After four weeks of holiday, I was returning to school in Jos when information frittered in that there was a crisis in town. A friend that I had earlier informed that I would be coming called to inform me of the Jos.
I immediately informed the driver and my co-passengers but upon their individual call to their contacts in Jos, they assured us to continue the journey with the belief that the problem wasn't as serious as a type that would pose dangers to us. I reluctantly agreed with them and we continued with the journey. I was chatting with my friend from Jos and the information he was given me ran contrary to the assurances that those in the vehicle were given for us to continue our trip.
About two hours later, we drove to the last section of the road leading to Jos. The first indicator that there was indeed a problem in Jos was that we were not coming across any vehicle as we approached Jos. At one point, smoke was visible, as they moved up to the sky from kilometers away. My mind became unsettled.
The tone of the other passengers changed. I could hear some of them lamenting and regretting their decisions to continue the journey.
We arrived at the motor park which is located at the outskirts of the town. A park that used to be filled to the brim with different vehicles departing to and arriving from many parts of the county was deserted. The sound of a pin drop could be heard.
Our bags were off-loaded and the next thing was to get a means of moving to our various destinations. I was staying in the hostel which is located at the other end of the city. To move from the park to the hostel, I needed to traverse through the city center where sounds of gunshots rented the air.
Out of six of us in the vehicle, five were going to the hostel. The sixth person had his house close to the park and he was able to navigate to his house quickly.
After spending some minutes waiting, a cab drove in and the driver agreed to take the risk of transporting us to the hostel. He was heading in that direction and he decided to pick us on the risky journey.
One of us asked the driver for the amount of the transportation fare. He replied by charging us 500 naira each for a trip that under normal circumstances, the cost is 50 naira. Someone among us made an attempt to negotiate the fare but I stopped him and asked everyone to enter. What I was thinking of was how to escape to safety. I was ready to pay the fare for everybody. All I wanted was to move as soon as possible.
We took off and the driver made the effort of searching for the safest route to follow. All through the journey, I was half dead emotionally.
I thought we had escaped the rampaging fighters when we got to the last junction before the hostel but suddenly some youths with weapons emerged from an adjourning street and stopped us.
Some of the fighters looked tattered. They had wrinkles over their faces with the smell of excessive usage of hard drugs oozing out of their body. One raised up his matchet when directing us to alight from the vehicle and the revelation from his armpits was that of a person who hadn't bathed for days.
We all alighted from the vehicles to face whatever becomes of our fate. One of them asked us to queue up on two lines according to our religion.
The crisis was as a result of misunderstanding between the Muslims faithfuls and the Christian faithfuls. Muslims were maiming christians in any area where they form the majority and Christians were doing the same in the area where they form the majority.
When it comes to religious identity, it's hard for someone to place me in either of the two going by my name and appearance. I don't have a Muslim name on my identity card nor do I dress in the popular way of dressing for Muslims in Jos yet I am a practicing Muslims.
The area where we found ourselves was with Muslim majority. I queued on the Muslims line waiting for God's intervention.
On the express road was a luxurious bus burning. I later learned that the bus had goods in it. The two passengers in the bus were abducted and no one knew what would become their fate. One of the rioters approached us in order to confirm our claim of being the religion we claimed that we are. At this point, I was nearly peeing in my trousers.
"Will I survive this?" I asked myself.
Suddenly, we heard the siren of security personnel. The Hilux drove towards our direction and the soldiers were shooting into the air.
The attackers ran away leaving us standing on our lines. The soldiers asked us to identify ourselves before transporting us to our hostel. The driver of our previous vehicle joined us in the Hilux abandoning his car. The soldiers asked him to pick his vehicle and drive in front while they followed behind. The driver was skeptical about doing that until the soldiers gave us the assurance that the storm was over and that they would guard us safely to our hostel.
That was how the Army helped us to weather the storm.
