Twenty-five years ago today, on Friday, September 7, 2001, Jos changed forever.
For Nigerians who know Plateau State primarily through the recurring violence of the past two and a half decades, it can be difficult to remember just how different Jos felt before that September afternoon.
Jos was not merely peaceful. It was on the ascendancy.
Abuja’s rapid development had inevitably taken away some of Jos’s historic role as the leading administrative and commercial centre of Nigeria’s North Central region. But Abuja’s rise was also creating new opportunities for Plateau. Only about two and a half hours away on a relatively good highway, Jos became a preferred home away from home for people working in the new federal capital creating a domestic tourism boom.
Government officials and businesspeople came up for weekends. Organisations held conferences and retreats there. Families sent their children to Plateau’s excellent boarding schools and tertiary institutions. Tourists came for the temperate weather, remarkable landscape and a sense of escape that was difficult to find anywhere else in Nigeria.
