Norma’s Letter from Jos - 23 February 2011

Note: Norma runs Zamani Farms in Jos and sends her customers regular weekly updates on her farm and life in strife-ridden Jos. 

Hello customers,

We have been working hard on the farm trying to get things in shape. We are pruning our roses, reviving our grape vines, and renovating our herb field. There are always endless tasks to be done to keep a farm such as ours running. Because of the hot weather, we have to water constantly. If any field is not watered at least every two days, things will just wilt and dry out. So our work on the farm is never finished.

'Meanwhile, we are still facing a very tense and uncomfortable situation in Jos and environs. Every day there are incidents. On Monday of this week, there were stories that some boys were going to attack shoppers on Ahmadu Bello Way (the main shopping area). Soldiers were deployed all along the street, and tanks were also prominently on display around the town. Even so, some fighting broke out in one part of the town, and there was a general panic. Everyone ran home. Yesterday, while we were at the farm packing up your orders, there was yet another fright in the town when some youths started fighting after a woman had been stabbed to death when trying to find water, the soldiers shot in the air to disperse the youth, and everyone ran for their lives.

The situation is actually more frightening than open fighting because every day there are silent killings of individuals, mainly youth, who go into areas of the other faith. Muslim okada riders are killed in Christian areas, and Christian youth (also mainly on motorcycles) are killed in Muslim areas. This happens both at night and during day times. There is incredible bitterness on both sides. A lot of the killing is done between youth who actually know each other and were previously friends before the crisis intervened. Everyone is afraid to move freely around the town, and most people stay in their immediate environment where they have a sense of some security.


Jos town is traumatised and divided. Life in the town has been completely disrupted. Public transportation is very difficult, as Muslim drivers won't go into Christian areas and vice versa. The same for Okada riders. People try to find out the religion of the motorcyclist before engaging them for a journey for fear of being kidnapped and killed.


The market situation is also very confused. Muslim butchers have been driven out of the Jos abattoir and are slaughtering cows in another part of town. Christian butchers have taken over the abattoir for themselves alone. Meat selling is now virtually segregated by religion. Christians cannot go to the animal market (in a Muslim area) to buy animals, so they call some of the boys in the market to bring them animals to the "border". As a result, goats and sheep are being sold at various corners that are boundary areas between Muslims and Christians. .Markets are likewise divided, even the major wholesale vegetable markets which were normally patronised by all sorts of people. Now, Christian farmers from Vom are very reluctant to take their produce to the main vegetable market at Farin Gada, and Muslim dealers are afraid to go to the other vegetable market at Building Material site which is in a Christian area. Many trucks that normally transport produce were burnt a few weeks ago at Farin Gada area. As a result, a lot of produce is wasting on the farms, and very small quantities of fresh produce are being transported to other parts of the country like Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.


In the rural areas, there are constant attacks on villages, stealing of cattle, and a good deal of killing. Our farm workers, who live in villages at various distances from the farm, are always under stress as no one knows what will happen next. All of them have had friends and neighbours killed or injured.


No one feels safe. No one sleeps at night. it is a terrible way to live, and the stress is telling on everyone here.

I don't know when this will end, because aside from peace meetings in various communities initiated by the security forces, no one is really trying to do anything about it, either at the state or federal level. No one is talking or bringing people together to try to ensure a peaceful outcome to the situation. Instead people keep talking of "the final battle", whatever that can mean. Given that Jos is now full of guns of every description, on all sides, this sounds very ominous. It looks like we may have to live with this situation for a long time.

In the midst of all of this, we are trying to run the farm as if everything is normal. We feel very sad, because we know that the farm has a lot of potential to grow and prosper, but the opportunities for this are very much limited by the circumstances in which we find ourselves...