10 - Jos Bottom-up & top-down approaches to peace building

Summary

Introduction

The protracted conflicts in Plateau State between 2001 and 2015 inevitably led to a series of efforts to achieve peace and, since 2015, some semblance of peace seems to have returned to Jos, albeit tentatively. The general situation is no longer as tense and alarming as it was during the crisis years. Still, this peace cannot be taken for granted, given the recursive nature of the violence from 2001. Furthermore, it is important to learn any lessons from this peace process. This chapter examines the Jos peace processes. Specifically, it compares the efficacy of top-down and bottom-up approaches to peace building in Jos. We examine how individuals and neighbourhoods cope with insecurity at the bottom of society, and how state institutions – the Plateau State governments, and successive federal governments – have responded to the cycle of violence in Jos. At the community level, we show how the violence has re-shaped individuals’ social networks and accelerated the process of neighbourhood segregation. We examine how individuals and neighbourhoods seek safety through strategies of communal segregation and vigilantism, which have only started to be relaxed after 2015. At the state level, we examine the serial establishment of commissions of inquiry, both judicial and administrative, and the repeated inability to implement the recommendations of any. At the federal level, we examine the responses of the executive and legislature branches, and highlight the damaging tension between federal and state authorities in the management of the crises in Jos. Finally, we argue that Nigerian society has tended to approach the conflict in Jos through two opposed normative principles: (i) supporting inclusive civic citizenship which privileges the rights of individuals; or (ii) respecting the cultural and territorial rights of indigenous minority groups who are seen to be threatened by bigger and better-endowed ethnic groups. We argue that this binary approach – variously justified under the banner of individual rights or group rights – has played into the hands of intransigent and opportunistic politicians who have made it difficult to find a mutually agreeable route to peace. We emphasize local-level confidence-building measures, which address every-day fears and insecurities of the warring groups as a first step toward peace. Afterwards, the give and take of mutual recognition can set the basis for broaching the more substantive issues of individual and group constitutional rights.