I was born, bred and schooled in Jos. So were most of the people I knew growing up who are still my friends. Jos is home and even after Nasarawa State was carved out of Plateau and even after we moved from Jos to live in Abuja, I still consider Jos my home. Where else am I going to call home?

I remember Jos as a place where people of different tribes, religion and works of life thrived. Intertribal marriages were commonplace and it wasn’t unusual to find families with a Berom father and an Igbo mother, or a Yoruba father and a Rukuba mother, or a Hausa father and an Angas mother, and a lot of my contemporaries that I knew, dated and married each other regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds. I am proud to say that thanks to my upbringing and social orientation in Jos, I am a completely detribalized Nigerian. It wasn’t consciously taught but I just don’t remember ever being aware of anyone’s tribe or religion unless they chose to wear it on their sleeve which was hardly ever the case. To me everyone just belonged.

I remember the Sallah and Christmas holidays, my family is made up of both Moslems and Christians and we usually celebrated both holidays by visiting each other, going to the Wild Life Park or other places of interest together. I enjoyed the sharing most especially when neighbourly Moslems would extend goodwill on Sallah by giving us food and we would do the same at Christmas. I looked forward to the rice, meat, masa, alkaki, kunu etc that my Moslem relatives and neighbours always brought to us. Now only God knows if the practice still exists. I can’t remember the last time anyone shared food with us at Sallah here in Abuja or since we shared with anyone either.

Everyone’s so vicious and suspicious nowadays and that never used to be the case in Jos. That Plateau State was labelled the Home of Peace and Tourism was no mistake at all because there was real peace, nice accommodating people, beautiful scenery and great weather. A friend of mine who is Igbo married to an Igala man relocated her whole family to Jos recently and is now seriously regretting that move because of the level to which things have deteriorated but when she’d made the decision to move to Jos from Abuja, I’d asked her why and apart from the fact that she found Abuja outrageously expensive, she spoke so affectionately of Jos, the weather, the peace and how great it was for her growing up and how she’d like that for her kids. She also mentioned the fact that Jos had better and affordable schools.

Ah the schools! Great schools indeed! Many of them! St. Louis College, Jos and others (lol). A healthy rivalry between them all, which school had the best students, the best results, the best debaters, the best dancers, the best entertainers etc., which boys from which schools were dating which girls from which schools, which school always won the Annual October 1st march past and best of all the friendships. The social life was rich and alive. All my really close friends are ones I made during this period of my life growing up and I see us as Jos people regardless of our ethnic and religious backgrounds. Jos was indeed a great place to raise kids.

I remember feeling so safe in Jos that I would sneak out of the house at night and take walks to seemingly dangerous places. I‘d climb up a lonely hill, walk lonely paths, visit the dam, attend a party and the only thing I feared was the thought of the serious beating I was bound to receive if I got caught by my parents; I never expected anything bad to happen to me. Maybe I was lucky but I just never expected it and by God’s grace it never happened. Now, just the thought of it should scare the living day lights out of anyone. The sudden hijack of peace and security in Jos breaks my heart to the core, as I’m sure it does all those who remember a more blissful state of affairs. Why, why, why can’t we all just get along? I’ll do anything to get back those glory days.

The current wave of peaceful protests sweeping across the country, against bad leadership and the deplorable state of peace and security is a welcome development. It may not be enough but it’s a start and we must never underestimate the effects of a peaceful march. One day, when peace is restored to Jos and the whole country enjoys better leadership, like the people of America who marched in 1963, we would have made our mark. I not only borrow but dare to paraphrase these words of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from his “I have a dream” speech, screaming them from every hilltop and every plain of Jos, the Home of Peace and Tourism, as I conclude: Let peace ring...peace at last! peace at last, thank God almighty we have peace at last. And indeed for Nigeria “Let freedom ring...Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last.”