photo: Jos Main Market. Courtesy PlateauStateGov.org.

Jos, the city I grew up in, is fighting. Again. No one is sure why the fighting started and already, 149 people have died. One story says the fighting started when residents opposed the rebuilding of a Mosque that had been destroyed in the 2008 riots. Another report says angry Muslims went to St. Michael’s church and started shooting people as they left church. None of these stories makes heads or tails. The Muslims I know are not angry people, so where exactly is this coming from?

Why is no one asking?

- How were people so readily armed? I know the parts of the city where this fighting is happening. Those guys can’t afford the kinds of specialized weapons and uniforms that all of a sudden appear as if on demand when a fight breaks out.

- Who is supplying the weapons being used to terrorize my city? One friend theorizes that it’s the surplus from army reserves being sold by dirty officers on the black market. That’s a theory. The truth would be nice.

- This started in 2001, again in 2006, and 2008. Why has the governor not investigated the previous riots and come to the bottom of it?

- Yes it’s a safer response to leave the city entirely. But what is the best response? When those who can afford to relocate do so and leave the city in the hands of people who don’t mind burning it down. What then?

Read the story here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100118/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence)

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At least 30 people have been killed in clashes between herders and farmers in Nigeria’s central Nasarawa State, witnesses say.

Local people have described armed men driving from house to house shooting. Farms and homes have been destroyed in the remote village of Udenin Gida.

The fighting follows weeks of tensions between the two groups.

Nasarawa is in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt” where rival ethnic groups often clash over land and other resources.