It is understandable if you think the title contradicts itself. You wouldn’t normally expect a violent act in a place known for peace. It is the case on this occasion though. Later on in this article, you’ll discover that this hasn’t been the only occasion either.
Two bombs exploded in the Terminus market, which is a hive of activity. The police had initially made a statement saying that 46 people had died as a result of the blast. However, recent articles note that the total has since gone up to 118. This could go up even more over time.
Multiple sources (e.g. here and here) have this quote:
“President Goodluck Jonathan extended sympathies to affected families and “assure[d] all Nigerians that government remains fully committed to winning the war against terror, and this administration will not be cowed by the atrocities of enemies of human progress and civilization,” a statement said.”
Wow. That sounds about as specific as one of those emails you receive from a company when you haven’t been given a job interview. At a time when there is one crisis after another, you’d expect that he’d want to stay a bit more and at least seem like he’s in touch with what’s going on. It’s also worth noting that there’s no statement about the event on the Nigerian government website. The latest news is about another blast that happened recently (in Kano State).
A resident of the affected area said the following:
“There was a loud bang that shook my whole house. Then smoke was rising,” said Jos resident Veronica Samson. “There were bodies in the streets and people rushing injured to hospital in their cars.”
It must have been truly horrifying to be there and experience that. Boko Haram have been accused. When researching, I found that Jos wasn’t in the north east region – so it’s not their normal territory. However, they have wanted to expand in order to achieve their goal of getting an Islamic state and a country where innocent young girls are denied a full education (their name means ‘Western education is sinful’).
Recent history
Jos is located in the Plateau State, which is part of central Nigeria (known as the ‘middle belt‘). In 2006, the population was between 800,000 and 900,000, although it will have obviously grown since then. This means that any acts of violence have the potential to cause great harm.
The state is known as the ‘home of peace and tourism’. A quick Google search will tell you all about the sights to see. However, I do question why this place is known for peace.
As well as the aforementioned bombings, there have been a number of other incidents in the recent history of the state.
This article from 2001 tells you about riots between Christians and Muslims that caused the deaths of roughly 300 people. The violence lasted for ten days and saw cars torched, as well as the destruction of houses and churches. Clearly, places of religion are not always sacred.
In 2008, the BBC reported that the ’01 clashes resulted in 1,000 deaths (or more) and there were more clashes that resulted in charities collecting more than 300 bodies. They were just the Muslims. There were also Christian deaths.
Moving on to 2010, the BBC reported more violence between Christians and Muslims that meant (roughly) 500 people died. That was in March. The article also notes that 200 were killed in January (same year).
Finally…
As you can see from the recent history, this is not the worst event if you rank them by the number of deaths. However, it is a continuation of recent violence and there seems to be no end in sight at the moment.
Boko Haram have been accused and it’s understandable. They were the ones who bombed the bus station in Abuja (my blog post about this) and they have been to blame for many events recently, such as the abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls (all my posts about that can be found here).
President Jonathan has not said much beyond a rather predictable and uninformative statement via a member of his staff. Recent assistance from foreign nations has been focused on the schoolgirls and there seems to be no permanent solution to end Boko Haram. I expect to see more stories of additional violence in the future.
So, what do you think?