.
My house-o! My house-oo!! My . . . my-oo!!!

Burn down. Ehhh! My children inside . . .
Look if you don't stop that rumour, I will behead you.
My head-oo! broken, my hand-ooo!

Go-God, heemm . . . my soul! Allah!
Samanja, Oyaa snuff life out of the “rumour monger”.
Call me a rumour monger

Because I am dying and I cry out
You shut your eyes against the truth
Like a child I must cry because I am beaten

If you shut my mouth with your hand
Remove it I shout again
If our houses mean nothing

Our starving children mean nothing
Our lives God esteems
I am a sheep led to slaughter

I am weed and rags to be burnt alive
My blood speaks to God
The Streets Of Jos

(To the tune of “When the Saints”)
Reginald Cole
Oh when the streets

Of Jos Plateau
Were raging hot
With people fighting
The children cried
Mothers were wailing
Because there was too much killing
Oh when I saw
Men gripping knives
I had to run
Coz all were running
I had to flee
For my own safety
Oh when I heard
The radio say
“Everything’s under control”
I had to watch
And be quite careful
When I was in
The house of God
My eyes were on
Each door 'n’ window
As I thought
That they were coming
The Streets of Jos 53
Oh when I saw
The Muslims fight
And when I saw
“Christians” fight too
I asked, Oh God,
Is this your purpose?
[allargando]
Oh now I see
There’s too much war
No hiding place
For any person
I pray, oh God
Send down your peace
Because there is too much killing
Senben
Mmaasa Masai
Oh Senben!
Beloved woman,
Hair of quiet rivers flowing,
Tell me now:
Where is your glory?
Where is your sing-song,
To which a million hearts dance?
I sit on your back,
This bleeding mountain,
And watch you now.
Oh Jos!
My heart bleeds.
It’s only 4:00 p.m.
And here you lie,
Quiet as a sleeping army,
An army of occupation.
Gunshots perforate your wings
And echo and echo and echo,
Like an electric chain.
Dogs bark at silence
And fear grips our loins.
No! We shan’t be making love

Tonight. No, Jos.
Love is gone.
There’s only hating,
Killing, maiming, robbing,
Burning! . . .
Oh Jos!
What about the students
Who came to school here,
Now deceased?
What about the old man
Who took a bullet for
Senben 55
His only son?

What about the sojourner
Who will no more return?
What about the
Ears, eyes, heads, legs
Now dismembered?
What about the morgue
Now spaceless and brimming?
Tell me now:
Where is your glory?
Where?
Oh Jos!
No birds sing today.
No music, no dancing,
No potatoes, no pito!
I turn to Nasarawa
And I see smoke raging
The heavens.
Gunshots still perforate your wings . . .
And all they did.
Your plunderers.
They did
Through Jesus Christ
Our Lord!
Through the name of
Allah the All-Merciful!
Amen!
Ameen!
From this protrusion on your back,

This bleeding mountain,
A poet
And your lover,
I have interred here
My lament for you,
Beloved Senben.
Jos!
The Storm
Redzie D. Jugo
Calm
lover of my soul . . .
Plateau
land unequalled,
landscape of tranquillity . . .
I never thought
no, never thought
thunderbolts of grief
would tear through the beauty . . .
babies wandering
curfews breaking
undertakers smiling
sweetly
sickly
It is the profits they
never saw coming?
those lucky,
rode the storm
in black delivery boxes
the less fortunate
were eaten up
by abysmal holes in the ground
thrashing lifelessly
skin to skin
one arch enemy on another
bloody watering hole
thrashing each other
still-life war
fingers forever clutching,
lips still coloured with
fresh curses
the storm has torn
across the plateau
if these
could not embrace
in life
they do so, certainly,
in death.
Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!
Nanzing Tahiru Dangbut
“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!”

Was someone calling my attention?
No! Oh Lord, I wish I had not looked back.
“Run, run for your life,” I heard.
Too late. The rider and his passenger, both in
kaftan were stopped. What next?
“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!” I heard again.
Four young men with clubs and matchets
appeared.
“What are you waiting for?” asked one.
A terrible look came into their eyes.
Then one hit the head of the rider with a club. He
went down. The others attacked with matchets. He
was dead.
Before the terrified passenger could decide to run
away, it was too late. A matchet cut his neck. He went
down, pleading all the while with his murderers. Clubs
battered his head until he, too, was dead.
“Matches! Matches!”
The fuel of their motorcycle was the energy used
for lighting their motorcycle, their motorcycle was the
firewood for roasting their bodies.
“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!” I heard again.
I wanted to run, but my knees were weak, and my
legs shook with fear and disbelief. Was this real or a
nightmare? Before I came back from my thoughts, a
third body was roasting in the glowing fire. This must
be a nightmare. Such a human barbecue could not be
real.
A tap on my shoulder.
“We are finishing them at this end,” said my
“brother”.
But what justified all this carnage?
“They are butchering our people, so we must

revenge,” continued my “brother”.
Before I could reply I heard yet again, “Hey! Hey!!
Hey!!!”
Another kaftaned man was roasting in the ever-
glowing fire.
“Why are you shaking? You are in safe hands; this
is our territory,” my “brother” assured me.
What was our territory? What were safe hands? I
resolved to run away from this scene, then I heard:
Oh! Another mistake to have looked back. Two
more kaftaned men were roasting.
I finally ran to secure my family, who were in the
“enemy’s” territory.
“Thank God you’re home safely. We’ve been
disturbed about your safety,” said a voice.
“Oh! Is it you, neighbour? Where is my family?”
“They are in safe arms. They have taken refuge in
the Police Barracks.”
I stood still. Who next? Would there be another
killing in the “safe arms” of the Police Barracks? Could
it be my family? In disbelief, I ran to find out.
“Baba, Baba, Baba, Baba,” re-echoed in the room
where my family had taken refuge.
My family was safe.
But what was happening in the barracks? Where
had that earlier shouting come from? I went to find
out.
“He must die.”
“He must go to hell, even if he does not burn.”
I saw the person in question, whose eternal destiny
was to be determined by my “brothers.”
“I beg you, please, do not kill me,” cried the man
in the kaftan. But his assailants blocked their ears.
Hey! Hey!! Hey!!! 59
Their knowledge of the sanctity of life, their brotherly

kindness and love were devoured and seared by the
beastly desire for revenge and blood-letting.
They murdered him. And once more a fire glowed
with the fat of a kaftaned man.
The police stood and watched.
Oh Lord, when will this ever end? I lamented.
I rejoined my family. Would I not need to protect
them amid such protection as I saw in these barracks?
I finally slept. I thought it was over. But . . .
On the morning of Saturday, 8th September, the

situation got worse.
Voices chorused within the police barracks.
“Come out! Come out!! Carry your weapons, they
are here!”
Confusion.
Women carried crying children and what they
valued most from their homes. They rushed into the
barracks for safety. Men carried matchets, cutlasses,
broken bottles, clubs and sticks. They took positions
against the possible entry of “them”. For some
minutes there was calm. Then—
“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!” shouted the youths at the
barracks’ entrance. Others rushed to the scene. A
young man, tall and handsome, with tribal marks, clad
in a kaftan, stood in the middle of the mob.
“What are you waiting for?”
Bam! A club struck him on the head. Then another.
Then a matchet. Under the repeated blows, he went
down. More blows with sticks, clubs, matchets, broken
bottles. I thought he was dead. Oh! Another soul
brutally dispatched to eternity.
If only I had known you were coming this way, I
could have told you to run. Run to anywhere, but not
here. Now it is too late, I thought.
To my surprise, the young man sat up.
“Hey! Hey!! Hey!!! He doesn’t want to die.”

I could not hear him, but I saw his hands gesturing,
pleading. Fruitlessly. At the peak of his pleading, a
very sharp matchet rose up in the hands of a fierce-
looking fellow behind him. The young man raised his
head, begging, and the man at his back saw the
opportunity he was waiting for. He swung his weapon
and severed the head from its body. Blood spurted.
The young man fell, silent and motionless forever.
Oh Lord! When will this meanness and
heartlessness stop? How can human life be snuffed
out like a candle?
Hey! Hey!! Hey!!! 61
Someone tied a rope to his ankles. They dragged

his remains to the place where he would be
incinerated, even if cremation was not part of his will.
“Back to your duty posts, “ came the
command. “We must protect and defend our
territory.”
The males and some “warrior” women marched
with buckets of bottle bombs, slings, catapults,
matchets, clubs, and whatever else might make a
weapon, up to the main paved road. From the other
side of the road came a shout,
“Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar.”
“If you don’t fight us, we will not fight you,”
declared their “commander.”
A rather late declaration. Someone fired a rifle into
the air. Confusion. Then one of “our” houses was on
fire. Then another gunshot into the air—and some
shots fired at people.
“In Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ name,”
shouted the mob not in kaftans, “we must also burn
their houses.”
Jerry-cans full of petroleum were brought out and
poured on the houses of the men in kaftan. At the
same time, the men themselves were set ablaze. The
air darkened with smoke. Not a bird, not even a
vulture, flew into that black air.
Everyone rushed to the scene. An old man stood in
the middle of the mob.
Will he taste the clubs and matchets, too? For the
sake of his age, he should be allowed to go.
I turned my head, and when I looked back, I could
not see the old man. The mob had dispersed, but on
the ground a bundle was burning. On closer
examination, I saw that the bundle was the old man,
writhing in pain in the heat of the petrol fire. After
beating him with clubs and cutting him with cutlasses
and matchets, the crowd had poured petrol over him
and left him to be incinerated.
For eight hours, he endured the pain. For eight

hours, he lay there, moaning and shivering. I passed
him and thought, “I should carry him to my house, I
should try to get him to the hospital. Ah, but what
would my wife say? What will these neighbours think?
I should bring him a blanket, at least.” But then I
thought, “No, he’ll be dead soon.” Each time I passed
by, I thought of the blanket, and each time, I decided
against it. For eight hours, he resisted death—until the
chill of a heavy rain relieved him. I felt relieved. Then
came guilt.
“They are coming at the back entrance. Go back
and defend.”
The usual shouts. The usual clanging of metal
weapons. Of course, the usual, “Hey! Hey!! Hey!!!”
Who is it this time, I wondered.
Young men dragged old, used tyres. More smoke
choked the atmosphere. But the darkness could not
deafen me to the pleading voice of the man burning to
death. No one attended to his pleas. They considered
him already dead—though he suffered for six hours
until, it seems, God in His infinite mercy sent rain to
wash away the blood and ashes, to relieve the
lingering ghosts of those who still clung to life.
“Why are you arm-less?” demanded a fellow with a
sword, bow and arrows.
“My weapons are invisible,” I replied.
“What do you mean? You are not a man. You are
supporting them!”
“The weapons you carry will not protect you; they
are just objects fashioned by a blacksmith. In terms of
effectiveness they are limited in power and distance
and by your personal ability to handle them. My
weapons are operated and directed by God, who
created everything, who is infinite in power and
protection.”
“You are a madman!” He left me alone with the
corpses.
63
Strange Friday
Ikemefuna S. Onwude
The sun came harshly

A strange wind blowing
At the university, too many cars, too few people
Everything was still—a strange Friday
The Muslims in single file moved in one direction
A strange Friday . . .
Outside the university gate, tensed air

People everywhere, hands in pockets, terrified
Why? “They are snatching . . .” they said. What?
“We don’t know.”
Taxis keep reversing. Roads are all blocked. My
heart sinks.
Helter-skelter, people run seeking protection
Children run into their mothers arms
A strange Friday.
Some people move with matchets, others clubs

Petrol bombs fly through the air
Dane guns boom, flames hit the sky,
Buildings totter, collapse.
Bodies cut open, hospital gates securely locked
up.
Women wail and children moan
Smells of human bodies roasted in houses and
streets of our fatherland
Once peaceful streets, chaotic streets
Streams choke with innocent blood
Terribly strange Friday.
Mountains reveal the peaceful city of Jos

My birthplace slowly burning down
I hear chants ALLAH-KU-AKBAR! -- HALLELUJAH!--
GREAT-JOSITES
What a strange Friday.
A nation without security, a people without God

A terrifying day, a day of “They are coming!” “Suna
zuwa!”
Sleepless night, restless day. Uncertainties.
Suddenly, camouflage appears on the streets
AK-47 rifles assault the air—friends not enemy, say
voices
Real friends? Normalcy in the city, media houses
assure us
Some people are led to six feet below
Rain comes giving hope for lost peace
Strange Friday leads to mournful Saturday.
Surely no safe place in this world

Where will you run to, brothers?
North or south, no safe place
Where will you run to, sisters?
East or west, no hiding place
Where will you run to?
Run to the soldiers, they shoot you
Run to America, terrorists await you
Run to God, yes. Only Jesus will hide you
Ogun Bares His Arms
Mmaasa Masai
“Shraaappp!” says Thunder, and, not to be

separated from her partner in crime, Lightning follows.
Then they are at my throat. The lightening and
thunder become a machete, terribly hungry. Not yet
surfeited.
Ogun has been starved for far too long. The
economy. Bad. Terribly bad. No bread. Not even
crumbs. No more food for the gods. Gods ourselves,
we no longer break eggs at the crossing where four
roads meet. No fat yam tubers and “obije” meat, no
palm wine, nor kola. Nothing. We feed ourselves. We
too, gods all, hunger terribly and deserve to be fed.
Even the dogs go mad from lack of crumbs. These
are the crumbless days of prophecy. Anguish in the
land. Everyone, like the dogs, goes mad. Penury, the
abject kind, permeates the land. It wreaks havoc on
the aged and curses them, afflicting them with plague,
loneliness and hunger. What use is a sage if he tells
the truth and starves to death? So he lies for gain.
Poverty plagues the youths. School lasts forever.
Dreams flee. Friends vanish. Promises, values, hopes
and trusts totter; first one kneels and then another . . .
then all become tinder to the glory and victory of the
big red tongue of the scorching sun. Those who
graduate resort to self help—“self employed” since no
one employs them. What? Man deserves the right to
eat!
Is it surprising then that the society should turn
inside out? An adventurous urchin combing the streets
with a sack and stick, prodding his short life in the
refuse dumps, vigorously taking on another day,
makes a broken football into a cap. Crown of Nigeria!
Call him
Almajiri! Alaye! Area boy! Agboro! Bakasi boy! OPC—

the miscreant star.
Ask of the little children, the innocent ones who
will see God. These are the ones whose plight pains
me most. They’re being made to see what they never
should see. No! Not as children. They should never
see, never hear the evils of the land.
And so the people evolved a system called
Democracy, meant to be good. The opposite of
Dictatorship, the evil. Gowon, Obasanjo, Buhari,
Babangida, Abacha, Abdulsalami—they oiled its
machinery in Nigeria. Once. They were the NEPA that
looms around, throwing the days into nights, drawing
sighs and groans. And curses. Old men lament, “This
is not how we planned it. This is not what we agreed
upon. Not what we planned for our children.” They
have served the country since independence. They
fought the wars of Burma, Biafra, Congo, Liberia. They
fought to keep the world safe, to keep Nigeria
together.
But the new system called Democracy has yet to
change the old ways. Bread and soup are yet to
appear on the streets. The dogs still live crumbless
days, still mad. And we Humans, we turn our backs on
the gods to feed ourselves. Vowing vengeance, the
gods too have gone crazy. Unleashing madness in the
land.
“Shrappp!” Machete scrapes the floor. Thunder.
Lightening. Democracy. Dictatorship. The angry
gods . . .
The machete. My neck!
“Shrappppp!” The sound of the machete
echoes in my brain, mummifying all the nerves.
“Answer the question, we say!”
KPAP! A slap. My face.
“What is the Lord's Prayer?”
They’re asking me a question.
“Answer!!!” Voiced insanity.
Is this then my death-day? Is this the end?
Ogun Bares His Arms 67
“In the name of the Father . . .” I begin very

weakly, very afraid. “And . . . the son. And the
holy . . . ghost. A-And the mother and children.
And . . .”
“What ! This guy thinks we’re joking here.”
The bearded one, leader of the mob, barks, “Kill
him!”
And the mother prayed,

child may you never walk when the road
waits, famished.
It’s Ogun. The god of Iron!

September Seven and Twelve

Za Pitman
Seven:
You announced your coming in mysterious ways,
Written in bold letters on the walls,
As cock-crow heralds the dawn,
As trees shed their leaves and whine wildly,
When harmattan approaches,
But we, short-sighted, saw nothing.
No apocalyptic warnings,
Forebodings carried by the evil child, abiku.
You dawned an ordinary day.

The sun woke grumblingly at his usual hour
To commence his daily jogging across the sky.
The clear sky promised a rain-free day.
And Jos opened her shops, her offices, her schools,
Her markets with carefree abandon.
Then suddenly, September Seven,

You sprang your surprise:
Innocuous green snake under green grass
Sinking its venom into the unwary walker.
Goddess Peace took her leave, unleashing
War, her enemy-sister, with
Hounds of horror, pandemonium,
Mere anarchy let loose upon the world.
Ka! Ka! Ka! Bo-o! Bo-o! Bo-a! Bo-a! Bo-a!

A symphony of gunfire.
Brothers lifted hands with matchets and relish
Against brothers. Long-time neighbours,
In fevered madness, revelled in each other’s blood,
Deranged beasts, cannibals,
In the unholy name of religion:
“Jesus Christ!” “Allahu ak-bar!”
September Seven and Twelve 69
Twelve:
God wept bitterly for the disaster
Wrought in our Adam-and-Eve world,
And the skies wept along with Him,
Releasing dams of tears
De-coagulating the caked blood
Of dead Muslims and dead Christians,
Mixing them patiently like oil-painting, till
They flowed in perfect union down to the larger river.
September seven, we name you Armageddon.

But as we remember you with aching hearts,
May we also remember
The futility of killing one another
In the unholy name of religion:
“Jesus Christ!” “Allahu ak-bar!”
They Are Coming

As I sat in my house
They are coming
After the day’s work
They are coming
Panjak came to my house
They are coming
“Oga, u still dey here? ”
They are coming
“Dem go kill everybodi.”
They are coming
“Dem go burn every house.”
They are coming
“Dem go come your house.”
They are coming
“Dem go come kill u.”
They are coming
“So make u run for your life!”
They are coming
“Panjak!” I called.
“Who are coming to my house?”
He said I should run.
“Make u no as’ question.”
They are coming
Dem go come your house

Dem go cut your head
Dem go cut your hand
Dem go cut your leg
They are coming.
They Are Coming 71
Suna zuwa—Kpo!
Kpo-o! Kpo-o-o!—ruun!
Rruun! Rruuuun!
They are coming

Dem go kill your wife
Dem go kill your boy
An’ kill your girl
They are coming

Dem go kill your goat
Dem go kill your dog
An’ kill your chicken
They are coming
Suna zuwa—Kpo!
Rruun! Rruuuun!
They are coming
Then I told Panjak

“Ah don hear your voice
“Make u go go your house
“Dem no go come
“God go protek my house
“An' e go protek your house
“Dem no go come.”
And he said to me
“E bi like dem go come
“An’ Ah go pray God
“Make am gif me powa
“An’ Ah go fight for am.”
They are coming
If dem come my house

Ah go kill dem firs’
Ah go go dem house
Ah go kill dem wife
An’ kill dem pikin
They are coming
Suna zuwa—Kpo!
Rruun! Rruuuun!
They are coming
If dem come my house

God, Ah go kill dem firs’
Allah, Ah go go dem house
Ah go kill dem goat
Ah go kill dem dog
Ah go burn dem moto
An’ burn dem house
They are coming
Suna zuwa—Kpo!
Rruun! Rruuuun!
They are coming
And I told Panjak,

“No man go fight for God
“God go fight for Imself
“God go fight for us.
“An’ if u see dem come

“Man, make u run for your life
“Run wit your wife
“An’ wit all your pikin
They Are Coming
73
“If u fit run wit your goat

make u run wit dem
“If u fit run wit your dog
make u run wit dem
“If u fit run wit your chicken
make u run wit dem
“Dem no go come.”
Suna zuwa—Kpo!
Rruun! Rruuuun!
They are coming
And I told my friend,

“If dem burn your house,
“Make u no burn dem own
“If dem cut your hand,
“Make u no cut dem own
“If dem cut your foot,
“Make u no cut dem own
“An’ if dem kill your wife,
“Make u no kill dem own
“Dey no go come.”
Na God go pay
Na God go kill
U no bi God
Na Im go pay
Dey no go come, dey no go come

Dey no go come
No coming— no— coming —no coming
no — coming
They . . . are . . . co . . . ming

75
Carnage on the Plateau

Maryam Ali Ali
The Devil walked up and down,

Thinking deeply, reflecting
On where best to land.
He studied his list of possible places
And decided at last, in his pestiferous way,
On the people living on the Plateau.
He looked askance, with his fallen angels,

At the cheerful faces of the people
Walking and working in peace.
He selected who and whom to anoint,
Anoint with his bloodied fingers
Among the people living on the Plateau.
He orchestrated chaos and perpetrated it.

At the crescendo, men, women, and children,
Ran up and down, fled right and left,
In frenzy, and “peace” became
A strange word to the ears and minds
Of the people living on the Plateau.
People scrambled. They hid

As inmates, their houses turned to prisons.
Some crouched in bushes, in ditches,
Necks outstretched, eyes horror-filled,
Ears straining for the cry, “They are coming!”
Coming for the people living on the Plateau.
When quiet returned, six days from

That fateful Friday that had no weekend,
That seventh of September, that sunny day,
“Perfect,” said he in his scurrilous way. “Well, almost
perfect.”
He smiled at the anguished faces and counted the
heaps
Of bones of the people living on the Plateau.
The Devil enjoyed his adventure,

His carnival of carnage, then turned his back,
With his fallen angels, and retired to the hills,
The dormant volcanoes, quite pleased with himself,
Having wrapped up anguish, death and despair:
His gift to the people living on the Plateau.
Men wandered, and women, picking pieces

Of their once happy, homely heritage.
Without smiles now greeting their neighbours,
Those who lived to return salutations,
With “Happy survival” instead of “Good morning”,
These good people living on the Plateau.
It was indeed a sad September

And October and November and probably
December. For who will bring back
The lost amethyst called Peace
That was snatched away so suddenly
From the people living on the Plateau?
77
Raped Innocence
Augustine Oritsewyinmi Oghanrandukun (Ifa)
Upon the altar of ignorance,

Gentle dove, sweet peace is sacrificed.
Untamed and heedless, a butcher’s blade
Slashes the Plateau’s innocent throat.
Why, oh Jos, should hoodlum’s steel members

Rape your virgin purity, leave you
Bleeding and defiled, no more able
To dance to gentle drumming rhythms?
Now streets slip slyly into nightfall,

Dead quiet but for the khakied patrols.
Even stupoured brains know to stumble
Home before guns invite them to jump.
Foreign foes slapped the face of friendship,

Poured bellicose bowls of bitterness
Into the middle of our nation.
Has not this tap of blood flowed enough?
Laughing in Sadness
(A Kind of Travelogue)*
Dul Johnson
It was September 7th, 2001, a beautiful Friday.

Fridays were usually my most busy days at school, my
lectures would begin at 10 a.m. and end between 3
p.m. and 5 p.m. But this was not to be on the 7th. I was
billed to have a meeting in Abuja the next morning. A
friend travelling there wanted to leave between 12
and 1 p.m. Quickly, I gave my class an assignment
and left, and by 4 p.m. I was in Abuja.
The journey from Jos was uneventful, yet tiring.
Destination: Royalton Hotel. At the reception I warned,
though jokingly, “Don’t give me any room with a nine
in it.” The receptionist looked at me curiously. I quickly
allayed his fears or suspicion. “I’m not a superstitious
man. I just don’t like the figure 9. But I love 7, maybe
because it’s ‘God’s number’.” He gave me room 407. I
was happy.
Settled in, I had a quick shower and dashed out to
a friend’s house to call Jos and tell my office and my
wife I had arrived Abuja safely. I got the office and it
was Chinelo on the other end of the line. “Doctor! Ha, I
am the only one in the office. In fact I was just closing
when the phone rang, and this is the fourth or fifth
time I am closing and reopening.” Her voice sounded
urgent and agitated. “What’s the matter?” I asked. I
got the sad news. Jos was on fire. Religious crisis, they
said. I wasn’t surprised. I told her to calm down, but to
close the office and go home. I assured her there
would be no problem, but I was only trying to steady
her nerves. She dropped the phone and I called my
wife immediately. More agitation and even a concern
about the whereabouts of our first son.
Religious crisis! What the hell. The threat had been
Laughing in Sadness 79
in the air, almost suffocating. I’m sure that those with

a strong sense of smell would even have smelt it. But I
hoped under my breath that it would end there and on
that Friday evening—that special God’s day—I passed
the night well, consoled by the belief that it was
nothing serious.
Saturday morning, the 8th, BBC had bad news for
me. I didn’t hear it myself. A friend and fellow indigene
of Plateau state, and a Muslim told me, sadly, that our
state was still boiling. Both of us mourned inwardly for
our state. But we moved to the meeting venue, each
of us hoping that things were not as bad as the news
made out. The meeting, chaired by the erudite
Professor Wole Soyinka, lasted all day. It was a
meeting of great minds amongst whom one felt quite
privileged to participate. Overwhelmed, I couldn’t find
time to call Jos the whole day. Not until 7 p.m. True, 7
is a favourite number of mine, but it wasn’t any choice
of mine to call at this time. That was when I got out of
the meeting hall and that was when I could get a
phone.
I called the houses of three different friends. In
each case the phone rang several times without
anyone picking up the other end. I got the fourth
person on the line.
“S.B., what the hell is happening in Jos?” I asked.
“Ah, Docky. Doc,” S.B. replied. “How are you? . . .
What is happening in Jos is very serious-o. The
situation has got out of hand and soldiers have now
taken over. There’s a curfew from 4 p.m. to 7 a.m.”
That sounded abnormal to me. I have experienced
curfew in different places in Nigeria. But I’d never
heard of anything like this: 4 p.m. to 7 a.m.! It must be
serious then.
“Well, I intend to return tomorrow,” I said.
“It is not safe,” S.B. answered, very quickly. “I
think you should hold on there for a while.”
“But I can’t . . . My family is in Jos . . . Have you
gone to see them?”

“No, not yet. But I think they are safe.”
My voice was now cracking, and I’m sure that he
must have sensed it at the other end. “I think I have to
come back, S.B. I couldn’t enjoy this kind of safety.”
“Call me in the morning tomorrow before you take
off.”
I agreed.
At my friend Dr. Iyimoga’s house, I sat down to a
drink. It tasted stale in my mouth. I stayed there for
two hours as phone calls upon phone calls interrupted
our discussion of the situation in Jos and its
implications for Nigeria as a whole. Houses of friends
and relatives were going up in flames. We screamed,
winced, sighed and hissed.
Back in the safety of my hotel room, I felt quite
unsafe. I knocked on Dorcas Bentu’s door. She was
still awake. She’d been in touch with home too, and
she’d heard nothing cheering. I quickly said good
night, not allowing her to open her door. I crashed into
my bed, turned on the air condition full blast and
covered myself, but no sleep came. It was after 3 a.m.
before I snatched a jerky and nightmarish sleep.
The morning of September 9th was just a normal
day for everyone in the hotel except for the three of us
from Plateau State. This was the checking out day and
my friend Salihu Bappa, who works in Zaria, my
brother really (for that’s how we call ourselves even
though he is a Muslim), had already checked out early
and left. Dorcas and I spoke on the intercom shortly
before we moved to the restaurant for breakfast. We
greeted, and nursed our fears delicately.
At breakfast, Dorcas told me she had spoken with
Jos a couple of minutes before, and that there was still
no good news. But she had been instructed as to how
we could get into the city. Mrs Sonubi, a permanent
secretary from Lagos was at the table. She was full of
concern for us.

The telephone extension in the restaurant rang,
and a steward called Dorcas to the phone. It was her
sister on the line from Jos. She painted a gory picture
of the situation but also gave further directions as to
how we could get in.
I was eating, and so was Mrs Sonubi. Dorcas wasn’t
eating anything. Her appetite had completely deserted
her. We were all talking—grumbling really— about the
endless instances of so-called religious crises when
the extension rang again.
The phone rang for a while. There was no steward
around to take it, and since Dorcas wasn’t eating, she
volunteered her service. It turned out to be her sister
again on the line. The message: Do not return to Jos.
Things were really getting out of hand, and they were
looking for a military escort to get out and run to
Abuja. My eyes dilated. Mrs Sonubi probably saw it.
“Get in touch with your family. Use my phone,” she
said, handing me her cellular set. Of course, since I
didn’t own one, I couldn’t use it. I confessed my
ignorance.
“Give me your number,” she said.
“There’s no phone in my house.”
“Are there no neighbours with phones that you can
reach and ask about your family?” she insisted.
“There are, but I don’t have their numbers. But I
would like to talk to my friend.” I gave her S.B.’s
number which she dialled promptly.
S.B. came on the line after a long wait as he had
gone outside to watch what was going on at a
distance. He repeated his warning, but added that if I
insisted, I should be in Jos before 4 p.m. I thanked Mrs
Sonubi a million times. I played down the warning and
emphasised the aspect of getting into Jos before 4
p.m. I had to convince Dorcas that we should leave for
Jos. Reluctantly she agreed, insisting that we look out
for any car from their house that might be bringing her
sisters to Abuja.
To tell the truth, I never imagined the degree of

carnage or bestiality that greeted me as we got to the
outskirts to Jos. First, I saw a fresh corpse lying a little
distance away from a burnt bus. Though people
moved around, no one seemed to give a hoot about
the corpse. My stomach literally rose to my mouth. We
drove another two or three minutes and then bumped
into a stream of vehicles. The road had just been
opened for vehicles leaving or entering in to Bukuru.
As we drove through the Bukuru by-pass I found
myself muttering, “This is war . . . this is war . . . this is
. . .” I had counted up to six corpses, the victims
having been burnt, either alive or after they had been
killed. Both my system and my sight became
rebellious. I saw people in hundreds, probably
thousands lining the highway, their faces painted red
or black, all carrying clubs, cudgels and Dane guns. A
few soldiers stood by, helpless, watching the angry
people. Somewhere in the background, houses still
burned in flame or smouldering cinders.
We were now driving through the valley of the
shadow of death, as it were, and we were afraid. Not
of any intangible evil, but of people—people that two
days before had been friends, neighbours, brothers
and sisters. There were five of us in the car. But a
dead silence had overtaken us and all one could hear
was the low hissing of the engine of the Honda Accord
that was now our saviour and cell at once.
Suddenly I heard Dorcas mumbling a prayer:
“Father, take control of this situation. Father, take
control . . . Father , take control . . . May this be the
end . . .” She went on like this for a while. Then silence
again. We branched off onto the safer route as we had
been instructed. But we soon ran into a roadblock.
Men and women waved cutlasses and cudgels. Some
carried arrows and bows that looked quite impotent,
others carried spears. It was frightening and funny at
the same time.
But this was friendly territory. They were “our own

People”, the brave ones now out on the road to make
sure that no enemy entered. I soon spotted a family
friend in the crowd and relief coursed down my spine
like cold water in the dry throat of a thirsty man. He
told me my family were safe. He had gone to my
house (about 3 kilometres away) that morning and
they were all doing just fine. I felt joy literally walking
across my face. I felt very grateful to him. Then he
said that his own wife who had left for school since
Friday had managed to get home just an hour before.
A bit of sorrow intermixed with my joy now. But I just
said “Praise God” continuously until we pulled out of
the friendly crowd: “our own people.”
Two more times we were stopped, searched and
questioned, all within our own territory. The militants
were belligerent until they discovered our identities.
We finally got to Dorcas’ place. I had to foot my way
home, a distance of about two kilometres. My house
was excitement itself. But then I had also just lost my
freedom, for getting home also meant that for the
next one week I was to remain at home as the city
remained a battleground. What has governed my life
since then, I believe, my life and many others, is fear
and insecurity.
SCENE TWO
Snapshots
Friday the 21st of September. I got a phone call from
Kano, from a friend called Abdullakarim, a professional
colleague. U.S.A. Galadima, a friend and professional
colleague (who lives in Jos), and I were expected to be
at Liyafa Hotel, Katsina, on Monday, 24th, at 9.00 a.m.
Impossible, I said, considering the distance. He
conceded, and said we should arrive Sunday evening.
Hotel reservation, blah blah blah.
As soon as he dropped the phone, my seventh

sense went to work. Where did he say I should go to?
Katsina of all places? Could I afford to take that kind of
risk? Well, except if I was going in a private car. Let
me talk with Galadima first. I was sure his thoughts
wouldn’t be very different from mine. I got to
Galadima the next day.
“I cannot go to Katsina in a commercial vehicle,”
Galadima shouted. “I should be able to run away from
there if anything should happen. It is just not safe at
this period.”
That was my mind. How safe was Katsina,
especially in the light of what had just happened in
Jos? My mind swept across Jos again for the
umpteenth time. The sounds and pictures of the
destruction of the war. Most vivid were the events of
Wednesday 12th. The sound of machine guns and
tanks that ruled the air from about eight in the
morning till about seven in the evening before giving
way to sporadic shots. My mind flipped through the
pictures of destruction it had recorded as I went round
with S.B. to see what the wicked heart of man could
do; what the devil could use the heart of the human
being to do. As the pictures rolled past, I shivered,
shrank, jerked or winced, depending on the effect any
particular shot had on me.
We agreed to put Galadima’s ailing car on the
road. We would spend Sunday night in Kano and move
to Katsina early the next morning. Sunday morning, at
about ten o’clock, he picked me up at the church
premises, after the worship service. He was a Muslim
come into the church premises. I had wanted to spare
him the agony of thinking that he might be lynched in
the premises, and so I had asked him to wait for me at
the round-about, a little distance down the road. But
he had braved it. In fact, he didn’t feel any sense of
insecurity and this made me happy.
Thirty minutes into our journey the car developed
a
problem. We thought it was the timing chain. Trouble.

Going back to Jos was out of the question. But, to go to
Kano by commercial transport! My heartbeat
increased. We had just passed Jengre, and so
Galadima suggested we turn around for a mechanic.
As soon as we started driving back he remembered
aloud that it being Sunday, we might not find a
mechanic. More fear. Then I remembered, aloud too,
that most of the people in Jengre were Seventh Day
Adventists.
We found a mechanic’s shed, but he was at
church! More trouble. More fear. Someone assured us
he would come to work after church. Under my breath
I thanked God for Christians like him. Anxiously, we
waited and hoped. Another twenty minutes or so and
the man arrived. “Bearing”, he announced. The engine
was partially knocked. More trouble. More fear. More
anxiety.
The day was fast waning. We had no option now
than to go to Kano by taxi or bus. We moved to the
road and waited eagerly. A new-looking Hi-Ace bus
pulled up. “Kano, Kano, Kano,” the bus boy shouted.
We saw only three other passengers in the back plus
the conductor. In front there were two passengers plus
the driver. We hopped in and moved right to the back
of the bus. I quickly scanned the other persons in the
car: all Hausa Muslims. My heart sank.
“Lord I am in your hands”, I prayed silently. I was
the only non-Muslim in this bus. Of course, the
Muslims didn’t quarrel with just any non-Muslim. Their
targets were the Christians, and I was one! Now, if
they started anything, would Galadima defend me, or
would he begin to reel away verses from the Qur’an?
Would he be able to say, yes, I am a Muslim but this
man is my brother and to kill him, you must kill me
first? Or would he say, kill me instead and let him go? I
knew that Galadima had that kind of heart. But would
the people listen to him? Would they spare him?
I darted looks at my fellow passengers, and finally

at Galadima. All the others had bright faces and were
chatting away easily. I noticed the tension in
Galadima’s face and remembered that we had both
nursed the same fear. He looked even more afraid
than I felt. My dress (I had a jacket on) could betray
me easily but there was something (a little) in his that
might indicate his Muslim identity. And if that didn’t
work (and of course the dress really didn’t matter), the
real thing, the knowledge of the Qur’an would. Why
was he so afraid?
Realisation came to me slowly, as to someone
waking up from a deep sleep. The problem in Jos was
not only between Muslim and Christians. Maybe it
wore that colour at the beginning. But it soon took on
different colours, and Yoruba and Idoma Muslims all
faced the wrath of the—should I say—purer Muslims?
Was this really even a Muslim versus Christian fight?
How many Muslims were part of this? And then I didn’t
hear that anybody was converted to Islam. In fact,
nobody was even asked to become a Muslim. How
then was this a Jihad? And what was the result of this
Jihad? The devil had been turned loose and he was
working through Muslims, Christians, non-Muslims and
non-Christians. Scenes and pictures began to come
back.
I remembered my friend trapped with his elder
brother, and the brother’s son in his Beetle car in
Bukuru, about to be set on fire. Their escape was a
miracle, though the son ended up in the hospital with
almost a pound of his flesh hanging down from the
cheek which had to be stitched. The car was burnt to
ashes. I remembered another friend, a Muslim from
Kogi, who had suffered at the hands of Christians. But
for the protection of a pastor who lied to save him, he
would have been killed. He had found it impossible to
sleep in his house for weeks. What about the pregnant
woman who was slit open and the baby taken out and
both burnt? What about the six- or seven-year-old

Muslim boy who was beaten, cut with razor blade and
finally slaughtered under the suspicion that he may
have been a spy, because he was carrying a knife?
How about that man who wept and pleaded, giving up
over four million naira in cash that was in his boot,
begging for mercy, and yet was cut to pieces and
burnt, car, money and all? What about that poor man
who had escaped from the fight scene and almost
reached the refugee camp when he was caught and a
six-inch nail driven into his head? Then he was allowed
to slouch into the camp, no one caring whether he’d
survive or not. What about my friend and office
associate, and brother (since we are from the same
place and of the same church), who was shot in the
head and fell to the ground unconscious, never to get
up again, the news of whose death I got as one of the
rudest shocks of modern times? What about . . . and
what about . . . ?
We moved into Kano State territory from the Jos
end; as we entered the Falgore forest, we began to
see police and military roadblocks. My blood pressure
must have shot up tenfold. Galadima was nervous too.
The entire team of soldiers and police at the roadblock
were Muslims. Lord! I am in for it, I thought. One of
them approached the bus, shouting the nickname of
the driver. Something like “Lagos boy.”
“Ah, Alhaji, barka dai,” he returned the greeting.
Something changed hands, I noticed in a quick flash,
and we were off. Poor Obasanjo, I thought. Another
one kilometre and there was another roadblock. All
Muslims. The same ritual and we were off. This driver
must be very popular with these people on this road.
He could just turn us in to any set of the soldiers. Lord,
Galadima may be able to save himself, but what about
me?
The road blocks were innumerable and I began to

relax. The driver seemed to know his way and his
people pretty well. He knew where and how to drop
something and where not to. At one police checkpoint
he didn’t give a hoot. While one policeman moved
round the car, looking menacingly at the occupants,
he just sat there, calm as the deep blue sea. The
officer demanded the particulars. The driver took his
time, but gave him everything he wanted. He too took
his time to peruse the papers. Minutes ticked away.
My adrenaline level shot up. He handed the papers
back to the driver and walked away. The driver took
his time to put the papers away.
The bus eased off and a co-passenger asked why
the policeman wanted to be stubborn. The driver’s
response put me totally at ease: “Don’t mind him. How
many people are in this bus? And he saw you all. Is it
those people at the back? Anybody would admit they
are responsible gentlemen. Is it you people? Even for
your age, he shouldn’t think that you could be
irresponsible. So, what’s his problem? I gave him the
papers didn’t I? Why should I give him any money?”
I was surprised. But he gave money to many
before? Anyway, my fears were now nearly completely
gone. So, after all we were not being regarded as
animals to be slaughtered at anybody’s whim. So it
was true that we were in the midst of other human
beings. The rest of the journey to Kano was less
tensed. Once in Kano I felt a little more relaxed
because I was in the midst of real friends. I even
cracked a few jokes about Shari’a and how I thought
they would be coping.
In my hotel room that night I slept with one eye
closed and the other open. My fears had not been
completely allayed, especially when I realised that the
room next to mine was occupied by Muslims—four of
them! Butas and mats lay all around their door. And
they made a lot of noise too. they surprised me the
next day though. Their leader, a huge and burly man
whose forehead clearly indicated that he prayed five
times (and
probably more) daily stopped by as Galadima and I

hung around in the corridor. He greeted us very
warmly and offered his hand from which his chasbi
dangled. I was scared (especially because of the
chasbi) but I had to oblige him. Galadima thought that
he knew the man from somewhere, and they spoke for
a while.
One hour later we were on our way to Katsina. This
time I could even forget myself. It was my first time in
Katsina. Actually that was part of the attraction for
me. But the town looked ordinary and the people just
normal human beings. For the next four days, caged in
Katsina Motel, we watched films from morning till the
next morning. My eyes saw a lot of things around any
time I came out for fresh air. I wondered aloud if there
were no Shari’a in Katsina and someone said there
was before he remembered to ask me why I said so. I
pointed to the non-Shari’a-compliant actions around
and we both laughed.
The morning I left Katsina (for I had to leave before
my colleagues), my fear and anxiety returned.
Someone had told me that I could get a taxi from
Katsina to Jos straight, which should have been a relief
but was not. How could I tell anybody in the motor
park that I was going to Jos? That was like advertising
myself. That would endanger my life I thought. I had a
Hausa-looking dress on (my pyjamas really), but that
couldn’t conceal my identity or disguise me in any
way. But I had to go to Jos. I had no choice.
I braved it and announced that I was going to Jos.
Then I discovered that the drivers too feared coming
to Jos. There was no taxi loading for Jos, nor was there
likely to be any for the day. I had dreaded the idea of
having to enter Kano city alone and to begin to look
for a taxi to come to Jos from there. But I had dreaded
more the soldiers at the countless checkpoints
through which I would have to pass. Oh Lord, spare
me the agony, I prayed under my breath.
The Kano taxi had only two passengers and I was

afraid of not reaching Jos before the six o’clock curfew
time—if I ever made it. I told the park official that I
was in a hurry. I asked if there was another, faster
route. Zaria, he suggested. But the vehicle was still
empty. But the Kaduna vehicle needed only one
person. I jumped at the idea, feeling a lot safer on that
route.
My hopes were dashed as soon as I got to the taxi.
Everybody in the car looked shari’a-compliant except
one Ibo man. But his presence gave me some succour:
he felt so free and talked so freely, pricing a pair of
sunglasses from a Hausa hawker. I feared he might
anger the man and wished he would just pay and let
this man go away. In the end he bought nothing—and
nothing happened. Why was I so afraid?
I sat in the middle with three other passengers; the
Ibo man and two Hausas. In the back seat were three
ladies who had their heads all veiled up as if they had
just arrived from Iran. But as soon as we pulled out of
the park I heard one of them singing a chorus which
had lyrics like “With Jesus I can make it.” Surprise.
Somewhere along the way (after we had travelled an
hour or so), there was a near accident in front of us. A
voice from the back screamed: “Jesus Christ of
Nazareth!” Now I had to steal a glance behind me.
More surprise! All the veils had disappeared. From
then on, I was nearly completely relaxed. I brought out
my newspapers and magazines and began to read.
The two Hausa chaps borrowed some to read. It was
then that something brought my fears and anxiety
back. The man sitting closest to me had borrowed one
of the magazines. We were approaching Zaria then.
There was a story about Osama bin Ladin in the mag,
something about his connection with the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Centre, etc., in the U.S.
There was also a picture of the bearded daredevil in
the mag. This picture was the only attraction for this
man. The smile that
washed across his face as he beheld the picture told

me that I needed to be careful. This man could have a
knife or pistol under his gown. I might well be sitting
next to a terrorist.
I left the taxi at Zaria. But I paid dearly for my
stupidity. I could not get into Jos before six o’clock. I
became a refugee some fifteen kilometres away from
home. Many thanks to a few people who have given
themselves to be used by the devil in God’s name.
May God take this fear out of me; out of many of us
and replace it with peace and love, the real peace and
not the one of the new definition by fundamentalist
terrorists. Amen.
SCENE THREE
Reflections
1. Oh mighty God of
heaven, creator of the
universe; of the
heavens and the
earth. In your infinite
wisdom you created the
universe very vastly. Even
our earth is vast and diverse,
extremely so. On this earth, oh God, you
put a vast array of things and beings. Even the
human being, whom you created in your own
image; you gave a diversity of race, of place, of
tongue, of opinion, and even of the way he may
choose to relate with you: Indeed, of the choice
whether or not to relate with you at all.
2. Oh mighty God, creator of all things and father of all

humanity. Forgive me, oh God, but permit me to
wonder aloud, if you’re actually watching these
“your children” and seeing the things they do,
sometimes in your name. Too often, oh God, I get

completely lost as to which of these your children
are right. Is it Judaism? Is it Buddhism? Is it
Mammonism? Christianity? Hinduism? Islam?
Bahaism? Taoism? Ogunism or any of the very
numerous ones I do not even know of? God, you
need to see what they are doing. You need to hear
what they are saying. In our human language,
these your children do say to themselves that
silence means consent. Perhaps they are just
saying this to console themselves. But if there is
any sense in what they say, then Lord, could we
apply this to you? That you have not sent fire to
consume all religions and leave only one, could
you be teaching us something? Lord, perhaps you
need to speak up. Your silence is killing them who
do not understand the language of silence. And,
God, maybe you shouldn’t have let loose the devil.
You see now, he is causing a lot of havoc, and
where he is not, his name is doing just as well.
3. How should the world end? Should it be like the

scriptures predict it, as the scientists predict it, or
as religious fanatics and fundamentalists want it? If
God wanted us all in heaven at once, would he
have created the world as it is? And if anybody is
too eager to get to heaven (because the world is
full of sin) should he force anybody else to
accompany him?
4. A prayer: Lord, the other day I had a visitor. He was

tired and weak and weary. He needed a drink of
water; I gave him. He needed something to eat; I
gave him. Then he said he needed a place, maybe
just a shade to rest his weary bones and I gave
him. Lord, the next thing he did was to give me a
proverb—a statement the hedgehog had made to
the snake when he, snake, had given temporary
shelter
to the hedgehog in his hole. The ingrate had told

his host that he who felt uncomfortable should
vacate the hole! Lord, you are the one who fights
the battles of the weak: Just have a good look at
my predicament.
5. I have heard the whole world saying that the word

“peace” needs to be redefined as it does not seem
to connote the same thing to all people anymore.
Or are we to accept this rather odd dictum that
any one who needs peace should prepare for war?
* This travelogue appeared originally under the title

“Nigeria: The Bleeding Beauty.” This version is
reproduced from Dul Johnson’s anthology Why Women
Won’t Make It to Heaven (Jos: Topshots, 2002), with
very slight modifications, by kind permission of the
author.
Innocent Virgin
Aro Richard
Innocent virgin, robbed of brightness,

robed in shame,
Your immaculate white dress
has been stained
for the whole world to see.
Where is your glory, your dignity, your honour?
Oh, my innocent virgin,

my beloved home
land of peace and beauty,
haven of hospitality and brotherhood.
Humble and pure, you clothed yourself,

envy of all virgins,
pride of your groom,
prepared for your crown—
Only to be raped, brutally raped,
by hyenas
who feed and live on Osa.
They came, enemies of peace, joy and purity,

to the vigil night
where your people had gathered,
awake and awaiting
the brightness of the moon
to rejoice with you,
my innocent virgin
“At the rising of the moon”
they raped you,
left you in blood,
wounded beyond cure.
Innocent Virgin
95
Where is your white garment, your glory?

Your brightness now darkened to shame?
The whole world sees you,
uncovered,
your dress torn open
your defilement exposed.
Innocent virgin, I weep for you.
Stained.
Disgraced.
My people. My Jos.
Requiem Jos
Mmaasa Masai
Jos!
Joy bursts into flames
From my observatory
Atop the mountains.
Madness dissolves
Your tissues
Like acid on cotton.
Buildings blaze
The Heavens.
The earth quakes
Beneath our feet.
Joy is fled.
“Suna zuwa!”
“Suna zuwa!”
Echo tremulous voices
In diabolic cadence.
Requiem Jos 97
Night.
Sleep is fled,
Leaving in its wake
Gunshots! Gunshots!
Resonating insanity.
This is the music
Of the night.
Angry souls hover

In the air
Pondering this, pondering that,
This monstrous leave-taking:
The last dream, undreamt.
The last sin, unrepented.
The last piss, unpissed . . .
Oh, Jos!
Home of the morning moon,
Land of calm twilights,
Benevolent breath of baby angels,
Tell me now—
What does tomorrow bring,
Now that you harbour
Not peace,
Not tourism,
But only gruesome Death in your pouch?
Jos, I Weep . . .
O Jos peaceful city

Home of peace and sight seers
Kano boils in hot pot
You lie like still waters
Kaduna roasts like bush meat
Bauchi rages like storm
Jos the city for the homeless

Now your children have been driven away
By great tide into sea-beds
A new grave for innocent blood
Your creeks filled with headless bodies
Heaps of ashes and car carcases congest your streets
Houses with broken and burnt heads
Shops cry because their bowels are emptied by
gangsters
Jos our new war museum for national history

Centre of attraction to your visitors
Celebrating the death of your children
Like a widow they swell your house with rice and
beans
All these Santa-Clauses who feed your children
Where were they when some were slaughtered
like Sallah rams by their emissaries
All your life your children cried
Of harmattan cold besieging your house
But no one clothed them
Now your lovers treat them like helpless orphans
Eminent protectors of the poor!
Jos, I Weep . . . 99
Jos we know how they love you

When indeed they bred the vipers
That destroyed your peace—all in the name of the
Lord
The emissaries of rift
Love now that your children sleep in tents
Like lovers who come at dusk
Dancing and singing your dirge
And flee before dawn
They come and go filled with joy
But know that like a shepherdess
Only you can shield your children
From the darts of hunters
Who strike in the bush
Sneaking out looking for the striker.
Kuru Falls laments her bank polluted with blood

Shere Hills weeps for her dog and kitten
Riyom Rock cries for her dead children
Dogon Dutse bewails her dead babies
Lamingo Lake mourns for her dead infants
Their offspring slaughtered like Sallah rams
Roasted like Christmas goats
Their bowls filled with the blood of their children
They cannot be consoled
Because their children are no more.
O! Jos, beautiful city and home of peace

Jos, I weep . . .
How Do You Feel?

Reginald Cole
How do you feel mister man

How do you feel
Now that you have killed my brother
You took his cattle
And burnt down his house
You ride his Mercedes
Looted at the expense of his blood
You grit your teeth
Feigning a grin
Which pains my heart
For behold I know
This is not a smile
White teeth
Black heart
That spells wickedness
I greeted
You spat
And nursed hatredness
Thirst for blood and destruction
How do you feel
His children are now roaming
They have no abode
The wife’s eyes
Are red with tears
She weeps for her loss
And the cuts
How did you feel
When you slashed his throat
With that suya knife
Just like you would
Have sliced the suya
But this time
How Do You Feel? 101
It was not dead meat

For blood gushed out
Red red warm blood
Painting the streets
The streets of Jos
Turning crimson
With my brother’s blood
Ai!
You walked on that same street
Brandishing that bloody knife
Looking for another victim
Oh no! Again I see the sight
Utmost savagery
Barbaric degenerates
How do you feel now
How do you feel?
Coroner’s Inquest
Deborah L. Klein
Before packing into my house,

I forgot to whisper with my own people
to intimate of the neighbours:
“Are they Christian? Are they Muslim?”
When I went to buy biscuit,

I neglected to examine the kiosk,
to interrogate the shop-girl and her mistress:
“Are you Christian? Are you Muslim?”
When the uniformed man

demanded my particulars,
I did not remember to demand of him,
At the Federal University,

a Muslim man denied me staff housing,
and a “Christian” man from Plateau
denied admission to my candidate from Oyo.
In this Nigeria,
Americans, like me,
Indians, Lebanese, and Filipinos
are all Bature, Oyibo, Bekee.
When tires and tempers ignited in the streets,

and terrified families fled to my gate,
should I then have stopped them to determine,
And I wonder:
When those airliners pierced the Twin Towers,
did the tumbling bricks and twisted girders
first inquire of those whose skulls they crushed,
Happy Survival*
Carmen McCain
It’s been months now since I watched the ripple of

smoke travel down the side of the first tower and
heard the screams around me, “God, no, no, no! It’s
down. It’s fallen. The World Trade Center has fallen.” I
stood on the 67th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn,
hands covering my mouth. Over the water,
unintelligible words blared from a megaphone. Behind
me a middle-aged man held his wife tightly. Two
teenage boys, who had just run past with their
cameras, stood frozen. Over our heads and behind the
columns of smoke, the sky was the serene blue of a
cathedral ceiling.
The night before, I stood in line to meet Garrison
Keillor and recapped the events of the past weekend
†
to a friend. On Saturday morning, I had found out that

Jos, the previously peaceful plateau town in Nigeria
where I grew up, was embroiled in one of the most
devastating religious riots the country has
experienced in recent years. I didn’t hear from my
parents until Monday morning when they emailed that
they were fine and feeding 150 refugees seeking
asylum in their university house. “I can’t understand
this mentality,” I told my friend. “What makes
neighbours kill neighbours? How can Christians kill
Muslims? How can Muslims kill Christians? I don’t
understand it.”
Then came September 11. Under that ironic blue
sky, between phone calls to and from frantic friends, I
began to understand the grief and rage of one living in
an assaulted city—the instinctive fight for self-
preservation. I understood how an old teacher in Jos
could make Molotov cocktails with his children, to
protect his home if it were attacked. I wanted those
who had planned the attack to pay for what they had
done. I
†
A popular American author and radio personality
wanted the terrorists to die. When a pacifist friend

wrote me an email about how killing terrorists is the
same thing as killing innocent people, anger trembled
through me.
I went to Mass and chanted liturgy. I lit a candle in
Union Square. I bought a yellow ribbon to tie onto our
stair railing. Mixed with my anger was a fear that
Americans as victims might turn into Americans as
perpetrators.
When I sat out on my front stoop, I saw Muslim
men walking their children home from school. Their
wives stayed behind curtains. The day after the
attacks, I passed the open-air market where I buy
vegetables. A gigantic American flag hung from the
canvas awning. When I asked the Muslim owner how
he was doing, he was almost incoherent. “I have put
up the flag to say I am so sorry. I am so sorry. There
are crazy people out there. Crazy people. Whoever did
this . . .”
He did not say, “It wasn’t me. Don’t blame us
because we are from the same place,” but it was there
under his words. I understood. “We keep praying,” I
said. He said, “God bless.”
Back in my apartment where the radio blared news
coverage twenty-four hours a day, I tried to pack. On
September 26, I was scheduled to leave New York to
spend a year in Nigeria doing research at the
University of Jos. Now, the thought of leaving New York
was excruciating.
This tragedy had made me love the city more than
ever. I wanted to defy the terrorists by staying. I
wanted to be a part of whatever the city became. But I
kept packing. Another way to defy the terrorists was to
continue with plans made before the attack—to fly, to
travel, to move, to carry on with life—although I knew
life would never be the same again.
Exactly two weeks and a day after September 11, I
boarded a plane at JFK. During take-off from New York,
Happy Survival 105
I hid my face under a blanket and wept. But halfway

through the flight, I was ready to be in Jos, the city
where I had grown up, the city that had until last
month been recognised as the “Home of Peace and
Tourism.” a tranquil middle ground in Nigeria between
the predominantly Muslim north and majority Christian
south.
When I arrived at the airport in Jos, I was saluted
with the new greeting, “Happy Survival”. Story upon
story followed: students defending the university
against attack; the constant rattle of machinegun fire;
churches burned; mosques burned; markets
destroyed; houses razed; and hundreds of men,
women, and children killed.
Ethnic and political tensions disguised as religious
fervour had finally boiled over. As visitors sat in the
living room looking through my Newsweek and Time
magazines, exclaiming at the horror or the New York
images, they told me of their own friends and relatives
who were missing. Musa Bot, a former Christian
religious knowledge educator, had left his home on
September 8 to find his daughter, and had never
returned. Nine days later, they found his body by the
river. He was one of my father’s former students. As in
New York, everyone knew someone missing—if not a
personal friend, a friend of a friend.
Soon after arriving in Jos, I went to photograph a
church that had been burned. The plastered mud brick
walls still stood, though holes were bashed in the new
cinderblock section and the roof was gone. The
women of the church bent over, babies tied to their
backs, sweeping the broken glass and ashes through
the doors with straw brooms. After the rubble had
been swept from the floor, they poured buckets of
water over the cement. The water reflected their feet
and their faces. The blue sky burned down. Nearby,
the men tried to salvage sooty zinc rescued from the
collapsed roof. “They did not burn our church. Since
no person in our
church died, the real church was not damaged,” said

the pastor, whose house was destroyed. “We thank
God.” The women began to sing as they swept.
Soldiers sat on a nearby rock, keeping watch.
It has been months since this worldwide crisis
began, but the underlying tension is still there. My
Hausa language teacher told me of a Muslim woman in
her literacy class who was being required to leave the
home where she had lived for 27 years. Her Christian
neighbours told her landlord that they wouldn’t be
responsible for what happened to his house if the
Muslim tenants remained. The same thing is
happening to Christian families in Muslim
neighbourhoods. After a Muslim demonstration against
the bombing in Afghanistan, the northern Nigerian city
of Kano exploded. Friends advised me to stay at home
on Fridays.
One Sunday, I went with my family to an Igbo
church that has a special ministry to widows. There
are six new widows there. “The Muslims tried to burn
our church,” the pastor told me. “A mob came and
threw a petrol bomb, but our neighbours, who are also
Muslims, came and poured water on the fire and drove
the mob away.” Four soldiers guarded the outside of
the church. They waved their submachine guns
nonchalantly as we asked them about the crisis. When
we drove home through a Muslim section of town, we
saw more of the damage: topless houses, hulks of
burned cars, blackened mosques.
A Hausa trader came to our home trying to sell
pictures made of butterfly wings. “It is a hard time for
all of us,” he said—many of his wares were burnt by
Christians. “Last Friday at the mosque,” he told us, the
imam spoke strongly to them. “No more trouble!
Christians are not our enemies. Any time you hear
these people making zanga zanga, if they are Muslims,
just deal with them.”
By now the last rain had come and harmattan, the
wind that blows dust from the Sahara, veiled the hills
of
Happy Survival 107
Jos and the last yellow flowers that grew there. Down
from the Plateau it blew, and we followed it to the
naming ceremony of our Fulani nightguard, Adamu’s,
the eight-day old son. We sat on a couch beside the
low-walled outdoor mosque, where the men of the
village sat. We all prayed together, the Christians with
heads bowed and hands folded, the Muslims sitting on
prayer mats, their hands cupped. At the end of his
prayer, the imam called out the name “Isa”, which
means Jesus in English, and the baby was named. We
shook hands and shared the traditional kola nut.
When I close my eyes I can still see the tops of
those two buildings engulfed in black smoke—the
white ripple that brought the gleaming towers down.
As the harmattan blows over Jos, covering everything
in a fine dust, we hear of the bombs dropping over
Afghanistan, anthrax deaths in the US, the explosion
of violence in Kano. Hopes for the future seem bleak.
The world is a different place from the one I have
known for the past twenty-four years. Death once
seemed a fate reserved for the very old, the very sick,
and the victims of freak accidents. War was something
that happened for a short time when I was thirteen.
Religious violence was something we were
overcoming. Now I know that these things have always
been with us and probably always will be. Death
hovers nearby.
I dream of it at night. I know that I could easily
have been one of those in the missing posters hung in
Union Square, one of those buried in a mass grave
here in Jos. In the midst of all this violence, why was I
spared? Why do I still have dreams for the future?
I pray for peace. But what will the world look like
when peace comes?
*This article first appeared in NewsAfrica 14 Jan. 2002:

50-51. It is reprinted here, with slight modifications, by
permission of the author.
Food Is Ready
Za Pitman
Here. Take.
Make a pepper soup of it,
And gulp, gulp it down your greedy gullet.
For no meat is as sweet as human meat.
The butcher brandishes his sharp knife,

Neatly fleeces the skin from the sheep,
Dissects assiduously like a detached doctor
In the operation theatre.
The hunter trains his Dane-gun,

And slowly pulls the trigger
With a loud report
The unwary hyena leaps high in the air
And drops down heavily to the earth,
Groaning in the throes of death
Legs twitching its final dance,
Kicking the air in a strange epilepsy.
The butcher kills,

The hunter kills,
To provide meat for mankind.
But why do you kill, psychopath,
When you do not eat your game?
What manner of man are you,
That hunts and butchers for vultures?
109
Look! There they lie lifeless in their thousands,

Strewn along all the major streets of Jos,
Like swarming flies on an open sore.
The awesome handiwork of your knife and gun
Confirm your lion manhood.
Congrats!
You shall never want for meat again
In all your life.
I say: here, take.

Make a suya of it,
And gulp, gulp it down your greedy gullet.
For no meat is as sweet as human meat.
Glossary
Abacha, Sani = military dictator 1993-1998
Abdulsalami Abubakar = military leader 1998-1999
abiku = in traditional belief, a spirit child who
repeatedly is born, dies, and then returns again
Afisiri = ethnic group in the Jos area
Alhaji = honorific title for Muslim man who has made
the pilgrimage (“Haj”) to Mecca
Allahu akbar = “There is One God”, opening to Muslim
worship
almajiri = Islamic student who begs on behalf of his
teacher
am = (NPE) him
area boy = virtually unemployed youth who hangs out
at market or motor park
Aso = Aso Rock, site of Federal Government in Abuja
Baba = “Daddy”
Babangida, Ibrahim = military dictator 1986-1993
Bakasi boy = member of local vigilante group
barka dai = “welcome”
Bauchi = Muslim city 2 hours north of Jos
Berom = ethnic group in the Jos area
Biafra = southeast section of the country which
attempted to secede 1967-1970
big man = very important person
brother = man from one’s village or ethnic group
Buhari, Mohammadu = military dictator 1984-1986
Glossary 111
Bukuru = city on south border of Jos, part of greater

Jos area
Bukuru by-pass = road entering Jos from south
bush meat = wild game, often sold roasted in the city
butas = traditional Islamic slippers
cellular set = cell phones were new to Nigeria in 2001
chasbi = Islamic prayer beads, rosary
COCIN = Church of Christ in Nigeria, major
denomination in Plateau State
comot = (NPE) come out
copa = (NPE) corper, member of Nigerian Youth Corps
Dane-gun = single action rifle intended for hunting
de = (NPE) the, or indicator of present tense verb
dem go/dem say = (NPE) they will/they say
Dogon Dutse = “long hill”, area of Jos around one
mountain formation
extra-mural = classes offered outside regular school
hours
football = soccer
Fulani = nomadic, Muslim, cattle-rearing tribe
GCE = General Certificate of Education
gif = (NPE) give
Gowon, Yakubu = military leader during Biafran War,
native of Plateau State
grass-cutter = large, edible rodent
“Great Josites” = rallying cry for students of the
University of Jos
gree = (NPE) agree
Hausa = predominantly Muslim ethnic group of North

Hiace, Hi-Ace = a model of mini-bus used as public
taxi
Ibo, Igbo = south-eastern ethnic group
indigenes = people indigenous to an area
jare = (NPE) something extra
jerry-can = plastic container for carrying water, oil,
fuel
Josite = student of University of Jos
JUTH = Jos University Teaching Hospital
Kaduna = city which has seen many religious riots
kaftan = long robe traditionally worn by Muslims
Kano = strongly Muslim city in far North
katakata = (NPE) commotion (“scatter-scatter”)
Katako = important market area of Jos
Katsina = Muslim city in far North
khaki boys = soldiers
kiosk = small stand for selling packaged goods
kola = bitter, stimulating nut often given to guests
Kuru Falls = area just south of Jos which supplies
bottled water
Lamingo = Jos neighbourhood near reservoir
LGA, Local Government Area = like U.S. county
matchet = machete
motor park = a sort of station for taxis
Nassarawa = very poor neighbourhood of Jos
NEPA = Nigeria Electrical Power Authority
NITEL = Nigeria Telecommunications
Glossary 113
NPE = Nigerian Pidgin English

NYSC = Nigerian Youth Service Corps
Obasanjo, Olusegun = military leader after Gowon,
elected President in 1999
Oga = (NPE) Master
Ogun = Yoruba god of iron and war
okada = motorcycle used as taxi
Okonkwo = protagonist of the novel Things Fall Apart
“Okoro” = generic name for Igbo man
omage = (NPE) young prostitute
palava = (NPE) quarrel, argument
“Panjak” = generic name for Plateau man
PDP = People's Democratic Party
pepper soup = mixture of water, red pepper, and
organ meat
pikin = (NPE) child, children
powa = (NPE) power
Quarters = residential neighbourhood
Riyom Rock = landmark near Jos, resembles human
head
Rogo, Angwan Rogo = extremely poor, mostly Muslim
neighbourhood in Jos
Sallah rams = rams roasted to celebrate Islamic
holiday (“Sallah”)
shari’a = Muslim law
Shere Hills = neighbourhood of Jos
soldier ants = large, easily annoyed ants which always
move in single file
suna zuwa = (Hausa) “They are coming”

suya = roasted meat on skewer
Terminus = end point of taxi route at Jos Central
Market (now destroyed)
Tin City = Jos; Tin was heavily mined here during
colonial days.
Umuofia = setting of the novel Things Fall Apart
Vice Chancellor = highest local administrator in
university
VIO = Vehicle Inspection Office
wak = (NPE) walk, move about, survive
wetin = (NPE) what thing? what is it?
yam = large, starchy, potato-like tuber
zanga-zanga = (NPE) trouble
zinc = corrugated metal roofing material

The Rocks Cry Out

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The Rocks Cry Out

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The Rocks Cry

Association of Nigerian Authors, Plateau State

Illustrations Copyright © March 2003.

Cover Design: Deborah L. Klein

All rights reserved. Printed in Nigeria.

For René Descartes, “Cogito ergo sum” (I think,

steel gates. Warning everyone to stay indoors after

Once upon a time, while ethnic and religious riots

seriously, especially as accounts of the rioting got

Mosque, and even when the federal government

The rocks that define Jos continue to weep, and

Illustrations by Kenana Taisir Najmudeen

Normal, as usual, it came,

Noon passed, afternoon arrived,

But about the fifteenth hour,

Heads rolled to eternity,

To tensed sister states? No.

Jos. 12 noon. Blazing sun. I stopped in the middle

Jos. Home of peace and tourism. The town where

Men, Women, boys, girls, dogs, chickens . . .

time katakata burst reach Terminus—na im everybody

An ache in my stomach, persistent hunger pangs,

Hope for the Rocks

“These people are calm and peaceful,”

I went back to base,

Thick smoke rising heavily,

“Tin City on fire,”

I looked up and around

I heard a strange noise:

Hei! Hei!! Hei!!!

Why have you paints

Neither are we barbarians.

Do we look like animals?

But now, let you and your brothers

May I open my eyes again

Bodies were floating

Jos, land of peace and tourism,

Who set the rocks ablaze?

Jos, land of peace and tourism,

Jos, land of peace and tourism,

I traverse my land, my ancestral land,

We toil, we feast, we sleep.

Suddenly! yes, suddenly,

Why stop and stare at me, neighbour?

Fear reigns supreme

Friday, 7th September 2001, 3 p.m. I did not know

who had gone out five minutes earlier to visit friends

back. You can imagine how happy and relieved we

machetes and march along the streets of Jos looking

Andrew’s driver could not make it home through

Station to see things for ourselves. Sure enough we

Water Board/ PDP/ X&Y Motors, we saw some young

Lady of Fatima, at Katako, the woman insisted that

come back. We need to see if we can hear any news

As we passed along our own street, men and

At 4:30 a.m. Saturday, September the 8th, I fell

more widows, more orphans, more weeping mothers.

previous night, held clubs, bottles, stones, pieces of

After giving Andrew the situation report, we

credentials, bank passbook, Bible and computer. When

Moving down the street a little, I met a cluster of

we have nothing to fight with, it will be easier to

By mid-day the people in our house had split into