[CPProt.net] Nigeria. Jos: Where it's always autumn. Nok sculpture literally sprang to the fore, while miners were digging for tin.

[Museum Security and Cultural Property Protection (Ton Cremers)]

Jos: Where it's always autumn
By MAURICE ARCHIBONG
Thursday, January 5, 2006

 
.View of Ahmadu Bello Road, Jos. 
Photos: MAURICE ARCHIBONG 
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It's not for nothing, we have chosen Jos as Sun Travels' overture for this
year. Lying in Nigeria's so-called Middle Belt, the Plateau State capital is
a confluence of the nation's austral and northern parts. An examination of
the root of the Birom, aborigines of Jos, reveals why this city is a
veritable microcosm of Nigeria. 

We returned to Jos exactly a month ago today. To kill two birds with one
stone, as is often said, our visit was decidedly fixed to coincide with a
weeklong conference, which took place inside the Unity Hall of the National
Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru. 

Compared with many cities in the temperate climes, Jos doesn't lag far
behind. In fact, the Plateau State capital beats most of such towns on at
least one score: In Jos, it's autumn every season of the year. Not here, the
harsh torrid heat of the tropics or the bone-numbing cold of winter; in Jos
the weather is favourable all year round. 

We had been warned, and the Plateau State capital did not disappoint with
regard to its chilly ambient temperature. Standing at over 1, 200 meters
above sea level, Jos was as cold as could be in the month of December. Such
is Jos weather between November and January that each guest is usually given
a bucket of hot water every morning in virtually all the budget lodges,
where bathrooms have no heater. And, if you had been bathing with cold
water, the attendants give something extra: 

Advice you can't afford to ignore. "Please don't bathe with cold water.It is
bad for your chest." 
He probably meant the lungs, and you failed to heed that warning at your own
peril. Many inhabitants in Jos are quick to tell the visitor that severe
cold spells had in the past claimed many lives in this town. To keep warm,
inhabitants of Jos consume plenty of tea, coffee, cocoa drinks and other hot
beverages. For the same reason, balms, analgesics, jackets and coats are in
high demand in Jos. Jos' quasi-temperate climate is probably one of the
reasons the tourist is not likely to find many a teetotaler in Nigeria's Tin
City. 

Welcome to Jos. Tin City was foisted on Jos because of that town's role as
Nigeria's centre of tin mining. Eventually, this town would evolve into the
hub of mining in Nigeria, generally. 
Jos truly deserves its Tin City epithet but did you know that in some
quarters, Jos is taken as an acronym for Jesus Our Saviour? How this tallies
with the etymology that Jos is a corrupt form of Gwosh is hard to see. Some
sources say Jos might have evolved from Geash, the name of a Birom village,
which stood close to the present site of the National Museum. 

Whatever the root of its sobriquet, Jos is now a melting pot of sorts. Jos
stands on the Jos Plateau; formerly called Bauchi Plateau and the town is
around River Dilimi near the source of the Jamaari. Further downstream, the
Jamaari River is called Bunga. 

Since the British discovered vast tin deposits in these parts around 1903,
this Birom town has never been the same. The Encyclopaedia Britannica
expatiates: "Although Africans had extracted tin and iron from river and
stream beds on the plateau long before the arrival of Europeans, (it was)
not until 1904, when the British commenced large-scale operations, that the
region's immense tin deposits begin to be fully exploited. Since that time,
the Jos Plateau has been one of the world's major suppliers of tin." 

It is worth noting that the Jos Plateau is not floating on tin only. "The
world's largest known deposits of columbite, an ore of niobium associated
with tin, have also been exploited (around Jos) since the 1940s, according
to that encyclopaedia. Industrial scale tin mining, which began in Naraguta
(a tin-working centre since the 18th century), 6km north of Jos around 1905,
propped up this town's economic profile. Just as coal mining paved the way
to Enugu being linked by rail to the littoral Port Harcourt, tin mining also
facilitated the extension of rail lines to Jos.

Interestingly, before the Bauchi Light Railway was built in 1914 to carry
tin from Jos and nearby Bukuru to Zaria and later by rail to Lagos, hundreds
of men were employed to ferry tin by head to Port Loko along the Benue
River. From Port Loko, the metal was subsequently shipped to Forcados in the
Niger Delta for export. 

Aside tin, Jos also put Nigeria on the world map as largest producer of
columbite. Columbite mining, which was very important during World War II,
so complemented industrial activities here that in the early 1960s, smelters
were installed near Jos. To this day, Jos is still very important because
Nigeria's tin and columbite exports to the US and Europe are got from this
part of the country.

Moreover, some quantities of tantalite and kaolin (a form of clay used in
making ceramics) are also traded around Jos. Tantalite is related to
tantalum and is a special metal because of its melting point (at over 2, 990
degrees Celsius) as well as its boiling point, which is almost 5, 000
degrees Celsius. A very hard, chrome-coloured element, Tantalum is also much
sought after because of its excellent resistance to all acids except
hydrofluoric at ordinary temperatures. Scientific sources say "the most
important uses for tantalum are in electrolytic capacitors and
corrosion-resistant chemical equipment." There is also the possibility that,
given its very high melting point, tantalum could be useful in the making of
an aircraft's Black box. 

The Jos Plateau boasts numerous other metals such as tantalite, zircon and
uranium. Lead and iron ore are also found in the eastern and central parts
of Plateau State. Moreover, gold and silver deposits are located near
Shendam Town. Furthermore, Jos is the hub of some manufacturing enterprises
in Northern Nigeria. These enterprises include breweries, food processing,
toiletries and cosmetics, jute bags and rope. Some of the items that roll
off the city's heavy industry plants are cement and asbestos production,
crushed stone and rolled steel. 

Jos is also the hub of northern Nigeria's printing and publishing. Such is
the inestimable wealth of this area. It was, therefore, to be expected that
job opportunities would exert an almost irresistible gravitational pull on
people from virtually all nook and crannies of country. That is how
Nigerians of apparently all ethnic groups came to make Jos their home.
Foreigners, though to a much lesser extent, have also settled in this town.
Jos had further succeeded in attracting more inhabitants; especially cattle
herders and shepherds because the environment is tsetse fly free. 

With regard to the local hospitality industry, Jos boasts a hill resort (The
Hill Station Hotel), established in the mid-1940s. Countless other lodges
and leisure laden (shops) have mushroomed across this town over the years.
Many of this city's streets are wide, with some even boulevard-like. 

Jos is the major reason Plateau State is celebrated as Home of peace and
tourism, going by car number-plates. Three morbid riots may have left
Plateau's claim of home of peace in tatters but its other claim to fame,
tourism, remain intact. In fact, while virtually everyone we spoke to in Jos
agreed these riots, whatever the motives of the perpetrators, have left
indelible dents on this city and Nigeria's image as a whole, they were
nonetheless unanimous that Jos is still one of the safest and most
hospitable settlements in Nigeria. 

And this wasn't just the conclusion of ordinary folks. Chief Solomon Akanbi
Olugbodi, His Highness Igwe Joseph Nnamdi Ejimbe and Obong Akaninyene
Emmanuel Archibong all corroborated this view. Their Highnesses, Olugbodi,
Ejimbe and Archibong are Oba of Yoruba, Eze Ndi-Igbo and Obong of Akwa Ibom
Communities in Jos respectively.

The Plateau State capital is also worthy of celebration as an important
nerve-centre of Christian evangelism in Nigeria. Apart from the countless
Christian missions that operate from Jos, the Nigeria Bible Translation
Trust is also based here.

When it comes to sightseeing, Jos and the entire Plateau area throw up ample
opportunities. Examples: The Jos Museum, founded in 1952, also hosts a
School of Archaeology, run in conjunction with the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Interestingly,
Jos had been contributing to museum studies decades before the National
Museum for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) berthed here. In deed, it was Jos
that led to the discovery of Nok, an art form named after a village in the
southern parts of Kaduna State. 

Nok sculpture literally sprang to the fore, while miners were digging for
tin. The Encyclopaedia Britannica reveals: "A series of accidental finds of
fine terra-cotta figurines by tin miners on the Jos Plateau revealed an
ancient culture named for the village of Nok, where some of them were found.
The Jos Museum complex also holds the Museum of Traditional Nigerian
Architecture (MOTNA); an eatery-cum-bar called The Bight as well as a
Zoological Garden, where several wild animals are held captive. According to
Mr. Adamu Liya, a chief zoological officer, that animal farm boasts a boa
constrictor, hyena, crocodiles, olive or dog-faced baboons (papio anubis),
among others.

However, I was more interested in the chimps. My interest in these
chimpanzees goes back many years. 
In the 1990s, during one of my many trips to this repository, Paulina had
just had a baby. The father of that baby chimp, named Rahina, was one Peter.
When I asked after Peter, Mr. Liya said the father chimp had since died. On
a more cheery note, Paulina, now 42, shares her cage with another female
chimp called Bobby. A tag on their inescapable confinement says these chimps
came from Angola, and were donated to the Jos Museum authorities by Mr. and
Mrs. Morris D. Graham. 

Rahina and her cage-mate Suzy seemed to be doing well. Liya said Suzy was
bought somewhere in Taraba State and brought to Jos Museum's zoological
garden. We (the unfortunate captives and I) shared some bananas, oranges and
peanut. When I made to leave, the animals let out a chorus of haunting
hollers. As you can guess, it wasn't enough.

This left me wondering: When was the last time these animals had a meal?
Given the perennial underfunding plaguing the NCMM and other cultural
institutions, I won't be surprised if these animals hadn't been fed for
days. Thus, we had to squeeze out more money to haul in more oranges,
bananas and peanut. After about an hour all together, it was time to go.
Glad to say the captives were so preoccupied with whatever was left of their
meal, they didn't complain as we made our way out of their prison yard. 

Getting there
Once upon a time, it was possible to travel by rail from Port Harcourt to
Jos. That 600km journey was made possible with the construction around 1927
of a line linking the southern port city to Jos and the mines at Bukuru.
Although rail travel is no longer as reliable as used to be the case in
Nigeria, Jos lies 608km southwest, on the railroad to Port Harcourt. The
Plateau State capital is accessible by road from virtually all parts of
Nigeria through Abuja, Lafia, Bauchi, Kaduna, and Zaria. The city can also
be reached by air. Previously, flights landed and took off from the old Jos
airfield, which lies 3.2 km south of the city centre. However, a bigger
airport had since been opened in the Haipang area.
People

Observers say the Jos Plateau people historically paid "particular attention
to personal adornment, especially of the hair." To date, the peoples of the
Jos Plateau reflect these traditions. The Encyclopaedia Britannica again:
"In the early 19th century, the population of the plateau increased as
various non-Muslim groups fled to its hills to escape the ravages of the
mounted warriors of the Fulani jihad. These small independent groups include
the Birom, Jerawa (Jaranci), Mama, Angas, and Ron (Baram) peoples; they were
never organized into a traditional state and remain almost entirely
non-Muslim." 
'We're all smugglers'

It's Wednesday evening and I'm standing at Abuja Drive inside the National
Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru. The date was
December 7, 2005, and it was my third day visiting this institution founded
some 30 years ago. 

I was one of hundreds of people that had converged on Jos for the 2005
Annual Conference of the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service
(NCS).
The recently concluded five-day summit was into its third day, when the NCS
Comptroller-General Elder Jacob Gyang Buba declared that every Nigerian is a
smuggler. The NCS chief observed that many people complain about
checkpoints, without thinking deeply about the reasons behind the mounting
of such roadblocks.

According to the NCS boss, ignorance, greed and want of patriotism were
among the reasons many Nigerians tried to cut corners, when it came to
meeting their financial obligations to the state. The NCS
comptroller-general, who holds the title of Elder of a Christian mission,
had observed that, "If people could attempt to defraud God by not paying
tithe, how much more a government." The opening ceremony of that confab,
which revolved around the theme Common External Tariff: The implication for
the Nigerian Economy drew a constellation of both national and international
dignitaries. The Plateau State Governor Joshua Dariye, the summit's Chief
Host was present as was the Gbong Gwom Jos, HRM Dr. Victor Dung Pam at the
summit, where President Olusegun Obasanjo was penned down as Special Guest
of Honour.

The Executive Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas sent a representative, Mr. Awudu Gumah;
while Alhaji Shehu Musa, a former head of the National Population Commission
attended in person. Ghana Customs top brasses that attended the 2005 C-G
summit in Jos were Mrs. A. V. Dumelo, Mr. Edward Noi and Mr. Robert Kwami.
Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was represented by Alhaji
Jibrin Zarewa, when the exercise opened, actually turned up later to give,
as usual, a thought-provoking address.
As if to reflect the cordial relationship between the NCS and the military
and paramilitary services, the Chief of Army, Lieutenant-General Martin
Luther Agwai and his Air Staff counterpart Air Marshal Jonah Wuyep were
physically present, while Commodore I. I. Ibrahim, represented the Chief of
Naval Staff. Major-General S. O. Ango (retired), and Brigadier General John
Shagaya (retired), a former Sole Administrator of NCS and former Minister of
Internal Affairs respectively were there, too. 

The conference also attracted Chief Okwara Uche Kalu, acting
Comptroller-General of Nigerian Prisons Service as well as representatives
of the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Immigration Service; Corps Marshal of
the Federal Road Safety Commission, Senator Effiong Bob, Chairman of the
Senate Committee on Finance and Mr. Jide Mike, Director General of
Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).

It would be difficult to reel out the list of every VIP that witnessed the
flagging off of the 2005 C-G confab. However, while many of the speakers
entertained the audience with rib-cracking quips and repartees, some remarks
made by the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) Mr. Adams
Oshiomhole literally threatened to bring down the roof. But let's recall
some of the things the comptroller-general said.

Elder Buba described the Nigerian situation, where the value of exported
goods account for a paltry 5 percent, against 95 per cent recorded for
imports as unhealthy. The C-G said the NCS wished the reverse of this
disparity, which he called staggering, was the case or at worst that the
high imports volume was matched by equally high exports.

Elder Buba had also revealed that 166 operatives of the Service were facing
various disciplinary actions, including suspension, demotion and even
dismissal.
On the positive side, the Comptroller-General said the NCS grossed almost
260 billion in the first three-quarters of 2005. This figure, the C-G
continued "is N21, 246, 516, 404.10 higher than the amount collected into
the Federation and non-Federation accounts in 2004." Moreover, about N157
billion had also been collected into the Federation Account last year, he
remarked. 

Given this level of income generation, it is easy to understand why the NCS
is the second highest income earner for the nation outside the petroleum
sector. According to Elder Buba, the robust anti-smuggling efforts of the
NCS yielded almost 1, 600 seizures of various types of vehicles, 213
containers freighting sundry goods, such as rice, used tyres, second-hand
clothing items, weapons and ammunition, narcotic substances and so on, in
the first nine months of last year.

The NCS boss put the duty paid value of these seizures at roughly N10.9
billion. During the summit, Nigeria's Labour leader Adams Oshiomhole had
been discovered "hiding" among the crowd. One of the Masters of Ceremony
(MC) had consequently observed; "Had Dr. Oshiomhole been sitting on the high
table, I would have addressed him as a top brass or something similar. But
since the labour chief had chosen to sit among the people, I have no option
but to invite Comrade Oshiomhole, who uses ever-ready battery, to come up
here to say a few words." This was an allusion to the popular belief that
the Labour President is brilliant enough to make sense every time he opens
his mouth. And the labour leader, again, rose to the occasion. 

He started by saying he had not been invited to the event. "I invited myself
out of my busy-body". After the laughter had died down, Oshiomhole
continued, "In other words, I gate-crashed out of my desire to know more
about the Customs because of their cardinal role to the national economy."
The labour boss then went on to commend the current NCS leadership for
commencing the C-G conference. Oshiomhole said it was important to have such
a forum, where stakeholders could take stock of any agency's progress
through the year in order to forge strategies for improvement. 

The labour leader then recalled that Nigeria once spent colossal sums of
money on pre-shipment inspection exercises contracted to foreigners. He
didn't think this was a wise decision "because we cannot pretend that
there's anybody out there that can claim to love our nation more than
ourselves." 
Oshiomhole again: "Had part of the huge fees paid to foreign pre-shipment
inspectors been invested in local human resources and better equipment for
our Customs, we would have a better economy."

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