– Recommend ways of avoiding future re-occurrences and any other matter incidental to its mandate: After considering oral and written evidence and visiting damaged areas, the commission presented its findings on the remote and immediate causes of the disturbances; properties destroyed during the riot; ownership and “indigeneship” of Jos. In assessing culpability, it presented findings in relation to the activities of the Jasawa Development Association (JDA). 2.1 Remote Causes The commission found a remote cause of the disturbance to be the longexisting mistrust, suspicion, rivalry, accumulated grievances and tension between the members of the Afizere, Anaguta and Berom ethnic groups and the Hausa-Fulani (also referred to as Jasawa) ethnic group – all of which laid claim to ownership of Jos. The former contended that they were “indisputable indigenous people of Jos” and the Hausa-Fulani settlers “strangers” who migrated into Jos for various reasons, including economic ones. The HausaFulani justified ownership by claiming political ascendancy since 1902. Their assertions of ownership were cited as remote cause of the crisis that culminated in violence. The seed of discord was believed to have been sown in 1987, when the Jasawa Development Association allegedly urged the Jasawa community to wrest rule and ownership of Jos, from other ethnic groups. In 1991, General Babangida’s federal military government split the Jos North Local Government into Jos North Local Government Area and Jos South Local Government Area, with Jos and Bukuru as their headquarters, respectively. This was evidently against the wishes of the Afizere, Anaguta and Berom communities who had lobbied for the creation of a Federe Local Government Area instead. With the division, the Afizere, Anaguta and Berom communities found themselves in Jos South Local Government Area, while the Hausa-Fulani community was left as the majority ethnic group in Jos North Local Government Area. The former decried this arrangement as a “grand plan” by the Hausa-Fulani to wrest ownership and control of Jos from them. The Afizere, Anaguta and Berom communities also resented the fact that the new districts left their paramount ruler, the Gbong Gwom, isolated in a Hausa-Fulani enclave in Jos. The Hausa-Fulani, however, accepted the creation of the new local government areas. Thus, the commission found that the remote cause of the riot was the struggle for control and domination of Jos by the Berom, Afizere and Anaguta communities as one group and the Hausa-Fulani community as another. 2.2 Immediate Causes The immediate causes of the crisis were related to the remote cause, which started a chain of events culminating in the riot. The commission found the
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